•ir Ps Vocational education. 3 1924 003 649 054 62d GonSbebs ) id Sesaidn J SENATE ; Document No. 845 VOCATIONAL EDUCATION t ^ ~r7S SPEECH ' ' OF / "' HON. CARROLL S. PAGE DELIVERED IN THE SENATE OF THE UNITED STATES JUNE 5, 1912 ON SENATE BILL 3, TO COOPERATE WITH THE STATES IN ENCOURAGING INSTRITCTION IN AGRICULTURE, THE TRADES AND INDUSTRIES, AND HOME ECONOMICS IN &ECONDARY SCHOOLS; IN MAINTAINING INSTRUCTION IN THESE vbcATIONAL SUBJECTS IN STATE NORMAL SCHOOLS; IN MAINTAINING EXTENSION DEPART- MENTS IN STATE COLLEGES OF AGRICULTURE AND THE MECHANic ARTS; AND TO APPRO- PEIATE MONEY AND REGULATE ITS EXPENDITURE This speech has been printed as Senitte Document No. 846, 62d Congress, 2d Ses- sion. H you wish tor additional copies, you can, until the supply is exhausted, get them by sending therefor to either ol the United States Senators from your State or to the Member of Congress from your district. Eein'g a Senate document, it can be mailed free to any address which you may send. June 5, 1912.^0rdered to be printed WASHINGTON GOVERNMENT PRINTING OFPIOE 1912 Cornell University Library The original of tiiis book is in tine Cornell University Library. There are no known copyright restrictions in the United States on the use of the text. http://www.archive.org/details/cu31924003649054 62d CONOBBSS ) aTJlVTiTT? (DOOTTMBNT id Session \ SENATE j No. 845 VOOATIO]!^AL EDUCATION SPEECH HON. CARROLL S. PAGE DELIVERED IN THE SENATE OP THE UNITED STATES JUNE 5, 1912 ON SENATE BILL 3, TO COOPEBATE WITH THE STATES IN ENCOURAGING INSTRUCTION IN AGRICULTURE, THE TRADES AND INDUSTRIES, AND HOMfi ECONOMICS IN SECONDARY SCHOOLS; IN MAINTAINING INSTRUCTION IN THESE VOCATIONAL SUBJECTS IN STATE NORMAL SCHOOLS; IN MAINTAINING EXTENSION DEPART- MENTS IN STATE COLLEGES OF AGRICULTURE AND THE MECHANIC ARTS; AND TO APPRO- PRIATE MONEY AND REGULATE ITS EXPENDITURE June 5, 1912. — Ordered to be printed WASHINGTON GOVERNMENT PRINTING OFFICE 1912 In the Senate of the United States, June 5, 1912. Ordered, That the address delivered by the Hon. Carroll S. Page on S. 3, "A bill to cooperate with the States in encouraging instruc- tion in agriculture, the trades and industries, and home economics in secondary schools; in maintaining instruction in these vocational subjects in State normal schools; in maintaining extension depart- ments in State colleges of agriculture and the mechanic arts; and to appnopriate money and regulate its expenditure," be printed as a Senate document. Attest : ChakiaES G. Bennetp, Secretary. CONTENTS. » Pages. Appropriations 3- 16 Administrative features 16- 30 Agriculture 30- 40 Trades and industries 40- 50 Home economics 50- 55 Good citizenship 55- 66 Opinions of educators 69-132 m VOCATIONAL EDUCATION". By Hon. Caeeoll S. Page, of Vermont. Mr. PEEsmENT, I approach the discussion of this vocational-educa- tion bill with many misgivings and doubts as to the course I should pursue. I am not unmindful of the limited time which Senators have to spare from the consideration of other important problems now being considered by Congress, and I would be especially considerate of their wishes that I condense what I have to say to the minimum. On the other hand, here is a bill the importance of which has grown upon me until I feel that Senators should have a fairly good idea of what it purposes to accomplish. Mr. President, this is a great public question; a question which affects the welfare not only of our boys and girls but of the mature vocational workerSj including the home makers of the United States, as has no other which has been before Congress for more than half a century; a question which is engaging the best thought of eminent publicists and educators from one end of the country to the other — mdeed, throughout the civilized world. It is a question which the American people have come to believe directly affects the economic conditions of the country in a degree little, if any, less than the largest of our large economic problems. It is a question which will, in my judgment, settle in great measure the quality of our citizenship in the generation upon which we are now entering. It is a question which will profoundly affect the cost of our food supply as well as the amount which our workers may earn with which to meet that higher cost of living which is upon us. It is a question which in- volves appropriations from the National Treasury aggregating nearly $15,000,000 annually. On a problem of this magnitude I believe Senators should not be heard to say that they are too busy with their other duties to give the matter proper consideration. They will find on returning home that the question of vocational education is the subject of sermons in churches ; of earnest discussions in granges and other farmers' associations; that it is regarded as a burning and vital question among labor organizations and manufac- turing and trades associations; and is, of course, the subject of spe- cial consideration among those connected with our institutions of learning everywhere, from the elementary schools up to the universi- ties, from one end of our country to the other. Mr. President, I believe this is one of the most important measures before this Congress, and so believing I am sure Senators will forgive me for urging upon them something more than a perfunctory exami- nation of its provisions. 3 6 VOCATIONAL BDTJCATION. farm life with new power and improved farm methods. As a matter of fact, these colleges have found their peculiar function to be to prepare technicians in agriculture, the mechanic arts, and in home economics. The experience of this and other countries has fully demonstrated that the vocational education of youth for the business of farming and for the expert work in the trades and industries, and also for efficient home making, must be provided for in high schools, and, as a matter of fact, the Morrill Act has proven to be the be- ginning, the making of the preliminary preparations, for really carrying vocational education to the masses of our people. No one questions the great value of the work done by our agri- cultural colleges and by the experiment stations later added thereto ; but the fact still remains that as a place where the average boy on the farm could find a school which would equip him for farm life and send him back to the farm imbued with that enthusiasm for agriculture, the Morrill Act has not fulfilled the full expectations of its author. The important question now pressing for solution in this country is, What can be done to change this condition and stem the tide now so strongly running from country to city and, at the same time, prepare our city boys for their work in the nonagricultural vocations and bring the full force of modern science to bear on the making of our homes and the rearing of our children ? That something is very badly needed to supplement the Morrill Act is universally conceded, and it is to the satisfying of this great need that this bill is in large part directed. It attempts to provide a plan for ^ taking the knowledge which these agricultural colleges have developed to all the workers who need this knowledge; and since the task is so vast, and since the Nation, through the Morrill Act, inaugurated this work, this bill proposes that the Nation shall cooperate with the States in carrying the benefits to all the people. With this statement as to the general purposes of the bill, I shall, without further preliminaries, proceed to give the Senate a full and careful analysis of what it is, what it appropriates, what it contem- plates, and how it so safeguards the moneys which are to be dis- tributed to the several States that they may not be diverted to pur- poses other than those contemplated by the measure. Let me repeat that I hope no Senator interested in this measure — and I can not believe that there is any Senator who is not — ^will hesi- tate to interrogate me with perfect freedom, not only whenever any feature of the bill seems to be the proper subject of criticism, but whenever a provision is not fully and clearly understood. If any Senator does not have the bill before him I shall be pleased to fur- nish a copy that he may, if he desire, follow me as I proceed to take up, clause by clause, the different sections of the measure. Mr. President, I wish as I proceed to make clear 'to Senators the "fact that this bill designs to take from the Federal Treasury only such sums for initial expenditures as will stiniulate and encourage the several States to go on with the great vocational-education wor'k contemplated by the bill, leaving the chief burden to be borne by the States themselves. Experience with similar laws has shown that a very small expendi- ture from the Federal Treasury for the cause of education has re- sulted in stimulating a very large outlay on the part of the States. VOCATIONAL EDtTCATlOK. 7 In a hearing before the Committee on Agriculture and Forestry of the Senate Dr. Howard Edwards, president of the Rhode Island State College, stated that throughout the entire United States the average appropriations made by the several States was fourteen times the amount appropriated by the Federal Government under the Mor- rill and supplementary acts. Indeed, Pr. W. O. Thompson, president of the National Association of Agricultural Colleges and Experiment Stations and president of the Ohio State University, made a state- nient before the committee that in the State of Ohio the appropria- tions made for educational work to supplement those made by the Federal Government under the Morrill Act and acts supplementary thereto were forty times the amount appropriated by the Federal Government. While there is no basis for a definite statement as to what extent the States will supplement the funds appropriated by this act, it is believed that within a very few years they will amount to several times, the sum of the Federal appropriations made by this bill. So I say, Mr. President, this bill is simply an offer to cooperate with the States in this greatly needed improvement in our school system. It is designed to encourage, to stimulate, to inspire the States to take up and extend their w6rk along the vocational-education lines contemplated by this bill. Too much stress can not be laid upon the fact that this bill would form but a very small additional amount for the support of the schools of the United States, large as its appropriations may at first seem to be. The expense of schools in this country is, in round num- bers, about $500,000,000 per year. The entire appropriations that will be called for by this bill in 1921, when the maximum sum has been reached, will be less than 3 per cent of this sum. There can be little doubt, Mr. President, that, with the wise counsel and assistance of the Federal Commissioner of Education in stand- ardizing vocational systems and arranging, with the cooperation and advice of the educational boards of the respective States, a wise curriculum, we shall give an impetus to this much-neglected work of vocational education which will enable it to move forward with that vigor and effectiveness which would be absolutely impossible under 48 movements in no way coordinated. This bill proceeds upon the theory demonstrated by the Morrill land grant college act of 1862, and the acts supplemental thereto, that by cooperation between the Federal Government and the States, and among the States, vocational education is at once put forward with more of economy, and earlier attains its very important results in all parts of the Nation. The Nation wants results at the earliest possible date. It wants a more abundant supply of farm products, more highly skilled workers in the trades and industries, and more efficient makers of the homes of the people ; and it wants the highest civilization which comes with a school system made more efficient in general studies, and so broadened out as to include education in the vocations of the many who will not enter the professions. Mr. President, I should be very glad if it were practicable to have the entire bill read at this time, but I am not unmindful of the fact that Senators are -sorely pressed for time, and thpt many of them probably could not conveniently listen to the full reading of the measure. To make it possible, therefore, for Senators to secure in 8 VOCATIOBTAL EDUCATION. the smallest possible time a fairly good understanding of the bill, I have prepared an abstract or synopsis of it. As the bill is being read I hope Senators will feel entirely free to interject interrogatories whenever they desire additional information about any section or wish to have ^e section read in full. APPROPRIATIONS. Section 1 gives a definition or construction to the several descrip- tive terms used in specifying the classes of institutions which are to receive the benefits of the several appropriations under this act. Section- 2 is a general clause makmg the appropriation and stating that the sums designated in sections 3 to 10, inclusive, are " for in- struction in agriculture, the trades and industries, and home eco- nomics, for agricultural tests and demonstrations, and for adminis- trative purposes." Section 3 provides $3,000,000 for what is denominated in the bill the "secondary-school department fund." This appropriation is for instruction in agriculture, the trades and industries, and home economics in clearly defined departments or divisions of existing high schools of secondary school grade. It provides that this appro- priation shall begin with the fiscal year ending June 30, 1916, and is allotted to the several States and the District of Columbia on the basis of population. It is estimated that about 15,000 communities outside the large cities will take advantage of this appropriation, or an average of 300, or a little more, for each State. Unquestionably the number will increase from year to year, and for the first few years there may be less than this numbei:; but upon the hypothesis that this number of communities will avail themselves of the provisions of this section of this bill, it would mean that the Federal Government will contrib- ut(^ toward each of these schools $200. If the State should supple- ment this Federal fund with a like fund, it would mean, of course, $400 that each rural community would be benefited through the joint State and national appropriation. If, as is expected will be the case, the rural community is asked to match the joint State and Federal appropriation, it means that each rural community will have a separate unit, room, or division of its school work at each high school, which will be presided over by a teacher cc^ting, say, $800 per year. The bill provides that the money shall be distributed, unless other- wise provided, according to the amount which the local community shall raise for the same purpose, although it wisely preserves the autonomy of the States by providing that if any State thinks it best to distribute the fund upon some other basis it can do so; always con- ditioned, however, that the method of distribution be approved by the Department of the Interior, which, of course, in this case means the Commissioner of Education. It should be said, however, that under the terms of the bill, the State and local communities would be jointly compelled to contribute only twice as much as the Federal appropriation ; but educators be- lieve that the example set by States" like New Jersey and Massa- chusetts — which have worked out this problem upon the basis of a contribution by the local community equal to the amount of the out- VOCATIONAL EDUCATION. 