EDUCATIONAL REVIEW APRIL, 1918 I TRAINING FOR FOREIGN SERVICE HOW HISTORY MAY AID The Commissioner of Education of the United States has stated that "the home is the primary and fundamental educational institution. If education in the home fails, no other agency can make good the failure," since the children of the United States are in schools less than four per cent of their time from birth to twenty-one. Accepting this statement conversely, the responsibility of the school assumes a relative importance in our present era of social and economic demands far greater than ever before. These social and economic needs are not stable; they are changing before our very eyes, however constant the social ideals and economic policy of the nation may be. Not only the home as at present organized but the tenacious traditions within the established home exclude it largely as a social agency from participating in the preparation for careers in industry, trade, commerce, and public service. American business has depended upon and has been built up thru prominent traits of the American people, namely, initiative, self-reliance and independence. Business has been largely recognized as an opportunity and not as a career or profession. Naturally, training for business was impossible in the schools, as such training could only be something coincident with the experience of one engaged in business. So long as our business was largely domestic and the energies of the nation were absorbed in the constructive carrying out of internal policies, industry and commerce could prosper despite the shameful waste due to a lack of proper training in even the basic essentials of business. In recent years, however, the highest ethical thinking of the nation as well as economic advantage have encouraged cooperation within business itself and between business and other factors or agencies essential to its success. Looking backward, one can see how the establishment of the Land Grant Colleges changed our notions in regard to the purposes and value of special training. Still circumscribed and territorially delimited so far as trade is concerned, our nation was assuming a commanding position in the fields of intellectual and scientific endeavor, in friendly rivalry with the leading nations of the world. Our culture, narrowly defined, was placing itself upon an international plane. This culture, however, was academic and not practical. Nevertheless this higher plane of thinking encouraged specialization in training as preparation for the so-called learned professions. This group, relatively small, less than two per cent of the population of this country, has set an example by which American business is now seeking to profit, in encouraging the establishment of adequate courses of instruction with vocational intent for a part of our population that is in excess of thirty per cent. The ethical aim is admirable, the economic gain will be incredible. The present war has directed our attention to practical international problems and has served to crystallize our thinking as to the importance of foreign missions and of business as a career. There is everywhere apparent the increasing desire that thru the cooperation of government, business, and education, constructive thinking of the leaders in these three fields of activity leads to the early establishment of adequate courses of instruction on foreign relations, wisely articulated and coordinated in relation to social and economic needs, not only of this nation but of the great confraternity of nations, the birth of which we can plainly foresee with the conclusion of this war. The President in a notable address in December, 1916, before the Social Insurance Convention in Washington pronounced as a historian, with due sense of perspective and the recent crises in the life of this nation, his belief that our people have ceased to be absorbed in politics and are now concerned profoundly with questions of social and economic interest. Whether we believe or not that the constructive legislation of this administration is a concrete response to this demand, wrought with political foresight and wisdom, this pronouncement on the part of the President demands the immediate and serious attention of the educators of this country. We are facing a condition and not a theory. The arraignment on the part of business of our educational system should be heeded. Reforms will be brought about here as in everything else, proceeding naturally thru successive stages of apathy, counter-charges, and constructive measures. We must consider education not only as an end in itself, but in relation to careers. We should discontinue the practise of leaving to mere experts in pedagogy the final word in regard to methods and study content not only of commercial branches, but of related academic subjects like language, mathematics and history. Emphasis should be put upon the essential differentiation of a study-group for business, domestic and foreign, with universal opportunity for pursuit on the part of the student but with vocational guidance, and taught by those who have had at least some practical experience in their subjects of instruction. Only in this way will terms cease to be mere definitions; will young men and young women be able to enter upon their life career whenever circumstances may demand it with å vitalized technique helpful as basic training for the many specialized units into which business is divided today, or with a larger meaning of service in the higher posts of commerce and government at home and abroad. The National Foreign Trade Council was formed in May, 1914, as a permanent body "to endeavor to coordinate the foreign trade activities of the nation." Shortly afterward, a committee on commercial education for foreign trade was appointed by the Council to investigate the needs of business and opportunities in the schools with respect to foreign trade. The report of this committee, based on an investigation in the field of business, was read at the third annual convention of the Council in New Orleans in January, 1916. In it the committee states, first, that Americans are adaptable to needs of trade but that there is difficulty in obtaining young Americans to engage in foreign trade owing to a disinclination to expatriation; second, that there is lack of specific training for foreign trade, particularly with reference to foreign languages; and third, that American provincialism is a hindrance. Speaking of the lack of training in the fundamentals, the committee concludes its report as follows: It is "the general opinion that the education in such fundamental subjects as English, arithmetic, and geography is imperfect and that the product of our school system is lacking in earnestness, accuracy and discipline. If this criticism is as fully justified as so many seem to feel, it is obviously of the greatest importance and must be thoroly considered in any program of education which shall equip our coming generation to appear to advantage in competition with the representatives of other nations in which such work has been thoroly done for so many years." In an address before the Educational Conference on Training for Foreign Service, held in Washington, December 31, 1915, the director of the consular service stated that this service was made up of 1,672 persons consisting of consulsgeneral at large, consuls-general, consuls, subordinate officers, such as vice-consuls, consular assistants, interpreters and consular agents, and a large number of clerks. Of this number, confined largely to the higher posts, only 385 belong to the classified civil service. Regulations governing admission have been in force only about nine years. Examinations are held in the following subjects: 1. International, Maritime, and Commercial Law; 2. Political and Commercial Geography; 3. Arithmetic; 4. Modern languages (French, German or Spanish, and in addition any other that the candidates desire to submit); 5. Natural, Industrial, and Com mercial Resources and Commerce of the United States; 6. Political Economy; 7. American History, Government, and Institutions; 8. Modern History (since 1850) of Europe, South America, and the Far East. Mr. Carr stated in his address that the principal functions of the consuls of the United States are as follows: To promote the rightful interests of American citizens, to protect them in all of the privileges provided by treaty or conceded by usage; to vise, and when so authorized, to issue passports; when permitted by treaty, to take charge of and settle the personal estates of American citizens who die abroad without legal or other representatives; to ship, discharge, and under certain conditions to maintain and send home American seamen; to settle disputes between masters and seamen of American vessels; to investigate charges of mutiny and insubordination on the high seas and to send mutineers to the United States for trial; to render assistance in the case of wrecked or stranded American vessels, and under certain circumstances to take charge of the wrecks and cargoes; to certify to the correctness of the valuation of merchandise shipt from foreign countries to the United States; to act as official witnesses to marriages of American citizens abroad; to aid in the enforcement of the immigration laws; to enforce the sanitary laws of the United States in respect to vessels, cargoes and passengers; to take depositions, and to perform all other acts which notaries public in the United States are required or authorized to perform; to promote American commerce by keeping the Government and thru it the business men of the United States informed in regard to economic and industrial conditions abroad, aiding in the marketing of merchandise in foreign countries, and in making connections between American and foreign commercial houses. In the countries where the United States still possesses extraterritorial rights, the consuls exercise judicial functions in respect to American citizens and their property. The president of the National Foreign Trade Council, Mr. James A. Farrell, president of the United States Steel Corporation, addrest likewise this same conference, speaking |