DEPARTMENT OF BUSINESS EDUCATION SECRETARY'S MINUTES FIRST SESSION.-TUESDAY, JUNE 28, 1904 The session was opened in the auditorium of the Mines and Metallurgy Building, Universal Exposition, at 2:30 P. M., by the president, Cheesman A. Herrick, of Philadelphia, with an address on "Old Wine in New Bottles." This was followed by a description of the commercial exhibits at the Exposition by Carl C. Marshall, author and publisher, of Cedar Rapids, Ia., under the title "The Work of the Private Commercial Schools as Illustrated in the Exhibits at the St. Louis Exposition." The topic was discussed by Robert C. Spencer, president of Spencerian Business College, Milwaukee, Wis,; George W. Brown, Jacksonville, Ill.; Peleg R. Walker, superintendent of schools, Rockford, Ill.; and President Edmund J. James of the Northwestern University, Evanston, Ill. The last speaker of the session was Miss Minnie Bronson, superintendent of elementary and secondary education, Department of Education, Louisiana Purchase Exposition, who read a paper on "The Resources of the United States as Illustrated by the Louisiana Purchase Exposition." The president then appointed the following Committee on Resolutions: William C. Stevenson, of Maryland. Enos Spencer, of Kentucky. The department adjourned to Thursday, June 30. SECOND SESSION.-THURSDAY, JUNE 30 The second meeting of the department was called to order at 2:30 P. M. by VicePresident H. B. Brown. The topic for the session, "The Report of the Committee of Nine," was taken up as follows: 1. "From the Standpoint of the Independent School of Commerce," by James J. Sheppard, principal of the New York High School of Commerce, New York city. 2. "From the Standpoint of the General High School," by Bertrand DeR. Parker, principal of high school, Rockford, Ill. General discussion, led by J. Remsen Bishop, principal of Walnut Hills High School, Cincinnati, O. Discussion followed, led by D. W. Springer, of Ann Arbor, Mich., chairman of the Committee of Nine. Mr. Springer then presented the following: REPORT OF THE COMMITTEE OF NINE Your committee was requested at the last meeting to complete the contemplated monograph so that it might be available for this session. We would respectfully report that during this month the same has been issued as a publication by the University of the State of New York, being Bulletin 23 in Series K, the price of which is 20 cents. We desire to express our thanks to the regents of the university for affording the means of placing the same before the commercial teachers of this country. D. W. SPRINGER, Chairman. It was voted that the report be accepted and the committee discharged. The Committee on Resolutions presented a report which was adopted. President-W C. Stevenson, Decatur, Ill. The department then adjourned. THOMAS H. H. KNIGHT, Secretary. PAPERS AND DISCUSSIONS PRESIDENT'S ADDRESS-OLD WINE IN NEW BOTTLES CHEESMAN A. HERRICK, DIRECTOR OF SCHOOL OF COMMERCE, CENTRAL HIGH SCHOOL, PHILADELPHIA, PA. It has been the experience of many of those here gathered to be called upon to explain just what is meant by the kind of education for which this department stands. I have thought it might prove profitable, and certainly it will not be uninteresting, to attempt a statement of the relations of the new and the old in our system of thought. I have pleasure, therefore, in inviting your attention to the theme of the old wine of culture in its relation to this later age in which we are called upon to live and work. The Hebrew "speaker in assemblies" declared that there is no new thing under the sun, and affirmed of a thing thought to be new that it hath both been long ago in the ages which were before us. At times we talk of new schools of art and literature, and new systems of education, as tho they were real things, and yet when we begin to examine the old and note comparison, we find that the supposed new is surprisingly like that which has preceded, and that in all branches of modern life we are only living up to the accomplishments and the promises of the long ago. But more than this, the development of the later age is necesssary that we understand the full meaning of what was earlier written or done. Of genius it may be said that it expresses eternal truth, but in a language often unintelligible to its own time. It is only the unfolding of life in a later age that gives the data from which can be understood the larger meaning of a great truth. Poets were long ago reputed to express wise things which they did not themselves understand. The supreme achievement of literature is the universalizing of an era-the projection of an age, and the binding of it both to the past and the future. Thus it is that truly great writings are always modern; thus life is unfolding, and each epoch furnishes the experiences that enable us better to understand the universal truth of earlier times. It is eminently proper that our department, one of the latest and upto-date sections of the National Educational Association, should regard the relation of the present to the past. Men