UNIVERSITY OF CALIFORNIA AT LOS ANGELES hfHKARY The Find Yourself Idea A Friendly Method of Vocational Guidance for Older Boys For the Use of Adult Leaders Clarence C. Robinson Secretary for Employed Boys InternatioDal Committee of Young Men's Christian Assoemtions Author of "The Wage Earning Boy" "Christian Teaching on Social Questions," etc.. ASSOCIATION PRESS New YORK: 347 Madison Avenue. 1922 148561 Copyright, 1922, "by The International Committee of Young Men's Christian Associations Printed in the United States of America HP CONTENTS CHAPTER Foreword ..... Introduction .... I, The Problem of Vocational Choice . II. The Vocational-Guidance Movement — A Summary .... III. The Find Yourself Idea— A Friendly Method IV. Analyzing the Boy's Blank . V. The Place and Art of Interviewing . VI. Organization and Scheduled Appoint ments of a Campaign VII. Application to Special Groups of Boys VIII. Helping to Discover a Boy's Vocational Tendency .... IX. The Christian Attitude in All Callings X. Importance of the Follow-Up XI. By-Products and Helps PAGE V vii 1 8 18 26 41 62 89 107 114 124 FOREWORD This little book is not an ambitious volume. Its very size precludes any adequate treatment of the growing but distinctly incomplete science of vocational guidance. It merely aims to be a brief statement of the purposes and practicability of vocational guidance with sugges- tions for making such work effective among older boys. It includes instructions for the use of self-analysis blanks, the selection and coaching of interviewers, and a particu- lar emphasis upon the character-building values of such service with boys. It sets forth from the experience of many workers, particularly in the Young Men's Chris- tian Association, a vocational effort so planned as to bring to bear on the humblest boy in town the best counsel and advice which the community affords. The quiet hand-to-hand efforts and the larger Find Yourself Campaigns have been based on the concept that there lies buried in society much high-grade talent that is never discovered, that much of the drifting in business and industry is caused by unwise selection, and that, given a certain amount of information and courage from skilled men in the community, a boy himself can make in this enlightened day, if he will, a reasonably scientific selec- tion of his life work. Among those who have helped in the preparation of this volume and whose experience in dealing with older boys has made its publication possible, are : H. T. Baker, A. N. Cotton, L. W. Dunn, A. J. Gregg, Secretaries of the International Committee of Young Men's Christian Asso- ciations; Dr. C. J. Carver, Dickinson College; Jesse B. Davis, Supervisor of Secondary Education for the State vi THE FIND YOUESELF IDEA of Connecticut; E. C. Foster, City Secretary for Boys, New York; Dr. Percy B. Wightman, Pastor, University Heights Presbyterian Church, New York. Clarence C. Robinson. New York, November, 1921. INTEODUCTION "The true teacher finds his crowning opportunity in revealing to his students some appealing career, some compelling purpose which shall be to them what teaching is to him." — Anon. If this quotation is true of the teacher it is equally- true of every counselor of youth. There is no greater service which one man may render to a younger man than to help him to ' ' find himself, ' ' to open his eyes to see the great needs of the world for service, and to help him to answer for himself the question, "How can I, such as I am in ability, health, character, and opportunity, find my best place for service and use that place for my own betterment and that of humanity ? ' ' Vocational guidance is a much misunderstood and mis- used term. This volume will do much to clarify the minds of those who have been misled by those who would commercialize a great ideal. The "Find Yourself Idea" as worked out by the Young Men 's Christian Association is the result of a number of years of experimenting that has now resulted in a plan which is rational and prac- tical. Too much by way of immediate results should not be expected of any effort to guide youth toward a life- career decision. The final choice or decision may be delayed until more information and experience enter into the problem, but some immediate steps must be taken in the light of the possible future field of service. This next step to be taken now is the most important decision requiring the help of a wise counselor. The man who assumes so great a responsibility as that of guiding a youth in making so important a life decision viii THE FIND YOUESELF IDEA needs to realize the dangers of his task as well as the opportunities of giving counsel. This volume will serve as a valuable book of methods for counselors. Mr. C. C. Robinson is a careful and thorough student of all phases of boyhood and young manhood. He has had an unusual opportunity to work out and develop the plan which he has described. Every counselor should study this volume most earnestly before he undertakes the task of guiding young men toward lives of service. Jesse B. Davis, Supervisor of Secondary Education for the State of Connecticut. Chapter I THE PEOBLEM OF VOCATIONAL CHOICE It may be proper at the outset to ask ourselves a few questions. What is vocational guidance — something new or something old in new guise ? Of how much value is it ? What is its purpose ? What are its underlying principles and how may they be wisely applied? Does it require an expert to do such work as it ought to be done? At what age shall we begin? Are there any dangers, and if so, how may they be avoided ? By it, just what may we reasonably expect to accomplish? Increasing interest in every quarter demands that something be done to aid those leaders who are especially interested in the possibilities of vocational guidance, particularly with reference to the character-building values inherent therein, and who are earnestly seeking whatever light can be obtained, touching a matter so vital to human life and achievement. It is the purpose of this volume to suggest answers to each of these questions, or to direct attention to sources where answers to them may be found. The lives of many thousands of boys are inti- mately bound up with our inquiry : hence our obligation to acquaint ourselves as fully as possible with what is being done in this field. Definition. A definition of vocation may be of service. Dean Bal- liet says : " A man 's vocation is not merely his means of securing a livelihood, but it is his most effective means of 2 THE FIND YOUESELF IDEA rendering to society the life service which every man owes to his kind. It is his chief means of realizing his life, its aims, its ambitions, and its duties. ' ' Literally, vocation means calling; hence the purpose of vocational guidance is to help the individual discover what his par- ticular call is — the channel he should utilize through which to find self-expression and to render his best ser- vice to society. Another educator says: "A vocational guide is one who helps other people find themselves. Vocational guidance is the science of this self-discovery. ' ' The Purpose — Self-Discovery. Thus two very important points are indicated. First, the aim of vocational guidance is self-discovery; and second, its method is scientific. In some quarters there has been, and still is, a notion that vocational guidance is closely analogous to the diag- nosis work of a skilled physician, who looks you over and decides whether you have neurasthenia or measles. In the more conscientious type of vocational counseling, the boy's part is not a passive one. Others can give infor- mation, inspire, and offer friendly counsel, but through- out the process the boy must be active and his is the final decision. Any other procedure assumes infallibility on the part of the counselor. The resulting vocational deci- sion is a matter between the boy and God alone. It should be made, however, in the light of evidence as to fitness, interest, world need, the advice and friendly counsel of parents, pastor, teachers, and friends, oppor- tunities for self-development, self-expression, and worthy service. A Scientific Method. Vocational guidance is not yet a science, but it is scien- tific, in that it seeks, not by aimless drifting or any chance hit-or-miss method, but by painstaking observa- THE PKOBLEM OF VOCATIONAL CHOICE 3 tion, analysis, and testing, to help one to discover just that particular form of life work which promises most to insure for that individual the values of life. By particular form it is not intended that because he is dealing with a science, the vocational guide or coun- selor can in a given case help the boy quickly to ascertain whether, if adapted to salesmanship, he should sell insur- ance, pottery, or hairpins. Therein his task differs from such an exact science as astronomy, which calculates to the very minute and second the occurrence of such a phenomenon as an eclipse. In vocational guidance, rather, the first thing and the big thing is to help the boy ascertain scientifically his vocational tendencies. Having gotten safely past this point, he may be expected to eventually discover for himself with relatively little diffi- culty the particular phase of life work he is best fitted to perform. But we shall have more of this in a later section. Two quotations will help to summarize, one a bulletin of the United States Bureau of Education, the other from Professor Spaulding, of the Yale School of Education. ''It is not the purpose of vocational guidance to decide for young people in advance what occupation they should follow, nor to project them into life's work at the earliest possible moment, nor to classify them prematurely by any system of analysis, either psychological, physiological, social, or economic. Vocational guidance should be a continued process to help the individual to choose, to plan his prepara- tion for, to enter upon, and to make progress in an occupation." ' ' Vocational guidance seeks the largest realization of the possibilities of every child and youth meas- ured in terms of worthy service. ' ' A Necessary Distinction. There are three terms constantly used in this connec- 4 THE FIND YOUESELF IDEA tion between which careful distinction should be made. These terms are vocational information, vocational edu- cation, and vocational guidance. By vocational informa- tion we mean facts regarding specific occupations, such as farming, or engineering, or teaching — with statements as to qualifications deemed essential or desirable, hours, pay, healthfulness, opportunities for advancement, etc. By vocational education we mean courses of training to fit one for a given trade or employment. Vocational guidance has been defined in the preceding paragraph, and by the definition there given it will be seen to be more than mere finding of employment for boys desiring to quit school by reason of age or necessity or other causes. It is more than just furnishing information to a boy as to what conditions he may expect to find in a given industry or job. It is more than merely giving him instruction in salesmanship or printing or engraving. Vocational guidance describes rather a process which takes into account a knowledge of one 's self as well as a knowledge of types of work. It includes counseling with reference to a boy's adaptability to certain occupations and the relative value of these occupations to society. It also brings the boy into touch with particular informa- tion regarding, or specific training for, a given form of life work. It also provides rare opportunity for empha- sizing character development. Chapter II THE VOCATIONAL-GUIDANCE MOVEMENT Historically, the movement — for such it is called — is comparatively new ; for although the idea for which voca- tional guidance stands is as old as society itself, the term as it is known today dates back little more than a decade. Its beginnings were in 1908, when Professor Frank Par- sons, after considerable work in the Boston Y. M. C. A., established the Boston Vocation Bureau. This Bureau grew out of a conception which Professor Parsons himself voiced in these words : "In this plastic period of rapid growth, this age of brain and heart, society should guarantee to every child a thorough all-round development of body, mind, and character, and a careful planning of and adequate preparation for some occupation, for which, in the light of scientific testing and experi- ment, the youth seems best adapted, or as well adapted as to any other calling which is reasonably available. If this vital period is allowed to pass without the broad development and special training that belong to it, no amount of education in after years can ever redeem the loss. Not till society wakes up to its responsibility and its privileges in this relation shall we be able to harvest more than a frac- tion of our human resources, or develop and utilize the genius and ability that are latent in each new generation. ' ' Much attention was given to investigation of occupa- tions, and pamphlets of vocational information were 6 THE FIND YOURSELF IDEA printed. Personal interviews with applicants also played an important and central part in their work. Organization. The idea spread, organized developments appearing in the public school system of Boston and environs. In 1910 came the first National Conference on Vocational Guidance, at Boston, followed by similar conferences in other cities in 1912 and 1913. Then came the National Vocational Guidance Association, beginning in 1914 and continuing to the present, with indications of greatly increased activity for the days immediately ahead. The present plan calls for local Vocational Guidance Associa- tions in various regions of the United States and a Na- tional Association federating the local units. Almost simultaneously with the Boston work, initial work was begun by 1909 with high-school boys and girls in New York City under the direction of Professor E. W. "Weaver, now participating in the vocational-guidance work of the United Y. M. C. A. Schools and teaching at Columbia University. Still another pioneer was Jesse B. Davis, who began in early years to work out a plan of vocational guidance through the teaching of English composition and through a system of faculty counselors in the Central High School at Grand Rapids, Michigan. As the work has developed, the attention and interest of other groups have been directed toward the move- ment. Among these should be mentioned the National Education Association, the National Society for the Pro- motion of Industrial Education, the National Conference of Employment Managers, the American Federation of Labor, the Young Men's and Young "Women's Christian Associations. One effort which gave promise of reaching more boys and girls of the needier classes than perhaps any other thus far in the history of vocational guidance in this THE VOCATIONAL-GUIDANCE MOVEMENT 7 country, was that connected with the Government em- ployment agencies during the latter part of the war. When those employment agencies in all the leading cities of the land were beginning to function, it was suggested by a group of those interested in the better direction of the lives of working boys and girls, that junior super- visors be placed in all the larger Government agencies. These special attaches of each office were to be so selected as to represent the proper training and ability to deal with young minds, making possible not only more intelli- gent placement, but actually putting vocational guidance into play in these agencies through which thousands of boys and girls were then passing. Mr. Davis was a primary mover in this effort and was for a time connected with the Government as Chief of the Junior Section of the United States Employment Service. Associated with him was Mrs. Anna Y. Reed of Seattle. These beginnings gave such hopeful promise that the failure of Congress to pass the necessary appropriation for the continuance of these agencies, is a tragic story in vocational guidance history. Other Agencies Interested. And now the state departments of education, colleges, public high schools, the church, and various welfare agencies are not only giving thought, but devoting in- creasing activity to this great task. It is in these latter fields of activity that we may confidently hope to focus attention upon the character-building values involved — a matter which has perhaps not received the emphasis some would like to see it eventually have. It is not im- possible that organizations like the Young Men's Chris- tian Association, which has worked on this problem for sc'^'eral years, can make a very real and substantial contribution to the whole movement at this point. Chapter III A FRIENDLY METHOD The form of vocational guidance as developed in the Young Men's Christian Association through the Find Yourself Campaign, the Christian Callings work, and somewhat in High School Campaigns, has been described as a friendly method. This term has not been without justification for we have worked as a friend does in such matters, not assuming to be experts but utilizing freely the best scientific ways and means which we could dis- cover. The method is friendly again because we have been willing to take every boy who comes, not merely looking for those star performers, who in their careers would do us credit for having helped them in their struggling years, but also for the reason that boys of the one talent variety have received, in this method, patient and gener- ous attention. In the third place, this method is friendly because it is sympathetic in its approach. It has not been a cold analysis of what the boy showed at the moment in ability, but that warm and sympathetic approach to the boy's life which did not blame him for lacking certain qualities that would make for success. Rather the boy found him- self being kindly met and helped in his own efforts to discover what heredity had placed in him and how he could make good, both in wage earning and in service, with his present and possible stock of abilities. Sociologically, this has been a friendly method because, in community after community, the best brains of the A FEIENDLY METHOD 9 city or county have been brought together to bear on the case of the individual boy, giving promise of the day when the strong shall no longer glory in their strength because of the distinctions which it makes in society, but where those who have been either fortunately endowed or happily surrounded in life, are glad to give of their knowledge and experience to guiding the youth in the matter of his life career. Finally, this type of vocational guidance is peculiarly adapted to the use of the Christian worker with boys, first because it is designed to aid those workers who can give a little time to such matters but cannot make voca- tional guidance their principal activity. And second, because it fits in admirably with the admittedly success- ful personal-interview method in Christian work. Although the boys will be, naturally, of varying faiths, they are all interested in their future, and the vocational approach opens the way to be of practical help in the fundamental decision of life work. It leads readily also to logically helping the boy face great moral and religious questions. This can be done without proselyting. It is not as difficult as many think to help a boy make the proper connection between attaining a really worth-while success in a given vocation, and understanding the char- acter basis necessary for his life work, if that service is to do the world good rather than harm. Both socially and individually, this is distinctly a friendly Christian method. This friendly method has consisted of various elements, chiefly the following : 1. The Giving of Information. Many busy workers have desired to place an analysis blank in a boy's hand, have him fill it out and turn it in at once to an interviewer. This is a dangerous short cut. Our experience would indicate that the boy should have at least one presentation of the general principles con- 10 THE FIND YOUKSELF IDEA nected with the finding of one's life work before he begins such an important process as self -analysis. Some of this information should be of the kind which shows the boy- visions of the possibilities before him, inspiring him to rise up and discover what God really intended him to be and do. Talks before county work groups, addresses at high- school assemblies, Employed Boys' Brotherhoods, and Hi-Y Clubs furnish opportunities to place before boys both the practical and the moral and ethical aspects of vocational choice and preparation. Somewhere in the informational phase, either in address or interview, the religious aspect should be presented, that is, the will of God for one's life work. It should of course be made plain to boys and leaders that there is nothing incompati- ble between using all the scientific methods which are known to be practical, and this seeking of God's will. Analysis and interviews are merely means of discovering what God has placed in a boy, how those capacities have been developed by circumstances, and how the boy has already and may more fully utilize those gifts of God for self-support and service. The boy does not need to have detailed information about hundreds of vocations but it is of great value for him to have well in mind these broader principles at the start. 2. The Principle of Self-Analysis. There are at least two reasons for having the boy analyze himself. If no immediately usable material for vocational selection were to be discovered in such an analysis, the whole effort would be worth while by reason of its reaction on the boy himself. You have presented to him broad general principles with reference to the choice of a life work. You have discussed before him the eases of other boys, thus stirring him to possibilities of A FEIENDLY METHOD 11 achievement on his own part. Now it is of the greatest value to present to him as the next step in the process, not something which others do for him, but a move in which he is the prime actor. Thus is established the scientific principle in the boy's mind at once, that it is the boy himself who is doing this, not someone else acting for him. The analj'-sis blank used is one that has proved its adaptability in several years of practical use. After much experience with the analyses of thousands of older boys, including both high-school and employed, and after some chance to see what these boys actually did in the field of work as the years went on, this revised blank adapted to older school and work- ing boys has been prepared. There are furnished also separate inserts or supplements with a few special ques- tions for high-school boys and for employed boys, and a third insert for use in dealing with boys who show adaptability for or interest in full-time Christian Callings. There are three main divisions to the blank — Personal History, Personal Characteristics, and Ambitions and Interests. The questions are evidently in proper line with older-boy psychology, for frequently the boys' answers are so naive or so full of meaning, as the case may be, that they indicate how intimately connected with the real antagonisms, interests, and longing of boy nature these questions really are. The boy should know, while preparing his blank, that it is going to be used by those who are attempting to aid him in this process. This, in a majority of cases, makes the boy more careful and impresses him increasingly, as he goes on from question to question, with the idea that human resources are some- what chartable and that it is high time that he take stock of himself. The information turned in, however, is so extremely valuable in many boys' cases that if there were no reac- 12 THE FIND YOURSELF IDEA tion of value on the boy himself, this study which the boy makes would still be an important part of the vocational- guidance process. As we deal with more and more boys, we are becoming convinced that the type of analysis blank which we are using not only gives us historical data but acts as a simple, psychological test in locating what have been called human interests, and equally in the revealing of mental characteristics, that is, helping dis- cover mental type. Again, the boy's own study forms more than half the basis on which his first interviewer is selected. The mere facts which the boy may put down look ordinary enough at a glance, but to the leader who will give careful thought and study to these boyish statements of fact and interest, they become wonderfully human stories and make an indispensable step in the process of vocational determination. It has been found best not to give these blanks out to boys in a general meeting but, having made a presenta- tion covering certain fundamental principles, to let the boys separate into congenial groups in small rooms, with a man to about every ten boys. This leader gives to each boy a blank and remains to aid them in any way they desire while filling in answers to the questions. 