Book Description

Excerpt from Readings in Vocational Guidance A new literature has come into being within the present decade. Indeed just seven years have passed since Professor Frank Parsons gave the closing years of his life to the Vocation Bureau of the Civic Service House in Boston. From that beginning the vocational-guidance movement and its literature have grown apace, in definiteness, in insight, and in service. To be sure, the aims of vocational guidance are nothing new in either educational statement or practice. The starting of youth aright in life work is one of the oldest of human interests. Not for centuries later did this interest receive so complete an expression as in the practices of the more enlightened medieval guilds of England and Germany. Before the close of the nineteenth century, however, youth in quest of a life-career was regaled with the familiar literature of the "How to Succeed" type, which naively reflected the uncritical individualism of an age that is gone. That type of vocational monitor is still a frequent apparition, amidst the realistic productions of a wiser outlook on life. What is vocational guidance? Briefly it is organized common sense used to help each individual make the most of his abilities and opportunities. Vocational guidance aims to make both school and occupation help boys and girls to discover and develop their powers for service, through school programs in charge of specially trained vocational counselors in schools and employment programs in charge of specially trained employment supervisors in the occupations. Vocational guidance is not a scheme of finding jobs; of forcing vocational decisions upon children; of naively adjusting human "pegs" to "holes"; or of narrowing the range of service open to the fit. About the Publisher Forgotten Books publishes hundreds of thousands of rare and classic books. Find more at www.forgottenbooks.com This book is a reproduction of an important historical work. Forgotten Books uses state-of-the-art technology to digitally reconstruct the work, preserving the original format whilst repairing imperfections present in the aged copy. In rare cases, an imperfection in the original, such as a blemish or missing page, may be replicated in our edition. We do, however, repair the vast majority of imperfections successfully; any imperfections that remain are intentionally left to preserve the state of such historical works.