L.—EDUCATIONAL SCIENCE 241 
increase in the number of boys and girls leaving the elementary schools 
next year of something like 50 per cent. over the number who have left, 
or are leaving, during 1933, and for the same reason the number of juven- 
iles between fourteen and eighteen years of age available for employment 
will continue to grow for another five years.. The Churches, the juvenile 
organisations, and other agencies are making great efforts to cope with 
the evils resulting from this mass of unemployment. The contribution 
of the State, however, is so small as to verge on the insignificant. The 
Minister of Labour took credit recently for an increase from £110,000 
last year to {150,000 this year in his expenditure upon courses of instruc- 
tion for unemployed juveniles. Even so, the percentage of the registered 
and insured unemployed juveniles who were regularly in attendance at 
these courses was less than twenty-three, and the percentage of those 
registered and uninsured was only ten. 
This state of things increases one’s regret that the Continuation School 
Clauses of Mr. Fisher’s Act have not been put into force. The Unem- 
ployment Insurance Act of 1930 empowered the Minister for Labour, 
after consultation with the Board of Education, and subject to regulations 
approved by the Treasury, to arrange with local education authorities for 
the provision of courses of instruction for insured contributors under the 
age of eighteen, and to require attendance at such courses, where they 
are available, as a condition of the payment of unemployment benefit to 
any young person. These are the courses which I have just mentioned. 
As there are less than one hundred of them, however, in the whole of 
Great Britain, a very large fraction of the juvenile unemployed are beyond 
their reach. There are in addition arrangements whereby the juvenile 
unemployed can be sent to the ordinary evening institutes. In May, 
which, of course, is not a typical month in this respect, less then 200 
juveniles had that advantage. 
It is not easy to suggest even the lines of a comprehensive scheme for 
bringing these young people under official educational guidance, for the 
incidence of the condition varies greatly from area to area. In some 
areas the numbers are such that separate centres are economically feasible : 
in others, juvenile unemployment is almost non-existent. But some steps 
could be taken, given the support of public opinion. 
In the first place, boys and girls should be encouraged, subject to 
reasonable age limits, to remain at school until situations can be found 
for them. 
In the second place, the recommendation of the recent Royal Com- 
mission that the age of entry into unemployment insurance be lowered to 
fourteen should be enacted, subject to credit being given against the 
Unemployment Fund in respect of voluntary attendance at school beyond 
that age. This proposal has in the past encountered the opposition of 
teachers and administrators who fear the effect that the possibility of 
entry into employment with insurance may have upon school attendance 
beyond the minimum insurable age. But under the safeguard mentioned, 
the inclination to seek employment at the earliest possible age will be 
weakened, and in any case the position is, I submit, too serious to warrant 
the continuance of opposition on educational grounds. 
