other culprits were. Joe is ready to take his own punishment, and
that of his fellow malefactors, too, rather than "snitch." But for
some reason we feel that "justice" demands the conviction of every
individual involved. The conflict is not between our sense of
justice and the boy's stubbornness or wilfulness; it is rather a
struggle between our demand for retribution and the boy's ideal of
loyalty. If, through threats and cajolery or more indirect methods,
we at last succeed in finding out that it was Mrs. Brown's Bob who
was responsible for the whole affair, we have at last broken down
Joe's inclination to act according to certain ideal standards. Joe
has fallen in his own estimation beyond calculation. It is better to
let Bob go "unpunished" than to make Joe go back on his principles.

One important outcome of a study of our children's ideals and
ambitions should be the direction of their vocational choices. We
have read of Benjamin Franklin's father, who took his boys about to
various shops with a view to helping them make up their minds as to
what kind of trade they should follow. Nowadays we should consider
this method rather crude; but for a variety of reasons most of us do
not do even this much for our children. A study of children's plans
and hopes for their future work brings out the fact that the desire
to "earn money" as a motive in the choice increases up to the age of
twelve years, and then declines rapidly. This may be taken to mean
that, apart from the enlarged range of interests that comes with
increased experience, there is also an efflorescence of the fancy
that leads to increased concern with ideal ends. This is confirmed
by a comparison of the choice made by children of well-to-do
families with those made by children of rather poor people. The
children of the poor, in tragically large numbers, appear to accept
the fact of working as a necessity of life; they accept this