VOCATIONAL GUIDANCE 



6104 



VOCATIONAL GUIDANCE 



When, however. statisticians hr<ian to com- 

 pile and declare that scarcely more than one- 

 fourth the pupils who entered the first grades 

 ever reached the high school, that fully fifty 

 per cent never went beyond the sixth grade, 

 and that more than a million of such youths 

 annually filled the ranks of industry, many of 

 them totally unprepared for their work and 

 -:ng not even the rudiments of a com- 

 mon school education, it became evident that 

 the seventy-five per cent had some claim on 

 the school curriculum and the methods of school 

 organization. 



Private Enterprise to Reach Youth in In- 

 dustry. Already a beginning had been made 

 by the establishment of evening, trade and 

 technical schools through the activity of two 

 groups of agencies philanthropists and social- 

 improvement organizations working for the 

 uplift of the individual and society, and cor- 

 porations and industrial leaders seeking skilled 

 workmen, a dearth of w r hom had followed the 

 industrial revolution of the eighteenth century 

 and the consequent decline of the old appren- 

 ticeship system. There was, however, a grow- 

 ing conviction that the public schools also had 

 a share in this responsibility, and that boys and 

 girls should be reached before leaving school 

 and given some preparation for the work they 

 were about to undertake. 



Manual Training in Public Schools. Manual 

 training had become a part of the course of 

 study in the public schools, the cultural value 

 of "hand training" had been accepted by edu- 

 cators, and this work had progressed from the 

 secondary to the elementary schools; but the 

 vocational viewpoint was absent, and the stat- 

 utes of few, if any, states recognized the hand- 

 work as an essential part of the school cur- 

 riculum. 



State Legislation for Vocational Education. 

 The startling statistics on the elimination of 

 children from the early grades of the elemen- 

 tary schools indicated that neither private en- 

 terprise nor manual training was saving the 

 day. As a result, the relation of the public 

 school to vocational training became a matter 

 of such serious consideration that within the 

 last quarter of a century vocational education 

 has been introduced into the public schools of 

 many large cities, and several states have pro- 

 vided very definite vocational laws not only 

 legalising instruction in vocational and practi- 

 cal arts' subjects in the elementary and high 

 schools, but in some instances making it man- 

 datory. 



Origin of Vocational Guidance. In the be- 

 ginning, in both private and public institutions, 

 the purpose of vocational training was largely 

 expressed in preparation for the immediate 

 job. As this failed to lessen the mortality in 

 the early years of school life or to bring needed 

 industrial improvement, a broader conception 

 of the purpose began to develop. It became 

 clear that it was the function of the public 

 schools not only to train, through evening and 

 part-time classes, those eliminated early from 

 the course, and to provide for all children 

 training for vocations, but that it was also 

 their function to direct children toward a vo- 

 cational choice in accordance with their special 

 aptitudes, and so link up their present school 

 work with their future vocational needs as to 

 make clear to them the relation of the school 

 to their life careers and the need of continuing 

 their relation to it as long as possible. 



Purpose of Vocational Guidance. The main 

 purpose of vocational guidance, as at present 

 interpreted, is the guidance of pupils between 

 fourteen and sixteen years of age, who have 

 reached or passed the compulsory-age limit, 

 and who, restless and self-assertive, are eager 

 to become a part of the great body of world 

 workers. Some of these drop out of school as 

 soon as the compulsory-age limit is reached, 

 and for them vocational guidance becomes su- 

 pervision that follows them into industry and 

 investigates the conditions under which they 

 are employed. If part-time schools are in the 

 system, the vocational-guidance agency endeav- 

 ors to arrange with the employer for part-time 

 work and study for these young people, to en- 

 able them to begin preparation for a vocation. 



Other pupils continue two or more years in 

 the high school. Through the vocational-guid- 

 ance department these can be supplied with 

 vocational information and their placement in 

 wage-earning pursuits can be directed to some 

 extent, and more in accordance with their tastes 

 and abilities. A third group may properly 

 benefit by vocational guidance, applied as edu- 

 cational guidance or supervision. These are 

 the students who expect to attend higher insti- 

 tutions of learning; they may be assisted in 

 selecting such schools, courses of study and sub- 

 jects to be pursued as will best develop them 

 in the lines of their vocational choice. The help- 

 lessness of college and university students in 

 choosing life careers points to the early incor- 

 poration of vocational guidance in the courses 

 for institutions of higher learning, at least un- 

 til the work is more completely and universally 