3. Character Analysis. This term has been used to cover a variety of efforts on the part of one person, more or less expert, to read or study into the characteristics of a second person to find, primarily, what could be considered significant in one's vocational aptitudes and possibilities. IMuch of it in times past has been evidently an attempt to be or appear occult and infallible. Such guidance is usually unsafe and some of it thoroughly unreliable, if not fraud- ulent. There is a broad sense, however, in which the study of A FRIENDLY METHOD 13 older boys or adults by others can be done sympatheti- cally and intelligently. So again, in a rather friendly, unprofessional manner, experienced teachers, secretaries, business and professional men have been found to be of great service in helping boys catalogue their resources, take account of stock, locate their vocational assets. Even more the principle of character analysis is safe and useful when undertaken in the direct and truly help- ful sense. This means for the boy to face with his trusted leaders the great character decisions of life, moral ques- tions, personal temptations, unfortunate habits, and his relation to the church, to God, and the great constructive work of Christendom. Character is so obviously the basis of real personal success and usefulness to society, that the study of a boy's characteristics and his character needs are of vital importance in any vocational-guidance system. 4. Study of the Boy's Analysis. It would seem a matter of ordinary common sense, after a boy had made out a blank covering fifty or more questions, to give that blank an intimate and thorough study and this is of course paramount to success in the later steps. An educator who heard one of our workers aiding a group of local leaders in this process remarked that this step must be the key to much of our satisfactory experience. ' ' I have seen such blanks by the hundred, ' ' he said, ' ' made out by boys and girls in the schools of my state, but that is as far as the process usually goes. The pupils fill out the blanks and they are piled up in the file cases in the principal's office." When we interest a boy in the serious matter of choos- ing a life work, sufficiently to induce him to make an analysis of himself, we must perforce be ready to give the necessary time ourselves and to discover those persons in the community who are gifted in this kind of service, 14 THE FIND YOURSELF IDEA the art of seeing significance in the reactions of boys as represented by their studies on paper. This part of the process is so important that methods for this step in vocational guidance will be suggested more fully in Chapter IV. 5. Interviewing a Prime Factor. When the boy's blank has been carefully studied and facts noted, the first interviewer can then be intelligently selected. He may be the counselor type, a man familiar with boy life, with educational matters, and somewhat with business and industry, and the professions. He will go over the whole vocational problem with the boy briefly and help a boy who is greatly puzzled to see possible paths into the world's work. Or the boy may have indicated already a very definite tendency, hence he will be directed first to an expert or specialist in the line of work that the boy fancies at least he wants to enter and for which he gives some evidence of being fitted. It is naturally of supreme importance to select men who have the character qualifications. That man who is making a quick and possibly cheap success in a given occupation, is distinctly not the man to meet boys in this intimate, friendly way. There is bound to take place what is called the transfer of personality and we must use great caution about the kind of personality and character we are helping transfer from man to boy. Then the interviewer may have much information but not be familiar with boys, or he may have both these advantages and not know the particular process and just what is expected of him. With kindly coaching and careful guidance, interested men who have never done vocational and character- decision interviewing before, frequently develop into counselors of rare ability. These busy men often admit that this service to boys has been a thoroughly delightful A FEIENDLY METHOD 15 experience, and so much the more because they discover in themselves useful talents of which they were largely unconscious. No less valuable in turn is the effect of the interviewers on the boy, lifting him frequently in a single half hour of conference to courage and understanding, and grasp of himself and circumstances. The plan of having the interviewer make out a brief written report of the results of his conference with each boy, gives prominence to the impressions made upon the interviewer by the boy, and aids greatly in following up the boys' cases. Such helpful contacts between men and boys are of utmost value in any community, and if the preliminary steps are well performed and the follow-up conscien- tiously carried out, the interview plan, bringing together the experienced man with the inexperienced but potential boy, is full of promise and satisfaction. (See Chapter V for additional points on interviewing boys.) 6. Placement Where Necessary. Surely not more than ten per cent of the thousands of employed boys who have been through the Find Yourself Campaigns, have made any quick changes in employ- ment. Some were already in their logical field of work or could not enter their chosen field until after consider- able study and preparation. Moreover, with the large number of representative interviewers, the matter of find- ing the opportunity for apprenticeship in any of the occupations found in the local city or town has not been difficult. Occasionally a boy must go to some other locality for the right job, but here Y. M. C. A. machinery, state and local, has usually proved equal to the boy's need. The process is so moderate that placement prob- lems are greatly diminished. Often a boy stays for a time, wisely, in what looks like a blind-alley job, when in 16 THE FIND YOURSELF IDEA reality the position is a dry dock, a means of earning his living while being prepared for the wider experiences and greater usefulness of the days ahead. 7. Conserving Results. After the boy 's vocational status has been first studied by himself — analyzed by experienced leaders — subjected to one or more interviews with general counselors and specialists, made clearer by the written reports of these interviewers, some coordination is obviously necessary. At this point, someone, the boy's group leader, Associa- tion secretary, or other experienced person, needs to go over the entire matter and help the boy digest all the important data. In some of the most thorough campaigns one interviewer has assumed responsibility for keeping in touch with each boy by correspondence and appoint- ments, this relationship lasting for a period of months until the young man is well settled in his plans and reasonably confident of the future. Sometimes a club leader assumes this responsibility for a group of boys. Some Young Men 's Christian Associa- tions have designated temporarily the time of one secre- tary for such work. In the smaller campaigns a com- mittee of interviewers have carried through the follow-up system. The need of some such arrangement is obvious. (See also Chapter X.) Summarizing. The essential steps in this friendly method of voca- tional guidance as developed from the experience of many workers in different parts of the country are the following : Presenting vocational information. Giving the boy a chance to analyze himself. I\Iaking a careful study of the boy's statements in the analysis blank. A FEIENDLY METHOD 17 Scheduled interviews with general counselors and advice and help of experienced men in different vocations. Attention to the character-building angle of the vocational process. Aid in securing the right job when a change is neces- sary. Conscientious and patient follow-up of each boy's plans and problems. Chapter IV ANALYZING THE BOY'S BLANK When one sits down with a boy's self-analysis in his hand, he has before him at least four objectives: a. To discover in a general way what the boy has revealed about himself in order that someone may deal intelligently with his particular case. b. To locate the points of interest and emphasis for the interviewer, who, knowing much about some vocation and therefore valuable as an inter- viewer, may at the same time be quite inexperi- enced in the study of a boy's problems, or may not be at all analytically minded. Also to save time for the interviewers, especially in connection with campaigns where during a given period large numbers of boys are to be interviewed. c. To learn from the boy's statements about himself whether he needs first, a general counselor, or a man with special knowledge in some vocational field. And, in addition, to sense the type of per- sonality among the interviewers who will evi- dently fit best this boy's temperament and needs. d. To find among the blanks those which indicate the need of special treatment. That is, the blank may be sparkling in its answers and show a boy of brilliant parts, or, on the other hand, a boy very bright but only superficially interested. These extremely bright boys may be critical of the whole process at the start and much care must be taken in advance of the interview, to set the stage right. Again, the blank may be quite unrevealing, ANALYZING THE BOY'S BLANK 19 giving almost no indication of the boy's type or needs except that his need is great but vague. This will take an interviewer both of sympathetic and analytical abilities so as to draw the boy out and discover what the blank has not told. Or, the blank may show much greater need from the moral standpoint or with relation to home condi- tions than in any vocational problem, indicating the necessity of an entirely different treatment from the usual process. Large Campaigns. In the more extensive efforts where from 300 to 1,000 boys are to be dealt with, it has been found wise to have a special committee selected to do the analyzing. Some of these men may incidentally be interviewers, but their primary responsibility is to examine each blank and record their impressions with the objects in view as noted above. In one large city, a club made up of business and professional men, including a large number of educators, accepted this responsibility and analyzed all the blanks. In this case it may be necessary to have a demonstration of analyzing, going over several typical blanks until the process is well established in the men 's minds. Then the men take the blanks to their homes or offices, and return them to a given secretary or committeeman who utilizes all this information in aiding the interviewers' committee to select the right man to first meet the boy. The Normal Arrangement. Where a more typical campaign involving from fifty to 200 boys is concerned, satisfactory procedure is some- what as follows. A group of about ten or a dozen men come together to give the better part of an entire day to studying 100 blanks. If the number is 200, obvi- ously it is necessary either to increase the number of 20 THE FIND YOURSELF IDEA analyzers or give two days to the work. These men should include the man in charge of the campaign, local boys' work secretaries, committeemen, interviewers, and, in many strictly Y. M. C. A. campaigns, the educational secretary, the industrial secretary, the physical director, or the employment secretary. Where the work is done in a county or a small city, school men who have the voca- tional interest are very helpful in this process. Fre- quently in the larger places, there is a placement secre- tary or teacher in charge of vocational work who is very glad to spend the day helping out, and at the same time getting in touch himself with the particular psychology of our methods. The interruptions are so many, and so often the busi- ness and professional men will come and stay an hour or two, and be called to their offices, that it usually takes about two and one half hours in the morning and again in the afternoon, to properly analyze 100 blanks with as many as twelve men working. This process should not be hurried through, for both from the matter of conscientious treatment of the boy's blank and efficiency in discovering the boy's vocational tendency, the analyzing process must be well done to insure reasonable success. Dealing with the Individual Blank. When all is ready and your analyzers have blanks in their hands, some leader who is familiar with the process takes a boy's blank and analyzes it before the group, giv- ing all the men an idea as to what points to look for, how to discover correlation between the boy's interests in study and work and play, going through the entire study which the boy has made, having someone take down meanwhile the notations which this analyzer deems neces- sary for the interviewer's information. This leader should stop from time to time, giving the men a chance ANALYZING THE BOY'S BLANK 21 to ask questions, to agree or disagree with the conclusion to which he has come. When the notations are all made, the local secretary or other chief promoter of the cam- paign, or his representative, should present the list of interviewers, sho^^ang their names and their special qualifications, as merchant, engineer, educator, general counselor, etc. Then the analyzer should state both the vocational status and type of personality of the man who, he thinks, should first interview this particular boy. The local leader should then decide upon some man from the list, or if such a man does not appear on the list, think out who in town should be sought as first interviewer. After this has been done with one blank, men seem to make better progress by starting in, each with some boy's case to analyze by himself. One or more of the experi- enced leaders should be free to go about from man to man, aiding each one to come to logical conclusions about the facts presented in the particular blank he holds, show- ing if necessary how to get those facts stated in the briefest possible notes, and again the type of interviewer to be selected. During the process of analyzing, some men quickly show ability to analyze well and these will not need much further attention from the campaign leaders. Others, of course, will require help throughout the day in making a good analysis of each boy's paper. Each analyzer should be cautioned not to drop the blank and lose the impression which the boy has made upon him, until he has discussed with the local leader what he has discovered, and has aided the latter in mak- ing the first interview assignment. A method which is practical for most analyzers is to begin by reading the blank through entire — Personal History, Personal Characteristics, Ambitions and Inter- ests, and the special insert or supplement (High School, Employed, or Christian Callings). As he reads through, it is well to check those answers about which he wishes 22 THE riND YOURSELF IDEA later to make a notation, unless just the thought strikes the mind at the moment which he desires to pass on to the interviewer. In that case, it is well to make the nota- tion at once. After noting the high points of emphasis, the analyzer takes the back of the insert arranged for that purpose, and writes his notations thereon, preferably- signing his name so that if some point comes up for future discussion, the original analyzer may be traced. Following are the actual notations* recently made on a blank which revealed a boy of high ability and serious purpose, but the answers were extremelj'' vague from the standpoint of locating tendency. The references such as Section B — question 11, refer of course to the sections and question numbers of the main blank. 1. Note that the boy does not like his present work. Does he mean no future for him ? He talks of quick success. He is getting good pay now. Does he mean higher success ? 2. He is not taking any night-school work. 3. He mentions saving. Discuss with him the form his saving takes. 4. The boy is a Protestant but not a member of church. 5. His answers to questions 1 and 2 — Section B are thoughtful and significant. 6. He makes an extremely fine statement under ques- tion 11 — Section B. 7. He has unusually large social and study interests. 8. The additional statement which he has put on the outside of the blank would indicate that his desire for quick success has a distinctly altruistic note. 9. See particularly his answer to question 11 on the last page of the main blank. * Fuller notes are necessary when we are dealing with boys at a distance, but such brief comments as these are sufficient to open up the significant points in the blank, wherever the interviewer has the advantage of being in meetings with other counselors, as is the ease in campaigns. ANALYZING THE BOY'S BLANK 23 10. Probably this boy has good ability, hence his confi- dence is well placed. 11. Try to help him discover among his many vocational interests, what is primary and what secondary. The analyzer will frequently be disappointed in what seems like a lack of significance in the answers to such questions as No. 10 — Section B. Frequently, however, they are important in relation to statements elsewhere and are always valuable to the boy in giving him infor- mation about the qualities which are essential in the process of earning one's living. This is also true of the long list of vocations submitted on the last page. It is distinctly informing to the boy himself, and is given thus fully for his particular benefit. Most analyzers learn quickly how to balance study and work and play interests over against moving-picture reac- tions and attitudes toward leadership or books or people, and gain thereby rather definite impressions of the boy in question. This has been made easier by the principle used in arranging the studies, question 2 — Section C, which is purposely different from that followed in listing the vocations, question 14 — Section C. Diametrically opposite courses have been taken in approaching these two fundamental interests and frequently the skilful analyzer can read deep significance as to the boy's work qualifications from the way in which this part of the blank is marked. To take an analogy from the restaurant, the studies are arranged on the cafeteria style, everything spread around without any apparent logic in the arrange- ment. The boy will be obliged to go through the whole list as one does in a cafeteria, searching for what one wants. The vocations are listed, however, on the "combination breakfast" style. Psychologically, we feel it will be of value to compare the boy's interests as represented by these different choices — on the one hand, where he must 24 THE FIND YOURSELF IDEA search through a long list for his interests, and on the other, where the vocations are grouped under appro- priate headings. If his choices are extremely varied in study, following none of the lines which would indicate him to be strictly scientific and mechanical, etc., and his vocational choices, also, in spite of the grouping process, go "all over the map" we will know that this boy either has a considerable mixture of vocational tendencies, or else he is one of those subtle eases whose primary tend- ency must be discovered lying deeper than surface interests and impressions. On the other hand, suppose a boy checks diagonally across the page, from left top to right bottom (see chart, page 97), when he is checking on the cafeteria style, indi- cating strong literary and humanic* tendency in studies. Then the analyzer should turn to the last page and see whether or no his vocational choices are also literary and humanic. If so, the boy indicates a rather clean-cut type, at least on paper. But if he checks in the vocations, one or two occupa- tions in each of the varied groupings, the analyzer should try to discover if in spite of choices in the artistic and commercial, for instance, his selections are really such as indicate his desire to work with people rather than with things, in correspondence with what he has said about his interests in study. If no such correspondence occurs, the analyzer should indicate this and let the interviewer go further into this matter in personal discussion with the boy. Other points to be remembered in studying the state- ments made by the boy, are : 1. Take note of the general appearance of the blank * There is some question concerning the word humanic as an adjective, some preferring the well-recognized word humanistic. But the term as applied in this volume has been so much used of late that we have felt it proper to continue its use. ANALYZING THE BOY'S BLANK 25 and information gleaned from reading between the lines. 2. Watch for evidence that the boy would welcome help in moral or religious problems. 3. Beware of the analyzer who looks for star blanks and turns down or slights those which are not quite so rich in surface interest. 4. Make sure that the results of the analysis are clearly written on the back of the insert and made as con- cise and definite as possible. 5. Look out for the man who lacks fundamental confi- dence in boys. Such a man thinks every odd answer an attempt to be smart, and any boyish over-confi- dence an effort to bluff the interviewer. These men make poor analyzers and should be eliminated tact- fully and given some other part of the work better suited to their abilities. Chapter V THE PLACE AND AET OF INTERVIEWING The place of interviewing has often been exaggerated in certain forms of vocational guidance. Let us repeat — helping a boy discover his logical place in life is an educational process. In previous chapters we have dis- cussed the philosophy underlying a friendly unprofes- sional type of vocational help. We have pointed out how essential it is that certain great basic principles, in the choosing of a life work, be placed before the boys by speakers and leaders qualified to give both the informa- tion and the inspiration necessary in the preliminary stages of the boy 's quest. We have further discussed the boy's part in making out his analysis and the unique importance of a thorough study of the blank, to discover just the way in which the boy reveals himself on paper. We are now at the place where the personal touch is once more necessary. Counseling or interviewing cannot be said to have been over-used through any lack of importance but merely because leaders have thought that if they had twenty- five men meet 100 boys and talk over vocational problems they had done all that was necessary. Every bit of the preliminary which we have suggested in this volume is essential to a thorough preparation of the boy's mind and an understanding of the boy's situation. Now we are ready for the contact of personalities. First in the matter of time is the selection and enlist- ment of these men. Let it be said for the leader 's encour- THE PLACE AND AET OF INTEEVIEWING 27 agement that so far as any of us can remember, we have not as yet failed in any city or town in the United States, to secure the services of a leading professional or business man, scientific or mechanical expert, whose aid in inter- viewing boys we have sought. Possibly some day we shall strike a man so uninterested in the progress of civili- zation and in the individual human unit thereof, that he will refuse to do this service for an American boy. But if such should be our experience tomorrow, his refusal would stand out as such a unique event that we could forever afterward point him out as the supreme excep- tion. Men whose wealth is counted by the millions and scientific men to whom wealth means nothing but the search for truth means more even than life itself, skilled mechanics and professional men of great skill and fine- ness of soul, have seen, in this task of meeting boys in a personal, friendly way, an opportunity to serve well their generation. We know enough about what is called the transfer of personality today — that subtle passing of psychic influ- ences from one person to another — to make prominent in our minds always, character qualities in the selection of interviewers. When the boys come back from the interview rooms and talk again familiarly about their experience, they are much more likely to discuss the man than what the man said. Many a boy, especially among the employed group, has few opportunities to meet men of great ability and largeness of soul. We do something for civilization then when we bring to bear on the life o:t a boy who has perhaps splendid latent possibilities, a personality which expresses the best rather than the poorest in American manhood. These interviewers will of course be of two kinds, the general counselor and what might be termed the trade interviewer. If we are dealing with a hundred boys, a study of their analysis blanks will probably show that 28 THE FIND YOUKSELF IDEA at least twenty-five of these boys will need, first, a man who can go over the whole situation with them. These general interviews will lead up later to special inter- views of what might be called the trade variety. Having then the character qualification always in mind, for 100 boys we would choose twenty-five to thirty-five interviewers, six or seven of whom would be men who understand boys, who are of sympathetic temperament, and who w411 help bring to the surface the best aspira- tions and hopes of a very shy boy, or who will bring plain, solemn facts to the boy who is bumptious and over- confident of himself. The remainder will probably be chosen on account of their general character and their specific knowledge of some form of engineering, medicine, banking, and the like. The following list is one which has been used as a basis of selection in towns of from 50,000 population up. In the rural community and in the very large cities, the list will naturally be modified somewhat. Such a list as this usually suggests to the boys' work secretary and the committeemen, just the personalities in the community whom they wish to enlist. Suggested List of Interviewers. Lawyer. Physician. Master Mechanic. Skilled Electrician. Civil or Mechanical Engineer. Automobile Expert. Merchant or Banker. Salesman. Architect or Draftsman. Artist or Art Instructor. Musician, Educational Director or other Educator. THE PLACE AND ART OF INTERVIEWING 29 Employment Secretary (if possible). Minister. Physical Director, Newspaper Man. Y. M. C. A. General Secretary. A Contractor (to cover various trades or a repre- sentative of the Central Labor Union for same purpose). Boys' Work Committeemen. Scout Master. Club Leaders. Visiting Boys' Work Secretaries. According to the business and industry of a commu- nity, it becomes necessary to duplicate certain men. For example, if you are working in a town where automobiles are manufactured, there will be a large interest on the part of boys in undertaking careers in the highly skilled mechanical lines. Therefore, you will need to duplicate master mechanics, engineers, etc., to cover the number of boys. Similarly, in some city which is a distributing point for a large agricultural or industrial region, the boys will require a wholesale merchant, a sales manager, to supplement the work of a traveling salesman in deal- ing with boys interested in w^holesale lines. It is also evident that a goodly number of the men chosen origi- nally as interviewers for a specific vocation, will be able to do general counseling. Ideally, each boy ought to meet at least one man of each type, for there are many character-building ques- tions of both a moral and religious nature which come up in these interviews, and in addition to the actual trade information, successful men are able to give boys points not only on the education and training necessary, but equally those subtle suggestions as to vision, persistency, loyalty, and the like, which so often make the difference between success or failure in a given career. 