JUVENILE EMPLOYMENT.

Press, Volume LIII, Issue 15918, 4 June 1917, Page 6

JUVENILE EMPLOYMENT.

THE HON. J. A. IiANAN'S IDEA*

BUREAUX TO BE ESTABLISHED.

The Hon. J. A. Hanan, Minister of Education, has given instructions to the Education Department to tako tho necessary steps to establish, firstly in the larger '* citics, Juvcnilo Employment Bureaux. Tho Minister explained to a reporter yesterday that the idea was to give young lads and girls a bettor chanco to gain an entrance into walks of life for which they might be specially fitted, but into which, in the ordinary course of things, they could hardly hop© to enter. ' Many a lad might bo specially adapted by temperament, say, for a lawyer's office, or he might have a decided bent for mechanics, but bccouso liia parents could not command tho necessary influence with those who might have tho disposal of suitablo berths, or possibly because they did not even know of any vacancies, tho lad might drift into blind alley employment, a class of employment very eaey to get into and with little or no prospects. Such a state of affairs wjw a waste of good material, for thero might bo better potentialities and brains in a bey who was selling newspapers for a living, than ono who had left a high-class school. Tho idea, briefly, wa« for tho schoolmaster of any boy or girl who intended makinjr use of the bureau to furnish a "dossier" in which tho master's estimate of the young person's capacity and possibilities would b'o set out. Employers who mado uso of tho bureau could then have a reasonable chanco of being provided with a lad who would, in all likelihood, bo specially suitable for the employer's ' trade or profession. The schointT is vet in its infancv, but schemes oft similar lines liavo been established elßewhoro with very considerable success.