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Library of Congress Cataloging-in-Publication Data
Gysbers, Norman C
Developing & managing your school guidance & counseling program / Norman C. Gysbers, Patricia Henderson 5th ed p. cm.
Includes bibliographical references and index
ISBN 978-1-55620-312-1 (alk paper)
1. Educational counseling United States. I. Henderson, Patricia, Ed.D. II. Title. III. Title: Developing and managing your school guidance and counseling program LB1027.5.G929 2012 371.4’220973 dc23 2011023182
Dedication
To School Counselors and Their Leaders
Preface
One of the most fundamental obligations of any society is to prepare its adolescents and young adults to lead productive and prosperous lives as adults. This means preparing all young people with a solid enough foundation of literacy, numeracy, and thinking skills for responsible citizenship, career development, and lifelong learning. (Harvard Graduate School of Education, 2011, p. 1)
As we enter the second decade of the 21st century, the United States continues to undergo substantial changes in its occupational, social, and economic structures. Occupational and industrial specialization continue to increase dramatically. Increasing size and complexity are the rule rather than the exception, often creating job invisibility and making the transition from school to work and from work to further education and back again more complex and difficult.
Social structures and social and personal values also continue to change and become more diverse. Emerging social groups are challenging established groups, asking for equality. People are on the move, too, from rural to urban areas and back again and from one region of the country to another in search of economic, social, and psychological security. Our population is becoming increasingly diverse.
All of these changes are creating substantial challenges for our children and adolescents. A rapidly changing work world and labor force; violence in the home, school, and community; divorce; teenage suicide; substance abuse; and sexual experimentation are just a few examples. These challenges are not abstract aberrations. These challenges are real, and they are having and will have a substantial impact on the personal–social, career, and academic development of our children and adolescents.
RespondingtoChallenges
In response to these and other continuing societal and individual needs and challenges, educational leaders and policymakers are in the midst of reforming the entire educational enterprise (National Association of Secondary School Principals, 2004; No Child Left Behind Act of 2001; Race to the Top, 2011; Zhao, 2009). Guidance and counseling in the schools also continues to undergo reform, changing from a position-services model to a comprehensive program firmly grounded in principles of human growth and development. This change makes guidance and counseling in the schools an integral part of education and an equal partner with the overall instruction program, focusing on students’ academic, career, and personal–social development.
Traditionally, however, guidance and counseling was not conceptualized and implemented in this manner because, as Aubrey (1973) suggested, guidance and counseling was seen as a support service lacking a content base of its own. Sprinthall (1971) made this same point when he stated that the practice of guidance and counseling has little content and that guidance and counseling textbooks usually avoid discussion of a subject matter base for guidance and counseling programs.
If guidance and counseling is to become an equal partner in education and meet the increasingly complex needs of individuals and society, our opinion is that guidance and counseling must conceptually and organizationally become a program with its own content base and structure. This call is not new; many early pioneers issued the same call. But the call was not loud enough during the early years, and guidance and counseling became a position and then a service with an emphasis on duties, processes, and techniques. The need and the call continued to emerge occasionally thereafter, however, but not until the late 1960s and early 1970s did it reemerge and become visible once more in the form of a developmental comprehensive program.
This is not to say that developmental guidance and counseling was not present before the late 1960s. What it does mean is that by the late 1960s the need for attention to aspects of human development other than “the time-honored cognitive aspect of learning subject matter mastery” (Cottingham, 1973, p. 341) had again become apparent. Cottingham (1973) characterized these other aspects of human development as “personal adequacy learning” (p. 342). Kehas (1973) pointed to this same need by stating that an individual should have opportunities “to develop intelligence about his [or her] self his [or her] personal, unique, idiosyncratic, individual self” (p. 110).
ReconceptualizationofGuidanceandCounseling
The next step in the evolution of guidance and counseling was to establish guidance and counseling as a comprehensive program a program that is an integral part of education with a content base and organizational structure of its own. In response to this need, Gysbers and Moore (1981) published a book titled Improving Guidance Programs. It presented a content-based, kindergarten through 12th-grade comprehensive guidance and counseling program model and described the steps to implement the model. The first, second, third, and fourth editions of our current book built on the model and implementation steps presented in Improving Guidance Programs and substantially expanded and extended the model and implementation steps. This fifth edition expands and extends the model and steps even further, sharing what has been learned through various state and local adoption and adaptations since 2006.
OrganizationofThisBook
Five phases of developing comprehensive guidance and counseling programs are used as organizers for this book. The five phases are planning (Chapters 1–4), designing (Chapters 5 and 6), implementing (Chapters 7–9), evaluating (Chapter 10), and enhancing (Chapter 11). In several chapters, ways to attend to the increasing diversity of school populations and the roles and responsibilities of district- and building-level guidance and counseling leaders are highlighted. The appendixes offer examples of forms and procedures used by various states and school districts in the installation of comprehensive guidance and counseling programs. Also included as an appendix are the ethical standards of the American School Counselor Association (ASCA) and the Multicultural Counseling Competencies of the Association for Multicultural Counseling and Development (Arredondo et al., 1996; Sue, Arredondo, & McDavis, 1992).
PartI:Planning
Chapter 1 traces the evolution of guidance and counseling in the schools from the beginning of the 20th century. The changing influences, emphases, and structures from then until now are described and discussed in detail. The emergence of comprehensive guidance and counseling programs is highlighted. Having an understanding of the evolution of guidance and counseling in the schools and the emergence of developmental comprehensive programs is the first step toward improving your school’s guidance and counseling program. Chapter 2 is based on this understanding and focuses on the issues and concerns in planning and organizing for guidance and counseling program improvement. Chapter 3 then presents a model guidance and counseling program based on the concept of life career development; it is organized around four basic elements. Chapter 4, the last chapter in the planning phase, discusses the steps involved in finding out how well your current program is working and where improvement is needed.
PartII:Designing
Chapter 5 begins the designing phase of the program improvement process and focuses on designing the program of your choice. Issues and steps in selecting the desired program structure for your comprehensive program are presented. Chapter 6 describes the necessary tasks required to plan the transition to a comprehensive guidance and counseling program.
PartIII:Implementing
Chapter 7 presents the details of beginning a new program in a school or district, and Chapter 8 emphasizes the details of managing and maintaining the program. Chapter 9 first looks at how to ensure that school counselors have the necessary competence to develop, manage, and implement a comprehensive
guidance and counseling program and then highlights counselor supervision procedures.
PartIV:Evaluating
Comprehensive guidance and counseling program evaluation is discussed in detail in Chapter 10. Program evaluation, personnel evaluation, and results evaluation are featured, with attention given to procedures for each.
PartV:Enhancing
Chapter 11 focuses on the use of data gathered from program, personnel, and results evaluation and from needs assessments to redesign and enhance a comprehensive guidance and counseling program that has been in place for a number of years. The chapter uses actual data gathered in a school district and describes in detail the way this school district built on the guidance and counseling program foundation it had established in the early 1980s to update and enhance its program to meet continuing and changing student, school district, and community needs.
WhoShouldReadThisBook
A goal of this book is to inform and involve all members of a kindergarten through 12th-grade guidance and counseling staff in the development and management of comprehensive school guidance and counseling programs. Although specific parts are highlighted for guidance and counseling program leaders (central or building-level directors, supervisors, coordinators, department heads) and school administrators, the information provided is important for all to know and use. In addition, this book is designed for practitioners already on the job as well as for counselors-in-training and administrators-in-training. It can and should be used in preservice education as well as in-service education.
TheFifthEdition:WhatIsNew?
All of the chapters in the fifth edition have been reorganized and updated to reflect current theory and practices. A more complete theory base for comprehensive guidance and counseling programs is provided, along with updated examples of the contents of various components of comprehensive guidance and counseling programs drawn from many state models and from the ASCA (2005) National Model. New information and practical ideas and methods have been added to assist school counselors and school counselor leaders in better understanding the issues involved in developing and managing comprehensive school guidance and counseling programs.