30 THE FIND YOUKSELF IDEA It becomes obvious now that the most astute leader will have none too much skill in what might be called matching personalities in the selection of the particular interviewer for the particular boy. For example, here is a hustling, successful young business man who wins by his boldness and by the confidence which that boldness and daring beget among the older business men of the community. He has had, in many ways, both a fortunate heredity and a favorable environment. Here is a boy who, by the indication of vocational interests on the blank, points to the same phase of the business in which this young man is engaged. But the boy is a timid, shrinking type with good ability but little confidence. His father is dead and he has struggled along trying to help support his mother, not having the clothes to wear or the chance for indulging in vigorous sports which boys of his age have had. He needs the most sympathetic possi- ble kind of handling by a man who senses the boy 's whole boyish struggle, his unsatisfied longings, someone who will appreciate the possibilities in him in spite of the fact that he is a poor advertiser of himself. Our hustling young business man, who is just in the first glow of success and believes that everybody could succeed if they would only do as he does, is probably the last man in the list to assign to this particular boy for an interview. Some older, fatherly man, just as successful, who has seen employes in his own concern come through from quiet, earnest boys to confident and successful men, is assuredly the man to meet this boy and help in the process of bringing his soul to bloom. In Chapter VI, additional material will be found deal- ing with further detail in connection with the assign- ments, the selection of rooms, meeting of interviewers, time to be consumed in each interview, and what to do when the interviewer fails you. THE PLACE AND AET OF INTEE VIEWING 31 Coaching the Interviewer. Where the work of helping boys in their vocational choice is to be done in a short time campaign or a long time effort, or even better, the longer time effort given momentum by a short campaign, one of the matters which the leaders must give careful attention to is the prepara- tion of the men for the interview work. Certainly in a short time campaign there should be a meeting of the interviewers, as described in Chapter VI, just previous to the time of the interviews, when the men can have in their hands the analysis blanks of the boys they are to interview, and the comments which have been made on those blanks by the analyzing committee. But if a pre- vious meeting can be held in an unhurried manner, at which time something of the simpler psychology of the interview can be gone over, it will be most advantageous. Recently in a city where a large campaign was in progress, three such meetings were held — first, in a down- town club where men of wealth and position are accus- tomed to go for the noon-day lunch. This made it possi- ble for us to have a full hour at the luncheon table in an environment to which these men were accustomed, and where they were in a mental condition to receive the best which the trained leader could give them. Another was held for a different group of men, mostly successful young engineers, salesmen, and the like, in the conference room of a large insurance company. A third such meet- ing was arranged in the residence district at a popular restaurant, where the chairman of the committee in that center gave a dinner to twenty-five men whom he had personally invited to be interviewers. In this way, some seventy-five or eighty men had from one to two hours' thorough conference with men who had conducted cam- paigns and interviews for many years. Frequently, however, such preliminary meetings are difficult to arrange and many an interviewer will not be 32 THE FIND YOURSELF IDEA able to attend any meeting prior to the meeting of inter- viewers on what is sometimes called the big interview night, and occasionally it is regrettably true that some interviewer will be obliged to meet his assignments with- out even this desired appointment. For all the counselors, and especially those men who do not attend a meeting, the following brief articles have already proved them- selves good coaching material. Either of these may be reproduced in a four-page folder, small enough to fit in the pocket, and if mailed out will usually be read and digested by men who have been invited to act as counselors. The first was used originally in a New York City Find Yourself Campaign, largely involving employed boys; the second was prepared with the high-school boy in mind. We have purposely inserted both of these, think- ing that men might care to have them, either or both, reproduced for use in campaigns. Helping a Boy to Find Himself* The heart of the "Find Yourself" idea is in the per- sonal interview. Here it is that a boy who is sufficiently concerned about his future to meet an appointment, sits down with a business or professional man who is suffi- ciently interested in the future of boys to give his time and energy in this definite way. Evidently these two — boy and man — sitting down together for a half hour, have something in common; they are both interested in the boy's highest success. Each has something to contribute to the interview. The boy brings youth, latent capacities, ambition, desire to learn ; the man brings experience, sympathy, a record of achievement, a desire to impart information. That is a fine meeting-ground, surely. It is easy to hold an inter- view under circumstances like these. * From a pamphlet by E. C. Foster. THE PLACE AND ART OF INTERVIEWING 33 Of course, these two are usually strangers. The man should have learned something of the boy from the self- analysis blank which has come to him in advance. That suggests that the first thing to do is to get acquainted. An acquaintance can usually be effected in the first five minutes by getting the boy to tell what he is interested in. That is much more important, in these first moments, than anything else. That leads up to the questions which are in the boy's mind. Why did he seek this interview? What are his needs ? He may not be able to tell these needs fully ; he may be groping. But the man may be able to discern the boy 's needs — and that is the first step toward giving him help. Perhaps his greatest needs will not be the ones most easily discovered; they may lie deep, rather than on the surface. They are worth searching out. Many a boy needs a change in attitude more than he needs a change in program. Many a misfit can be ad- justed to fit properly into the position he now has. Sometimes there is deep down below the vocational problem one that has to do with moral issues in life. It's a great thing for a man to be able to discover this without losing the new grip of confidence between the boy and himself. If some of our great business experts are right, and the big world needs real religion more than it needs anything else, perhaps this boy needs religion, too — genuine funda- mental religion, with heart power and brain power in right proportions. It isn't a time to talk creeds, of course. Perhaps he needs social adjustment; many boys of this age do. Frequently the man can discover this and give him real help — even in a half hour. Certainly this boy should see his way more clearly when he leaves the interviewer. He may or may not see 34 THE FIND YOUESELF IDEA his very next step ; but his goal ought to be clearer. And his ambition to reach that goal should be stronger, and more deep-seated his willingness to pay the price of real success. Frequently it will happen that the interview has not carried the boy far enough. Possibly the interviewer will choose to meet him again, or prefers to have him meet some other man. This will be noted on the interviewer's report blank and passed on to the secretary in charge. For after all, the personal interview is not the end, but just the beginning. It's a great privilege to sit down with a boy and help him straighten out his course in life, if so be he has been tacking aimlessly up to now. No greater privilege is likely to come to a man than the privilege of helping a boy to find himself. The Art of Interviewing* The art of interviewing comes with practice. Experi- ence is an inspiring as well as the best teacher in this art. Lack of confidence at the start in this highly multi- plying personal contact with individual boys is largely overcome by just being one's own self and evidencing a sincerity of purpose in seeking to cooperate "svith the boy in the solution of the problems and plans of his life. Win the Confidence of the Boy. This is a wise first objective. This usually is brought about by showing a genuine interest in the boy 's whole life and activity. By tactful questioning or by previous study of the boy 's self- analysis blank there will be discovered a "point of con- tact ' ' and a common interest that will help to set the boy at ease and open the way for a frank and helpful inter- view. Some men check one or more significant bits of information noted on the blank and then open the inter- * Material fiirnished by Arthur Cotton. THE PLACE AND ART OF INTERVIEWING 35 view with one of these as the topic of conversation, e. g. : "I note you are a baseball fan. I used to play on the varsity team. At what position do you play?" or "I note that you and your friend Tom are the same age as my ovm boy," or "I have a personal friend who works in the same place as you," or "You and I can shake hands on a common dislike for that study you have marked," or "My father died when I was a boy, also." Arrive Quickly at the Boy's Particular Problem. The interview period is all too brief. After establishing a friendly relationship with the boy, press on to consider the special needs as indicated by a careful review of his analysis blank. "While usually it is best to draw the boy into a conversation, it will be necessary for the inter- viewer wisely to direct the use of the time during the conference. Unnecessary questions or conversation may have to be tactfully set aside by some such sincere state- ment as, "I'll be glad to talk that over with you when we have an opportunity for another interview." In referring to the opportunities or disadvantages of a vocation under consideration the interviewer should play fair with the boy, not over-emphasizing either phase of the question but frankly calling attention to the difficul- ties as well as to the challenge of each. Emphasize the Character Values. Conscious that this is of first importance each interviewer will tactfully bring the boy to face up to the necessity for a well-trained mind, a strong body, high moral standards, and deep- rooted religious principles in life. Such challenge comes with increasing effectiveness as the boy is led to some definite, clear-cut, personal decision with regard to these matters during the interview. This is sometimes accom- plished by a conversation similar to the following: "What personal moral standards do you consider most necessary in the vocation you think of going into? To what extent do you possess these qualities? Well, what 36 THE FIND YOURSELF IDEA are you going to do about it? All right, good, now let's write it down." Seldom does the successful interviewer "lecture at" the boys. However, if he is alert to discover on the self- analysis blank or in the interview any evidence of weak- ness in character, he will with earnestness, sincerity, and great tact lead the boy to a self-evaluation and appro- priate decision of the will. Especially will he lead the boy to consider his relationships of life to the home, the school, the church, his companions, boys as well as girls, and to such helpful service tasks in behalf of the com- munity as will tend to develop character. The subject of personal religion should be introduced with sincerity and broad-minded sympathy. Most older boys are eager, indeed hungry, to consider this phase of life. Here again and in particular, there must be a note of genuineness if permanent results are to follow. This naturally will lead the interviewer to a depend- ence upon more than human skill and ingenuity. It will call for fullest conference with other experienced and character-kindling interviewers. But still more, it will require the preparation that comes only by prayer. Follow Up the Interview. In order to secure per- manent results in this interviewing there should be care- ful planning in advance for the follow-up of the first interview. A report with suggestions for later guidance should be written after the interview. Time for this is a prerequisite. Appointments for later interviews should be arranged. Successful interviewers make personal memoranda and follow up the conference by letters, tele- phone calls, and visits later. The interview that most counts is that one that proves to be the beginning of a real, vital, and continuing friend- ship between the boy and man. A true friend helps his friend, by doing for him, by giving him something to do, by pointing out his weaknesses in a friendly way with a THE PLACE AND ART OF INTERVIEWING 37 view to helping him to overcome them and by introducing him to other friends of "contagious character-kindling power. ' ' Most boys need and profit by the encouragement that comes through the stimulus of wisely placed confidence expressed by some such parting message as: "I shall expect you to win out; count upon me to help at any time." Vocational Forum. One more general matter remains to be dealt with in connection with the interviewing. "Where fifty to a hun- dred boys are being interviewed in a single evening by approximately thirty men, it is obvious that more than half of the boys will be obliged to wait some time for their interview. If a supper is served or a meeting of all the boys and interviewers held, as is highly desirable, the leaders have from thirty to sixty boys on their hands for a half hour or more, and part of them for an even longer period. In the early campaigns, various devices were used to hold these boys and properly utilize their time. The best experience points not to furnishing entertain- ment or anything of that sort, but rather having some one man conduct a sort of vocational forum for the first half hour, using charts, pamphlets, books, and the like, or perhaps if he is sufficiently experienced, taking the cases of some of the boys right in the room who are willing to talk about their ambitions and interests, helping the boys to understand what their tendencies are and giving sug- gestions as to educational requirements, natural abilities, and temperamental qualities which are found successful in various lines of work. This does not take as large a knowledge of the vocational field as would seem neces- sary, but a fairly good acquaintance with boy nature, some ability to deal with boys by the discussional method, and at least a knowledge of where information can be 14850 I 38 THE FIND YOURSELF IDEA located with reference to the great main divisions of life work. After the first interviews are over, some twenty-five or thirty boys will leave the room and others will come back. The conference can then be continued and some- times lasts the entire evening. We have frequently seen such a forum begin at 7 : 45 and last until 10 o 'clock with only such interruptions as were made necessary by the shifting of the group as the different interview appointments are called out. Many a boy picks up as valuable a bit of information or inspiration in the voca- tional forum as he does in any particular interview. Jesse B. Davis has this important word to say with reference to bringing the boy to decisions that involve action : "We should not let the boy go without having made up his mind to some action, no matter how ten- tative or small this step may be. I feel that it is of vital importance to have him leave the room with his mind made up to action. This action may be nothing more than to definitely study some problem, to do some reading, to begin physical exercise to im- prove his health, to conquer some habit, or to begin the preparation for the proposed field of service. In my experience I feel that it is a mistake to let the boy go with a feeling that he has arrived nowhere." Although we should never seem to hurry the boy in his decisions, this note regarding action may well be kept in mind both in the individual interviews and during the vocational forum. Following Up the Interviews. Report forms are furnished the interviewers for each boy. These are so arranged as to be readily made out and to afford a variety of information about the conduct and results of this particular interview. Questions are THE PLACE AND ART OF INTERVIEWING 39 asked with reference to outstanding qualifications for a particular vocation which the boy may or may not have revealed, any immediate thing the boy needs to do about his work, studies, etc., his relationships with other boys, any moral or religious matters which were brought up and discussed, and the very important question, "With whom do you think this boy might well have another interview?" We have found that unless such a set of questions is furnished the interviewer, his report is likely to be upon one or two matters only. He will discuss the boy's educational needs or some moral problem or a particular occupational matter and leave all the others out, whereas with the report form, he is reminded of matters of real importance which perhaps only occupy a moment or two in the interview but give real evidence of the boy's ambitions or cast of mind. As mentioned elsewhere, it is most valuable when the interviewer and the boy are temperamentally well enough matched and the interview itself proceeds with sufficient gripping power so that the man and boy care to see each other again, for this obviously makes one of the most valuable possible types of follow-up work, the individual interviewer retaining, a considerable length of time, his interest in and contact with the individual boy. Not all interviews, of course, will come out in this way. Some leaders are disturbed when they find boys coming back from an interview with a physician, quite convinced that they do not want to choose medicine as a life work. In such a case the leader should go over the matter with the boy very carefully, possibly a valuable element in his vocational choice has been reached. It is quite as impor- tant for a boy to find out what he does not want to do, as what he does want to do. This is one reason why we have always favored more than one interview per boy, and the continuance of this work throughout the year, in addition to the occasional concentrated effort during a 40 THE FIND YOURSELF IDEA few weeks' time. As long as human nature is as it is, we shall probably continue to get more from personal con- tacts than we do from information derived in any less warmly human form. Hence, while the place of inter- viewing in the Find Yourself process should not be over- rated, neither should it be underrated as an important element in one of the greatest decisions a boy can make. Chapter VI ORGANIZATION AND SCHEDULED APPOINT- MENTS OF A CAMPAIGN Although vocational guidance, or as we have called it in the Boys' Work of the Young Men's Christian Asso- ciation, Find Yourself work, has often been conducted in short term campaigns, that has not been by any means the ideal of those most responsible for its promotion. It has seemed to us that one of the experiences which a boy should have in his contact with the Young Men's Chris- tian Association, should be help in choosing his life work. Whether that contact be as a building member or in a Hi-Y Club, an Employed Boys' Brotherhood, in a Chris- tian Citizenship Training group, in a cooperating church — as a part of his program, he should surely have aid in the choice of his life work. In spite of our insistence that this should be a logical part of every program for older boys, from year to year, a campaign or some special effort is usually necessary to inaugurate such work and give the leader of boys familiarity with some of the more recent plans and methods of helping a boy in this great decision of life. Kinds of Campaigns. There are three types of campaigns from the stand- point of size — First, an effort, small numerically, which deals with from ten to fifty boys in a club or group of clubs; second, a medium-sized campaign involving from fifty to 200 boys, and third, the large campaign which has run from 300 to 1,500 boys. As far as the eduea- 42 THE FIND YOURSELF IDEA tional technique is concerned, i.e., approach to the boy, enlistment of interviewers, and dealing with the personal problems of the individual boy, the three types of cam- paign do not greatly differ. But in matters of organiza- tion, the amount of machinery, money, time, and personal effort required, there is an almost unbelievable increase with every additional hundred boys beyond the 200 mark. Why dealing with 1,000 boys should be more than ten times as difficult a task as with 100, we do not know, but the fact remains, and from some rather strenuous experi- ence. Handling 1,000 boys in a Find Yourself Campaign involves the entire time of a skilful promoter for a period of months, and the volunteer activity, in blocks of time large and small, of at least 200 to 300 men including committeemen, analyzers of blanks, speakers, inter- viewers, etc. Some organizations, though having large resources in men and money, prefer to deal with 150 or 200 boys per year, while others have found that a very large campaign challenges the attention of many boys who are not reached without city- wide publicity, and in addition interests large numbers of men in the varied problems of boyhood. Three kinds of campaign from the standpoint of ad- ministration are also to be considered. Type No. 1 is that campaign administered hy the Young Men's Christian Association and for boys in the building membership, or among boys of the neighborhood or industrial brother- hoods or clubs. Type No. 2 is entirely under Y. M. C. A. administration but with an invitation to churches, schools, or industries to have their boys included in this educational effort. Type No. 3, either small or large numerically, is where the Association joins on an equal basis with various other agencies, a city committee is ap- pointed with proper sub-committees, a budget provided, responsibility placed, and the affair carried on as a com- ORGANIZATION OF A CAMPAIGN 43 munity-wide project, the Association merely being men- tioned among the agencies cooperating in the conduct of the campaign. Experienced workers increasingly feel that campaigns as herein described operate best when under the direct supervision of the Young Men's Christian Association. The character-building values are better preserved and the follow-up features more successfully carried out when such work is well centered and responsibility is definite. However, local Associations are always ready to cooperate with schools, employment bureaus, etc., in any community-wide plans for harmonizing and improv- ing the vocational direction of the youth of our cities, towns, and open country. A safeguard in an effort involving large numbers, whatever the administrative unit may be, is to arrange for centers of activity throughout the community. Deal- ing with 1,000 boys at eight or ten different centers such as churches, settlement houses, Y. M. C. A. build- ings, and the like, makes a much more friendly and ready approach to the boys, gives better opportunity for the presentation of vocational information, divides up the work of analyzing the papers, and easily discovers large numbers of interviewers. This dividing into centers also assures a much better follow-up of the individual boys after the special effort of the campaign has come to a close. Moderate-Sized Campaigns. Many of the suggestions made later concerning large campaigns do not apply in detail to the campaign involv- ing from fifty to 200 boys. At the same time, enough of them do apply to warrant a careful reading on the part of leaders who are not ready to undertake so large a task. All of the principles and some of the methods are the same. 44 THE FIND YOURSELF IDEA So many vocational-guidance efforts on the part of the Young Men's Christian Associations, churches, and other character-building agencies will be small in number of boys involved that we have thought it wise to give a greater amount of detail in connection with the moderate- sized campaign, types 1 and 2. In outline such campaigns will hinge on these factors : 1. The committee of men. 2. A committee of boys. 3. Enlistment of interviewers. 