The Daily News. SATURDAY, DECEMBER 20, 1924. CHOOSING CAREERS.

Taranaki Daily News, 20 December 1924, Page 8

The Daily News. SATURDAY, DECEMBER 20, 1924. CHOOSING CAREERS.

“What shall we do with •our boys,” is -a question that for years past has often been propounded, and has evoked floods of correspondence, but no solution of the problem. Considering the vital importance of ascertaining the kind of career for which a boy is best fitted, and in which he is most likely to display the right measure of enthusiasm, without which success will not be achieved, it. is satisfactory to know that steps are being taken with a view to find out, in a practical way, the bent of each boy’s inclination with regard to his life’s work. In making this vexed subject the theme of his address at the breaking-up ceremony at the New Plymouth Boys’ High School on Wednesday, the Assistant-Director of Education (Dr. E. Marsden) performed good service both to parents and scholars, and there should be practically unanimous concurrence with the views lie expressed. Education as a dom* inant factor in the progress and welfare of a country is only in an incipient stage ■ of evolution, but there are indications that a more intelligent comprehension of the end and aim of all teaching is at last in evidence. Dr. Marsden probed the question to its depths when he said that boys between fifteen and eighteen years of age are not really fit judges of their careers “unless they have been properly trained.” He expressed the opinion that there is nothing worse in life than a misfit, or to see a mini sitting oh an office stool all his life and never achieving independence, though there are many men who are unfitted for anything else but that drudgery,, just as it' is equally impossible, fdr every pupil to become a shining example of high scholastic attainments. The crux of the matter- is, therefore, the discovery of each, boy’s limitations,, together with the avenue of life likely to exhibit the promise of advance/ merit. 1 If that end is to be attained, jt can. only materialise by rearranging , 'the school curriculum so as to help in determining' for what a boy is best fitted. Tlie recent scheme evolved by the Education Department for carrying the primary course un to a

fixed point for all scholars, then making a break to be filled by junior high schools —practically a probationery period wherein the curriculum acts as a testing machine of the capabilities and limitations of each pupil and giving a clue as to the most fitting career for then! to embark upon, —and thereupon continuing their course of study is a move in the right direction. This process would account for the large majority of the youths, always provided that the parents take a sensible view of their boys’ future. This scheme emphasises the advantage of a single control of the technical and high schools if the best results from both are to be obtained, because those who pass into the junior high schools will either find their way into the technical or high school. Obviously, under such circumstances, the’curriculum at the junior high schools will have to be framed with a view to meet both classes of scholars, and our education system will not answer its purpose until this readjustment has been carried out. At present there is a deplorable loss of time and expense connected with higher education, in view of the fact that less than ten-per cent, of the boys of the Dominion pass on to the University. Most people will agree with Dr. Marsden’s contention that it is no use squeezing all the boys along a narrow path; also with his view that the matriculation examination is too narrow. Times have altered since the institution of that scholastic test, which .no longer serves its original purpose. While it is quite t.rue that the majority of parents may demand this examination, which is required on entrance to many professions, yet in the interests of the country and of its young people a broadening has become necessary. The matter is one that rests with the Education Department., and the public must look to that quarter for a worthy lead in the right direction.