ABSTRACT
The vocational importance o f selection fo r secondary schools. W e shall deal w ith vocational guidance in the next chapter; bu t even before specific vocational education has begun in the school, we cannot quite separate educational and vocational guidance. T he selection of pupils for G ram m ar Schools a t eleven has indeed been a great process of vocational guidance, though th a t has no t been fully recognized; for the professions and blackcoated occupations were largely recruited from the G ram m ar Schools, while the great m ajority o f those rem aining in the Senior E lem entary Schools went, a t fourteen years, into m anual work or the lower com m ercial or distributing occupations. W ith the raising of the school-leaving age this m arked distinction was som ewhat lessened, though special selection a t i i + for Technical H igh Schools will accentuate the critical na tu re of the selection for some pupils. T he difficulty of selecting a t ten or eleven the pupils w ith the special abilities needed for technical work has already been discussed in C hapter X X IV . But ap a rt from any special abilities (and interests) needed for G ram m ar School work and any other special abilities needed for the Technical H igh School, so far as the selection a t eleven continues to be an attem pt to choose pupils w ith g reater general ability for G ram m ar and Technical H igh Schools, the im portance of this selection will continue to be great, and we m ust examine the m ethods which have been, and indeed still largely are, in vogue.