4. Securing enrolment of boys. 5. Providing the necessary budget for printed matter, suppers, etc. 6. Securing speakers, and men to help analyze the blanks. 7. Coaching the interviewers. 8. Perfecting the system of handling the meetings and interviews. 9. Making sure that the character-building emphasis is given proper place. 10. Following the boys through after the interviews. It is well to avoid, as far as practicable, dates which conflict with large affairs in school or social life, out- standing sport events, and especially other Association or church happenings of unusual interest. A Schedule by Days. After observing campaigns in many parts of the United States with all types of boys, city, rural, school, employed, native Americans, European immigrants. Ori- entals, etc., the following schedule seems to be most efficient for the moderate-sized campaign. The selection of days is of course arbitrary, but beginning Friday and closing the active part of the campaign on the second Sunday has proved satisfactory in experience. OEGANIZATION OF A CAMPAIGN 45 The First Fridaij. 5 : 30 p.m. Meeting of men 's committee with cam- paign leaders. 6 : 30 p.m. Supper meeting of the boys enlisted for the campaign, the committee of boys, and the com- mittee of men. 7 : 15 p.m. Program of not more than two speeches, one to be made by the visiting campaign leader, when such outside leadership is obtained. 7 : 55 p.m. Announcement by chairman or local secre- tary regarding the group meetings to follow. 8 : 00 p.m. Congenial groups of from ten to twenty boys meeting with a member of the men 's commit- tee to receive their blanks and begin their own self-analysis. Committeemen collect completely filled blanks and record the names of boys who take blanks home for further study. Frequently boys are glad to take an extra blank and interest a boy not reached by the campaign thus far. 9 : 00 p.m. Brief meeting of committee of boys to arrange for getting the blanks back and to make plans for a 100 per cent attendance on the big interview night a week later. Between Meetings. Throughout the week by announcement at club meet- ings, gymnasium classes, through articles in newspapers, by letters and personal contacts, keep up the interest among the boys. Follow up any blanks that are out and have the boys' committee bring them in. Check up on the interviewers and analyzers, reaching each man directly or through members of the men 's com- mittee. Arrange for the supper or other meeting preceding the interviews. 46 THE FIND YOURSELF IDEA On Thursday. Proceed with the analyzing of hlanks, securing new- interviewers as the boys' cases reveal new needs. See Chapter IV, entire, and in Chapter VI, the topic, "Most Important Days. ' ' The Second Friday. 9 : 00 a.m. Campaign leader meets with visiting secre- taries, men's committee, educational secretary, etc., and together they spend the entire day mak- ing final analysis of the boys' blanks, scheduling interviewers, and aiding the local leader in all arrangements for the evening. 5 : 30 p.m. Blanks should all be analyzed before this hour and careful comments made on each. These are handed out by the committee to the inter- viewers as they arrive. 6 : 00 p.m. Brief meeting with the interviewers when the Find Yourself Idea is explained and inter- viewers' report blanks issued, instructions and suggestions given about the interviews, and ques- tions answered. Time should be reserved here for a season of prayer with reference both to the voca- tional and religious aspects of the interviewer's work. 6 : 30 p.m. Supper with boys, visiting secretaries, interviewers, and committees. 7 : 15 p.m. Ten-minute inspirational talk by a visiting secretary or one of the leaders. Introduction of the interviewers by merely reading the name of each man, telling his line of work and calling on the first boy whom he is to interview. This gives opportunity for all the boys to see all the inter- viewers and the interviewer to recognize his first boy. Announcements and adjournment to the interviewing rooms. 7 : 30-10 : 00 p.m. Interview period. A headquarters room, from which the interview work is directed. -= !z; T < >5 S - « x; 2-1 ORGANIZATION OF A CAMPAIGN 47 is useful as a place to center the attention of boys awaiting appointments. Here should be placed vocational charts, books, and pamphlets. The boys enjoy trying certain mental tests, and occa- sionally discover some useful information about themselves. The local Boys' Work Secretary and two other leaders are needed at the headquarters room the entire evening. Saturday. Throughout the day, follow-up work can be com- menced, interviewers' reports examined, further interviews held, and occasionally boys visited at their homes or places of employment. Sunday* Religious meeting for older boys addressed by men connected with the campaign. Here the evangelis- tic message can be used especially with the social Christianity emphasis. This meeting supplements in a satisfactory way the work done in the inter- views. Most Important Days.f There may be a time during the week in which the Find Yourself effort actually centers when the men responsible for its success may be able to choose between attending to a detail today or getting it done tomorrow. That time is past at 9 : 00 a.m. on the day preceding the interview period. From that point until the last report is received at the close of the interviews, about thirty-six hours later, there is not a moment to be lost nor an item which can be postponed. There are four outstanding things which * This arraogement is obviously for those campaigns held under the direct auspices of the Young Men's Christian Association, or a combination of agencies which can readily agree upon matters of religious education and methods of character-building work. t Suggestions by Harry T. Baker. 48 THE FIND YOURSELF IDEA demand attention in these days. They are outlined below in detail. In addition, there are many matters which must be checked up finally and these are listed briefly. Each one is important out of all proportion to the space given it here, and those in charge of the campaign will do well to get these matters settled as early as possible. 1. Preparing Blanks for the Interviewers. All blanks must be carefully analyzed. Suggestions to those doing this work will be found in Chapter IV. If the interview period is to occur on a Friday evening, for example, the analyzing of the blanks should begin not later than Thursday morning. Should the blanks total much over 100 or if the number of men enlisted for this important service is small, the work of analyzing should be a day or even two days earlier. If the analyz- ing is not under way on schedule time all the other work which must be handled in these last hours will be dis- organized. Theoretically, five men analyzing from nine to twelve o'clock and from two to five, might cover 100 blanks, but interruptions are bound to occur and delays are frequent. New men have to be introduced to the process. Certain blanks prove difficult and unrewarding at first study and may need reviewing by a second or a third man. There is a real temptation to call the atten- tion of other workers to some particularly interesting answer one has discovered. The work, though fascinat- ing, is tiring, because it must be done with a care which demands concentration and uses up mental energy. For these and other reasons ample time and an adequate number of helpers should be available. This work care- lessly done handicaps the man who interviews the boy and cheats the boy who has taken time to fill out the blank. In fact, it may result in the assignment of the ORGANIZATION OF A CAMPAIGN 49 wrong interviewer impairing or even nullifying the whole effort. 2. Assigning Interviewers to Boys. When the analyzing of the blanks begins, there should be on hand, in duplicate, a list of the boys. This should be arranged in the following form : Boys' List. Boy's Name Address Interviewer's Name Andersen, Carl 302 Smith Street J. D. Williams Barton, John 110 ]\Iain Street W. S. Smith Cafarelli, Victor 423 Sixth Street H. P. Vernon There should also be on hand, in duplicate, a list of interviewers. It will be convenient to use the following form: Interviewers' List. Showing place of interview, name of interviewer, voca- tion, business address, telephone, and boys assigned by periods. Room 12 J. D. Williams Engineer 461 Division St. Phone 286 Period 1 Period 2 Room 41 W. S. Smith Period 1 Period 3 Period 4 Period 5 Doctor 339 Randolph St. Phone 4210 Period 3 Period 4 Period 5 Period 2 A person well acquainted with the interviewers should handle these lists. After each man finishes analyzing a blank he should consult with the one in charge of the 50 THE FIND YOURSELF IDEA lists and the assignment of the most appropriate inter- viewer should be made and the proper information as to the place for the interview should be noted. At this time the name of the boy should be entered in the space provided on the interviewers' list and the interviewer's name should be entered in the space provided on the boys ' list. If rooms are not available for all, some alcove or corner may be used if it is quiet and free from inter- ruptions. With the most careful preliminary enlistment of interviewers, occasion frequently arises where a par- ticular type of interviewer not already secured is needed. The responsibility for securing this man or these men should be immediately placed and a serious search should be begun at once. 3. Meeting of Interviewers. Essential to the success of any Find Yourself effort is a meeting of the men who are to interview. This is gen- erally held at 5 : 30 'clock in the afternoon of the inter- views, but may well be preceded where possible by a preliminary meeting. At this meeting the men should be helped to see the importance of their evening's work, some of the results which may be expected, and certain of the problems which the interview involves and how other men have successfully met these problems. This talk should be given by someone who can put the proper amount of inspiration into it. There should be a time for general conference and answering questions. At this meeting the blanks assigned to the interviewers should be given out and care should be taken to acquaint each man with the place assigned for his interview and exactly how to reach it. A supper should follow the meeting, preferably with the boys, as outlined below. The chairman of the Find Yourself Campaign should preside at the meeting and the supper, and details should be so well in hand that by the OEGANIZATION OF A CAMPAIGN 51 close of the supper period the schedule of interviews can begin to operate without delay. The bane of all Find Yourself Campaigns is the man who accepts the position of interviewer and at the last minute phones that his wife has arranged a social affair, his business demands his attention, or that he had for- gotten some conflicting date when he accepted. By per- sistent checking up and by sufficiently stressing the obli- gation to be present, the number of these absentees can be reduced to a minimum. Certainly the fewer there are the better, for blanks have all been assigned (having especially in mind the qualifications of this man for inter- viewing certain boys), names have been entered, and filing cards made out. If a man fails, all of this has to be adjusted, and it is a very difficult thing to do at that last minute. In any case, it is well to have in reserve three or four of the best general interviewers to take over such boys as may be necessary, but great care should be used. To assign a boy who shows a marked tendency toward some particular line of work to a man who is able to meet him only on a very general basis is unfortunate. All his aroused hopes may be blasted. It would be much better, where necessary, to explain to the boy that the particular interviewer chosen for him had failed, and that a special date would be arranged. In this case the boy's time should be the governing factor and the orig- inal man or another of similar qualifications should be dated to meet the boy. 4. Getting the Interviews Started. The problem of connecting the boy with the man at the proper time must be faced. A most satisfactory plan is as follows : The interview evening from 7 : 30 to 10 o'clock is divided into five periods of twenty-five minutes each, allowing five minutes for changing. These periods are numbered from one to five. When assignments are com- 52 THE FIND YOURSELF IDEA plete a card of filing size is made out for each boy, using the form given below : Boy's Card. Andersen, Carl Interviewer — J. D. Williams Room 12 Period 1 There should be a general meeting (at supper if possi- ble) of all boys and men just preceding the actual inter- views. This is much better than having the boys go directly to meet the men, as there is much to be gained by bringing all together for a few minutes of announcement and a short inspirational message, and a general intro- duction of all the interviewers to the boys. As the boys arrive they should apply at tables near the entrance to the room, where each receives his card described above. If the number of boys is large the cards may be divided, A to M at one table and N to Z at another. There is a fine opportunity to use a committee of older boys as guides during the evening. After the preliminaries the boys holding cards marked "Period 1" are asked to rise. With their interviewers they then go directly to their places. The other boys who are scheduled for later periods remain to study the exhibits of charts and books and to talk with the coun- selors who are in charge of the assembly room. The men who perform this service should be carefully chosen. Frequently the time spent in the general room proves as helpful to the boy as the interview itself, provided this part of the program is properly planned. At the end of the first interview boys holding cards marked "Period 2" leave for their interviews and the boys in the first section return to the general room to remain as long as d o -»i9 d OS (X) a; d o o C -d +3 c PLH O w 1=1 1 i OS 1 O U fe ^ <1 d be o d -4-3 U • i-i 'd OP ;> OS 0) v ^ a> rd 1— 1 -;j tj o 54 THE FIND YOURSELF IDEA they care to. At the end of another half hour "Period 3" boys are called. This process is repeated until the fifth period is called at 9 : 30, if the number of boys per man makes so many periods necessary. The cards not called for at the door give an exact record of those who failed to come for their interviews, and some special effort should be made to follow up these boys. The supper plan of meeting has been found most desirable for inaugurating the interview periods. A supper with both boys and men present makes it possible for many of the boys to meet the men personally and for all of them to see those who will meet them in the inter- views. This has a very fine effect on the whole result, and every effort should be made to carry out the supper plan. In this case all of the work outlined above for getting under way may be carried out at the close of the supper period. 5, Summary and Check-Up. The process of preparing blanks, assigning and listing interviewers, holding the meeting of interviewers, and actually inaugurating the interview periods has been covered above. While these important factors in the campaign are being cared for, someone must be giving attention to many details. Experience indicates that the following items must be checked up in the thirty-six hours preceding the interviews. IMany of them will have been finally settled before, but those in charge need assure themselves that such is the case. A last postal card or letter to boys participating, reminding them of their engagement. Story of the campaign and announcement of the interview night in the local papers. This should appear in the evening papers of the day preceding the interviews and in the morning papers of the OEGANIZATION OF A CAMPAIGN 55 date on which the interviews occur. The proper publicity here will supplement the notices sent to the boys. Check up, by telephone and personally, the attend- ance of all who are to have any part in the work throughout the day and in the evening. Follow up the committee of older boys who have agreed to help, in order to insure their presence on time and their acquaintance with their duties. Review all arrangements for the headquarters room. This room should be a friendly place, large enough to accommodate the boys and men, but not too large. Go over all arrangements made for the exhibit of posters, books, charts, etc., in the headquarters room. Review the program for the general meeting and the part the counselors are to take in dealing with boys waiting for interviews. Check up the places assigned for interviews. Be sure that arrangements are made for the rooms to be unlocked and that in each place there is pro- vided at least a table and two chairs. Go over all arrangements for the interviewers' meet- ing and the supper. With the chairman plan care- fully the program so that there may be no delays and yet nothing be overlooked. Be sure that during the day someone is securing any additional interviewers needed as indicated from the study of the boys' blanks. 66 THE FIND YOURSELF IDEA Materials Necessary for a Moderate-Sized Campaign: 1. Boys' Enrolment Card — printed locally. 2. Interviewers' Enrolment Card — printed locally. 3. Advertising Folder adapted to both men and boys — printed locally. 4. Self- Analysis Blank. 5. Interviewers' Report Blank. 6. Boy 's Assignment Card — 3 x 5 white cards, typed, are sufficient. 7. Interviewer 's Assignment Card — 3 x 5 white cards, typed, are sufficient. 8. Exhibit of Charts — Books — Pamphlets on Voca- tional Subjects (desirable but not absolutely neces- sary). 9. Some Inspirational Pamphlet, such as "Where Will You Be Ten Years from Today." 10. A Folder for Interviewers like : (a) "Prolonging the Period of Adolescence for Employed Boys" — Fiske. (b) "Most Remarkable Generation of Boys" — Mott. (c) "Helping a Boy to Find Himself" — Foster. (See Chapter V for copy.) Large Campaigns. In a Find Yourself Campaign involving 300 to 1,500 boys, many matters become serious which in a small cam- paign are merely points for careful attention. Hence elaboration of method and building up of considerable campaign machinery are absolutely essential. Most of the larger campaigns have been among employed boys, but now high-school boys are being included in many places, therefore careful coordination with the school authorities must at all times be maintained. In any effort that approximates being city-wide, employers too must be consulted and planned with quite differently than when the campaign includes comparatively few boys and not many from any one place of emploj'ment. Fre- YouBeTen^&ars fromTodayjr^ \. ' «j;;:;;.u t::--- INTERVIEWER'S REPORT BLANK XP Making Those Dreams Come True ? «... >" Material to be used in Campaigns a, DD T3 § o >^ Ph a -? □ D .| AM) FkI.LiiWSIIIP APPLICATION TO SPECIAL GROUPS OF BOYS 63 ciation with its special experience and this special plan of friendly vocational guidance is in no sense a competi- tor of the school leaders, but rather seeks to cooperate with and supplement their work. In all vocational guidance work, therefore, Y. M. C. A. leaders should keep in closest contact with the local high- school principals and teachers, and seek to work with them in every possible way. In many cities and towns it will be possible to follow closely the suggestions offered on previous pages for the Find Yourself Campaign. In other places some adapta- tions will need to be made. For that reason attention is called to the following : 1. Creating Interest and Giving Vision. Cooperating with the school authorities, assistance is often rendered by the Young Men 's Christian Association leaders, frequently through the Hi-Y Club, by offering short-term courses in life-work questions and by the consideration of vocations into which boys later may enter lives of real service on behalf of humanity. Such topics as the following are found useful for public addresses, in the school assembly, before boys of the two upper classes, or at the Y. M. C. A. building or, as is often the case, for discussion in the classroom, or after the Hi-Y Club meetings at the Association building: "The Fundamental Principles in the Choice of Life Work." "How I May Know for AVhat I Am Fitted." ' ' The Life Opportunity of a Lawyer, a Physician, a Minister, a Teacher, a Business Man, a Manufac- turer. ' ' These different vocations usually are presented separ- ately, each by a local leader in his profession or business, who leads the discussion that follows. Obviously, both 64 THE FIND YOURSELF IDEA the encouraging and difficult phases of the vocation should receive fair treatment. Continuing emphasis should be made on the necessity for thorough preparation and the domination of the unselfish in whatever life work a boy may finally decide to enter. 