Page images
PDF
EPUB

the senior year, and availing itself more and more of the student's added stores of information and his increased power of thought and expression. Aside from the frequent papers suggested above in connection with the daily study of authors, it is recommended that during the latter part of the course, two themes each term be made the objects of more strenuous effort, of more thorough study and longer reflection, and that more attention be given to their completeness and finish.

One suggestion more must close this series, and that is with regard to the conduct of recitations. Too rarely in this exercise is sufficient importance attached to the formation of the habit of complete and finished utterance--without prompting-of all that the student has to say upon the topic proposed. The sharp and rattling volley of question. and answer has its function and place as a general quickener of thought throughout a class; while keen and skillful cross-questioning in the Socratic form is a wonderful revealer of the gaps and shallows of individual knowledge. But no careful teacher will allow his skill in either of these, nor yet his own nervousness in the face of wrong statement, nor the impatience of other members of the class, to stand in the way of a habit of expression which implies a habit of thought whose value in the intellectual life can scarcely be estimated-the habit of regarding things as wholes.

This is not the place to enter upon the important question of the High School Reference Library. A few, however, of the works which have been found most useful in this course of study may here be briefly noticed.

In the study of words no work now within common reach can fill the place occupied by Skeats' Etymological Dictionary (Harper Brothers.) The etymologies in the standard Dictionaries of Webster and of Worcester are not to be trusted at all. Mr. Skeat has his limitations, too, but is, in general, careful to indicate by a "probably" or a "perhaps" the point where he leaves the firm ground of knowledge for guess-work and speculation; and beyond that point no one need follow him. Students of this subject should not fail to connect the words they study with their doublets and other nearly related words, and should trace out the genesis of meaning as well as of form.

In the teaching of composition, no work now before the public seems likely to prove of much value to the teacher. The writer, however, has recently had the privilege of reading the advanced sheets of a little book on this subject by one of our own veteran teachers- Miss Irene Hardy (published by Henry Holt & Co.); and he feels sure that

[ocr errors]

no one engaged in this delicate and difficult branch of instruction will fail to find it a valuable aid and suggestion.

Whitney's Essentials of English Grammar (Ginn & Co.), will be found very useful, not merely to correct the false notions and gross errors as to fact with which most of our school grammars abound, but more especially to help both teacher and pupil to that point of view whence alone grammar becomes rational by becoming historical and scientific. For the same reason it is an excellent basis for topical reviews, should such become necessary. Greene's Analysis of the English Language (Cowperthwaite & Co.), I think, has never been surpassed in its presentation of the logical relations of the sentence elements. Its arbitrary system of notation, however, and its numerical designation of classes may well be disregarded. Abbott's Shakespearian Grammar (Macmillan & Co.), will be needed to explain the constant references made to it in the annotated texts of Shakespeare. Furthermore, familiarity with such works as this and Whitney's Essentials will do much to convince one of the truth that grammar is no body of doctrine nor a set of rules for the conduct of life, but an orderly and reasoned presentation of the facts of Speech.

C. B. BRAdley.

University of California.

SHOULD A BOY WHO IS TO ENTER BUSINESS GO TO

COLLEGE?

[THE FOLLOWING ANSWERS TO THIS QUESTION ARE TAKEN FROM "THE ADVANCE," CHICAGO. ED.]

EZRA FARNSWORTH, BOSTON.

Perhaps the best way for me is to tell you what I have done on this question. A few years ago I had a boy, my youngest son, in the Latin school here, and designing to send him to college if he felt inclined that way, but not to urge him to go, I said to him, now whether, when you get through college, you will take up a profession or go into business, in either case I would like to have you go to college, because I am satisfied that if you go into business the time spent in college will be the best preparation for you for a business man. The result was he went to college, and after he left college, he did what I think is desirable if his friends have the means; he went to Europe and spent six or eight months. That is a good thing but not a necessity. My boy went into business-commenced at the bottom, took a boy's

place and has succeeded very well. He has been for several years a partner in the largest wholesale wool house in Boston, and stands remarkably well as a young business man.

That would be my idea of the best way, piovided circumstances would warrant it.

I would not have a boy go to college and then undertake to become a business man by beginning in the middle, but if he will go to college and then begin as my boy did, at the bottom, that is the best way for him to do.

CHARLES FRANCIS ADAMS, PRESIDENT UNION PACIFIC RAILWAY,

BOSTON.

My answer would be that it depends entirely upon the boy. In the case of some boys preparing for business life, it would be most desirable to go to college; in the case of other boys preparing for a business life, going to college would be of no kind of use; and in the case of a third class of boys, going to college would be a positive injury. Consequently, whether a boy preparing for business life should go to college or not, depends upon the boy.

