Courses of study of this sort in a specialized field are offered in colleges usually at night for students who are in active business during the day. With more or less extensive additions in scientific, literary, and linguistic fields they become the curricula leading to baccalaureate degrees as represented by Type III, to follow. Large private inst.i.tutes or schools conducted for profit and also correspondence inst.i.tutions offer similar courses. Other groups of studies in particular fields are: in banking, in transportation or traffic, in sales management, including advertising and salesmanship, and in foreign trade.
A group in Foreign Trade will typify this sort of course of study, which differs from the one in Accountancy just given because the make-up will be determined wholly by each inst.i.tution quite independent of legally established professional standards.
TYPE II. TO PREPARE STUDENTS FOR WORK IN A SPECIAL FIELD, FOREIGN TRADE
Principles of economics 1 term, 3 hours a week--48 hours
Economic resources of the U. S.
1 term, 3 hours a week--48 hours
Commercial geography 1 term, 3 hours a week--48 hours
Money and banking 1 term, 3 hours a week--48 hours
Foreign exchange 1 term, 3 hours a week--48 hours
Foreign credit 1 term, 2 hours a week--32 hours
International law 1 term, 3 hours a week--48 hours
Tariff history of the U. S.
1 term, 2 hours a week--32 hours
U. S. and foreign customs administrations 1 term, 2 hours a week--32 hours
Export technique 1 term, 2 hours a week--32 hours
Practical steamship operation 1 term, 2 hours a week--32 hours
Marketing and salesmanship
General course 1 term, 2 hours a week--32 hours
Special courses as desired on South American Markets, Mediterranean Markets, Russian Markets, Northwest Empire Markets, etc.
Foreign Languages:
Practical courses in Conversation and correspondence in French, Spanish, Portuguese, German, Russian, etc., according to market in which trade is specialized, at least 4 terms, 3 hours a week--192 hours
Total (in 2 years, with weekly schedule of 10 or 12 hrs.) 672 hours
A special course of this sort usually leads to a certificate but not a diploma or degree. Obviously the technical aim is very prominent, though civic and cultural benefits of no mean character will of necessity be derived. New groups will be found as new fields of business become important and develop definite, recognizable requirements of a scientific sort. Naturally each such specialty goes through the usual evolution and contributes its philosophical distillation or essence to the cultural college course.
When we come to the construction of a curriculum leading to a bachelor"s degree in business, economics, or commerce, we have the problems of the engineering schools. Just how far will specialization be carried, in what sequence will the foundational subjects and the specialties be taken up, and to what extent will other more general subjects not directly contributing to a technical end be admitted? In most inst.i.tutions of good standards the degree is regarded as representing not only technical proficiency in business but also some acquaintance with science, politics, and letters in general. The question (already an old one in schools of engineering) arises then concerning the best way to arrange the special or distinctively business subjects in relation to the more general. Although there are a number of variations, two outstanding types are recognizable. We may devise labels for them: the _vertical_ curriculum, which offers both general and special courses side by side right up through the college course, and the _horizontal_, which requires a completion of the whole or nearly all of the general group during the first two years of college before the special subjects are pursued in the last two.
TYPE III. VERTICAL TYPE OF UNDERGRADUATE CURRICULUM, LEADING TO THE DEGREE OF B. S. IN ECONOMICS
_Entrance_: College entrance requirements.
_Requirement for graduation_: 74 units, of which 40 must be in general business and in liberal subjects, with 34 in specialized fields of business activity, to be taken after the freshman year.
A unit here represents successful work for one hour a week for two semesters. Therefore the total 74 is equivalent to 148 of the usual collegiate units.
