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1924 WOM EN’S INSTITUTES ' . 17 What tastes and talents are revealed in the school records? Was the student strongest in mathematics, science, languages and literature, commercial or artistic subjects throughout his course? Did he express himself with more ease and ability in the practical or imaginative lines of activity? What interests you most at the Fall Fairs? Where do you spend most time, to what exhibits do you feel like returning oftenest? At a certain prison farm whose aim is less to punish than to help, this sort of observation is one of the guides to wise direction. During the first week the prisoner is required to do nothing, allowed to go where he will, look at what he pleases of all the varied occupations and manufactures of the establishment, and perform any work he chooses Voluntarily. Unknown to him, however, a close record is being kept of the activities which attract him most, those to which he returns oftenest, and about which he displays a desire for knowledge. The one which arouses his strongest and most recurrent interest is then selected as that in which he is to receive special training, the ultimate purpose being to turn out a citizen who can perform some kind of work well enough to gain for him his own respect and that of his fellow-men as an efficient workman. This equipment, with a new suit of clothes and a'few dollars in his pocket, has started a gratifyingly large percentage of those sent there afresh on the road to a selfâ€" respecting life. Where the tastes and talents are not very outstanding, such an investigation may mean the expenditure of considerable time and patience, but it is none the less worth doing. "We had seven children, five sons and two daughters,’ said the president of an Ontario Women’s Institute a few years ago, “and naturally as they grew up we wanted to help them to get happily settled in life. Our sons were an easy problemithey all wanted to follow in their parents’ footsteps and farm. They loved the outdoor life, and the living and growing things of the farm; in fact, they rarely visited the city except on business. All we had to do in their case was to get them the best in agricultural educationâ€"and find the farms! “One daughter had similar tastes. She liked the housework, the poultry, the cows, and country life, likewise a neighbouring young farmer. We felt she would be happy and successful as a farmer’s wife, so we secured for her the best training to be had for her chosen vocation. “But our other daughter; she was the problem. She wasjust as willing as the others, tried to help me about the house and poultry and dairy, but it some- how happened that it was into her cake the washing soda got instead of the- baking soda, into her pail of milk the cow put her foot, her the gander chased. When I sent her to take a newlyâ€"hatched brood of chickens off the nest there was usually a scrimmage which ended in flying feathers, scratches, tears, and the- untimely end of one or two of the young ones. She was not really interested in the farm life or operations as the rest were. So we concluded that farming, for her would mean misery, with prospects of still greater misery for anyy oung farmer she might marry, and she was sent to the High School to take the teachers" course. “But one night, towards the end of her secondyear, she came in, slammed her books on the table, and said, ‘Mother, I don't want to be a teacher. I just couldn’t stand a lot of tiresome little nuisances five days out of every week I’m sick of school anyway.’ “I looked at her and saw she meant it. The desire to quit school might, I knew, be a passing mood; but for one who felt that way about the children, teaching was no vocation. It would mean no satisfaction and meagre success.