The Mankato free press. [volume] (Mankato, Blue Earth County, Minn.) 1879-1924, 1901-11-08
THE BUSINESS COURSE.
1t Should Have Place In Our High
Schools.

IL Should Have a Place In Our High
Schools.
The following is the paper read be-
fore the high school section of the
Southern Minnesota Teachers associa-
ton Saturday by Supt. Andrew Nelson
OF Austin, on "The Business Course -
Permit me to preface my brief re-
marks on this topic by saying that the
,, growing demand for the industrial and
business courses is not necessarily the
sign of sordid tendency in our edu-
cational ideals. Only few years ago
many of our best superintendent and
high school principals used to get the
cold shivers whenever anyone suggest
ed the incorporation of even half a
year of bookkeeping into our high
school course. They were Mortified
especially because they contended that
the high school course should represent
and provide for culture only, what
ever that might mean. They resented
the invasion of their "sanctum sane
forum by anything that savored of
the materialistic or even the utilitar-
ian. But we now feel assured that the
alarm manifested by our culture
devoted friends was without any seri-
GUS foundation Educators have gem
orally come to the conclusion that the
demand for business and manual train
ing courses in our high schools is sim
ply an attempt to make the education
of our youth harmonic with the facts
and conditions of everyday life. Not
only in our own country, but abroad as
we'll, do we find this thought upper
. most in the minds Of the best educa-
tional thinkers: "Schools must be
adapted to the changed conditions of
life and civilization, for the best
conceivable schools grow out of date in
the course of time All educational
reform, in fact, has been but so much
adjustment or adaptation to the wants
and necessities of the pupil when he
shall have become man grown.
| Ours is an age of strenuous endeavor
and intense industrial activity. Only
small per cent of the students in our
secondary schools ever enter upon a
strictly professional career The ma
jority enter the practical walks of life.
Have not these right to demand that
when they receive their long cherished
diploma, they shall be able to write a
fair business letter, to keep set of
books, to solve readily and accurately
any practical arithmetical problem,
and to give some account of the laws
and practices of the great Industrial
world that surrounds them on every
hand2
! A recent writer in the Revue of
Paris, in discussing 'The Decline of
France has this to say about the pre-
vailing secondary education in that
country. Secondary education in
this country is cut on the model of
Jesuits of the 18th century. The error
which we make is in raising our child
rem in the third republic as they were
faised under Louis XIV" Are not
perhaps the secondary school of our
own country open to the same charge
though in less degree? Is it not a
fact that pure notions of secondary
education have Jagged far behind the
progress that has been made in the
scientific and industrial world? I'm
/ doubleday the failure of educational
! ideals to keep pace with the progress
made in practical lines of activity
must in large measure be attributed to
the fact that this scientific and ma
terial progress is all SO recent. But
while this fact may explain past de-
! linquencies, it must not be allowed to
operate so far as future action is con-
cerned.
! The prototype of the modern high
school was the old New England
, academy, which fitted youths for col
eye, which. in turn, prepared men for
the professions. Now if the function
of the American college has changed
to such an extent that fully one-third
| of its graduates enter upon some bust
ness rather than professional career,
how much more has the function of
the secondary school changed 1t is
true, of course, that our secondary
courses have been much enriched in
recent years, especially in the lines. or
science and literature. But does this
enrichment wholly meet the demands
of the present day, or does much yet
remain to be accomplished
The greatest problem in contempor-
airy secondary education is how to in
duce the boys to come in. One might
employ favorite phrase of the gran
eloquent orator and truthfully say
that from the Portland of the east tc
the Portland of the west and from the
"Bread and Butter State" to the Texas
oil fields there cometh ever the same
cry. In our high schools the girls
outnumier the boys three to one. Now
don't be alarmed, for in the brief time
allotted to me 1 will not attempt to
account fully for this fact. But allow
me to suggest that the average boy OF
13 or IA, upon completing the common
school course, has an intensely practi-
Cal turn of mind. When he examines
| the ordinary high school course, he is