Improvement Era, March 1929

Improvement Era Vol. XXXII MARCH, 1929 No. 5 The Vocational and Educational Guidance of Youth By Dean Milton Bennion, of the University of Utah AVOCATION is a form of service, necessary, or at least de- sirable, as a means of supplying human needs. In primitive society vocations were few and simple, in this respect cor- responding to human needs in such a society. With the development of civilization, however, human needs steadily multiply. Every new need calls, as a rule, for new vocations; in some instances for many vocations. At the same time many of the old vocations persist while others pass away with revolutionary changes in industry. These vocations often change with changes in the methods of supplying needs. Under pioneer conditions, even only fifty years ago in western America, the problem of selecting and qualifying for a vocation was relatively simple. Boys and girls learned the vocations of their parents through practice. A high percentage of them followed the traditional family vocation. This, for the large majority of boys, was general agriculture, livestock, lumbering, or building. For girls it was the occupation of housewife, followed in traditional fashion. Those who married successfully were thus far on a par vocationally with their brothers and their husbands. Those who did not, however, were regarded as unfortunates. From one point of view they were indeed, unfortunate. Not necessarily because they were without husbands; in this respect they were better off than were some married women; but because they were without vocations. Because they were unmarried they were called "old maids." That term, however, acquired its undesirable connotations primarily be- cause this class of women, being without vocations, tended to become forlorn, often prematurely aged, probably also nervous, and over-peculiar. Some of these characteristics have become permanently associated with the term "old maid." Now that women are being trained in vocations and able, when unmarried, to engage in oc-