of the present talk as tho they were the originators, or creators, of many things of which they are, after all, only the inheritors and perfectors. The modern loose-leaf ledger, and card-index ledger systems are but an adaptation of the clay-tablet method of keeping accounts, practiced in Babylonia more than four thousand years ago. The Babylonian tablets were superior to the modern devices in that they did not require fireproof safes. Seals, witnesses, consideration, security, and many other phases of modern contract proceedings are all found in the early dawn of history. As one looks farther, he sees that many so-called modern business customs find their precursors and their suggestion in practices of the hoary past. If for a moment we turn our thought to the economic organization of modern society, there is little to excite our admiration by way of newness. Economists talk of trusts as an essentially modern phenomenon, and assure us that they are the consequence of new methods in the production and exchange of goods; but on examination we find that the monopoly privilege has been bestowed upon their favorites by rules from time immemorial, and they were bestowed for the same reason, and their operations were actuated by the same motives, that lie back of the modern monopoly. The Tudors in England kept giving additional privileges until necessities as well as luxuries were in the grasp of those moved by their own greed rather than the public good. Iron, oil, vinegar, coal, starch, leather, yarn, glass, and many other articles. were included. No sovereign bestowed monopolist privileges more freely. than did Elizabeth, and no event of her remarkable reign is more striking or fraught with larger meaning than was her withdrawal of these privileges on petition from the Commons. Legislation for the regulation of monopolies was enacted in the time of James I., but the abuses did not disappear. The whole question was later discussed by Sir John Culpeper in a speech before the Long Parliament. He gave a list of monoplies and particularized as to their influence, speaking in general terms that present anti-trust agitators might find suited to express their sentiments: They are a nest of wasps-a swarm of vermin that have crept over the land; they sup in our cup, dip in our dish, sit by our fire. These are the leeches that have sucked the commonwealth so hard that it is almost hectical. A case still cited as precedent was brought in the English courts; it was to dissolve a monopoly for the sale of playing cards, and, as reported by Coke, is still termed "the case of monopolies." Late decisions to dissolve mergers and the like are in accord with the reasons for dissolving this monopoly as is given in the report of Coke: a monopoly in restraint of trade is against both the common law and numerous legislative acts. But provisions for the control of monopolies are older than the rise of the English law. The economic conditions from which monopolies grew were found in the ancient world, and monopolies have existed from a very early time. Zeno, the prefect of Constantinople, found conditions not unlike those of our own period, and in 483 A. D. he issued an edict that, if enforced, would likely have made him the greatest force for the control of trusts of which we have any knowledge. In an age of attempted trust control the message from Zeno cannot fail to interest: We command that no one may presume to exercise a monopoly of any kind of clothing, or of fish, or of any other thing serving for food, or for any other use, whatever its nature may be, either of his own authority, or under a rescript of an emperor, already procured, or that may hereafter be procured, or under an imperial decree, or under a rescript signed by our majesty; nor may any persons combine or agree in unlawful meetings that different kinds of merchandise may not be sold at a less price than they may have agreed upon among themselves. Workmen and contractors for buildings, and all who practice other professions, and contractors for baths, are entirely prohibited from agreeing together that no one may complete a work contracted for by another, or that a person may prevent one who has contracted for a work from finishing it; full liberty is given to anyone to finish a work begun and abandoned by another without apprehension of loss, and to denounce all acts of this kind without fear and without costs; and if anyone shall presume to practice a monopoly, let his property be forfeited and himself condemned to perpetual exile. And in regard to the principals of other professions, if they shall venture in the future to fix a price upon their merchandise and to bind themselves by agreements not to sell at a lower price, let them be condemned to pay 40 pounds of gold. Your court shall be condemned to pay 50 pounds of gold if it shall happen, through avarice, negligence, or any other misconduct, the provisions of this salutary constitution for the prohibition of monopolies and agreements among the different bodies of merchants shall not be carried into