THE MACMILLAN COMPANY NEW YORK BOSTON • CHICAGO DALLAS MACMILLAN & CO., LIMITED LONDON. BOMBAY CALCUTTA THE MACMILLAN CO. OF CANADA, LTD. ΤΟ VOCATIONAL EDUCATION A STATEMENT OF FACTS AND PRINCIPLES RELATED BY DAVID SPENCE HILL, PH.D., LL.D. PRESIDENT OF THE STATE UNIVERSITY OF NEW MEXICO WITH AN INTRODUCTION BY M. V. O'SHEA New York THE MACMILLAN COMPANY 1924 All rights reserved EDITOR'S INTRODUCTION One may safely predict that vocational training in some form will occupy a larger place in American education in the future than it has occupied in the past; but among teachers as well as laymen there is a lack of agreement regarding the scope, character, and value of vocational education. One reads articles on this subject in general and professional magazines and listens to addresses at educational meetings, and he is confused by the different claims which are made and the varying points of view which are presented. Some declare that we should train boys and girls specifically for definite occupations which they will enter the moment they leave school, while others oppose this view and hold that our training should concern only the general sciences or principles or skills upon which all occupations depend. Some advocate that vocational and general education should be rigidly distinguished the one from the other, while many persons protest that such a separation would undermine American democratic institutions. Again, one frequently hears devotees of vocational education say that a pupil will receive better discipline of mind and character in working with tools and shaping materials to definite purposes than he will in studying the so-called cultural subjects such as history, literature, foreign language, mathematics, and the like. But this proposition is vehemently denied by one group of teachers and educational theorists in particular, who maintain that vocational education is commercial and materialistic, that it restricts the pupil's vision, and that it fails to give him an understanding of human nature or interest in or sympathy with his fellows. So it is not to be wondered at that teachers as well as laymen are 632435 |