[246]. According to the census figures only one person in fifteen (above school age) is unable to write; but the experience of army officers with drafted men during the war showed that the proportion must be a great deal larger. The census enumerators take a man’s word for it; the army authorities at the various camps applied an actual test. They found that about one man in every five was unable to write a simple letter of a dozen lines.
[247]. The essential differences between grammar school and high school instruction are these: the work of the grammar school grades is practically all prescribed; in the high school there are some elective studies; in the grammar school grades one teacher gives the instruction in all the subjects, whereas in the high schools the various subjects are taught by different teachers, each one a specialist.
[248]. A proper system of vocational education involves three things: (a) a broad and practical foundation in elementary education of the ordinary type; (b) a study of the social and civic forces which control the life of the people; and (c) definite training in some particular vocation or trade. In order to help the pupil choose his life work more intelligently, many schools have made provision for vocational guidance. A vocational director or counsellor studies the special aptitudes and abilities of each pupil, points out what opportunities are open, and advises as to the best means of training for the work selected.
[249]. The demand for vocational education has come from several sources: namely, from parents who believe that education ought to be directly related to earning-power; from teachers who are convinced that there is little or no educational value in drilling pupils in studies which do not interest them; from the general public which thinks the schools would render a larger social service in training pupils to vocational efficiency; and from enterprising employers who see in this form of education a chance to get a supply of trained workers without having to break them in as apprentices. Organized labor at first looked with suspicion upon the movement, but is now more favorably disposed toward it. Vocational education should be clearly distinguished from manual training, which is merely a general education in the principles of skilful hand work without regard to any particular vocation or trade. Vocational education does not turn out a fully-trained worker, but only one who has practically finished the apprentice stage.
[250]. There is a current notion that those who stand highest in their studies at school or in college usually do poorly when they get out into the world, and that those who take a prominent part in school or college activities, even though their scholarship be very poor, are the ones who rise to the top in later life. The evidence is all to the contrary. Every investigation that has ever been made into this matter indicates that in the vast majority of cases the boy who does well at school does well in his college studies if he goes to college; and that students who stand high in their college studies are much more likely to succeed in later life than those who stand low. Three great Eastern universities, Harvard, Yale, and Princeton, gave the nation three successive Presidents during the years 1901-1921, Roosevelt, Taft, and Wilson. Nobody thought it worth while to mention that each of the three was a scholar of high rank at graduation; but if anyone of them had been graduated near the bottom of the list, we should have heard comment in plenty. The exceptions are too often singled out for notice; the instances that prove the rule are so numerous that they pass unobserved.
[251]. Measures for the promotion and protection of the public health have a marked effect upon the death rate. Fifty years ago it was not at all uncommon to find, in American cities and towns, an annual death rate of thirty persons per thousand of population. Today this rate has everywhere been cut in two. Even in large centers of population like New York and Chicago the annual death rate, in normal years, is now below fifteen per thousand. This means, of course, that the average duration of life, taking the population as a whole, has been lengthened. The lowered death rate has probably added seven or eight additional years to the average life-span. It is easy to see what an enormous gain this has meant to the productive power of the country.
[252]. Recall, for example, the passage in Homer’s Iliad, where the sun god in anger raised his terrible bow and with every twang of the bow-string sent men to their death by pestilence.
[253]. It was the same with many other things. The Romans, for example, used seals with which to stamp impressions on documents and coins. That is the essence of printing. Yet the world did not learn the next important step, how to print books, for a thousand years.
[254]. During the earlier years of the World War, before the armies of the Central Powers overran Serbia, that country was stricken with typhus from one end to the other. The Allied countries equipped a great sanitary expedition which went through the land and virtually disinfected the entire population. Trains of box cars were fitted up as bathing and delousing plants, with hot water and steam from the locomotive. These trains went along from village to village, stopping at each long enough to put the inhabitants, one by one, through the scrubbing process and their clothing through the steam vat.
[255]. In order that measures for preventing the spread of disease may be effective, they must be based upon a well-organized and accurate system of vital statistics. These statistics include figures relating to births, deaths, and illness. They are compiled in the offices of the health authorities from the reports sent in by physicians. These reports, to be of real value, must not only be accurate but prompt. By means of these statistics the health authorities can sense the beginnings of an epidemic, can often determine its source or cause, and can immediately set the machinery in motion to ensure its control. When one physician reports a case of typhoid this may not be of great significance; but if a dozen cases are reported on the same day, the necessity of an immediate investigation into the water and milk supplies becomes apparent.