12 MASSACHUSETTS HORTICULTURAL SOCIETY 



controlling purposes of which are to fit for useful occupations. 

 The aims of vocational education are, therefore, to draw out and 

 develop the vocational capabilities of the individual. 



There are those who think that for the practical boy, as dis- 

 tinguished from the bookish boy, vocational education might well 

 begin before the fourteenth birthday. In the elementary schools 

 manual training, gardening, elementary agriculture and the house- 

 hold arts may render an important service by helping children 

 to test their native abilities and discover their special aptitudes. 

 These elements of the public school curriculum have been found 

 valuable aids to intellectual progress, and no doubt in certain 

 cases have helped wise choice of the type of schooling later to be 

 followed. 



For Boys and Girls over Fourteen. 



In Massachusetts, however, there has been no effort in legisla- 

 tion or in the general policy of the Board of Education to invade 

 the elementary schools with vocational education. On the con- 

 trary, vocational education addresses itself to those who no longer 

 are thrust into the schoolroom by the strong hand of the com- 

 pulsory school attendance law, but who are free to go to school 

 longer or to stay away according as they themselves, or their 

 parents, may determine. Vocational education in Massachusetts, 

 for which State aid has been provided, is, in short, organized and 

 conducted with direct reference to meeting the requirements of 

 boys and girls fourteen years of age or older. Vocational educa- 

 tion is, moreover, definitely and frankly vocational. It under- 

 takes to train a boy or girl for farming, for the household arts, or 

 for some trade or industrial pursuit. 



Cultural Versus Vocational. 



We have long been familiar with high school training for boys 

 and girls fourteen years of age and older. Considering the aims 

 and methods of high schools in general, when classical studies, 

 mental discipline and college preparatory work engage the ener- 



