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of training expert men for the higher business practice; and (b)
that the personnel of its staff must increasingly be drawn from
among the successful businessmen; rather than from men of
academic training。
Among the immediate consequences of this latter feature; as
shown in the example of the law schools; is a relatively high
cost。 The schedule of salaries in the law schools attached to the
universities; e。 g。; runs appreciably higher than in the
university proper。 the reason being; of course; that men suitable
efficiently to serve as instructors and directive officials in a
school of law are almost necessarily men whose services in the
practice of the law would command a high rate of pay。 What is
needed in the law school (as in the school of commerce) is men
who are practically conversant with the ways and means of earning
large fees; that being the point of it all。 Indeed; the scale
of pay which their services will command in the open market is
the chief and ordinary test of their fitness for the work of
instruction。 The salaries paid these men of affairs; who have so
been diverted to the service of the schools; is commonly some
multiple of the salary assigned to men of a comparable ability
and attainments in the academic work proper。 The academic rank
assigned them is also necessarily; and for the like reason;
commensurate with their higher scale of pay; all of which throws
an undue preponderance of discretion and authority into the hands
of these men of affairs; and so introduces a disproportionate
bias in favour of unscientific and unscholarly aims and ideals in
the university at large。
Judged by the example of the law schools; then; the college
of commerce; if it is to live and thrive; may be counted on to
divert a much larger body of funds from legitimate university
uses; and to create more of a bias hostile to scholarly and
scientific work in the academic body; than the mere numerical
showing of its staff would suggest。 It is fairly to be expected
that capable men of affairs; drawn from the traffic of successful
business for this service; will require even a higher rate of
pay; at the same time that they will be even more cordially out
of sympathy with the ideals of scholarship; than the personnel of
the law schools。 Such will necessarily be the outcome; if these
schools are at all effectually to serve the purpose for which
they are created。
But for the present; as matters stand now; near the inception
of this enterprise in training masters of gain; such an outcome
has not been reached。 Neither have the schools of commerce yet
been placed on such a footing of expensiveness and authoritative
discretion as the high sanction of the quest of gain would seem
properly to assign them; nor are they; as at present organized
and equipped; at all eminently fit to carry out the work
entrusted to their care。 Commonly; it is to be admitted; the men
selected for the staff are men of some academic training; rather
than men of affairs who have shown evidence of fitness to give
counsel and instruction; by eminently gainful success in
business。 They are; indeed; commonly men of moderate rating in
the academic community; and are vested with a moderate rank and
authority; and the emoluments of these offices are also such as
attach to positions of a middling grade in academic work; instead
of being comparable with the gains that come to capable men
engaged in the large business outside。 Yet it is from among these
higher grades of expert businessmen outside that the schools of
commerce must draw their staff of instructors and their
administrative officers if they are to accomplish the task
proposed to them。 A movement in this direction is already visibly
setting in。
It is reasonably to be expected that one or the other result
should follow: either the college of commerce must remain;
somewhat as in practice it now is; something in the way of an
academic division; with an academic routine and standards; and
with an unfulfilled ambition to serve the higher needs of
business training; with a poorly paid staff of nondescript
academic men; not peculiarly fitted to lead their students into
the straight and narrow way of business success; nor yet
eminently equipped for a theoretical inquiry into the phenomena
of business traffic and their underlying causes so that the
school will continue to stand; in effect; as a more or less
pedantic and equivocal adjunct of a department of economics; or
the schools must be endowed and organized with a larger and
stricter regard to the needs of the higher business traffic; with
a personnel composed of men of the highest business talent and
attainments; tempted from such successful business traffic by the
offer of salaries comparable with those paid the responsible
officials of large corporations engaged in banking; railroading;
and industrial enterprises; and they must also be fitted out
with an equipment of a corresponding magnitude and liberality。
Apart from a large and costly material equipment; such a
college would also; under current conditions; have to be provided
with a virtually unlimited fund for travelling expenses; to carry
its staff and its students to the several typical seats and
centres of business traffic and maintain them there for that
requisite personal contact with affairs that alone can contribute
to a practical comprehension of business strategy。 In short; the
schools would have to meet those requirements of training and
information which men who today aim to prepare themselves for the
larger business will commonly spend expensive years of
apprenticeship to acquire。 It is eminently true in business
training; very much as it is in military strategy; that nothing
will take the place of first…hand observation and personal
contact with the processes and procedure involved; and such
first…hand contact is to be had only at the cost of a more or
less protracted stay where the various lines of business are
carried on。
The creation and maintenance of such a College of Commerce;
on such a scale as will make it anything more than a dubious
make…believe; would manifestly appear to be beyond the powers of
any existing university。 So that the best that can be compassed
in this way; or that has been achieved; by the means at the
disposal of any university hitherto; is a cross between a
secondary school for bank…clerks and travelling salesmen and a
subsidiary department of economics。
All this applies with gradually lessened force to the othe