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COMMENT

An American Ideal

NO WRITER ATTRIBUTED

The fact that Harvard University has added Frank A. Vanderlip to the staff of its Graduate School of Business Administration, to serve "with no stipend" as lecture on business economics, shows the evolution of college instruction away from the old fundamentals of Greek and Latin. Apparently a shrewd appreciation of student demands has dictated the appointment. At an institution of learning which more and more "prepares" for a Wall Street career, the classroom of the former President of the National City Bank ought to be thronged.

In his special field the banker-professor will occupy a position analogous to that of a William James in psychology, of an Agassiz in natural history or a Lowell in literature. Will authorities in other lines of business, specialists in oil and in steel, be engaged in time as the industrial development of the higher education goes on? For the perfect balance of the curriculum, the services of a professor of other forms of finance, a "wolf of Wall Street" experienced in stock manipulation and pool operation, might be enlisted.

But is there to be a run on bank Presidents as other universities perceive the necessity of competing with Harvard in business instruction? The addition of "dollar-a-year men" eminent in finance to the faculties of American colleges will exemplify a curiously modern progress away from old ideals of a college education. New York World

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