How different, for example, would have been the history of our great inventors had they all possessed that knowledge of business affairs which would have enabled them to put their inventions in a business like way before the world, or before the capitalists whose assistance they wished to invoke. The history of invention is full of illustrations of men who have starved with valuable patents standing in their names--patents which have proved the basis of large fortunes to those who were competent to develop the wealth that was in them. How often, too, do we see capable and ingenious and skillful mechanics confined through life to a small shop, or to a subordinate position in a large shop, solely through their inability to manage the affairs of a larger business. On the other hand, it is no uncommon thing to see what might be a profitable business--which has been fairly thrust upon a lucky inventor or manufacturer by the urgency of popular needs--fail disastrously through ignorance of business methods and inability to conduct properly the larger affairs which fell to the owner's hand.
Of course a business training is not the only condition of success in life. Many have it and fail; others begin without it and succeed, gaining a working knowledge of business affairs through the exigencies of their own increasing business needs. Nevertheless, in whatever line in life a man's course may fall, a practical business training will be no hinderance to him, while the lack of it may be a serious hinderance. The school of experience is by no means to be despised. To many it is the only school available. But unhappily its teachings are apt to come too late, and often they are fatally expensive. Whoever can attain the needed knowledge in a quicker and cheaper way will obviously do well so to obtain it; and the supplying of such practical knowledge, and the training which may largely take the place of experience in actual business, is the proper function of the true business college.
Our purpose in this writing, however, was not so much to enlarge upon the utility of business colleges, properly so called, as to describe the practical working of a representative institution, choosing for the purpose Packard's Business College in this city.