358 Counseling Psychology
members of a family. Children from poor families were espe-
cially vulnerable, frequently leaving school before the age of
12 to do menial labor. Within the culture of child saving,
these conditions created a strong rallying cry that resulted in
greater protections for some of society’s most at-risk people
(Davidson & Benjamin, 1987).
What many wanted most was a chance for children to re-
ceive an adequate education, one that would last beyond the
primary grades. Children’s leaving school to drift aimlessly
was seen as a tremendous waste of human potential and an
inefficient use of human resources. The concern over leaving
school was embedded within the larger context of the place
of public education in American society, a debate that gave
rise to a variety of visions for the future of the nation and its
youth. Many saw the school system as failing the students it
was charged with serving. They called for public education to
complement the world outside of the classroom and provide
tools for success in the new American urban industrial cen-
ters. For immigrant children, the system struggled to provide
thoughtful alternatives; for Native American, Hispanic, and
African American children, the system was and would re-
main limited, segregated, and largely indifferent.
A variety of alternatives were offered. Booker T. Washington
called for national programs of industrial education for African
American children, psychologist Helen Thompson Woolley
conducted scientific studies of school leaving, and philan-
thropic reformers like Jane Addams established settlement
homes (Baker, in press).
In Boston, Chicago, New York, and Philadelphia, settle-
ment homes were a common feature of the progressive land-
scape at the start of the twentieth century (Carson, 1990).
Wanting to respond to the plight of poor inner-city families,
socially minded students, professors, clergy, and artists
would take up residence in working-class neighborhoods, be-
coming part of and an influence on the social, educational,
political, artistic, and economic life of the community. In this
setting, the vocational guidance movement in America began
in earnest.
THE GUIDANCE MOVEMENTS
In Boston, the Civic Service House opened in 1901. Funded
by Pauline Agassis Shaw, a philanthropist with a strong com-
mitment to children, the Civic Service House served the edu-
cational needs of immigrant adults. One goal of the Civic
Service House was to provide a semblance of a college edu-
cation to the working poor of the neighborhood (Brewer,
1942; A. F. Davis & McCree, 1969). Helping in this effort
was a frequent guest of the Civic Service House, Boston at-
torney Frank Parsons. Well educated and socially minded, he
was an advocate for the rights and needs of those he believed
were exploited by industrial monopolies.A Plan for GuidanceParsons was very much interested in how people chose their
life’s work, viewing vocational choice as a form of individual
and social efficiency, a part of the Progressive ideal. Talking
of the subject to students at the Civic Service House, Parsons
found many who wanted personal meetings to discuss their
vocational futures, so much so that in January 1908, he
opened the Vocational Bureau at the Civic Service House
under the motto “Light, Information, Inspiration, and Coop-
eration” (Brewer, 1942; Watts, 1994).
Parsons’ (1909) own words reflect the spirit of the times
and the themes that would come to be associated with voca-
tional psychology and guidance:The wise selection of the business, profession, trade, or occupa-
tion to which one’s life is to be devoted and the development of
full efficiency in the chosen field are matters of the deepest mo-
ment 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 limi-
tations, and the relations of these elements to the conditions of
success than if he drifts into an industry for which he is not fitted.
An occupation out of harmony with the worker’s aptitudes and
capacities means inefficiency, unenthusiastic and perhaps dis-
tasteful labor, and low pay; while an occupation in harmony with
the nature of the man means enthusiasm, love of work, and high
economic values, superior product, efficient service, and good
pay. (p. 3)Parsons’ beliefs were actualized in a program of indi-
vidual guidance that he developed based on the triadic
formulation of (a) knowledge of oneself, (b) knowledge
of occupations, and (c) the relationship between the two.
Parsons had to develop many of the methods he used or bor-
row from questionable practices such as physiognomy and
phrenology. The matching of self and job traits retained pop-
ular appeal, and Parsons earned a place of historical distinc-
tion (Baker, in press). The legacy was shortened by Parsons’
premature death in 1908.Guidance in Education and PsychologyThe institutionalization of vocational guidance began in 1917
with the transfer of the Vocational Bureau to the Division of
Education at Harvard. Here educators and psychologists
would frame some of the earliest debates about the nature of
guidance and counseling, debates that have echoed through-
out the history of counseling psychology.