CHOOSING CAREERS.

Taranaki Daily News, 18 December 1924, Page 7

CHOOSING CAREERS.

INFLUENCE OF FATHERS. HELP FROM THE SCHOOLS. MATRICULATION EXAMINATION. Some interesting remarks on the part which the schools should play in finding out the career for which a boy is best fitted were m&le by Dr. E. Marsden, of Education, at the (breaking-up ceremony at the New Plymouth Boys’ High Schoo] last night. “There are three kinds of fathers,” said Dr. Marsden. The first said: “I hope my boy is going to follow in his father's footsteps.” lie was generally a comfortable sort of individual, and fairly well off—the moderately successful man. The second kind of father said: “I don’t care what my boy is going to be except that I will take fine care he does not take up my work.” That kind of father had probably had some great disappointment. He was firmly convinced that he had been put into the wrong profession or trade and that if he had been given the chance he would have done much lietter at some other trade or profession in. which one of his old schoolmates was highly ruccefCsful. The third type said that hi.-: boy had his own life to live and must choose his career himself.

“Boys of 15, ]6. 17 an(L 18 are not really fit judges of their careers unless they have been trained,” Dr. Marsden continued. “This occupation business is a very serious matter. There is nothing worse in life than a misfit or to see a man sitting on an office stool all his life and never achieving independence. And somehow we must make the curriculum of our schools hAlp to determine what the boy’is best fitted for.”

Probably the most urgent question befoi’e thfe" Education’ Department today was that of- the cbVpculum of th 6 high and technical schools,, They could not find out in a few months by experiment what ; was right, and; what was wrong, for the results did not make theinselves manifest until years afterwards. New Zealand, with tlie exception of some parts of the United States of America, was the only country in the- world where there was secondary education for all, and one must confess that the dominating factor in the education . situation in New Zealand today was the matriculation examination. The university authorities might be right in insisting on -it as a standard which must be passed before students could enter the university colleges, but less than 10 per cent, of the boys of New Zealand went on to the university. The great majority of the parents, however, demanded this examination or it» equivalent because so many of the professions insisted on candidates for their ranks obtaining such passes. “I maintain, and this is oqe of our troubles, that-this .matriculation examination is much tod narrow,” Dr. Marsden added. It was no use squeezing all the boys along one narrow path. The examination might be defended for its original purposes, but it had gone beyend those purposes. There were over 4000 cand’dates last year. Dr. Marsden closed his remarks on this subject with a tribute to Mr. W. H. Moyes (the principal of the school), stating that he was oiie of the’ broadest-minded teachers on this question and other educational matters in the country.