Increased attention is given in this fifth edition to the important topic of diversity. Increased attention is also given to expanded discussions of whom school counselors’ clients are and the range of issues they present. Also, increased attention is given to helping school counselors and their leaders be accountable for the work they do and for evaluating and reporting the impact of their programs ’ activities and services on students’ academic, career, and personal and social development. In addition, increased attention is given to the issues and challenges that the leaders of comprehensive guidance and counseling programs face in an increasingly complex educational environment.
Finally, a new section, Your Progress Check, is found at the end of each chapter. This feature allows you to check the progress you are making as you move through the planning, designing, implementing, evaluating, and enhancing phases of change.
ConcludingThoughts
Some readers may think that guidance and counseling program improvement is a simple task requiring little staff time and few resources. This is not true. Substantial work can be completed during the first several years but, with the necessary resources available to ensure successful implementation, at least 4 to 5 years are usually required. To carry the program through the enhancement phase may require an additional 5 years. Then we recommend an ongoing program improvement process.
Moreover, the chapter organization may lead some readers to think that guidance and counseling program improvement activities follow one another in a linear fashion. Although a progression is involved, some of the activities described in Chapters 2 through 10 may be carried out concurrently. This is particularly true for the evaluation procedures described in Chapter 10, some of which are carried out from the beginning of the program improvement process throughout the life of the program. The program enhancement process follows evaluation and connects back to the beginning, but at a higher level, as program redesign unfolds. Thus, the process is spiral, not circular. Each time the redesign process unfolds, a new and more effective guidance and counseling program emerges.
Finally, it is important to understand that a comprehensive guidance and counseling program, as described in the chapters that follow, provides a common language for the program elements that enable students, parents, teachers, administrators, school board members, and school counselors in a school district to speak with a common voice when they describe what a program is. They all see the same thing and use the same language to describe the program ’ s framework. This is the power of common language, whether the program is in a small or large rural, urban, or suburban school district. Within the basic framework at the local district level, however, the guidance knowledge and skills (competencies) students are to learn, the activities and services to be provided, and the allocations of school counselor time are tailored specifically to student, school, and community needs and local resources. This provides the flexibility and opportunity for creativity for the personnel in every school district to develop and implement a comprehensive guidance and counseling program that makes sense for their districts. We are convinced that without the common language for the program elements and the obligation to tailor it to fit local school districts, guidance and counseling and the work of school counselors will be lost in the overall educational system and, as a result, will continue to be marginalized and seen as a supplemental activity that is nice to have, but not necessary.
References
American School Counselor Association. (2005). The ASCA National Model: A framework for school counseling programs (2nd ed.). Alexandria, VA: Author.
Arredondo, P., Toporek, R., Brown, S., Jones, J., Locke, D. C., Sanchez, J., & Stadler, H. (1996). Operationalization of the multicultural counseling competencies. Journal of Multicultural Counseling and Development, 24, 42–78.
Aubrey, R. F. (1973). Organizational victimization of school counselors. The School Counselor, 20, 346–354.
Cottingham, H. F. (1973). Psychological education, the guidance function, and the school counselor. The School Counselor, 20, 340–345.
Gysbers, N. C., & Moore, E. J. (1981). Improving guidance programs. Englewood Cliffs, NJ: Prentice-Hall.
Harvard Graduate School of Education. (2011). Pathways to prosperity: Meeting the challenge of preparing young Americans for the 21st century. Cambridge, MA: Author.
Kehas, C. D. (1973). Guidance and the process of schooling: Curriculum and career education. The School Counselor, 20, 109–115.
National Association of Secondary School Principals. (2004). Breaking ranks II: Strategies for leading high school reform. Reston, VA: Author.
No Child Left Behind Act of 2001, Pub. L. No. 107-110, 115 Stat. 1425 (2002).
Race to the Top. (2011). In Wikipedia. Retrieved from http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Race to the Top
Sprinthall, N. A. (1971). Guidance for human growth. New York, NY: Van Nostrand Reinhold.
Sue, D. W., Arredondo, P., & McDavis, R. J. (1992). Multicultural counseling competencies and standards: A call to the profession. Journal of Counseling & Development, 70, 477–486.
Zhao, Y. (2009). Catching up or leading the way. Alexandria, VA: Association for Supervision and Curriculum Development.
Acknowledgments
With this fifth edition, we gratefully acknowledge the substantial contributions of school counselors as they work with children, young people, parents, teachers, administrators, and community members throughout the United States. It is to school counselors and their leaders that we dedicate this book. At the same time, we also gratefully acknowledge the assistance of those individuals who helped us make all five editions of this book possible. Unfortunately, it is impossible to list them all, but know that we appreciate their support and encouragement. We particularly acknowledge the work of the counselors, head counselors, and administrators from Northside Independent School District, San Antonio, Texas. We appreciate the district’s willingness to host visitors who come to see a comprehensive guidance and counseling program at work. Thanks also to Linda Coats who typed a number of the revised chapters and helped assemble the revised chapters into the final book form. Finally, thanks to Carolyn Baker, director of publications at the American Counseling Association, for all of her help.
AbouttheAuthors
Norman C. Gysbers is a Curators’ Professor in the Department of Educational, School, and Counseling Psychology at the University of Missouri Columbia. He received his BA from Hope College, Holland, Michigan, in 1954. He was a teacher in the Muskegon Heights Michigan School District (1954–1956) and served in the U.S. Army Artillery (1956–1958). He received his MA (1959) and PhD (1963) from the University of Michigan. He joined the faculty of the College of Education, University of Missouri, in 1963 as an assistant professor. In addition to his duties as an assistant professor, he also served as the licensed school counselor at the University Laboratory School until 1970.
He was awarded a Franqui Professorship from the Université Libre de Bruxelles, Brussels, Belgium, and lectured there in February 1984. He was a visiting scholar at the University of Hong Kong in May 2000, 2002, and 2004 and at the Chinese University of Hong Kong in January 2001; a Scholar in Residence at the University of British Columbia in July–August 2000; and a Visiting Scholar at National Taiwan Normal University in January 2011.
His research and teaching interests are in career development, career counseling, and school guidance and counseling program development, management, and evaluation. He is author of 90 articles, 38 chapters in published books, 15 monographs, and 22 books, one of which was translated into Italian, Korean, Japanese, and Chinese.
He has received many awards, most notably the National Career Development Association’s Eminent Career Award in 1989, the American School Counselor Association’s Mary Gehrke Lifetime Achievement Award in 2004, the William T. Kemper Award for Excellence in Teaching in 2002, the Governor’s Award for Excellence in Teaching in 2004, the Faculty/Alumni Award from the University of Missouri in 1997, and the Distinguished Faculty Award from the University of Missouri in 2008.
Gysbers was editor of The Career Development Quarterly from 1962 to 1970; president of the National Career Development Association, 1972–1973; president of the American Counseling Association, 1977–1978; and vice president of the Association of Career and Technical Education, 1979–1982. He was the editor of The Journal of Career Development from 1978 until 2006.
Patricia Henderson is a former director of guidance at the Northside Independent School District in San Antonio, Texas. She received her AB in English from Mount Holyoke College in 1962, her MA in guidance from California State University, San Jose, in 1967, and her EdD in educational leadership from Nova University in 1986. She is certified as a school counselor and midmanagement administrator by California and Texas. She has been a teacher, counselor, and administrator in public schools. She has been an adjunct professor at California State University, Fullerton; California State University, Long Beach; Our Lady of the Lake University in San Antonio; and the University of Texas at San Antonio and is currently at Texas A&M University San
Antonio.
