their respective states the needs for the education of persons employed or aiming at employment in wage-earning occupations; to what extent these needs are met by existing institutions and what additional laws and other administrative measures are required in order to meet the situation; and how this new legislation may adapt itself to the social, economic and educational conditions of the Commonwealth which it is designed to benefit. During the past ten years, preliminary commissions preceding the attempt to secure legislation for practical education have served the following states: Connecticut (1903-07), Massachusetts (1905-06), Maryland (1908-10), New Jersey (1908-09), Maine (1909-10), Michigan (1909-10), Wisconsin (1909-11), Indiana (1911-13), Illinois (1911-13).

So far as laws are concerned comparatively little has as yet resulted from the work of these commissions in Maine, Maryland and Michigan. In Massachusetts, Connecticut, New Jersey, and Wisconsin, state systems of vocational education have been the direct outcome. The Indiana Commission on Industrial Education and the Illinois Educational Commission will report to their respective legislatures on January 1, 1913, together with recommendations as to what laws should be adopted. New York and Ohio are the only two states with rather extensive provisions for forms of vocational education whose laws did not come as the direct result of the preliminary labors of commissions.

It is interesting to note that six years after the report of the Massachusetts Commission on Industrial and Technical Education, Massachusetts, in 1911,3 authorized the State Board of Education to begin a new and additional investigation of the need and possibilities of part-time schooling for children, fourteen to seventeen years of age with the view of extending this kind of work in that Commonwealth. This investigation is now being completed, a final report being submitted to the Legislature, January 1, 1913. The experience of all the states seems to show that the employment of a preliminary commission is the best way to begin the task of getting the right kind of vocational schools for a state.

The pronounced tendency at the present time is toward the appointment of a preliminary commission in each state to study conditions and recommend legislation before any attempt is made to set up a state-wide system of vocational education. There is a growing recog

nition that such commissions should have adequate time, usually not less than two years for their labors; that they should be equipped with sufficient funds to enable them to do their work properly and that there should be a large representation of laymen as well as educators in their membership.

There are laws in most all of the states relating to such subjects, as manual training, domestic science, gardening and elementary school agriculture. In some instances state money is given for their encouragement but usually the legislation permits, and in some instances requires, the towns and cities to carry on this work entirely at local expense. In most of the Commonwealths, there is very little provision for vocational education of a thoroughgoing type for those over fourteen years of age. There is in many instances a failure to recognize the difference between vocational education and manual training. Late legislation, however, regards manual training as being a part of a liberal or general education, giving valuable general rather than special preparation for life, and vocational education as being an education whose dominant purpose is to fit boys and girls for successful wage-earning. The pronounced tendency of the states is to leave manual training as a part of the general education which has traditionally been supported by the local community and to give state aid to stimulate and encourage local authorities everywhere to take up vocational education for the practical training of those over fourteen years of age.

Only five out of the forty-eight states have thus far adopted what might be called state systems of vocational education: Massachusetts (1906), New York (1907)5, Connecticut (1909) New Jersey, (1906-11)7 Wisconsin (1911). A state system of vocational education is here regarded as one in which there was some degree of state support or control or both, over the schools provided for in the laws. It is certain that some effort will be made to establish such systems in Indiana and Illinois and probably in Pennsylvania during the coming year. In what follows an effort will be made to set forth the comparative features of the state-wide schemes already existing.

4

These state schemes differ widely as to the amount of support and

Chap. 505, Acts 1906, Chap. 471, Acts 1911.

' Chap. 21, Laws 1909, Art. 22, Chap. 16, Laws 1910.

Chap. 85, Acts of 1909.

Chap. 20, Acts, 1906, Chap. 78, Acts 1909.

Chap. 616, Acts 1911.

control by the commonwealth. Connecticut has complete state control and support; its trade schools authorized by law being administered by the State Board of Education and supported entirely from appropriations made by the legislature from the general treasury. Massachusetts, New York and Wisconsin have partial state control and support, the state paying part of the expense of carrying on the work and, through a state board of control, having a greater or less degree of power in its supervision and administration. In New Jersey, the state gives as much as the local community to the support of the venture; practically the entire control resting in the hands of the local authorities.

In Connecticut provision is made only for the teaching of trades; in Massachusetts, agriculture, household arts and industrial training are aided; in New York general industrial and trade training and education in agriculture, mechanic arts and home-making are subsidized. New Jersey gives grants from the state treasury for industrial education as distinguished from manual training and subsidizes, in addition, elementary agriculture and home economics in summer classes. Besides making provision for agricultural schools in the country and for trade schools in large cities, Wisconsin supports a state system for industrial apprentice and trade instruction. In most of the recent legislation the state systems established provide state aid for training in agriculture, the household arts and the industries.