2. The Interview Process. It is found entirely practicable, indeed much more successful in many instances, to place large responsibility on a carefully selected committee of older boys to ' ' book, ' ' or enlist, other boys who desire interviews during the special week or days of the effort. The personal presenta- tion by individual boys often leads a boy to seek an interview when the public presentation alone fails. When the interviews are confined to boys in the senior class, or possibly to the senior and junior classes, there has been found more intelligent interest and cooperation. This process also tends to keep the lower classmen inter- ested and, as later they come into the upper classes them- selves, eager for similar help. The cooperation between the Young Men's Christian Association leaders and the school authorities is so close in some communities as to lead the high-school principals to urge and plan for the interviews to be held in the school buildings during school hours. Others excuse boys from school for the period of the interview at the Young Men's Christian Association building or the office of the interviewer. Some Young Men's Christian Associations have rented the use of a home near the school building and scheduled the interviews in the different rooms. Frequently interviews are held in near-by church or Sunday-school rooms, made available for this purpose. The plan calling for all the interviews to be held in the evening, as with employed boys, often works satisfac- torily, but obviously is not as necessary. APPLICATION TO SPECIAL GEOUPS OF BOYS 65 3. The Vocational Forum. The temptation to omit this important part of the effort, especially with high-school boys, will need to be resisted steadfastly. It is true that much of the good from it will be covered if the suggestions under para- graph number one are followed. However, nothing can take the place of the period when adult leaders supervise a few boys as they fill in their blanks, or when an experienced leader conducts an open conference. The atmosphere of expectant interest is never so satisfactorily created as when challenging questions are asked and frankly answered as suggested under the topic "Vocational Forum" in Chapter V. Adaptation at this point to local conditions is a pre- requisite to success. Some places have used the forum plan by conducting each day of the special emphasis a helpful discussion in the school assembly, or senior class- room, or at the Young Men's Christian Association build- ing. These take the form of a series on some such theme as "The Quest of the Best," with the following topics announced for each day: "Overcoming Obstacles." ' ' Intellectual Development. ' ' "Why Stay in School and Go to College." "The Physical Basis for Character." "Weaving Moral Fiber." ' ' Spiritual Power to Carry On. ' ' 4. Conserving Results and Continuing Service. The personal accjuaintance between the boy and the interviewer frequently results in an invitation to observe methods and follow special study at his office or factory. Friendship is a continuous process. Every facility should be offered for frequent contacts between the boy and those with whom he has interviews. High-school principals increa-singly are accepting the 66 THE FIND YOUKSELF IDEA opportunity for outside help in vocational as well as character stimulus, by arranging with Young Men's Christian Association Secretaries to plan for interviews for individual boys with business and professional men at any time throughout the school year. Happy the boy who has around him this interested and helpful trio of adult friends ! Every decision of the will by a boy in connection with this work must be given opportunity for expression. To the Association leader, the interviewer, and the high- school faculty member is given the great opportunity and responsibility to help each boy to carry on. 5. Extension to Special High-School Groups. The Hi-Y Club leader often finds it thoroughly helpful to follow the Find Yourself plan with the few boys in his group. This, then, simply becomes a campaign for a smaller number, often quite as profitable, because much more intimate and more easily followed up. Similarly, high-school teachers are using the same plan with the boys in a particular class or study group. The outreach of the public high schools into smaller places (of the 13,951 high schools, 12,566 are classified as village and rural) presents an opportunity, on the plan suggested for the lonesome boy, in this chapter, which educational and Association leaders should be alert to seize. II. The Employed Boy. An experienced worker with boys from Europe, after listening to our description of the Find Yourself Idea in operation, asked three significant questions : First, how do you get the men to give time to this work? Are they not interested in making money? Second, how do you find the actual jobs for so many boys? APPLICATION TO SPECIAL GEOUPS OF BOYS 67 Third, do you have no difficulty with boys having aspirations quite outside of their immediate social standing? The answer to the first question has been stated fully in the opening of the chapter on interviewing. Men in abundance are found who will give this time, especially to the employed boy. In answer to his second question, we stated our obser- vation, indicating that not more than ten per cent of the boys in a given Find Yourself Campaign make any imme- diate change in their work. What jobs we do need are usually found readily enough through the interviewers and committeemen who have been interested during the campaign. Occasionally a boy is obliged to go to another city or to the country, as in the case of a boy who recently was advised by a city banker to go into a town or small city bank where he could more quickly learn the yarious elements of banking. Arrangement was made readily enough for the boy to do this. The European worker's third question would of course be a much more difficult one to answer in older countries where the social strata are more clearly defined. In the "Western Hemisphere, we never stop to think what a boy 's father is, so long as he gives evidence of having capacity for the task to which his ambition points. The other night we were helping some colored boys fill out their blanks. The writer looked over a boy's shoulder and saw his first choice for vocation, which was physician. Glanc- ing along the questions, we noticed in answer to the one about the father's employment, the word waiter. Inquir- ing of the local secretary, we discovered that the boy had excellent capacity, is a good student, maintains high marks at school, and gives no indication of any reason why he should not aspire to be a physician. His father is a waiter in a restaurant, but the colored people in the great city where he lives greatly need physicians of their 68 THE FIND YOURSELF IDEA own race. Therefore this boy who goes to school and works part time can logically enough make his plans for securing a medical education and eventually find a place of great usefulness among his own race. The particular type of vocational guidance known as the Find Yourself Idea was first worked out among employed boys. It seems to fit their situation to a nicety. They are not under the constant leadership of idealistic men and women as are the school boys. All too few of them are connected with the churches and Sunday schools. A system which inspires and aids them to look themselves straight in the face and catalogue their suc- cesses and failures, their capacities, and interests, a system moreover that urges them not to overlook for a moment the handicaps of inadequate education or lack of financial backing, is manifestly a method of the greatest value to the employed boy. When in addition it helps him view vocation not only from the standpoint of being the means by which he can earn his living, but also the manner in which he makes his particular contribution to the great necessary work of life, that system can play a part of major importance. Universality of Talent. Little enough has been said in this volume about what is sometimes termed "the universality of talent" — the known fact that there lies buried under the crust of circumstances much of the finest human material in our nation. There used to be a theory quite currently be- lieved that if a boy had high ability or genius, it would burst up through whatever layers of neglect and misfor- tune lay above it and make its presence knoT\Ti to the rest of the world. Lester Ward in his "Applied Soci- ology, ' ' and Alfred Odin in his remarkable studies of the leading men of France, reaching back through a period of 500 years, have established in the minds of thinking APPLICATION TO SPECIAL GROUPS OF BOYS 69 men, the great fact of almost unlimited resources in talent and ability of which the world is not now able to take advantage. Especially in the working-boy mass then is the Find Yourself Idea applicable, for we care not a whit whether the boy 's father is a ditch digger or a physician; we know that there may be buried down underneath his rough clothing and crude exterior, the heart of a Lincoln, the brain of an Edison, the organ- izing genius of a Woolworth. Fosdick in his ** Meaning of Service ' ' uses, in this connection, the following pointed illustration : ' * So, though a plank thrown on the sward have but a single nail hole in it, some aspiring blade of grass will find it and come up from the o])scurity and darkness underneath to rejoice in the splendor of the sun. But one who sees, with understanding eyes, that miracle of individual triumph, cannot be content. Consider all the dead and withered grass for which no way of escape was found! So blighting condi- tions lie across the lives of millions of folk today alike in heathendom and Christendom. Here and there some few break through to liberty. But the crushed multitudes — how can a disciple of Jesus think of them with equanimity ? ' ' As long ago as before the days of the American Revolu- tion, Thomas Gray, one of the sweetest singers that the English people have ever produced, wrote the well-known lines : "Full many a gem of purest ray serene The dark unfathom'd caves of ocean bear. Full many a flow'r is born to blush unseen, And waste its sweetness on the desert air, ' ' Today not only do earth and ocean give up their treasures for man's use but man is learning to dig deep into the storehouses of humanity and find there un- 70 THE FIND YOURSELF IDEA dreamed-of talents and abilities for the improvement of civilization and the enrichment of individual human life. The idealists have always believed it, now scientific men have proved the wonderful resources buried in the human mind and heart. We can almost invariably depend on the sympathy and interest of employers. When a campaign brings us in contact with boys largely from one great industrial estab- lishment, or in what is knowai as a one-industry com- munity, like a cotton-mill village or a shoe-factory city, employers or personnel directors usually bring up the subject of labor turnover. "Will this not unsettle our boys and make them all want to change their jobs?" is a question often asked and fairly so. In a recent campaign in New York City, this was faced by personnel directors in the great insurance companies and banks in the finan- cial district. The general conclusion was that the work was to be done so carefully that, rather than unsettling boys, it would settle many of them and show them splen- did opportunities in the places where they were then employed. And for boys who were evidently not fitted for a particular line of work, it was decided that it would be much better for the boys and for the concern to dis- cover as quickly as possible for what task that particular boy was fitted. We have always held ourselves ready, if a concern employing a large number of boys so desired, to set the campaign up within that concern, letting them furnish their own interviewers to show the boys the future possi- bilities with that particular company or line of work. We always have reserved the right, however, where boys were found not suited to a particular business, to help them discover logical types of life work elsewhere. This has, in several cases, been done, the company furnishing its own interviewers except certain general counselors who were evidently needed. In our observation the APPLICATION TO SPECIAL GROUPS OF BOYS 71 result has not been much different than when the inter- viewing was done by men on the outside, for it is a characteristic of these campaigns that the interviewers become exceedingly conscientious and give advice and counsel with the greatest caution. Instead of unsettling boys, the very opposite result has been true of practically every campaign of which we have had personal knowl- edge. One reason for this slight effect on labor turnover is that many of the boys choose occupations which their age or their educational equipment makes it impossible for them to enter immediately. Therefore if thirty-three per cent of the boys in a cam- paign discover that they ought to be in some other line of work, very few of them can, in the nature of the situa- tion, make any immediate change. We usually advise them, if their present work is at all congenial and remunerative, to stay where they are while they are getting the necessary equipment for the bigger jobs ahead. After the big campaign among employed boys in Rochester, N. Y., one of the leaders touched on this point in the following statement regarding publicity : ' ' The main drive of the publicity should be to sell the campaign to the boy. There should be no doubt in the mind of any boy who reads the paper that the campaign is open to any working boy in the city, that it costs him nothing, that it is run by a group of disinterested business men with nothing up their sleeves. In the early part of a campaign, it would be well, through the publicity also, to convince the employers that anything in the interest of the boy is also in their interest, and that the experience of other campaigns proves that no undesirable unrest among the boys is created, but that exactly the opposite effect results." It is not more difficult to deal with employed than school- 72 THE FIND YOURSELF IDEA boys after they are found, but it is sometimes more diffi- cult to find the boys to deal with. It will be discovered that they will vary greatly in educational equipment, to say nothing about mental capacity. Many cases will be discovered where the boy is held down by most trying economic circumstances. All these matters must be taken into consideration when dealing with the boy who works. This points to the need of formal meetings at a church, settlement. Association building, and the like, rather than at store or factory. At the former careful presentations can be made of the general principles of choosing a life work, and the details of the campaign may be put before the boys in an atmosphere where they can and will listen and understand. These boys do not listen to as many addresses or encounter as much information of an academic nature as do schoolboys. On the other hand, they have more practical knowledge of occupations and working conditions than they know how to catalogue or digest. In the case of these working boys, the prelimi- nary presentations, the statement before the interviews, and the vocational forum mentioned in Chapter V are of the greatest moment. Care should of course be taken to make plain to the boys, as has been indicated with reference to the employers, that this effort does not presage a great shift of jobs, and especially that it does not promise easy and immediate success. "With this particular group of boys, it is especially essential that they understand that the whole effort is an educational process in which the campaign is only a starting point, and that they are the ones who should make the final decision. However, they should also understand, for their encouragement, that the best minds of the town can be brought to bear on their particular vocational problems, and that because of this Find Yourself Idea, and its operation, it is not necessary for them to make the study or engage in their early struggles alone. APPLICATION TO SPECIAL GKOUPS OF BOYS 73 III. Using the Find Yourself Idea in the Christian Citizenship Training Program. The Find Yourself Idea is one of the methods of Boys' Work which, having been developed in the experience of the Young Men's Christian Association, was incorporated into the fourfold program of physical, mental, social, and religious activities known as the Christian Citizen- ship Training Program. This Program should go far toward increasing the use which is made of the Find Yourself Idea, as the number of leaders of such boys' groups multiply within the Association and within the churches. In the program for boys from fifteen to seventeen (Service Training Program, the division of activity "Choosing a Life Work"), there are three elective tests which refer directly to the Find Yourself Idea — Elective No. 6 in the first year. Elective No. 4 in the second year, Elective No. 5 in the third year. This means that every boy of Comrade age interested in the fourfold program should have at some time during the three years which the Comrade program covers, an opportunity to face himself through the Find Yourself process. There are several ways in which this can be handled: 1. Individual boys may be interested in filling out blanks and getting them handled by mail, or by entering local campaigns run by the Young Men's Christian Association. 2. A leader working with the activities of the Com- rade program may seize the opportunity to interest his whole group by having them take part in a campaign conducted by the local Association. 3. A leader may set up and carry through a small campaign for the members of his own group, selecting mostly, for interviewers, men from his own church. 4. All of the groups of a church which are using the 74 THE FIND YOURSELF IDEA Program may unite to promote for the Comrade boys of that church, a Find Yourself Campaign, using the resources of the church to locate interviewers and carry through the various details of the campaign. 5. The largest possibility would be realized when many churches of a city interested in the use of the Pro- gram with their boys came together for a united, city- wide campaign. In each of the possibilities mentioned above, the Find Yourself Idea would have an excellent opportunity to make a contribution to the lives of boys, for each leader, because of the charting, would have much more detailed information concerning his boys than do the leaders in places where the Find Yourself Campaign is run for groups of boys promiscuously gathered. The charting and the activities which the leader has conducted with the boys will have established a common ground of sympathy and understanding which would be a most valuable asset in preparing boys to secure the largest possible returns from the intimate processes of the Find Yourself Campaign. Further, the small group organiza- tion affords the best possible method of following up find- ings of the campaign. As the leader deals with the individual members of his group in a fourfold program, both he and the boy can be careful to give attention and time to those activities which are in keeping with the findings resulting from such a vocational-guidance effort. "With someone constantly checking up on the boy's activity and referring back to any decision which may have been made in a Find Yourself Campaign, there comes a very real opportunity to realize for the boy through the activities of the Christian Citizenship Train- ing Program the big ideas which have gripped him. IV. The Christian Callings Emphasis.* The future of Christianity is ultimately dependent * Suggestions by Dr. C. J. Carver. APPLICATION TO SPECIAL GROUPS OF BOYS 75 upon the character of its leaders. There can be no argu- ment on this point. For this reason, the call to Christian service never sounded with such clearness, such insis- tence, such varied and universal challenge as now. This situation is in itself an imperative challenge to every Christian, and particularly to every Christian leader of boys ; for it is to those who have this relation of inspirer and guide of boyhood and youth, that we must look in large measure for that stimulus and challenge which may capture a boy's imagination and lead ultimately to life- long service in a position of Christian leadership. All this is true of volunteer and lay leadership, but is still more emphatically true of those avenues of full-time service referred to for the want of a better term as the distinctively "Christian callings." For too long have the Church and all allied agencies pursued a hand-to- mouth policy in securing recruits for the work at hand; the time has now come when they will be obliged either to push back the borders of their source of supply to the teen age, Avhere the majority of such decisions are increas- ingly being made, or be obliged to give way before other agencies and movements, already in motion, which will still further curtail the stream of recruits. Without fear of contradiction, this may be put do\NTi as unquestionably one of the biggest problems confronting Christianity today. What is the answer? Where shall we look, and how shall we begin ? It is suggested that intensive cultivation along the line proposed in this chapter may profitably be undertaken with the three following groups. 1. Boys who have previously decided quite definitely in their own minds that they will go into some Christian calling, but who desire more definite in- formation with respect to the opportunities, train- ing necessary, matters relating to the choice of col- lege, courses, study, etc. 76 THE FIND YOUKSELF IDEA 2. Boys who have manifested interest in some degree in Christian life work but who have not definitely decided, or who have not shown any dominant inter- est therein. They are usually debating the claims of Christian callings, as over against the so-called secular callings. 