790 INTERNATIONAL CONGRESS OF EDUCATION. 
taken. It is one of the conditions of the building up of our schools, that 
we cannot choose our pupils. To a certain extent, we may exclude those 
whose lack of qualifications would be a bar to their progress, but ordinarily 
sur charitable intent impels us to accept, to a greater or less extent, those 
who have been left by other schools, and who need the instruction which 
will enable them to enter upon life armed and equipped as best they may. 
The business colleges in the country are restricted in their work by 
responsibilities thrown upon them to make accomplished accountants and 
accomplished correspondents. An accountant must understand thoroughly 
and practically not only how to keep books, but how to manage financial 
affairs, and how to discharge the duties of citizenship. It has been one 
of our delightful privileges, during the past few years, to qualify girls for 
positions as stenographers and correspondents. To be a stenographer and 
a correspondent is not simply to be able to write shorthand with facility 
and transcribe it correctly, be able to understand and write an English 
sentence correctly ; but to these some knowledge of business affairs must 
also be added. I think I may safely say that the course of study which is 
carefully laid out and practiced in all the departments of our best busi- 
ness colleges is clear, positive, intelligent ; that its faithful administra- 
tion will secure the best results of education; and beyond this, the 
opportunities which come to this class of schools, and which I feel it 
incumbent on me to say are the greatest opportunities which occur in life 
for the advancement of the highest interests of young men and women, 
are not lost sight of, nor underestimated. 
There is an important part of our duty as educationists that is not 
mentioned in any public curriculum and cannot even be designated here, 
and that is the duty which one human being owes to another; the duty, 
above all, which a teacher owes to his pupil, to know the ordering of his 
mind, to come into harmony with his thoughts and his purposes, and in 
shat faithful and conscientious discharge of duty which must ever be the 
stue teacher’s patent of nobility, to direct the mind to healthful channels; 
to put it into harmony with the best thoughts and the best purposes ; to 
kindle the spark of self-conscionsness and personal responsibility, and, in 
short, to lay the foundations of a noble life. I have said that this part of 
our work cannot be put into a curriculum, cannot be formulated in words, 
and that its existence in any school through the ordinary means of investi- 
gation cannot be ascertained ; but knowing intimately, as I do, those who 
are engaged in this work, and the principles that govern them, I feel 
compelled to say that not only have the business colleges of the country 
established their right to stand as special agencies in education, but that 
the work thev have undertaken isin good hands.