Prevocational Education in the Public Schools

ever have been, perhaps never can be, permanently answered. Due consideration of these questions is indispensable to a comprehension of the real significance of the development of vocational and prevocational work in the history of American education. -- The more important and pertinent of these recurrent questions are: To whom shall education be given? Who shall give the education? Why shall it be given? Of what shall it consist? One who thinks deeply regarding these questions will be convinced that the subject is a complicated one. Little by little it will appear that there are two conflicting points of view. The first is that the individual is to be educated for his own benefit; the second, that he is to be educated for the benefit of society. Comenius was perhaps the first of modern educators to state, as he did, about 1630, the principle of parental responsibility for the education of the child. It would seem natural that education resulting from such responsibility would have in mind chiefly the well-beingof the individual. It might, and under some conditions actually does, so equip the individual that he can get more than his share of the good things of life. But another principle has been advanced, namely, the responsibility of the State. The State is held somewhat responsible both for furnishing the education and for requiring the individual to submit himself to the process of being educated. Another fact must be noted at this point. There ...