3. Boys who possess, or are suspected of possessing, potential Christian leadership qualities, in the judg- ment of parents, leaders, or friends, although the boys themselves have perhaps shown little or no interest in these phases of Christian life work as yet. Through the hearing thus gained must come the future minister, the future missionary, religious educator, Chris- tian social-service worker, and the future Association secretary. And if a Christian boy's commitment to the service of God and man has been sincere and without reservations he will feel it incumbent upon himself to scrutinize with open mind and heart every vocation, to see where he can most fruitfully invest his life. This at once opens the way to the challenge for Christian life work through full-time service in the program of the Church and its allied organizations. Locating Prospective Christian Leaders. Everywhere throughout the country keen, discerning local men should be putting up this matter of vocational choice for Christian callings to boys of promise. Every local Boys' Secretary should actively enlist the coopera- tion of ministers, Sunday school and Christian public school teachers, and every Association secretary in locat- ing boys of potential Christian leadership qualities. To this end, every existing Association activity should be utilized to the full in locating prospective Christian leaders. Naturally one of the most prolific sources is to be found in the Find Yourself Campaign and the Cam- paign of Friendship. But many other channels lend APPLICATION TO SPECIAL GROUPS OF BOYS 77 themselves to the discovery of these boys. Among these should be mentioned state, district, and county older-boys' conferences, older-boys' life-work conferences, summer camps, training camps and conferences for employed and high-school boys. Employed Boys' Brotherhoods and Hi-Y (with particular attention to the smaller inner groups), boys enrolled in the Christian Citizenship Training Program, and Standard Leaders Clubs. In addition, there are boys in denominational young people's societies, in private schools and camps. Further still, the strongest emphasis possible should be laid upon the necessity of challenging individual boys. Constant, intensive, personal cultivation should be prac- ticed at all times and at every opportunity. In the last analysis, each of these boys must be dealt with on this personal, one-by-one basis, and the sooner this vital con- tact can be made, the better for all concerned. Wherever in the interest of adequate and systematic effort such a step may seem desirable, a Christian call- ings committee may well be organized at state and local points. Or a committee already at hand may be assigned special responsibility in this field. Steps in the Process. An outline of the entire program may be had in the pamphlet, "Boys for Christian Callings" (Association Press). A "Christian Callings Supplement" has been pre- pared to accompany the "Self- Analysis Blank." This is a one-page supplement, uniform with the "High School Boys Insert." It is intended that this "Christian Call- ings Supplement" be used either during a Find Yourself Campaign or a Campaign of Friendship, if there can be picked out in advance certain boys to whom it is desired this challenge shall come. Or, whenever in the regular 78 THE FIND YOURSELF IDEA conduct of such campaigns it develops that a boy's vocational tendencies are in this direction, he can be requested subsequently to fill out this ' ' Christian Callings Supplement. ' ' Local workers who discover boys inclined to and ap- parently fitted for professional Christian work, should forward the names of such boys to the state office of the Young Men's Christian Association. The State Secre- taries from time to time forward all such names to their Regional Association Office. In this way locally, in states, and nationally, we have a record of many boys conscientiously facing Christian types of life work. Forms for reporting data about these boys can be ob- tained from State and Regional Offices. This information should be forwarded after the inter- views, so as to include certain minimum facts for the cultivation list. This list serves as a general clearing house for such cultivation and follow-up as denomina- tional boards of education and Association training and recruiting agencies may wish to give. No less than nine such boards and three such agencies are now using this list as regards those particular boys in which they are interested. An outstanding example of the contribution the Young Men's Christian Association is making along this line grew out of the furnishing from this list of 119 names to a certain denominational board. In checking up it was discovered that there were but four duplications, signify- ing that the Association through its contacts had dis- covered 115 Christian callings prospects of which the denomination itself had no prior knowledge. This only indicates what can be done if whole-hearted interest and cooperation prevail. The Follovir-Up. As in the case of every effort to assist boys in coming APPLICATION TO SPECIAL GROUPS OF BOYS 79 to a final choice of life work, but true in a special sense in this connection, there can be no substitute for an effective follow-up. Though self-evident, this point needs reiteration and emphasis. Experience by denominational life-work agencies and by our own Association secretaries is increasingly proving the contention that the follow-up is the acid test of the entire recruiting program. The most careful and safe and sane promotion (to say nothing of the fireworks brand) will result in arousing desirable hopes and ambitions in the breasts of boys and young men, but such procedure has elements fraught with grave danger unless those in constant touch with the boys pro- vide careful cultivation. Growth means life, but growth takes both time and attention. And as no long-distance method has ever been devised whereby a florist, for example, can give his plants water, heat, and the neces- sary personal attention from a point 100 or 1,000 miles distant, so no secretary in a state or the International office, nor a denominational board, can do the cultivation which must be done on the ground if it is done at all. The key of the situation is not so much acquaintance as friendship and confidence, which means that the only hope lies with the secretary or other leader in intimate contact, and that constantly, with the boy. We shall succeed or fail in this effort in direct proportion as local leaders perform or do not perform this function. Some of the items in this matter of follow-up : 1. Relate the boy to some man in the church. Associa- tion, school, or community, who can act as a per- sonal counselor and friend, to stay by him until he is trained and in service. 2. Provide for a "check-up" on motives and abilities through (a) Formal and informal personal conferences, as opportunity affords. 80 THE FIND YOURSELF IDEA (b) Those closest to him in home, church, and school. (c) A series of experiments with his leadership talents and interests, in church, school. Asso- ciation, community. This will give him a taste of it. Among such service tasks the following are offered as suggestive : Win individual boys of his own age to Christian decision. Lead younger boys to Christian decision. Plan and conduct meetings for boys in church, Association, neighborhood groups, etc. Take responsibility for some social service activities. Lead younger boys in play, games, gymnasium, groups, classes, etc. Coach athletics for younger boys. Act as tent leader at summer camp. Give talks on Bible and missionary topics. Engage in public speaking and debating con- tests. Participate in the Christian Citizenship Train- ing Program or lead a group of Pioneers. 3. Suggest literature, including Christian biography, and have a boy report on his reading, his reaction thereon, etc. 4. Help him secure information relative to the choice of a college or training school, courses of study, subjects, financial self-help, etc. V. Dealing with Individual Boys — Particularly by Mail. The county, state, and International offices of the Y. M. C. A. have analysis blanks (made out by boys) constantly coming to them from boys who have heard about the Find Yourself system. Somehow they have obtained a blank and they request our help. Occasionally APPLICATION TO SPECIAL GEOUPS OF BOYS 81 they write in for one. In the days of its popularity, the magazine Every Week carried an article about our Find Yourself Campaign which attracted considerable attention. Recently some interviewer in a New York City Association 's campaign waxed enthusiastic and sent to the American Magazine a tiny article which covered less than a page ; but a three-line sentence, entirely un- authorized, saying that this particular Association would help anyone interested, brought to the magazine two hun- dred and fourteen letters within a few weeks. Those letters which were clearly from boys and young men are being followed up through the regional and state offices of this organization. It is evident that state and county offices of the Y. M. C. A. can have all the Find Yourself work by mail they want and can handle. It is also evident that from now on a certain amount of this mail work will be coming whether we want it or not. Twelve points are therefore enumerated growing out of our experience in trying to help boys at long range. Fortunately most of the boys can be referred to local Associations, sometimes to county groups, but some will be so isolated that they must be dealt with by mail. We should study ways to improve this service to hoys at a distance; for there is many a lonesome boy longing for such help all over North America and surely the Young Men's Christian Associa- tion has an organization extensive enough to assure a close contact eventually with any ambitious boy who wants our help in locating his logical life work and in establishing a safe and helpful relationship with the vast moving life of the world. TW^ELVE IMPORTANT POINTS 1. Contacts with more or less isolated boys who desire help in the choice of life work are made through articles in papers and magazines, suggestions made to boys per- 82 THE FIND YOURSELF IDEA sonally by secretaries or committeemen in their travels, boys telling other boys about the Find Yourself method, etc. There are other and more elaborate plans in the mak- ing, whereby the Y. M. C. A. can come in touch with many such boys, but it has not seemed wise as yet to interest more boys at a distance from local Associations and general offices than we can handle well. 2. Furnish the boy a self -analysis blank, being careful to have the correct insert, according to whether he is in school or at work. Be sure to give him explicit instruc- tions about filling out the blank. Make plain to him just where the blank is to be sent, viz., your own office. Re- mind him tactfully that what he wants is a real picture of himself for he will not get very far in life work on anything but his own interests, capacities, and tempera- mental characteristics. These are his working materials and he might as well proceed to discover just what they are. 3. Review the blank with great care and keep a copy of both the blank and suggestion to interviewers which it is well to have written or typed on the back of the insert. Remember also that the boy will see these notes as well as the interviewer. 4. Write the boy a friendly letter when you return his blank, suggesting the type of man you think he should seek an interview with, giving him some suggestions as to methods of approach, viz., to a physician, banker, stock raiser, village merchant, etc. Tell him to make a pre- liminary call on the first interviewer of his choice and leave his blank for the man to study, making a date for a later consultation. 5. Include in this second letter suggestions to the boy himself, matters you would want to take up with him were you to interview him yourself — vocational, moral, APPLICATION TO SPECIAL GROUPS OF BOYS 83 religious, relating to further education, home problems, etc. 6. Tell him, if there is any possibility of his doing so, to locate, in a public library or elsewhere, the story of Frederick Wilson in the "Life Work" volume of the Father and Son Library. This is a boy who hunts out his own interviewers, and it should be particularly helpful to the isolated boy either in the country or the city. 7. Have him write to Frank H, Cheley, 422 Denham Building, Denver, Colo., editor-in-chief, stating the name and location of the nearest library where he would like to have these volumes made available to himself and other ambitious boys, providing he cannot find this set of boys ' books in his neighborhood. 8. Find for the boy a correspondent who (1) may be interested in boys in a general way, or (2) if possible, a man who is engaged in some one of the lines of life work in which this boy is interested. This is not at all an impossible task, and may be made a great inspiration to isolated boys. Let the boy report to him and to yourself the results of his various interviews. 9. Remember that the ultimate results may be quite as good in helping a boy determine his proper life work, when the boy is at a distance, and is throwoi on his own initiative to locate his interviewers, etc., as when he participates in a regular campaign. Your suggestions and encouragement may be the only element he really needs to enable him to make this study of life work intelligently. 10. Send him some pamphlet literature occasionally such as "Where Will You Be Ten Years from Today," "How to Hold a Job"— Finer; "Keeping Fit"— U. S. Public Health Service; "How to Deal with Temptation" — Speer. Refer him particularly to pamphlets or books that have been helpful to yourself. You will of course 84 THE FIND YOURSELF IDEA mention, ' ' Occupations" — Gowin ; ' ' Profitable Vocations for Boys" — Weaver; books of inspiration like "Poems of Action" — Porter; "Every Man a King" — Marden; "You Are the Hope of the World"— Hagedorn; "Youth and the Nation" — Moore. If the boy writes that he cannot obtain these books, then you and the correspondent mentioned in Point 8 will have a splendid opportunity to loan or give him some of them for his own use and that of other boys whom he will interest in these serious questions of a life career. Other portions of the Life Work volume of the Father and Son Library are rich in informational and inspirational material for correspondents and boys. 11. Give the boy continuous friendship and counsel by mail and arrange eventually to meet him at a state or count}'- boys' conference or have him come to camp. 12. What you can do in a definite religious way with such a boy correspondent will be determined largely by the "faith of his fathers," but we should ever be on the alert to help him develop a fourfold life as close to the Christian ideal as we possibly can. We should show him frankly the advantage and duty of being actively con- nected with the church of his choice, whenever that becomes a possibility. VI. Boys in Town and Country Communities. There is a logical reason for dealing with the boys in rural and village communities last, in this chapter, for parts of the material in each of the other five sections apply directly to these boys as they do to boys in the city. However, certain phases of this work must manifestly be done differently in smaller communities, especially when they are organized on the county basis.* * This section has necessarily been written with the County Work of the Young Men 's Christian Association as a background. The principles and methods suggested, however, may prove useful to others operating in the town and country. APPLICATION TO SPECIAL GROUPS OF BOYS 85 This adaptation would seem to be threefold : 1, Through regularly organized groups. 2, Through a Find Yourself Campaign in a county or section thereof. 3, Dealing with boys at a distance through correspond- ence. First, a natural way to do vocational-guidance work in small communities is to operate through the regular groups of older boys, whether Hi-Y Clubs, Employed Boys' Brotherhoods, Comrade groups in the Christian Citizenship Training Program, in churches, or in the communit} at large. With such groups the Find Your- self project should come up for attention each year just as do Bible Study, Father and Son, athletic meet, or county boys' conference. If this matter has not been presented to the group before, a full evening should be set aside for a considera- tion of vocational choice, with an address by some well- equipped man in the community, by a traveling secre- tary, or by the group leader himself. Material for such a talk can readily be assembled from one's own experi- ence and observation with detailed information from such volumes as this and the books and pamphlets given in the reference section in Chapter XI. It is desirable to have each boy fill out self-analysis blanks that same evening or surely by the next club meeting. After the blanks have been carefully filled they should be analyzed according to the principles and methods sug- gested in Chapter IV and elsewhere, with men selected who shall interview each boy ; some of these will be local men, others may have to be brought in from some near-by town. If, however, this is being operated throughout an entire county, one community can greatly supplement the others by furnishing specific interviewers on technical lines. The follow-up work would be carried on as sug- gested in Chapter X with, of course, variations to suit the 86 THE FIND YOUKSELF IDEA smaller community. One or two interviewers who can deal with the boy who is restless in his anxiety to leave for opportunities in the city will be valuable men to use. Not every such boy manifestly should be discouraged, but opportunities at home need to be pointed out fre- quently as much as more alluring chances at a distance. In the second place, it may be wise to arrange a for- mulated Find Yourself Campaign, either for the county as a whole if it is one of those small counties with an easily reached county seat, or more often it may be wise to arrange two or three campaigns for a single county. The geography of the county and the development of organized centers will largely determine this, or again, there may be several good-sized towns or small cities where a single campaign can be carried on as in a larger city. To assume a case, we will suppose it is desired to hold a campaign in a town of 3,000 population, with boys from other towns coming in where that is possible by means of trolley or automobiles. The campaign would naturally include both high-school and working boys and would seek to reach boys on the farm as well as those in the surrounding villages. If a goodly group of boys, say fifty or even less, could be thus assembled, it would be wise to have helpers from the State or International Com- mittee, or near-by Associations in city or county. These should be men who could bring considerable experience to bear on the details of a campaign and also furnish the information and inspiration necessary to interest the boys and start their minds in vocational plans that would be logical. Proceeding then as in city campaigns, inter- viewers would be sought, the papers, made out on this first occasion, carefully analyzed ; and approximately one week later, the same group of boys brought together, preferably at the same place. They can then meet the interviewers for another evening of inspiration and per- APPLICATION TO SPECIAL GROUPS OF BOYS 87 sonal counseling. The vocational forum would naturally be conducted by one of the leaders while part of the boys were being interviewed (see Chapter V). This type of campaign including one good-sized town, several near-by towns, and boys from the open country has worked out exceedingly well. Another suggestion for doing the same thing, either by county or a section of a county, would be the holding of a vocational conference at the week-end. Friday night could be given to the first presentation and the filling out of blanks. Saturday morning (following the plan used in the Christian Call- ings Conferences) the boys could have vocational ad- dresses and discussions, while a committee of the men in another room are occupied in analyzing the blanks for the interviewers. Saturday afternoon could be given up to interviews with some leader conducting a forum in case these matters have not all been taken care of in the fore- noon. Saturday evening the conference might close with a supper and social time with a serious address as to the consecration of a boy's life powers in service as the closing feature. Or, in case it is possible, the conference could be con- tinued and close on Sunday afternoon with inspirational or evangelistic addresses as in the regular state and county boys' conferences. The follow-up work would have to be done by the local leaders. This might form the basis for a plan of variation of the county confer- ences, putting in such a vocational conference perhaps once in three years. It is manifestly desirable to have every possible boy come to some center where he can meet leaders, secure direct information, talk through problems, and tie up with men to whom he can look for further counsel. It is necessary sometimes, however, to aid boys at a dis- tance, and as a matter of fact, an exceedingly helpful work can be done, both in character-building and voca- 88 THE FIND YOURSELF IDEA tional guidance, by mail. Sufficient experience has already been gained in this method to suggest logical ways of bringing this help to isolated boys. Section V of this same chapter gives suggestions for thus dealing with boys whom it is not possible at the moment to reach personally. The known resources in talent which are discovered in small communities and on the farms should urge us to this task, while the woeful dearth of stimulus to high thinking and the seeming impossibility for the ambitious boy to become properly related to the world's work, are rural conditions well understood. Many a boy on a remote farm or in a mining camp is longing for safe and helpful contact with the outside world. But perhaps the neediest boy is the one in the small community, for it is often quoted that God made the country, man the city, but the devil must have made the small town. The country furnishes healthful stimulus from the battle with nature, the city presents to boys the constant urge of many attractive personalities busy at the tasks of civilization, with every day a lurid panorama of oppor- tunity open before the boy's mind. Therefore, an espe- cial privilege comes to the man interested in vocational guidance in helping the boy in the uninspiring village as well as in the country and big city. Summary. The material in this chapter is not intended to be com- plete in any way, merely a few suggestions as to the manner in which the Find Yourself process is being adapted to different types of boys and under varying conditions. Chapter VIII HELPING TO DISCOVER A BOY'S VOCATIONAL TENDENCY Because of its supreme importance in this friendly and unpretentious type of vocational guidance, it has seemed wise to place in a separate chapter a summary of what has already been said, and some things that may be new, with reference to helping a boy discover his primary vocational tendency. Actually, that is what we are trying to do through the whole Find Yourself process; whether we are giving information, having the boys fill out blanks, interviewing, or following them up, we are hunting sedulously for natural bent, inherent vocational inclination. We are not trying so much to help a boy decide on a particular vocation for the moment ; we are trying rather, as in the developing process in the art of photography, to help bring to the surface those latent interests, capacities, and characteristics which reveal the boy 's real self. This of course is a fundamental reason why we prefer to deal with boys from fifteen or sixteen years of age upward. Previous to that time many of his interests are not stable enough to be depended upon, but as soon as he approaches middle adolescence it is possible to pursue with some certainty the quest to discover what are the boy 's dominant reactions, what is the flow of his interests, in study, sport, social life, and in work, either as he has had experience in work, or as in imagination he projects himself into the field of earning one's living. As we have said a thousand times to boys themselves, 90 THE FIND YOURSELF IDEA what we want to help them discover is this primary vocational tendency if there be such in their lives. We seek to know whether, elementally, a boy is scientific and mechanical, that is, does he enjoy dealing with things, forces, objects, or is he primarily commercial, desiring to deal with trade, with banking, or with business ; is he, on the other hand, artistic, neither interested in money nor machines, but exceedingly anxious to give self-expres- sion in some field of art? Is he perhaps literary or humanic, so built that to find permanent satisfaction in work, it must involve ideas and people ? May he, on the other hand, have another primary work capacity which runs back and forth through several of these and may operate in almost any of these fields, is he endowed with good executive ability, the kind of work in which he directs the activities of others? Sometimes boys have very evident combinations of these major work-endow- ments, but before we consider these single-track or double-track boys, we must clear the road of one psychic difficulty. "We must help boys, especially those who are immature in thought or experience, to distinguish between surface interests and practical ability in any of these larger phases of life's work. For example, we all run across persons in life who are exceedingly fond of music, noth- ing so thrills or stirs them as the flowing cadences of melody. If this subjective interest happens to be com- bined with real ability, then the boy has a right to con- sider a musical career. But for most of us, no matter how intense may be our subjective interest in music or the other arts, our practical ability is about nil. "We must look elsewhere, therefore, for interests which com- bine with some capacity for useful work. The so-called test of experience may be necessary to help solve this problem in the life of many a boy. Sup- pose he has mechanical interests and a real craving in the e; S PI .2 ■5 © -2 ^ :-i ? § -2 ^ 2 §0 Go p "^ 2 tc /' -^ 5 .2 A BOY'S VOCATIONAL TENDENCY 91 musical line, arrangements can be made for the boy to take music lessons in voice or instrument as the case may be, with the result that in a few months a skilful teacher may determine whether or not he has sufficient ability to even consider a musical career. At the same time, he may be working as an apprentice in a machine shop, a car works, or in some similar skilled mechanical line. He is not wasting any time, for this is a problem he has to work out in his life, to find out in which of these two dominant interests lies his real money-earning capacity. We want to help each boy so far as we can to establish a solid economic basis for his life. So no mere sentiment or sub- jective interest can be allowed to be a controlling factor. If through experience in both lines it becomes fairly evident that this boy has a twenty per cent musical ability so far as earning a living is concerned, and that eighty per cent of his earning capacity is mechanical, the question is settled. Some mechanical occupation, either with hand or brain, must be his vocation and music must be his avocation or side line. Avocation a Safety Valve. From the psychic standpoint, it is quite important, however, not to discourage the boy with reference to any side line. His musical interest may be the most intense thing in his life, and for his mental health, his courage, and his general efficiency, it is essential for him to find happy and adequate expression for this intense subjective interest. From the practical standpoint, too, it is proper to allow a boy the widest opportunity to develop his side lines, for even with a test of experience it is not possible to say at seventeen or eighteen years of age whether the side line may not later in life become the main issue. This is probably not so likely to happen in music and the graphic arts as in some other lines, for these are more easily measured. 