CHILDREN'S VOCATIONS
Slit,—May I amplify Mr. Franklin's admirable letter in your issue for August 29th? It is true that no tests can determine a child's vocation at the age of 13, or even later. We might as well try ,to determine whether an egg is to produce a hen or a cock : there used to be an instrument on the market which purported to do this, but it was no more successful with the egg than a vocational test with a child. Most boys do not know or declare what they ought to be till the age of 16 at least, and if they do know before that age they are generally wrong and their declarations generally misleading. They are, however, under our present examination-system subjected to a process of vocational selection from early years: both the examina- tion for special places in secondary schools and the School Certificate with its exemption-values are ultimately vocational tests. We must remedy this in any post-war educational planning. Art essential condition is that all post-primary education should be treated as secondary (thus facilitating transference, where this is desirable, from one type of school to another). Given that, the remedy is to be found in a much greater variety in secondary education, and in a new type of test for admission. This test will take into consideration not only intellectual capacity, but also aptitude and interest (as Mr. Franklin rightly suggests), physical needs, social environment, and (a most important factor) home-conditions ; while more attention will be paid than has been paid in the past to school records and teachers' reports. We must recognise that education is a life in itself, and not just a preparation for something else (though it includes that). It should last till 18, and those boys and girls who enter industry before that age should still be under the control of the educational authorities, who would have first claim upon their time, and not Trice-versa (as under the scheme for day continuation-schools). There is the right life for every child to live at every stage of its development, and it must be the aim of educational reformers to see
that that life, in all its infinite variety, is available, and to ensure that Department of Education, zs Norham Gardens, Oxford.
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