Psychologists tell us that we tend to get what we expect. If we fail to create enthusiasm for the opportunity for service in business; if we assume that young persons who enter business are going to measure their returns in dollars alone; or if we continue to feature, as we have done, the break between the so-called "cultural" and the professional parts of the university course, there will be danger that we shall continue to get the thing for which we plan.

There can be no doubt that many of our old assumptions about the relative dignity and social distinction attaching to different kinds of study, as well as the assumption of a purely mercenary motive in business, have impeded a wholesome reaction between higher education and business standards. These assumptions have created an atmosphere—an objective and subjective attitude of mind, a set of motives and desires, of appreciations and valuations, all of which stand in the way of the most far-reaching educational results.

So far as these assumptions can be rationally explained, they rest on ideas that are in part mistaken, in part exaggerated, and in part obsolete. The application of scientific method to business has created an entirely new relationship between business and education. Scientific analysis and social policy are establishing a new connection between the material and the human facts of business. In the new atmosphere the business executive requires those fine qualities of mind and spirit, and the ability to command these qualities for a given task, which peculiarly it is the work of the university to cultivate.

In proportion as universities have vigorously undertaken this work, and have applied scientific method to their own problem of articulating it with higher education in general, the line of approach to professional business training has become increasingly clear. Among the notable developments of the past decade has been a shifting of emphasis from the training of specialists to the training of business executives. As preparation for executive work comes to be generally recognized as an appropriate field for systematic professional study, the standards that scientific method has already achieved will become fixed and better standards of business efficiency and service will emerge.

The Riverside Press
CAMBRIDGE · MASSACHUSETTS
U · S · A

Footnotes

¹ At the time this was written, in the spring of 1916, it will be recalled, the German war machine for nearly two years had been demonstrating its efficiency; the Allies had not yet matched it, and we did not like the work that efficiency was doing.

² Referring to the situation early in 1916 when this sentence was written.