PERSONALITY

Evening Post, Volume CX, Issue 131, 1 December 1930, Page 9

PERSONALITY

A FACTOR IN SUCCESS

UNIVERSITY SETS UP CHAIR

(From "The Post's" Representatives.) 'VANCOUVER, 29th October. A Chair of Personality has been established at New York University. Hitherto, educational thought has left the development of personality in the student to his association with other students and the faculty and a study of the humanities.. But it is thought more should be done in respect of an essential factor of success in a man's life than to allow him to pick up such knowledge in a'-casual fashion. Personal qualities arc held to.be th& complement o£ the possession of. knowledge and'skill, especially in business. The Dean of the new faculty, discussing the proposed curriculum, says: "A formal organised course of information on personality improvement would help to focus the attention of every student -on. the fact that certain personal qualities will pray an important part in his success in life. It would show him the material value to him in his profession or business of such qualities as trustworthiness, loyalty, correct and easy speech, initiative, tact, accuracy, and the other qualities that go to make up that sum total of a man known as "personality." Moreover, in such a course ho might be taught how to analyse himself to ascertain what his weaknesses are, and how it may be possible for him to overcome them. "I am not suggesting that such a course will enable a man who has a drab personality to develop ono of a commanding nature. But it may help a man who is suffering from diffidence to become aware of the fact and show him how such a defect may be- remedied, at least in part. Nor do I suggest that the purpose of such a course is to train a man in good manners. Perhaps the most that can bo expected is to make the students' awarq of the value to themselves of these personal qualities, and thus supply them with a motive for improving these qualities in th em solves."