CAREERS FOR SONS

Evening Post, Volume CXI, Issue 146, 21 June 1926, Page 3

CAREERS FOR SONS

AVENUES OF EMPLOYMENT

LEADERS NEEDED

CLEARING HOME REQUIRED FOR

SCHOOLS,

The following article appeared in a recent issue of the "Morning Post," published in London, and, though it does' not apply to Dominion conditions generally, it contains a great deal that affects the New Zealand boy and his parents of to-day. It was written by Dr. Cyril Norwood, headmaster of Harrow, one of the most famous schools in the world, and contains more than an element of truth. It may be read with advantage by those who have growing boys who are shortly to seek employment and make a start in tho world of business.

The title of this article has a familiar sound, and suggests a problem well-worn in many a conclave of the home (says Dr. Norwood). It is not an. easy question for parents or sons to settle; for the paront's knowledge and means may bo limited, while the son has usually a great deal still to find out about himself, and almost everything to discover about the outside world. But these words are not written to harp upon the obvious, but to suggest that there are some new elements in the problem to-day, and some practical steps that may be taken.

The sons under consideration are tho boys to bo found in the public schools, those institutions which have grown so characteristically out of the national life that nobody can exactly define their nature, while everybody knows what they are. It is a new feature of the present day, due to the increase of taxation, the rise of prices, and the general and growing financial difficulties of the middle class, that there are many boys who at the end of their school life cannot face the expense of going on**to Oxford or Cambridge, or meet the cost of a long professional training.

They are good stuff, sometimes school prefects, and generally "House" captains, Upper Fifth boys who are a pillar of strength in their "House" sides, tho sort of material that the housemaster relies on, and any wise employer would bo glad to have. In considerably greater numbers than used to be the case boys of this sort have to make their start in life at eighteen.

HASTY PLANS,

It is not a question of their being faced with unemployment. They do get posts. Unless there is unusual incompetence on the part of their family or their school, they find some sort of an opening. But it is quite another question whether they get the posts for which they arc best fitted; or, what is the same thing, those in which they will render their country the best service.

Parents have no means of surveying the whole field, and often to-day the only parent is the mother: frightened by what they read of unemployment, and the numbers of tho well-qualified who are idle, they take up an opening because it is offered, or within reach, even though it is not very good in itsolf, and does not lead very far. Meantime, those men who are on the lookout for this type of boy cannot readily lay their hands on them.

A concrete example will serve to illustrate what is meant. In the summer of 1924 a headmaster was asked to suggest candidates from among the boys leaving his school that term for no fewer than eight openings of varying character, but all of them good. But ho was unable to suggest a single one, because he found on inquiry that every one of the hundred who were in their last term had their courses definitely marked out. And yet he had the uneasy feeling that at any rate a certain number of these would have jumped at the chances that went begging, if they had only known of them in time.

FRESH FIELDS.

It is a new factor in the situation, not perhaps generally realised, that there is an increasing demand for the services of the public school boy; it has been a marked feature of the years since the war. Whether this demand is to be maintained, or even to go on increasing, will depend upon a number of conditions, but mainly on whether the schools themselves go on turning out sound men and reliable boys. Putting aside what may be called the normal and obvious fields of employment, the professions and the national services of defence and administration, there are new, or, if not entirely now, more urgent and extensive calls from other quarters. Oil and rubber arc great necessities of the present, and will be greater necessities of the future; the conditions of the production of both arc such as call for the qualities which the public school boy has to give, and such boys are increasingly asked for. The great commercial houses of the East have excellent prospects for young men of the right type and offer thorn. There is a considerable, and not fully answered, demand from South America, and, in particular, from Argentina. At Home, a call is beginning to come from some of the great municipal services, and from industry, from docks and mines, and railways, and if this call could be answered by boys of the right type, the service which they might render to the nation would be great indeed.

From whatever quarter of the world they come, these demands have at bottom much the same character. The need is not only for men who arc reliable and adaptable, but for those who can manage other men with justice and goowill, who can, in two words, administer and lead.

SUPPLY AND DEMAND.

But the trouble is that the ordinary parent and the ordinary boy do not know where at any particular moment such vacancies are to be foiyul, and the would-be employers have no better method to follow on their side thnn to write round to a few selectee! schools on the chance that they mi'y li-d a good boy with an unsettled" future. There exists at present no really satisfactory way of correlating the svrnp'v and demand. '

The difficulty has been felt, and .a partial solution reached, in a few schools, which maintain a private employment agency of their own, sometimes managed by the headmaster, sometimes by an old boy or Old Boys' Association. Malvern has a system for placing old Malvorniaus in suitable posts, nor does it entirely confine its good offices to boys of that school. Members of the old Marlburian Lodge place expert information at tha service oi any Marlburian inquirer about any profession or occupation, and offer their help in finding a post. But these solar! ons,.ir0 only partial; thsy show that the difficulty is real au<S felt, and they point.to the method by which the problem may bo solved. There exist at Oxford and CambriJ'-e Appointments Committees available for the service of members of those Universities, and they function successfully. Places suitable for young graduates aro offered to them, and they nil them. What is needed is a similar Appointments Committee, operating on behalf of all the public schools, 'which should act as a clearing house for demand and supply alike, which would

offer a supply greater than any that could bo offered by any individual school, and a convenient single centre to which all types of employer could turn. It is probable that the Headmasters' Conference, acting through its committee, is the best, as it is the most obvious, body to organise the necessary machinery, and to set it to work in the interests of the boys and the parents of all its constituent schools. Those schools are of varying types, big and small, day and boarding , and they draw from all parts of the middle class. This is worth mentioning, for this proposal is not what tho jargon of the day calls undemocratic; it would benefit boys of many kinds. The committee, moreover, possess nn income derived in part from boys, and might very properly spend it in part on those who have unknowingly contributed.

If this could be done, it would be a fruitful piece of organisation. It would help employers, parents, and boys alike, and place young men where they could do their best work by processes less haphazard and heart wearying than those of the present.