account of economic or other causes entirely disconnected with his injuries, and we therefore think that the only compensation he is entitled to under the findings of fact as made by the commission is the compensation originally allowed as compensation for his partial impairment.

Death by Lightning Held Compensable in Oklahoma

EATH by lightning constitutes an "accidental injury" arising out of and in the course of the employment, if the nature of the employment exposes the workman to risk of such injury, according to the rule laid down by the Supreme Court of Oklahoma in the case of Consolidated Pipe Line Co. v. Mahon (3 Pac. (2d) 844).

Mahon was employed by the Consolidated Pipe Line Co., engaged in taking up a pipe line some 8 miles north of Wewoka, Okla. Shortly before noon a rainstorm came up, and Mahon, together with some of his associates, took refuge in an old, dilapidated frame house which had no doors or windows. Mahon was struck by lightning while in the house, resulting in an injury for which compensation was awarded him by the State industrial commission.

A petition was later filed in the Supreme Court of Oklahoma to review the award of the industrial commission. The principal question involved was whether the injury sustained by Mahon by reason of the lightning stroke "arose out of his employment."

The court reviewed the facts and cited a number of cases on the subject, some of which allowed compensation and others held such an accident did not arise out of the employment. The general rule laid down by the court as the test was whether the causative danger was peculiar to the work or common to the neighborhood. Under the facts and circumstances of this case the court held the causative danger was peculiar to the work. The court said:

Would it be contended that his employment in removing a pipe line would not necessarily accentuate the natural hazard from lightning? If the claimant was exposed to injury from lightning by reason of his employment, something more than others in the same locality are exposed, if his employment necessarily accentuated the natural hazard from lightning, and the accident was natural to the employment, though unexpected or unusual, then a finding is sustained that the accident from lightning was one "arising out of the employment."

The court also said that obtaining shelter was not only necessary to the preservation of his health, but was incident to his work and was an act promoting the business of his master, for the master would have been liable for medical expenses had Mahon remained at work and become ill from the exposure to the elements.

In holding that the employment exposed Mahon more than the public in general, the court said:

We think it is a matter of common knowledge that, when a sudden and unexpected rainstorm occurs in the locality or neighborhood 8 miles north of Wewoka, the persons living and laboring in that locality, in seeking refuge from such a storm, are not required to enter an old, dilapidated house without windows or doors which no one has occupied for quite awhile, but, on the contrary, such persons may under such circumstances seek shelter in houses with doors and windows and constructed so as to minimize danger from the elements. It is generally known that an old house in the condition of the one in which Mahon sought shelter is much more liable to be struck by lightning or blown down by the wind than the average house in the same locality which is habitable and inhabited. So we think the State industrial commission was justified in holding that the employment of Mahon exposed him more to the elements than the public generally in the neighborhood are so exposed.

WORKERS' EDUCATION AND TRAINING

Vocational Guidance Recommendations of White House Conference on Child Health and Protection

THE

HE subject of vocational guidance was taken up by the White House Conference on Child Health and Protection, held in Washington, D. C., November 19-22, 1930, through its committee on Vocational guidance and child labor, of which Anne S. Davis, director, vocational guidance bureau, Chicago Board of Education, was chairman. The vocational-guidance section of this committee, of which Edith Campbell, director of the vocation bureau of the Cincinnati public schools, was chairman, was divided into four subcommittees: (1) Subcommittee on study of the individual; counseling; scholarships; and curriculum: work in educational and vocational guidance (Edith Campbell, chairman); (2) subcommittee on individualized opportunities for training for an occupation (Dr. Edwin A. Lee, director division of vocational education, University of California, chairman); (3) subcommittee on occupational studies and placement (Dr. Mary Holmes Stevens Hayes, director vocational service for juniors, chairman); and (4) subcommittee on special problems (Dr. W. Carson Ryan, jr., Director of Education, Office of Indian Affairs, United States Department of the Interior, chairman). Following are the recommendations of this section of the committee. Its detailed report, which, under the title "Vocational Guidance," is to be a part of the complete reports of the White House conference, is now in the hands of the printer, and is scheduled for publication in February, 1932.

Recommendations of Vocational Guidance Committee

Organizing the Educational Program for Guidance

A MODERN Vocational guidance program should include

1. Careful study of the individual, through mental and other tests, and adequate records.

2. A counseling service, staffed by qualified vocational counselors. 3. A curriculum provision in which vocational and educational guidance is emphasized.

4. Adequate opportunities for vocational training, including try-out

courses.

5. Publication and distribution of suitable occupational and educational pamphlets.

6. Placement machinery for obtaining positions and supervising employment for young workers.

7. Scholarships and similar aids for retaining boys and girls in school.

8. Cooperation with other agencies in vocational guidance.

1 A summary of these recommendations was published in the July, 1931, issue of the Monthly Labor Review.

Study of the Individual

1. For purposes of vocational guidance, knowledge of both the past and present experience and accomplishments of an individual is necessary, and to this end cumulative reports which provide a running record of an individual's progress through school and into industrial or higher educational institutions should be installed in every school system which attempts a vocational-guidance program. It is felt that such records have value not only for the guidance of the child, but are of great assistance to the teacher or other supervisor in his dealings with the child. It is further felt that such records should not be attempted unless use is to be made of them.

2. Information obtained from the study of the individual should so far as possible be expressed in terms of uniform and objective measures which are understandable when the pupil moves from one educational or industrial institution to another.

3. The use of psychological tests, as a measure of both mental capacity and educational achievement, is one of the most valuable instruments for educational and vocational guidance. They constitute, however, only one factor in the study of the individual.

