COLUMBIA BUSINESS SCHOOL WILL EMBODY NEW THEORIES

The following is a partial reprint of an article in the current issue of the Columbia University Quarterly, on the new School of Business which will be opened at Columbia next fall.

"The opening of the Columbia School of Business in the autumn of 1916 marks another milestone in university education. In determining upon the character of the School, the committee considered with some care the different types in existence. There are in the United States at present three chief types: (1) the Wharton School, which has a curriculum of four years parallel to that of the college and which is essentially an undergraduate school; (2) the Harvard School of Business Administration, which has a two-years' curriculum of a frankly graduate character; and (3) the Amos Tuck School at Dartmouth, which admits students at the end of the junior year and carries them through a two-years' course. No one of these types approved itself to the committee.

"The Wharton School plan seemed to be open to criticism from several points of view. As a purely undergraduate school it necessarily becomes a rival to the college and to the extent that it succeeds, it is likely to weaken the college. In the second place, it begins professional or technical work at too early a period, whereas the whole tendency of recent development in the United States is to relegate the professional or technical education to a somewhat later stage. The change that has been going on during the last few years in the Engineering Schools and other Schools of Applied Science affords ample evidence of this tendency. What is needed in this country is a broad foundation for the technical or professional class, and the School of Business needs as broad a foundation as we are coming to demand for other professional schools. Thirdly, a purely undergraduate school of business excludes the possibility of any pronounced extension of the graduate or research courses, which are coming to be as important in applied economics as they are in pure economics. A four-years' undergraduate curriculum in business courses virtually exhausts the subject and leaves practically nothing for the research student. It was largely for these reasons that the Wharton School type was discarded as a model.

Harvard Type Condemned.

"On the other hand the Harvard type seemed to be open to criticism for opposite reasons. In the first place, the requirement of a college degree for entrance renders such a school impotent to serve the public which is clamoring for admission in large centers like New York. Comparatively few men who intend to go into business can afford, whether from the material or from any other point of view, to wait until they are twenty-four or twenty-five years of age before entering upon a practical business career. And it is questionable whether even a few captains of industry will be recruited from this class. A purely graduate school which can never expect more than a handful of students is thus abandoning its opportunity to serve the public in the largest measure. In the second place, not only must such a school from the very nature of the case be numerically insignificant, but it seems to be based upon an erroneous pedagogical principle. President Eliot, by pulling up, as he thought, the American college, to a higher or university level, advanced the age of graduation to about twenty-two, and at the same time made the attainment of the college degree a prerequisite to professional or research work. The college thus came to occupy the contradictory position of a university and of something less than a university. The consequences soon disclosed themselves. As soon as the demands of the public for a better medical and legal preparation became imperious, the complications began; for the medical school course was gradually lengthened to five years, and the law school course to three years, with a possibility of soon becoming four years. To make, as was now done, entrance to the professional schools conditional upon a college degree therefore meant that the young lawyer could not begin his life's work before the age of twenty-five or twenty-six and the young doctor before the age of twenty-seven of twenty-eight.

Columbia an Educational Pioneer.

"This is an intolerable situation, which exists nowhere else in the civilized world and which it is out of the question to think will permanently continue in the United States. The first step away from this difficulty was taken by Columbia some twenty years ago when it introduced the so called combined course into the professional schools, permitting the saving of at least one year. This combined-course idea rapidly spread throughout the country and is now adopted by most of the leading universities, barring a few conservative institutions in the East. A slight modification of this system was later introduced at Columbia in the Schools of Engineering, Mining, and Chemistry, which were put upon a basis of advanced standing requiring three years of college work for entrance, thus making possible a combined course of six years from entrance into the college up to the acquirement of the professional degree. Even this, however, was gradually found to be inadequate; and before long not only the School of Medicine but the School of Architecture, and the School of Journalism opened professional courses to students who had completed two years of college work.