Henderson consults with school districts and has conducted workshops at numerous professional meetings. Her professional interests are in school guidance and counseling; program development, management, implementation, evaluation, and improvement; enhancing roles of school counselors through supervision, staff leadership, and meaningful school counselor performance evaluation; creating systemic change through collaborative program development; and counselor supervision. She and Dr. Gysbers have also coauthored Leading and Managing Your School Guidance Program Staff (1998), Comprehensive Guidance Programs That Work II (1997), and Implementing Comprehensive School Guidance Programs: Critical Issues and Successful Responses (2002). She wrote “The Theory Behind the ASCA National Model,” included in The ASCA National Model (2nd ed.). She is coauthor with Larry Golden of Case Studies in School Counseling (2007). She is the author of The New Handbook of Administrative Supervision in Counseling (2009). She has authored or coauthored 30 articles or chapters. She wrote The Comprehensive Guidance Program for Texas Public Schools: A Guide for Program Development, Pre-K–12th Grade (1990, 2004, in press) under the auspices of the Texas Education Agency and the Texas Counseling Association and Guidelines for Developing Comprehensive Guidance Programs in California Public Schools (1981) with D. Hays and L. Steinberg. She has received awards from professional associations for her writing, research, and contributions to professional development and recognition as an outstanding supervisor at the state and national levels. She received the Texas Association for Counseling and Development Presidential Award in 1990, an Honorary Service Award from the California State PTA in 1978, and Lifetime Membership in the Texas PTA in 1999. She received the William Truax Award from the Texas Counseling Association in 2005, the Mary E. Gehrke Lifetime Achievement Award from the American School Counselor Association in 2006, and the 2010 Lifetime Achievement Award from the Association for Counselor Education and Supervision.
Henderson has been a member or chair of numerous committees and held leadership positions within the California Counseling Association, Texas Counseling Association, American School Counselor Association, Association for Counselor Education and Supervision, and American Counseling Association. She has been president of the Texas Counseling Association (1992–1993), Texas Association for Counselor Education and Supervision (1988–1989), and Texas Career Development Association (1995–1996).
Study the history of guidance and counseling in the schools.
Learn about the people, events, and societal conditions that helped shape guidance and counseling in the schools.
Understand the implications of the shift from position to services to program in the conceptualization and organization of guidance and counseling.
By the beginning of the 20th century, the United States was deeply involved in the Industrial Revolution. It was a period of rapid industrial growth, social protest, social reform, and utopian idealism. Social protest and social reform were being carried out under the banner of the Progressive Movement, a movement that sought to change negative social conditions associated with the Industrial Revolution.
These conditions were the unanticipated effects of industrial growth. They included the emergence of cities with slums and immigrant-filled ghettos, the decline of puritan morality, the eclipse of the individual by organizations, corrupt political bossism, and the demise of the apprenticeship method of learning a vocation. (Stephens, 1970, pp. 148–149)
Guidance and counseling was born in these turbulent times as vocational guidance during the height of the Progressive Movement and as “but one manifestation of the broader movement of progressive reform which occurred in this country in the late 19th and early 20th centuries” (Stephens, 1970, p. 5). The beginnings of vocational guidance can be traced to the work of a number of individuals and social institutions. People such as Charles Merrill, Frank Parsons, Meyer Bloomfield, Jessie B. Davis, Anna Reed, E. W. Weaver, and David Hill, working through a number of organizations and movements such as the settlement house movement, the National Society for the Promotion of Industrial Education, and schools in San Francisco, Boston, Detroit, Grand Rapids, Seattle, New York, and New Orleans, were all instrumental in formulating and implementing early conceptions of guidance and counseling. Brewer (1942) stated that four conditions, acting together, led to the development of vocational guidance. He identified these conditions as the division of labor, the growth of technology, the extension of vocational education, and the spread of modern forms of democracy. He stated that none of these conditions alone were causative but all were necessary for the rise of vocational guidance during this time period. To these conditions, J. B. Davis (1956) added the introduction of commercial curriculums, the increase in
enrollment in secondary schools leading to the introduction of coursework such as practical arts, manual training, and home economics and child labor problems.
This chapter traces the history of guidance and counseling in the schools from the beginning of the 20th century through the first decade of the 21st century. It opens with a review of guidance and counseling during the first two decades of the 1900s, focusing on the work of Frank Parsons and Jessie Davis, the early purposes of guidance and counseling, the appointment of teachers to the position of vocational counselor, the guidance and counseling work of administrators, the spread of guidance and counseling, and early concerns about the efficiency of the position model. The chapter continues with a discussion of the challenges and changes for guidance and counseling that occurred in the 1920s and 1930s. The changing purposes of guidance and counseling, as well as the emergence of the service model, are described. Then, two important federal laws from the 1940s and 1950s are presented and described. This discussion is followed by a focus on the 1960s, a time of new challenges and changes, a time when pupil personnel services provided a dominant organizational structure for guidance and counseling. It was also a time when elementary guidance and counseling emerged and a time when calls were heard about the need to change the then dominant organizational structure for guidance and counseling.
The next sections of the chapter focus on the emergence of comprehensive guidance and counseling programs in the 1960s and their implementation in the 1980s, 1990s, and the first decade of the 2000s across the United States. Attention is paid to the importance of federal and state legislation. The chapter continues with an emphasis on the promise of the 21st century: the full implementation of comprehensive guidance and counseling programs in every school district in the United States. The American School Counselor Association (ASCA) National Model is described, along with pertinent state and federal legislation. The chapter closes with a presentation of five foundation premises that undergird comprehensive guidance and counseling programs.
The implementation of one of the first systematic conceptions of guidance and counseling in the United States took place in Civic Service House, Boston, Massachusetts, when the Boston Vocation Bureau was established in January 1908 by Mrs. Quincy Agassiz Shaw, based on plans drawn up by Frank Parsons, an American educator and reformer. The establishment of the Vocation Bureau was an outgrowth of Parsons’s work with individuals at Civic Service House. Parsons issued his first report on the bureau on May 1, 1908, and according to H. V. Davis (1969, p. 113), “This was an important report because the term vocational guidance apparently appeared for the first time in print as the designation of an organized service.” It was also an important report because it emphasized that vocational guidance should be provided by trained experts and become part of every public school system.
Parsons’s conception of guidance stressed the scientific approach to choosing an occupation. The first paragraph in the first chapter of his book, Choosing a Vocation, illustrated his concern:
No step in life, unless it may be the choice of a husband or wife, is more important than the choice of a vocation. The wise selection of the business, profession, trade, or occupation to which one ’ s life is to be devoted and the development of full efficiency in the chosen field are matters of deepest movement to young men and to the public. These vital problems should be solved in a careful, scientific way, with due regard to each person ’ s aptitudes, abilities, ambitions, resources, and limitations, and the relations of these elements to the conditions of success in different industries.
(Parsons, 1909, p. 3)
WorkofJessieB.Davis
When Jessie B. Davis moved from Detroit, Michigan, to Grand Rapids, Michigan, to assume the principalship of Central High School in 1907, he initiated a plan “to organize an entire school for systematic guidance” (J. B. Davis, 1956, p. 176). He used grade-level principals as counselors to about 300 students each. Interestingly, he did not see vocational guidance as a new profession. According to Krug (1964), he saw it as the work of school principals. As part of Davis’s plan to provide systematic guidance to all students, he convinced his teachers of English to set aside the English period on Fridays to use oral and written composition as a vehicle to deliver vocational guidance. The details of his plan are described in his book Vocational and Moral Guidance (J. B. Davis, 1914) and are outlined briefly here. Note that vocational guidance
through the English curriculum began in Grade 7 and continued through Grade 12. Note, too, the progression of topics covered at each grade level. School counselors today will understand and appreciate the nature and structure of Davis’s system.