9 side help they receive — ^will be the method followed in the distribu- tion of this fund. The average appropriation to each State and the District of Columbia under the provisions of this section is $61,225. Section 4 provides $3,000,000 for what is known as the " industrial or home-economics school fund." This appropriation is for the maintenance of instruction in the trades and industries and home economics in separate industrial or home-economics schools of second- ary grade. The difference between this appropriation and the ap- propriation for what is designated as the "secondary-school depart- ment fund " is that the latter contemplates assistance to the separate divisions or departments devoted to vocational education in the high schools in the larger villages and towns while the appropriation in section 4 is presumably to be used for separate schools at industrial centers or in cities large enough to maintain independent schools for the trades and industries. This appropriation also does not begin until the fiscal year ending June 30, 1916, and is allotted to the dif- ferent States and the District of Columbia in proportion to their "population engaged in trade and transportation, and in manufac- turing and mechanical pursuits." The question may be asked- why the allotment is so made. The answer is that in taking the Federal census the population is divided under certain subheads, two of which are " Persons engaged in trades and transportation " and " Persons engaged in manufacturing and mechanical pursuits." The language of this section is, therefore, made to conform to the language of those census subdivisions which every 10 years records those who work in the trades and industries. The average appropriation to the different States and the District of Columbia under the provisions of this section is $61,225. With reference to the appropriation referred to in this section, it may also be said that it is estimated that 30 per cent of the popula- tion of this country will be able to take advantage of its benefits ; and if, as is expected, our population reaches 100,000,000 by 1916, when this appropriation becomes available, it means that $3,000,000 will be distributed to $30,000,000 people, which would be 10 cents per capita. Let us, to illustrate, take a city of 10,000 population and see what kind of school would naturally result from this appropriation. Ten thousand population, at 10 cents per capita, would mean that the Federal contribution would be $1,000. If the State should match this by an appropriation of a like amount, and if, as it is supposed will be the case, the town or city shall match the joint Federal and State appropriation, it would mean that the city must raise $2,000 to match the $2,000 contributed by the State and Federal .Gov- ernments. In other words, it would give them a $4,000 school, devoted to in- struction in the trades and industries and home economics. A city of 100,000 population would have $40,000 to devote to this class of edu- cation. A city of 1,000,000 would have $400,000. Mr. Gallingee. Mr. President The Vice President. Does the Senator from Vermont yield to the Senator from New Hampshire? Mr.' Page. With pleasure. Mr. Gallingee. I shoyld like to ask the Senator whether the Fed- eral appropriation is contingent upon the State and local appropria- 10 VOOATIOKAL EDTJOATIOU. Mr. Page. Mr. President, the Federal appropriation is contingent upon an appropriation from the State and the local communities of at least twice the amount of the Federal appropriation. Mr. Gallinqee. And unless the State and the local communities make that appropriation, the Federal appropriation will not be called for? Mr. Page. That is correct. Section 5 appropriates $3,000,000 for what is designated as the " district agricultural high-school fund." This appropriation is for the maintenance of instruction in agriculture and home economics in the district agricultural high schools to be established under the pro- visions of this act. This appropriation also begins with the fiscal year ending June 30, 1916, and is allotted to the several States in proportion to the number of persons engaged in agricultural pursuits as shown by the preceding Federal census. It provides a special ap- propriation of $5,000 for each State with less than 100,000 people engaged in agriculture. The average appropriation for each State under the provisions of this section, basing the estimate upon the census of 1900 — I have not the figures under the census of 1910 — would be $65,000. Section 6 appropriates $1,000,000 for what is designated as the " branch-station fund." This appropriation is for the maintenance of branch or demonstration stations upon farms connected with the dis- trict agricultural high schools established under the provisions of section 5. This fund is designed to give these large agricultural high schools, one of which will be in each group of 8 or 10 counties, a practical turn. Here the teachers and pupils will live on a large farm, and much of the practical work will be done by the students. Here experimenters will test and breed plants and animals especially adapted to the conditions of the surrounding counties. Here the mat- ter of rotation schemes needed by the region will be under test, and the use of fertilizers on the local soils will be studied. Here the college and department extension workers will center such of their work as is needed by the students. Here the students will gain a knowledge of research work, that those gifted in this form of public service may be drawn into this important work. This appro- {)riation begins with the fiscal year ending June 30, 1916, and is al^ otted to the several States in proportion to the number of persons engaged in agricultural pursuits. It makes a special appropriation of $2,000 for States having a population of less than 100,000 people engaged in agriculture. The average appropriation to each State under the provisions of this bill is $21,833. Touching the $4,000,000 appropriated for this district agricultural high-school fund and the branch-station fund it will probably work about as follows : It is estimated that there will be about 1 school for whites in each congressional district outside of the cities, or about 325 in all. If in the Southern States there shall be 75 additional schools established for the colored race, it will give us a total of 400 schools. The fund to be divided to each of these schools will be substantially as follows : First, the Government appropriates $3,000,000 under section 5 ; the State must appropriate the other $6,000,000 ; the Federal Government . appropriates $1,000,000 for the branch stations connected with these schools under section 6; and to this sum another $1,000,000 must be VOCATIONAL EDUCATION-. 11 added by the State, making a total of $11,000,000 to be divided among 400 schools, or $27,500 for each school, including the State and Federal appropriations. Men experienced in the management of schools of this kind say it will cost about $100 for each pupil to conduct such a really good school as is contemplated by this act. If this supposition be correct, it means that every year there will be turned out from these different agricultural schools 275 boys and girls who, it is hoped, will return to the farm to join with the father — ^who, meanwhile, has been edu- cated under the provisions of section 7 of this bill, which provides for college extension and farm demonstration work — in vitalizing, energizing, and stimulating a more intelligent and more profitable management of the farm. Section 7 appropriates $3,000,000 for what is designated as the " extension-work fund," being for the support at each State college of agriculture and the mechanic arts of an extension department or division to enable the several State colleges of agriculture to take to the adult farmer upon the farm in his own locality the accumulated results of experimentation and research at the agricultural colleges and experiment stations and at the departments of agriculture ; and is designed to further the work of teaching and demonstrating in a practical way to persons not in the schools how actual farming can be conducted with more profitable results than at present. This appro- priation begins with the fiscal year ending June 30, 1913, the appro- priation for that year being $480,000, or $10,000 for each of the 48 States. This sum is increased from year to year until 1921, when it reaches the maximum sum of $2,980,000. All sums, aside from the $10,000 per year to each State, are to be allotted on the basis of popu- lation engaged in agricultural pursuits. The average sum to each State in 1921 and thereafter is $62,083. Section 8 appropriates $480,000 for what is designated as the "college teachers' training fund." This appropriation is for the preparation of teachers in departments or divisions of education in the State colleges of agriculture and the mechanic arts of the respective States, to give instruction in, or closely related to, agriculture, the trades and industries, and home economics. I wish to make it plain that this measure not only provides the means for the employment of teachers in the school service and in college-extension service but also the means with which these teachers may be trained by the agri- cultural colleges and State normal and other teachers' training schools. It begins with the fiscal year ending June 30, 1913, and allots $10,000 to each of the 48 States. Mr. President, this appropriation was not called for by the original bill, and perhaps it is due to the Senate that I explain why it has been added. In December last the Southern Commercial Congress," an organiza- tion having for its special object the promotion of the welfare of the the South, held a meeting here in Washington for the purpose of discussing vocational education generally, and especially with refer- ence to its effect upon the Southern States. Upon its invitation, the executive committee of the American Association of Agricultural Colleges and Experiment Stations attended in a body and assisted in the discussion and amendment of this bill. This meeting was nresided over bv the senior Senator from Florida. Mr. Fletcher, and 12 VOCATIONAL EDTJOATIOSr. was attended by a large number of leading educators from all p»arts of the country, the session lasting for three days. A subcommittee took up the bill line by line and section by section. Such features as were deemed objectionable were eliminatedj amendments were intro- duced wherever it was believed they would improve the measure, and after the bill was finally perfected and completed the following resolution was unanimously adopted. I read this because it shows the unanimity with which they reached their conclusion : Resolved, That the conference of friends of vocational education assembled in Washington December 34, 15, and 16, 1911, select a committee on ways and means, whose duty it shall be to further the interests of the Page bill (S. 3) and to work for its successful passage. This subcommittee to revise the bill was composed of men of national reputation on educational matters, and was as follows : Hon. Coe I. Crawford, United States Senator, chairman ; Dr. P. P. Claxton, United States Commissioner of Education — he is our new Commissioner of Education from the South ; Dr. W. O. Thompson, president Ohio State University; Dean H. L. Russell, of the Uni- versity of Wisconsin; Hon. Willet M. Hays, Assistant Secretary of Agriculture; Mr. G. G. Dawe, managing director of the Southern Commercial Congress ; and Dr. J. H. Connell, president of the Okla- homa State Agricultural and Mechanical College. The question of the unpreparedness of the country to take up this work was one of the leading topics of discussion at this meeting, and the conclusion reached was that we must add another half million dollars to the appropriation for the education of teachers by agri- cultural and mechanical colleges and that we should put off the time when the main features of the appropriation should become avail- able till the year ending June 30, 1916. This change not only gives the several States sufficient time to prepare for the education of teachers, but it gives them ample oppor- tunity to enact any legislation which may seem to be necessary to make the State laws harmonize with the national law ; and it hardly need be said that if during the next three years it should be found that any minor changes not affecting the fundamental principles of the bill are desirable, the National Congress will be quick to make those changes. Section 9 appropriates $1,000,000 for what is known as the " normal teachers' training fund," being for the preparation of teachers to give instruction in, or closely related to, agriculture, the trades and indus- tries, and home economics in State normal schools and in other training schools for teachers. This appropriation begins with the fiscal year ending June 30, 1913, that the preparation of teachers may begin at once, and is allotted to the several States and the District of Columbia in pro- portion to population. It makes a special appropriation of $3,000 to each of the States having a population of less than 300,000. The average appropriation to each State under the provisions of this section is $21,338. Section 10 appropriates $90,000 for what is designated as the " ad- ministration fund." This appropriation is subdivided as follows: Forty thousand dollars to be expended by the Secretary of the Interior in paying the necessary expenses oi administering the pro- VOCATIONAL EDUCATION. 13 visions of this act relating to schools of secondary grade and to the E reparation of teachers in agriculture, the trades and industries, and ome economics; $35,000 to be expended hj the Secretary of Agri- culture, of which $20,000 is for administering the provisions of the act relating to extension departments or divisions and branch stations, $15,000 to enable him to cooperate with the Secretary of the Interior in relation to schools of secondary grade giving instruction in agri- culture and home economics and to the preparation of teachers in these vocations; and $15,000 to be expended by the Secretary of Commerce and Labor in paying the expenses of administering, in cooperation with the Secretary of the Interior, those provisions of the act relating to instruction in the trades and industries and in the preparation of teachers for these vocations. These appropria- tions begin with the fiscal year ending June 30, 1913. To summarize, let me say that in 1921, when the maximum shall have been reached, the appropriations will aggregate $14,752,000, as follows : For the teaching of agriculture, the trades and industries, and home economics, in connection with our general secondary or public high-school system ^ $3, 000, 000 For the teaching of the trades and industries and home economics in separate schools 3, 000, 000 For instruction in agriculture and home economics in State district agricultural schools 3, 125, 000 For agricultural extension work 2, 980, 000 For branch experiment and demonstration stations at district agri- cultural schools 1, 050, 000 For the education of teachers at State normal and other training schools 1, 027, 000 For the education of teachers at State agricultural colleges 480, 000 For administration expenses 90, 000 Total 14, 752, 000 I have had prepared a tabulated statement showing the exact amount appropriated by this bill from 1913 to 1921, inclusive, and ask leave that it may be included in the Record as a part of my remarks. It shows the appropriations for each particular feature of the bill in detail and in the aggregate for each year. The appropriations in- crease from 1913 to 1921 as follows : 1913 $2, 077, 000 1914 2, 477, 000 1915 2. 777, 000 1916 13, 252, 000 1917 13, 552, 000 1918 13, 852, 000 1919 14, 152, 000 1920 14, 452, 000 1921 14, 752, 000 The statement referred to follows. u VOCATIONAL EDUCATION". VOCATIONAL EDUCATION. 