Belgium, Dutch, and Swiss colleges. ... A similar experience may be gathered from practical life. One of the first bankers in a foreign capital lately told me that in the course of a year he had given some thirty scholars – who had been educated expressly for commerce in commercial schools – a trial in his offices, and was not able to make use of a single one of them, while those who came from the grammar schools, although they knew nothing whatever of business matters to begin with, soon made themselves masters of them."[1]
The same evidence may be given for England. English papers, on the experience of leading English firms, combated the idea that a university degree was of no use to a man intended for business.[2] Mr. Bryce, no mean authority on this subject, concludes the article in which he advocates a special commercial training, with this significant remark: "This paper is not designed to argue on behalf of what is called a modern or non-classical education. I am not one of those who think that either the ancient languages, or what are called 'literary' or 'humanistic' subjects, play too large a part in our schools, either in England or in the United States. On the contrary, I believe (basing myself on such observations as I have been able to make) that Latin and Greek, when properly taught, are superior as instruments of education to any modern language, and that 'literary' subjects, as history, are on the whole more efficient stimulants to the mind (taking an average of minds) than mathematics or natural science."[3]
