BROKEN CAREERS

Dominion, Volume 36, Issue 23, 22 October 1942, Page 4

BROKEN CAREERS

The survey carried out by the Vocational Guidance Association of the effects of military service on the careers of young people touches*, a problem of which few families in this country can be ignorant through lack of actual experience. The value of the report is in its crystallization of that problem in a way that should concentrate attention upon the importance of finding a solution. In a previous reference to the subject the difficulty of finding a solution was emphasized. A system of army education with special careers courses has obvious limitations, because military duties must come first and foremost. These limitations do not necessarily justify its rejection. It may be worth while if for no other reason than if it is possible in some way to harvest something in the nature of assets of future value for theyoung men whose careers have been interrupted, that way, and other ways that constructive thought can devise, may well be justified. Broadly speaking, we have to face the somewhat tragic fact that war conditions tend to disrupt people's lives and careers as long as these conditions continue. It is beyond our power to alter war conditions, and that is a fundamental reason for the difficulty of finding a present satisfactory treatment for their effects. We must carry on as best we can in the meantime, ameliorating as far as possible the immediate hardships, by removing restrictions that make remedial measures difficult to apply. At the same time we must be resolved to find ways and means after the war of making good as far as may be humanly possible the loss sustained by these young men through the interruption of their careers. To work out these ways and means is the task upon which attention ought now to be concentrated.