CHOICE OF VOCATION.

Evening Star, Issue 20361, 18 December 1929, Page 12

CHOICE OF VOCATION.

< Careers 5 is the title of a pamphlet issued by the Department of Education. It deals with a subject which agitates many homes, particularly at this time of the year. Some children have just done with the primary school, and the question is whether they shall go on with post-primary education or put “finis” to their schooldays. In both cases vocational guidance is ' needed, in the latter case perhaps more urgently than the former. One piece ot advice in the pamphlet is outstandingly practical. It is that a child, particularly a boy, ought not to forsake education until actually employment or the definite promise of a situation. Deterioration through undesirable associations or through sheer disappointment during the period of seeking work —which, quest may in time become more nominal than real—is a risk that cannot be overlooked and should not be voluntarily taken. The pamphlet sets forth the facilities the department provides in the way of postprimary education, and gives details of the successive rungs on the ladders in various employments tor which the technical and secondary schools prepare their pupils. Farther than this the Education Department does not go, and cannot very well bo expected to go. Inevitably much has to bo Iclt to the parent and the pupil himself. In normal times this task of making entry into the ranks of the world’s workers is often arduous enough. Jb becomes doubly so when that entry has to be attempted through ranks of people who have gone through the process years before, apparently with complete success, only to find later that they constitute surplus labour, and that the world seems able to do without their services, except in the capacity ot manning relief works. At present a number of economists are giving the public the benefit of their investigations into the subject of avocations and their overcrowding. One of the most interesting of these is the American writer, Stuart Chase. A perusal of his latest book, ‘ Men and Machines,’ prompts the question : “ Are we the victims of our own producing efficiency?” It is within the memory of the still quite young that the phrase “mass production” has become familiar. The present experience of the civilised world suggests that the machine in its last furious manifestation lias begun to eliminate workers faster than, new tasks can be found for them. These who work still work as hard as ever; but the tendency is for the creation of a mounting number of unemployed, composed of men who know neither work nor leisure (in its real sense) nor anything save tragedy. United States statistics show that the number of productive workers has declined. An attempt has been made to place the surplus people in the sphere of distribution. As a result the costs of distribution have trebled since 1870. There must be—and it is becoming only too patent that there already is—a limit to the number who can be packed into the line between the factory door and the consumer. Only a phenomena] increase in purchasing power could balance such a situation, and this has not taken place. So, as Mr Chase aptly puts it, “men are to tramp the streets by the thousands because machines can provide more than enough to go round. ... This is tho economy of the madhouse.” In respect of vocations this writer says: “ We are not all free-roving citizens. Theoretically, the present choices before any individual are very wide. Practically most of ns never make these choices. AVe fall into a rut, and, after a struggle or two, stay there.” Another of hk cppplmqns ig tfeai iasiae&ry;

is clearly orei'valned at the expense of agriculture. Already, we believe, many of those who have constituted part of the drift from country to town would subscribe to that opinion. Their difficulty is how to do it, despite the present New Zealand Government’s expressed determination to clear the road for them.