PROF. MUNRO COMMENDS NEW DEGREE IN BUSINESS SCHOOL

Professor William Bennett Munro, of the Government Department, comments as follows in the June Graduates Magazine on the work of the Graduate School of Business Administration:

"The establishment of programs of studies leading to the degree of Ph. D. in Business Economics calls attention to two things: first, to the considerable demand for men who can teach such subjects as banking, accounting, railroad economics, and public utilities operation, in the various business schools of the country; and, secondly, to the emphasis which the authorities of these schools place upon the possession of the Ph. D. degree by their teachers. In the eight years of its existence, the Graduate School of Business Administration has turned out about four hundred men, less than a quarter of them graduates, of course, but all of them men who have been for a longer or shorter time enrolled as students.

Demand for Business Teachers Growing.

"Of the graduates only five have taken up the profession of teaching; the res are actively at work in the business world. But the demand for trained teachers of business subjects is growing and it ought to be one of the functions of the School to meet this demand. Being itself on a graduate basis and maintaining a standard of work which is almost unique among institutions of its type, it has a special obligation in that regard. As for the Ph. D. degree, that of itself would matter little. But nearly all the institutions of higher education in this country seem to regard the holding of that degree as one of the passports to a teaching position. Some college presidents virtually insist that they will appoint no one as instructor who has not been tagged with this title. Others will appoint undoctored instructors, but will not promote them. The thing has almost become a fetish. Yet even a fetish, when it actually exists, must be tolerated if we want to put Harvard men on the teaching staffs of colleges and professional schools. Our facilities enable us to train teachers of business subjects and our standards are high enough to warrant giving this degree if there is a desire for it."