4. For assistance in the giving of vocational guidance there is need for the further development of objective tests of personality characteristics.

5. The giving of psychological tests and other measures of personality and accomplishment should, where the size of the school system permits, be a function of a centralized bureau under the leadership of a trained psychologist; and an adequate staff of psychological assistants should be attached thereto and charged with the responsibility of supervising all the testing done by teachers or other school officials in that they should approve the material used, select the persons assigned to such work, and examine and assist in interpreting the results obtained.

6. The giving of psychological tests by untrained persons without this supervision should be discouraged.

Counseling

1. COUNSELING procedures should be established in all school systems, in order to reduce the human and financial losses that result from failure of individual children to adjust to the school curriculum, and also to assist pupils to make the educational adjustments which will equip them for a vocation in harmony with their abilities and interests.

2. Counseling should be made available to all pupils in those grades in elementary and secondary schools where educational choices and Vocational information are important; it should include pupils of varying abilities and ambitions, from the most gifted to the most retarded child, and both the adjusted and the maladjusted pupils.

3. The counselor, if not allowed full time for counseling and related activities, should be given the necessary freedom from subject teaching and other duties necessary to conduct an effective counseling program. The pupil-load should be limited to that number which makes possible well-organized counseling plans and thorough procedures.

4. The counselors' functions should emphasize

(a) Individual counseling and individual case study, which recognize individual differences and needs, and are supplemented where necessary by group counseling. This counseling should involve the closest cooperation with the various school departments, with parents, and with the social agencies of the community.

(b) Fundamental rather than superficial problems, utilizing the services of other specialists where necessary.

(c) Broad and flexible plans which will grow to meet the pupil's needs in later years.

(d) Assisting the child to find, develop, and carry a program that shall reflect his own choice and his own method of thinking.

5. Adequate supervision and methods for coordinating the activities of counselors within & community and for improving technics should be established.

6. An effort should be made to standardize the terms relating to counseling and thus make possible a more satisfactory method of studying and comparing procedures in various school systems.

7. Counselors should be chosen because of their special personal qualifications, experience, and training, which should include

(a) College training in the fields of economics, education, psychology, sociology, and vocational guidance.

(b) Practical experience in business or industry, personnel work, social case work, and industrial or social research, as well as teaching.

Scholarships

1. PROVISION Should be made in every community for the giving of scholarships to children who, through necessity, would have to leave school for work as soon as the child labor law permits.

2. At the present time scholarships can be most effectively administered by a private or semipublic office working in close connection with the vocational-guidance bureau and the local board of education.

3. Scholarships might best be administered by a central office to insure against waste and inefficiency in the dispensing of funds by small offices or individual schools of uneven standards.

4. Scholarship work should be directed by one who has an understanding of educational theory and practice, of industrial situations, and of social case work theory and technic.

5. The investigation and supervision of scholarship cases should be based on accepted case-work principles and approved case-work methods, and each case should be treated as an individual matter. The study of each individual should include not only a study of the social and school situations but a physical and psychological examination of the child. Supervision should include study and treatment of social interrelations, health, and recreational and vocational adjust

ments.

6. The amount of scholarship grant should be determined on the basis of the accepted minimum budget used by the social agencies in the community. Children whose families maintain a standard of living slightly higher than that allowed by the accepted minimum. budget should be considered, if indications are that the child is being forced to go to work.

7. Follow-up work should be a definite part of a scholarship

program.

Curriculum: Work in Educational and Vocational Guidance

1. As a measure actuated by child protection and welfare, curriculum study of occupational information is required.

2. Classes for such a study should be carefully organized, with approved textbooks and methods, and should be placed at strategic points where educational and vocational decisions are about to be made.

3. Such classes should have less emphasis placed on the learning of facts than on teaching pupils methods of occupational analysis and self-analysis that may develop in them the confirmed habit of analyzing occupational problems as they arise in their lives.

4. Such classes should also aim to equip pupils with vocational enlightenment usable for solving the larger economic and social problems connected with occupational life.

5. Guidance for success in the educational career is likewise required-learning how to study, information on opportunities ahead, guidance on choice of studies, curriculum, school, and college.

6. Preview courses are needed for the purpose of enabling the pupil to sample the various studies and to try out his interests and abilities.

7. Try-out courses in occupational samplings are needed for the discovery of ability and interest leading to choice of vocation and Vocational preparation. These courses should provide for each pupil the opportunity to explore elementary exercises in the tools, materials, and processes of agriculture, industry, business, and home making, and contacts with professional callings should be provided. 8. Clubs, student government, and student activities generally should be utilized for the discovery and exploration of abilities. 9. Studies of local opportunities and specialties in occupations should be made and published; such studies should be coordinated and collated by a central agency like the National Vocational Guidance Association or the U. S. Children's Bureau, in order to avoid duplication and to make material available for smaller communities. 10. Those who teach curriculum work in guidance, whether teachers or counselors, should have had special preparation for the work and should possess experience in occupations other than teaching.

11. Curriculum work in guidance should be adequately sponsored and supervised, and should be coordinated with other features of the guidance program, such as counseling, testing, placement, and follow-up.

Occupational Studies

OCCUPATIONAL studies are a necessary tool of vocational guidance and serve the following purposes:

A. To give information to young people regarding the duties, conditions of work, and the preparation necessary for the occupations which they eventually may enter.

B. To provide a background of adequate industrial knowledge for Vocational counselors, placement workers, teachers of occupations, and all others who serve in an advisory capacity to young people. Occupational studies are of varying value, according to the standards which have been employed in their preparation.