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قراءة كتاب Higher Education and Business Standards

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Higher Education and Business Standards

Higher Education and Business Standards

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دار النشر: Project Gutenberg
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to locate and difficult to apply. Even the broad lines of social and business policy are not always clear, and the probable trend of future policy is still less clear.

Just what are the principles that are being worked put in order to determine the forms and the limitations under which business energy shall be expended, and how do they differ from those followed a generation ago? Take the other side of the efficiency ratio: toward what results are we trying to have business energy directed? Again, what are the instruments with which society is enforcing its purpose? How effective are they, how effective are they likely to become? Finally, what bearing will this social effectiveness or lack of effectiveness have on standards of business efficiency for the generation about to begin its work?

Even though we cannot answer these questions to-day, we have, to-day, the task of educating the generation that must answer them. More than this, the education we provide for the generation about to begin its work will determine, in no small measure, the kind of answers the future will give. It is, therefore, of great importance that in our ideals and our policies for educating future business men we should try to anticipate the social environment in which these men will do their work.

We are in the habit of speaking of the present as a time of transition—the end of the old and the beginning of the new. In a very real sense every period is a period of transition. Society is always in motion, but that motion at times is accelerated and at other times retarded. Clearly we are living now in a period of acceleration—a period which must be interpreted not so much in terms of where we are, as of whence we came and whither we are going. This means that we cannot hope to prepare an educational chart for the future without understanding the past.

In our study of business we are always emphasizing the "long-time point of view," and we fall back upon this convenient phrase to harmonize many discrepancies between our so-called scientific principles and present facts. On the whole, we are well justified in assuming these long-time harmonies, but it will not do to overlook the fact that many important and legitimate enterprises have to justify themselves from a short-time viewpoint. Of more importance still is the fact that in this country enterprises of the latter sort have predominated in the past. This circumstance has a very marked bearing on the nature of our task, when we try to approach business from the standpoint of education.

There are strong historical and temperamental reasons why nineteenth-century Americans were inclined to take a short-time view of business situations. Our fathers were pioneers, and the pioneer has neither the time, the capital, the information, the social insight, nor the need to build policies for a distant future. The pioneer must support himself from the land; he must get quick results, and he must get them with the material at hand.

Every one of our great industries—steel, oil, textiles, packing, milling, and the rest—has its early story colored with pioneer romance. The same romantic atmosphere gave a setting of lights and shadows to merchandising and finance and most of all to transportation. Whether we view these nineteenth-century activities from the standpoint of private business or of public policy, they bear the same testimony to the pioneer attitude of mind.

Considering our business life in its national aspects, our two greatest enterprises in the nineteenth century were the settlement of the continent and the building-up of a national industry. In both these enterprises we gave the pioneer spirit wide range. With respect to the latter, industrial policy before 1900 was summed up in three items: protective tariff, free immigration, and essential immunity from legal restraints. This is not the place to justify or condemn a policy of laissez-faire, or to strike a balance of truth and error in the intricate arguments for protection and free trade; nor need we here trace the industrial or social results of immigration. We need only point out that the policy in general outline illustrates the attitude of the pioneer. The thing desired was obvious; obvious instruments were at hand—immediate means used for immediate ends. From his viewpoint, the question of best means or of ultimate ends did not need to be considered.

In building our railways and settling our lands the pioneer spirit operated still more directly, and in this connection it has produced at the same time its best and its worst results. The problem of transportation and settlement was not hard to analyze; its solution seemed to present no occasion for difficult scientific study or for a long look into the future. The nation had lands, it wanted settlers, it wanted railroads. If half the land in a given strip of territory were offered at a price which would attract settlers, the settlers would insure business for a railroad. The other half of the land, turned over to a railroad company, would give a basis for raising capital to build the line. With a railroad in operation, land would increase in value, the railroad could sell to settlers at an enhanced price and with one stroke recover the cost of building and add new settlers to furnish more business.

In its theory and its broad outline the land-grant policy is not hard to defend. The difficulties came with execution. We know that in actual operation the policy meant reckless speculation and dishonest finance. We know that no distinction in favor of the public was made between ordinary farm lands, forest lands, mineral lands, and power sites. We know that the beneficiaries of land grants were permitted to exchange ordinary lands for lands of exceptional value without any adequate quid pro quo; and we know that there were no adequate safeguards against theft.

Wholesale alienation of public property was intended to secure railroads and settlers, but the government did not see to it that the result was actually achieved. Speculation impeded the railways in doing their part of the task, while individuals enriched themselves from the proceeds of grants or withheld the grants from settlement to become the basis of future speculative enterprises. All this seems to show that in execution at least our policy from a national standpoint was short-sighted. Careful analysis and a more painstaking effort to look ahead might have brought more happy results.

And how about the railroads from the standpoint of private enterprise? A railway financier once described a western railway as "a right of way and a streak of rust." The phrase was applicable to many railways. Deterioration and lack of repairs were, of course, responsible for part of the condition it suggests, but much of the fault went back to original construction. It was the wonder and the reproach of European engineers that their so-called reputable American colleagues would risk professional standing on such temporary and flimsy structures as the original American lines. Poor road bed; poor construction; temporary wooden trestles across dangerous spans—everything the opposite of what sound engineering science seemed to demand. Why did not the owners of the roads exercise business foresight to provide for reasonably solid construction?

What seems like an obvious and easy answer to all these questions is that both the Government and the road were controlled in many cases, as the people of California well know, by the same men, and these men were privately interested. As public servants or as officers of corporations they were supposed to be promoting settlement and transportation; as individuals they were promoting their own fortunes. This result was secured by the appropriation of public lands and the conversion of investments which the public lands supported. That this sort of thing occurred on a large scale and that it involved the violation of both public and private trusts is fairly clear.

Public sentiment has judged and condemned the men who in their

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