590 FAMOUS UVINa AMERICANS of arrangements been made for promoting the health, growth, and happiness of school children, but improvements have been made in directing them into the most desirable kinds of oeca- pations and in fitting them to fill these places. Pre-vocational courses have been established in the elementary grades, where children may get their first direct contact witti the tools and occupations of life. In the high schools vocational courses have been provided so that now boys and girls may carry on work in any line and gain a high degree of skill in it Educa- tion in Chicago has come to mean the direct preparation of young people for their life work. We are no longer contented with giving a general smattering in reading, writing, and arithmetic, and then allowing boys and girls to drift anywhere on the sea of economic inefficiency. This change in the schools has been due mainly to the leadership of the present superin- tendent. Mrs. Young realizes more clearly than most of her contem- poraries the vastness of the dty and the numbers of its chil- dren. She realizes the difficulty the city has in providing safe opportunities for the young to grow in the midst of noise and confusion and vice and greed. She is attempting to bring the schools into such a position that they will form a bridge for children from their eager inexperienced youth to the world of trained citizenship and intelligent and efficient industry. All the wonderful changes in Chicago schools during the past five years mark an advance towards a true democracy and give each child and each teacher more chance to grow and work freely along lines best adapted to his or her particular capacity. The latest course of study for the elementary schools gives teachers the right to select one of the studies to be taught by them in their own grades, studies which they are best fitted to teach. Such an innovation was previously un- heard of except in higher institutions where for a long time teachers have been allowed to specialize in their work. Mrs. Young has had to fight for every improvement she has secured in the education of children in Chicago. Many of the most vital improvements in the schools have been killed by be- ing dubbed ^^fads." Such a cry has been set up in Chicago again and again and the superintendent has had to myeet it
