greater specialization, and would finally culminate in an intensive
study of some fairly narrow business problem, pursued until the student
has mastered it in principle and in detail. The result of his study
would be set forth in dignified readable English which an intelligent
layman could comprehend and which would make the article acceptable for
publication in a journal of standing.
Professional study of business, then, should give students a
comprehensive many-sided survey of business and a thorough grasp of
scientific method as used in analyzing business facts. It should
prepare the student to think complicated business problems through to
the end and to put the results of his thinking together into an
effective working plan. Finally, it should maintain an atmosphere in
which business problems are regarded in a large and public-spirited
way.
We are well under way with professional training for business; but if
students fail to get the general educational foundation for it, it will
not accomplish the best results. If the two, three, or four years of
college study is regarded as something purely ornamental and
irrelevant, while they are getting it, if it fails to arouse an
appreciation both of scientific method and of human values, or if these
values are thought of as something to forget when the student comes to
the analysis of practical problems, the university will not have done
what it might do for the promotion of high standards of efficiency in
business.
In all of the discussions I have tried to point out how emphasis in
business is gradually shifting from acquisition, to production and
service; how there are gradually evolving in business, professional
standards of fitness, of conduct, and of motive; and how more and more
these standards enter into the measuring of business success. Our
educational assumptions still rest too largely on the old dollar
standard of success with its well-known inferences about the
blood-and-iron equipment with which that success can be attained.
Psychologists tell us that we tend to get what we expect. If we fail to
create enthusiasm for the opportunity for service in business; if we
assume that young persons who enter business are going to measure their
returns in dollars alone; or if we continue to feature, as we have
done, the break between the so-called "cultural" and the professional
parts of the university course, there will be danger that we shall
continue to get the thing for which we plan.
There can be no doubt that many of our old assumptions about the
relative dignity and social distinction attaching to different kinds of
study, as well as the assumption of a purely mercenary motive in
business, have impeded a wholesome reaction between higher education
and business standards. These assumptions have created an
atmosphere--an objective and subjective attitude of mind, a set of
motives and desires, of appreciations and valuations, all of which
stand in the way of the most far-reaching educational results.
So far as these assumptions can be rationally explained, they rest on
ideas that are in part mistaken, in part exaggerated, and in part
obsolete. The application of scientific method to business has created
an entirely new relationship between business and education. Scientific
analysis and social policy are establishing a new connection between
the material and the human facts of business. In the new atmosphere the
business executive requires those fine qualities of mind and spirit,
and the ability to command these qualities for a given task, which
peculiarly it is the work of the university to cultivate.
In proportion as universities have vigorously undertaken this work, and
have applied scientific method to their own problem of articulating it
with higher education in general, the line of approach to professional
business training has become increasingly clear. Among the notable
developments of the past decade has been a shifting of emphasis from
the training of specialists to the training of business executives. As
preparation for executive work comes to be generally recognized as an
appropriate field for systematic professional study, the standards that
scientific method has already achieved will become fixed and better
standards of business efficiency and service will emerge.
_The Riverside Press_
CAMBRIDGE . MASSACHUSETTS
U . S . A