Courses of study of this sort in a specialized field are offered in colleges usually at night for students who are in active business during the day. With more or less extensive additions in scientific, literary, and linguistic fields they become the curricula leading to baccalaureate degrees as represented by Type III, to follow. Large private institutes or schools conducted for profit and also correspondence institutions offer similar courses. Other groups of studies in particular fields are: in banking, in transportation or traffic, in sales management, including advertising and salesmanship, and in foreign trade.
A group in Foreign Trade will typify this sort of course of study, which differs from the one in Accountancy just given because the make-up will be determined wholly by each institution quite independent of legally established professional standards.
TYPE II. TO PREPARE STUDENTS FOR WORK IN A SPECIAL FIELD, FOREIGN TRADE
Principles of economics
1 term, 3 hours a week—48 hours
Economic resources of the U. S.
1 term, 3 hours a week—48 hours
Commercial geography
1 term, 3 hours a week—48 hours
Money and banking
1 term, 3 hours a week—48 hours
Foreign exchange
1 term, 3 hours a week—48 hours
Foreign credit
1 term, 2 hours a week—32 hours
International law
1 term, 3 hours a week—48 hours
Tariff history of the U. S.
1 term, 2 hours a week—32 hours
U. S. and foreign customs administrations
1 term, 2 hours a week—32 hours
Export technique
1 term, 2 hours a week—32 hours
Practical steamship operation
1 term, 2 hours a week—32 hours
Marketing and salesmanship
General course 1 term, 2 hours a week—32 hours
Special courses as desired on South American Markets,
Mediterranean Markets, Russian Markets, Northwest Empire
Markets, etc.
Foreign Languages:
Practical courses in Conversation and correspondence in French,
Spanish, Portuguese, German, Russian, etc., according to market
in which trade is specialized, at least
4 terms, 3 hours a week—192 hours
Total (in 2 years, with weekly schedule of 10 or 12 hrs.)
672 hours
A special course of this sort usually leads to a certificate but not a diploma or degree. Obviously the technical aim is very prominent, though civic and cultural benefits of no mean character will of necessity be derived. New groups will be found as new fields of business become important and develop definite, recognizable requirements of a scientific sort. Naturally each such specialty goes through the usual evolution and contributes its philosophical distillation or essence to the cultural college course.
When we come to the construction of a curriculum leading to a bachelor's degree in business, economics, or commerce, we have the problems of the engineering schools. Just how far will specialization be carried, in what sequence will the foundational subjects and the specialties be taken up, and to what extent will other more general subjects not directly contributing to a technical end be admitted? In most institutions of good standards the degree is regarded as representing not only technical proficiency in business but also some acquaintance with science, politics, and letters in general. The question (already an old one in schools of engineering) arises then concerning the best way to arrange the special or distinctively business subjects in relation to the more general. Although there are a number of variations, two outstanding types are recognizable. We may devise labels for them: the vertical curriculum, which offers both general and special courses side by side right up through the college course, and the horizontal, which requires a completion of the whole or nearly all of the general group during the first two years of college before the special subjects are pursued in the last two.
TYPE III. VERTICAL TYPE OF UNDERGRADUATE CURRICULUM, LEADING TO THE DEGREE OF B. S. IN ECONOMICS
Entrance: College entrance requirements.
Requirement for graduation: 74 units, of which 40 must be in general business and in liberal subjects, with 34 in specialized fields of business activity, to be taken after the freshman year.