College Teaching Part 58

TALCOTT WILLIAMS _School of Journalism, Columbia University_

XXVIII

BUSINESS EDUCATION

=Evolution of business education=

Business education of collegiate grade is a very recent development.

The world's first commercial college was established at Antwerp in 1852, while the forerunner of American inst.i.tutions of this sort, the Wharton School, was founded in 1881. Others followed in the nineties, but the general establishment of schools of commerce as parts of colleges and universities, as well as the inclusion of business subjects in the curricula of liberal colleges, took place after 1900.

This sudden flowering at the top was preceded by a long evolution quite typical of the development of education in all the branches of learning to which inst.i.tutions devote time because of their cultural or professional worth.

Some practical end and not the desire for abstract knowledge prompted early instruction and stimulated business education as well as education in general through various stages of progress. Of course all education is a process whereby technical operations and abstract truth developed by many generations are systematized, compressed, and imparted to individuals in a relatively short time.

The first stage in the evolution in a given field may be called the _apprentice stage_. Just as physicians, lawyers, and in fact pract.i.tioners in all the professions and crafts trained their a.s.sistants in their establishments for the purpose of making them proficient in their daily work, so did merchants at this stage give apprentice training in commercial branches to their employees.

Traditional ways of carrying out certain transactions, convenient rules of thumb, and habits of neatness and reliability were pa.s.sed on in a given establishment. As industry grew and guilds were formed, the training tended to become more standardized and merchants joined in establis.h.i.+ng guild schools for their employees. Many such schools were conducted in the various crafts, and their modern counterparts are the well-known vocational or trade schools. This _vocational training_ stage was developed by business men for persons not employed as productive craftsmen but rather as workers in business offices which administered production and directly attended to selling and exchange, and for others looking forward to such employment. At this stage there grew up also private schools, usually conducted by teachers especially proficient in particular lines of service. Thus inventors of shorthand systems, devisers of systems of penmans.h.i.+p, and authors of methods of bookkeeping and accounting set up schools in these specialties. Here we have training outside the business house itself to prepare for partic.i.p.ation in business, and the enterprises flourish because there is a demand for the people they train. At this stage rules of thumb are supplanted by systems based on principles, and the way is paved for the _technical school stage_. The training here is practical, but it is broad and based on scientific knowledge.

This stage is not reached in all fields of endeavor, for some stop at the first or the second, while on the other hand the existence of a higher stage of education does not preclude the continuation at the same time of agencies carrying on instruction after the mode of the lower stages. With the rise of the factory system and the extension of capitalistic production and industrial integration in the form of "big business," there came a demand in the business world for men widely informed and thoroughly trained. Not only did men to meet this demand have to have good foundations of general education, but they needed technical preparation in the specialized field of business itself.

Business science is not only applied science, but it is secondary or derived from a number of the fundamental sciences. It draws its principles from the physical sciences of physics, chemistry, geology, and biology; it utilizes the engineering applications of these sciences; it derives valuable information from physiology and psychology, and it makes use of the modern languages. Borrowing from all the pure sciences and their applied counterparts, it formulates its own regulations so that it may manage the work of the world _economically_, so that it may bring about the production of goods necessary to meet humanity's many, varied, and recurrent wants, and make these commodities available in advantageous times and places with individual t.i.tle to them established according to existing standards of personal justice and social expediency.

The final stage, the _cultural stage_, is reached when the educator determines that the field in question is so much a part of the general civilization or intellectual wealth of the world that it ought to receive some consideration, not only by specialists in the field but also by the student pursuing a well-planned course of a general or non-technical character designed to enable him to appreciate and play some role in the world in which he lives. It is because new branches of human endeavor constantly blossom forth into this stage, while more ancient branches wither and no longer bear fruit of contemporary significance, that the very humanities themselves change as well as realities.

Business as a field of human thought and activity has reached this stage, and educators reckon with it in laying out courses of general elementary, secondary, and collegiate study.

No one would contend that educators should in any way cease to offer general or cultural courses, but they should insist that these general courses embrace all of humanity's wealth, including that which modern society contributed, and that they should with each addition reshape their general offerings so that appropriate proportions will be preserved.

=Definition of business education=

Before the development of modern highly organized production, business training would have been synonymous with commercial training; that is, training to prepare men to play their parts in the _exchange_ of goods. This would embrace correspondence with customers, the keeping of records of stock, the cost of stock, making out bills, and attending to all financial operations which were a.s.sociated with marketing and exchange. Successful training would imply, of course, the broad foundational grasp of arithmetic, reading, and writing of the mother tongue and of such foreign languages as the nature of the market might require, a grasp of various money values, banking procedure, and other information concerning financial affairs, the means of transportation, freight charges, etc. Manual skill had to be developed in penmans.h.i.+p, in the technique of bookkeeping, general office organization, and filing. With the invention of mechanical and labor-saving office devices, facility in operating them was required to supplement skill in penmans.h.i.+p.

