order that his business may be successful, but he must know something of raw material, and where it is to be found; he must know something of the machinery and other appliances which are used in his manufactory; he must know something of the conditions of the market in those parts of the world which his goods are to reach, in order that he may meet those needs, in order that he may anticipate them, in order that he may know what demand it is possible for him to produce in certain places. For I apprehend that if we content ourselves with meeting the demand that exists, we shall not any of us get very far. We must know what demand we can create by the show of our goods in new fields which they have not yet entered. And it is necessary also that our business man of today should have a very powerful imagination, in order that he may realize the meaning and the results of the things which he is doing. We speak of imagination as the quality of the poet, and the preacher, possibly of the historian; but I believe that imagination is even more than that the quality of the business man, especially the business man who is full of enterprise which is extended and various.

What I have enumerated seems to be possibly, at first sight, a rather exhausting, a rather extended list of requirements, and yet I am sure that every one of you recognizes that those are just the requirements of success, not only in your business but in any kind of business which is carried on under the conditions of our modern commercial and industrial life.

That is the kind of man that the college must somehow or other manage to create; the man who has control of his powers, who has ability to apply them with concentration to at definite purpose, who has ability to use other men, who has quickness and accuracy of judgment, who has a large outlook, and who has a very vivid and correct imagination. How are we to set about that? Isn't it by a carefully chosen and not too extended curriculum? Is it wise to attempt to teach the young man in college the things that he is going to use in business? Isn't it wiser to confine ourselves to the attempt to

develop the man and leave him to learn his business after we get through with him? Isn't it better to build the machine, and let life set the machine at work? That seems to me to be the thing that we have to do, and there comes in the importance of what is some times neglected, and some times nowadays decried as the “old-fashioned" college of letters, as if the oldfashioned college of letters were absolutely out of date, as if it must give way to the technical school, or to something which is going to be a kind of glorified commercial college. I certainly should be very sorry to speak in deprecation of the professional school, because a professional school is one of the successful departments of my own college, yet it seems to me the technically trained man, the man who is merely an engineer is somewhat at a disadvantage, because it seems to me that the man who is merely a technical man, while he may go a long way in the administration of business, is not trained rightly, and is not sufficiently possessed of those qualities I have tried to enumerate for him to be successful in the administration of large business affairs. You want a technical man for the head of a department, but when you want a man who is going to have general charge of a business which has many departments, you want something more than a technical man.

Now, I know that a great many men get these qualities entirely outside of the university, and I should be the last man to stand in this presence and say that the university is the only place where a man could get them. But my problem is simpler than that. It is to show that he can get the qualifications in the university if he has the right material in him, and that it is the business of the university to develop that material with a view to the development of the man rather than with a view to the filling of his head with a certain amount of definite information, which may seem to him what he is going to need when he gets out into the world. I venture to say, old-fashioned as it may seem, that the nowadays greatly neglected study of the classics. has a very important place in such kind of mental training as I have indicated. I know it is not now fashionable to say so.

I know we are told that we need more practical things, that we are told the study of modern language will give a man a more useable instrument and the same training which he will get from a study of the classics. I venture to take exception to that statement for this reason: It is true that the study of modern languages will give a man a more useable instrument, but it is not true that it will give him the same degree of mental training because, when we are studying a modern language we are in the thought of the present day. The Frenchman, the German, the Spaniard, the Italian and the Englishman are all living the life of the twentieth century, they are caught up in the intellectual currents which are sweeping them all along together, and the intellectual life of the twentieth century is the same throughout the civilized world, however different the verbal forms in which that intellectuality may find expression; but the intellectual life of Greece and Rome were very much different, their thoughts were not our thoughts, their ways were not our ways, their life was not our life, and if we are to learn their language, we have a much larger task on our hands than if we are to learn French and German, a task that requires more abstraction, a task that requires a very much greater mental effort than is involved in the other. It is not possible for a man to put forth those great mental efforts without the result being an increased mental power, any more than it is possible for him. to put forth physical efforts without the result of increased physical power. So I believe we are wrong in despising the study of the classics as the preparation of an active life today, for the reasons that in those studies, properly pursued, are to be found the fibre of mind, the intellectual power, which are to enable a man to grapple with whatever problem may be presented to him, as distinguished from the particular power or skill which enables him to grasp a technical set of problems and leaves him practically helpless in the face of others.

I believe too that in our preparation of young men for business, we educators have something to learn from the technical schools. I am going to give you a little bit of educational

heresy, particularly a heresy within the shadow of Harvard College. I am willing to say bluntly that I do not believe in the elective system. [Applause.] And the reason why I do not believe in the elective system is because I do not believe it is the right way to give a young man the mental powers that he must have if he is going to be the kind of man you and I want to see the universities turn out, you because you need them in your business, and I, because I want to fit them for your business. The technical schools are not elective. Their courses are pretty closely defined, and if a man is to be trained for an engineer, he knows he must do what the engineering school sets before him, just the same as when he gets out into the field he must solve the problems which lie before him.

Let me say, for illustration, that he rises to be the chief engineer of a new line of railroad, the new line we hope will be built some time to give New England an independent connection with the west. [Applause.] When he undertakes that job, he has got to solve every problem which that job presents to him, or else he is not going to be of any particular use. He has not only to build the bridges, but he has to cut the tunnels, he has to look out for the quicksands, he has to solve every problem that is presented, and there is no choice in the matter at all, excepting that he may within limits lay out his lines to avoid expensive difficulties and unnecessarily long detours. We have gone rather daft in my opinion over a theory of education which unfits a man for doing just that thing, which sets him in college and says to him, "The college offers these hundreds of courses, now follow the line of your least resistance, take out of those courses what you want, choose what you like, and in the choosing get your education." It seems to me that is precisely what we do not want today, because it seems to me that that is not fitting a man for business, but unfitting him for business, if any educational system could unfit him for business. It is training him in loose habits, in unbusinesslike habits, it is undermining his power of concentration and standing in the way of development of that stern

and rigorous self-control, which is what he most needs for the successful performance of tasks which lie before him. I do not take this position because I believe there is so great an inequality in the value of studies themselves, but because I believe there is the greatest possible value in holding a young man to the performance of set tasks, and in training him to do the day's work, giving him that habit of readiness for whatever may come up, that willingness to tackle the hard things, and that determination born of necessity to conquer them, which are necessary to the success of the business man.

I believe, gentlemen, that there is a great field for universities in the preparation of men for business. I think we are going to realize our task in that regard, and I have come here tonight to tell you how the task measures up, as I look at it, and to tell you how I, at any rate, think that task ought to be tackled. [Applause.]

President HARTSHORNE. On some informal occasion JOHN LONDON MACADAM was dining in company with Sir WALTER SCOTT when he offered this toast; "To Sir WALTER, the colossus of literature." Immediately Sir WALTER replied; "To JOHN LONDON MACADAM, the colossus of roads." [Applause.] The wonders of the modern world are not confined to seven, for surely our industrial development, our manufacturing achievements and the merchandizing of its products are certainly among such great wonders, and when we find a man who is a master of each, a manufacturer as well as a merchant, we may well consider that he belongs to the colossal class. Such a man we have with us tonight, a member of this Association, the president of the National Association of Wool Manufacturers, one who is well known to you all. I have the great pleasure of presenting Mr. WILLIAM WHITMAN.