be done directly through the public schools, private philanthropy must be called on for assistance.

2. The Untrained Child in Industry.

Thousands of children enter industry without having obtained any industrial education, sometimes without even finishing their primary education. No children who drop out of school at the end of the fifth or sixth grades can hope to have acquired direct training for any occupation which they may enter; the seventh and eighth grade children may acquire a little manual dexterity. The consequence of the early exodus from school is an army of untrained workers who usually enter the first available occupation. This is almost uniformly some undesirable trade that affords but little compensation. It has been estimated that about 90 per cent of the working children enter unskilled occupations; about 7 per cent skilled occupations of a low grade; perhaps 3 per cent enter high grade occupations which promise a future. About 3 per cent, then, of the working children begin at once to prepare for a trade, but it frequently happens that instead of being taught a trade, the child apprentice is merely used as a handy boy, and learns his trade, if at all, by absorption. No special effort is made to instruct him, and unless he is ambitious and aggressive, he will be retarded in his efforts to acquire definite trade knowledge.

The great majority of children who leave the public school for gainful occupations necessarily lack in stability of mind and persistence in work. They, therefore, have no definite aims, have no particular trade in view, are willing to experiment with many forms of occupation, and, being without proper guidance, are not taught the needs of earnest concentration of energy. As a result, they quickly drift from one occupation to another, and since these occupations are usually very different, the experience of the child has no cumulative value.

Our system of child care which allows children who are almost illiterate to leave the schools and to enter industry is sadly at fault. A compulsory education law which applies only to persons below a certain age is better than no law at all, but at the same time it establishes artificial and illogical boundary lines.

If at 14 the boy is not prepared for life, but is mentally and physically capable of adequate preparation, the state is not justified in allowing him to waste several years of time in unskilled occupations, but should insist on his continuing in school until he has acquired the necessary preparation. The fixing of arbitrary ages for compulsory education overlooks the entire problem of industrial efficiency, and emphasizes time instead of accomplishment. Child labor laws should so supplement our educational requirements as to prevent the employment of all children not properly trained in the schools.

3. Vocational Guidance.

In an effort to meet the problem of the untrained child, a Vocation Bureau was established in Boston in 1908 for the purpose of developing a form of work which has been called vocational guidance. The aims of this bureau are as follows:1

To study the waste attending the passing of untrained children into industry.

To assist in the choice of, and preparation for, a life work. To develop a plan of coöperation between schools and occupations.

To publish material relating to the requirements and possibilities of various occupations.

To train individuals for vocational guidance service.

To act as a bureau of information.

One of the most important of the bureau's activities has been the publication of short pamphlets on particular occupations such as those of the machinist, the baker, the grocer, etc. A typical pamphlet deals with the divisions of a trade, its handicaps, its possibilities, the compensation paid, the opportunities in the trade, the conditions of apprenticeship, and related questions that make it possible to decide more wisely in the choice of an occupation. Although the bureau publishes information relating to different occupations and gives advice to inquirers, it is not an employment bureau and does not try to place children in specific occupations. This limitation on its work is probably wise, since finding jobs for children would only slightly improve 1 Record of the Vocation Bureau of Boston, 1913, p. 3.

the present maladjustments in industry, while the larger problems to be faced might be forgotten.

Through the efforts of the bureau the Boston public schools have introduced a plan of vocational guidance, and in 1913 a department was established to carry on this work. In 1910 the school authorities appointed a considerable number of teachers to act as vocational counselors, whose chief duties consisted of serving as bureaus of information and advice, of conferring with employers, and of discussing the vocational problems of the children. The completed plan is to put the work on a systematic basis, in order that the practical interest of the school children can be thoroughly aroused. Boston has proceeded farther with this form of work than any other city.

