SCHOOLS AND BUSINESS

Elsewhere in these columns appears an article by a certain Callisthenes upon the attitude of English public schools towards business. It is his chief premise that business is the major occupation of men today and for that occupation no public school prepares. But Callisthenes suggests an erroneous cure for what is a questionable evil.

Two great obstacles lie in the path of teaching business in any secondary school in any country, no matter what its social condition. The complexities of the vocation, as Callisthenes chooses to call it, must of necessity invalidate it as a preparatory school course. No juvenile mind can grasp the problems presented.

The second; and perhaps more valid objection, is the inadvisability of introducing the subject into the secondary school curriculum. Culture, as a vocation, has been greatly, and justly, ridiculed. But it is still a very desirable attribute. It lies entirely within the province of the preparatory school to establish a ground work for culture. If college is to continue as an educational and not a vocational institution, the schools must also, for the college is dependent upon them.

Furthermore the best collegiate education is the best business training today. Callisthenes need not worry about an incentive to enter the industrial world. Wealth holds more lure for most men than a captain's bars or a minister's gown. To stress business in education would be most inadvisable. American, today presents a most effective answer to the society which desires to revolve about an industrial axis.