Why may we not establish one such school of navigation in each of our large commercial towns, giving thorough and free instruction to such of our actual and prospective navigators and seamen as by means of valuable day teaching and evening lectures may be induced to attend? Surrounded, almost, by great oceans, gulfs, and inland seas; with greater total length of navigable rivers than all the countries of Western Europe put together; and having a foreign commerce whose aggregate value already equals $852,072,156; a domestic, lake and river commerce vastly superior to that of any nation in the world, and a future only limited by the wisdom with which we provide for it, we can hardly be too prompt, or too liberal and thorough, in making such provision in this department of education as shall insure to the country, in every branch of the commercial service, a class of navigators fully worthy of their important duties.

CHAPTER VIII.

COMMERCIAL, NAVAL, AND MILITARY SCHOOLS.

I. COMMERCIAL SCHOOLS OF THE UNITED STATES AND EUROPE-II. NAVAL AND MILITARY SCHOOLS OF THE UNITED STATES, ENGLAND, FRANCE, AND OTHER COUNTRIES.

I.-SCHOOLS OF COMMERCE.

UNITED STATES.

If schools of agriculture and the mechanic arts are essential to the advancement of those productive industries, it is no less demonstrable that schools are also important to commerce, which, by reason of its power to awaken and stimulate enterprise, multiply inventions, cheapen production, and establish relations of amity and intercourse among communities and nations, is thus really and directly a great civilizer of mankind.

At the late Exposition several of the great powers were represented by exhibits from their commercial schools-all of comparatively recent origin, and among the many hopeful signs of the times.

If, as is claimed by statisticians, a very small percentage of all who engage in commerce make it a permanently successful business-the vast majority either voluntarily escaping from it, or being drawn into the maelstrom of bankruptcy-is it because failure is absolutely unavoidable, or rather because it is an exceedingly difficult science, demanding, in addition to that ordinary discipline, culture, and information which every man ought to possess, a thorough acquaintance with countries, populations, and histories; familiarity with the conditions and processes of production; the nature and quality of materials and manufactures; knowledge of commercial law and international usage; and, more than all, a mastery of economical science in all its branches, and ability to cope with profound problems in social philosophy? Men of ordinary intellectual endowment, if thus qualified for commerce, would rarely fail except by reason of unavoidable disaster. That so large a proportion of those who engage in it do fail, is because so large a majority are totally ignorant of the first principles of the business.

I am aware that the attention of the American public has been more or less drawn to this subject during the past twenty years, and that within that period there have sprung up many schools intended to supply this great lack of the means of professional education. And yet it is a fact that cannot be disguised, that, while they do undoubtedly accomplish much good in the way of adding somewhat to the qualifications of hundreds of our young men who would otherwise enter into mercantile pursuits without any special qualifications whatever, very

many of the hundred and fifty "commercial colleges," whose names are emblazoned on the fronts of magnificent buildings in an equal number of our great cities, to say the very least, wear larger titles than the amount and quality of instruction they give fairly warrant.

One of the most remarkable of the commercial-school enterprises of this country is the organization, by several enterprising individuals. associated as an unincorporated firm, of what is styled the "Chain of international commercial colleges." This chain comprises in all forty-two schools, forty of which are located in the chief cities of the Union, from Portland to New Orleans, and the other two in Canada, at Montreal and Toronto. Being under the general direction of the proprietary company, they are severally managed in detail by local superintendents. By virtue of this association of schools under one head, the regulation is such that a student, after completing the course of studies in one, may again take them up and pursue them at another school of the chain without additional expense.

These several schools advertise to give thorough instruction in bookkeeping, including merchandising, jobbing, banking, &c.; commercial law, commercial arithmetic, penmanship, and business correspondence, and some of them also furnish occasional lectures on economical science. But the course of study necessary to a diploma (and in this respect I believe there is no difference between the chain and the other private and incorporated colleges of the country) embraces but four and a half months; which, in view of the fact that nothing more in the way of preparation for admission is required than a fair knowledge of the ordinary English branches, is certainly a very brief period for the study of so important and difficult a profession.

In none of our public schools are the foundation principles of commerce taught; and, so far as I am aware, none of our scientific and polytechnic schools provide so much as a brief or partial course preparatory to this profession. And yet, by geographical position and by the tastes of our people, we seem destined to a commercial career such as no nation of the world has ever had.

But the history of foreign countries in this particular gives warrant for the hope that this department of professional instruction will not always be neglected by us as now, since it is only lately that even the most forward of them have taken decisive steps in this direction.

FRANCE.

