and courses, and the more advanced, exhaustive and philosophical for the advanced classes and research work. Why not have the books catalogued according to this plan? It certainly would be infinitely more workable and systematic. I say, in the colleges especially, because there classifications could most easily and discriminatingly be made, and the student is there really beginning to learn to study.

I wish to conclude with these general observations:

1. There should more stress be placed upon mythology in connection with the Ancient History,-whether in the grades, with the hero stories; in the high school, or in the elementary classes of the university.

2. More space in all our histories must be devoted to economic, social and industrial development, and less to wars as such, though too little attention has been given to the causes of war.

3. As far as is possible, all history of the past should be interpreted in the light of the present, and be compared with it.

4. "Community civics" should begin at home, but should extend to the State and nation as well, and it should be impressed upon the student that his community and community interest is the whole nation.

5. We should everywhere follow the lead of those schools and universities that are strengthening their departments of Political Science, Economies and International Law.

There are many other topics in relation to any subject that might be taken up, but time forbids me to speak of them. I have tried to deal briefly with those that to me seem most essential, and are demanding solution with the least possible delay.

Educational Adjustment

J. I. Sowers, Director of Vocational Education, Vincennes, Indiana.

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DUCATION is that training which fits for the duties of life-all the duties, development of mind and muscle, the intellectual and the physical, training for citizenship, for home making, for parenthood, and for the social and economic duties of life. Among the greatest tragedies in any community are the misfits. Men who have not found themselves—or who have not been found by blind circumstances. Men who drift into vocations for which they are not fitted. Men who have not been trained to do any particular kind of work. It is from this class that bread lines are made up, and the army of the unemployed recruited.

Prof. Burritt, of Cornell, says: "There exists in every community the forces and the ability necessary to solve that community's problems. They may be, and frequently are, undeveloped, but they are none the less there. These forces must be sought out, stimulated, trained and developed, and then applied to the problems of the community. Modern society has developed no more efficient organization for seeking out these forces, stimulating them, training them and setting them at their task than the public schools.

The schools then must train children to become efficient members of the social group. What the child does and what he is to become, he must be taught to think of as a service and as a contribution to the social group of which he forms a part. The true mission then of education is to fit the child into its proper environment. There is nothing greater than to train an individual for such service as will give his largest contribution to society. Service is the ideal of the modern educator, and with this thought in mind schools are planned and built, courses of study are developed, and grow as the community life enlarges and brings greater demands for training and service.

Men are valuable to society just in proportion as they are able and willing to work in harmony with other men. When they fail to cooperate as members of the social group-fail to add their contribution, they become an incumbent upon the other members of the group. In our last article in this series we treated of the Junior High School as a finding school, a place for self discovery. We attempted to illustrate by diagram and to explain what we understood by the use of the life-career motive in education. Also we have given some discussion to the ninth grade which we, in the Vincennes school it will be noted from the diagram previously given, designate as the educational market place. It must not be understood however that the pupil comes up to this finding school, this trying out period without preparation for it in the grades which have preceded. In these earlier grades courses of study are vocationalized as far as is practicable, and the methods by which men in modern society make their living and contribute to society are studied.

The problem is to secure for the individual the particular line of training that may be best for him. It will be seen that the opportunity for immature pupils to make such a choice, brings us face to face with a most serious problem. Hence, of all the problems that have been placed upon the public schools for solution, there is none more difficult, more fraught with danger or more full of spĭendid possibility than that of guiding each boy and girl into the course of study or the kind of school that will best prepare him for that particular field of service in which he may be most successful. Any attempt along this line will be criticized. For some pupils it may be well, indeed necessary to put off the decision as long as possible. However we must remember that the vast majority of boys and girls who leave school before graduation or even before finishing the eighth grade, are making a most positive life decision. No harm can come in considering the problem in all seriousness in the seventh, eighth and ninth grades. The decision may be changed in six months or a year, or in several years, but if the decision is made toward a definite end, there can be naught but gain.

Vocationalized Courses of Study.

We attempt then so far as possible to vocationalize our courses of study even in the early grades. Be believe it is highly practicable to undertake this work in the kindergarten and extend it throughout the entire school life. In the earlier grades this is done øy vocational games and dramatization, stories of things we eat and wear, stories of

people at work in vocations, biographies and description of processes. Compositions emphasizing qualities of success, and visits to local institutions and studies of local occupations beginning in the seventh grade. This revision of the courses of study continues entirely through the school work. That this is practical there can be little doubt, it is not a dream nor is it visionary.