effect. Thus, as our boasted new age is not so new, so our heralded modern economic problems are not so modern. Nor do the statements just made detract from the interest or importance of the present. Truly great work in literature, music, architecture, etc., has been characterized by a singular lack of originality. The pre-eminent literary genius of the English race was so wanting in this particular that his authorship has been called into question. Both language and subject-matter of his plays follow other writings which had preceded. In addition to the use of the chronicles of Holinshed and Hall, and the North Plutarch which had just appeared, Shakespeare drew largely from legends and traditions current at the time he wrote. A modern scholar has found the single eastern tradition of the merchant of Tyre which was used by Shakespeare, in at least a dozen languages and literatures, and in all of them it exists with but slight variation.1 In music the facts are not less striking. Wagner did not, as is often thought, create his art out of his own personality; he but put the stamp of his genius upon much that preceded him, and his service to the world was in his ability to unify, co-ordinate, and re-express the work of other men. But in the midst of a great architectural triumph we can better understand the dependence of modern architecture upon the work of other ages and other peoples. We have sometimes felt that architects are too slavishly following the tastes and styles of earlier times. Greek, Italian, Renaissance, Gothic, Spanish, and Colonial are terms and styles known even to the uninitiated. Modern buildings are largely cast in the molds of the builders of the long ago. SMYTH, Appolonius of Tyre ("Publications of American Philosophical Society"). This interrelation and interdependence of past and present may become a unifying principle for the study of history, and, when it is adopted, history is a subject of first importance. The practical value of this subject has been questioned, but correct notions of what history is will promptly remove all question. The past calls forward to the present, and the present calls back to the past, in so many ways that history is found to be one, and this organically related in all its parts. Many of the so-called problems of the present have been met in the past, and important contributions made toward their solutions. Then let us hesitate before dismissing historical studies from schemes of edu. cation that are practicable in aim. Again, modern developments make us better able to understand the history of the long ago. The commercial era in which we are living has contributed the data, both in range of experience and interest, to make antiquity real. The writer found a new flood of light thrown on Greek tradition and history when he came to a study of the industry and commerce of Greece as part of the great world-movements in the evolution of production and trade. Jason and his Heroes in quest of the Golden Fleece indicates the early commercial spirit of the Greeks and their interest in the rich products of the Euxine and the lands beyond. Either an actual fleece used as a sieve to catch the particles of gold held in the water, or priceless fabrics "woven in the land of sunshine," gave the basis for the tradition. The legend of Cecrops, his settlement at Athens, and the introduction of agriculture embody and symbolize the Egyptian influence in early Greek history; similarly, the legend of Cadmus and the introduction of the alphabet indicate the Phoenician influence. All of us, I am sure, have been mystified by the Trojan war stories, but when we see in that war an early illustration of the conflict between the East and the West, a conflict still going on, the war becomes more real. The rape of Helen meant what were likely frequent forays into the Ægean, with the plundering of property and the carrying away of Greeks as slaves. The Greeks were not safe so long as the powerful Trojan city occupied the outpost of Asia and fronted Europe. Troas had a strategic and commercial importance much greater in the ancient world than is the importance of Constantinople in modern times. Present interest in matters economic and commercial make us better able to understand the meaning of the war against Troy. All Greece did not go forth to recover one woman of questionable character, and to punish her abductor. Greece was fighting the battle for national existence and for the existence of a western civilization. It was this conception of the Trojan war that led a modern writer to say that, when understood, it was the one event of ancient history; but what I wish to emphasize is that it was an event of interest to us, and one which our interests enable us to understand. Let us remember that these and other traditions were born in the infancy of a race and a civilization. At such a time an influence could best be understood by impersonating it. In my family are young children to whom wind, rain, thunder, sun, and moon are persons, and these are always referred to as "Mr. |