certificates. Now, when a child asks for a working certificate or when a teacher understands a child is thinking of leaving school, the supervisor who has charge of the work nearest that school is notified; the child is seen; the home is visited and the parents interviewed; with the result that we have been able to return a good many children to school.

We found in two or three schools that it had simply become a custom for the children to leave at 14 years of age. In response to inquiry, numerous children said, "We are leaving school because we are 14 years old;" they thought they did not have to go any longer. When we held open the opportunities that the Chicago schools are now giving in the way of vocational training, when they heard of this and of the technical work in the high schools, we found we were able to return a large number of these children to school to continue their training.

We are doing a little work in placement, of course, but our main object is to get the child back to school and to put him in the way of further training if possible.

MISS M. EDITH CAMPBELL, Cincinnati: Do you think you can get a good idea of the industries without placement work?

MISS DAVIS: No; I do not think you can. We did very little work in placement at first. We find out, however, before we place children in these industries, all we can learn about the occupations and the conditions under which these children work, the opportunities open to them, and the wages paid to them. An interview with an employer gives us perhaps a very good idea of a certain occupation or a certain factory or a certain shop, but after a child has worked there we are not always convinced that the employer has given us a correct statement of the conditions in that factory or shop.

Mr. C. B. CONLEY, Pittsburgh: I should like to ask if there is any cooperation on the part of the manufacturers?

MISS DAVIS: We have investigated about 4,000 shops, offices, and factories in the city. This is, of course, a very small percentage of the number we have in Chicago; but on the whole, especially since we have started to work in the school, the manufacturer has been very much interested in the work we are doing, and I think we have had very good cooperation. I might add that we have also had very good cooperation on the part of the unions in the work we are doing.

MR. RICHARDS, Rockford, Ill.: I should like to ask if the manufacturers apply to you for children?

MISS DAVIS: We do not wish the employers to think we are a regular employment bureau. We try to get that out of their heads. Just before I came away an employer called me up. He had called up the week before for a boy to fill a certain position because we had sent others to him who had been successful, and he told me he wanted another boy just like the boy we had sent him before. His need was a little more urgent than we could supply, however, and he called me up to say that our boy came a day too late; that he hired another boy, but was sorry he had not waited, but that now he wanted another boy and he was willing to wait until we could send him the right kind of a boy.

MR. CONLEY: You stated that you had the cooperation of the manufacturer. Does the manufacturer take sufficient interest in your boys to know how they are trained? Have they cooperated with you in any extent as to the curriculum? My reason for asking that question is this: So far as I know the city of Pittsburgh has the only school board that has set aside a sum of money for vocational guidance. We have always been reaching out to get the very best we could. If the manufacturer, from our view point, would do his very

best and interest himself in the training of the child as much as he does in getting him, I think it would relieve our work very much.

MISS DAVIS: We are working at that from another direction in Chicago by trying to get these manufacturers who employ boys who have had little training and have had to go to work at an early age to send the boys to school half a day a week. There is one company in Chicago sending 20 boys to elementary schools-boys who have not completed the grammar-school grades-for courses in academic subjects, English, history, mathematics, etc. We are working from that direction with these boys. The majority of the manufacturers are interested in their further training, but we have not been able to make them all see the benefit they are going to derive by giving the boys a half day off each week to go to school.

MR. W. M. ROBERTS, Chicago: I would like to say that the greatest work that Vocational agencies have done has been to get the children back to school. Abount 40 per cent of those who apply for jobs are induced to go back to school and continue their courses. Usually, as Miss Davis has said, it would be advisable to suggest to these people something that could be done in school to further the purpose the child has in mind as his life work, some line of study or Vocational course that can be taken up in high school.

MISS DAVIS: In answer to Mr. Conley's question as to whether the business men are in cooperation with this work, I should like to have Mr. Raymond Booth, who represents the association of commerce in cooperatin with the board of education, state something of the work he is doing with the business men of Chicago.

MR. RAYMOND BOOTH, Chicago: It seems to me to be a rather healthy sign to any community when the business and educational interests realize that their interests in the boy who leaves school or is contemplating leaving school are, in the last analysis, one and the same. The Chicago Association of Commerce has definitely entered upon the work of vocational guidance simply from the business and economic viewpoint.

