Education: Dr. Reilly’s Thoughts

In 1932, at the bottom of Depression I, surprised-looking President William J. Reilly of the National Institute for Straight Thinking began to think hard about educating businessmen. After six years of research in straight and crooked reasoning, Dr. Reilly declared that the Institute had achieved a formula for Straight Thinking in Business. In Manhattan’s Biltmore Hotel at 7 a. m. one morning last week, the Institute sprang Lesson No. 1 on 60 students, mostly admen of the questing, high-pressure type with whom Dale Carnegie’s courses werepopular. Dr. Reilly called the First Annual Straight Thinking Breakfast a “mental showerbath.” As the pupils nodded over grapefruit, cereal, ham & eggs, coffee (price: $10), he revealed his formula: “1) Separate facts from opinions and look at the facts from the standpoint of who, what, when and where. 2) Arrive at an intelligent definition of the real problem and do not jump from an opinion to a conclusion without reasoning. 3) Consider carefully all possible solutions of the problem. 4) Accept the solution which has the largest number of advantages and the fewest disadvantages.”

Other speakers: Professor (economics) Nathaniel Waring Barnes of Columbia University; William Kenneth Anderson, Research Director for Lament, Corliss & Co.; Russell Young (Young & Rubicam Advertising Agency) ; Lee H. Bristol (Bristol-Myers Co.). President Mortimer Berkowitz of The American Weekly said darkly: “Most people do not think at all.”