Grade 7: vocational ambition
Grade 8: the value of education
Grade 9: character self-analysis (character analysis through biography)
Grade 10: the world’s work a call to service (choosing a vocation)
Grade 11: preparation for one ’ s vocation
Grade 12: social ethics and civic ethics
EarlyPurposesofGuidanceandCounseling
In the beginning, the early 1900s, school guidance and counseling were called vocational guidance. Vocational guidance had a singular purpose. It was seen as a response to the economic, educational, and social problems of those times and was concerned with the entrance of young people into the work world and the conditions they might find there. Economic concerns focused on the need to better prepare workers for the workplace, whereas educational concerns arose from a need to increase efforts in schools to help students find purpose for their education as well as their employment. Social concerns emphasized the need for changing school methods and organization as well as for exerting more control over conditions of labor in child-employing industries (U.S. Bureau of Education, 1914).
Two distinctly different perspectives concerning the initial purpose of vocational guidance were present from the very beginning. Wirth (1983) described one perspective, espoused by David Snedden and Charles Prosser, that followed the social efficiency philosophy. According to this perspective, “the task of education was to aid the economy to function as efficiently as possible” (Wirth, 1983, pp. 73–74). Schools were to be designed to prepare individuals for work, with vocational guidance being a way to sort individuals according to their various capacities, preparing them to obtain a job.
The other perspective of vocational guidance was based on principles of democratic philosophy that emphasized the need to change the conditions of industry as well as assist students to make educational and occupational choices. According to Wirth (1980), “The ‘Chicago school’ [George Hubert] Mead, [John] Dewey, and [Frank] Leavitt brought the perspective of democratic philosophy to the discussion of vocational guidance” (p. 114). Leavitt (1914), in a speech at the founding meeting of the National Vocational Guidance Association in 1913 in Grand Rapids, Michigan, stressed the need to modify the conditions and methods in industry. He stated,
It is well within the range of possibility that vocational guidance, when carried out in a comprehensive, purposeful, and scientific way, may force upon industry many modifications which will be good not only for children
but equally for the industry. (p. 80)
PositionofVocationalCounselors
The work of Frank Parsons and the Vocation Bureau soon became known across the country. Out of it grew the first National Conference on Vocational Guidance, held in Boston in 1910, followed by a similar conference in New York in 1912 and the formation of the National Vocational Guidance Association in Grand Rapids in 1913 (W. C. Ryan, 1919). It also had a direct impact on Boston public schools because in 1909 the Boston School Committee asked personnel in the Vocation Bureau to outline a program of vocational guidance for the public schools of Boston. On June 7, 1909, the Boston School Committee approved the bureau’s suggestion and “instructed the Superintendent of Schools to appoint a committee of six to work with the director” (Bloomfield, 1915, p. 34). Upon completion of its work, the committee issued a report that identified three primary aims for vocational guidance in the Boston schools:
Three aims have stood out above all others: first, to secure thoughtful consideration, on the part of parents, pupils, and teachers, of the importance of a life-career motive; second, to assist in every way possible in placing pupils in some remunerative work on leaving school; and third, to keep in touch with and help them thereafter, suggesting means of improvement and watching the advancement of those who need such aid. (Bloomfield, 1915, p. 36)
These aims were implemented by a central office staff and by appointed vocational counselors in each elementary and secondary school in Boston. Teachers were appointed to the position of vocational counselor often with no relief from their teaching duties and with no additional pay (Brewer, 1922; Ginn, 1924). The vocational counseling duties these teachers were asked to perform in addition to their regular teaching duties included
1. To be the representative of the Department of Vocational Guidance in the district.
2. To attend all meetings of counselors called by the Director of Vocational Guidance.
3. To be responsible for all material sent out to the school by the Vocational Guidance Department.
4. To gather and keep on file occupational information.
5. To arrange with the local branch librarians about shelves of books bearing upon educational and vocational guidance.
6. To arrange for some lessons in occupations in connection with classes in Oral English and Vocational Civics, or wherever principal and counselor deem it wise.
7. To recommend that teachers show the relationship of their work to occupational problems.
8. To interview pupils in grades six and above who are failing, attempt to
find the reason, and suggest a remedy.
9. To make use of the cumulative record card when advising children.
10. To consult records of intelligence tests when advising children.
11. To make a careful study with grades seven and eight of the bulletin A Guide to the Choice of Secondary School.
12. To urge children to remain in school.
13. To recommend conferences with parents of children who are failing or leaving school.
14. To interview and check cards of all children leaving school, making clear to them the requirements for obtaining working certificates.
15. To be responsible for the filling in of Blank 249, and communicate with recommendations to the Department of Vocational Guidance when children are in need of employment. (Ginn, 1924, pp. 5–7)
VocationalGuidanceSpreadsAcrosstheCountry
At about the same time that the Boston schools were establishing a vocational guidance program, a group of New York City teachers, called the Student Aid Committee of the High School Teachers’ Association, under the leadership of E. W. Weaver, was active in establishing a program in the New York City schools. A report issued in 1909 by the committee indicated that they had passed the experimental stage and were ready to request that
(1) the vocational officers of the large high schools be allowed at least one extra period of unassigned time to attend to this work; (2) that they be provided with facilities for keeping records of students and employment; and (3) that they have opportunities for holding conferences with students and employers. (W. C. Ryan, 1919, p. 25)
Vocational guidance was also being introduced into the public schools in other parts of the United States. In Chicago, it first took the form of a central office to serve students applying for employment certificates, to publish vocational bulletins, and for placement. In other cities such as Buffalo, New York; Cincinnati, Ohio; DeKalb, Illinois; Los Angeles; Milwaukee, Wisconsin; New York; Philadelphia; Rochester, New York; and San Jose, California, vocational guidance took several different forms but relied mostly on disseminating occupational information and on conducting occupational surveys, placement activities, and life career classes.
According to W. C. Ryan (1919, p. 26), by April 1914, approximately 100 public high schools, representing some 40 cities, were reported to the U.S. Bureau of Education as having definitely organized conscious plans of vocational guidance, through vocation bureaus, consultation committees, trial vocational courses, or regular courses in vocations.
Titles of these offices varied and included, for example, the Division of
Attendance and Vocational Guidance in Minneapolis. This expansion continued throughout the next 4 years, so that by 1918, 10 years after the establishment of the Vocation Bureau by Parsons in Boston, “932 four-year high schools reported vocation bureaus, employment departments, or similar devices for placing pupils” (W. C. Ryan, 1919, p. 36).
ChallengestoVocationalGuidance
At the same time that progress was being made in institutionalizing vocational guidance in the schools, substantial challenges to this process were also present. Brewer (1942), in his history of vocational guidance, described a number of these challenges. One challenge he noted was high interest followed by a loss of that interest because of personnel changes. Another challenge was from conservatives “who began their barrage of criticism when the traditional curriculum was in any way endangered” (p. 87).
In addition to these challenges, other challenges included a lack of a practical plan to develop and implement vocational guidance, a lack of adequate preparation of teachers to carry out vocational guidance work, and a lack of resources and equipment. Two quotes from Brewer’s history illustrate these challenges and their consequences.
