Higher Education and Business Standards   By: Willard E. (Willard Eugene) Hotchkiss (1874-)

HIGHER EDUCATION AND BUSINESS STANDARDS. By WILLARD EUGENE HOTCHKISS.

CREATING CAPITAL: MONEY MAKING AS AN AIM IN BUSINESS. By FREDERICK L. LIPMAN.

IS CIVILIZATION A DISEASE? By STANTON COIT.

SOCIAL JUSTICE WITHOUT SOCIALISM. By JOHN BATES CLARK.

THE CONFLICT BETWEEN PRIVATE MONOPOLY AND GOOD CITIZENSHIP. By JOHN GRAHAM BROOKS.

COMMERCIALISM AND JOURNALISM. By HAMILTON HOLT.

THE BUSINESS CAREER IN ITS PUBLIC RELATIONS. By ALBERT SHAW.

HIGHER EDUCATION AND BUSINESS STANDARDS

By

WILLARD EUGENE HOTCHKISS

DIRECTOR OF BUSINESS EDUCATION AT THE UNIVERSITY OF MINNESOTA

BOSTON AND NEW YORK HOUGHTON MIFFLIN COMPANY The Riverside Press Cambridge 1918

COPYRIGHT, 1918, BY THE REGENTS OF THE UNIVERSITY OF CALIFORNIA

ALL RIGHTS RESERVED

Published March 1918

BARBARA WEINSTOCK LECTURES ON THE MORALS OF TRADE

This series will contain essays by representative scholars and men of affairs dealing with the various phases of the moral law in its bearing on business life under the new economic order, first delivered at the University of California on the Weinstock foundation.

HIGHER EDUCATION AND BUSINESS STANDARDS

Last summer, when we reached California for a year's sojourn, we had the good fortune to secure a house with a splendid garden. A few weeks ago, after the early warm days of a California February had opened up the first blossoms of the season, our little five year old discovered that the garden furnished a fine outlet for her enterprise, and she soon produced two gorgeous I will not say beautiful bouquets. Barring a certain doubt about her mother's approval, she was well satisfied with her achievement, she felt a sense of completeness in what she had done and well she might, for she had not left a visible bud.

There is a strong tendency to go at business the way Helen went at the garden. She knew what to do with bouquets; raw material for making them was within her reach; what more natural than to turn it, in the most obvious and simple way, into the product for which it was designed. From her standpoint such a procedure was entirely correct she was making bouquets for herself and her friends; every one in her circle would share the benefit of her industry.

Whenever in the past business enterprise has proceeded from a similar viewpoint, we have stood aside and let it proceed; it was not our garden; we were quite willing to take the rôle of disinterested spectators. Recently we have discovered that it is our garden; we have learned that we are not disinterested; we now see that business plays a large part in the life of every one of us. That being the case, we assume the right to question its processes, its underlying policies, and its results. We are gradually coming to think of business in terms of an integrated and unified national life. We desire the national life to be both wholesome and secure.

What the public really wants from business, then, is a contribution to national welfare, and it has become convinced that, by taking thought, it can make the contribution more certain and more uniform than it has been in the past. Many business men share this view; with varying zeal they are trying to work out standards of organization that will insure the kind of regard for general welfare which the public has come to demand.

This is the new idea in business; it has already taken deep root; but it needs to be further developed. We have the difficult task of reducing an idea to a practical working plan. How shall we go about it? Fortunately the idea itself contains a hint for further procedure. A new attitude in business must be coupled with a new attitude in public policy.