The Stratford Evening Post. WITH WHICH IS INCORPORATED THE EGMONT SETTLER. SATURDAY, OCTOBER 26, 1912. CHOICE OF OCCUPATION.

Stratford Evening Post, Volume XXXIV, Issue 53, 26 October 1912, Page 4

The Stratford Evening Post. WITH WHICH IS INCORPORATED THE EGMONT SETTLER. SATURDAY, OCTOBER 26, 1912. CHOICE OF OCCUPATION.

Recently the Minister for Public Instruction in New South Wales issued a return showing the occupations selected by pupils on leaving the public schools. This return, the “Daily Telegraph” states, “possesses an interest apart from that contained in the figures themselves, since it emphasises the fact that children nowadays are able to a large extent to Oioose their own occupations, whereas formerly a rigid social classification compelled sons in a great measure to follow in the footsteps of their fathers, and thus segregated them into those stations of life in which they were most useful to their feudal superiors. The figures quoted by the Minister as to the number of boys who signified their intention' of taking up agricultural pursuits, or plumbing, or 'carting, or butchering cannot be accepted as meaning that these occupations weye the deliberate choice, in all cases, of the boys wljo elected to follow them. Frequently, it may be conjectured, the choice was Hobsons. The fact that 369 boys left school to become unskilled labourers cannot be regarded as meaning that they desired to be unskilled labourers in preference to following any other occupation, but rather that no opening presented itself which would enable them to enter a less arduous and more profitable life-career. Of the 1932 boys who have left school this year to work on the land, about 90 per cent, came from the land and were brought up on the land, while the remainder came from the cities. It is a healthy sign to see the country-bred lad remaining on the land instead of making his way to the city to look for a job in the railways' or in a factory. Similarly, there were 247 country boys who departed from "school to follow mining. The agricultural and mining industries must be adequately manned in order that the country may be developed, and, since now recruits are volunteering freely for those occupations, it is permissible to draw the comforting assurance that the pay and the conditions in each are attractive. At the same time, in probably a very large number of cases, a boy becomes a ploughman or a minor because the opportunity presents itself, and not because of any inner call to that particular occupation. Similarly, when it is found that 1015 city girls left school with the intimation to their teachers that they intended assisting in homo duties, it is permissible to suppose that for many of them there was nothing else to do. Character is shown

iii the initiative that resolutely pushes out from familiar associations and fights for entrance into some higher career offering better prospects'than the well-known occupations of friends and relatives. That kind of initiative is far more common in Australia than in the Old World. And hence the AustraTan hoy of humble circumstances far more frequently rises to independence than his British cousin.”