The Business Organization and Administration Course in the High School

Abstract

In the last few years many educators have considered the problem of bringing the high-school pupil into close contact with modern business in such a way that he may sense what men in business really do and realize something of the seriousness of life's work. The development of the science of business and the establishment of courses in business administration by many colleges and universities have paved the way for the introduction of a course of this kind in the high school. Two years ago such a course was introduced in the English High School, Lynn, Massachusetts. In the beginning it was decided that high-school boys and girls are not old enough to be trained to be business experts and that three periods a week do not provide sufficient time to attempt such training. The course was developed as an information course, its purpose being to bring the pupils into actual contact with business and to give them some idea of business as it is conducted today, so that they might choose more intelligently the fields of endeavor they wished to enter and, when at last at work, might see more clearly their relation and that of their fellowemployees to the business as a whole. The course dealt with three general topics: finance, production, and distribution. Under finance the pupil was familiarized with the ways in which capital is accumulated and with the methods employed by business men to obtain funds to conduct their businesses. The national bank, the trust company, the savings bank, the insurance company, the stock exchange, and the clearing house were studied in detail.