GRADUATES AND INDUSTRY
Sta,—Mr. B. R. 0. Bell raises old problems in an up-to-date guise. He asks, somewhat rhetorically, " Arc the needs of industry and commerce for management and administration different from those of the Army and the Civil Service?" The short answer 'is probably, " Yes." Skill in administration is now recognised as different from technical skill, but it does not follow that there arc therefore vacancies for people trained as " managers " with no technical background. The background and organisation of the public services (including the Armed Services) and business are so widely different that different qualities arc called for. One man may make good in both ; it is equally probable that another may be a success in the one sphere and a complete failure in the other.
The number of vacancies for "assistant general managers" is'obviously limited. The arts graduate should have a broad viewpoint, but he has not a monopoly of it ; the science graduate and the person trained in business have also good claims to participate. The other posts mentioned —as secretaries, accountants, &c.—require prolonged training, and the arts graduate is little better placed to begin it than the youth of sixteen. Usually he has neither the time nor money for it, especially if his gradua- tion has been delayed by national service.
The supply of arts graduates has always greatly exceeded the demand, but the fault does not rest with the business-man. The basic trouble rests in the false equation. made between the classification of children at the age of eleven for teaching purposes and the vocational needs of the same five years later ; it being tacitly but quite unreasonably assumed that a child intelligent enough to be selected for a grammar school will therefore want to go to a university and (probably) a profession. For this biased and quite unjustified assumption blame must be laid squarely on the shoulders of our educational administrators. If the problem is to be solved, it must be tackled from this angle, though its solution will hardly give much consolation to present and past generations of arts
graduates.—Yours faithfully, DOUGLAS W. FRANKLIN. 20 Smithwn Downs Road, Purley, Surrey.
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