It is a common saying that the modern taste has been unduly commercialized by the unremitting attention necessarily given to matters of price and of profit and loss in an industrial community organized on business principles; that pecuniary standards of excellence are habitually accepted and applied with undue freedom and finality. But what is scarcely appreciated at its full value is the fact that these pecuniary standards of merit and efficiency are habitually applied to men as well as to things, and with little less freedom and finality. The man who applies himself undeviatingly to pecuniary affairs with a view to his own gain, and who is habitually and cautiously alert to the main chance, is not only esteemed for and in respect of his pecuniary success, but he is also habitually rated high at large, as a particularly wise and sane person. He is deferred to as being wise and sane not only in pecuniary matters but also in any other matters on which he may express an opinion.
A very few generations ago, be fore the present pecuniary era of civilization had made such headway, and before the common man in these civilized communities had lost the fear of God, the like wide-sweeping and obsequious veneration and deference was given to the clergy and their opinions; for the churchmen were then, in the popular apprehension, proficient in all those matters that were of most substantial interest to the common man of that time.
Indeed, the salvation of men's souls was then a matter of as grave and untiring solicitude as their commercial solvency has now become. And the trained efficiency of the successful clergyman of that time for the conduct of spiritual and ecclesiastical affairs lent him a prestige with his fellow men such as to give his opinions, decisions and preconceptions great and unquestioned weight in temporal matters as well; he was then accepted as the type of wise, sane and benevolent humanity, in his own esteem as well as in the esteem of his fellows. In like manner also, in other times and under other cultural conditions the fighting-man has held the first place in men's esteem and has been deferred to in matters that concerned his trade and in matters that did not.
Now, in that hard and fast body of aphoristic wisdom that commands the faith of the business community there is comprised the conviction that learning is of no use in business. This conviction is, further, backed up and coloured with the tenet, held somewhat doubtfully, but also, and therefore, somewhat doggedly, by the common run of businessmen, that what is of no use in business is not worth while. More than one of the greater businessmen have spoken, advisedly and with emphasis, to the effect that the higher learning is rather a hindrance than a help to any aspirant for business success;(4*) more particularly to any man whose lot is cast in the field of business enterprise of a middling scale and commonplace circumstances. And notoriously, the like view of the matter prevails throughout the business community at large. What these men are likely to have in mind in passing this verdict, as shown by various expressions on this head, is not so much the higher learning in the proper sense, but rather that slight preliminary modicum that is to be found embodied in the curriculum of the colleges, -- for the common run of businessmen are not sufficiently conversant with these matters to know the difference, or that there is a difference, between the college and the university. They are busy with other things.
It is true, men whose construction of the facts is coloured by their wish to commend the schools to the good will of the business community profess to find ground for the belief that university training, or rather the training of the undergraduate school, gives added fitness for a business career, particularly for the larger business enterprise. But they commonly speak apologetically and offer extenuating considerations, such as virtually to concede the case, at the same time that they are very prone to evade the issue by dwelling on accessory and subsidiary considerations that do not substantially touch the question of trained capacity for the conduct of business affairs.(5*) The apologists commonly shift from the undebatable ground of the higher learning as related to business success, to the more defensible ground of the undergraduate curriculum, considered as introductory to those social amenities that devolve on the successful man of business; and in so far as they confine themselves to the topic of education and business they commonly spend their efforts in arguing for the business utility of the training afforded by the professional and technical schools, included within the university corporation or otherwise. There is ground for their contention in so far as "university training" is (by subreption) taken to mean training in those "practical"branches of knowledge (Law, Politics, Accountancy, etc.) that have a place within the university precincts only by force of a non-sequitur. And the spokesmen for these views are commonly also, and significantly, eager to make good their contention by advocating the introduction of an increased proportion of these "practical" subjects into the schedule of instruction.
The facts are notorious and leave little room for cavil on the merits of the case. Particularly is the award of the facts unequivocal in America, -- the native ground of the self-made businessman, and at the same time the most admirably thorough-paced business community extant. The American business community is well enough as it is, without the higher learning, and it is fully sensible that the higher learning is not a business proposition.
