TWENTY FIVE YEARS

Twenty five years ago Harvard University began the experiment of teaching the methods of business administration to college graduates. Measured by the endorsement which it has received from business men, the success of its graduates, and the extent to which its methods have been adopted in this country and abroad, the quarter century has been a success. Like the Law School before it, the Business School has seen its system of instruction overcome a dead weight of tradition and distrust. It is today generally followed by business schools everywhere. The statistical service which it supplied to students of economics, and its regular reports on business conditions, long enjoyed a unique popularity. Within the framework of our business civilization, it has probably functioned almost perfectly.

But the practical achievements of the Business School are not in themselves a complete vindication of its existence. The economic system which it served is today in a state of near-collapse, and has been repudiated by a large number of people. If its instructions were based on any assumptions of the fundamental soundness of capitalism, those assumptions are now called into question. The Business School, like the economic world in general, will have to reconsider its course for the next quarter century.

In this respect, the men who are enrolled today and tomorrow, are particularly fortunate. They will have during the next two years an unexcelled opportunity to study intimately and critically the workings of American business, in that atmosphere of intellectual freedom which is the finest tradition of the university. Certainly fundamental theory should bulk at least as large as practice in the Business School. Otherwise it could not be justified as a part of a liberal university. And the chief aim of the School--to raise business to the rank of a profession--will be realized only when business attains to the surety of purpose and the disinterested service, which should characterize a genuine profession.