of commodities rather than the performer of a direct personal service, and his ethical code partakes rather largely of the code of the seller. Most bankers properly regard themselves as business men and banking as a business rather than a profession.

Investment banking, as carried on by the great private banking houses, is even more a business than commercial banking. To be sure, the investment banker deals in the same general kind of commodity as does the commercial banker, and quite commonly both kinds of banking are carried on by the same establishment. The principal difference for the purpose in hand is found in the fact that, whereas the commercial banker exchanges his own credit for that of the individual customer, the investment banker more commonly sells the credit of one customer-a business corporation or a government-to another customer, the purchaser of stocks or bonds. This is, of course, exactly what the banker does when he floats, or helps to float, an issue of stocks, bonds, or notes by finding a market for the issue among his customers. When he acts as adviser to his customers, as he commonly does, the service of advice has the nature of a profession. But in the end this service resembles that performed by the mercantile service departments already referred to. The service is secondary to the selling, and good workmanship is exhibited rather more in selling the customer what the banker has to sell than in serving the ultimate interests of the customer. The broker likewise is a business man. He is essentially a buyer and seller of merchandise, even though the goods he sells are stocks and bonds and other types of paper. We rightly speak in our daily conversation of brokerage as a business, for its ethics/ is that of business, tinctured only a little, and often not at all, with the professional standard of conduct toward the customer and a rudimentary code of propriety respecting competitors.

Lest the reader feel that the functions of yet another group of business men have been neglected in the foregoing paragraphs, it may be pointed out that those who are salaried managers in other lines of work than selling-factory managers and highly paid mechanical superintendents, for instance-who are regularly looked upon as business men, are in reality only contributing agents to the selling end of business. The aim of a business establishment is to

make a profit by selling. To accomplish it administrative and technical efficiency are necessary. The aim of good workmanship among managerial and technical experts in business is the maintenance of efficiency in these directions. In this is to be found their service. Hence to the extent that a low code of ethics prevails in the selling of the product it is likely to affect also the functioning of those who contribute to the selling. Selling is the end they work for. It is merely performed, not by themselves directly, but by others connected with the same organization.

On the financial side of business the university school of business has a service to perform exactly like that which awaits it in business in general. It is not improbable that among bankers there is a larger proportion who understand the functional relation of their business to the welfare of the community than among other business men; but even so this point of view needs the utmost emphasis for bankers because they are business men, and within the sphere of influence of the business code are prone to lose sight of the principle of service. To an even greater extent is this true of brokerage. There are fewer visible labor problems confronting financial business, but some of the deeper-seated difficulties are present. There are always the problem of efficiency, as related to health and good feeling, and the need of opportunity for the instinct of workmanship. It is an interesting development in the curricula of university schools of business that they have a tendency to emphasize most the financial side of business, for which their services are on the whole least needed if the welfare of the public is the thing at stake.

It is necessary to point out, in fact, that, if the functions attributed to them in the foregoing paragraphs are the ones whose performance is most needed, these schools have in many cases been doing their proper work only partially, or not at all, if their published curricula are any criterion of the actual content of their courses. It is true that university catalogues are likely to describe the content rather than the spirit, the succession of topics rather than the point of view, which make up their courses, but there are more reliable indications of the actual situation. The spirit and the point of view, which are the soul, if not the sum and substance,

of public service in these schools, will display themselves in the books and other literature given to print by those who serve as instructors. These are discouraging. It is evident that those who write, who carry in consequence more than their numerical share of the weight of influence, are more interested in giving the business man what he wants, or needs, to be a competent business man than in training young men just nearing the end of the plastic and formative stage of development to be leaders in public service, even though in business. If it be retorted that this is what the school is for, the only reply is that it has then missed its main excuse for existence. It is worth while, no doubt, to increase efficiency in business. But efficiency is a relative term. Efficiency for what? If the rejoinder be

For successful selling or successful service? made that successful selling is successful service, it is countered with a denial qualified only to this extent, that a reduction in the cost of making or of selling goods due to better organization and administration will redound to the benefit of the public if the industry is competitive, since it will ultimately lower the selling price; which means only that the economic forces comprehended in the term "competition" will prevent the business man from beating his customers and the public-in the game by so large a score as he might otherwise attain. This is, no doubt, an accomplishment worth while. If the industry really is competitive we gain after a time. If it is not competitive we can, by legislation properly enforced, prevent any serious loss. But it is better to tame the leopard before we set him loose than to beat the forest for him. afterward.

