der to
determine the forms and the limitations under which business energy
shall be expended, and how do they differ from those followed a
generation ago? Take the other side of the efficiency ratio: toward
what results are we trying to have business energy directed? Again,
what are the instruments with which society is enforcing its purpose?
How effective are they, how effective are they likely to become?
Finally, what bearing will this social effectiveness or lack of
effectiveness have on standards of business efficiency for the
generation about to begin its work?

Even though we cannot answer these questions to-day, we have, to-day,
the task of educating the generation that must answer them. More than
this, the education we provide for the generation about to begin its
work will determine, in no small measure, the kind of answers the
future will give. It is, therefore, of great importance that in our
ideals and our policies for educating future business men we should try
to anticipate the social environment in which these men will do their
work.

We are in the habit of speaking of the present as a time of
transition--the end of the old and the beginning of the new. In a very
real sense every period is a period of transition. Society is always in
motion, but that motion at times is accelerated and at other times
retarded. Clearly we are living now in a period of acceleration--a
period which must be interpreted not so much in terms of where we are,
as of whence we came and whither we are going. This means that we
cannot hope to prepare an educational chart for the future without
understanding the past.

In our study of business we are always emphasizing the "long-time point
of view," and we fall back upon this convenient phrase to harmonize
many discrepancies between our so-called scientific principles and
present facts. On the whole, we are well justified in assuming these
long-time harmonies, but it will not do to overlook the fact that many
important and legitimate enterprises have to justify themselves from a
short-time viewpoint. Of more importance still is the fact that in this
country enterprises of the latter sort have predominated in the past.
This circumstance has a very marked bearing on the nature of our task,
when we try to approach business from the standpoint of education.

There are strong historical and temperamental reasons why
nineteenth-century Americans were inclined to take a short-time view