CHAPTER XXV

AVOCATIONAL GUIDANCE

WILLIAM C. RUEDIGER, PH.D.

PROFESSOR OF EDUCATIONAL PSYCHOLOGY AND DEAN OF TEACHERS COLLEGE, THE GEORGE WASHINGTON UNIVERSITY

Recognition of the Problem.-The idea is beginning to prevail more and more that education should function not only in the home, in citizenship, in industry, and in business, but that it should function also in those activities that people pursue for the purpose of enjoyment. This is manifesting itself in the relatively frequent discussion of such topics as education for leisure, education for play, and education for recreation. It is asserted that the needs and opportunities for recreation have changed with the developments in other phases of life, that these needs can no longer be adequately met on an instinctive and untutored plane, and that, therefore, the school should make equipment for the pursuits of leisure one of its specific aims.

Activities Influenced by Education. The activities of life that education should influence may for the purposes of this chapter be divided into the following four classes: vocational activities, group or social activities, avocational activities, and diversions. The first two of these may, from the standpoint of the maintenance of human. life and institutions, be regarded as primary or basal and the other two as secondary or supplementary.

Vocational activities under ordinary conditions are all those that are undertaken for economic gain or for making a livelihood. Intelligent skill in them is desired by the individual because it tends to furnish him more abundantly with the material basis of existence and by society because it tends to keep the individual from becoming a public charge.

Social or group activities include all those that are undertaken for the purpose of maintaining or improving the social whole. Education in them is obviously desirable for both social and personal reasons. They may be further subdivided into:

(a) Family activities, including courtship and marriage, home making and home life, care and education of children, and the like.

(b) Political activities, including such acts as attendance upon caucuses and conventions, political propaganda, voting, and the discharge of military duties.

(c) Religious and charitable activities, including personal religious observances, church life, religious propaganda, acts of charity and altruistic co-operation, participation in charitable organizations, etc.

(d) Society activities, including calls and friendly correspondence, club life, receptions, parties, picnics, companionship, and the like. From the standpoint of the maintenance of social relationships, of furnishing social cement, it is no doubt proper to place these activities here, although from the personal standpoint they may be classified also under the head of social diversions.

The two classes of supplementary activities may for the present be considered together. They include all those activities that are undertaken for the diversion, enlargement, and enrichment of the personality. Economic

gain and the perpetuation and elevation of the social whole are in the immediate view either disregarded altogether or are relegated to a secondary position. The immediate aim is the gratification of the personal tastes and interests for the enjoyment that this gratification affords.

Objective and Subjective Standpoints.-It is clear that the points of view from which the basal and the supplementary activities have just been considered are not alike. The former were considered from the objective and the latter from the subjective standpoint. Both groups may, of course, be considered alternately from both standpoints. The increase of life is the significance of the supplementary activities from the subjective standpoint only, the furnishing of recreation being their significance from the objective standpoint. Similarly, the economic and social activities not only furnish the material basis of existence and preserve and improve the social whole as a necessary medium of human life, but they are also enjoyable in themselves; and the more enlightened they are the more enjoyable they are.

Nevertheless, it appears to be true that the objective standpoint is characteristic of the basal, and the subjective standpoint of the supplementary activities. Even the individual wants intelligent economic and social efficiency primarily for the objective rewards that these will bring him, while in the supplementary activities this matter is reversed, although society always has a right to step in and put a veto on socially harmful activities.

The recreation that the supplementary activities bring is always obtained best as a by-product. This in itse f would shift the regard in these activities primarily to the

subjective side, but this is not all. Even when it is granted that the conditions of life are prior to life itself, it is still true that the ultimate end of life is not the making of a living, the perpetuation of the social whole, or recreation, but life. It is to this that all must ultimately minister, as they unquestionably do, and the direct and vital manner in which the supplementary activities minister to life is what constitutes their primary significance.

Avocations and Diversions Distinguished.—The basis of dividing the supplementary activities into avocations and diversions lies in the permanency with which they are respectively pursued. An activity to which one turns for a relatively brief period of time, without necessarily any systematic recurrence, may be called a diversion, while the term avocation may well be reserved for those unconstrained activities to which one turns frequently and systematically, much as one turns to one's vocation. This follows 'the more careful common usage. The difference, however, is not so much one of kind as of degree. Instead of two distinct classes, we have here rather two limits between which the gratuitous activities of life are distributed, no sharp dividing line being evident.

As examples of diversions may be mentioned a stroll through the woods to-day, attendance upon a ball game to-morrow, and visiting with friends in the evening. As avocations may be mentioned the pursuits of music, painting, literary production or criticism, scientific research, and craftsmanship alongside of one's vocation. The two are obviously supplementary, neither one being able to take the place of the other. In a rounded life both have a legitimate place. Avocations, however, are

on a more distinctly acquired plane and are, therefore, deserving of more attention by the school.

Prevalence of Avocational Pursuits. Among eminent people of history avocational pursuits in the sense here used appear to have been common. Thomas Jefferson, a lawyer and statesman by profession, was a skilled violinist and is said to have played or practised three hours a day. Joseph Jefferson, the actor, painted in his leisure hours and ultimately produced pictures of high merit. Grote, the historian, followed banking as his primary occupation till the age of forty-nine.

The extent to which eminent men have pursued avocational pursuits was recently made the subject of inquiry by one of my graduate students, William James Mundy. In consultation with me, Mr. Mundy studied a selected list of 20 musicians, 20 statesmen, 20 European rulers, 20 scientists, 20 divines, and 25 Presidents of the United States. He obtained the following statistics of avocational activities pursued:

When the Presidents of the United States are excluded the average rises from 55 per cent to 65 per cent. All the figures are probably too low, for Mr. Mundy consulted, in the main, only the brief biographies found in cycplopædias.

Space forbids the inclusion of all the detailed descrip