France has the honor of taking the initiative, and that at a period in the history of the country when the old prejudices against trade had just been strengthened by many years of war, and the whole people had been filled with ideas of the glory which comes of achievements in arms, to the exclusion, almost, of all just estimates of the honor as well as necessity of industry as the only sure basis of national prosperity and greatness; at a period, in truth, when commerce was despised and

hence almost abandoned to the more ignorant and unskillful men of the country.

The first special school of commerce was founded in 1819, at Paris, under the patronage and direction of the commercial firm of Messrs. James Lafitte & Co., generously seconded by a few other intelligent merchants of the capital, zealous for the advancement and elevation of their favorite pursuit. After encountering much opposition and discouragement from the great majority, who believed the counting-room the only proper school of preparation for business, and meeting still greater embarrassment from not being able either to determine just the combination that should be made of general and special studies in the programme of instruction, or to find competent and willing professors, these gentlemen at last conceived the happy idea of calling together a number of the most intelligent and liberal of the merchants, bankers, and industrial men, with some members of the Institute of France, for the purpose of determining, by comparison of views and a full discussion of the whole subject, what should be deemed the proper course of instruction as well as the best form of organization. As a result of these conferences an organization was formed under the title of council of improvement; an organization whose labors have been of the greatest value to the commerce of France, and which, being composed of some thirty of the foremost men of the country, whether in the department of science, of commerce, or of statesmanship, still continues its useful labors.

Thus fairly established in the public confidence by the high character of the men who engaged in the movement, this enterprise commanded the sympathy and concurrence of numbers of the principal merchants and bankers of the capital, who at first discouraged it; and at an early day the institution opened with nine competent professors, charged with giving instruction in the various departments of what was intended to be made the science and art of commerce. The school was intended for both boarding and day pupils. The term of study was fixed at two years; the minimum age of pupils at fifteen years. No one could be received at all for a less period than one year.

The instruction was given in three sections; each section or division being presided over by a special chief, under the supervision of a censor of studies. The first two divisions represented two distinct grades in the department of the elementary science of commerce, and had for their object the suitable preparation of pupils for the third; the line between the several divisions being so marked that no pupil could pass from one into the other without undergoing three several examinations, the first by the chief of his division, the second by the censor of studies, and the third by the director at the head of the school.

The third division was devoted to practice; each young man having a separate bureau, in which were his account-books, treasury, &c., and receiving a capital fund consisting of fictitious bank-bills engraved for the

use of the school, moneys of all kinds and values for change, and letters of exchange upon various commercial places in Europe. Each young merchant thus established represented some business house either in France or in foreign countries, and among themselves were carried on all forms of commercial business, as though the school had been the real world. To familiarize them with the different qualities of articles found in commerce, a museum was established in connection with the school, in which the pupils, as incipient traders, were made acquainted with the appearance and properties of both the honestly-produced or manufactured articles and the fraudulent counterfeits of them.

To this practical instruction was added the study of the living languages, especially French, English, German, and Spanish, each taught by professors to whom the particular language was native, and to whom also the whole vocabulary of commercial affairs was entirely familiar; courses in commercial law, political economy, statistics, geography, the history of commerce, &c. At the end of each year there were public examinations, at which the leading merchants, bankers, scientific professors, political economists, and the public generally attended, often to the number of one to two thousand persons.

The revolution of 1830 was the occasion of the school being closed for a time; but it was at length again opened in 1838, under the auspices of the minister of commerce, who had been struck with the great services it had rendered to the country, and who accorded a considerable number of pupil-bursaries and demi-bursaries as a means of enabling poor but meritorious young men to avail themselves of its benefits. Subsequently, in 1853, it was decreed that these bursaries should be accorded only to such as merited them by personal qualities and preparatory knowledge manifested at public competitive examinations held in the principal commercial cities; and that they should be renewed annually by thirds. This measure seems to have produced important results: first, stimulating ambition for excellence in the way of thorough preparation; and, secondly, by giving to the school a sort of national character, and keeping the importance of a study of the science of commerce before the youths of the empire who looked to it as their future pursuit.

Within the past few years some modifications have been made, however, and the bursaries, no longer deemed necessary, have been discontinued. There has also been a discontinuance of the use of the bankbills and fictitious moneys at first used, and some changes in the organization and régimé of the school, as well as in the distribution of rewards, &c. At present only boarding pupils are admitted, and the number of these is limited to 100. There are four dormitories, with private chambers, in which the pupils merely sleep, their entire active life being spent in common in the counting-rooms, in the amphitheaters, and in their recreations.

The prizes are awarded at the end of an annual examination, con