'HE EVOLUTION OF BUSINESS COLLEGES. 789 
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thousand pupils, sustain to the present condition of progress all along the 
lines of enterprise and activity. 
The Columbian Exposition of 1893, as it is spread before our eyes in 
this great metropolis of the West, is the legitimate product of education ; 
not of a particular school, or class of schools, but of the reaching out of the 
human mind in all directions, and of making effort effective through the 
processes of education. Fifty years ago there were not only no business 
colleges, but there were no kindergartens, no trade schools, no specialties 
of study and research requiring a distinct curriculum and aiming in a 
large way at a distinct end. If a boy wanted to learn a trade, he must 
spend from four to seven years as an apprentice, and even then he was 
not so well equipped as would be the graduate of one of our trade schools 
after a year’s instruction. If a young man desired to become an account- 
ant, he must begin in a store as an errand boy, work his way up tediously 
0 a clerkship, and in some surreptitious or favored way by contact with 
the bookkeeper, master the principles and attain the practical knowledge 
which would place him in the line of promotion. 
The business colleges have changed all this; first, by knowing exactly 
what is required in the counting-house, and next by supplying that 
knowledge in the most direct and positive way. The future bookkeeper 
or financier, instead of spending years tediously in approaching to the 
desired attainment, can now, by contact with masters in their special 
lines, gather not only the underlying principles, but enforce by real prac- 
ice the knowledge requisite for the high duties upon which he is to 
enter ; so that there is to-day no more of a question as to the qualifications 
of a graduate of a genuine business college for the duties upon which he 
is to enter, than there is as to the graduate of a literary college, the medi- 
cal college, the theological seminary, or the law school. After fifty years 
of growth side by side with other departments of education, the business 
college to-day, in its best estate, is guilty of no presumption in challenging 
the confidence of the community. Thus it is that we come into this con- 
vention of educational specialties without apology, and with a full and 
clear sense of our right to the honor that has been given us. 
It would be a pleasing task for me, had I the time and the occasion 
favored, to compare the work of the business colleges with that of other 
aducational enterprises, each standing upon a distinet idea and looking to 
3 distinet end. I should be glad to show that in this effort of ours we are 
simply co-workers in the educational field with all earnest and honest men, 
that the work we have undertaken to do we mean to do well, and as its 
importance grows upon us by the demands of our constituency and the 
expectations of the public, we mean to be able to meet all the require- 
ments. It has been said elsewhere, and on different occasions from this, 
that we are the gleaners of education, and when that designation is defined 
bo cover the facts, there is no higher or more honorable position to be