Efficiency is a much-abused term. Efficiency in business is not equivalent to effective satisfaction of the wants of the community. Efficiency always implies a standard. Hence business efficiency is efficiency according to business standards. Efficient selling is the business goal, not efficient service. Efficient organization and administration mean reduction of cost and price, but the main thing they mean to the business man is easier selling of his product as against that of his competitors, actual or potential, and so an easier profit. If our university schools of business do no more than train young business men to acquire increased efficiency

in this sense, they have performed only a partial service at best, for it is possible that this same efficiency may be turned against the public in the concentration of management that makes the usually predatory trust. Efficiency that is irresponsible and conscienceless has already wrought sufficient evil in the world to make at least an open question of the wisdom of increasing this sort of efficiency in business.

There is no intention here to attack the work of these schools along the line just indicated, except as concerns the matter of standards. Their sins are mainly of omission. It is the end toward which the efficiency they induce is directed that is under question. Nor is the criticism mainly against the content of their curricula. It is the spirit and the point of view that will mainly make or mar their work from the standpoint of public service. If built upon a sufficient amount of functional economics, such as might be given in the usual college course, the curriculum content needs little change. Efficient organization and administration are more desirable than ever when turned to public service. Even a system of socialism with no private business would have need of facilities for giving special training in industrial organization and administration. It might need them more than we do now. The things that are lacking are chiefly matters of emphasis, spirit, and point of view.

There are, of course, conditions of success or failure for the university school of business as for other institutions. Many an inventor has failed because he could find no market until his capital was gone, and it is entirely possible that a like fate might befall our schools of business administration if they begin to supply a commodity that does not fit the needs of business as the business man of today sees them. If the young man who enters the business office from our schools has too many "fool notions" he ceases to be in demand. Here is the making of a real problem. Those who are trained in our university schools of business seldom enter business as managers and usually have no opportunity to dictate business policies. They begin their careers as clerks and understudies and have forced upon them the viewpoints of their superiors. This has been an important source of difficulty in the past. Our

colleges are forcing-beds of idealism, and many a boy has gone out filled with a genuine desire to apply ideals of service in business only to find himself promptly squelched by sordid-minded superiors. Even those young men who find themselves in positions of authority have to answer to stockholders and other interested persons whose sympathies are with profit-making only. And even if unrestricted in either of these ways the young man may have to meet all the craft and guile of unscrupulous and more experienced competitors and go down in the struggle before he has an opportunity to make known sufficiently the service standards he endeavors to maintain.

Here is, in fact, the greatest problem the university school of business has to meet. If its graduates cannot succeed it will fail to draw students except those of very inferior caliber. If the men it sends forth acquire a reputation for "fool notions" business will refuse to make use of them. It has a commodity to market and is subject for its success to the operation of factors of supply and demand. It may suffer also for lack of financial support. How can a school which cannot draw students, cannot place them afterward if they come, and cannot secure financial support become an important factor in upbuilding the ethics of business? The situation is not quite so hopeless as it seems. The physician sugar-coats the pill the patient might otherwise not take. To change the mores of the business man, the habitually accepted practices and points of view that seem to him right and proper, that constitute his accepted code of ethics-this is a staggering task indeed and probably not to be accomplished except by the process of infiltration. It is not with the men now in business that the hope for changing business ethics lies, but with the young men who are soon to take the places they leave vacant. It may be necessary to sugar-coat the curriculum to insure that the patient will take it. If our schools grow and the body of men trained in the profession of business increases, we may in time accomplish the end desired. Such a process is always slow and usually discouraging to those who undertake it, but the end is worth any effort, however great.

Fortunately there are factors at work to aid the process. In increasing numbers our young men and women are entering institutions of higher education and going out with ideals of service and