Page:Popular Science Monthly Volume 64.djvu/448

444 general culture occupied by history. The first place among studies calculated to give special training is given to economics, which explains the general principles underlying the present structure of economic society. This includes, besides systematic courses, studies in applied economics, statistics, money, banking and finance. Under the caption 'Commerce and Industry' may be grouped studies in the principles of commerce and the geography, materials, customs and usages of commerce and also detailed examination into the structure and processes of the extractive and manufacturing industries. Attention should be called to the at present very meagerly developed study of industrial organization, which has to do with the administrative relations existing within an individual business, especially if it be of large size, and with the methods of utilizing the resources of investors in financing new undertakings. A very important group are the applied sciences, including industrial chemistry, the application of physics to industry, economic geology, etc. Among other subjects generally included are the modern languages and commercial law, the latter covering not only the legal liabilities attending industrial acts, but the principles upon which the state interferes to regulate the competitive struggle. The successful conduct of such a program of study obviously involves the cooperation of several departments of a university; the humanities are represented in the history, economics and languages; the scientific department in the various courses of applied science; the law department in commercial law; while the studies in 'commerce and industry' provide a new group which serves as a central topic about which the others are arranged.

The university must not be expected to show its full effectiveness in the new field it has entered until a considerable amount of preliminary work has been done in the collecting and classifying of knowledge, the preparation of text-books and the adapting of methods of instruction to the nature of the new subjects taught. Higher commercial education does not aim to fit the individual for the immediate assumption of responsible commercial tasks any more than engineering schools fit young men to step at once to the position of engineer-in-chief. There is a body of detail connected with the operation of most businesses which can only be learned in practice. The university is aiming to train the youth to clear thinking and to equip him with a knowledge of the general principles upon which sound business practice rests, trusting that with such a preparation his later advancement will be such that the years of study will prove years well spent and that, in addition to a compensating financial return, life will contain a richer reward of the higher utilities and a larger sphere of usefulness, because of the early implanted love of truth.