15 Mr. Jones. Mr. President 'f'he Presiding Officer (Mr. Sutherland in the chair). Does the Senator from Vermont yield to the Senator from Washington ? Mr. Page. Yes. Mr. Jones. The Senator has passed section 9 ? Mr. Page. I have. I will be very glad to answer any question, however, relating to that section. Mr. Jones. In section 9, on page 8, 1 notice the provision is for the preparation of teachers " in State normal schools and in other train- ing schools for teachers." In our State university, for instance, which is a very large educational institution, they give special training to teachers, although it is not termed, of course, a training school ; it is a State university. I would like to know whether, in the opinion of the Senator, that university would come under the provisions of this section ? Mr. Page. I am happy to say that that matter was very carefully discussed, and the decision reached was that any school which the State board for vocational education regarded as a training school for teachers might properly be included within the provisions of the section. Mr. Jones. Would the Senator have any objection to striking out, in line 2, the word " training," before the word " schools," and insert- ing after the word " schools " the words " furnishing special training for teachers," so as to make it read : That for the preparation of teachers to give Instruction in or closely related to agriculture, the trades and industries, and home economics in State normal schools and in other schools furnishing special training for teachers— And so forth. Mr. Page. I can not see any objection to doing so. Mr. Jones. I hope the Senator wUl consider that suggestion when the bill comes up. I think that would make it clearer than the lan- guage of the section as it now stands. I have some doubt whether under the language of the section our State university would come under the terms of the bill. Mr. Page. If the Senator wiU study the bill in its entirety he will find, as he goes through it, that we have made a good many provisions conditioned upon the approval of the State board of control or board for vocational education, and conditioned further upon securing the assent of the Department of the Interior, which means the Commis- sioner of Education. There is no design on the part of those inter- ested in the bill to deprive any State of the right to determine what are training schools for teachers. Mr. Jones. That is true ; and yet when the biU confines it to certain described schools, no matter 'what may be the provision tJiereafter, it is confined to those schools. I doubt if the language " training schools for teachers " would include the State university, which is not classed as a training school for teachers. Therefore I wanted to suggest this change in the language for the Senator's future con- si(feration. Mr. Page. I certainly see no objection to it now. I wUl give it consideration and report to the Senator later. I would especially direct the attention of the Senate to the fact that every section of this bill has been carefully considered and every 16 VOCATIONAL EDUCATION". safeguard provided to prevent the diversion of any fund from the purpose for which the appropriation has been made. I am sure Sen- ators can have but a slight appreciation of the details which have been wrought out in this bill. First, to the end that its provisions might articulate satisfactorily with State laws; and, second, that funds appropriated by the measure may never be diverted, lost, or squandered. Mr. President, I have prepared with considerable care a statement showing in detail the administrative features of the bill, and I am prepared to go on at length and explain fully how the law is to be administered, how the appropriations are to be safeguarded, and what is required of the several States in order that they may partici- pate in these appropriations. As I proceed to the discussion of this measure, I will refer briefly to a few of the more important sections covering the administrative features of the bill. ADMINISTRATION. Section 11 safeguards the funds appropriated for schools of the secondary grade and the preparation of teachers for these schools. It charges the Secretary or the Interior with the duty, and gives him the necessary power to administer the provisions of this act in rela- tion to the $9,000,000 appropriated for schools teaching the trades and industries, home economics, and agriculture, as provided for in sections 3, 4, and 5 of this act; the $480,000 for the education of teachers in State agricultural colleges, as provided in section 8 ; and the $1,000,000 appropriated for the education of teachers in State normal and other training schools, as provided in section 9. Section 11 also provides that the Secretary of the Interior shall have the cooperation of the Secretary of Agriculture and the Secretary of Commerce and Labor. Section 12 safeguards the other $4,000,000 appropriated in sections 6 and 7. It charges the Secretary of Agriculture with the duty, and to him is given the power, to administer the provisions of the act relating to the $1,000,000 appropriated for branch stations at the district agricultural high schools, and the $3,000,000 appropriated for the extension-work fund, and it authorizes him to aid the Secretary of the Interior in carrying out the provisions of this act, so far as they relate to instruction in agriculture and home economics in schools of the secondary grade, and the preparation of teachers for those vocations. Section 13 gives the Secretary of Commerce and Labor authority to assist the Secretary of the Interior in carrying out those provisions of the act which relate to instruction in the trades and industries and the preparation of teachers for those vocations. The question may be asked as to why the administration of this ' act has not been left with a single department. The answer is that after a careful study of the matter and after conferring with those whom I think best qualified by experience to advise concerning the administrative features of the bill, I have become satisfied that, so far as they apply to supervision of the extension work in agriculture and to the branch-station work provided for in the bill, they may VOCATIONAL KDUCATION. 17 best be left to the Department of Agriculture to administer. On the other hand, supervision of the schools provided for by the bill may be left to the Commissioner of Education, who will, or course, be the direct representative of the Secretary of the Interior in administer- ing that part of the act which it is made the duty of that official to administer. As to the position occupied by the Secretary of Commerce and Labor with reference to this bill, it may be said that the labor organi- zations have come to regard that official as the connecting link be- tween the Government and themselves; and as the Department of Agriculture has long been the special agency in touch with agricul- tural and home-makers' organizations, they have asked that the Secretary of Commerce and Labor might be vested with a coopera- tive relation in connection with those schools which are to teach the trades and industries. It has therefore seemed eminently wise that the Departments of Agriculture and of Commerce and Labor be authorized to give cooperative assistance to the Department of the Interior and thus help the Bureau of Education to have the widest possible support. Section 14 provides that in order that any State may secure the benefits of this act it shall, through the legislative authority of s^d State, accept its provisions and shall designate a State custodian to receive and be responsible for each and all of the seven funds appro- priated. I would call the attention of Senators especially to the last paragraph of this section, for in many respects it contains one of the most important "changes made in the bill as originally introduced. It reads as follows : Any State or the District of Columbia may accept the benefit of any one or more of the respective funds herein appropriated to it and many defer the acceptance of the benefit of any one or more of such funds, and shall be required to meet only the conditions imposed in relation to those funds the benefit of which it has accepted. This paragraph has been incorporated in the bill at the suggestion of several States which were in doubt as to whether they woidd or would not deem it advisable to accept all the appropriations and provisions of the bill, as they were required to do under the measure as it was originally drawn, in order to be the recipients of any of the appropriations named in the measure. The effect of this amendment is to leave it optional with any State to accept any one or all of the appropriations and to permit it to defer the acceptance of any one or more of its provisions until such time as the State may wish to avail itself of the benefits of those particular provisions. My judgment is that, without a single exception, every State will avail itself of every provision of the bill. Inasmuch as the $3,000,000 appropriation for each of the three classes of secondary schools — $9,000,000 in all — and only a part of the appropriation for college extension work becomes effective until 1916, all the States will be given ample opportunity to provide by legislative enactment for taking advantage of the provisions of the biU. I confess in this respect I may be mistaken. My good friend the junior Senator from Louisiana [Mr. Thornton] expresses a doubt of 49159— S. Doc. 845, 62—2 2 18 VOCATIONAL EDUCATION. his own State accepting all the provisions of the measure. I believe that within five years every State will not only be accepting the provisions and appropriating enough to cover its provisions but a good deal more. But, of course, that is a matter of opinion. I believe there is no State in which there will not be a meeting of the legislature by 1916. Section 15 provides that States must, by legislative enactment, designate a "board of vocational education," which shall have all necessary power to cooperate with the Secretary of the Interior in the administration of the provisions of the act relating to the indus- trial schools authorized by the act and the training of teachers. This board may consist either of the board of education or other body now having charge of tke administration of public education in the several States, or it may be a new board to be established with special reference to the new educational system which this legislation will initiate. Mr. Heybtjek. Mr. President The Presiding Officer. Does the Senator from Vermont yield to the Senator from Idaho? Mr. Page. With pleasure. Mr. Heybtjen. I suggest to the Senator that some States have con- stitutional provisions covering the organization and government of the public schools and it womd seem that it might be necessary to change the constitutional provisions in order to authorize the creation of the board. I have the constitution of one State before me where it makes a provision definite as to the constitution of the educational board. I understand the Senator to say that the States will be required to create a new board, because it would be in effect a new board. In that case you would have to change the constitution of the State. Mr. Page. That condition has been suggested in regard to one or more of the States. As I think the matter will work out, your State legislature will make the board authorized by your constitution the vocational education board to take charge of this field. Mr. Heyburn. The State legislature would not have power to legis- late away the provisions of the constitution or to change it. It could not be done except by a change of the constitution itself. The legis- lature was not invested with power in this case to make any change whatever. It was thought dangerous to leave that to the legislature, because it would be subject to the vicissitudes of changing adminis- trations and changing opinions. So in making the constitution we fixed it so definitely as that the legislature would not have control over it. Now, it might be desirable to have such a board as is sug- gested in the bill, but it would be beyond the power of the legislature to create it. Mr. Page. No; not at all. Can the Senator tell me whether that board as authorized by his State constitution is made up of one, two, or three members? Mr. Heyburn. The board consists of the superintendent of public instruction, the secretary of state, and the attorney general. Mr. Page. I should like to ask the Senator further if he can see any objection, in view of your constitution, to saying that the board authorized by the constitution shall be the board which shall have charge of this fund ? VOCATIOIirAL EDUCATION. 19 Mr. Hetbtjbn. In section 2 of article 9 there is this provision : The general supervision of tlie public schools of the State— And of course that would include the distribution of the mOney — shall be vested in a board of education, whose powers and duties shall be pre- scribed by law ; the superintendent of public instruction, the secretary of state, and attorney general shall constitute the board, of which the superintendent of public instruction shall be president. That gives a name to the board and provides for its make-up. We could not change that. Mr. Page. Mr. President, this is not a new matter. It has been discussed by educators to quite an extent. I submit to the Senator that a simple enactment by the Legislature of Idaho, making this board of education the board of vocational education called for by the bill, would give you the most perfect authority for handling this appropriation. If I am not right about this, I desire to have the Senator suggest some amendment. I think I am correct about it. Let me read it again: This board may consist either of the board of education or other body now having charge of the administration of public education in the several States — It seems to me that this is exactly the language necessary to meet the conditions of the Senator's State. Let me read it again for the benefit of the Senator : This board may consist either of the board of education or other body now having charge of the administration of public education in the several States, or it may be a new board to be established with special reference to the new edu- cational system which this legislation will initiate. It may be a general State board dealing with these appropriations in their broader relations, delegating the details to existing State boards or departments in charge of educational matters, or it may be a State board in immediate charge of the schools. The idea has been to interfere as little as possible with any suitable machinery which the States may already have for carrying forward the work of their schools and to give entire freedom to them in making such changes in their plans for the administration of public education as they may desire. There has been some little criticism of the proposal for a board of control or board for vocational education in the States, but I believe that where the matter has been explained to those who have written me letters of criticism, the objections have been removed. I think in every case where I have taken up this matter with edu- cators or with boards of education they have been fully satisfied with the provisions of this section as it now reads. Bear in mind that this IS a provision made to meet just the exact conditions sug- gested by the Senator from Idaho. In several of the States educational work is under the charge of a single head, usually designated the State superintendent of public instruction or State superintendent of education. This bill makes it necessary that the board for vocational educa- tion shall be made up of at least three persons. But if a State de- sires to make no change in its present administrative machinery it can merely designate the governor and other officers as ex officio members of this board to work with the State superintendent of public instruction or other already constituted agencies. 20 VOCATIONAL EDUCATION. Section 16 provides for the establishment of those district agricul- tural high schools for which section 5 of th(3 bill appropriates $3,000,- 000. It provides that there shall be at least 1 school for each 15 counties,' and that there shall not be more than 1 for each 5 counties or fraction thereof. This provision is designed to be so elastic that no State now having agricultural schools will have difficulty in ad- justing these schools to the provisions of the bill; and yet it safe- guards the measure by providing against the creation of a multi- plicity of weak, inefficient one-county schools Mr. Johnston of Alabama. I should like to ask the Senator a ques- tion. He states that the district shall be composed of not less than five counties. Mr. Page. Of not less than five counties. Have you any of your schools predicated upon less than five counties in a district? Mr. Johnston of Alabama. We have a school for each congres- sional district, and one county alone has a population more than sufficient to furnish the apportionment for a Member of Congress. Mr. Page. But you could attach to your largest city or your largest district some of the outlying counties. Mr. Johnston of Alabama. That is only one county, and we have so many people in that one county that it is more than enough to make one congressional district, and when you require in the bill five counties you cut out that district. Mr. Page. It is not supposed that the city of New York has any farms within its limits, and therefore it will not be included. The provisions of the bill contemplate that the agricultural and the rural sections shall be benefited by this particular provision. Bear in mind that the important cities have separate schools, and we give to the rural districts their schools. The only reason why we say there shall be five counties in each district is that there shall not be a multiplicity of little one-county districts, as in the State of Wisconsin. I think the Senator from Wisconsin will bear me witness that they have there a law which provides for a one-county school, and this bill, if we pass it, will meet that class of cases. If we should have a one-county school, it would generally be so cheap a school that it would hardly come within the spirit of this act. Mr. Johnston of Alabama. The Senator does not yet understand me. One county in my State has a population of 235,000. It is largely agricultural. There is a city in it, of course, but you would deprive that district from having any school at all. Mr. Page. I do not so understand it. Take the city to which you refer and take four other counties outside of that county, and the five together will have one of these schools, and it will be a fine school. It need not be any less of a fine school because it is near a city. For instance, what is your largest town — Birmingham ? Mr. Johnston of Alabama. Birmingham. Mr. Page. Birmingham would not have, an agricultural school within its limits, but outside of Birmingham you would arrange a group of five counties, and they together would have the benefit of this act. Mr. Bacon. The word " district " does not mean a congressional district ? VOOATIONAT EDUCATION. 