92 THE FIND YOUESELF IDEA Take two phases of one dominant tendency — the scientific interest in life. Lester Ward started out as a biologist and finally became nationally well known in connection with his work at the Smithsonian Institution in Washington, but he evidently had in his characteris- tics a strong hu manic interest, for the more he studied into biology and came to the matters of the organization of the lower forms of life, he was struck with the com- parisons with human life and gradually came to be known for his writings and research dealing with the primitive and then the more civilized forms of association and organization. In middle life, that which had been his side line became his main line and he left the field of biology for the scientific-humanic occupation of sociologist at Brown University. Here he gained a de- served reputation as a sociologist. Many even consider him the leading sociologist among those thus far pro- duced in America. We have often commented upon the case of Morris K. Jessup, a well-known New York business man who kept his main line of business throughout his life but fol- lowed two distinct side lines and probably made as great a contribution to his city and nation through his avoca- tions as in his vocation itself. He was primarily a busi- ness man but his contribution of time and money to matters connected with exploration, natural history, etc., and his associations with the Church and the Young Men's Christian Association, distinctly humanie lines, gave him great satisfaction and enabled him to render service in a variety of fields of human endeavor. The avocation as a safety valve is worthy the study of any vocational counselor. Frequently a boy is per- fectly satisfied if he can play in the band or in an orchestra, or be related to music in some quite informal way, but to discourage him entirely in a line which A BOY'S VOCATIONAL TENDENCY 93 relates very closely to the emotions, is dangerous and unnecessary. Types of Dominant Tendency. Some of the types which show up in practically every large campaign, some indicating, as will readily be seen, one clean-cut vocational tendency, or an equally evident combination, are these : 1. The boy who, by study interests, vocational choices, and other reactions in his blank, indicates clearly his interest and probable ability to work with machines and mechanical forces. 2. The engineering type, a boy either better endowed mentally or more ambitious, looks beyond such occupations as machinist or electrician, to further study, and such sacrifices of time and money as will make possible preparation for an engineering career. 3. The salesman type, the boy with large humanic interests showing up in his answers to the friend- ship questions, his checks opposite the different amusements, and the like, indicating a fondness for people, all this combined with a commercial interest and usually with a desire for travel. Such boys frequently have little choice as to what they will try to sell, indicating again the humanic character of the salesman's job. 4. The artistic boy, who usually leaves everything else alone in the vocational choices except that which has to do with the graphic arts. He not infre- quently brings with him to the campaign meetings, illustrations of his work. In our observation, these boys are more likely to have ability which can be turned into wage-earning power than the boys who are interested in music. 5. The literary-humanic type, occasionally showing up as either literary or humanic but more often in the combination. This type is not hard to discover for 94 THE FIND YOUESELF IDEA their reactions are usually clean-cut and definite. The occupations they are interested in range all the way from preacher to actor. They are frequently boys without much formal education but with latent ability and sometimes rather vague ambi- tions. They make excellent anarchists or great constructive leaders dealing with ideas and with people, and almost invariably should be encour- aged to procure the education necessary and make plans for a socialized or a literary career. 6. The commercial type, with perhaps as wide a range of variations as any of the groupings, not at all easy to pick out from a blank, but rather revealing as to type and interests during his interviews. Contiguity seems to have a good deal to do with the vocational selection of these boys, for they vary greatly in different parts of the country. Here is a case where the giving of information about the capacities required, rewards offered, and service to society involved in different commercial occupa- tions is of great value in keeping the boy from the idea of getting rich quick and making him see the larger aspects of commercial life. 7. The scientific boy, that one who likes to deal with the sources of things, with forces in their primary relationships. In the past this has been largely an academic field of vocations, but today is being rapidly expanded into commercial and industrial opportunities. Of course much educational prepa- ration is required and this we must make plain to the boys who show interest and capacity in this line. 8. Running across several of these types is what we might term the outdoor boy, not the youth who is satisfied to have his outdoor life in the form of recreation, but who seems convinced in his mind and drawn toward some occupation which gives him the freedom and exhilaration of outdoor life. It is important to help these boys find their place A BOY'S VOCATIONAL TENDENCY 95 in such work, for of all unhappy misfits, the boy who should have been a scientific farmer or a forester, but lands in a bookkeeper's job, is deserv- ing of our utmost sympathy. It is not always easy either from a boy 's blank or after various interviews with him to discover whether or not he is in one of these distinct classifications, but it is vastly easier to help him get placed in this larger cate- gory than it is to help him decide at once whether he should be a preacher or a plumber. Illustrative of the way in which the boy's blank sometimes gives hints of his place in the larger catalogue of work, it may be interesting to observe the list of studies submitted here- with, an exact reproduction from the Self-Analysis Blank. The numbers opposite different studies are dif- ferent boys. That is, No. 1, as it occurs nine times, means the way in which that boy marked his blank. No. 2, etc., each indicates a different boy with his distinct mark- ings. One of course should not attempt to determine a boy's classification on anything so superficial as a mark- ing of a few studies in which he is interested. However, it does become significant when compared with a dozen other things in the blank. Take boy No. 1 for example. He indicates a fairly clear literary and humanic type; his only variations are a scientific touch in botany and a check of commercial subjects. On the other hand, boy No. 2 indicates quite a clear case of scientific and mechanical interest, beginning at the upper right-hand corner with chemistry and trigonometry, and ending over toward the left-hand corner with manual training and trade courses. No. 3 seems to be literary and humanic again, with quite a different checking of sub- jects than No. 1. He, too, indicates nine study interests, all of which fall in the realm of ideas and people. As estimated by studies, again. No. 4 seems to be literary and scientific, his choices describing a sort of half circle. 96 THE FIND YOURSELF IDEA No. 5 shows quite the artistic tendency, five out of his eight checks coming in the second column, which is obvi- ously the artistic section of this study arrangement. This last is the only boy of the five whom we know per- sonally and he is artistic in real ability as well as in his reaction to these study choices. Incidentally this boy clearly indicates more than casual artistic interests at no less than eighteen other points in his answers to the questions on the regular blank and the high-school insert. No. 6 expresses clearly the literary-humanic tendency but still does not duplicate either Nos. 1 or 3. If the reader will refer again to Chapter IV, he will be reminded of the manner in which these studies are arranged, without headings or groupings, but in such a way that different tendencies, as expressed in study likings, follow certain diagonals, etc., across the page, helping the worker to locate at a glance, frequently, something fundamental about a boy's interests and perhaps his capacities. A BOY'S VOCATIONAL TENDENCY 97 I o o o tiD ^ o ?S5 '^ '■+J ^ co' Oh ^ s t^ OQ >>^ba ^ mar 6 an sh ric alism lercial irgiei _v^ r— 1 i-^j fcH ® ja »-. ® Jin^ O O m^ ohoph OOccWt-sO .^ t^ 03 03 l>j rt *> t; « a =3 "o ^-s 'S « a ? S, a -Salss-sogoa §&|-| eg CM .-H CO .-H bo be fl .a '^ ^ «o te rt bo CD C5 't- .2 •-'2 isic J ee H etry blic amat bate CO 'u H s ri ;^ w ph ^ fi Q w fi o ;^ H .S >-• o3 rt H 03 pi O a i3 o o o CO Tti lO 98 THE FIND YOURSELF IDEA The Use of Tests. What part should mental and vocational tests play in locating a boy's vocational tendency? This is a timely question for every worker with boys. If there are less laborious means of doing this service among boys we should surely be utilizing them. Without attempting to go into the matter exhaustively, we may with profit examine the test situation. Much attention has been given to tests of various kinds of late but it is only fair to say that there remains great diversity of opinion as to just how far psychological or educational tests can aid us today in helping a boy decide his life work. When doctors disagree it may be a bad time for amateurs to form opinions but it is a capital time to study a subject. When the general public was appraised of what satis- factory results had been obtained in the American army through the use of (a) the general-intelligence test and (b) the trade tests, many jumped to the conclusion that all our problems in vocational guidance were solved and that many plans of education would be changed at once. Almost two years have passed and the influence on either vocational guidance or general education has been com- paratively slight. When officers wanted to know in the army what the immediate ability of five hundred men might be as to carpentry, automobile repair, plumbing, or driving auto- trucks, the trade tests gave them exactly what they wanted. But the same test would have very little effect in helping to discover the possibilities of a sixteen-year- old boy in any one of those lines. Those tests were for momentary ability to "wipe a joint" or repair an auto; what we want to find out with a boy is not what can he do today but whether in all reason he possesses those interests and capacities that indicate reasonable happi- ness and usefulness for him if he should become, say, a plumber. Today he may not be able to repair an auto- A BOY'S VOCATIONAL TENDENCY 99 mobile but he may have capacity which, properly trained, will make him, fifteen years hence, an expert. Similarly in the general intelligence tests, Dr. God- dard, famous student of the feeble-minded, would seem in his recent book* to have accepted the army intelli- gence tests as absolute classifiers of the enlisted men, hence of all men, but whereas his facts are interesting and probably accurate, historically, his deductions from the facts are by no means accepted by other scientific men. Moreover young men in the army who themselves made very good grades question seriously the ability of the army general-intelligence tests to at all adequately measure one's general working capacity. Moreover one frequently hears army officers who gave the tests, men who feel they were extremely useful in the army, state in public their fear lest too much be ex- pected of these tests if applied to civilian life. Professor Hayes, sociologist at the State University of Illinois, warned the American Sociological Society at a recent meeting not to expect too much help in settling a young man's destiny from his reactions to a "little set of puzzles. ' ' Those of us who have many duties besides vocational guidance may therefore step with some caution where thorough students of such problems are at decided vari- ance. There is an unmeasurable element in many men of seeming moderate abilities, some driving force which aroused by an experience or a comradeship, by religion or love, makes his life flame and glow with power. The case for such unmeasurable but ruling qualities is put well in this editorial from the New York Tribune: The Edison Questionnaire. "Thomas A. Edison is severe on the collegians * "Human Efficiency and Levels of Intelligence," by Henry H. Goddard, Director of the Bureau of Kesearch, of Ohio. 100 THE FIND YOURSELF IDEA who flunked the questionnaire he personally pre- pared for those who applied for work in his shop. 'Amazing ignorance,' 'Don't seem to know any- thing' — these are his comments on young men academically trained. "But it isn't likely that these young men will let their careers be snuffed out by a questionnaire. Mr. Edison's friend, Henry Ford, he will remember, did not score a high percentage on a set of questions put to him a while ago, yet Mr. Edison would no doubt find Mr. Ford a useful man to employ at West Orange. "You can't assess a man's total ability, translate it into watts and amperes, by a few interrogations. He may rank X Y Z, as Mr. Edison expresses it, in such a test, but A B C in elements of efficiency, per- sonality, and character that he can't transcribe on a piece of paper. "Take another warm friend of Mr. Edison's — the late John Burroughs. Surely not the slightest notion of the naturalist's qualities could have been gained through an electrical inquisition. Sometimes one tires of the abnormal stress that is laid on that desirable thing called efficiency. In the world of outdoors — for example, in John Burrough's world — the most efficient creature probably is the English sparrow — a pest." Browning tried to put the case, too, in those helpful lines: "Not on the vulgar mass Called 'work,' must sentence pass, Things done, that took the eye and had the price; O'er which, from level stand, The low world laid its hand. Found straightway to its mind, could value in a trice: A BOY'S VOCATIONAL TENDENCY 101 "But all, the world's coarse thumb And finger failed to plumb, So passed in making up the main account: All instincts immature. All purposes unsure. That weighed not as his work, yet swelled the man's amount." Dr. Goddard would probably contend that these men who rise to splendid achievement after seeming to be men of very moderate ability would prove in reality to be men of a good grade of intelligence and would have rated reasonably well in an intelligence test such as the Otis or the Stanford Tests for Adults. But there is a danger point here, for tests are still imperfect, and the boy who rates badly on one test should not be abandoned as hopeless ; he may have a peculiar type of mind or the conditions for the test may not have been good. We should realize too that there is nothing incon- sistent about a theory of mental levels and the "univer- sality of talent" idea briefly discussed in Chapter VII. These two theories merely mean that scattered through all the social groups, rich and poor, tutored or untutored, there is a liberal quantity of good high-grade talent, that you are likely to locate splendid ability in the street- cleaner's boy or in the professor's son, or again that neither may grade especially high, but that the corner- grocer's boy may be quite the superior of either in latent possibilities. Lester Ward in his dissertation on "Religious En- vironment" in "Applied Sociology," Chapter IX, gives a powerful argument for the humble home with high ideals as a place in which to bring to the surface possi- bilities of achievement in the lives of boys. He lists forty-nine of the world's leading scientists, philosophers, and literary men, all sons of Protestant clergymen, and adds: "I could have tripled or quintupled these lists 102 THE FIND YOURSELF IDEA indicating men of recognized distinction but less known to the general public. ' ' Certainly Ward was not favor- able enough to the ordinary forms of religion to go out of his way to pay a tribute to the minister's home unless he had seen distinct sociological significance in the de- velopmental qualities of the unpretentious Christian home. For some democratic reason, God has scattered, by means of the laws of heredity, talent and good ability evenly through the field of human life, renewing that life and producing through combinations of hereditary strains new and wonderful creatures in all classes of society. In all our study of mental levels then, in all our search for what a boy can and cannot do, we must not overlook the power of environment, of high ideals, of inspiring leadership and dynamic Christian character to bring out what a boy has in him. Neither we nor the boy are responsible for what God has placed within him in shape of talent or tendency; but if he comes under our influ- ences in the flexible years of adolescence, we are respon- sible for helping him discover his particular abilities be these great or small. And having discovered them he should be helped to know how to use them best in the complications of modern life. Shall we then attempt to use tests at all? Certainly, but in a guarded way. Modern psychology is helping us to understand both our- selves and each other much better than we ever did before; hence, though as practical workers we feel hesi- tancy about attempting to use tests in any large way noiv to help a boy determine what his life work should be, at the same time we do well to watch the experiments being made at various colleges, and keep in touch with the tests used in certain commercial concerns when boys and girls apply for work. "We can adopt such tests our- selves when they become sufficiently simple to be handled by those who make no claim to be experts. Surely as A BOY'S VOCATIONAL TENDENCY 103 time goes on we shall all learn to use the tests which will set off those boys of superior minds, or those of feeble minds, from the rest of us more or less normal and ordi- nary human beings. "With a hundred boys in a Find Yourself Campaign, even now, we rather unconsciously divide the boys into an upper ten and a lower ten and the mass between, by the use of our analysis blanks, the results of the inter- views, and our previous knowledge of the boys. Whenever we can procure, either among our educa- tional secretaries or outside, men who are familiar with the process of giving mental tests, we should certainly take advantage of the opportunity and secure a rating on those boys who care to take the tests. It would doubt- less be unwise for us to insist on all the boys being rated with the present state of confusion and difference of opinion as to just the place and value of such tests. But where we can secure skilful men to give the tests, and boys who want to take them, there certainly could be no objection to such experimentation. There are obviously ways in which this would be valuable. Suppose a boy shows deep interest in a career of mechanical engineer- ing, but in this case the boy has a widowed mother and three or four smaller children to support. To secure the education necessary for mechanical engineering would be a severe struggle. If, however, a mental rating done with skill showed the boy to be endowed with a high- grade mentality, we would feel much more confident in encouraging that boy to make the effort or in allowing some interested man to loan the boy money at strategic points in his educational experience. It seems probable that in this realm of general-intelli- gence rating we can secure more help at present than in the more difficult and less developed tests which aim to show adaptability for particular life callings. In this connection it is interesting to note the rather 104 THE FIND YOURSELF IDEA guarded reference to vocational tests made in the Har- vard summer school announcement (1921). "The second portion of this course (vocational guidance) will deal with the various forms of tests and measures, not in an effort to develop skill in the technique of administering them, but rather with the aim of acquiring a familiarity with their pur- poses, limitations, and possibilities. The following topics will be considered : 1. General-intelligence tests, both individual and group. 2. Prognostic tests which aim to reveal individual propensities and ability to make progress in given fields. 3. Trade tests and other vocational tests. 4. Rating scales and similar means of recording sys- tematized personal estimates. 5. Continuous record systems to reveal personal de- velopment in school subjects and the character- istics measured. 6. Reports by members of the class and committees upon the use of the different kinds of tests and measurement devices in various institutions." Experienced workers in Find Yourself Campaigns will quickly note ways in which our present methods of deal- ing with boys find place under No. 2 Prognostic Tests and No. 4 Personal Estimates, and wherever our follow- up work is properly done, much of that method would fit under their classification No. 5 Record Systems, personal development, etc. Perhaps there should be added what is called the test of experience, the costly trial and error method of every- day life. "We can at least watch the practical experiences of our boy friends at school, at work, and in tasks of volunteer service, and help them interpret their youthful successes and failures. Many a boy spends five or six years drifting about in this test of experience. Surely A BOY'S VOCATIONAL TENDENCY 105 we can help him shorten this period of doubt and make every experiment count in some way toward his greater economic security and larger service. Some of the psychologists are talking about character tests, and though these are yet to be perfected we find practical workers attempting something similar; for example, witness our Employment Department at the West Side New York Association, putting all the boy applicants for jobs through the charting process of the Christian Citizenship Training Program. The Engineer- ing Magazine has issued an interesting cataloguing of personal likes and dislikes which they term a Human Interest Test. All these attempts point the way toward a future classification and measurement of human char- acter, ability, and temperament which shall touch emo- tion and volition as well as abstract intelligence. It is an effort, crude as yet, to locate life urge and propulsion, to sense the drive or direction of a person's life, in time to be of some practical help in getting them ready. Professor Thorndike of Columbia is quoted as saying : "There are three different kinds of intelligence: (1) Mechanical; (2) Social; and (3) Abstract intelligence. Mechanical intelligence is involved in dealing with things; social intelligence is involved in dealing with other persons; and abstract intelligence is involved in dealing with the relations between ideas. Most of our intelligence tests deal in large part with words and ideas and are therefore weighted in favor of abstract intelli- gence. Some of the tests are fairly adequate for mechanical intelligence, but no good tests have been devised for social intelligence and there are individuals M'hose experience and intelligence are predominantly social or mechanical." Wherever we touch the question of tests for general intelligence and vocational fitness we meet the same message — we should not ignore the present tests, where 106 THE FIND YOURSELF IDEA we use them we should always have men thoroughly- skilled in giving them — and at this stage of their devel- opment we should not be led into accepting their results too mechanically or as rendering a final judgment with reference to normal boys. When we come across boys who are tested by skilled psychologists as feeble-minded, or on the other hand as boys of superior mental powers, we are then in a field where tests have long since proved their accuracy.