Professional training

“ No one has profited more by the fermentation of which I speak, in pedagogical circles, than we psychologists. The desire of the schoolteachers for a completer professional training, and their aspiration toward the 'professional' spirit in their work, have led them more and more to turn to us for light on fundamental principles. And in these few hours which we are to spend together you look to me, I am sure, for information concerning the mind's operations, which may enable you to labor more easily and effectively in the several schoolrooms over which you preside. ”

“ Besides, we have changed our notion of what constitutes ‘learning’ and concluded that the man who by experience has learned 212‘life’ may know quite as much as the man who has learned books in the school. But is the difference, then, that the professional man receives a special professional training, while the business man does not? ”

“ In professional training some efforts are being made to increase preliminary qualifications, to extend the professional course to at least three years in all ordinary cases, and to so grade the studies as to permit term examinations instead of postponing all these severe tests to the end of the entire course. ”

“ In so far as the pre-vocational work in primary schools, the manual work and technical training in high schools, the short courses, the extension lectures and the correspondence instruction of universities are meeting this urgent popular need, just so far are they raising all work to a professional standard, just so far are they bringing down to the whole nation the gifts of culture and expert training that have hitherto been the privilege of the few. ”

“ And now that three years have abolished many surmises, and turned many others into established facts, it must be owned that the total value of the professional training has proved far greater, and that of the general preparation far less, than many intelligent observers predicted. ”

“ In proportion as universities have vigorously undertaken this work, and have applied scientific method to their own problem of articulating it with higher education in general, the line of approach to professional business training has become increasingly clear. Among the notable developments of the past decade has been a shifting of emphasis from the training of specialists to the training of business executives. ”

“ At present one of the most hotly debated questions in connection with Normal Schools relates to the subjects to be included in the curriculum. Shall the Normal School give professional training alone, or shall it also provide instruction in Academic subjects? ”

“ Gentlemen, a serious duty bearing alike on your professional studies and on the pursuits of your leisure moments is the due and progressive training of your intellectual powers. A serious duty. This training, no longer cribb'd. cabin'd and confin'd by the imperious requirements of examination standards, involves not only the discipline of those faculties whose powers have been cultivated, but also, and more especially of those which are weak or which have been overlooked and neglected. ”

“ While training for the profession of learning is regarded as the type of culture, as a liberal education, that of a mechanic, a musician, a lawyer, a doctor, a farmer, a merchant, or a railroad manager is regarded as purely technical and professional. ”

“ As a matter of fact, the training of specialists must in large measure be cared for by professional and technical schools, such as the provision for directors of public health by medical schools, the training of sanitary engineers by the engineering schools, the training of accountants, statisticians, and financial experts by the schools of commerce and finance. ”

“ It used to be very generally assumed, and in some quarters it seems to be assumed to-day, that in the teaching profession there is no need of training beyond the initial normal course or the initial college course that brought the candidate through the first requirements. A kind of persistence in professional efficiency on the part of teachers is assumed. ”

“ It is regarded as the essential training for intellectual, professional and business life, and it is no longer an effort to secure it, but rather to make it of the greatest possible value to the students and to the community. ”

“ The most valuable education is that which enables the learner to make correct judgments. The teaching under Scientific Management leads to the acquisition of such judgment, plus an all-around sense training, a training in habits of work, and a progressive development. ”

“ To this necessity educators will some day open their eyes, and educational systems will some day conform; meantime, it must be done mainly by individual work. Knowledge, discipline, and technical training of the best sort are accessible on every hand; but the development of the faculty which unites all these in the highest form of activity must be secured mainly by personal effort. ”

“ In order that the different classes of persons who are to be engaged in productive industry may receive a fitting preparatory training, the programme of elementary and secondary as well as of the higher education must be organized with reference to their special requirements. ”

“ It is evident that such training involves education for general intelligence, as well as technical training with a specific end in view. It is also clear that the training may be brief and elementary if the task is simple; the trade school, or apprenticeship, or even the brief course of lessons given by another worker may suffice where the work calls for little skill and involves little variety. As the task grows in difficulty, requiring application of principles, demanding judgment, broad experience, ability to deal with and to direct others, the training must be proportionately increased. ”

“ Figure 2 is a diagram of an educational program which, starting with preparatory training in the early years of the secondary school, continues through a period of cooperative part-time training which combines education in the school and on the job, until full-time employment assures continued opportunity to study progressively on three training levels of increasing difficulty and responsibility. ”

“ Meanwhile the amount of special preliminary training which must be undergone in order to fit a person for new and original work in any department of knowledge or art increases at the same rate, and makes greater and greater inroads upon the time which is needed for general education. At present the most important, delicate, and complicated of educational problems, the problem which each individual must meet and decide upon, and the problem which engrosses most of the thought of educational bodies, is where to draw the line between general culture and practical or technical training. ”

“ We should form a mistaken estimate of the purposes of this institution if we were to suppose that its only, or even that its main object, was to furnish the means of instruction to those who, by the accidents of their position have lacked, or have enjoyed but to a limited extent, the advantages of the scholastic or academical training. That, no doubt, is one of the beneficial aims which this society endeavors to overtake. ”