21 Mr. Page. Not at all, because if we had it by congressional districts we would work out a very impracticable scheme. The city of New York has lots of congressional districts. We do not design or expect that New York will have any of these schools in its limits. Mr. Bacon. We have in my State schools which are located in congressional districts. We have these agricultural schools, one in each congressional district, and I presume that would not interfere with the scheme of this bill. Mr. Page. Not at all, because you have more than nine congres- sional districts. Mr. Bacon. We have 12. Mr. Page. You have more than 60 counties? Mr. Bacon. Yes; 146. Mr. Page. Very well. If you had 60 counties you would then have one for each congressional district, provided you saw fit to make a division of one for each five counties; but, having more than that, it is perfectly easy to arrange it. Mr. Smith of Georgia. Will the Senator allow me ? Mr. Page. With pleasure. Mr. Smith of Georgia. While our schools are under the old con- gressional district plan of 11,- so far the policy has been to adhere to those old lines and not change them on account of the fact that we have had a new congressional district added, but even if that were different it would be. quite easy, I think, to make the school districts such as to meet a compliance with the bill and to put five counties in a district. Mr. Page. I want to say the State of Georgia has been fully con- sidered in the working out of this measure, and, unless I am very much mistaken, there is no reason why the provisions of this bill will not work out according to the plan now existing in your State. We have had here from Georgia some very strong educators. Dr. Soule, of Georgia, was here. I think he is one of the ablest of the educators of the South. Mr. Smith of Georgia. If the Senator will allow me, the Senator might change that from " the South " to " the United States or of any other country." Mr. Page. I accept the amendment. I think well of the Senator's suggestion. This provision is designed to be so elastic that no State now having agricultural schools will have difficulty in adjusting these schools to the provisions of the bill, and yet it safeguards the measure by pro- viding against the creation of a multiplicity of weak, inefficient one- county schools, rather than a few strong, well-equipped institutions which shall serve practically as a vocational college for those millions of farmer boys who will find a Wgh-school course fitted to their needs while the higher agricultural colleges organized under the Morrill Act will attract only tens of thousands. This section also provides for separate agricultural schools for the negro race and prohibits any tuition charges. Section 17 provides that no State shall be entitled to the benefits of the branch-station fund until by legislative authority it shall have provided for a branch station in connection with district agricultural 22 VOCATIONAL EDUOATIOK. high schools, receiving funds under this act, and shall have provided as an appropriatiton for the annual maintenance of such branch sta- tions a sum at least equal to that allotted annually under this act. The fund is safeguarded by the following clause : The sum paid to each State for branch stations shall be applied only to paying the necessary expenses of conducting, .by such branch stations, field tests, plant breeding, and other scientific work bearing directly on the occupation of agri- culture. Section 18 provides that no State shall be entitled to any part of this allotment for college-extension work until by legislative enact- ment it shall provide for an extension department in its State college • of agriculture, and shall have provided as an appropriation for that work an amount at least equal to the amount annually allotted to the State from the Federal Treasury. _ • Section 19 is one of the most important of those sections dealing with the administrative features of the bill, because it places in the hands of the State board of vocational education created by the State legislature and authorized by section 15 the establishment of the gen- eral plans under which vocational education shall be worked out by the respective States. In other words, the autonomy of the States has been respected to the fullest. It is true that the bill is so safeguarded that if a State shall not, in good faith, observe the spirit of the appropriation, its share of the appropriation may be withheld until Congress, by express act, authorizes its payment. The general administrative scheme, or plan, adopted by the board for vocational education of each State must have the approval of the Secretary of the Interior, to the end that he may see that the spirit and purpose of the appropriations are observed and carried out. The section is so important that I shall read it in full: Sec. 19. In order to secure the benefit of the secondary school department fund, the industrial or home economics school fund, the district agricultural school fund, the college teachers' training fund, or the normal teachers' train- ing fund, the board for vocational education for each State and the District of Columbia shall adopt, with the approval of the Secretary of the Interior, and place in operation a general administrative scheme or plan, with such modifi- cations as may be made from time to time, for the proper distribution of moneys to schools of secondary grade and to colleges and normal schools as herein provided; for the inspection and approval of such schools and colleges under the provisions of this act; and for the formulation and application in such inspection and approval of standards and requirements in vocational education as to types of schools, location, course of study, qualifications of teachers, methods of instruction, conditions of admission, and employment of pupils. In order that such a plan may be adapted to the needs of the State or the District of Columbia in which it is to become operative, the Secretary of the Interior shall, in passing upon it, and its modifications from time to time, take into con- sideration the social, economic, industrial, educational, and administrative conditions, and all other relevant circumstances in such State or in the District of Columbia. It shall be the duty of such board for vocational education for any State or the District of Columbia to make annually to the Secretary of the Interior a full and detailed report of its administration of the provisions of this act relating to all such schools of secondary grade and to the training of teachers in colleges and normal schools as herein provided, and to make such additional statements and reports as may be required by the Secretary of the Interior in the discharge of his responsibility under this act. Section 20 provides that the board of trustees having charge of the State college of agriculture receiving the benefits of the extension- work fund shall do so under general plans approved by the Secre- VOCATIONAL BDITCATION. 23 tary of Agriculture, and shall cooperate with him in the develop- ment of such work, and shall annually make to him full and detailed reports of its operations, receipts, and expenditures. Section 21 makes it the duty of the State board of trustees having charge of the branch-station fund to administer the fund in accord- ance with provisions or general plans approved by the Secretary of Agriculture, and to make to him annually a full detailed report of all its operations, receipts, and expenditures. Section 22 provides that any school receiving funds under this act shall conform to the requirements of the State board for vocational education, shall cooperate with that board in the development of its work, and shall make to that board a full and detailed report of its operations, receipts, and expenditures. Section 23 provides that in order that any State may receive the benefit of the several school funds provided by this act the State custodian of those funds shall annually make a report to the State board for vocational education of his administration of the moneys received by him for those funds; and in order that the State may receive the benefit of the extension-work fund and branch-station fund, he shall annually make a report to the Secretary of Agricul- ture of his administration of the moneys received by him for those funds. Section 24 provides that the Secretary of the Interior shall annually ascertain whether the several funds appropriated by this act for vocational education and for the training of teachers at normal schools have been expended in accordance with the terms of this act, and shall certify to. the Secretary of the Treasury as to each State whether it has complied with the provisions of this act and is en- titled to receive its share of such funds. If the Secretary of the Interior certifies to the Secretary of the Treasury that the State has so complied, the latter official is directed to pay the money to which the State is entitled under this act to the State custodian of the vocational-education fund, and upon the requisition of the State board for vocational education such State custodian shall pay to the governing board of any school which should receive the same the sum to which it is entitled under the pro- visions of this act. Section 25 charges the Secretary of Agriculture with the duty of ascertaining whether the States receiving the benefits of the exten- sion-work fund or branch-station fund are using them in accordance with the terms of the act. If he finds that they are, he shall so certify to the Secretary of the Treasury, which official is directed to pay to the State custodian for vocational education the sums to which the State is entitled; and upon requisition of the board of trustees, or board of control, of such State college of agriculture or State experi- ment station, such State custodian shall pay to the treasurer ap- pointed by such board of control the sum which the said college is entitled to receive under the provisions of this act. Section 26 provides that the " secondary school department fimd " shall be used for distinctive studies in, or closely relating to, agri- culture, the trades and industries, and home economics. That the "industrial or home economics school fund" shall be used only for distinctive studies in, or closely relating tOj the trades, industries, and home feconomics. 24 VOCATIONAL EDUOATION. That the " district agricultural school fund " shall be used only for distinctive studies in, or closely relating to, agriculture and home economics. That the " college teachers' training fund " shall be used only m the preparation of teachers to give practical or technical instruction for useful service in agriculture, the trades and industries, or the home. That the " normal teachers' training fund " shall be used only for distinctive studies designed to prepare teachers to give practical or technical instruction fitting for useful service in agriculture, the trades and industries, and home economics. That the " extension-work fund " shall be used only for instruction and demonstration in agriculture, home economics, and rural affairs. And that the "branch-station fund" shall be used only for field tests, plant breeding, animal breeding, home economics, and other scientific work, under plans approved by the directors of State experi- ment stations of the respective States. Section 27 provides that if any part of any fund appropriated by this act shall be lost or misapplied it shall be replaced ; and until so replaced no subsequent appropriation for such purpose shall be paid. One of the best provisions in the entire bill is that which provides that the funds hereby appropriated may not be invested in lands or buildings. This provision is so important that I quote it in full. Mr. Thoentok. What section is that? Mr. Page. This is section 27 ; it is the last part of the section, * * * No portion of any moneys appropriated under this act for the bene- fit of the States or the District of Columbia shall be applied, directly or in- directly, to the purchase,, erection, preservation, or repair of any building or buildings or equipment, or to the purchase or rental of lands; and no portion of such moneys shall be expended other than in institutions supported and con- trolled by the public. That last line is very important. The schools must be, absolutely, public schools supported and controlled by the public and with public money. Section 28 provides that all unexpended sums shall be deducted from the next succeeding annual disbursement, in order that the amount of money distributed to any State from any fund provided for in this act shall not exceed the amount actually and necessarily required by the State for the purpose for which such money from such fund may be expended under the provisions of this act. Section 29 further safeguards the appropriations made by this act by providing that each State shall receive annually only such portion of any fund as, in the judgment of the Secretary of the Interior or the Secretary of Agriculture, in the discharge of their respective ;re- sponsibilities, such State has made ample preparation to use to advantage. Section 30 provides that if the Secretary of the Interior or the Secretary of Agriculture shall withhold a certificate for the whole or any part of the allotment to any State, the facts and reasons therefor shall be reported to the President, in order that the State may, if it so desire, appeal to Congress from the determination of the Secretary of the Interior or the Secretary of Agriculture ; and if the next Congress shall not direct that such sum be paid, it shall be covered into the Treasury. VOCATIONAL EDUCATION. 