In practically all of the state systems thus far established, the schools aided are open to all children over fourteen years of age who are able to profit by the instruction offered. In Massachusetts, Connecticut, New York and Wisconsin, the instruction receiving state grants must be open to pupils over fourteen years of age who are able to do the work successfully even though they have not received a common school diploma. The effect of this is to set up a new kind of secondary school paralleling the regular high school for those over fourteen years of

age.

In Connecticut the law authorizes only a day trade school for those between fourteen and eighteen, who can give their entire time to the training. Massachusetts provides all-day industrial schools for boys between fourteen and eighteen; part-time schools for those between fourteen and twenty-five who can give a portion of their working day or week to after-training, and evening schools for the further instruction of the mature worker. Thus far New York and New Jersey have only given state encouragement to the all-day class. Wisconsin makes

grants to all-day schools only when they teach trades in large cities or agriculture in the counties. By sweeping legislation in 1911, a system of part-time and continuation instruction has been set up to deal with the problem of the training of the wage-earnering youth or adult who has already gone to work. The drift in all the states is toward a system of schools-all-day, part-time and evening-which will meet the vocational needs of those over fouteen, whether they remain in school or go to work.

The entire cost of the public trade schools of Connecticut is met. from the treasury of that commonwealth. In Massachusetts the local community builds and equips the plant and the state pays onehalf the operating expenses. This is substantially true in Wisconsin as well. One-half of the amount expended by the local authorities is contributed by New Jersey, while New York gives the town or city five hundred dollars for the first teacher of practical work who is employed and two hundred and fifty dollars for each teacher of the same character who is added to the teaching force. In recent legislation the tendency is toward a state system which will require the local commmunity to establish the school at its own expense, meet all the operating expenses and receive from the commonwealth one-half the cost of maintenance if the work is approved by the State Board of Control.

There is no local support as has been pointed out for the trade schools of Connecticut, the entire administration being in the hands of the State Board of Education subject to the approval of the legislature. Massachusetts gives state aid as payment for results accomplished. After the money has been spent by the local community, and the work is approved by the Board of Education, reimbursements for one-half the cost of carrying on the work is recommended to the legislature. The board is required by law to approve of the school as to organization, control, location, equipment, course of study, qualification of teachers, methods of instruction, conditions of admission, employment of pupils, and expenditures of money. State grants in New York are dependent upon the approval of the course of study by the State Department of Education. In general, payments to the schools. in Wisconsin are made on the basis of results after the work has been done and approved by the State Board. It appears that in New Jersey state aid is practically automatic, being dependent largely if not almost entirely, on the raising and expending of money by the local authority. The best public opinion as well as recent legislation seems to

favor the idea of the distribution of state money for vocational training not automatically but as payment for results which have met with the approval of the state authorities.

Everywhere there is a growing recognition of the need of close cooperation between the schoolmaster and the man of affairs in carrying on practical education in this country. Three means of securing the participation of laymen are possible, namely:-by lay representation on state boards of control, by lay representation on local boards of control and by advisory committees surrounding the principals and teachers of vocational schools, composed of employers and employes who have had practical and successful experience in the kind of training which the schools give. Up to this time state boards of education and local school committees have not been chosen with the idea of their special fitness to deal with the problems of practical education. Hence the attempt to secure in recent legislation a larger helpful influence from the practical man in the work of schools fitting men and women for the duties of home and shop and farm.

The laws of the different states vary greatly in this matter. Connecticut has direct control of its trade schools by the State Board of Education which also has charge of general education in that commonwealth. A majority of its members are lay rather than professional. Most of them have not been selected for their special fitness for dealing with the task of vocational education. There is no local board of control for the school and no local advisory committee surrounding it. The State Board of Education in Massachusetts is responsible for the administration of vocational education, as well as general education. Its lay members have not in general been selected with any special reference to their experience and fitness to deal with problems of vocational education. The local boards of control for the state-aided schools of that commonwealth may be either the regular school committee of the community or a separate board of trustees chosen for their special fitness in dealing with the task, usually the former administrates the school. The Act of 1911 requires all schools in the state asking for approval and aid to have advisory committees composed of members representing local trade industries and occupations whose duty it shall be to counsel with and advise the school officials in the discharge of their duties.

There is no state board either professional or lay in New York. The administration of the state-aided vocational schools is entirely in the hands of the Commissioner of Education and his assistants.