"By many it was recognized that here is the proper dividing line between the ordinary cultural and preparatory courses on the one hand, and the technical or professional courses on the other. To those who hold to this opinion, it seems entirely probable that sooner or later the combined or Columbia plan, which has now spread throughout the country, will be replaced by the newer or still more distinctive Columbia plan, which is in harmony not only with the educational practice of the rest of the world, but with sound educational theory. The Harvard School of Business Administration, therefore, appeared to the committee to embody the same erroneous principle which had been applied to the law and medical schools. The country has broken away from the Harvard plan in legal and medical education. It seems unlikely that it will follow Harvard in the new form of business education. At all events, the system seemed to be quite inapplicable to conditions at Columbia.

Dartmouth System Inadequate.

"The third type of business school is represented by the Amos Tuck School, which does, indeed, accept the principle of a dividing line below the close of the college curriculum. The Amos Tuck School, however, has turned out to be distinctly restricted in scope and attracts few students outside of Dartmouth itself. Moreover, it suffers from the same de- fect as the Harvard School in that it offers an inadequate curriculum of only two years in length.

"Since therefore none of the existing types seemed to be either suitable to Columbia conditions or in harmony with sound pedagogical principles, it was decided to put the dividing line between college and professional work at the end of the second year, largely for the reasons mentioned above. Students will therefore be admitted to the Columbia School who have completed two years of college work or its equivalent, and the School of Business will be put on the same basis as the Medical School, the School of Architecture, and the School of Journalism. This arrangement makes possible the attainment of several results. In the first place, every student who enters the Business School as a candidate for a degree will be sure of having pursued those general cultural and disciplinary college courses which are considered obligatory upon every cultivated man in Europe as in America. In the second place, on this broad basis there will be erected a carefully devised professional or technical curriculum after the completion of which the graduate can enter upon his business career at the age of twenty-two or twenty-three,--about the ordinary age abroad. In the third place, the three-year course, which is midway between the exaggerated four-year Wharton course and the inadequate two-year Harvard and Amos Tuck courses, will permit a comprehensive and well-rounded sequence of studies. The type of school finally adopted thus seems to combine a maximum of advantages with a minimum of defects. It will moreover enable the School to serve much more varied classes of students than can be found in any other type.

New Curriculum a "Happy Medium."

"When we come to discuss the curriculum of the new School, several points are to be noted. In the first place, an attempt is made to steer between the rigid and fixed curriculum found in some of the American professional schools and the very elastic schemes that are found in the ordinary university courses here and abroad. It was attempted to strike a happy medium by requiring in the first year from all candidates for a degree a certain number of courses aggregating one-half or two-thirds of the whole. Every student who intends to go into business should know something about general economics, accounting, finance and business organization, and should also have a command of some of the foreign languages. When, however, the foundation has been laid in this way, students are allowed a free choice, subject to the condition, however, that their course be approved by the Director. The Director of the School is presumed to have a personal acquaintance with each of the students, and to be able in person or through delegation to give to each proper advice. Students who desire to have a general business course will find such a curriculum mapped out for them. Others who may prefer to specialize will find a sequence of courses in a variety of subjects; accounting, banking, finance, transportation, commerce and trade, business organization and management, manufactures, advertising and salesmanship, and the like. At the end of the second year the degree of Bachelor of Science will be awarded so that those who do not care to defer their entrance into a practical business career may start in at the age of the ordinary college graduate. It is expected, however, that a large proportion of the students will continue for a third year, at the end of which the Master's degree will be conferred.

"This third year, it is hoped, will be the most valuable, as it will be the most unique year in the School. It will correspond approximately to the clinical year which is now being added to our best medical schools. It is proposed to make the courses in this third year not alone research courses in the more refined and difficult principles underlying business practice, but also practical courses where each student will have an opportunity of intimate personal contact with business life. Arrangements have already been made with the National City Bank whereby a certain number of students will be afforded an opportunity to prepare themselves for the service of the Bank in foreign fields. It is proposed to broaden and generalize these opportunities so that ultimately every student will be enabled and expected to do some field work in that particular department of business life in which he is especially interested. In almost every phase of 'big business' in New York today the need is experienced for more expert and thorough training; and it is hoped in the advanced courses of the School to bring about a close co-operation between the corps of instructors on the one hand and the business community on the other. It is here that the School of Business will find an unexampled opportunity and perform an unexampled service. Just as the finest medical schools can exist only where there are the greatest hospitals, that is, in the large centres of population, so that the most successful schools of business in the future may be expected to be found in the great centres of business life.