Employers are generally heard complaining of the loss of time and waste of energy they have in breaking in boys who drift into jobs for which they are not fitted; who therefore last only a brief length of time; and who at the expiration of that time have to be dismissed. It was felt that some means ought to be instituted whereby one of two things could be put into effect: First, that boys who were leaving school might be induced to stay in school longer, so that when they did leave they would give a better type of service to the employers; or second, that those who did leave might be placed in work for which they had the most natural aptitude.

Instead of going about this independently, it was felt that the best way to work it out was to cooperate with all the institutions interested, and particularly with the board of education, inasmuch as the board of education is training the future operatives for industry. So the association of commerce has for the past year been cooperating directly with the board of education. It has kept one representative in the field who has been trying to induce the boys who came to him to go back to school if they possibly could.

Employers are beginning to wake up to the fact that child labor is not in the last analysis profitable. A number of employers have told me that they would be only too glad to raise the age limit at which boys come to them and seek employment. In fact, a number of employers are gradually raising the age limit to 16, because they feel that the type of service that they get under that age is not efficient and is far from proving satisfactory. Employers are voicing a cry which is bound to be heard, and which is heard now, for greater efficiency

and a better type of service from the juvenile employees who come to them. We therefore try to keep the children in school just as long as possible, knowing that in the long run they are going to give a type of service that is better and more satisfactory to the boys and girls themselves and that is going to be of more value to the industries.

Again, those boys who do have to leave want to be linked up with the kind of work for which they have the most natural fitness, and so we have tried to extend the cooperative group of employers, especially among those who are members of the association of commerce. I have therefore been going around to a number of these employers, interesting them in the work by telling them what the board of education is doing, and that it was felt that the board of education and the association of commerce, representing the combined business interests, should work in direct harmony and should have at heart the best interest of these boys who are leaving school and who are potential citizens and business men. Of course, the association of commerce joined in this movement, not so much from philanthropic motives, but because they realized that in the long run they will be the gainers. It is obvious that if this waste of time and money in breaking in misfits can be obviated, the business interests, as well as the boys and girls, are going to be benefited.

So it seems to me that the very fact that the board of education of the city of Chicago and the business interests of the city of Chicago are organized, and that there is a strong cooperation between them, indicates a widened public feeling and a widened civic conscience.

MR. HENRY D. HATCH, Chicago: Mr. Chairman, will you kindly request Dr. Bonser, of Columbia University, to tell us how the Manhattan Trade School for Girls is solving the problem of guidance and preparation for employment and placement?

PROF. FREDERICK G. BONSER, New York: The Manhattan Trade School for Girls is making an endeavor to place girls who come to them in such work as fits their natural aptitudes. This school takes girls in the upper grades, gives them quite a variety of work to find out what their natural aptitudes are, and then advises them to concentrate upon that line of work for which they are best adapted. They are in pretty close touch with the employers in various lines into which the girls go, and they make a careful endeavor when a girl leaves school to help her to find the work for which she is adapted. They carry along a line of work which is from day to day a constant test of what the girl's commercial ability may be when she leaves the school; that is, they know at the end of any day, and the girl herself may know, just what she could earn if she were to go into a trade on the next day. As a result of this careful check as they go along they are enabled to place the girls pretty well.

Question 4.—What are to be the methods for discovering the capacities and aptitudes of school children?

CHAIRMAN TELLEEN: I think Cincinnati is the one city which is best qualified to give an answer to this question. I shall therefore call upon Miss Campbell. MISS M. EDITH CAMPBELL, Cincinnati: We are attempting to do two things: One is to make a comparative study of children in school for five years and the other is to study the children at work, giving them a simple test at the end of each job, because we have a law which requires reregistration at the end of each job, so that they must come back and get a new work certificate. We are trying to make an extensive study of these children, and we expect at the end of five years to be able to give some information regarding them and as to the

results achieved under this plan. We have tested, in the three years that the work has been going forward, approximately 800 children. We are trying, through the administrative office, to find out about the industries, and we are also trying to find out through simple psychological and physical tests the industrial record of each child in connection with a careful system of home follow-ups after the child has found employment, and also through these tests to discover his aptitude.

