/96 INTERNATIONAL CONGRESS OF EDUCATION. 
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I'HE HIGHER ASPECTS OF BUSINESS EDUCA TION. 
ABSTRACT OF A PAPER BY R. E. GALLAGHER, HAMILTON, ONTARIO. 
No amount of mere intellectual knowledge will render a man educated 
n any high or proper sense of the term. The test of education is action, 
nd the educated man is he who has all his faculties strong and active so 
that he can perform his part rightly and effectually in the world. The 
honest, the truthful, the upright man, imbued with right principles of 
industry and economy, is in every proper sense of the word better educated 
for life than one who has taken degrees at a university, or who has a 
‘ull acquaintance with all the systems of ancient and modern philosophy, 
ut who is without those qualities. This education is well within the 
province of the business college, and, as will be seen, ig of the very highest 
sharacter. 
While the business college may be said to be a technical school, educat- 
ng in a special direction, its field is nevertheless a broad one, for every 
person needs some training in the processes of doing business. You all 
understand how much is lost, how much evil results, from the want of 
cnowledge of the ordinary methods of transacting business on the part of 
farmers and artisans. It is possibly as important, or more important than 
tor the young men who go as clerks or bookkeepers in the business 
houses, for such young men can get a knowledge of business from their 
employers. These have teachers over them, and they are thus trained 
wd promoted in the degree that they take on training ; but the man 
andertaking to manage a farm or carry on a mechanical business of any 
sort seldom has an opportunity for such elementary training as is given 
:0 a clerk by his employer, and he feels the want of it all his life. 
Indirectly (if not in all cases directly) the business college is a great 
sthical school. Many schools have the subject of commercial ethics on 
sheir curriculum of study, and by the use of text-books and lectures the 
students are specially trained in ethics ; but whether the science of ethics 
is made a special study or not, bookkeeping as taught in the business 
colleges is one of the grandest exponents of the economic relations of 
society. Dr. Anderson says : A good set of books, well kept, is in reality 
a series of an exact and certain number of rights and obligations; the 
rights on one side and the obligations on the other. This is the more 
important, as men in general are much more cautious in caring for their 
rights than for their obligations. That is a clear-headed and trustworthy 
merchant who keeps his obligations always less than his rights ; that is 
to say, where he has rights enough to meet, and more than meet, his 
obligations. Now this is a mere matter of ethics.” All business con-