New York, after a short study of vocational guidance by its board of education, decided against the establishment of a vocation bureau, on the ground that practically all occupations that could be entered by children under 16 were undesirable. This conclusion, however, seems to have been based on the supposition that the functions of such a bureau were those of an employment agency rather than those of a department created to give advice and awake interest in the need of industrial training. Vocational guidance has definite limitations: it has but little value as an employment bureau, and its chief service consists in the knowledge of different trades which it brings to light and in the advice which it gives to children and to parents, as well as in its capacity for promoting industrial education. 4. Preparation for Industrial Training.

a. Manual Training.

If the child can be provided with purposeful manual training, his real inclinations will probably be aroused. Although manual training is gradually filtering down through the grades and reaching the younger children, it has not been sufficiently directed toward immediately useful ends. Gradually the purpose of manual training is being diverted from that of making the hands skillful to that of training them for skill in the making of something useful. Manual training should be organized from a vocational point of view, so that it may bear directly on the

industrial efficiency of children. Shop work for all boys 12 years of age or over, and the practical use of tools employed in woodworking and metal working are necessary to reach the great majority of boys. In a similar way cooking, sewing, and household economy should be taught all girls in the seventh and eighth grades. So many children leave school at the end of the fifth grade that a large number of girls would still escape the needed courses in domestic science. Literary instruction, however, cannot be displaced, and the adaptation to our new needs must not be at the expense of the social and cultural interests so necessary to successful citizenship. The introduction of useful manual training in the seventh and eighth grades is proceeding rapidly among the schools in our larger cities, and the reorganization of the work will prove of immense value to our prospective working population. In 1910, 41 of the 50 principal cities in the United States provided some form of manual training, 21 of them carrying the work from the first grade throughout the elementary school years.1 In all of the 41 cities sewing was taught in some grade and in 32 cooking also received some attention.

b. Pre-vocational Schools.

In order to reach a certain class of children the need of introJucing an intensified form of manual training is being recognized. The Boston pre-vocational center represents an effort to meet this need. The purpose of such a center is to influence boys to remain in school until they are 14; to enable them to graduate earlier than they otherwise would; to develop a desire for industrial education; and to give some definite training to boys who actually enter industry at 14. Boston has established a number of these centers, in each of which a little more than one-half of the day is devoted to academic work, while the remainder of the time is occupied with shop work of a practical

nature.

The elementary industrial school opened by the city of Cleveland in 1908 is of a similar nature. At first it was used especially for the duller pupils, but later others applied. A two-year 1 Report of Cleveland Board of Education, 1910, p. 38.

course is provided, and the boys and girls are taught separately. Here again one-half of the time is devoted to the academic department and the other half to industrial work or domestic science, and gymnasium practice. The boys do not learn a trade, but are given excellent elementary instruction in woodworking, pattern-making, and the like. In Chicago the industrial classes for truants have been operating on the same principle, while in other cities plans for the establishment of pre-vocational work have been adopted.

5. Forms of Industrial Training.

a. Apprenticeship Schools.

Formerly the method of training consisted of apprenticeship work, but recently the system has suffered a serious decline, the reason therefor having been stated by the federal Bureau of Labor as follows: 1

(1) The decline of personal relations between master and apprentice.

(2) The extensive use of machinery and the subdivision of labor.

(3) The disinclination of employers to use apprentices. (4) The unwillingness of journeymen to instruct apprentices. (5) The unwillingness of boys to become apprentices. Manufacturers have been loath to grant apprentices the broad training necessary for their permanent welfare. The speed required in modern industry and the extreme subdivision of labor have prompted the employer to attempt to limit the work of apprentices to some particular occupation in order that they may speedily acquire skill therein. This unsocial attitude is opposed by both the apprentice and the labor unions. The latter demand an extensive training of apprentices, and also frequently insist upon a limitation of their numbers. Another objection to the present method of employing apprentices is based on the practice of using them in the more unskilled forms of labor at lower rates of compensation than those paid to journeymen. They can be supervised by a 1 Charities and Commons, Vol. XIX, p. 814. Quoted in article by Ralph Albertson.