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Without having by its derivation, history, and traditions either the constitution or the experience for performing its new duties satisfactorily, the school has had forced upon it an open field, a universal application, and this triple responsibility. Naturally conservative, and little affected directly by the revolutionary changes which the machine has brought in its train, the school is now suddenly confronted with all that these changes involve in revolutionizing its own functions and its relationship with the multifarious occupations of adult years. Prom being detached and dealing with ideal rather than with real conditions it finds itself thrown into violent contact with actual conditions in all kinds of occupations, and asked to bring order out of the chaos produced by the falling ruins of apprenticeship and professional pupilage. Hitherto the demands on the schools have not been very heavy as regards training for occupations, although the growth of the technical schools, especially of the technical high schools, the broadening of the syllabuses of primary and secondary schools, and the development of professional courses in the Universities all show that educational institutions are beginning to realize their new duties. The immediate problem, due to the present depression and the consequent increase of juvenile unemployment, and in particular the absence of openings for boys and girls in trades in which at present a long apprenticeship is required, is to seek some means by which the evil effects of unemployment may be mitigated and the young people prepared to take full advantage of their opportunities when conditions become more normal. It has long been urged by technical school Principals that provision should be made for counting full-time attendance in appropriate courses at technical schools as equivalent, at least in part, to time actually served in apprenticeship; and that part-time attendance at school in working-hours should be compulsory for apprentices and other trade-learners. In view of the changing needs in industry and of the present conditions of employment, recognition of school courses for apprenticeship service would appear to be well justified. A further argument in favour of such a course is to be found in the opportunities which such an arrangement would give to the schools for extending their present practice in vocational guidance, and so eliminating as far as possible the employment of misfits in the several trades. In this connection the proposals made by Dr. Beeby, of Canterbury College, in his twin-probationer scheme given in detail in Appendix I to the report on juvenile unemployment prepared by Messrs. S. G. Smith, M.P., New Plymouth, and A. E. Ansell, M.P., Chalmers, set out fully the methods and aims of a scheme devised to solve simultaneously the present problems of unemployment, vocational guidance, and trade training of young people. Similar reasons to those which have hitherto prevented the recognition of technical-school training as apprenticeship service would no doubt operate against the general compulsory adoption at the present time of the proposals put forward by Dr. Beeby, but the urgent necessity of saving our young people from the evils of unemployment and ineffective training must be admitted, and it is in the interests of all concerned that an effective solution of the present difficulties should be found, even though it may not be wholly acceptable to all parties. It appears to be certain that the problem can only be solved satisfactorily by a much closer co-operation than at present exists between the schools on the one hand and commerce and industry on the other, and a much clearer appreciation of their respective functions in the training of the young for modern conditions. Vocational Guidance. Intimately connected with the question of courses for pupils in post-primary schools and the correlation of school with trade training is the problem of vocational guidance. Vocational guidance has been defined as " the process of assisting the individual, to choose an occupation, prepare for it, and progress in it." This involves giving assistance to the individual " to enable him to obtain experiences, information, and counsel which will best aid him in choosing, preparing for, entering on, and progressing in a recognized occupational livelihood." This view of the meaning and aims of vocational guidance has been very generally accepted, but it must be noted that it presumes a more or less static condition of industry and of occupations which does not in fact exist even in this Dominion, still less in the great manufacturing centres of the world. As Mr. R. B. Cunliffe, of Rutgers University, New Brunswick, N.J., has recently (Pebruary, 1933) remarked, "it assumes the existence of clear-cut and well-defined occupational distinctions, characteristic abilities required for success in each occupation, scientific descriptions of the occupations in terms of these abilities, and freedom for the individual in choosing the occupation. The first assumption may at one time have been justified, but never the others, and none of them to-day." It is therefore not surprising to find Mr. C. R. Prosser, Director of the William Hood Dunwoody Industrial Institute, Minneapolis stating (November, 1932) in the Vocational Guidance Magazine, published by the Harvard University Bureau of Vocational Guidance, that " There does not exist to-day, so far as I know, any tangible proof that two decades of vocational guidance have improved the selection of occupations made by our youth on leaving school." In truth it cannot be said that much progress has been made so far in the direction of replacing more or less haphazard methods of determining the particular aptitudes and qualities required in various occupations, and the boys and girls possessing these aptitudes and qualities in the required degree by a satisfactory scientific technique in which personal errors would be negligible factors in the result. In a world of changing occupations a career cannot in general be chosen, " it is dynamic, not static, it is lived and built through the continuous selection of courses of action, necessary in effecting satisfactory adjustment,"

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