CHAPTER VII

VOCATIONAL EDUCATION

HERE are

THERE

two phases of education that our schools must keep in view-an intensive and an extensive phase. The first is vocational; the other is cultural. It will not do to emphasize either phase unduly. However, what is cultural for one person may be vocational for another. History is vocational for the teacher of that subject; it is cultural for the merchant. Chemistry is vocational for the physician or the pharmacist; it is cultural for the lawyer or the minister. Manual training is vocational for the mechanic; it is cultural for the merchant or the banker, and so on with all the other studies; they are vocational for one, cultural for another. No education is complete unless these two phases are recognized and a happy balance is kept between them.

The trouble with our present educational system is that a proper balance has not been maintained. It is vocational for teaching, law, medicine, and the ministry, and almost purely cultural for all the other vocations. It takes but little cognizance of the great number of vocations that have sprung up during the past hundred years. Less than 5 per cent of our population are engaged in teaching, medicine, law, and the ministry. More than 95 per cent of them are engaged in trade and transportation, domestic and personal service, manufacturing and the mechanical pursuits, and agriculture. These vocations in their present form are the products of the past hundred years, and this is the reason why the educational

system that had its inception in the Middle Ages takes no cognizance of them.

It is important that we do not neglect the cultural side of education; but an educational system that is vocational for less than 5 per cent of the people and cultural for the rest does not maintain a proper balance between the two phases. What is cultural for 95 per cent of the people largely loses its real cultural value. For a subject to be cultural for one person, it must be vocational for his neighbor; for the cultural subject is that which gives one a better understanding of the work of his neighbor and creates a greater sympathy between the two.

AIMS IN EDUCATION

The problem confronting the schools to-day is: How is the new order of things to bring about the proper adjustment between the cultural and the vocational phases of education? The people who pay the taxes are demanding that our educational system be revised so as to take cognizance of the vocations that have come into existence in their present form during the past one hundred years. To meet the needs of present social conditions and to maintain the proper balance between the vocational and the cultural phase of education, our educational system must have the following aims: (1) vocational training, (2) training for homemaking, (3) training for citizenship, (4) training in the use of the mother tongue, (5) training for health conservation, (6) training in the right use of leisure time.

It is our purpose at this time to discuss just the first aim-vocational training. In fact, vocational training in its broadest sense would include all the other aims we have mentioned. To be trained vocationally, a man must

know something more than the mere technique of his vocation. He must be a good citizen; he must have skill in the use of his mother tongue; he must understand how to conserve not only his own health, but also the health of his community; and he must know how to spend his leisure time with profit. Vocational training in its fullest sense includes cultural training; it has an intensive and an extensive side. A man's vocation is his means of bringing his resources to bear on those around him, and a man without a vocation is as helpless to function in society as the engine without the belt to connect it with the machinery of the factory, or the dynamo without the wire to connect it with the motor. We may call the cultural training the dynamo; but the vocational training is the motor that turns the wheels of progress. No man is truly educated until he is educated vocationally-that is, until he has a means of bringing his resources to bear on people and conditions around him.

VOCATIONAL DIRECTION

Vocational training begins, of course, with vocational direction. Every teacher should be a vocational counselor. She should be in touch with the different lines of work and be able to help the pupil to adjust himself to his vocation. The day is fast passing when the teacher can learn a few things about grammar, geography, and arithmetic, and feel that she is ready to take up the education of children. In fact, in the new era that is now dawning upon us, knowledge of the book will be the smallest part of the teacher's equipment. The teacher of the future will have to know not only books; she will have to know her subject; she will have to know the child, and how to adapt the subject to the needs of

the child; she will have to know the practical side of life so as to be able to prepare the child for life. We realize that the teacher of to-day is not to blame for her lack of a knowledge of the child and practical affairs. Her lack of such knowledge is due to no fault of her own, but to the system in which she was educated. The teacher is not to be blamed for this system, for it has been handed down to her from past ages and it demands not only that teachers be trained in a certain way, but that they pass this training on to others in the same way. But is n't it a fair question to ask, How can the teacher prepare the child for life when that teacher knows neither the child nor life, when all her knowledge consists of the things she has learned from books?

When the teacher has informed herself as to child nature and has come into contact with practical life, she will be in a position to act as the child's vocational counselor and to help him to make a choice of a vocation as early as possible. Dr. Eliot says that the child should select his vocation early so as to give his education the benefit of a "life-career motive." When a boy has selected his life's work and realizes that what he is doing in school is a preparation for it, he is on the road to success, and there will be no trouble about his conduct or his application to his studies. In truth, motivation is the greatest need in our school work to-day. Many boys and girls come to school just because they are sent; some of them are driven; they have no interest in their work because they do not see that it leads them to anything. About the only lesson that many boys and girls learn in school is how to evade all real work, and, instead of their schooling being a means of education for them, it is many times positively demoralizing. What good does a boy get from ancient history when he has no interest in the

subject, his only aim being to get credit toward graduation, and when he is willing to play all kinds of tricks and work all kinds of schemes to "get by" the teacher without work? We dare say that less than 10 per cent of the boys and girls are interested in their work because of its value to them in preparation for life. Even those who make high grades are frequently actuated by false motives and nearly all think more of the credit than they do of the practical value of the subject. The lack of interest, low grade of work, and general carelessness and indifference are the greatest menace to our school work to-day, and the only solution of the problem is to adapt the school program to the present needs of the pupil and, as early as possible, inspire him with a "life-career motive."

Psychologists tell us that a study is worthless to the pupil unless he becomes self-active in it, and to become self-active in his school work the pupil must have a motive that will arouse his interest. What motive is there to actuate the boy who studies Latin because his father forces him to it, or because his playmate studies it? When the boy realizes that he can stay in school but a short time and the question of self-support is staring him in the face, what interest can he have in the binomial theory or the reign of Shalmaneser? When the boy has made up his mind to be a merchant, how can you expect him to be interested in those subjects in school that he knows he will never need? All teachers know the trouble they have in trying to get even average work done by boys and girls, but they seem to be willing to go on in the same old way rather than adjust the school to the needs of the child and to inspire him with a sufficient motive.

When the pupil has been inspired with a life-career