Excerpt from Railway Problems: Edited With an Introduction
This collection of reprints, like its predecessor, Trusts, Pools, and Corporations, is directed to the accomplishment of two purposes: not alone to render more easily accessible to the interested public, valuable technical material upon a question of paramount interest and importance at the present time, but also to facilitate the work of the college instructor in the economics of transportation. The worst evil of modern academic life, particularly under the elective system, is that the student may so seldom be called upon to think for himself; - not merely to "cram" and memorize, to absorb information predigested by an instructor, but rather to actively use his reasoning powers in effecting recombinations of ideas. Mere passive contact for a brief period of life with cultivating influences and high ideals, as exemplified in books, general environment, and, it is to be hoped, instructors of the right sort, tends to produce the dilettante, unless at the same time the mind is constantly invigorated by action. This is especially true of the economic and social sciences. To provide material, preferably of a debatable sort, which may be worked over under discussion in the class room, instead of being merely committed to memory, constitutes the pedagogical aim of this book. Some of the extracts, especially the historical ones, are of course not susceptible of such treatment. They are merely reference readings for convenient use. But the others, notably the decisions of the Interstate Commerce Commission, usually provide debatable matter of an admirable sort. This is peculiarly true of cases or decisions with a dissenting minority opinion. Another advantages which many of these economic cases possess, over proposition in mathematics, logic, or even laws, as material for training the intelligence, is that they are always charged with human, and often with great public, interest and that they incidentally involve an acquaintance with the underlying business condition and trade of the country at large.
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This book is a reproduction of an important historical work. Forgotten Books uses state-of-the-art technology to digitally reconstruct the work, preserving the original format whilst repairing imperfections present in the aged copy. In rare cases, an imperfection in the original, such as a blemish or missing page, may be replicated in our edition. We do, however, repair the vast majority of imperfections successfully; any imperfections that remain are intentionally left to preserve the state of such historical works. Это и многое другое вы найдете в книге Railway Problems (William Z. Ripley)