The true basis of efficiency / by Lawrence R. Dicksee.

  • Dicksee, Lawrence Robert, 1864-1932.
Date:
1922
Catalogue details

Licence: In copyright

Credit: The true basis of efficiency / by Lawrence R. Dicksee. Source: Wellcome Collection.

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    standing of the real problems with which he is faced. Time spent in the unnecessary collection of data is time wasted. It is, therefore, essential to the complete success of the scheme of Commerce Degrees to provide not merely text-books, but text¬ books specially adapted to the various parts of a somewhat elaborate syllabus. On some subjects, a literature exists sufficient in quantity, though not always in the form most suitable for the student of commerce; in others there is nothing whatever which can be used as a summary or working basis. This is notably so in regard to the trade and the local economic organisation of many countries or areas within the scope of the syllabus, while there are also wide gaps to be filled in the literature dealing with special aspects of industry, trade and shipping. To fill such gaps is one purpose of the series. There are other purposes, however, almost equally important. The series may be regarded as an offshoot, a development on special lines of the existing series of general studies in Economics published by the School, the limits of the offshoot being laid down by the syllabus for the degree in Commerce. Within these limits there is a wide field, and the provision of text-books, though important, represents only one side of the work to be carried on. The formal text-book is necessary, but tends in use to produce mechanical methods. Such tendency may be corrected in lectures, but there is room in a series of text-books for occasional studies of wider or deeper range, on special problems, or for a critical treatment of existing literature as a guide to methods of study. Here, too, the written may supplement the spoken word; it may take the place, among a wider public, of the lecture or discussion. The main purpose of such studies must not be so much to inculcate facts as to pro¬ duce an attitude of mind, to encourage sounder and deeper thought in the handling of existing material.