Vocational guidance is not a job for amateurs, to be assigned to a person because he or she has a warm heart. It should not be regarded as an adjunct to the teaching of English or mathematics. It is not a side issue of the work of deans of men or women. It is not a pastime to be indulged in during odd moments by a school principal, vice-principal, placement officer, registrar, or attendance officer. Vocational guidance is a distinct profession, just as independent as the work of the physician, the lawyer, the nurse, or any other highly specialized worker. (Brewer, 1942, p. 88, quoting Harry D. Kitson)
Another common reason for abandoned plans was because the vocational counselor had nothing but an office and his mental equipment behind him. Vocational training, on the other hand, had back of it an investment of thousands of dollars in machines and equipment and could not so easily be “folded up. ” It was simple enough in times of financial stress, or for other reasons, to assign a vocational counselor back to a “ more important” teaching or administrative position. (Brewer, 1942, p. 88)
By the 1920s, as the guidance and counseling movement (vocational guidance) was spreading across the United States, concerns were already being expressed about the way guidance and counseling was organized, was being perceived by others, and was being practiced. In a review of the Boston school system, Brewer (1922) stated that the work was “commendable and promising” (p. 36). At the same time, he expressed concern about a lack of effective centralization and supervision. What was done and how well it was done were left up to individual principals and counselors. Myers (1923), in an article titled “A Critical Review of
Present Developments in Vocational Guidance With Special Reference to Future Prospects,” also expressed concern:
The first development to which I wish to call attention is a growing recognition of vocational guidance as an integral part of organized education, not as something different and apart from education that is being wished upon the schools by a group of enthusiasts because there is no other agency to handle it. . . . Second, vocational guidance is becoming recognized as a specialized educational function requiring special natural qualifications and special training. . . . A third development that claims attention is an increasing appreciation that a centralized, unified program of vocational guidance for the entire school system of a city is essential to the most effective work. We are rapidly passing out of the stage when each high school and junior high school can be left to organize and conduct vocational guidance as it sees fit. (pp. 139–140)
In expressing these concerns, Myers was calling attention to problems associated with the position model in which teachers were designated as vocational counselors with no structure to work in and little or no released time from their teaching duties. Apparently, the position model for guidance and counseling caused it to be seen as an ancillary activity that could be conducted by anybody. In contrast, he stressed the need to view guidance as an integral part of education that required trained personnel working in a unified program of guidance. Myers’s words were prophetic. These words are the same as those we use today to describe the importance, personnel requirements, and structure of comprehensive guidance and counseling programs in schools.
Myers (1923) made another astute observation about some unanticipated outcomes the prevailing way of organizing guidance and counseling (the position model) was causing in the schools:
Another tendency dangerous to the cause of vocational guidance is the tendency to load the vocational counselor with so many duties foreign to the office that little real counseling can be done. The principal, and often the counselor . . . [have] a very indefinite idea of the proper duties of this new officer. The counselor’s time is more free from definite assignments with groups or classes of pupils than is that of the ordinary teacher. If well chosen he [or she] has administrative ability. It is perfectly natural, therefore, for the principal to assign one administrative duty after another to the counselor until he [or she] becomes practically assistant principal, with little time for the real work of a counselor. In order to prevent this tendency from crippling seriously the vocational guidance program it is important that the counselor shall be well trained, that the principal shall understand more clearly what counseling involves, and that there shall be efficient supervision from a central office. (p. 140)
Myers’s (1923) words were again prophetic. They pointed directly at the heart of the problem with the position model, that is, the ease at which “other duties as assigned” can become part of guidance and counseling and the work of school counselors, a problem that continues to plague school counselors even today.
The 1920s witnessed the continued expansion of guidance and counseling in the schools. During this period of time, the nature and structure of guidance and counseling were being influenced by the mental hygiene and measurement movements, developmental studies of children, the introduction of cumulative records, and progressive education. In effect, “Vocational guidance was taking on the new vocabulary present in the culture at large and in the educational subculture; the language of mental health, progressive education, child development, and measurement theory” (A. H. Johnson, 1972, p. 160). As a result, additional purposes for guidance and counseling were identified.
EducationalPurposes
The addition of an educational purpose for guidance was a natural outgrowth of a change that was taking place in education itself. With the advent of the Cardinal Principles of Secondary Education (National Education Association [NEA], 1918), education, at least philosophically, began to shift from preparation for college alone to education for total life.
This was a life to be characterized by an integration of health with command of fundamental processes, worthy home membership, vocational competence, civic responsibility, worthy use of leisure time and ethical character. . . . Given these Seven Cardinal Principles, an education now appeared equally vocationally relevant from this one could construe that all of education is guidance into later vocational living. (A. H. Johnson, 1972, pp. 27–28)
This change occurred partly because the leadership of guidance and counseling, particularly on the part of people like John Brewer (1922), was increasingly more educationally oriented. It also occurred, according to Stephens (1970), because the NEA’s Commission on the Reorganization of Secondary Education (CRSE) “had so broadened the definition of vocation as to soften it, if not to virtually eliminate it as a cardinal principle of secondary education” (p. 113). This move by the CRSE, together with the more educationally oriented leadership of guidance, served to separate what had been twin reform movements of education vocational education and vocational guidance, as Stephens called them leaving vocational guidance to struggle with its own identity. This point is made in a similar way by A. H. Johnson (1972):
The 1918 report of the NEA’s Commission on the Reorganization of Secondary Education construed almost all of the education as training for efficient vocational and avocational life. No element in the curriculum appeared salient after the CRSE report. This was no less true of vocational
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“Yes, sir, I am married; my wife is serving at the house of a merchant at Kursk.”
“Well, then, write to your wife to come here. I shall get a free ticket for her. We will soon have a vacant watch-house here, and I will ask the division-master to give you the place.”
“Many thanks, your honor,” replied Semen.
And so he remained on the station, helping in the station-master’s kitchen, cutting wood, sweeping the courtyard and the railway platform. In two weeks his wife arrived, and Semen went on a handcar to his new home.
The watch-house was new and warm, wood he had in plenty, the former watchman left a small garden, and there was a little less than one and a half acres of arable land on the two sides of the railroadbed. Semen was overjoyed: he began to dream of a little homestead of his own, and of buying a horse and a cow.
He was given all the necessary supplies: a green flag, a red flag, lanterns, a signal-pipe, a hammer, a rail-key for tightening the screwnuts, a crowbar, shovel, brooms, clinch-nails, bolts, and two books with the rules and regulations of the railroad. At first Semen did not sleep at night, for he continually repeated the regulations. If the train was due in two hours, he had already gone his rounds, and would sit on the little bench at the watch-house and look and listen: were not the rails trembling, was there no noise of an approaching train?
At last he learned by heart all the rules; though he read with difficulty and had to spell out each word, nevertheless he did learn them by heart.
This happened in summer: the work was not hard, there was no snow to shovel, and, besides, the trains passed but rarely on that road. Semen would walk over his verst twice in twenty-four hours, would tighten a screw here and there, pick up a splinter, examine the water-pipes, and go home to take care of his little homestead. The only thing that bothered him and his wife was: no matter what they made up their minds to do, they had to ask the permission of the track-master, who again had to lay the matter before the division-
master, and when permission was at last given the time had already passed, and it was then too late to be of any use to them. On account of this, Semen and his wife began, at times, to feel very lonely.
About two months passed in this way; Semen began to form acquaintance with his nearest neighbors—trackmen like himself. One was already a very old man, whom the railway authorities had long intended to replace; he could hardly move from his watchhouse, and his wife attended to his duties. The other trackman, who lived nearer to the station, was still a young man, thin and sinewy. Semen met him for the first time on the railroad-bed half-way between their watch-houses, while they were making their rounds; Semen took off his cap and bowed. “Good health to you, neighbor,” he said.
The neighbor looked at him askance. “How are you?” he replied, turned, and went his way.
The women also met afterward. Arina, Semen’s wife, greeted her neighbor affably, but this neighbor, also not of the talkative kind, spoke a few words and walked away. On meeting her once, Semen asked:
“Why is your husband so uncommunicative, young woman?” After standing for some time in silence, she said: “But what should he talk to you about? Everybody has his troubles—God speed you.”
But after another month had passed, their intimacy grew. Now, when Semen and Vasili met on the road-bed, they sat down on the edge, smoked their pipes, and told each other of their past life and experiences. Vasili spoke but little, but Semen told of his campaign life and of his native village.
“I have seen plenty of sorrow in my time, and God knows I am not so very old either. God has not given us much luck. It just depends: the kind of a lot the dear Lord portions out to one—such he must have. This is the way I make it out, Vasili Stepanich, little brother.”
And Vasili struck the bowl of his pipe on the rail to empty it, and said:
“It isn’t luck nor fate which is eating your life and mine away, but people. There is not a beast more cruel and rapacious than man. A wolf does not devour a wolf—but man eats man alive.”
“Well, brother, wolf does eat wolf—that is where you are wrong.”
“It came to my tongue, so I said it; anyhow there is not a more cruel beast. If it were not for man’s viciousness and greed—’twould be possible to live. Every one is on the lookout to grasp at your vitals, tear off a piece, and gobble it up.”
