Three Vocational Methods 281 



has been called the cultural method. It has aimed 

 at high advancement in book learning with the 

 thought of finally enabling the student to enter a 

 professional class comparatively few in numbers 

 and supposed to possess a superior advantage over 

 the great mass of human kind. One fault of this 

 method has been to emphasize learning for its own 

 sake and to defer too long the training of the individ- 

 ual in the material and practical side of his calling. 



But the chief fault of this cultural method has been 

 its contempt for common labor and ordinary industry, 

 its theory being that true education prepares one to 

 avoid such practices. If the young man wished to 

 prepare for law or medicine or teaching or the 

 ministry, one of the "learned professions," then 

 the old classical school was at his service. But if he 

 would become a mere artisan or industrial worker, 

 there was no advanced course of schooling available. 



3. The developmental method. The third and 

 newest method of preparing the young person for 

 his vocational life is in reality a compromise between 

 the first and second. It provides that the learner 

 shall have book instruction and industrial training 

 at the same time, and that both of these are to be 

 regarded as cultural, since taken together they 

 prepare for independence of thought and action, and 

 for the vocation, as well. This new method of 

 preparing young people for their life work would 

 call nothing mean or low. It aims to serve all 