“ It is likely that the time will soon come when all offices requiring peculiar skill or especial training will be filled on the basis of efficiency, determined by competitive examination or other tests of ability. ”

“ When the vocation for which he is naturally best fitted becomes apparent, as it must from the study of the development of the youth and his desires, the school will know, and can give exactly, that training that is necessary for the vocation. ”

“ It conducts a training course for qualified men and women who desire to prepare themselves for vocational guidance in the public school system, philanthropic institutions, and business establishments. Its interests therefore lie both in the direction of personal service to the individual and of constructive experiment and research in the field of education and employment.
A capable investigator spends his entire time in studying occupations open to boys and young men, what these occupations require, and what they lead to. ”

“ Thus, they adapt with difficulty to the requirements of the workplace. Training schemes of longer periods have yielded better results. They allow time for remedial education, for strengthening the confidence of trainees, and for building on trainees’ specific learning abilities. ”

“ University education, as such, when it is efficient, has certain characteristics which differentiate it from the training of a specialist, however high the level of the teaching in the special subject may be. ”

“ Our reorganized school systems show what a specific educational value manual training has, not alone in the manual skill which the child attains, but also in the mental, moral and economic values which it gains. ”

“ Of course, to arrange and systematize these actions, to establish the true relations between all these various faculties and powers, and to regulate the obligations and duties by which the exercise of them should be limited and controlled, is a work of time, and is to be effected, not by the operation of any instinct or early intuition, but by a course of development—effected mainly by the progress of growth and experience, though it is to be aided and guided by assiduous but gentle training and instruction. ”

“ Since this is true, who is better qualified by training, by education, and by experience to conduct this education than the employment supervisor and his assistants? If he is properly chosen for his work, he has a special scientific knowledge of human nature; he knows not only the talents and aptitudes of every member of the force, but also knows the best way for developing and bringing out these talents and aptitudes. He knows for just what vocation each one under his tutelage is suited. ”

“ Have we even begun to realize that every person should have definite vocational training with such distinctive purpose back of it that it will produce the skill, knowledge, ideals, and general experience that function in distinct callings? ”

“ You give our people education in schools and colleges; but our people demand a practical training also, and if you put them in those higher posts of responsibility and emolument, you give them that practical training and discipline which is so essential to integrity, honesty, and probity, and a successful discharge of high duty. ”

“ So that proficiency in the decorously conspicuous waste of time and means is no less essential in the end than proficiency in the gainful conduct of business. The ways and means of reputably consuming time and substance, therefore, is by prescriptive necessity to be included in the training offered at any well-appointed undergraduate establishment that aims in any comprehensive sense to do its whole duty by the well-to-do young men under its tutelage. ”

“ To-day we no longer use the term vocational education in this rather general sense, but restrict its use to the specific training of individuals for some useful employment. Training for law, medicine, the ministry, teaching, engineering, scientific agriculture, nursing, and commerce are examples of vocational education in its higher ranges. ”

“ In all walks of life, in all kinds of labor, this is the beginning of excellence, and proficiency follows in its wake. We talk so much about thoroughness of training, and so little about singleness of purpose. We give to every girl in our public schools the arithmetical knowledge which enables her to stand behind a counter and cast up her accounts. ”

“ No calling requires for its perfect mastery a greater [362] amount of practice and theory combined than that of domestic economy, and students, in addition to recitations and lectures on the various topics of the course, receive practical training in all branches of house-work, in the purchase and care of family supplies, and in general household management. They are not, however, required to perform a greater amount of labor than is necessary for the desired instruction. ”

“ You will have had a general education from the State up to the age of sixteen or seventeen, and then three or four years of sound technical training, so that you will know your work from top to bottom. You will have applied for your present position in the service, whatever it is, and have been accepted, much as you apply and are accepted for positions now, by the school managers, and you will have done so because it attracted you and they will have accepted you because your qualifications seemed adequate to them. ”

“ Even today a careless apprentice system furnishes nearly all the training for what must become, in any really well-ordered system of society, one of the most learned and scrupulous of the higher professions. ”

“ Please understand that I do not mean vocational training can be totally dispensed with; I mean only that it should be done on the job. It should be done as preparatory to work; and as preparatory to work, it should be compensated. ”

“ The vocation acts as both magnet to attract and as glue to hold. Such organization of knowledge is vital, because it has reference to needs; it is so expressed and readjusted in action that it never becomes stagnant. No classification, no selection and arrangement of facts, which is consciously worked out for purely abstract ends, can ever compare in solidity or effectiveness with that knit under the stress of an occupation; in comparison the former sort is formal, superficial, and cold.
3. The only adequate training for occupations is training through occupations. ”

“ For the hand stands for use, for service, and for unyielding integrity; and it may be confidently asserted on the conviction of observation, experience, and a studious consideration of historic facts, that its drill and discipline as enforced in the world’s workshops, and in the best of existing Manual-training schools, results in a far greater degree of mind development than is produced by any exclusively academic course, and hence that Manual Training is the most important of all methods of education. ”