_Freshman Required Work_
English composition 2 hours a week--2 terms English, history of the language 1 hour a week--2 terms English literature 1 hour a week--2 terms Chemistry--general ) or } 3 hours a week--2 terms Business law ) Physical education 2 hours a week--2 terms Government--federal and state 3 hours a week--2 terms Principles of economics 3 hours a week--2 terms Economic resources 2 hours a week--2 terms Accounting--general course 3 hours a week--2 terms
_Soph.o.m.ore Required Work_
English literature and composition 3 hours a week--2 terms Physical education 2 hours a week--2 terms General history 2 hours a week--2 terms
_Required before End of Junior Year_
Additional political science 2 hours a week--2 terms Physical education 1 hour a week--2 terms
_Required before Graduation_
Additional history 3 hours a week--2 terms
Physical education 1 hour a week--2 terms A modern language beyond the first year in college 3 hours a week--4 terms
Total required units 40 units
Elect after the Freshman year courses aggregating 34 additional units in fields of
I. Business law 4 courses, 10 units available II. Commerce and transportation 9 courses, 19 units available III. Economics 8 courses, 15 units available IV. Finance and accounting 20 courses, 53 units available V. Geography and industry 11 courses, 26 units available VI. Insurance 7 courses, 16 units available VII. Political science 22 courses, 43 units available VIII. Sociology 6 courses, 12 units available
Total required for the degree, 74 units
There is a school which grants a degree in Commerce for the equivalent of 36 of these units or 72 of the usual college credits, if the student has business experience, and for the equivalent of 48 of these units or 96 of the usual college credits if he has not. The course is essentially like Type I and includes no broad liberal requirements in literature, foreign language, and history and on the other hand is not so strictly prescribed as Type I. A strictly technical degree may be desirable for such a short course, provided the prescription is severe and includes languages. Generally it seems best to reserve degrees for full college courses of four years or more which include a reasonable general requirement in languages and science. This leads us to Type IV, or the curriculum which requires the first regular two years of the college course prescribed for one of the liberal degrees and permits business specialization in the last two undergraduate years or these with an additional postgraduate year. One inst.i.tution requires the first three years as a foundation for a two-year course in business, and one conducts a postgraduate school of business administration leading to the degree of Ph.D. in Business Economics.
No doubt postgraduate work will be continued mainly in the research direction, but undergraduate day and continuation courses will be devoted mainly to preparation for business.
It is not necessary to ill.u.s.trate Type IV, because the first two years consist simply of the Freshman and Soph.o.m.ore work of any sort of liberal college course, Cla.s.sical, Scientific, or Modern Language, while the succeeding years are made up of special work in Economics and Business of more or less concentrated character.
The advantage of the type is obviously administrative. The whole vexing problem of insuring fairly wide cultivation along with opportunities for specialization is conveniently settled by giving general training, most of it remote from business work, for two years, after which the student is considered cultivated enough to withstand the blighting effect of specialization. But there are serious pedagogical objections to this arrangement which make the vertical plan seem preferable. 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. Furthermore there is much to be done by educators in arranging such parallel sequences of subjects so that advantage may be taken of vocational interest to stimulate broad and deep study of related fundamentals. Considerable improvement could be made over Type III, but that type seems better than the one we have styled "horizontal."
In all these courses of study we quite properly find both the philosophical and a.n.a.lytical courses, those which are historical and descriptive and those of detailed practical technique; we find economic theory, industrial history, business management, and practical accounting; we find theory of money and banking, history of banking in the United States, and practical banking; we find theory of international exchange, tariff history, and the technique of customs administration. Concerning methods of teaching particular subjects we shall speak later.
Seldom do we find curricula drawn up with the purely civic end in view, though many schools and a.s.sociations throughout the country are agitating the question of organized training of men for public service. Strictly speaking, this kind of training is both professional and civic because it is designed to make men proficient in carrying on the business of the State. In New York City the munic.i.p.al college conducts courses of this sort for persons in the city service, while private bureaus of munic.i.p.al research conduct their own courses. So far in America no courses are yet accepted officially for entrance into public service or as the only qualification for advancement in the service. Nevertheless, progress is being made in this direction.
The curricula offered include courses in Government and especially Munic.i.p.al Government, Public Finance and Taxation, the practical organization and administration of various departments such as Police, Charities, Public Works, the establishment and maintenance of special systems of munic.i.p.al accounts.
But the great civic benefit comes from general courses in business, for the business man who has a real grasp of his work and sees it in the light of general social welfare becomes a good citizen. Business education gives some sense of the interdependence of industry, personal ethics, and government. The broadly trained business man realizes that he is in a sense a servant of the community, that his property is wrapped up with the welfare of his fellow men, and that what he has is a trust which society grants to him to be conducted after the manner of a good steward. Such training reveals to him the _raison d"etre_ of labor legislation, factory laws, the various qualifications of the property right, the necessity for taxation, and the importance of good government to all the citizens of the State both as cooperative agents in production and as consumers. Continued and improved business education will elevate the mind of the merchant and the manager so that its horizon is no longer the profit balance but the welfare of all society.