25 Section 31 provides that the moneys distributed to institutions entitled to the benefits of this appropriation shall be in proportion to the amount which each expends out of other income, to be derived from general or from local public funds, for the same purpose, dur- ing the same period. There is, however, an alternative clause in this section which provides that funds may be distributed upon some other basis, according to plans previously adopted by the board for vocational education, or by legislative authority if these plans have been approved by the Secretary of the Interior. This IS a- clause which I should like to have Senators especially consider, because it is a very important one. We make provision that each locality shall draw according to the amounfe it contributes. There is, however, an alternative clause in this section whidr pro- vides that funds may be distributed upon some other basis, accord- ing to plans previously adopted by the board for vocational educa- tion, or by legislative authority if those plans have been approved by the Secretary of the Interior. They must be approvea by the Secretary of the Interior, because otherwise funds might be diverted from the purposes contemplated by the bill. It must be borne in mind that this bill is designed to stimulate and encourage, and not to assume, except in a very slight degree, the main burdens of educational support; and after a State has made the proper preparation in the way of providing the required buildings and farm lands to enable it to take advantage of the act, there must then, in addition, be appropriated at least twice as much for these educational purposes as is contributed by the Federal Government. I regard the closing portion of section 31 as one of the most valu- able and important of all the safeguarding provisions of this bill. I quote it in full : * * * but there shall In no case be disbursed under the terms of this act to any school or college out of moneys derived from the secondary school department fund, the industrial or home economics school fund, the district agri- cultural school fund, the college teachers' training fund, or the normal teachers' training fund, as provided in this act, more money than fifty per centum of the amount which is supplied and expended during the same period for the same purpose, for which such fund is to be expended, out of State or local public moneys. Mr. Williams. *' State and local " or " State or local " ? Mr. Page. Let me explain to the Senator how it is hoped the scheme will work out, and I wiU illustrate by instancing the States of Massachusetts and New Jersey. The laws of those States proAdde that when any local community shall have spent a certain amount for vocational educational training the State shall contribute or pay to that community as much as it has raised locally. We hope that to the amount contributed or appropriated by the Federal Govern- ment the State will add an equal amount, and that the local com- munity will be then asked to raise as much as the combined contribu- tions of the State and the Federal Government. This will assure good schools. Mr. Williams. The Senator from Vermont does not understand what I am getting at. Suppose that in some case a State did not appropriate as much as the locality, and suppose we have to appro- priate $2,000 to meet $1,000 with which the Federal Government gives, why should not that locality have the benefit of the bill? In 26 VOCATIONAL EDUCATIOK. that case your language would read " State and locality " or " State or locality." Mr. Page. Mr. President, if the Senator will suggest an amendment to the section which says " as much as is raised by State and local " or " by State or local," 1 see no objection to it, but I should dislike to leave out the words " State and local." Mr. Williams. Oh, no. I did not suggest that. I suggested that the language should be "State and local" or "State or local," the idea in my mind being this: I do not suppose it will occur, but it might happen, that some State might fail to make the appropriation needed, whereas some locality within the State would show the ability and the willingness to meet the appropriation. Mr. Page. I certainly can see no objection to that. Mr. TowNSEND. May I make a suggestion ? Suppose the State con- tributes nothing and the locality contributes something, the contribu- tion then would be simply what the locality had contributed. I can not quite see the difference. The phrase " State and locality " com- bines both. If one is zero and the other is something else, the con- tribution is still the sum of the State and locality, is it not? Mr. Williams. Yes; but still upon the face of the bill it would require the action of both the State and the locality. We might be turned down here because the State had failed to act. All that is sought in the bill is that they shall contribute twice as much; that twice as much shall come in for the purpose as comes from the Federal Government, making the total money coming in for the purpose three times what the Federal Government contributes. So it struck me that perhaps it would make it plainer to say that, because, if you did, you would accomplish your purpose. I see some reason on the other side of it. The two together might contribute more than they other- wise would, more than 200 per cent of what they are giving for the scheme. I hardly think that what I had in mind would happen, because I imagine that every State would do something, but it might happen that some State would not. Such action might result from some technical, reason. For instance, in my State the legislature meets but once in four years, and therefore might not be able to meet this appropriation on the part of the Federal Government. Mr. Page. Mr. President, I confess that the idea advanced by the junior Senator from Michigan [Mr. Townsend] was one which occurred to my mind when I drew the substitute, but I can see no objection to amending this provision by writing in after the words " State and local " the words " or State or local." I should like to have the Senator from Mississippi [Mr. Williams] think the matter over during the day, and then, if he would like to propose that amend- ment I now see no reason why I shall not accept it when the bill is before the Senate as in Committee of the Whole. Mr. Williams. I think we had better make that amendment merely for safety. Mr. Page. It will be observed that the Federal Government is in no case to pay to any school or college more than one-half as much as is raised by State and local taxation. Let me illustrate by reference to a single appropriation: Under this bill there is appropriated to State normal schools and other trfiining schools for the education of teachers for this work in round VOtJATIONAL EDUCATION. 27 numbers, an average of $21,000 for each State. In order to avail themselves of this fund there must be raised by State and local taxa- tion $42,000 more, making $63,000 the average sum per State which must be expended under this act for State normal and other training schools in educating teachers for vocational education work. And bear in mind, further, that under the provisions of section 26 of the act the normal teachers' training fund can be used only for distinctive studies, which are given in separate units, organized as departments or divisions of State normal schools or other training schools, under a properly qualified head, and which are designed to prepare teachers to give practical or technical instruction fitting for useful service in agriculture, the trades and industries, or home economics. Observe that this Federal fund may not be used for the instruction of those who are to teach the ordinary, or cultural, studies, but must be used solely to educate those who are to teach the vocational sub- jects contemplated by this bill. It may be suggested that no State is obliged to accept all the provisions of this bill, but I have little doubt that all of them will ; and the wonderful impetus that will be given to the cause of industrial education by this act within the next five years can hardly be overestimated. Section 32 throws around this appropriation another most excel- lent safeguard. I quote the section in full : All states, Territories, and the District of Columbia accepting the benefit of any fund under this act shall provide other moneys with which to pay the cost of providing the necessary lands and buildings, and to pay the entire cost of all instruction, supplementary to the practical and technical instruction provided for in this act, necessary in order to complete well-rounded courses of training, the main purposes of which are to give vocational as well as general preparation for agriculture, the trades and industries, and home making, or to prepare teachers for these vocations, suited to the needs of the respective sections and communities of the United States. Mr. WiLUAMs. Will the Senator read that over again ? Mr. Page. Before I read it, let me say to the Senator that we are very jealous lest the States shall utilize these funds to pay for teach- ing the ordinary cultural studies. So the bill provides : Sec. 32. That all States, Territories, and the District of Columbia accepting the benefit of any fund undei- this act shall provide other moneys with which to pay the cost of providing the necessary lands and buildings, and to pay the entire cost of all instruction, supplementary to the practical and technical in- struction provided for in this act, necessary in order to complete well-rounded courses of training, the main purposes of which are to give vocational as well as general preparation for agriculture, the trades and industries, and home making, or to prepare teachers for these vocations, suited to the needs of the respective sections and communities of the United States. Mr. Gallinger. Mr. President, I want to express my gratification that in drafting this bill the Senator from Vermont has not omitted the District of Columbia. There is an anomalous condition existing here under the Morrill Act and supplemental acts, inasmuch as Porto Rico, Hawaii, and the Territories, when we had them, are all in- cluded in the terms of that act, while the District of Columbia is excluded, or was not mentioned. For several years I have made an effort to get recognition, so that the District of Columbia might have its quota of those funds for the purpose of teaching agriculture and related matters in one of our institutions of learning here, but I have failed to accomplish that result up to the present time. I am glad, 28 VOOATIOKAL EDUCATION. however, that the Senator has not forgotten that the National Capital is a place where instruction may well be given in those subjects as well as in ordinary subjects pertaining to university education. I simply wanted to emphasize that point, and it may help me possi- bly in the future, if I live long enough, to make another effort to get recognition of the District of Columbia under the existing law. Mr. Page. Mr. President, I only hope I shall find that Qie Senator will discover enough good things in this bill so that he will support it before he gets through. I want to say, however, in this connection, that the District of Co- lumbia does not participate in all the funds. It participates in most of the school funds, but not in the funds that provide for district agricultural schools, because those are purely agricultural, and we did not think it best to have the District of Columbia included. Let me say in this connection that our Commissioner of Education, Dr. Claxton, has just returned from Porto Kico. He came to see me yes- terday or the day before. He said, " Senator, I really believe that the United States would only do the proper and just thing to include Porto Kico in the provisions of your bill." I said, " Perhaps later we will include Porto Rico, but I do not know but it might imperil the passage of the bill to do it now, and I prefer to wait a while and see. I personally should have no objection to putting in Porto Rico if it was thought best to do so." It should be noted that these funds can not be diverted from the purposes intended by the act, and that in order to receive the benefits of this fund the States must pay the cost not only of providing the land and buildings, but also the entire cost of such general instruction as is necessary to complete well-rounded courses of training, the main purposes of which are to give vocational training. Section 33 provides that correspondence for the furtherance of ex- tension work, as provided for in this act, shall be transmitted in the mails free of postage under such regulations as the Postmaster Gen- eral may from time to time prescribe. Section 34 provides that the Secretary of the Interior shall make one or more reports to Congress annually of his administration of the several funds paid out under his supervision. Section 35 provides that the Secretary of Agriculture shall make an annual report to Congress of his administration of the funds which come under his supervision. Section 36 provides that this act shall take effect upon its passage. Mr. President, it may seem to Senators, from a casual examination, that this bill is unnecessarily long and seemingly complex ; but I can assure the Senate that a careful analysis of the bill will show that while it is drawn upon a broad and comprehensive plan, its details have been wrought out with painstaking care and are based upon well-established precedents — precedents which have been successfully worked out in the field of experience. Its provisions are admirably designed to simplify and unify one of our most comprehensive and complex public enterprises — our public- school system. For Congress to now stop short of the passage of a comprehensive measure which will so supplement the great Morrill land-grant college act of 1862 as to carry the new scientific practice of all the industries to all tlie people would be an admission that we are unable properly to utilize the experience of half a century of effort by VOOATIOlfAL EDUOATIOH'. 29 these State colleges. The very details of this measure will help to so frame up our public-school organization that its government will be simplified. This measure by comprehending the entire field will greatly simplify, where, in the absence of such a law, complexity is constantly arising. In trades schools, for example, this bill has already brought unity of thought and action on the part of organized labor and organized employers. This is a matter to which I hope Senators will give careful atten- tion. We have brought together the Federation of Labor and the American Association of Manufacturers, which have been so bitter toward each other that they would not meet together in the same room to consider any proposition — we have brought them together on this great question, and they have reached a conclusion in abso- lutely hearty accord. The best educators in the country have given to the preparation of this bill, without money and without price, a vast amount of pains- taking labor. The national leaders in these two fields have been here brou^t together in a most marvelous unity for trades-school educa- tion as a part of our public-school system, rather than in privately managed trades schools, which have proven a partial menace to the peaceful settlement of labor disputes. The Society for the Promotion of Industrial Education has sent to me at their own expense their executive secretary, Mr. C. A. Prosser, a man of large experience, and of excellent ability — I want to say that I can not speak too highly of him — and it is no exaggeration to say that he has spent several solid weeks in helping to work out the details of this bill. The Commis- sioner of Education, Dr. P. P. Claxton, a man of extensive experience in educational matters, has joined with me in a painstaking revision of every section of the original bill, and it is to these and other edu- cators, many of whom I ought, perhaps, in justice, to mention, that the credit is due for the production of what educators almost everywhere now confess to be a reasonably perfect and practical measure. I have simply brought together as best I might the results of other men's labors. I can only claim myself that I. have been diligent and in- dustrious; and that, so far as I know, I have not from the first surrendered any vital principle of the bill or sacrificed any of its fundamentals. Mr. President, perhaps I may be pardoned for saying that the bill does not consist of a mass of inchoate facts and propositions. It is rather the result of hard months of painstaking labor. It is the bringing together of the views of different educators from almost every State in the Union, and by the adjustment of those views in such a way that the bill in its entirety shall not only be one worthy of adoption on the part of this Senate, but one the provisions of which so articulate with the school laws of the several States as to make it a practical, workable whole. The more Senators will study it the more they will see therein a growth, an evolution, so to speak, with every important point in that evolution so hedged about and safeguarded as to prevent waste and to make it impossible to divert the funds appropriated by the bill from the purposes they were intended to subserve and promote. Perhaps in passing I ought to mention the fact that some Senators believe that it would be wise to make a compromise by eliminating 30 VOCATIONAL EDUOAHON. some of the provisions of the bill and enactiM the balance into law, so as to lessen the total sum of money requiredT I believe that every feature of this bill is good. I am also firmly of the opinion that, in view of the appropriation of more than $17,000,000 for agriculture in the bill recently pafesed for the Depart- ment of Agriculture, we should now take care of the sons of the laboring men— those who work in the mines and quarries, the fac- tories, and the workshops. So far as I am personally concerned, while I yield to no man in my desire to promote the welfare of the American farmer, I believe I should be guilty of great dereliction of duty were I to consent to the dismemberment of this bill in such a way as to eliminate from its benefits and its bounties the American boy and girl. Mr. President, I do not believe that this great, broad, generous proposition — which involves the betterment and the uplift of the sons and daughters of the men of our Nation who toil — can be stopped any more than we can dam the waters of the Niagara. We may cry " Expense ! " " Cost ! " " Unconstitutionality ! " and by so doing delay the passage of the bill, but, like Banquo's ghost, it wiU not down; and I, for one, will never take counsel of my fears on a measure which I believe to be so everlastingly right. The fight is going on until success will crown the efforts of some one, if not myself, m ordfer that the great wrong to the chief asset of this country — ^the American boy — ^may be righted, and the Amer- ican people thereby started upward on a broader, better educational highway. Congress must again blaze an educational trail along the lines of the industries, agriculture, and home economics — a trail which every State in this Union will, in my opinion, promptly follow, to the honor and glory of this great Nation. The bill makes large appropriations, aggregating, in round num- bers, $12,000,000, aside from the education of teachers and branch- station work. Of this sum $3,000,000 is for what is known as agri- cultural extension work; $3,000,000 for State district agricultural schools; $3,000,000 for the purpose of teaching agriculture, the trades and industries, and home economics in our general public secondary schools; and $3,000,000 for separate industrial schools in cities. It will be observed that of this $12,000,000, $6,000,000 is for dis- tinctively agricultural purposes, while $3,000,000 is for schools where the trades and industries, agriculture, and home economics are taught, and $3,000,000 for schools where the trades and industries and home economics are taught. I purpose, first, to discuss this bill from the standpoint of agriculture. AGEICULTTIEE. There is no more serious problem before the American people 'to-day than that of maintainmg the equilibrium of population be- tween rural and urban life, involving as it does that other twin prob- lem — the maintenance of the equilibrium between food production and food consumption. At a hearing held before the Committee on Agriculture and Fores- try in March last, there appeared before us the representatives of an association of bankers, and I was much impressed with the statement VOCATIONAL EDUOATIOIT. 