Indeed is it not true that we constantly find our courses expanding in this direction, and taking on vocational tendencies? Botany now deals less with microscopic and prehistoric forms of plant life and has extended into fields of agriculture and horticulture. Physiology is less a study of anatomy and more a study of health and practical living. Chemistry is being studied in the domestic science laboratory for girls and as industrial chemistry for boys. Indeed the live teacher of chemistry finds his best materials for instruction in chemical action and reaction in the familiar substances of daily use. Physics has outgrown every text book in its rapid progress into wireless telegraphy, aeronautics, submarines and shop mechanics.

Mathematics can be made to play an important part in a vocationalized curriculum. This study still remains too largely a series of exercises in mental gymnastics, the disciplinary value of which is unquestioned, but all of this can be retained and yet new interest can be added by hooking this subject up to the practical applications of modern life. That this need is felt, is abundantly proven by the several very excellent text books put out with this thought of the application of the science of mathematics to drawing, science and shop practice, in mind.

The history teacher too can do much to vitalize the subject and make it alive with interest by making use of the vocational aims of the the pupils, their varied outlooks will bring many new streams of interest into the study of history. Any art, science or professioon traced through the lesson in history, and a note book kept by the pupil interested could not fail to add new interest to both the vocational aim and the subject of history. In this manner architecture, law, medicine, manufacture, printing, journalism, home-making can be studied. by the class in history. It would seem that any class in history that approached a period of history from these varied avenues would be sure to gain a deeper insight into the purposes of history. As to the study of English, vocationalized courses in this subject have already won nation wide fame for the cities, superintendents and teachers with vision enough to plan, wide awake enough to use them, and with character enough to break away from traditions.

Vocational Record Cards.

As an aid to the selection of proper courses of study and vocational guidance we have found it necessary to get and retain through the entire school life of the pupil a series of record cards showing his aptitudes, interests and peculiar abilities. These records begin to be kept in the first year of the child's school life and continue as separate cards for each year until the Junior High school is reached, when the results of the grade cards are compiled upon one card which accom

panies the pupil through the Junior High with a completed record for these years added to the grade record.

Below is given the form of card used in the first six years of the child's school life. On account of lack of space the Junior High card is not given, nor the High School card which is very similar to the Junior High card. It will be understood however that both of these cards contain a compilation of all previous records. The form of card together with a brief explanation will serve to give some understanding of the Vocational Record card system used here.

Note The letters at top of the columns signify: Excellent, Good, Fair and Undeveloped. Teachers will check (x) opposite the qualities the pupil seems to possess, indicating by using the proper column.

The reverse side of the above card contains the usual registration information together with some information as to scholarship, interests, methods of spending spare time, etc.

The purpose of these cards must be practically self evident. As the purpose of the vocationalized curriculum is to give the child a knowledge of the means by which men contribute their energies to the good of the social group, so the record cards contain an averaged opinion of each teacher under whom the pupil has come as to his abilities, interests, etc., and from these the Vocational Counselor to whom the child is assigned and under whose direction he comes in the last lap of this school career, may direct him in the selection of his courses of study which are to fit him for his field of future usefulness, and also guide him into his field of labor or to further preparation for same in other schools beyond the public schools.

The average student about to graduate from high school has very little idea, either of his own qualifications, or of the qualifications necessary for success in the various vocations. If the student should go to one of his teachers for counsel, this teacher has as a basis for advice only his own observation of the student over a period of perhaps one or two years, together with his school grades in the different subjects. From this it would seem to be a safe assumption that, in general, no one teacher can, without a better basis for counsel than is afforded him by the usual system of grading students, safely give positive vocational advice. Each teacher however under whom the pupil comes as he passes through school, does learn many things about him that would help in the choice of a vocation. Under our former system no record was kept of this information, except how well the pupil had done in arithmetic, geography, chemistry, etc. While this information is valuable to the counselor, much more is needed. It was to meet this need that the system of vocational records was worked out and adopted by the Vincennes schools.

Statistics show that from fifty to seventy-five per cent of the pupils who enter high school leave before graduation, also that almost ninety per cent of the pupils of the schools never reach the high school at all. The introduction of vocational courses into the schools will undoubtedly hold many of these pupils. The adoption of the Junior High school idea will beyond question prolong the school life to an extent at least. However, a more careful study of the problem will serve to show that the foundation of the difficulty lies in the problem of getting the pupil into the right course of study, giving him the proper educational adjustment, and giving him an aim that will hold his interest. It is to this end that the finding school treated in a previous article, and vocationalized courses of study-giving the force of the life-career motive to education-and the averaged-opinion plan of vocational direction treated in this article have been developed.

The great problem of educational adjustment is to assimilate the mass of pupils who are sent on every semester to be prepared, not necessarily for the college or the university, but for the work-a-day world as well. This means, let me repeat, the problem of adjusting the pupil to the right course of study, the right aim in life according to his peculiar qualities and ambitions.