the contribution of college life to the development of the qualities necessary to one who would succeed under modern business conditions, it is the college class room which contributes most. The class room contributes by the discipline it imposes and by the information it imparts.

That the college class room develops the capacity to find facts, to weigh and give value to facts, and to arrive at fairly accurate conclusions on the basis of ascertained facts, will be denied only by those unacquainted with the college student. Nothing is more certain to those who are in a position to know than that it exerts this influence. One of the essential differences between the under classman and the upper classman is the difference in respect to this capacity. On the one hand is the under classman, who attempts "to learn" with equal intensity every fact in the instructor's assignment, who reports them to the instructor as of equal value, who sees in them little beyond the bare facts themselves; on the other hand is the upper classman, who goes at facts with an intensity relative to their respective importance, who considers it "bluffing the instructor" to present in the class room facts irrelevant to the point at issue, who sees some principle behind the bare facts he has studied. It is the difference in capacity in this respect, brought about by the discipline of college methods of instruction, which makes it possible for the upper classman to receive with equanimity an assignment of forty or fifty pages for a lesson when the under classman is appalled at an assignment of a dozen or fifteen pages. The capacity required of a young man entering business service is not different in nature and quality from this capacity developed in the class room; business requires merely a different application of it.

That the college contributes to the development of business efficiency by the information it imparts is no less indisputable than that it contributes by its discipline. This is denied principally by those who know the college only through acquaintance with the older, narrower curriculum. While admitting that the earlier, exclusively classical curriculum was valuable on account of its discipline, it is asserted that it had to do with subject-matter wholly unrelated to business. It is unnecessary for us to consider that opinion, for the college curriculum has

become so widened that the criticism cannot be maintained. The great development within the last twenty-five years of courses in science, in theoretical and applied economics, and more recently of specific courses in business administration, and so on, has set such opinion completely to one side. In the leading colleges and universities it is possible now for the student to devote nearly one third of the college period to courses the subject-matter of which consists of facts and principles relating to industry. That is as great specialization as is warranted, even from the point of view of business efficiency.

It is in recognition of the value of the discipline and of the information imparted by college training that many business men have come to the view expressed in the words of the general manager of a large industrial corporation: "I have come to prefer men who have worked their way through college;" who have worked their way, because that is a partial guarantee that the men are of the right temperament; who have received a college training, because, on the average, such men show a greater intelligence, a greater capacity for earning promotion than the non-college man. The following tables seem to support this view. One table is the result of an investigation of the training and promotion in terms of wages of the employees of several machinery manufacturing firms, by Mr. James M. Dodge, formerly president of the American Society of Mechanical Engineers. The other is a study of training and promotion in terms of wages of the employees of a large number of miscellaneous manufacturing and mercantile institutions, by Mr. Herbert J. Hapgood, and published in System of December, 1904. Private investigations of our own support the conclusions which must be drawn from these tables. The figures represent ages and average wage per week at a given age.

It is evident, therefore, that under the existing business régime, of young men endowed with a natural capacity for business, those who are college trained advance more rapidly to positions of responsibility than those who begin their business apprenticeship immediately upon leaving the high school. Why, it may be asked, if we see this efficiency in college training, do we need the addition of special courses of higher commercial education of which the past decade has witnessed the rapid development?

The development of the school of higher commercial education is not a protest against the efficiency of college training for the young men destined to enter upon a business career; it is a protest, if it be a protest at all, against the sufficiency of the college course for that purpose. It is, in fact, based upon the observation of the value of college training for the prospective business man. If a general or slightly specialized college course increases the capacity of its students for business services, will not a more specialized course of training, which, notwithstanding its specialized nature, preserves the disciplinary/ influences of the general course, prove still more effective? Some ten years ago, in response to a belief on the part of some educators and of some business men that such special courses were essential to the proper training of young men for business careers, a number of universities and colleges established courses of this nature.

These courses of higher commercial education present various forms of organization, especially as regards their relation to the general college course. Two types have developed. One type, consisting of all the institutions but one, has added to the college undergraduate curriculum certain courses dealing with industrial conditions and methods. The commercial course, considered as a whole in these institutions, consists of

the general college course, with specialization in economic and commercial courses. The commercial course may or may not, usually does not, represent a separate school. Some of these institutions introduce the particular commercial courses into all four years of the undergraduate course, some into the last three years, some into the last two only. In all the institutions organized on this general plan, the ideal of giving a cultural education remains dominant; and the ideal of promoting industrial efficiency secondary. The other type is represented by one institution which is organized on a different plan, with a different ideal. It presents all its strictly commercial courses in a compact mass in the graduate year. The ideal is to leave to the college the function of mental discipline, and then to take the mentally disciplined product of the college and concentrate its energy on technical training for business. Its dominant ideal is training for industrial efficiency. Accepting the work of the college in the matter of mental discipline, it makes its chief function that of training for business as for a highly specialized profession.

It is our belief that both of these types of institutions of higher commercial education will survive. That type which represents the undergraduate college course modified by the introduction of business courses, will survive because it is more 、 efficient for its purpose than the college course not so modified, and because, not requiring as much preliminary training as the other type, it will be accessible to a larger body of men. That type which represents the professional or graduate idea will survive because, although its requirements of longer preliminary training will make it accessible to fewer men, it gives a more efficient training. The experience on which these assertions are based is not such as to make possible present statistical or other proofs; our experience, however, seems to warrant such positive assertions.

The present industrial régime, with its complex and delicate organization of business institutions in their relations with one another; with large institutions involving complex and delicate internal organization; a régime in which in every institution problems of management arise requiring quick and accurate solutions, will present an increasing demand for men of the quickness of mind and largeness of view and wide knowledge of details imparted by the training of the college and of the institution of higher commercial education.

I

RACHEL KENT FITZ, BOSTON, MASS.*

N this paper I shall confine myself to the ordinary college woman, the woman who has not entered any of the professions, who has not in any wise achieved distinction; and my excuse, if excuse be needed, for thus limiting my subject, is that although obscure, she is by the force of her numbers and the importance of her work the typical college woman graduate. The professional woman graduate, moreover, is not in need of mention at my hands. She cannot escape being discovered, analyzed and compared, for she is too shining a mark; and yet she is the exception and not the rule. She is not, and never will be, the college woman graduate in any broad and general sense. Even our statistics, however little value they may have because of their youth, would seem to show conclusively that the professions at the present time are not largely recruited from among the ranks of college women.

The lists of alumnæ from two of our leading women's collegest, Smith and Radcliffe, for example, one of which has graduated 3,000 women, the other 800, show that out of the 3,800 women but 33 have become doctors, 7 lawyers and 2 ministers. Twenty-one have become nurses, 50 are interested in journalistic or literary work, 100 are engaged in philanthropy, 85 are doing library work, 5 are on the stage, and 2 are architects. Of the 3,800 graduates, probably a total of less than 16 per cent are in the above or similar professions.

The great majority of college graduates remains, therefore, to be accounted for. Of the larger college, 800, or 27 per cent, are teachers; 800, or 27 per cent, are married; and 900, or 30 per cent, have no occupation, that is, they are in all probability present or future home makers. In the smaller college 350, or 44 per cent, are teachers; 180, or 22 per cent, are * See editorial on page 645-Editors.

+ The following statistics are to be regarded as only approximately accurate. For the statistics from Radcliffe I am indebted to its secretary, Miss Coes. The statistics from Smith have been compiled from the List of Graduates from 1875 to 1905, published by the Smith Alumnæ Association, 1906.