“I don’t know, brother,” said Semen after thinking a bit. “Maybe it is so—but if it is really so, then the great God ordained it in this way.”
“And if it is so,” spoke Vasili, “then there is no use of my speaking to you. A man who attributes to God every kind of iniquity, and himself sits and patiently bears it, can not be a man, brother mine—but an animal. Here you have my whole say!”
And he turned and went off without even saying good-by. Semen rose also and called after him; “Neighbor, and what are you abusing me for?”
But the neighbor did not even turn around, and went his way
Semen looked after him till he was lost from sight at the turn of the road, then he returned home and said to his wife: “Well, Arina, what a venomous man that neighbor of ours is!”
Nevertheless they were not angry with each other; and when they met again they spoke as if nothing had happened and on the very same topic.
“Ei, brother, if not for the people—we would not sit here in these watch-houses,” spoke Vasili.
“Well, what if we do live in a watch-house? It is not so bad to live in one, after all.”
“Not so bad to live, not so bad—Ech, you! You lived long, but gained little; looked at much, but saw little. A poor man, no matter where he lives, in a railway watch-house or in any other place, what sort of a life is his? Those fleecers are eating your life away, squeeze all your
juice out, and when you have grown old they throw you out like some swill, for the pigs to feed on. How much wages do you get?”
“Well, not much, Vasili Stepanich, twelve rubles” (about seven dollars and a half).
“And I thirteen and a half. Allow me to ask you why! According to the rulings of the administration, every one of us is supposed to get the same amount—fifteen rubles a month, and light and heat. Who was it that allotted you and me twelve, or say, thirteen and a half rubles? Allow me to ask you?—And you say it is not so bad a life? Understand me well, it is not about the three or one and a half rubles I am wrangling about—but even if they paid me the whole amount— Last month I was at the station when the director happened to pass. I saw him there. Had the honor. He occupied a whole private car by himself—on the station he alighted and stood on the platform, looking—no, I will not stay here long; I shall go where my eyes will lead me.”
“But where will you go, Stepanich? Let well alone, you will not find it much better anywhere. You have a home here, warmth, and a bit of land. Your wife is an able workwoman—”
“Land! You ought to see the land I have—why, there isn’t a stick on it. This spring I planted some cabbages. Well, one day the trackmaster passed: ‘What is this?’ he says. ‘Why did you not report it? Why not have waited for permission? Dig it out at once and not a vestige should be left of it.’ He was in his cups. At another time he would not have said a word, and here he got it into his head—Three rubles fine!—”
For some moments Vasili pulled at his pipe in silence, then he said in a low voice: “It wanted but little more, and I would have made short work of him.”
“Well, neighbor, you are a hot-head, I can tell you.”
“I am not hot, I am only speaking and considering everything from the point of justice. But he will get it from me yet, the red-mug; I shall make a complaint to the master of the division in person. We shall see!”
And he really complained.
Once the master of the division came to make a preliminary inspection of the road. In three days’ time very important gentlemen were expected from St. Petersburg to make an inspection of the road: everything had to be made ship-shape; some new gravel was ordered before their arrival, added, leveled, and smoothed out, the sleepers were examined, the nuts tightened, the verst-posts newly painted, and the order was given that some fine yellow sand be strewn over the crossings. A track-woman even drove her old man out of the nearest watch-house, which he almost never left, in order to trim a little the tiny grass-plot. Semen worked a whole week to bring everything into first-rate order, even mended his coat and burnished his brass shield till it shone. Vasili also worked hard.
At last the division master arrived in a buzzing draisine (hand car), worked by four men and making twenty versts an hour. It came flying toward Semen’s watch-house, and Semen sprang forward and reported in military fashion. Everything appeared to be correct.
“Are you long here?” asked the master.
“Since the second of May, your honor.”
“Very well, thank you. And who is at Number 164?”
The track-master who rode with him on the draisine replied: “Vasili Spiridov.”
“Spiridov, Spiridov.—Oh, the one you reported?”
“The very same.”
“Very well, let us have a look at Vasili Spiridov. Go ahead.”
The workmen leaned upon the handles and the draisine flew farther. “There will be a fight between them and the neighbor,” thought Semen, looking after the disappearing draisine.
About two hours later Semen went on his rounds. He saw that some one was coming toward him, walking over the railroad bed, and there was something white visible on his head. Semen strained his eyes to see who it was—Vasili; in his hand he carried a stick and a small
bundle was slung across his shoulders, and one cheek was tied up with a white kerchief.
“Where are you going, neighbor?” Semen shouted to him.
When Vasili approached him closer, Semen saw that he was as pale as chalk and wild-eyed; and when he started to speak his voice broke.
“I am off to the city,” he said, “to Moscow—to the main office of the administration.”
“To the administration—Is that it! You are going to make a complaint, are you? Better not, Vasili Stepanich, forget it—”
“No, brother, I will not forget it. It is too late to forget. You see, he struck me in the face, beat me till the blood flowed. As long as I live, I will not forget it, nor let it go at this.”
“Give it up, Stepanich,” Semen spoke to him, taking hold of his hand.
“I speak truth: you will not make things better.”
“Who speaks of better! I know myself that I will not make them better; you spoke truly about fate—you did. I shall not do much good to myself, but one has to stand up for justice.”
“But won’t you tell me how it all came about?”
“How it all came about—Well, he inspected everything, left the draisine on purpose to do so—even looked inside the watch-house. I knew beforehand that he would be strict—so I had everything in firstclass order. He was already going to leave when I came forward with my complaint. He immediately burst forth: ‘Here,’ he said, ‘is to be a government inspection, you—so and so—and you dare come forward with your complaints about your vegetable garden! We are expecting privy councilors and he comes with his cabbages!’ I could not control myself and said a word—not so very bad either, but it seemed to offend him and he struck me—And I stood there, as if it was the most usual thing in the world to happen. Only, when they went off, I came to my senses, washed off the blood from my face and went away.”
“And what about the watch-house?”
“My wife is there, she will take care; and besides, the devil take their road, anyway!”
“Good-by, Ivanich,” he said to Semen on taking leave of him; “I don’t know if I shall find justice for myself.”
“You don’t mean to tell me that you will go on foot?”
“I shall ask them at the station to let me ride in a freighter; to-morrow I shall be in Moscow.”
The neighbors took leave of each other and each went his way. Vasili stayed away for a long time. His wife did all the work for him, sleeping neither night nor day, and looked very worn and exhausted. On the third day the inspectors passed: an engine, freight-car, and two private cars, and Vasili was still absent. On the fourth day Semen saw Vasili’s wife; her face was swollen with incessant weeping and her eyes were very red. “Has your husband returned?” he asked her. She only waved her arm, but did not utter a word.
When still a little boy Semen had learned how to make willow pipes. He burnt out the pith, drilled out where necessary the tiny fingerholes, and finished up the end of the pipe so artistically that almost anything could be played on it. At odd moments he now made lots of such pipes and sent them with an acquaintance of his, a freight conductor, to the city, where they were sold at two copecks[9] a pipe. On the third day after the inspection he left his wife at home to meet the six o’clock train, took his knife and went into the woods to cut his willow sticks. He came to the end of his section, where the road made a sharp turn, descended the embankment and went up the hill. About a half verst farther was a large bog, around which grew splendid shrubs for his pipes. He cut a whole heap of sticks and went home, again walking through the wood. The sun was already low; and a death-like quiet reigned all about, only the chirping of the birds could be heard and the crackling underfoot of the wind-fallen wood. A little more and he would reach the railroad bed; suddenly it
seemed to him as if he heard coming from somewhere the clang of iron striking on iron. Semen hurried his steps. “What can it be?” he asked himself, knowing that no repairs were going on in that section at that time. He reached the edge of the wood—before him rose high the embankment of the railway; and he saw on the top—on the railroad bed—a man squatting down at work on something. Semen began to ascend the embankment very quietly, thinking that some one was trying to steal the screw-nuts. He saw the man rise; in his hand he held a crowbar; he quickly shoved the crowbar under the rail and gave it a push to one side—Semen felt everything grow dim; he tried to shout, but could not. He saw that it was Vasili, and made a dash for the embankment, but Vasili was already rolling down the other side of the embankment with the rail-key and crowbar.
