Commercial school

“ The public schools are gradually pulling ahead of their competitors because they are employing a higher grade of teachers than formerly and are doing the work in a fashion which is technically more complete. In the meantime the commercial courses are becoming more “respectable” and are being taken by a better grade of students. The effect of the election of commercial courses by a better grade of students is such as to modify the whole program of the school in the direction of more attention to the needs and practices of business life. ”

“ If, then, the commercial and trades training, the business or manual, or whatever the course be called, can be found in actual commerce and trade; if a sufficient degree of scholastic education can there be added, and if with this the maturing man or woman shall gain a higher degree of technical skill and a safer knowledge of men and affairs, does not the plan of the school in business best meet the educational problem for at least a majority of childkind? ”

“ A technical school, however, should be distinctly above the grade of a business college or a school of stenography in its relations to the ultimate public welfare. It should exert a formative influence upon the future of its professions and not merely mirror existing commercial conditions. It should by precept and requirement lead the short-sighted members of its student body to a desire for a broader preparation, and, relying upon that increasing number of far-sighted employers to care for its graduates, it should confidently anticipate the market for its product. ”

“ Schools of Com′merce. Commercial education in the United States is conducted by four classes of institutions: private business and commercial schools; public high schools; endowed schools, which often have an industrial as well as a commercial bias; and colleges and universities. The need for special commercial education increases with the complexity of modern business methods. ”

“ Corporation schools, night schools, special classes, and many other forms of education inside the walls of commercial and industrial enterprises are being used to good advantage. In an ideal economic system, every factory, every store, every shop, every place where men and women are gathered together for employment should be, in the higher sense of the word, a school for the development of the very best human qualities. ”

“ But I have large faith that the educational ideal will ultimately prevail, and this in spite of the fact that the schools themselves—that is, the manual training schools proper—are largely in the hands of the industrialists, and avowedly represent the artisan point of view. I have tried to do full justice to that point of view, and I want to say again that as a substitute for the commercial training of the average high school, with its bookkeeping, and commercial arithmetic and commercial geography, and commercial ideas of life generally, even the artisan training is a marked advance. ”

“ The Trade School Shops are designed to give the girl her final technical finish. They are really more like a factory than like a school. Although the object of them is to convey a broad instruction, the pupil gets wages, the stuff she makes is sold, and the organization is that of a commercial establishment.
So, at the end of two years from the time she left the elementary school, the young milliner is ready to go out into the world organization. She is better fitted for her world than many a college girl is for hers. ”

“ Their aim is to afford persons engaged in business and industry on a large scale (Grosskaufleute and Grossindustrielle) , masters at commercial schools, administration officials, bank officials, Consular officials, secretaries to Chambers of Commerce, and so forth, a deeper and broader measure of instruction in commercial and national economical matters than that provided by the various commercial schools. ”

“ The immediate purpose of the school was to train the youngest and poorest wage-earners to be self-supporting as quickly as possible. It was decided to help the industrial workers rather than the commercial and professional, as the last two are already to some extent provided for in education. ”

“ There have been attempts to introduce economics into the secondary school curriculum, but they have not persisted to any extent. In the Memorandum of Curricula of Secondary Schools issued by the Board of Education in 1913, it is suggested that "it will sometimes be desirable to provide, for those who propose on leaving school to enter business, a special commercial course with special study of the more technical side of economic theory and some study of political and constitutional history." ”

“ They do not even attempt to train salesmen and saleswomen, index and statistical clerks, 317 comptometer operators, etc. Very few of the commercial courses have either the definiteness of aim of the industrial and trade schools or the practical contact with actual commercial practice which will be necessary if they are to meet the requirements of modern business. Commercial schools have not yet caught the spirit of part-time, off-time, or short-unit programs. ”

“ Private enterprise went alongside this movement by building up advanced engineering and trade schools of a high type, such as the Carnegie Institute at Pittsburgh; by improving the private commercial schools, and establishing advanced schools of business training in colleges. Some of the great manufacturers, especially in the automobile trade, set up schools within their own works. ”

“ Of recent development and also under control of the National Government are the Commercial schools for men and women, which provide adequate modern instruction in salesmanship and bookkeeping and all other affiliated activities of commerce. ”

“ The principals of both schools are fully alive to the disadvantages of the course for the large number of pupils who drop out within a year or two, and admit that such students would derive greater benefit from more practical instruction aimed directly toward preparation for the industrial trades. Both believe that the only practicable solution is a two-year trade course in a separate school, covering a much wider range of shop activities than the present high school course. ”

“ The demand for a more practical education in this utilitarian age has compelled the colleges and universities to make radical changes in their curriculum. The number of students who elect to take the old-time course is smaller in proportion to the population and wealth of this country than it ever was. Science, both pure and applied, takes a far more prominent place in collegiate studies than it formerly occupied. Many of the leading institutions of learning have introduced a commercial department. Everywhere the practical, the business idea is becoming dominant. ”

