THE BUSINESS SCHOOL

In his few words as he handed the keys of the Business School to President Lowell on Saturday, Mr. George F. Baker said the one essential thing: ". . . . it is not the outside of these buildings, but the standards of excellence that will have to be maintained in the work and training from the inside." To substantiate this plea Mr. Baker has presented the University with a million dollar endowment, to be used for salaries of the Business School Staff and the institution of an endowed professorship. Mr. William Ziegler Jr. has given an additional million for research in international relations. The future of the school appears aureate.

These new gifts, bequeathed with the same spirit of liberality which made these just dedicated buildings possible should be an incentive to the improvement of the Business School's present status. Two years are now employed to teach that which, according to the general conseusus of student opinion, could well be taught in one. The great necessity for the Business School, now that it has an unequalled opportunity for research and is provided with the proper facilities and machinery of organization, is progression--so that the course now offered will be changed from one in which the latter half is a mere reiteration of the former, to one whose instruction is never at any time static.

It may be argued that this novel science of business is, like the moving picture, in its infancy; that all is being taught that has been formulated into anything like teaching--that the rest will come and until then one must be content with the rudiments. This is possibly true but such an explanation does not account for the fact that the requirements for a Business School degree are to be met in only two years time. If the second year, which in strict proportion should be as valuable as the first and which in theory should be even more so, is only a repetition of the beginning, then it is unnecessary and undosirable. The probabilities are, however, that the present length of the course is the proper one, but the fault lies in inefficient arrangement of material. Whatever is the cause, Mr. Baker's and Mr. Ziegler's endowments are certainly a means to correction. The standard of excellence which Mr. Baker asked be maintained allows no room for periods of turgidity.