“Vasili Stepanich! Little father, friend, come back! Give me the crowbar! Let us put the rail in place; no one will ever know. Come back, save your soul from a great sin!”
But Vasili did not even turn round, and went on into the woods. Semen remained standing over the dislocated rail, his sticks lying in a heap at his feet. The train which was due was not a freighter, but a passenger train, and he had nothing to stop it with: a flag he had none. He could not put the rail into its right place; with bare hands one can not fasten in the rail spikes. He had to run, run for dear life into his watch-house for the necessary implements! God give him strength!
And Semen started to run breathlessly toward his watch-house. He ran—now, now he would fall—at last he left the wood behind, he had only about seven hundred feet left to his watch-house—suddenly he heard the factory whistle. Six o’clock, and at two minutes past six the train would pass. Great God! Save the innocent souls! And before his eyes he seemed to see how the left wheel of the engine would strike the cut rail, quiver, slant to one side, and tear the sleepers, knock them all to slivers, and just here—is the rounded curve, and the embankment—and the engine, the cars, all—would go pell-mell down, down from the height of seventy-seven feet, and the thirdclass cars were jammed full of people, little children among them.
Now they were sitting tranquilly, not thinking of anything. O Lord, teach him what to do! No, he would not be able to get to the watchhouse and return in time.
Semen gave up his intention of running to the watch-house, turned and ran back quicker than he had come, his head in a whirl; not knowing himself what would happen he ran up to the cut rail: his sticks lay scattered all around. He bent down and took one of the sticks, not understanding himself why he did it; and ran farther. And it seemed to him that the train was already approaching. He heard a far-away whistle, heard the rails begin to quiver measuredly and quietly: he had no more strength left to run. He stopped about seven hundred feet from the fatal spot: suddenly he became illuminated, as it were, by a thought.
He took off his hat, took from it a handkerchief; took out his knife from his boot-leg and crossed himself. God’s blessing!
He slashed his left arm a little above the elbow with his sharp knife; the blood spurted down in a hot stream; he dipped his handkerchief in it, smoothed it out, tied it to his stick, and displayed his red flag.
He stood waving the flag; the train was already in sight. The engineer did not see him, he would come nearer, but at a distance of seven hundred feet he would not be able to stop the heavy train!
And the blood was pouring and pouring—Semen pressed his hand to his side, but the blood would not stop; evidently he had made too deep a cut into the arm; his head was beginning to turn; he was getting dizzy, as if black flies were swimming in his eyes; then everything became altogether dark, and loud bells were ringing in his ears—He no longer saw the train, no longer heard the noise: only one thought predominated: “I will not be able to keep on my feet, will fall down, drop the flag; the train will pass over me?—Dear God, succor, send some one to relieve me—” His soul became a void, and he dropped the flag. But the bloody flag did not fall to the ground: some one’s hand caught it and raised it aloft in front of the oncoming train. The engineer saw him and brought the engine to a stop.
The people came rushing from the train; soon they gathered into a crowd; before them lay a man, unconscious, covered with blood; another man stood beside him with a bloody rag tied to a stick.
Vasili surveyed the crowd and lowered his head.
“Bind me,” he said; “it was I who cut the rail.”
FOOTNOTES:
[9] A copeck is a little more than half a cent. 100 copecks make a silver ruble, or 60 cents.
THE CURSE OF FAME
BY IGNATIY NIKOLAIEVITCH POTAPENKO
Potapenko was born in 1856 and received a university education at Odessa and at St. Petersburg. In 1881 he made his first mark as an author with a series of short stories and sketches. Since then he has contributed to Russian literature many romances, novels, tales and plays. Like the Belgian dramatist, Maeterlinck, he seems to select a few insistent notes with masterly judgment,
and then strikes these over and over again until the overtones are heard and produce of themselves the full effect of harmony.
The general opinion among critics of Russian literature is that Potapenko, though ranking by no means with the first of Russian writers, has reached in this single instance of “The Curse of Fame” a high-water mark equal to the best.
THE CURSE OF FAME
BY IGNATIY POTAPENKO
Translated by A. Lionel. Copyright, 1896, by the Current Literature Publishing Co.
The small Hall of the Conservatory of Music was but half illuminated. Along the walls only alternate sconces were lighted, and only those jets of the great chandelier nearest the platform were burning. On this particular evening—a private “Students’ Recital”—none but fellow pupils and near relatives of the performers were admitted. The Hall was rather empty. The visitors sat near the platform, and the students were in possession of the back seats. This arrangement enabled the young women to gossip among themselves, or to flirt with the young men, and gave the latter an opportunity to besiege and conquer the young women’s hearts. In fact it seemed as if the entire interest of the young people at these “Students’ Recitals” centred in this occupation. The performers were students of mediocre talent, or sometimes children who gave promise of future proficiency, but the pieces they played had long since ceased to arouse interest.
The nights of the “Grand Concerts” are quite a different matter. The public is then admitted, a struggle for seats takes place, the Hall is fully lighted, and the platform is occupied by the favorite pupils of the professors—those idols of the Conservatory, who are some day to make the institution famous. On these occasions the students turn
out in great numbers, and unable to find room in the crowded Hall, they squeeze into the corridors, treading on one another’s toes.
An adult flautist with yellow mustaches has just concluded his number, and, with a face flushed from exertion, has stepped off the platform and disappeared in the corridor. No one has noticed whether his playing was good or bad. He has managed to get through the piece assigned him by his master without a mistake in the tempo. That at least is commendable. Presently a boy came on the platform. He appeared to be about twelve years of age. His small, oval face was pale, and his fair hair carefully brushed and parted on one side. In one hand he held a violin, somewhat smaller than the usual size, and in the other hand the bow. He was dressed in a short, dark gray coat and knickerbockers. Probably neither the appearance nor the playing of this boy would have attracted any more attention than that of the flautist had the professor not followed him on the platform, and seating himself at the piano, commenced a little preliminary improvisation. He evidently intended to play the boy’s accompaniment. This caused some surprise and stir in the back rows.
“Who is the boy? Onkel himself is going to play his accompaniment!” queried the young lady pianists of their neighbors, the barytones.
These barytones were the acknowledged irresistibles of the institution. They sat in studied attitudes and answered questions loftily, scarcely deigning to open their teeth. But this time they could make no reply.
“What? Don’t you know?” respectfully asked the trombone player who sat in front, turning his head. Trombone players are generally of awkward, timid disposition, and while barytones, tenors, basses, and violinists revel in dreams of future greatness, the trombonist’s aspirations rise no higher than the back row of the orchestra. This must account for the lady pianists’ hardness of heart toward them, not to speak of the indifference of the lady singers, who are so constantly devoured by the ardent fire of their ambition.
“It is Spiridonoff, who is full of brilliant promise,” explained the trombonist. “Onkel says he’ll be a second Paganini, and he hopes to
make his own name famous through the boy.”
“Oh, Spiridonoff! Is that he?”
For the last year all have heard and spoken of Spiridonoff. The boy had made marvelous progress. Even now he could have played in public and put many a grown violinist to shame. But Onkel would not allow it. He guarded his young talent with the utmost care.
“Why is he so pale, poor little fellow?” asked the florid soprano, whose interest had been aroused by the words of the trombonist.
“Pallor is an attribute of true talent,” stated the baritone. He had a pale face surmounted by a shock of black hair.
The trombonist, overwhelmed by the remark—he possessed neither pallor nor talent—again turned his face to the platform.