* But with all the boys between these limits or in dealing as we usually do with boys who have not been given mental tests, we must use the more general facts, evident interests, and past experience of boys and the best judg- ment of their adult friends in helping them locate what we have chosen to call in this chapter vocational tendency. * Helpful reference books on this subject are : ' ' Vocational Psy- chology ' ' — HollingTvorth, * ' Measurement of Intelligence ' ' — Ter- man, "Commercial Tests" — Cody, "Human Efficiency and Levels of Intelligence ' ' — Goddard. Chapter IX THE CHRISTIAN ATTITUDE IN ALL CALLINGS That pious aunt who said, "We had expected John to take up the Lord's work, but now he has decided to go into the soap business, ' ' expressed what has been felt for many years as a definite, clear-cut distinction between activities regarded as sacred on the one hand, and as secular on the other. Though such classifications are in place for the sake of convenience, the Christian emphasis on the underlying unity of human life is in our day leading us to see with increasing clearness that in the truest sense, there can he no real distinction between what we have heen describing by the terms sacred and secular. From this modern point of view, that father, himself a lay preacher and prominent church worker in one of our large cities, was nearer the truth when he said to his son, a junior in high school: "James, in choosing your life work, I want you to do so from the point of view of what you can best do for the Kingdom of God. If that makes a hod-carrier of you, well and good ; I want you to be the best Christian hod-carrier in your com- munity." Any legitimate vocation is a proper channel through which a boy may make his own distinctive con- tribution to the work of the Kingdom, provided he have the necessary interest, qualifications, and training, and can in that way render his largest service. Thus every job becomes a mission, and all tasks are divine if per- formed in the true Christian spirit, and for Kingdom ends. 108 THE FIND YOURSELF IDEA We need, therefore, to recognize that the everyday work of establishing the Kingdom of God will be done largely by the business man, the doctor, farmer, journal- ist, manufacturer, and workers of this type. A compel- ling conviction, however it be brought about, that engi- neering, or law, or business, or agriculture, is the one way to fulfill God's will for his life, may indeed be a boy's call to service in that field — a service none the less Christian even though it does not happen to be by way of the pulpit or the mission field. "The truly Christian merchant sees his work as his service to the community; we can hardly think of him as countenancing sharp tricks of the trade or as tempting his customers into luxurious extravagance and futile display. He who is captured by Jesus' spirit of service never asks himself, 'How can I run my business so that I will make more money at it than was ever made be- fore ? ' but, ' How can I run my business so that, while it provides me an honest living, I can make it serve the community better than such a business has ever served the community before?' " The Christian attitude toward life work is so well and plainly put in an address by Percy B. Wightman, D. D., that we present herewith excerpts from that statement, partly to furnish the leader of boys illustrative material for his talks to and interviews with boys. "Christ is the king of the whole world, king of our nation, our homes, our literature, our trade, king of every province of the life of man. He is to rule at our dining tables and over our sitting rooms, in the school- room, in the workshop and kitchen, in the counting house and office wherever Christian men are wont to go and whatever do. To serve Him as a loyal subject is not to give a fragment of our time as in evening prayer at our bedsides at night ; or the morning worship on the Sab- bath day in the sanctuary — an hour here and an hour THE CHEISTIAN ATTITUDE IN ALL CALLINGS 109 there; but all life is His, and all time is His. And whether we sweep the house, or paint it on the outside, whether we read books or write them, whether we work with hand or brain, in public and in private life — what- ever our hands or minds find to do, it is to be done unto the Lord. ' * When the Lord calls a man into discipleship does he have to leave his nets and boats as did the first of His followers? Is the Christian life a summons from the profession of law you have chosen or some other task you have learned to do? Must every one turn minister and missionary to whom God reveals His love? Let me furnish a concrete example. Here is a young man with a talent for art. He is suddenly arrested by the convic- tion that like other men he is a sinner before God, and that to remain so is to invite his own destruction. Finally, through the operation of the Spirit during which he seeks pardon and repentance, his life is flooded with the joy of a new man in Christ Jesus. Now, should he give up his art ? Not unless the hand of the Lord has anointed him into the ministry of His Son. He is to remember that in the distribution of gifts God has singled him out by his endowments for this special work. Need he think that art is alien to the religious life ? Why should he? Christ is to be crowned with many crowns. Let him give to the Lord the best he can render, for he can praise in color and beauty as well as hymn and song. "It is not given to most of us to see large beauty in form and nature. Let him turn to his brush and portray on canvas the loveliness he sees in brook and glen, the mountains and sea. Be a minister of the Lord in bring- ing to those who visit the gallery a message of beauty and color, and so interpret for us God's book of the out-door world. * ' And what a mission the artist has for city people ! Look at the canvases in our galleries — the harvest field, 110 THE FIND YOURSELF IDEA the sea, the mountains, places at home and abroad, "Western and Eastern life. These caught by the keen and appreciative eye of the artist are given us to enjoy. It has been asked, 'Is not a childless home more cheerful where on the wall hangs a picture of a May day, with boys and girls in festive dress, dancing and rollicking on the green ? ' "And so we might speak of music and illustrate the same principle in a like way. Most of us have to spend our time at various tasks, many of which are common- place, of sombre color, where the golden tints of imagina- tion have little play. We are busy with figures, with cloth, with various domestic duties. Let us be thankful however that over all Christ is king — that over every occupation He rules. We are to place upon His head many crowns. "You build houses? Mix the plaster or spread it? You fit the joist or hang the doors? You cut the pipe or string the wires ? Christ has appointed you to do that work well. ' ' Years ago a stone mason was chiselling the back side of a pinnacle in an European cathedral, 150 feet and more above the ground. No man could ever see it unless he climbed upon the roof, and yet he wrought with as much care as if he were working upon an altar screen. Some one chided him for the unnecessary work, and said who will see it any way? Being a Frenchman and dramatic, he spread out his arms and looked up, 'God will look from Heaven and see it.' He wished to crown his Lord with his best skill. "Is there anything more essential than food? Still we would go hungry were it not for the farmer, the miller, the sailor, employe of the railroad, and he who keeps the corner store. "An interesting game to play at table when the dishes are being changed, if active children sit about your THE •CHEISTIAN ATTITUDE IN ALL CALLINGS 111 board, is to tell the history of the different articles that are placed before you. Meat is from the West through Chicago; bread from the mills of Minneapolis; your potatoes from nearer by ; rice from the South, the green beans from Georgia or thereabouts; tea from Ceylon, coffee from Brazil ; the sugar from Cuba ; the milk from one of the surrounding states, maybe coming 350 miles to your table ; the centerpiece of fern originally came from the torrid zone; your pudding of tapioca from China. The silver was originally dug from the mines in Mexico ; your china from some European country ; your linen from Ireland ; your furniture from Michigan ; and if you are fortunate in having an Oriental rug, it was made by a Persian or Turk, Arab or Armenian. A thou- sand and more people have had something to contribute toward your Sunday dinner table. And they are all helpers of your joy and comfort. The farmer and the merchant, the sailor and engineer, all interested in growing, manufacture, transportation, and distribution, have done a part in sustaining your life and contribut- ing to your pleasure. "And the matter to be marked is that each may con- sider himself to be a helper and each, if he will, can bring his religion into his task, serving not simply for hire but to do his part in the service of mankind. For the evidence of the coming of the day John anticipates will be that men and women will do their work as unto the Lord. The output of their hands and minds will be the best they can give. "Christ will be king — king of the money market, and of the mercantile world. The farmer and the business man alike will crown Him with their best efforts in serv- ing their fellows. "Again, there is another province of our united life about which we have a great amount of skepticism as to its being brought under the sovereignty of our Lord. 112 THE FIND YOURSELF IDEA I refer to polities — the public life. In this whether it be local or nation wide, it should be permeated and ennobled by the high purpose of unselfish service. "It does test one's faith to believe that those who occupy public office shall be inspired by the Spirit of Christ; but when you come to think of it, another had asked, 'Does it necessitate a larger degree of faith than that India, China, and Central Africa shall open their doors to the Christian messenger and the Gospel he brings ? ' "In England those churches especially, we are told, which receive no support from the Government are active in the political life of the empire. Some years ago, one of its preachers, after a campaign in which we had taken a part, received a book through the mail, and on the fly leaf was written, 'There are no politics in Heaven ; there is where your life should be ; sad, sad that it is otherwise.' ' ' No politics in Heaven ? I suppose not ; but there are no laborers working for insufficient wages, and on that trying to support a family. There are no little children roaming the streets with hereditary diseases running in their blood, no men and women crippled for life by bad air and improper food, no sweat shops, no tenements as we know them. "No politics in Heaven? That does not concern us. But what does concern us is * Heaven in Politics. ' There is the need. That is what we want, and that is what we shall have some day, and it will come as fast as the Kingdom of God marches on to take possession of men's hearts and rule the purposes of their lives." Fundamental Life- Work Decision. To have some part in aiding the boy of our generation to see in any type of life work he may wisely choose a chance to serve God and one's fellow men, is at once a THE CHEISTIAN ATTITUDE IN ALL CALLINGS 113 service to the individual boy and a contribution to a better civilization. With this hope in mind our workers are increasingly, in conference and camps and by the individual method, bringing older boys face to face with the Fundamental Life Work Decision which reads thus : "I will live my life under God for others rather than for myself, for the advancement of the Kingdom of God rather than for my personal success. I will not drift into my life work but I will do my utmost by prayer, investigation, meditation, and service to discover that form and place of life work in which I can become of the largest use to the Kingdom of God. "As I find it I will follow it under the leadership of Jesus Christ, wheresoever it take me, cost what it may. ' ' Any boy, therefore, who can understandingly and solemnly obligate himself to carry out this pledge, has passed the hig divide — has made one of the three most important and far-reaching decisions of his life. Chapter X IMPORTANCE OF THE FOLLOW-UP The methods adopted to follow these boys through to a successful conclusion of their Find Yourself experience will depend largely on the size and type of campaign. Whether most of the counseling work has been done on one big interview night or during a special week or over a longer period there comes a time in every campaign when a majority of the first interviews have been held. This of course is the point where the follow-up activities must begin. To make our study graphic we will suppose that on the previous evening there have been held one hundred interviews. We will assume that twenty-five more boys had passed in blanks and that these blanks had been analyzed, but that for some reason or other the boys were not able to attend. Let us assume also that as many as twenty other boys were present who had not previously filled out blanks but had been brought in by their friends on the interview night. These boys should properly have attended the vocational forum conducted during the interview period and would have been given an oppor- tunity to make out their blanks during the evening. Every leader would of course have his own personal predilections about how he wanted to proceed from this point. But granted the condition as stated some of the following steps at least will be adapted to every such situation. We would have before us a mass of blanks, some with interviewers' reports and some \\athout, some analyzed IMPORTANCE OF THE FOLLOW-UP 115 and some not. Some men who have been through several campaigns prefer at this point to take a half dozen ordinary filing folders and distribute the blanks and their accompanying notations somewhat as follows : Folder 1. Blanks which have not been analyzed. Here would be placed the blanks made out by the twenty boys and any others that had been turned in too late for the regular committee to analyze. Folder 2. Blanks prepared but interviews not held. In this folder will go the blanks of the twenty- five boys who could not attend the big interview session. Some of these will have notified the office, but others unfortunately will be cases whose inter- views were all scheduled and the interviewers present but the boys did not appear. As a matter of fact we do not ordinarily have many of these but usually there are a few. This folder's contents means a letter to each of the boys, phone calls, checking up on the part of the committee of boys, and whatever else is necessary to secure a definite appointment with each one of these boys at the con- venience of himself and his appointed interviewer. Folder 3. Interviews held but reports not turned in. There are invariably some interviewers who pre- fer to take the boys' blanks and their notes to their own homes or offices where they can make up the report on each boy at their leisure. It is always convenient for us when the men turn in their reports immediately after each interview or series of inter- views. However, some men do better work when allowed more time for their reports ; hence efficiency requires that each man be allowed time if he desires it. A few phone calls will generally take care of getting these reports in properly. Folder 4. Additional interviews. Taking up the blanks which are accompanied by 116 THE FIND YOURSELF IDEA interviewers' reports it is well to read each such report carefully to find out just what is the next step to be taken with the individual boy. One of the immediate matters with many of these blanks is that of additional interviews at once. Here is a boy who indicated on his blank an interest in business of some kind and also an artistic vocational ambition. "We may have either sensed business as his pre- dominant interest or they may have looked equally strong from his blank and a retail merchant may have been his interviewer. We find from the mer- chant's report that the boy's interest is distinctly artistic and no business would appeal to him that did not have some artistic angle. The merchant reports also that the boy's fancy runs along the line of interior decorating. That means that we must find such a man and arrange for an interview with him for this boy. Many similar cases will arise for additional interviews of a more or less technical nature. A particular ease of this sort which needs careful handling is the boy who seemed by his blank to be greatly interested in some one line. However, the period of counseling with an expert in that business reveals clearly either that the boy is unfitted for it or did not understand what was involved. At any rate, while valuable progress has been made in locat- ing something the boy probably ought not to under- take, the boy himself is left in a confused state of mind. What he needs is a general counselor of broad knowledge and fine sympathies to go carefully into the whole matter with him and help him make a start at least in discovering what are pri- mary and what secondary in his work interests. All such boys need second interviews, and it must be remembered that the time element here is very important. Speed is necessary in maintaining the boy's interest and in some cases to keep him from becoming unnecessarily discouraged. IMPORTANCE OF THE FOLLOW-UP 117 Folder 5. Moral and religious problems. Every campaign reveals some moral, religious, or personal problem which has a relation both to the boy's future career and the present character-build- ing conditions of his life. This may have been evi- dent in the blank, or some secretary or club leader may know it. However, it has seemed wise to have the boy's first interview one that related to his voca- tional choice. He can now be assigned to another interviewer who will discuss in a friendly way the vocational matter and the results of his previous interview. But he will proceed from that point to go into the moral or religious or home difficulty, as the case may be, and while avoiding anything like prying into the boy's affairs, offer help and sugges- tions about ways in which other boys and men have fought their w^ay through in this or similar diffi- culties to conquering and successful lives. We have many men connected with our Associations who give this character-building work in interviews with great skill, and acceptability on the part of the boys. Frequently the same man who takes up the problems and possibilities of a trade or profession can go on to these more intimate problems ; sometimes however it is necessarily a different man. Folder 6. Cases that need action. Here is a boy who knows what he wants to do and evidently has the ability for it, but he must have a certain type of educational course, or it may be that he needs to change his position and secure immediately a place in another line of work ; possibly he needs financial backing for his education or influ- ence in securing the special position. This is a matter for someone close to the boy, secretary or club leader perhaps, to arrange with some man con- nected with the campaign who will be both intelli- gent as to what can be done and sympathetic with the whole enterprise. As a matter of fact there are some quite remarkable stories growing out of these 118 THE FIND YOURSELF IDEA campaigns where great turning points in boys' lives were successfully engineered in the days immedi- ately following the active part of a campaign. Folder 7. General follow-up only. In this folder would be placed naturally all the data in the cases of boys who know very well what they want to do and are evidently proceeding logi- cally with reference to education and daily work. These are frequently boys we have known a long time in our Association classes, clubs, and brother- hoods. These boys should however receive all the follow-up letters, printed matter, etc., which from time to time is sent out to the boys who have been connected with this special vocational guidance effort. Manifestly this work ought not to be done by any one man. In most campaigns a follow-up committee is ap- pointed who meet from time to time to review all blanks and help in any further analyzing that is necessary. They arrange to locate new interviewers whose help has been made evident by special cases presented. Some- times this is the regular boys' work committee of an Association, or a branch acting in its particular part of a large city. In the Rochester, Paterson, and other campaigns these committees have issued folders or book- lets containing important information with reference to the local community, dealing with such matters as (a) school courses of a vocational nature offered in public and private schools; (b) lists of books and other mate- rial in the libraries of the community bearing upon vari- ous occupations and their requirements, including also biography and other books of inspirational character; (c) a catalogue of the different occupations open to boys in the community which offer apprenticeship training of any kind or a future in the business or industry merely through the working-up process and good general educa- IMPORTANCE OF THE FOLLOW-UP 119 tion; (d) a list of men who are willing to interview boys interested in specified occupations; (e) a statement is usually included to the effect that any boy in the com- munity can have this help from its leading men in mak- ing the great decision of his life work. Final Responsibility. Whereas it is one of the tenets of vocational guidance that the boy must make his own decision, someone surely should be charged with final responsibility to aid the boy from time to time in the constant decisions which have to be made by any boy who is trying conscientiously to discover what God wants him to do in the world and to get his training for that career. This will necessarily be determined by the boy's own situation. The man who will agree to follow him through may be a certain secretary in the Association, or in the case of a high- school boy it may be some teacher whom the boy likes and whose influence is constructive and valuable in the life of this particular boy; it may be his group or club leader at the Association or the church. In large cam- paigns it seems impossible sometimes to locate anyone thus related to the boy, in which case a man who will practically be a hig brother must be selected for him. Usually some man who interviewed the boy and made a good impression upon him is selected. In several cam- paigns this has worked out most valuably, some men following boys through for more than a year, meeting them constantly and aiding them in many important steps in their careers. Even four or five years after- wards we have known of boys coming back to inter- viewers to talk over further life decisions. In this connection it is most important to have some secretary or other leader following through with all the boys who have indicated any interest in Christian call- ings. The demand for leadership in these lines is so 120 THE FIND YOURSELF IDEA great and boys are so likely to be lured by the possibili- ties of wealth or fame that some one or more of our best leaders should be assigned to this productive task of helping locate boys for the altruistic types of life work. It should be remembered that both high-school and em- ployed boys' groups contain rich material in that com- bination of heart power and mental ability required for these callings. We should not over-urge boys in this matter but we should certainly follow up with great care those who show ability and disposition for professional Christian work. We have found public librarians universally anxious to be of service, some of them arranging special refer- ence shelves of books to be used during and after a campaign. Wherever high-school boys are involved much valuable follow-up work can be done at their schools. Even where the school itself is not equipped to proceed as the school officials would like to do, at least some one teacher can be found who will gladly help in maintaining the boy's interest, making adjustments in curriculum where necessary, and taking the sort of continuous interest essential for the boy's most intelligent study of his vocational problems. Matters will arise which make conferences with par- ents necessary, and although some parents are indifferent or worse, we must remember how long and deeply, in most cases, mother and father have been interested in this boy. We must therefore conduct our conference in a spirit of modesty and understanding. What the boy wants to do and we feel is proper for him to attempt may seem quite extraordinary to them. We must save the boy sometimes from going into an occupation for which he is obviously unfitted, just because his father has a notion he would like his son to be a lawyer or a civil engineer. Wherever a home problem is involved, o « t ta O g cc h3 1— 1 CO w ^ H P •:5 O ;z; pa W < f- «