31 of Mr. Joseph Chapman, jr., chairman of the committee of North- western State Agricultural Colleges, and chairman of the American Bankers' committee. He said that they began some five years ago to study this great question from an economic standpoint. I quote from his statement: We found our boys and girls were leaving the farms and going to the cities. In Minnesota one-third of the population of that State lived in three cities. We went about to find out the reasons why the boys and girls were leaving the farms and flocking to the cities, leaving our men and their wives, who ran the farms, without help, or with very incompetent hired help. It was a dis- couraging situation. At the Hull House, in Chicago, last June a man made a canvass of the chief lodging houses in that city and found that there were 20,000 young men under the age of 25 who were sleeping in basements where the water would ooze up through the floors and where they would lie down to sleep with nothing but a newspaper between them and the floor. Those young men were from the farms of our Central States — men looking for jobs in cities. We reached the conclusion that it was largely an educational problem. We found in Minnesota that in 1909 there were 435,000 children of all ages in our schools, which schools were conducted at an expense of about $14,000,000/'to the State. Of that 435,000, Mr. Chairman, 1,832 were in our agricultural schools and colleges. In other words, Minnesota was educating 99.6 per cent of the com- ing generation to be consumers and four-tenths of 1 per cent to be producers, and if you think those figures are exaggerated and do not fit in there, look into the situation in your own State and you will find Minnesota is not alone. We have drifted away from practical education and have gotten largely into theoretical and what is called intellectual education, so that the problem in Minnesota is now to get the knowledge from the agricultural schools In our great States out to the 1,000,000 people who live on the farms in the State of Minnesota. There are $400,000,000 worth of products produced annually by these million people living on the farms, and yet Minnesota practically stood still in her rural population in the last 10 years, while the great States of Iowa and Missouri dropped backward. But, gentlemen, it is going to take a very long time before this information is going to percolate and get to the people under our present methods. In our own school system in the State of Minnesota we have changed in the last three years. There are now in Minnesota 80 high schools where agriculture, domes- tic science, and vocational training are taught, and the reason there are not more is because we can not get the Instructors. Mr. President, the social life of the city offers advantages which the boys and girls are unable to find in rural life ; but, more than all this, the energetic, active, enterprising farmer's boy locdcs forward to the future and asks : If I am faithful, if I am enterprising and in- dustrious — in other words, if I make good — what is there in the future for me ? Under conditicms as they now exist he is led to the conclusion that the possibilities of success are greater in the city than in the country. As Banker Chapman well said in his remarks before our committee: For a hundred years in this country we have been taking the boys and girls away from the farm and sending them into the cities, and it is going to be a hard siege before we can get conditions in the country so that a man will be satisfied to live there. Fifteen or twenty-five years ago it used to be the prac- tice for one or two boys or one or two girls from a large family to go to the city. Now the farmer sells the farm and the whole family moves there, and he is oftentimes the best farmer in the community. Mr. President, we all know how natural it is for the more enter- prising of our boys and girls to seek occupations which they regard as more genteel — positions in the store and the office. There is an imnatural glamour accompanying the securing of a situation behind a counter that does not exist in a job on the farm where the boy fol- lows the plow and milks the cows. 32 VOCATIONAL EDTJOATION. Up to within a few years the enterprising son of the f arnier of the East could see a competence in going to the West and taking up a homestead. To-day he knows that practically all the good lands of the country which could be taken under the homestead laws are exhausted. Mr. President, I might elaborate upon ftiis feature of the argument indefinitely, but I think it is unnecessary. Unpalatable as it is, the fact confronts us that something must be done to change this con- stant drainage from country to city—the depopulation of much of the best blood of our rural communties— or within 10 years, perhaps within five, we shall not only cease to be a food-exporting Nation, but shall actually be importing our cereals. Mr. President, am I wrong in supposing that the productivity of our farm lands is an important economic condition which we should, as a Nation, seek to remedy? If a remedy can be found for the high prices of foods, should it not be applied, if the expense to the Federal Government is only commensurate and proper in view of the end to be obtained? Is the expense of 1| cents per month per capita of our population more than the exigencies of the situation warrant? I think not. I say IJ cents per month. Let me interject here that if this bill in 1921 reaches its maximum, the entire cost to the American people will be less than IJ cents per capita per month. It seems to me that the great question before the country now is: Can these conditions be changed; and if so, how? I feel that they can be, and that this bill suggests the way, namely, by bringing about more profitable and better farming. One of the methods for reaching this end is provided by section 7 of this bill, which appropriates for agricultural extension work. This means that actual demonstrations will be taken to the farmer on his own farm, or on some farm in his vicinity, the results of the research work which have been accumulating through the agency of the experiment stations connected with the different State agri- cultural colleges and of departments of agriculture for the past 50 years. We recently had before our Committee on Agriculture and For- estry some very interesting hearings with reference to this agricul- tural extension work. Among those who appeared before us was Dr. W. O. Thompson, president of the Ohio State University ; Dr. H. L. Russell, dean of the college of agriculture of the University of Wisconsin; Dr. T. C. Atkeson, professor of animal husbandry of the University of West Virginia ; Dr. W. D. Gibbs, president of the New Hampshire College of Agriculture; Dr. Howard Edwards, president of the Rhode Island State Coltege; Dr. Andrew M. Soule, president of the State College of Agriculture of Georgia, and a number of other leading educators connected with agricultural work. I was particularly interested in the statement of Dr. Soule, because there is probably no educator better known in the South than he. He impressed me as a man of ability, and as one who is not only aggressive, but progressive in all that pertains to the education^ welfare of our country. Coming as he does from the great Empire State of the South, perhaps the most progressive of any of the Southern States in matters of agricultural education, his views are VOOATIOHAL EDTJCATION". 33 -especially important. They are so thoroughly practical that I be- lieve that Senators may profitably give to them something more than casual consideration. I shall not give them in full, but, rather, quote the more important of his remarks before our committee. He said: This problem Is of so great magnitude that it is almost Impossible to know where to b^ln an adequate discussion of It within the very limited time at one's disposal. I judge from the tenor of the questions asked here that possibly this distinguished body of men do not quite grasp the gravity of the situation In American agriculture at the present time. The use of fertilizers commenced In the South, roughly speaking, shortly prior to the war between the States. Last year something like 5,000,000 tons were used, of which more than 1,300,000 tons were applied In the State of Georgia, which I happen to represent on this occasion. That means a tax on the production of our State of approximately $26,000,000. Last year we successfully Increased the yield of cotton because of the benefi- cent information emanating from the extension work which we are endeavoring to do. But If you take the history of the application of commercial fertilizers for the last 50 or 60 years, you will find the production of lint cotton per acre stands almost still. It is quite evident, therefore, that we face a crisis in southern agriculture. It is true commercial fertilizers are necessary on our soils under existing conditions. It is also true that we are now reaching a point where a different system of agriculture must be instituted or fertilizers will fail to give a responsive profit on our land. What must we do? Can we afford to sit still when there hangs in the balance an export crop or a crop which, exported, brings a balance of trade to our credit of nearly $700,000,000? Can we afford to see the price of lint cotton become prohibitive? I say, Mr. Chairman, this Is not a local question ; it is a national question ; and the people of Massachusetts and the people of California are just as much interested and concerned In this problem as the people of Georgia. Can we remedy such a condition; is it possible? I will be specific for your information along this line. Five years ago we took In our demonstration a field — and it has been representative of land in many other points In the State — which with- out fertilizer produced a third of a bale per acre. Last year it produced 3 bales of cotton per acre. How was this extraordinary result brought about? The land was simply deeply broken; then it was properly cultivated; and a crop of cowi)eas, gathering nitrogen out of the air, was turned under; a light appli- cation of cow manure and a thousand pounds of what we call three-four fertilizer was applied to the soU. I have not figured out the percentage of the Increase, but I leave you to judge of putting principles of this kind within the reach of the cotton farmer who to-day is using an inadequate khid of fertilizer and who is harvesting a third of a bale to an acre. You may ask me. May this be duplicated on the average farm, and was this done at a profit? It was done at a profit of $150 to the acre, and it has been duplicated on many farms in Georgia, and it is a matter of opportunity through extension teaching to have it duplicated on thousands of other farms. This one illustration must serve to show you the gravity of the situation which confronts us and to let you see that production In this country is not maintaining its increased yield from the consuming power of the Nation, and that applies, Mr. Chairman, not only to raw materials, which are the basis of our manufactures, but to food materials as well. This I)oInt I desire to make clear : Agricultural science is far in advance of agricul- tural practice. * * * Now, we may write bulletins, M» Chairman, indefinitely. They are good; there is a percentage of American farmers who read them, but it is a limited per cent. We are not trying to help that man. I would not have the transcript show that I was indifferent to that man, for we want to serve him; we must help him because he is a leader ; but we must also reach the ninety and nine who are not la position to help themselves and whose opportunities may Hot have been such as to enable them to take the bulletin and use it. We have 15 men in our extension department who have been termed " agri- cultural drummers." These men go out, for Instance, to Mr. Smith's place, and Mr. Smith has been trying, possibly, to raise a bale of cotton per acre, but he has failed. 