ion
goes astray unless it is guided by accurate knowledge. Many a man has
attacked his problem with great courage and high ambition, only to meet
defeat because, through lack of knowledge, he has chosen a career for
which he was unfitted.

These, then, are some of the reasons people go into and remain in
vocations where they do not fit. They are the reasons, also, why so many
men are failures or near-failures. Any man is a failure in just the degree
in which he falls short of developing and using his best and highest
talents and powers.

William James, the psychologist, has said that most men use only a very
small percentage of their real abilities. Harrington Emerson, efficiency
engineer, says that the average man is only twenty-five per cent efficient
and that his inefficiency is due to unfitness for the work he is trying to
do. Students of economics say that only ten per cent of all men are truly
successful. In this chapter we have presented many of the reasons for the
misfit and failure. Some of them are chargeable to parents, teachers, and
employers. But the most serious belong rightfully at the door of the
individual himself. "The fault, dear Brutus," says Cassius, "is not in our
stars, but in ourselves, that we are underlings."

It is highly desirable that parents, teachers, and other guides and
advisors of the young should fully inform themselves about human nature
and about work. They ought to rid their minds of prejudice and thus free
themselves from unwise tradition and useless conventionality. Above all,
they need to arouse themselves to the vital importance of ideals--of a
clear, definite purpose, based upon accurate knowledge and sound
judgment--in other words, upon common sense. This is the vocational
problem.

FACTORS OF THE VOCATIONAL PROBLEM

The vocational problem consists, first, of the need of accurate vocational
analysis; second, of the need of wise vocational counsel; third, of the
need of adequate vocational training; fourth, of the need of correct
vocational placement.

It is obvious that the vocational problem cannot be adequately solved by
dealing with pupils or clients in groups or classes. It is a definite,
specific, and individual problem. Group study is interesting and
instructive, but, alone, does not give sufficient knowledge of individual
peculiarities and aptitudes. It is obvious from the foregoing analysis of
the vocational problem that it is practically identical at all points