BRITISH BUSINESS

Nelson Evening Mail, Volume LXIV, 8 January 1931, Page 7

BRITISH BUSINESS

FIGHTING FOR LIFE EDUCATED MEN NEEDED GREATER INDUCEMENTS I am one of those people who believe that the greatest hope for a dominant Britain in the future depends on the extent to which business 'goes to the public schools for its recruits, writes Sir Herbert Morgan, in the “Sunday News.” Do not accuse me of snobbery or prejudice when I say that the public schools are getting 50 per of the best material in this country. That is a fact, I think, beyond dispute. But this great stream of youth is not being turned into the channels in which it cim best serve the country. In a word, business is not getting its fair share of the product of these great schools. In almost every other branch of service they produce the country s leaders —-soldiers, sailors statesmen, politicians, clergy, lawyers—hut business, which, after all, is the biggest thing in our life to-day ,_ whether we like it or not, is practically ignored. I have no intention of entering into a discussion as to which side, business oi schoolmastering, is mainly responsible for this state of affairs. It is easy to say that the schools cultivate a cloistered life, detached and out of touch with world realities, and just as easy to add that many business men arc somewhat contemptuous of the. practical value of public school education. THEIR NEED That sort of thing gels us nowhere. It is much more to the point to emphasise that at the present time, as all through their history, the public schools have definite objects in view for thenboys —the universities, the services, professions generally, and the work of the State —and they achieve these objects exceedingly well. I feel sure that, given a similar spur to act ns a recruiting and training agent for business, they would be equally successful. .People always ask me in this connection to lay down a curriculum. Well, I think that is the schoolmaster’s .lob rather than the business mans. But in any case I am not so much concerned with the curriculum as with the spirit—the spirit to regard business as a great and vital State service, and not a mysterious and rather dishonest world; the spirit to give spontaneously to onr great business men something ot the hero-worship now reserved for soldiers sailors, airmen and sportsmen ; the spirit to sweep away the snobbery that to he “in trade” is something to be ashamed of. Long before you come to think of business curricula and specialised traming in the public schools you have to get the hoys to realise that men like the late Lord Leverhulme, Mr George Cadbury, and Sir William Morris, to name only a few, represent as high a form of patriotism and public sen-ice as exists. “HEROES” They have blazed the trail for British products throughout the world; they liave given employment to thousands of people; they have helped to make the country prosperous. They are heroes. Get the public schoolboy to regard them as heroes and you have done a real service. -. , . 1 believe that business men have it m their power to 'give a scheme of this, sort a great start on the road to sue--! cess. They are always calling out for £IO,OOO a year men. Supposing that a group of business men devoted one £IO,OOO a year man’s salary to the creation of 40 posts each year at a salary of, say, £250, available to public school hoys as the result of examinations, just as is done with the civil service at present. . Would that not create the incentive that is now lacking ? It would make business a definite object for boys ana masters alike. At the moment it is not, because there is no nexus between business and the public schools as theic is in the case of the professions, the services, and the civil service. If you have ever attended a public school prize day you may have noticed that the achievements of which the authorities are the proudest is Lne number of scholarships their boys have won at the universities. The heacLmaster apparently is not concerned with the number of soundly-educated boys who are leaving, hut with the number leaving to take up scholarships at this or that college. The fact is that this competition for money prizes underlies the whole system, and the curriculum is based on the almost exclusive recognition of those studies which are necessary to gain that form of success.

EQUALLY KEEN With some sort of money prize in business I think you will get the hoys and masters equally keen, and 1 reel sure the success the teachers have achieved in training their charges for those vocations that are their. special aim will be repeated when business is added to the list. The curriculum I leave to others, out there are a few points that come to languages are invaluable, but only when allied to the other essential correspondence” should be taught. The average business man s letter is dull and stupid beyond belief. You want a blending of originality and “literature” with commercial directness. A really good business letter can be so effective. . ~ ~ Commercial geography . is another vital subject. A boy should know the per capita expenditure of the Brazilian, the Australian, or the Dane just as he knows the date of the battle of Hastings. He should study the daily lile ot the peoples of the world, know what they manufacture, what they expoit, what they import, and why. Holiday tours abroad will help to broaden his outlook and bring him into contact with other people. Courses will have to he devised to develop clear thinking, ability to express oneself, and close observation, all of which are most, vital. WORLD WAR FOR TRADE Details, however, arc best left to the schooLmaster. It is his job, and you can be sure he will do it thoroughly when he is convinced there is a definite opening for hoys in business and when the spirit of the great public schools is more attuned than it is at present to the idea of trade and commerce as a great and honourable calling. We are fighting for our lives m tracle as much as we did during the war. Ihe nation which can produce the best ana most scientifically-trained men of business will head the commercial world. It is a serious thing to say, hut I say it in all earnestness, that unless we get the public schools to answer the call of big business, that dominant nation will not be Britain. EafTYeaston Tablets. They make you healthy and active daily, releasing new stores of energy—Nees, Chemist, Hardy street.