BUREAU COMPLETES WAR WORK

The Bureau of Vocational Guidance at the University, which is affiliated with the Department of Education, has just completed its first piece of work of national importance. This work is intimately connected with the country's war preparation program, for it presents clearly and concisely the nature of the training that is needed today in order to engage in the ship-building industry.

The book that has been compiled is the result of an investigation undertaken several months ago upon the request of the Emergency Fleet Corporation. Information in regard to the 60 odd trades involved in the construction of ships is so compiled by the Bureau as to be readily understood by men who are not acquainted with technical terms used by ship-builders. Thus it is now possible for a man to obtain quickly and easily information in regard to some particular trade connected with ship construction. When it is considered that more than 250,000 and possibly more than 400,000 additional workmen must be secured by the shipyards of this country before the end of 1918, the work of the Vocational Bureau assumes great importance.

Book to be Widely Distributed.

It is the purpose of the Emergency Fleet Corporation, through the employment offices of the Federal Reserve, to give wide distribution to the book prepared by the Bureau.

A news bulletin issued yesterday by the Vocational Bureau sums up as follows the work which it has just completed:

"It is comparatively easy to send out a patriotic appeal for workmen to enter the shipbuilding industry on the basis of the supreme need for ships in our present war crisis. The matter of selecting those who offer their services is a very much more difficult question.

"There are really two problems bound up in the emergency program of the Shipping Board: first, the securing of large numbers of workmen who have been prepared in trades somewhat similar to those found in the shipyards; second, retention of these men in their tasks for the period of the war. Of the two, the latter is the more difficult one, and involves the task of the special training of men who must be quickly instructed in the great variety of mechanical trades connected with the fabrication and erection of steel ships.

Ship-Building a "Mysterious" Art.

"After dealing with the problem for months it seemed unlikely to those in the Industrial Department of the Emergency Fleet Corporation that a wise decision as to their fitness for work in the shipyards could be reached by most mechanics without more adequate information than could be offered to them through the employment offices and other ordinary sources of information. So true has it been that ship-building has been a mysterious art that little or nothing of value to the lay reader has been published regarding the operations in ship-building, or of the conditions which must be confronted by those who engage in it.