49159— S. Doc. 845, 62—2 3 84 VOCATIONAL EDUCATION. Our man comes along and diagnoses his soil and tells lilm a method of prepa- ration. He tells him what type of seed to select which will be resistant to this disease or that disease, and he grows that cotton and raises a bale per acre, and he thus has the stimulus and the scientific proof brought to his very door. Mr. Chairman, you have made a new citizen of that man; you have changed his outlook on life ; you have given him a broad horizon ; you have made him proud that he is a citizen of the United States; and you have endowed him with power. Can you afford and can we afford to neglect these millions of men who are not doing for this Nation, for themselves, and for their families what they ought to do because we have accumulated knowledge and lock it up and say you shall not have it? I want to speak of several other things briefly, and one is about the boys and girls who work in my State. I do not want to repeat what these other gentlemen have said, but I want to tell you what the extension work is doing for those boys and girls. I would like to say for the Information of the Sena- tors here that Georgia is doing her share in extension work. Our State is appropriating something like $45,000 every year to this work, and there is being subscribed in Georgia, through chambers of commerce, through boards of education, and through individual citizens, nearly $16,000 this year. Now, what about our boys' work? For a long time the yield of com in Georgia stood at 12 bushels to the acre. Tear before last it went up 2 bushels, and last year it went up nearly 2 bushels more. Several years ago Georgia was raising about 42,000,000 bushels of com. Liast year it jumped to 73,000,000 bushels. Last year, when every Southern State — please examine the statistics for yourself — fell off on account of the unprec- edented drought, Georgia showed an increase of nearly 2 bushels to the acre, and between nine and ten million bushels increase for the State. • • • In the seventh congressional district of Georgia last year some 1,200 boys grew corn under advice and direction. They had to submit an elaborate report that was testified to by their county school commissioners and by other authori- ties in that county. Those 1,200 boys increased the yield of corn on their plats of land over the average land of the State of Georgia last year to a value of $50,000. These things can not be gainsaid, because they are facts. They show the power of bringing this truth to the youth on the farm who has not had an opportunity, who has believed his father a failure, who has believed agriculture a failure, and who has crowded into the city as a result. If we are to do something to bind our people to the soil, and especially the rising generation, we must show them the power of development of the soil as applied to making agriculture a profitable industry. I can only, of course, touch on some of these few extensions ; there are many other extensions. As a result of the agricultural club work in Georgia last year a country boy — I think he is nearly 18 years of age — is to have a college education, and is to become a man that I believe the State of Georgia and I hope the people of the United States will live to be proud of. We have on our farms in Georgia something like 350,000 to 400,000 boys and girls growing up without direction, without knowledge of their environment, without any appreciation of the opportunity which soil and this State holds out to them. We can correct that defect in our educational system, and we can do more to help the school and the home. We can bring a greater impulse to our rural school system through extension teaching than any other agency which yet has been devised. I do not speak, I hope, in an overbold manner when I make this statement, because my experience, after all, is very limited, though I have had over 20 years' service in agricultural work, and I t*ink it should entitle me to have seen something of the need out in the country and to understand a little about the application of the remedy. Soil knowledge is fundamental to our people; that has been touched on, but I want to illustrate about what has been hap- pening and why we must correct it, and then I will try to point out to you this measure as a means of accomplishing this end. The virgin soil from Banks County, Ga., contains 6,400 pounds of nitrogen per acre-foot, 4,000 pounds of phosphoric acid, and nearly 15,000 pounds of potash per acre-foot. That same type of soil under cultivation 50 years by the methods practiced, not alone In Georgia, but throughout the South, and largely all over the United States, analyzes about 2,000 pounds of nitrogen, less than 2,000 pounds of phosphoric acid, and in many instances not over 6,000 to 8 000 VOCATIONAL EUTTCATION. 35 pounds of potash. These results have been obtaioed In our own laboratories. You can think of the comparative waste which has gone on In this country and which is going on unimpeded to-day. There is no nation except the United States which could have stood the loss of soil food, which means gold Just the same as yon take wealth out of the mines. No other nation could have stood it, and we could not have stood it but for the mere richness of our virgin soil. In Georgia we are trying to farm our lands In about tlie same way they do in all of the States. I will take you down to the seashore in southeast Georgia, where they grow sea-island cotton, where their soils contain less than 1,000 pounds of nitrogen, 600 pounds of phosphorus, and 400 pounds of potash per acre-foot. You see this is a sand bed. * * • On our farms we have no business policy. Any institution that tried to operate in Washington for a year would go to the wall under that plan. We must there- fore put a' business policy on our farms and conserve not only our soil but con- serve our people, and educate a generation how to live in the country and take out of the soil something for their own maintenance and leave something for commerce and Industry as well. * * * All over the State of Georgia goes up this cry for help, this cry for assistance. Our people have come to realize that we have a great body of knowledge, which means life and opportunity to them, and they are calling on us to come out and serve them. We are doing all that men can do under the circumstances, and the State, I think, is doing its part; but if we .ire to reach this problem, and to reach it at the right time, we must have this movement stimulated by making it p. great national problem, and then the weak States and those places where the work is being neglected will get in line and we will make a forward move- ment for the redirection and the Institution of a constructive policy in our agriculture which will bring about the desired results. Mr. President, as Dr. Soule and others have shown, we have been hugging the delusion that we were getting wealthy from farming, whereas, as a matter of fact, we have been taking the nitrogen, the phosphoric acid and potash, and the vegetable matter, or humus, from our virgin soils and selling them in the form of cereals and fibers; and beiore we can become prosperous farmers we must learn how to restore to the soil those ingredients of which we have been so prodigal. Germany has for many centuries been exhausting her productivity just as we have been for the last century, but she understands better than we do the best methods of restoration and fertilization, through rotation of crops and the conservation and use of waste material, and how to increase the productivity of the soil by the economic use of commercial fertilizers. The following table, which I take from page 13 of Senate Docu- ment No. 76, Sixty-second Congress, first session, shows some most astonishing facts in regard to our inefficiency as farmers. It com- pares the increase in yield of five staple crops in Germany and the United States from 1878 to 1909 : INCREASE IN YIELD OP FIVE STAPLE CROPS IN GERMANY AND THE UNITED STATES. Germany, United States. Increase. 1878- 1883 1909 1370 1900 Ger- many. United States. Ger- many. United States. meat ,„ Badey ,. Oats BiuheU per acre, 16.7 19.3 24,8 31.8 118.6 ButheU per acre, 29.4 30.6 39.4 69.1 jieg.9 Butheh per acre, 14.6 13,8 ?4.0 ?a.7 98.0 ButheU per acre. 16.1 16. S 106,8 BwheU. 13.7 11.3 14.9 ?7.7 93.4 BtuheU. 1.8 2.0 ,3 1.6 7.6 Percent. 87.2 68.8 60.8 86.8 80.8 Per cent. 10.9 14.2 1.2 6.7 7.9 36 VOCATIONAL EDUCATION. An analysis of this table shows substantially this: In rye Germany increased her production 87 per cent, the United States only 10 per cent. In wheat Germany increased her production 58 per cent, the United States only 14 per cent. In barley Germany increased her production 60 per cent, the United States only 1 per cent. In oats Germany increased her production 85 per cent, the United States only 6 per cent. In potatoes Germany increased her production 80 per cent, the United States only 7 per cent. Germany, with an area equal only to Minnesota, Iowa, and Mis- souri, produces three-fifths as much oats, four-fifths as much hops, four-fifths as much barley, three times as much sugar, six times as many potatoes, and nine times as much rye as we do in the whole United States. Mr. President, in 1907 Germany had 43,000,000 acres sowed to wheat, barley, rye, oats, and potatoes, and harvested therefrom 3,000,000,000 bushels; while frcan the 88,500,000 acres sowed to the same crops in the United States American farmers harvested only 1,875,000,000 bushels. In other words, from less than one-half of the area German farmers harvested nearly double the number of bushels. The matter may be stated in this form : If on the land we devote to wheat, oats, barley, rye, and potatoes American farmers secured the same yield per acre as is secured by German farmers our farmers would be richer by $1,400,000,000 a year. The fact that Germany has been cropping her land for centuries is all the evidence we need that if we will follow in her footsteps in the way of progressive farming we may restore our lands as she has done. Here is another statement which I am sure will interest Senators, because it bears directly upon agricultural education : Prance is the size of our three greatest wheat-producing States — Kansas, Minnesota, and North Dakota. In 1907 France sowed 16,000,000 acres to wheat, as did these three States. Since the introduction of beet culture French soils have been so rejuvenated that from her 16,000,000 acres of wheat French farmers harvested 325,000,000 bushels, while from our 16,000,000 acres the farmers of Kansas, Minnesota, and North Dakota harvested but 188,000,000 bushels, or 11.7 bushels to the acre to the Frenchman's 20.3 bushels. This great economic problem is so all-important that it is to-day occupying the attention of the leading statesmen of our country as it has never done before. Among others who have spoken and written upon the question is Gov. Harmon, of Ohio. In an artide on " Back to the Land " he emphasizes the fact to which I have been alluding, namely, that in the field of agriculture our country makes a poorer showing than in that of any of the other of our industries. His article is so replete with good sound sense that I am inclined to read a half dozen paragraphs therefrom. He says : The average yield of all farm products in this great agricultural country is not creditable. She makes a poor showing in comparison with other nations poorer in that than in any other industry. ' The figures In the reports taken from the official records of Germany England, France, and the Netherlands show that they raise from two to two and a half and three times more of all sorts of products to the acre than we do VOCATIONAL BDTJCATIOH'. 37 and they have no better soil and no better climate. God has not smiled more brightly on any other land than ours. We have the soil, we have the rainfall, we have the climate. You can trust nature to produce if you give nature the chance. And yet, while all other lines of our industries have received a great impetus from intelligent thought, agriculture seems to have been largely passed by. Too widely the idea prevails that all a man has to do is to scratch the ground, sow some seed into it, plow once In a while, and trust the lord to do the rest. The most productive thing is practical intelligence properly applied, and this must be done in agriculture as well as anything else. What is the reason that the little country of J'rance, which is not as big as one State in the American Union, could pay that enormous war Indemnity to Germany, which everybody thought would break her up, and in 20 or 25 years after be the great creditor nation that she Is to-day? They have 45,()00 agricultural schools in France, every one of them with a little plat around it, where they not merely teach boys out of books, but send them to the field to learn what must be d^ne to make things grow under the smile of God; and the result is that France is the greatest producer and the greatest creditor nation in the world to-day, whUe we are just beginning to wake up in this country. Really, Mr. President, may it not be fairly inferred that the facts given by Gov. Harmon as to the French schools are in some measure responsible for this condition, and may we not profit by the example which France has set for us in this matter of agricultural education ? I clipped from the Washington Post last week this little item which, it seems to me, shows the wonderful prosperity of France : Pabis, May SI. The issue of city of Paris bonds to the total of $41,000,000 for the extension of the municipal gas system has been oversubscribed 80 times. This means that the French people have subscribed to the amount of $3,280,000,000 and have actually paid in cash to-day more than $115,000,000, as each subscriber had to deposit $2 per bond subscribed for. The issue was oversubscribed in Paris alone 70 times. The question of profitable farming to-day is coming to be largely a matter of rotation of crops, of fertilization, of better seeds, and of better breeds of stock. We have no more land to exploit, unless it be land the cultivation of which will have to be made profitable by the clearing of needed forests or by irrigation or drainage. We must increase the productivity of the acres we have or become a food-im- porting nation. Mr. President, we have for more than a century been deceiving our- selves. From the platform and the stump we have been wont to boast about our boundless natural resources, but students are now coming to see that unless we change our present processes these resources will be largely exhausted within a period t3iat to the far- sighted statesman is but a day. We have been exporting millions upon millions of bushels of wheat and corn supposedly at a profit, but our scholars who have been mak- ing the question of soil fertility a study for the past decade are now able to say to us, as the result of their research, that every bushel of wheat carries with it 27 cents' worth of phosphorus, every bushel of com 13 cents' worth; and our friends from the South now know, as they did not know 20 years ago, that every pound of cotton takes from the soil 3 cents' worth of phosphorus. When we consider the hundreds of millions of bushels of wheat and corn and the millions upon millions of pounds of cotton which we have been exporting, the extent of soil depletion is something fearful to contemplate. As 38 VOCATIONAL EDUCATION'. President Wallace recently expressed it, "The nineteenth century farmer was no farmer at all ; he was a miner, mining the fertility of the soil and selling it for the bare cost of mining." Mr. President, this is not a pleasant picture to place before this Senate, but we may as well look the fact squarely in the face now as later. If it were necessary to accept these facts as proofs incontro- vertible of a continued decadence in our rural population they would be indeed startling. But I do "not believe they are; for now that we have exploited all our virgin soUs, and the demand is for more com, more wheat, more foodstuffs of all kinds, with which to feed the American people, we shall stop and think. In the process of time — and I believe that time will arrive within the next 10 years — the slipslfod, unscientific methods of farming which we are now practicing must be superseded by more progi-essive and more intelligent methods or the problem of the high cost of living will continue to grow more and more acute until it becomes unbear- able. The remedy is at hand and may be easily applied ; and that remedy will, in my judgment, come from the more intelligent methods of farming which will result from this bill. I was very much interested in Dean Russell's very vigorous re- marks on this point before our Committee on Agriculture and Forestry. He spoke particularly of the work of Dr. Hopkins, of Illinois, who. Dean Russell asserts, is one of the greatest soil chemists in America. He has been for years laboring on this problem of soil fertility. I read from Dean Russell's statement : The essence of all curative processes is to first start with a diagnosis. If you have anything the matter with you, you want your physician first to make a proper diagnosis ; and, gentlemen, we are already reaching the stage where we have to have a soil doctor ; we are reaching the stage where we have to know what the condition of that soil is ; and Dr. Hopkins goes out and makes these investigations of the soil and finds out whether the soU lacks in phosphate, lacks in potash, or lacks in nitrogen, and then applies the remedy. liCt me give you one case which Dr. Hopkins told me about down in Illinois. Down near Egypt, in the southern part of Illinois, where the land is poor, they started one of these demonstration farms, and Dr. Hopkins's analysis showed that that soil was lacking in phosphate and that an application of $1.50 worth of phosphate per acre to that soil would change it from a soil that would normally yield from 12 to 13 bushels oi corn to one which would yield from 50 to 60 bushels. Now, here Is a fact which Dr. Hopkins told me about : They started a demonstration farm at one of those sections, called in the farmers from all the surrounding counties, and called a meeting, at which they pointed out the value of rock phosphate as a remedy to a depleted soil in restoring the fertility. One gray-haired old man came up to Dr. Hopkins and said, with tears in Ms eyes, " Mr. Hopkins, I want to thank you for what I have seen to-day, but, God help me, if I only knew that thing 40 years ago." He said, " I have got six boys in my family, and I have labored night and day to keep body and breeches together and to keep the family together, and what have I got on my farm — 12 to 15 and 16 bushels of corn to the acre is all that I could make." He further said, "Now, I would like to have seut my boys to college; I would like to have given those children an education, but I could not raise enough crops on that piece of land that I have owned, and so I have tilled all my lifetime and have earned barely enough to support my family. Now," he said, " If a man had only come to me when I was a comparatively young' man and told me the thing that you have told me to-day— that $1.50 of rock phos- phate would have given me the 50 bushels of corn crop, the crop which was VOCATIONAL EDUCATION. 