Among the friends of the performers, in the second row, on the last chair to the left, sat a man whose eyes were riveted on the boy with unswerving attention. He was tall and slender. His thin hair was combed over from the right temple to the left, and stuck down with pomatum in an evident desire to hide a conspicuous baldness. He must have been over fifty years of age, as there were many and deep wrinkles in his forehead, and his cheeks, and around his eyes and chin. His thin hair too was thickly streaked with gray. The strongly marked eyebrows expressed determination and obstinacy, yet there was a look of gentleness in the eyes. At the present moment he was evidently in an excited, emotional and expectant frame of mind. He wore a long, old-fashioned, black coat, carefully buttoned up to the chin.
The pale boy played. The audience particularly liked the unusual firmness with which he held his violin, and that he used his bow like a familiar weapon. Professor Onkel had acted boldly in selecting a showy concert piece instead of a pupils’ “study.” But what would you? The old professor was greedy for notoriety, and anxious to display the result of his style of teaching. He succeeded well, for Spiridonoff played splendidly. He executed the difficult passages with great precision, and when feeling was to be expressed, he pressed his bow on the string with laudable correctness. Onkel in his piano
accompaniment introduced every variety of light and shade. His whole body assisted in the work. He would straighten himself, stretch his neck, or slowly throw himself back in his chair; at other times he would suddenly fling himself over the keys—in short he played with his entire being, which of course deepened the impression produced by the performance. All admired the young virtuoso, whose thin little legs seemed hardly able to support his fragile frame. When he finished playing the applause resounded. This was against the rules, but what rules can control outbursts of wonder and delight?
Spiridonoff made a hasty, awkward little bow, and left the platform, followed by Onkel, swelling with pride and pompousness.
While the next aspirant to fame tortured his instrument on the platform, a small crowd gathered in the corridor and surrounded the boy. The grand Mæcænas with the long gray beard was there. This patron of the institution never missed a single free concert; in fact, he knew the secret of making them all “free” to himself by procuring ingress to the Hall through the dressing-room. He patted young Spiridonoff patronizingly on the head, and disarranged his carefully combed hair
“You have great talent. You will make the reputation of the Conservatory, the fame of Russia,” he said, gulping his words as if in the act of hastily swallowing hot tea.
The young ladies gazed tenderly at the boy, and sighed pityingly at his emaciation and pallor.
Professor Brendel passed by He, too, was a violinist, but very unlike Onkel. Brendel was tall and slim, Onkel was short and stout. Brendel came from Leipsic, Onkel came from Munich. Brendel hated Onkel, because he was a violinist, and according to Brendel there should be but one violinist in the world, and that one—Brendel. Secondly, he hated Onkel, because this wonder, this little Spiridonoff of whom every one was talking, had been discovered in Onkel’s class, and not in his—Brendel’s. Lastly, he hated Onkel because the latter dared to exist. Brendel stopped by Spiridonoff and tapped him on the shoulder.
“Not bad!” he said with a Leipsic accent. “Your technique is good for your age, but why did you make so many mistakes?”
This was untrue, and against his own conscience, but he wished to say something disagreeable in the presence of Onkel.
“He made fewer mistakes than Professor Brendel does in making that remark,” replied Onkel with a Munich accent.
Brendel pretended not to hear as he disappeared at the end of the corridor.
Little Spiridonoff was tormented on all sides. They peered into his eyes, they slapped him on the shoulder, they patted his head, stroked his cheeks, chucked him under the chin, every one encouraged him and predicted future greatness.
He looked at them all sadly, and received their praises with indifference. He apparently felt shy and weary amid all these ebullitions of feeling. His eyes searched anxiously for some one, and finally rested reassured on the wrinkled face of the tall man, who some minutes before had sat at the end of the second row, and listened to him with such close attention. The man eagerly noted all the compliments showered on the boy. He was leaning against the half-open door of a classroom, which was this evening serving for a green room, and holding a child’s thick overcoat in one hand and in the other a violin case. He approached the boy, relieved him of his violin and bow, and placed them in the case with care. Then, after putting on the boy’s overcoat, and muffling a white silk handkerchief around his neck, he took him by the hand, and led him downstairs.
“Spiridonoff,” Onkel called, arresting their steps, “prepare yourself for the Grand Concert.”
The man in the black, buttoned-up coat made a bow, and then continued downstairs, solicitously assisting the boy at every step.
“That’s his father,” somebody remarked.
“Fortunate father,” exclaimed Onkel, much elated at Spiridonoff’s success.
It was a winter morning, and that early hour when the cold is even severer than during the night. The streets were still dark, and the lamps burning. None but belated pleasure seekers hastening to reach home, or factory workmen wrapped in sheepskins hurrying to their work, were to be seen about. While the rest of the population were yet lost in sleep, a fire was lighted in the small, dingy house of the government clerk, Spiridonoff. He had risen at six o’clock, washed and dressed, said his prayers, and cautiously tiptoed into the hall. The house was terribly cold. Mrs. Spiridonoff, who was twenty years younger than her husband, lay sleeping in a large bed with two of her children. Her head was swathed in a cloth, and a mass of clothing was piled on the top of the blanket. This was the only way in which they could keep themselves warm. Old Spiridonoff went through the hall, and feeling for the kitchen door, opened it and entered. A burning lamp emitted an unbearable odor. The cook, like her mistress, was covered over head and ears in rags. It was difficult to tell her head from her feet.
“Arina! Arina!” called Spiridonoff in a low voice, shaking her with both hands. “Get up, it is past six o’clock.”
A sigh issued from the rags. Arina was evidently still sleepy, and unwilling to exchange the warmth of the bed for the outside cold.
“Arina, have we any wood?”
“Wood?” answered a voice as if from a tomb, “perhaps enough to heat one stove.”
“Good. Get up and light the fire in Mitia’s room. At once, do you hear? He’ll be getting up soon.” Arina’s nose appeared from under the bedclothes.
“In Mitia’s room? His was heated yesterday. Perhaps it would be better to have a fire in the bedroom. It hasn’t had one for two days.”
“No, no, no. Mitia’s, do you hear? Mitia’s room must be warm.”
Arina growled her disapproval, nevertheless she got up as soon as Spiridonoff left the room, and after putting on all the rags which had
served as her bed covering, she collected the wood which lay under the kitchen table.
“Devils—Anathemas,” she grunted, but in such tones that no one could hear her. “Call themselves gentlefolks—keep a cook indeed— haven’t money enough to buy a log of wood. Mitia is the only one who is kept warm.”
Spiridonoff went into the bedroom, and letting down the cambric bedcurtain, lit a candle. He had on a coat of fox fur, so old that it hung in tatters, and could only be worn for domestic work. He sat down by the table, took a pen, and began writing with half frozen fingers. From time to time he laid down his pen, breathed on his hands, warmed them by the candle flame, and then resumed his work. In half an hour he went to see how Mitia’s stove was getting on. It was beginning to feel warm.
“Arina!” again ordered Spiridonoff, “take a piatak” (about three cents). “Here is a piatak. Run to the little store and buy some milk and boil it. Mitia is going to get up, and it must be ready.” Arina muttered that she didn’t care, milk or no milk, boil or not boil—yet she started off to buy it just the same. Spiridonoff continued to write, warm his hands by the candle, and write again. Arina came to announce that the milk was boiling.
“Aha! Good!”
The old man rose and softly opened the door to the left. The dim light thrown by the candle from the bedroom disclosed a very small room containing only three articles of furniture—a child’s bed, a chair, and a music-stand. In the bed the little virtuoso of last night, Mitia Spiridonoff slumbered sweetly with the blanket drawn up to his chin. The chair served to hold his clothes, the stand his music, while on the floor stood the case containing his violin. The room was not cold. The stove had not had time to get chilled off after yesterday’s fire, before the warmth of the new fire made itself felt. Spiridonoff took the candle, and shutting the bedroom door, cautiously sat down on the little bed. “Mitenka, Mitenka!” he called in a tender low voice.
