manual dexterity. They are not occupational studies. The object of woodwork is not to produce cabinetmakers, any more than the object of Latin is to produce professors of Latin. Education in the elementary school ought to be general.
Yet it is coming to be realised that it is part of the duty of the school to discover the kind of occupation for which the child is best fitted. The child's teacher is often appealed to for advice regarding the line of work most suited to the child's abilities; and teachers of insight have often been able to give the most valuable guidance. But in the future, psychologists maintain, it will be possible to determine scientifically the nature and strength of the child's capacities, and thus to give definite help to the child in securing that he shall enter the occupation to which he is best adapted by his natural endowment. At present, in many schools the pupil is supplied with a "personal card," on which his physical qualities are recorded in quantitative terms. There seems little doubt that in the future, when the psychologist's experiments with fatigue-tests and the ergograph prove capable of general application in elementary schools, the personal card will record also the mental characteristics of the child. By a study of the child himself, combined with a knowledge of the objective results of his physical and mental measurements, the teacher of the future may hope to be able to give him most valuable advice regarding the choice of an occupation.[1] The ele-
- ↑ On this question see Adams: The Evolution of Educational Theory; Brown: The Essentials of Mental Measurement; and Münsterberg: Problems of To-day.
