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"History of Eau Claire County Wisconsin, 1914, Past and Present"


Chapter  25 - The Public Schools of Eau Claire


by W. H. Schulz


Eau Claire Business College

(-As transcribed from pages 429 - 431)

For more than one-quarter of a century this school - the Eau Claire Business College- has offered instruction in those educational subjects which specially prepare the student for office and business responsibilities.

The first years of its steady growth it made under the name of the School of Shorthand and Business, when it changed hands, and its curriculum was broadened.

This college was the first to risk its fortunes with the promising and ambitious little city of Eau Claire twenty-seven years ago.  With the city it has grown, doing its share toward making it the attractive educational and business marte which it has become - the gate city of the great Chippewa valley and the largest and most important city of western Wisconsin.

Located fortunately, opposite the new postoffice, on South Barstow street, and in its own fine brick building, the college building challenges the attention of all who pass, and its elegantly furnished and well-equipped lecture rooms and commercial halls proffer a welcome to all visitors and to all who seek to make substantial preparations for a business career.

The rapid expansion in business the last twenty years incident to the unparalleled development of the western and northwestern portion of the United States has completely changed the business ideals of the vast majority of men.  Strenuous competition has evolved new methods of business and erected other standards of doing business, and the essentials for an education have concurrently grown.

To meet this change, the Eau Claire Business College has kept in close touch with the progress of the years, advancing steadily its standards that those who received their business training within its walls might go out and reap the richest reward offered to intellectual toil.

Having this policy as its guiding star, nothing obsolete nor antiquated prevails in its lecture rooms.  Its methods of instruction belong to this day and the most capable teachers are engaged to amplify those methods.

Its textbooks are modern and conform to the highest standards; its commercial curriculum has taken on the best approved methods of accounting, and its normal instruction is equal to the best, whether given in high school, normal school or university.

This school may rightly claim a proud place among those educational forces which are making Eau Claire a city educationally equal to any in the Northwest.  Its thousands of graduates are now in business or in the offices of business firms, graciously extending the influences of the institution among the expanding communities of this wide West.

Upon investigation, it has developed that the Eau Claire Business College sustains a curriculum and a staff of teachers far in advance of any other college of its kind in this state.  It aspires to prepare young men and young women for business.  It holds that to simply make them accountants or stenographers is to but half prepare them for the exalted demands of this business age.  So it carefully prepares them in all those subjects which are called into requisition by the accountant, the stenographer, the business manager, the director in corporations, a member of the civil service and the leader in society.

This standard which the Eau Claire Business College sets for itself places it in a class of its own.

Nor does it allow its superior standards of education to shut out those who seek to improve themselves - even a little.  It welcomes those who, having had few educational opportunities, and having small means, would improve their condition, and it, by special personal instruction, helps them to a better conception of the world of affairs.

In a word, this institution seeks to lend a helping hand to everyone who comes within its walls.  Its faculty, every member of which is a university trained teacher, is imbued with the idea of service - service that uplifts physically, morally and intellectually.  It places its arms around the boys and girls who are entrusted to its care and protects them while it educates them.  Good homes are provided for them, their conduct and company are carefully observed, and those influences that uplift are thrown around them.

During the college year just past, for the purpose of giving a wider margin to the students' intellectual vision, a course of lectures has been provided, to be given by prominent educators and leading business men.  These were delivered before the whole school.

Thus it will be seen that the welfare of the student body is uppermost in the minds of the faculty.

As conducted, this college takes rank with the most advanced schools of the state.  And the best word that can be said for it is that, commendable and substantial as has been its progress, its program calls for larger triumphs in its chosen field.
 

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