THE New Zealand Herald. AND DAILY SOUTHERN CROSS, WEDNESDAY, APRIL 24, 1907. COMMERCIAL EDUCATION.

New Zealand Herald, Volume XLIV, Issue 13470, 24 April 1907, Page 6

THE New Zealand Herald. AND DAILY SOUTHERN CROSS, WEDNESDAY, APRIL 24, 1907. COMMERCIAL EDUCATION.

The extension of scientific methods into every bi%nch of civilised life is J nowhere more marked than in con- •• nection with Commerce, which was . only comparatively recently regarded as governed by very irregular laws, or by no laws at all, and was pursued in a haphazard fashion which has cost the British Empire a very ' considerable part of its trade. For foreign nations, particularly the Germans and the Americans, driven by their natural eagerness to win the foremost place in the world's com- '• merce from their British rivals, were shrewd enough to perceive the existence of scientific principles governing the rise and fall of trading nations and to study them in a practical manner, while the United Kingdom still persuaded itself that the beginning and the end of economic wisdom was contained in , the adage for buying in the cheapest and selling in the dearest market. 11 'But of late years a great change has come over the situation, and throughout the Empire all modern universities are including Commerce among their leading subjects. The beneficent effect of this is already - observable in Britain, as will be . seen from the interesting and instructive observations made by Dr. W. C. McDowell, who visited Lon--9 don as Auckland delegate to the Conference of Chambers of Com- , merce. These observations formed the gist of an interview with which he favoured a representative of the ' Herald, a report of which interview appears in to-day's issue. It will be - learned with pleasure that, thanks s to the new educational movement, foreign languages are now being generally used in the commercial correspondence of London houses by other than foreign clerks,, and thai the young men of the United Kingdom are regaining possession of tiheir own commercial opportunities. But the using of foreign languages is but one instance of the effect oT modern commercial education. Commercial students obtain a grasp of trade and business, and a knowledge of the conditions governing supply and demand, which is already being reflected in the more modern spirit that animates British commercial firms, and in the more practical methods advocated by British statesI men. We may confidently anticipate the day when British manufacturers will supply what colonial customers require as readily as do German and American manufacturers, and when it. will be recognised throughout the Empire that the temporary gain to the individual purchaser by ''dumping " is not sufficient compensation I for the ruin of an industry, and when j reciprocal support will be as regard- | ed among kindred and friendly nations as it : has always been among associated and friendly firms. For a great variety of reforms, in the management of armies in the field as of nations at home, must inevitably follow upon the general diffusion of the j scientific commercial spirit. | The Auckland University College has participated in this laudable movement for some considerable time, thanks to Dr. McDowell and those of his colleagues who have fought the battle of modernity against antiquity. Them should have been no need for this battle, seeing that 110 thoughtful man or woman,

on the .University Council or off it, has anything but respect for the classics in which ire embodied so much of the Arts and not a little of the Science of two great civilisations. But however much we may aspire after Culture, and however much we may admire "Art for Art's sake," it is impossible, impracticable, and undesirable to narrow down the university idea to pedantic limits. A true University, the only University possible in a new colony or among a people confronted by the hard necessities of existence, is on© which will provide, as far as possible, the highest education on every line followed by the community supporting it. It is a fine thing to conquer the Past, to realise the art of the Greeks and to decipher, character by character, the riddle of Egypt-; but it/ is a still finer thing to conquer the Present and thus to set sure and strong the foundation of a majestic civilisation beside which the Greeks may indeed be as children and the Egyptians a caste-ridden mass of uncouth barbarians. To divert the intellect of our young men by an undue exaltation of the place of classic lore, while a whole realm of practical sciences lies almost unexplored before them, would be a most fatal error. There should be every opportunity to study the classics open to those who have a bent in that direction, but there should be equal opportunity to study the sciences upon which depend our very existence among the civilised nations, our actual future in the civilised world. Of these sciences that wihieh deals with Commerce is as imperative among a commercial people as those which deal with manufacturing, with mining, with navigation, are among a manufacturing or a mining or a seagoing people. Xor is there any city in the world to which Commerce .promises more than it does to Auckland, if we will only study it sufficiently to be able to take fortune by the flood as it comes our way. For our city is built upon a- site peculiarly adapted for a great Pacific emporium. With the most fertile and productive districts in the colony as its natural back country it sits in the fairway of trade between the Americas and Australasia and well towards the centre of the great oceanic basin around which the dominating nations of the future are steadily ranging themselves. As Dr. McDowell points out, when the Panama Canal opens, or when the development of Mexico creates the shortest oossible route between Australia and Britain, Auckland will be still more in the way of the world's trade. So that 110 attention which we may pay to commercial education can be too great, for it will enable our trained eommercialists to take advantage of every point in the ceaseless struggle for pre-eminence that goes on between one country and another, and will richly profit the community by preventing it from losing trade by sheer ignorance of the conditions that govern it. The fostering of Commerce by the Auckland University Council may seem of comparatively little value at present, but in the future it will' bear fruit in the sustained prosperity of our city, a prosperity in which every man and woman and child of it will share.