The Telegraph-courier. [volume] (Kenosha, Wis.) 1888-1946, 1911-02-02
.FAVORS COMMERCIAL COURSE
Declares That the High School in Ken
osha is Giving It's Graduates Spleen
did Equipment for a Business Car
eeE.
Kenosba, Wis, Jan. 81, 1911.

Kenosha, Wis, Jan. 81, 1911.
Editor Evening News:
There appeared in recent issue of
your paper, an advertisement Of bust
ness college in this city, which dispar-
aged the efficiency of the Kenosha high
school as a preparation for success in
life. This it did by comparing the
present salaries (and to most people
salaries are measures Of success) of two
young men, one with and one without
the course given by said college. A re-
ply seems in order, both for the sake
of the young man hit, and for the in
stitution aimed at.
Whatever else may be said of the
comparison, it was unjust as the fol-
lowing facts will show. The young man
who was named as receiving $3.50 as
a stenographer in Madison, has been
at work six or seven years. Surely,
in that time, experience should have
increased the value of his services.
What did he receive the first years
When one considers the good stock
from which this young man springs, it
is not at all phenomenal, that with a
good high school education preparatory
to a good business college course, and
with several years of experience, he
should have reached at the age of TWEEN
ty-fve or six, the salary named. Other
high school graduates with as good In
heritance and home training have at
tanned the same salary without a bus
mess course.
The young man placed in somewhat
disparaging comparison with the for
mer, graduated last June, and is just
starting out. If the writer is not mis-
taken in him, he will have no difficulty
in bringing the value of his services in
some field, up to the level of the other,
if given an equal time.
1t is not the writer's intention here
TO speak slightingly of business train
ing. Far from it. Probably the most
progressive step the Kenosha High
School has made III recent years, was
the introduction of the Commercial
Course. AS the writer understands it,
it is not the purpose of the promoters
of this movement in the high school to
compete with the business college Of
the town. The high school offers no
short cut to livelihood to the elemen-
tary school graduate; but offers, in
stead, thorough course, extending
over four years, taken conformity with
other subjects necessary to give the
bLeadth of education demanded today
of the young man or woman who as
pires to a responsible commercial po-
sition.
Other courses to prepare for other
forms of industrial efficiency are need
ed in our high school, to give purpose
90 educational effort. Such courses.
alone will hold boys and girls in large
numbers to completion of the high
school courses. Vocational ideals have
the strongest pull of all on the normal
boy, and its pull we need to keep boys
and girls in school. Furthermore, we
need-that is society needs-the boys
and girls who come out of school train
ed to some vocation. cone monster
there is in the world" says Carlyle,
the idle man." The man without a
vocation is more to be pitied than
"the man without country of whom
our children read in school.
The writer believes that such voca-
tional training can best be given not
in a special business school, but in a
high school, well equipped to minister
broadly to variety of interests, not
alone to the gle interest of one
course, however we'll directed that
course may be.
Friend of the High School.