Valdez daily prospector., 1914-06-13
MOST NEEDFUL KIND OF TRAINING
Elementary Schooling Is More Practical Than Specialization
STRIKING FACTS REVEALED.

Sage FoundatIon Educator8 nePort
 Results of investigation In Twenty
 eight American cities-Find That
 About Half the Boys Will Leave Home Cities to Earn Livelihoods. With a view of determining how to fit school courses to the needs of pupils after leaving school. the division of ed ucation of the Sage foundation has made study of all boys of thirteen years of age in the public schools of twenty-eight American cities. One half of the thirteen year-old boys in the public schools are in grades of the first six years of the elementary schools, and that age was fixed upon for the purposes of the investigation as being the last year of compulsory school attendance. The results of the investigation are reported by Director Leonard P. Ayres in the Elementary SchOolteacher.
 One of the first facts learned about the thirteen-year-old pupils was that they were scattered through all grades of the school course from kindergarten to the last year of high school. More significant still, it was found that half of them were in the sixth grade or be- low. This fact was regarded as im- portant, since in general the children who drop out of school earliest are those who are retarded seriously and are found in the lower grades at ad- yanced ages. These are the boys who must leave school soon to go to work with an educational preparation made quate to fit them for the ranks of in- dustry with profit either to themselves or the community.
 Another point brought out by this investigation" says the report, twas that there is wide range of conditions in the various cities. In those making the poorest showing scarcely one in ten of these thirteen-yearold boys was in the seventh grade or above. while in the cities at the other end of the list eight boys out of every ten were in sight of completing the common school course.
 General Schooling More Important.
 "The lesson in these figures is that in many cities the problem of securing reasonably complete elementary schooling for all the children is far more pressing than that of instituting specialized industrial training.
 "The next set of data obtained gives the birthplaces of these boys and their fathers. The inquiry showed that only about one father in six is now living in the city of his birth, and that among the boys only few more than one-half are now living where they were born. These facts are significant because it is often urged that the schools should develop courses of industrial training that will directly prepare the children to enter the local industries. But if present conditions maintain in the fu- ture the great majority of adults arc not going to work in the same com- l munities in which they receive their schooling"
 The occupations of the fathers were studied in the hope that they might ! furnish sort of index as to the life work that the young people. now in the schools may be expected to choose.
 "One surprising fact shown by the returns" the report says. "is that only about one-half of these men are found in the industries of transformation. which include the building trades and all classes of manufacturing. This 1s ! important, because plans for inaugu- rating systems of vocational training are commonly based on the proposi- ton that a large majority of the young people In our city schools vii! find their life work in these industries.
 1 Professional Workers In the Lead.
 More of these men are engaged in professional. work than are engaged in ! unskilled labor. The group of man. 1 agers, superintendents and propriet0rs is practically as large as that made up of semiskilled laborers. The mental workers constitute more than one-third of all the workers.
 "In American cities of 5O,OO0 popula- tion and above there are twenty con stant occupations in which the num- Der of workingmen is everywhere at least equal to one for each thousand of population. and seven constant Oc- equations in which the number of women workers is at least equal to one in each 1000 population.
 "Other conditions being equal, voca- ! tional education aud vocational guid- ance may we'll consider favoring con stant occupations over localized ones" !" i n,Inh cuH nEEnnc pllVlNc
 University course TsHs How, to Toll #