R. H. STEARNS, BOSTON.

The question you put to me, viz.: "Should a boy preparing to become a business man go to college?" cannot be answered by a simple "yes" or "no." No rule will apply to all cases. For a boy with no love for books or study, to barely pull into and through college would seem to be a waste of time. A poor boy must be made of remarkable fiber to face the long years of the preparatory and college course and at the end to take his place perhaps on the lowest round of the business ladder. On the other hand, my observation of young men in business, and my opportunities for comparing those who have been through college with those who have not, inclines me to believe in the college as a preparation for business where it is at all practicable. It is not so much the amount of technical knowledge attained in such a course as it is the admirable discipline of mind and, in many of our smaller colleges, of the whole man, that builds a character which tells in business, no less than in other callings. Such discipline and training gives to the faithful student steadiness of purpose, coolness, brightness and breadth of intelligence, soberness and reliability of judgment. The rule being adopted by some colleges, which allows the student to select his studies after the first or second year, will influence a boy's decision of this question.

[ocr errors][merged small]

as

I have said that a poor boy who decided to go to college must contemplate the possibility of his having to begin in business at the bottom. This condition, however, is by no means as common formerly. The almost universal tendency in all kinds of business to concentration-combinations for handling interests by one management -creates a demand hitherto unprecedented for educated young men. My answer, then, to a boy who is in earnest to make the most of himself in business, for influence, usefulness and the highest success and to whom "ways and means" are not in question, and to the poor boy who can endure the hardness of the way, is; "Go to college."

JOHN H. WASHBURN, VICE-PRESIDENT HOME INSURANCE COMPANY,
NEW YORK.

To this question I would answer, as a general rule, yes. Some boys are so constituted, physically or mentally, that they would be more likely to receive injury than benefit from a college course, but these are only the rare exceptions.

The discipline which a young man receives in college, the ability which he there acquires to use his natural faculties and to grasp the various subjects which may come before him, are of vastly more value in fitting him for a business career than the details which he would learn during the same time spent in a counting-room. Of course, on first entering a business office, the young graduate finds himself at a disadvantage when compared with a young man of the same age who has been trained in the office, but those details of business in which he is at first inferior will soon be mastered by him, and he will be more valuable to his employer and farther advanced on the road to success than the one who was at first his superior.

The training of a college course becomes more and more important as years roll on and business is conducted on a larger scale and with a broader field than formerly, and as judgment forms a larger and luck a smaller factor than in the earlier years of the country's history. A boy can learn to measure tape, or retail groceries without a college education, but for the management of men and the control of large enterprises the more complete and thorough his training the more likely he is to be successful.

This is not merely an a priori opinion, but one confirmed by many years' experience in the management of young men entering upon business life, and I do not hesitate to say, that every boy desiring to secure the greatest success in business should, if it is in any way within his reach, obtain a college education.

ote !!་་་

SAMUEL JOHNSON, BOSTON.

In reply to your question, I should say, "yes," to a young man who desired to go to college for study and has a place open for him in some established business, with the influence of some friend to push him forward when he leaves college. To a young man dependent on his own resources and obliged to work his way unassisted, I should say, "no," but make the most of your leisure hours while in business; rise a little earlier and take for reading or study an hour or half-hour in the morning rather than the last hour at night. You will be surprised at the end of the year to find how much you have been able to accomplish.

NELSON TAYLOR JR., OF THE BAKER AND TAYLOR CO. OF NEW YORK. Yes, a boy intending to enter business should first go to college. As a rule, he there gains an intellectual breadth which ten to one, he otherwise would never have reached. The fact that there are some striking examples of men of liberal views and general capacity who have had marked success without other than a business training, only emphasizes the truth that for the most part, business men who go into business very young and without a college education are generally narrow men, though often with highly developed capacities in certain. directions.

It is quite true that a prejudice against college educated men exists in the minds of a very large number of employers. The graduate is generally a trifle old for beginning at the bottom of the ladder, where alone oftentimes the necessary preliminary experience can be gained for a subsequent ready insight into, and mastery of, the dealings which belong to certain businesses, and where also is gained the most intimate knowledge of goods and articles of merchandise handled by a certain house, its appearance or feeling in different qualities and its variations under changing conditions, etc. The college boy is generally ambitious, too, and the employer knows that if he gives him a position from which there is not likely to be an early promotion, he will soon be under the necessity of filling it again. And then the recent graduate is unfortunately too frequently disposed to overrate his own importance, a failing of which the plain man of business is ordinarily thoroughly intolerant.

These are difficulties which the young man, however, must admit and meet with good sense and humility, when he encounters them. He must bear in mind that his college education, in the resources it has given him and the vastly increased possibilities for the appreciation

« PreviousContinue »