mechanics of a trade. The ordinary business college is a trade school because it turns out stenographers, typists, and bookkeepers. It usually gives to its students a brief course in all three. So far as technical experience with those subjects is concerned, the graduates of these schools may be well trained, but, as everyone knows, a good stenographer and typist is very much more than a

LINOTYPE ROOM IN SCHOOL OF PRINTING

girl who can take shorthand notes and turn out good work on a machine. She must know how to spell and to punctuate properly; she should have a fairly good general education. Most unsuccessful stenographers and typists are failures because they lack education rather than technical skill.

High value of trade

education

Trade schools are of many types. In this country we have comparatively few, but in Germany the children who are to be prepared for trades are usually separated at a apprentices.

for

Contrast

between

comparatively early age from those who are to go on with a higher education. Since a trade school makes a business of teaching a youth the vocation which he is expected later to practice, he is likely to learn the trade very much more quickly and very much better than he can as apprentice in a shop under a careless and frequently hostile foreman.

Much of the work in the German and British continuaforeign and tion schools and in some of the continuation schools in this country is largely vocational. That is, practice is tion schools. given almost exclusively in the work in which the appren

American

continua

Need of work that suits our tastes, interests, and

abilities.

tice is being prepared. Many of our American continuation schools, on the other hand, give a general elementary education rather than trade preparation. Their work includes courses in English and citizenship, as well as pre-vocational work of different kinds.

VOCATIONAL GUIDANCE

147. The Problem. The man or woman who is compelled to devote his life to an occupation that is distasteful and otherwise unsatisfactory has a just complaint against society. It is possible that there is no work which satisfies the particular likes or dislikes of every person. But certainly a man that would make a good plumber is likely to be discontented if fate turns him into a house painter, and a man that might have become a first-class draftsman or mechanic is bound to be dissatisfied if forced to remain a farmer. There is an old saying, "Happy is that man who has found his work.' If we enjoy the thing that we are doing well, we shall agree with Professor Thomas that play is work which we like. In such tasks we shall put much more interest and enthusiasm than we can possibly have for something which we do simply because we need to earn a living. If our life work not only appeals to us, but, in addition, is

the kind of work which we can do best, then we are happy, contented, and useful.

We can not ask that the school find for us the right place in business. No teacher who is responsible for a large group of students can possibly know the tastes and preferences of those boys and girls well enough to give the best advice on the kind of work that each should have. Even parents, who ought to know their children thoroughly, may make mistakes when they try to find the right kind of occupation for their young people. Immature boys and girls are often more interested in leaving a teacher whom they do not like or studies that are hard and unpleasant than they are in picking out the vocation which they should follow. They are likely to take the first thing that comes to hand, if it will give them a fairly steady income. On the contrary, one ought not to wait in idleness until the right thing turns up, especially if the right thing is a job which can be filled only by an expert or by a worker of special charm or enthusiasm. 148. Vocational Guidance from the School Point of View. The best vocational guida e that can can be offered by the school is not necessarily given by a specialist who examines boys and girls and advises them what to do. That work is valuable if done correctly and under the right kind of adviser. The suggestions of a person who knows the student well are likely to be more helpful, if the one who gives the suggestions also understands the problem. But the busy teacher has no time to study carefully the qualities which are needed in any particular occupation. She can not be sure that the student is fitted for carpenter work rather than engineering, for stenography rather than teaching.

regular sub

Vocational guidance may be given in part through the Value of right kind of subjects, if taught in the right way. This jects, does not mean that the student should necessarily take taught.

properly

Advantages of taking

many different subjects.

Impossibility of giving Vocational

students

who leave

school.

technical or vocational subjects, but rather that he should form a wide acquaintance with the business world and with different industries and occupations, as well as with civic and social problems. There is no reason why his English class should not study questions of life careers. General work in citizenship and in commercial and industrial geography, especially if it includes vocational civics, should be of the very highest value.

Every student should have a fair variety of subjects in the junior high school work and in the senior high school, if he takes a course in the latter institution. In this way he is able to learn whether it is wiser to remain in school and prepare for some career requiring advanced training or to make his selection of a career at the age of thirteen or fifteen. If he has a chance to study history and science, drawing, music, and possibly some commercial work, as well as English, mathematics, and foreign languages, he may get an idea of what occupations interest him most.

There is a disadvantage as well as an advantage in a great variety of work. If the student drops out before guidance to reaching the senior high school, he does not get sufficient training in any one thing to make him useful either in a machine shop, a printing establishment, a carpet factory, a lawyer's office, the bookkeeping department of a store, or any of a thousand other businesses which might be mentioned. It can thus be seen that if a student wants to have good vocational guidance and training, he must remain in school long enough to obtain a little of many things, and secure much of the one thing that is likely to help him most in his life work.

Problems of compulsory education.

149. Compulsory and Part-Time Education.-Students should not be allowed to leave school except in case of the direst necessity, but it is not just to make education compulsory if parents need the help of their boys and

girls. When the wage-earner of a family is disabled, the children must earn money unless society sees that the family has the necessities of life. If forced to labor, however, the boys and girls may be deprived of even a complete grammar

school education. If children are not properly educated, how can they, as adults, earn a living wage and provide for themselves and their families? A complete system of public education is, therefore, essential to prevent childlabor, to fit those deprived of sight or hearing, and those

Students in Laboratory