Of course, with the development of the market the complexity of office management increased. In modern times the business man concerns himself not only with the duties of the merchant and exchanger, but also with the organization of industry and economical procedure. The modern business man, entrepreneur or manager, and all those a.s.sisting him in the discharge of his duties, perform functions in two directions: first, in the direction of the market in the establishment of price, in the selling of his goods, and in attending to all matters which flow therefrom, and secondly toward the production plant itself; while he employs technicians who know how to perform operations skillfully according to the laws of science, nevertheless he must know how to buy labor and how to organize labor and materials and put them in coordinate working relations.h.i.+p most economically.

We can therefore define business _education as education which directly prepares people to discharge the business function: namely, the economical organization of men and materials in production and the most advantageous distribution and exchange of the commodities or service for consumption_.

In the modern world it is hard sometimes to draw the line between the field of technology in production and the field of business management in production, but in general the two functions are fairly distinct.

The technician is interested in operations of production, while the business manager is interested in their economical organization and in their government with relation to market conditions. The very engineers themselves must be selected, engineered, and paid by the business man. The business manager is interested in keeping the total price of his commodities above his total entrepreneur's cost. The technician is interested in inventing and operating the machinery of production, if and when the business man determines what operations will be profitable.

=Aims and curricula of business education=

The aims of business education are, first and foremost, professional; second, civic; and third, cultural. At no time can the three be separated, but it is possible to devise a curriculum which stresses one or two of the aims. It is also possible to treat a subject so as to emphasize technical and practical skill or to promote philosophical reflection.

The professional aim prompted the establishment of the first schools or colleges of commerce, and it is kept to the fore not only in inst.i.tutions giving courses of study which lead to distinctive degrees in commerce, but also in places which give specialized instruction in particular fields. We shall consider curricula of the following types:

_Type I._ Curriculum designed to give the student training to meet a definite professional requirement established by law.

_Type II._ Curriculum designed to make a student proficient in a particular narrow field.

_Type III._ Curriculum leading to a baccalaureate degree in commerce or business, vertical type.

_Type IV._ Curriculum leading to a baccalaureate degree in commerce or business, horizontal type.

TYPE I. TECHNICAL COURSE, DESIGNED TO PREPARE STUDENTS TO MEET THE STATE REQUIREMENTS FOR CERTIFIED PUBLIC ACCOUNTANTS

_Entrance requirements_ for students matriculating for the whole course as candidates for a Diploma of Graduate in Accountancy--high school graduation, college entrance or a State Regents' C.P.A.

Qualifying Certificate.

Non-matriculated students--mature persons wis.h.i.+ng to pursue certain subjects without academic credit.

_Prescribed_

Accounting, Theory, Practice and Problems 4 terms, 4 hours a week--256 hours

This course covers general accounting for the single proprietor, partners.h.i.+ps and corporations, embracing financing, manufacturing, and selling operations, with agencies and branches, the formation of mergers, syndicates, holding companies, etc.; dissolutions and reorganizations.

Cost accounting 1 term, 2 hours a week--32 hours

Auditing 1 term, 2 hours a week--32 hours

Public utilities accounting 1 term, 2 hours a week--32 hours

Judicial (fiduciary) accounting 1 term, 2 hours a week--32 hours

Advanced accounting, theory, and problems 2 term, 2 hours a week--64 hours

Commercial Law 3 terms, 3 hours a week 144 hours

Covering general principles of law, contracts, and all forms of special contracts of interest to the business man, especially those related to personal property, risk insurance, credit and real property, and forms of business a.s.sociations.

Economics Economic principles 1 term, 3 hours a week--48 hours

Economic development of the United States 1 term, 3 hours a week--48 hours

Money and banking 1 term, 3 hours a week--48 hours

English--Written, Business English 2 terms, 2 hours a week--64 hours

Oral English--Public Speaking 4 terms, 1 hour a week--64 hours

_Additional electives_--one course of at least 96 hours in Government and enough other elective subjects in technical commercial work or Political Science to accrue at least a total of 1000 hours.

The available additional electives in accounting are advanced courses in different special fields such as Advanced Cost Accounting, Munic.i.p.al Accounting--General and Departmental, Systems for particular industries or forms of business, Public Utilities Rate Making and Regulation, etc.

In Government the available electives include such subjects as American Government and Citizens.h.i.+p, American Const.i.tutional Law, International Law, Political Theory, Comparative Government, State Legislation and Administration, Munic.i.p.al Administration, etc.

In Political Science, courses in Economics and Business, such as Economic Problems, Business Organization and Management, Public Finance, Foreign Trade, Foreign Exchange, Insurance, Advertising, Salesmans.h.i.+p, etc., are available, while general and special courses may be taken in Sociology and Statistics.