Stivers High School - Annual Yearbook (Dayton, OH)

Page 11 text:

Choosing Your Vocation N OLD notion has it that there is just one life task for which each individual is predestined, and that he must find that task. Is it not nearer the truth to say, that there is one type of work which each of us can do, but that there are many sub-divisions under that type? One may be skillful clerically, but there are many varieties of clerical work which one might do equally well. Martha Bruere has said that two far-reaching questions are fundamental in choosing a vocation: “What kind or type of work can I do best?” and “Of these kinds, which does society now need me for?” To illustrate: if one is fitted to be an engineer, what kind of engineering will serve society best? Or, if one is by nature a teacher, shall he not teach subjects which are necessary to his times? It often happens, and tragically too, that after a person has prepared himself for what he wants to do, society has ceased to need him for that particular service. On the other hand no man can be happy if he prepares himself for a life work which is in demand, but for which he does not have a sure fitness. In terms of psychology each person must be united in his emotion and in his intellect, in the life work he has chosen. We must be entirely dedicated to the life work, in mind and in spirit. Great trouble arises through vain imaginings that we can do what we were never endowed to do. The foreconscious mind which includes our thinking and feeling must be united with our unconscious, subconscious or deep hidden desire, if we are to be happy in a life work. Education must afford every person an opportunity to try himself out in various kinds of work so that he may have a basis for choice. We can never make a wise choice by imagining a vocation; we must have a chance to practice the vocation for a while. Vocational guidance at its best is the providing of practice opportunities during one’s youth so that he may know, and not guess, what he can do. A part of every pupil’s school life should be spent in part time work even without pay, at practice in various kinds of work. At present there is especial need of agricultural engineers, of educational engineers, of engineers in religion, of good roads engineers. Cities are calling for managers, men who have trained for the task. Our small towns which have been satirized in “Main Street” are needing engineers in architecture, in sanitation, in town-planning. Executives and labor leaders can serve the work at home and abroad by getting together. These times have their especial vocational needs and we must observe the signs of the times. When can one decide? Shall it be in high school or college? There is no time for delay. It would be well if at the threshold of college the answer could be given each person to the great vocational query. But many must wait until later. There is no one time for all. Yet surely more could settle this question of a life work if educational institutions aided as they might in this very fundamental particular. Too many—indeed almost all your boys and girls—are left to fight this answer out alone. And many answers are wrong. lJ —F. D. SLUTZ.