“ As the number of pupils for each trade class would be relatively large, a closer correlation could be effected between the academic subjects and the work in the shops than is possible in the junior high school.
Both general and special courses should be provided. Many of the pupils will wish to specialize on a particular trade. Others who have not yet reached a decision need a general course that will give them a wide range of experience with materials and processes. ”

“ A final, and probably in the long-run the most permanent, influence making for the extension of scientific method in business has been the new viewpoint from which universities have been approaching the task of educating men for business. Prior to 1900, university education for business in the few universities that attempted anything of the sort was confined to such branches of applied economics as money and banking, transportation, corporation finance, commercial geography, with accounting and business law to give it a professional flavor. ”

“ The highest results of trade-schools upon a nation’s manufactures, and therefore upon its exports and its wealth, cannot be realized until the Manual-training school has furnished the educated hand as raw material for the trade-school to work upon. ”

“ Is the condition to continue and to grow worse? Certainly, unless those in control of our colleges change their conception of what a college should be. Denunciation of commercialism rings out in hoarsest tones from many a college rostrum and one might suppose that in our haunts of learning there is freedom from the coarse influence of the market. Yet nowhere is the so-called commercial idea more prevalent than in college management. The only conception of success seems to be growth in wealth and in number of students—quantity not quality. ”

“ It is not to be denied, upon the other hand, that technical schools and special courses of commercial education might greatly enhance our capabilities, if care were taken to prevent them from usurping too far the practical business or industrial training which seems to be the secret of our success thus far. In the more and more strenuous competition which is evidently waiting us, our manufacturers, exporters and trade representatives abroad will need to be provided with a variety of information which cannot be acquired except by academic instruction. ”

“ This middle ground partakes in many ways of trade processes and lays a good foundation for shop work. It utilizes the early education, gives point to it, awakens in the student enthusiasm for her chosen trade, and shows her that it is worth her while to work hard if she would succeed. It takes from four to eight months, according to the student's ability to meet the requirements. Public instruction could also develop this intermediate field to advantage for those who, not wishing to enter the regular high school course, would be glad to avail themselves of further practical education. ”

“ A student coming from one of our constantly improving high schools of commerce is checked for two years and given time to forget all the bookkeeping and other commercial work which he has learned and on which advanced commercial instruction may be built, while he pursues an academic course. It would be far better to continue the modern languages, the mathematics, and natural sciences, along with business courses. ”

“ They are exceedingly numerous, and cover every phase of industry. The purpose here, however, is to call attention to the fact that France began with trade-schools, and, after a hundred years of experimenting with trade and technical institutions, she reached the wisdom embodied in the laws of 1886 and 1890, which provide for the training of the hand of the child in the kindergarten and continuously throughput the school age, thus furnishing aptest possible pupils for her higher trade and technical institutes, and the greatest possible development of skill for her industries. ”

“ Three classes of trade instruction have just been mentioned, and might well be styled lower, middle and upper schools for trade teaching. Another point of interest lies in the fact, that while we have been speaking of theoretical and practical subjects as forming the curricula of the schools for the building trades, the distinction should rather be drawn on the line of traditional book subjects and applied or laboratory practice. Practical work, per se, is not carried on in the school. ”

“ Further than this, after being provided with group leaders of civilization, and a foundation of intelligence in the public schools, the carpenter, in order to be a man, needs technical skill. This calls for trade schools. Now trade schools are not nearly such simple things as people once thought. The original idea was that the "Industrial" school was to furnish education, practically free, to those willing to work for it ”

“ Trades schools were established that should lead up to the technical colleges, and by a wise provision, without which the whole fabric of technical education is rendered nugatory, an “entrance qualification” for the trades schools was made compulsory. In some trades, by arrangement with the employers, apprentices attend a trades school during working hours. ”

“ First among them is the business college which teaches largely the mechanism of type-writing and book-keeping, and lays all stress upon commerce and methods of distribution. Commodities are treated as exports and imports, or solely in regard to their commercial value, and not, of course, in relation to their historic development or the manufacturing processes to which they have been subjected. These schools do not in the least minister to the needs of the actual factory employee, who is in the shop and not in the office. ”

“ The point made is that while the trade school, per se, is doing its work, boys are, more and more, being trained for their trades in the so-called trades continuation schools and as apprentices in the shops. ”

“ A really efficient workman must be to-day an intelligent man who has had good technical training in addition to thorough common school, and perhaps even higher training. To meet this situation the industrial schools began a further development; they established distinct Trade Schools for the thorough training of better class artisans, and at the same time they sought to preserve for the purposes of general education, such of the simpler processes of elementary trade learning as were best suited therefor. ”

“ THE GROWTH OF JABBERGRAB Modern industry is an enormously complicated thing, and specialized teaching of industrial processes is just as necessary as any other kind of education. I would not give anyone the impression that I object to the teaching of advertising or foreign trade or finance, any more than I object to the teaching of plumbing or manicuring fingernails. My point is that all these arts should be taught in trade schools, and they should be taught as trades. For example, the International Harvester Company maintains an excellent school for training its employes ”