Question 5.-Has any complete system of work for a vocation counselor for a series of months been drawn up anywhere?

MISS SARA LOUISE ARNOLD, Boston: A year's program for those desiring to become vocational counselors has been arranged by the Women's Educational and Industrial Union of Boston. This includes research as to industrial opportunities, economics, statistics, observation, and practice. It is planned and will be carried on by the appointment bureau of the Women's Educational and Industrial Union of Boston and by instructors who are thoroughly equipped. It is especially offered to college graduates and experienced teachers who are preparing for the problems of vocational advice or counsel. This is the only year's program I know of offered to teachers. It had been expected that this program would go into operation this year, but conditions have compelled its postponement until next year.

Question 6.-Is vocational guidance a thing that concerns purely the submerged seven-tenths, that is, those children that drop out of school at an unseasonable age, or is it concerned with those who enter the professions-school teaching, say-and a good many other kinds of work?

PROF. BONSER: It has seemed to me from the beginning that vocational guidance is something that concerns all people who are in any way to render social service to others; and that some of our most valuable social capital is represented by those children who are able to go through the schools beyond the sixth and seventh grades. You know there are many misfits in the profession; you know one of the students in the vocational guidance class last year said she though there were more misfits among the school teachers than in any other vocation.

The general character of this question leads me to suggest what might have a relationship to one of the previous questions that I did not feel moved to say anything about at the time. Where should vocational guidance begin? It seems to me that the whole discussion here has been in a certain sense an indictment of our public-school system. If it is the business of the public-school system to deal with problems that are in such close relation to life, problems which involve the earning of a livelihood, and if the boys and girls going through these earlier years of life under the guidance of the school teachers do not learn something that enables them to make a livelihood, then just so far, it seems to me, the public-school system falls short. Eventually, I believe, the outcome of vocational guidance will be to so organize the curriculum of the schools, both elementary and secondary, that the work will constantly bear sufficiently upon life to make it count for something in discovering both the vocational aptitude of the child and the business that has application to the child. If this thing works itself out in a large way and does not confine itself to the submerged and unfortunate class who must get out of school at an early age, then it does affect all the vocations, including professions, and it does affect all the children.

B. VOCATIONAL GUIDANCE THROUGH ENGLISH COMPO

SITION.

WORK IN THE GRAND RAPIDS (MICH.) HIGH SCHOOLS, UNDER JESSE B. DAVIS, VOCATIONAL DIRECTOR.

Members of the vocational guidance conference were admitted to the classrooms to observe the pupils in the discussion of vocational topics according to the following outline:

Seventh-grade theme: Vocational ambition.

Purpose, to arouse within the pupil a desire to be somebody and something worth while in the world.

Eighth-grade theme: The value of an education.

Purpose, to impress upon the pupil the need and means of obtaining some further preparation for life than that of the grammar grades of the public schools.

Ninth-grade theme, first semester: The elements of character that make for success in life.

Purpose, to draw out an understanding of real success in life and how it is obtained, and to apply the fundamental lessons of character building to the needs of each pupil.

Ninth-grade theme, second semester: Vocational biography.

Purpose, to continue the same lessons from the lives of successful men and women in varied fields of endeavor.

Tenth-grade theme, first semester: The world's work.

Purpose, to study vocation in general in order that the pupil's vision of the call to service may be as broad as possible.

Tenth-grade theme, second semester: Choosing a vocation.

Purpose, to attempt to select that vocation or general field of occupation for which the pupil by self-analysis seems best fitted.

Eleventh-grade theme, first semester: Preparation for life's work.

Purpose, to plan out a definite course of study and conduct to meet the special requirements of the profession, business, or industry chosen.

Eleventh-grade theme, second semester: Vocational ethics.

Purpose, to study the moral problems peculiar to the chosen business, profession, or occupation.

Twelfth-grade theme, first semester: Social ethics.

Purpose, to study the relation of the individual in his future vocation to society.

Twelfth-grade theme, second semester: Civic ethics.

Purpose, to study the relation of the individual in his future vocation to the state.