PREFACE .THE keynote of this text is found in the following paragraph from Cardinal Principles of Secondary Education Education in a democracy, both within and without the school, should develop in each individual the knowledge, ideals, interests, habits, and powers whereby he will find his place and use that place to shape both himself and society to ever nobler ends. In Our World of Work, the teacher will not find many of the usual statistics and wage tables. They are omitted not only because they tend quickly to become obsolete, but also because they deaden interest and distract the pupils attention from the vastly more attractive and important factors of self-discovery and social adaptation. The text is filled with pictorial illustration and other sup plementary aids to the thinking-through process which the pupil must follow to make his study effective. At frequent and regular intervals the pupil is encouraged to analyze the organization and treatment of the various topics so that he may acquire a proper method for his independent studies of occupational opportunities. Guideposts, a Scrapbook, Thinking-Through questions, choice bibliographies, and suggested Field Studies accompany each chapter. Thus the inspiration and counsel of the teacher is supplemented in practical fashion by the course which the text establishes for the pupil. The wise counselor for any school level will interpret his obligation as that of assisting pupils in extending their own powers of self-guidance rather than that of arbitrarily . dictating to or choosing for them Bulletin 19 of the National Association of Secondary School Principals, Guidance in Sec ondary Schools. An outstanding endeavor of the authors has been to confine the discussion to the life situations of the pupil. Wide experience, helpful collaboration of specialists in the guidance field, tested methods, and expert vocabulary study have contributed incalculably to this endeavor. Similar factors led to the decision against making th text a detailed conspectus of occupations. 1. Our World of Work is designed to fill the need for a one-period-a-week introduction to the five or six thousand occupations in which people of this country are engaged. The wealth of chapter-discussion exercises and references to outside readings and investigation makes a second weekly period entirely profitable. 2. The world of work is here seen and understood in a new light by the unique and easily understood plan of five fields and three training levels by the simple unfoldiLg of the few typical vocations presented by the many pictures illustrating the text by the abundance of concrete references to the pupils own experience and by the use of the community as a laboratory. 3. Home making takes its place as one of the five major fields. 4. The training-level idea aids materially in seeing the world of work in terms of school preparation and vocational training. 5. Personal application, which is the essence of a course having vocational guidance as a primary objective, is made throughout. H. L. H. A. L. McG. CONTENTS INTRODUCTION CHAPTER PAGE I. BEGINNING IN S THE WORLD O F WORK . 3 11. VOCATIONATRL AININGLE VELS . . 28 PART I - THE FIELD OF AGRICULTURE IV. PLANT A ND ANIMALH USBANDRY . . 75 V. THE WORKER I S N THE FIELD O F AGRICULTURE . 101 PART I1 - THE FIELD OF BUSINESS VI. THE WORK OF BUSINESS . . 117 VII. THE OFFICE . . 143, PART I11 T H E FIELD OF INDUSTRY VIII. MINING A ND MANUFACTURIK . G . 161 IX. BUILDING AN D PUBLICU TILITIES . . 193, . , PART IV-THE FIELD OF HOhIE MAKING X...