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What of the relation of "wild oats" to directed work? What may be done for vocational direction in the family? If the family is engaged in the development of religious character through its life and organization, it ought somehow to find very close relations with the other great social institution engaged in precisely the same work, the church.
In addition, then, to the particular vocational education which is to fit each man for his specific task, in addition to that physical development which must always go hand in hand with intellectual growth, in addition to that moral-religious training and that preparation for parenthood, of which we shall later speak, we may mention three important ideals to be grouped under our general conception of culture.
There is a serious difficulty, however, in the way of a supply of teachers for this broad education. It is necessary to extend reform among the normal schools, but this can take place only after they have felt the demand from the grades. Another difficulty is the expense of providing the necessary equipment for vocational education.
If we take the eleven million youths fifteen to twenty years of age for whom vocational training is particularly adapted, we find that nearly five per cent of these, or 448,414, are absolutely illiterate; it is not too much to assume that a million of them have not acquired enough of the ordinary tools of intelligence to make the most of efficient vocational training.
Just as the highest efficiency of the employment department depends upon accurate analysis of the job and of the man, so the highest usefulness of the vocational bureau or vocational counsellor depends upon complete and exact knowledge of the requirements in different lines of endeavor, and the ability to analyze human nature accurately.
The Congress ought to exercise all its powers of prevention and punishment against the hideous crime of lynching, of which the negroes are by no means the sole sufferers, but for which they furnish a majority of the victims. Already a considerable sum is appropriated to give the negroes vocational training in agriculture.
In this school the point of view, however, should be broadly pedagogical rather than immediately vocational.
I urge the new Congress as it undertakes broad efforts to strengthen the economy as well as more specific tasks like reauthorizing the Vocational Education Act to make the needs of our nation's unemployed youth a top priority for action.
How the public conscience will act in directing the work of removing the conditions which so sadly handicap girlhood today we cannot say. It may be that vocational schools built and maintained by the State, not by charity, will be one strong hand laid upon the inefficiency and ignorance that handicap.
We must, indeed, insist on it that the interests of commerce and industry can be helped only when both sides, the vocational demands and the personal function, are examined with equal scientific thoroughness. One aspect alone is unsatisfactory.
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