39 raised right over the fence from where I am — I could have sent my children to the high school and to a university, and," he said, with tears running down his face, " I am at the end, and nobody told me that." Mr. President, in talking with an intelligent farmer in my own State not long since, he told me that 60 per cent of all the cows kept by the farmers of Vermont probably netted them a loss, the profit being made out of the best 40 per cent. The breeding of stock — not only of cattle, but of horses, poultry, sheep, and hogs — has been done in such a haphazard, unscientific way that there is no wonder that in some sections of the country it has been found unprofitable. Vermont is one of the most progressive States in the Union in the matter Of dairying. With her little more than 9,000 square miles, a goodly portion of which is mountainous and can not be profitably cultivated, she produced, in 1909, 35,394,000 pounds of butter. Maine, with her much larger area, stands second in New England States, with a production of 15^405,000 pounds. Vermont has found her dairy interests so profitable that she 'has practically abandoned her sheep industry, and to-day, instead of raising our own draft horses with which to cultivate our farms, we are bringing them from Iowa. The reason for this is that our farmers have become better students with reference to the breeding of stock. Native cows have given place to the Jersey, the Guernsey, and the Ayrshire. We have imported our varieties of plants and animals from Europe, and we have too long assumed that they have the best possible heredity to make them profitable in our climate. West Europe can not grow our American varieties of com in its cloudy, moist, cool climate; yet we have assumed that the varieties of wheat, oats, barley, and sugar beets, long bred to suit these con- ditions, were the best varieties for our land of sunshine, with its dry and warm summers. We have only begun to breed new varieties of field, garden^ and horticultural crops. We are as yet so new that we are exploring the world to find varieties bred for climates like ours. The results of breeding vegetables and fruits in New England and California; of breeding com, as in Illinois and Indiana ; of breeding cereals, as in Minnesota and Ontario ; of breeding cotton, as in the South, and flax in the Middle Northwest, show that public investments along this line yield hundreds of per cent profit. The branch stations provided in this bill have proven necessary to serve as additional plant breeding and testing stations, where varie- ties can be created and tested so that the valuable new kinds may be distributed to all growers. In like manner we have accepted from west Europe the breeds of animals there created through centuries of careful, though not really scientific, methods of breeding. We have created enough breeds in this country to show that breeds can be created which are peculiarly adapted to our needs, and the science of creating valuable breeds of animals as Veil as valuable breeds of plants has now been as well wrought out in this as in any other country. ^ The proposed branch stations will serve the experts of the State experiment stations and of the Department of Agriculture as centers where those breeds of animals and varieties of plants can be improved, tested, and made available to the farmers of the respective agricul- tural regions. 40 VOCATIONAL EDUCATION. Manifestly we are doing about 1 per cent of the scientific improve- ment of the heredity of our plants and animals which we should. For example, there might properly be one cooperative animal-breed- ing project at every one of the proposed branch stations, in which the cooperating group of breeders might have scientific direction, from the State experiment station and the Department of Agriculture. Mr. President, we shall need to double our agricultural products to accommodate twice our present population two generations hence. Experts in plant and animal breeding offer abundant proof that be- tween 10 and 20 per cent of this increase can be brought about by scientific plant and animal breeding. Not of the least interest is the fact that the cost of the permanent changes made once for all in the heredity of plants and animals is so slight that the added result lowers the cost of production and there- fore contributes to a larger degree to keeping down the cost of food than any other improvements in agriculture excepting the improve- ment made in the efficiency of the people through education and demonstration. Mr. President, in view of the facts and figures which I have given — and they are, in my judgment, thoroughly established and beyond question — is it any wonder that the agricultural sections in many parts of this land have been showing a decadence in population ? I have been so much interested in this question of the decadence of our rural population that I have made an mvestigation as to the num- ber of counties in the United States which show an actual loss in population between 1880 and 1910. It will undoubtedly surprise many Senators to be told that there are 252 in the United States which actually have a less population to-day than they had 30 years ago, and, with very rare exceptions, those counties are in our farming or rural sections. TRADES AND INDUSTRIES. In the discussion of this measure thus far, I have asked the atten- tion of the Senate chiefly to agriculture and home economics. I have tried to show that, as a great economic proposition, farming must be made more profitable, farm homes better and rural life generally im- proved and different from what it is to-day, to the end that equilib- rium between the city and country might be restored. I think I have dwelt at sufficient length upon these points, and I now ask the attention of Senators to a question which in many re- spects is more important than all the other important features to which I have referred, and that is : What are we going to do with and for the boys in the cities ? From every quarter comes the disquieting intelligence that the drift has been going from bad to worse until to- day it threatens our very political existence as a Nation. The ques- tion of good citizenship attaches to our rural life, and there is every reason why we should consider the character of our citizenship as it appertains to the boy on the farm. But in the immediate present at least there are no such alarming dangers confronting rural life as are at present manifest in that substratum of humanity which flocks to the congested sections in all our larger cities. Our discussions in the Senate during the past three years upon the great question of conservation would fill volumes — indeed, Mr. Presi-, dent, it has filled volumes. It has been one of the leading topics of VOCATIONAL EDUCATION. 41 discussion throughout the land, and it is right that it should be. We should preserve our forests, our mines, our quarries, and our water power, but this is not all. Prof. Carver, of Harvard University, well says: In the present conservation movement It is highly important that we realize two things : First, that our most valuable resources are our people ; and, second, that we are wasting people more than we are wasting anything else. And he very forcibly adds: If we forget either of these things we shall find ourselves trying to save at the spigot while we are wasting at the bung. Mr. President, a leading educator has said that — By industrial education we are asked to shape the lives of the children of to-day, and thereby to make the men and women of to-morrow — the American of to-morrow. Each year 2,500,000 graduate from our elementary schools, proud and confident of having accomplished the first great task of their lives in suc- cessfully finishing the eight years' course with credit. An equal number of children, a vast army of two and a half million little ones, most of them only 14 years of age, leave the same schools discredited, unsuccessful, aimless, most of them having gotten no further tiian the sixth grade, having learned little else than the three R's, not educated in any sense, but only possessed of the rudi- ments whereby real education may be acquired. They have been, in a way, schooled only in how to fail. These are the children who go into the industries and deserve and require industrial trade education. The Daily Iron Trade Keview, in its issue of April 30, in a vigorous editorial upon this bill, uses this language: The untrained man is not necessarily a day laborer. He is such a man, how- ever, as, when thrown off his present employment and upon his own resources — oftentimes slender — becomes a menace to society either actively or passively. Something must be done for him, and this something the Society for the Pro- motion of Industrial Education believes can be afforded through the Pige bill. There are many young men wasting their efforts along more or less unprofitable lines of endeavor who would be valuable members of society If they could have had the advantage of a special training when of suitable age. It mnst be made almost Impossible for there to be such an anomaly as an un- trained man before our countrty can claim rightfully to have afforded every man an equal chance. There Is a place for the Society for the Promotion of Indus- trial Education in the United States. There should be a place in the Federal Statute books for the Page bilL Vocational education helps the boy " to find himself," especially if we link his vocational education with the seventh and eighth grades — before compulsory education ceases. Modern application of educa- tion to practical life contemplates not only assistance to the boy to find himself, as they say, but it aids him in finding a place where he can get employment. One of the best illustrations of how this trying- out process — the process of helping the boy to find himself — works out may be found in Newton, Mass. In the school system itself there is a bureau where every scholar is studied with reference to his physical and mental capacities and endowments. He is studied psychologically and his traits of character ascertained. His past school record is examined, heredity as well as environment is considered, and the boy's own tastes and tendencies are, as a matter of course, made the subject of study. When this is done, a decision is made as to what general depart- ment of labor he is best fitted for, and then his school life is laid out upon that basis, and at the same time the bureau takes upon itself the burden of finding the boy a place to work in such occupation as it has been previously decided he is best adapted to filL 42 VOCATIONAL EDUCATION. Mr. Meyer Bloomfield, director Boston Vocation Bureau, has well expressed the situation as to this matter. He says : The rediscovery of the child In school and shop has become the task of our agents. Too long have children been living and learning and working together as fractions of selves. Personality is subordinated to system. Excessive organ- ization is stifling child energies struggling for self-expression. Vocational guid- ance looks to the whole child, to its past, present, and future. Through its efficacious interest and cooperating agencies it demands the utmost investment of all that a child is and may become. Mr. President, I almost tremble lest I seem to give prominence to the widening gulf between capital and labor. I hope I am not a pessimist, and yet I confess that when I read an alarming emanation of one who has a right to speak for labor I am inclined to " stop, look, and listen." Raymond Robins, who is known as the " social expert " in what is called the " Men and religion movement," gives expression to the fol- lowing thought, and I want Senators to allow that thought to sink deep into their minds. He says : The old vertical lines of social division — ^by income, profession, and family — are gone. The new line is horizontal. Above it are all those who live by divi- dends and below it are all those who live by labor. Already it is more than a line — it is a crack, a cleavage. And I tell you that unless that cleavage is bridged in the next 10 years it never will be bridged in our time. Raymond Robins was giving expression to no threat; indeed, he may be wrong in regard to his diagnosis of the future of the Ameri- can people, but does it not behoove us as Senators to take cognizance of the utterances -and claims of a man like Raymond Robins; and if we can lift some of those below the horizontal line to which he refers and give them a portion of the part above the line, should we not do it? Mr. President, there is no way to do this except by reaching down and taking the hands of those below the line and, throug-h vocational education, do what we can do to bridge this cleavage, and we must do it now. Raymond Robins says that unless it is bridged within the next 10 years it never will be bridged. I am not ready to confess this — it may not be true — but I am not fully prepared to say that there is not some element of truth in his warning. I am ready to give the benefit of the doubt to the cause of the sons of the men who toil, even though the expense of doing so to the Federal Government might be even more than 15 cents per capita per annum of our population, the amount called for by this bill. Place over against this statement of Raymond Robins another, which appeared in our Washington dailies May 17. I read : harvard's finances. Cambridge, Mass., May 17. Harvard University, according to the annual financial rejKirt, now has $25- 000,000 in productive funds, of which $17,000,000 is in stocks and bonds. This is an increase of a million and a quarter over last year. From these funds the university has an annual income of $2,500,000. Mr. President, I glory in our New England colleges. It has been well said that they " have sprung from the very soil, and the lifeblood of our fathers is in them." VOCATIONAL EDUCATION. 43 He would be bold indeed who should undertake to capitalize the good wUl of the old-time colleges of New England or to estimate the power that inheres in their long record of usefulness and leadership. Long may they live, and may the power of their usefulness and leadership continue. Their walls have risen from the modest bounty of New England yeomen, and men and women have worn homespun that the colleges of their bws might continue to live. It has been the best blood of rural New England that has peopled the plains and cities of the West, and the vigorous leaven of New England stock in western communities, from Ohio to California, has been drawn from the best-educated and most progressive element of the small towns of the country districts of rocky New England. I have asked the United States Commissioner of Education, Dr. Claxton, to give me a statement showing the number of scholars, respectively, in the elementary or grammar grades, the secondary or high schools, and the colleges, together with the percentage of cost for each class. It will probably surprise those who have not given the matter much consideration to learn that only 1.71 per cent are in the college grades; only 5.35 per cent in the secondary, or high-school, grades. The great mass of our boys — to be exact, 92.93 per cent — are in the elementary grades. The commissioner's report shows that we are taking splendid care of those who enjoy the benefits of high-school and college courses — the 7 per cent— out we are not doing our duty to the other 93 per cent — the children of those who, by reason of having to become the breadwinners of the family, do not pass beyond the elementary grades. The commissioner states that the cost of pupils in the elementary grades is $21.78 per capita ; of those in the public high schools, $45 ; of those in the university, $280. With the consent of tiie Senate, I will include in my remarks the table furnished by Dr. Claxton. PER CENT OF ENROLLMENT AND PER CENT OP COST FOR THE THREE GRADES IN 1908-9. Pnr Gn>des. ^^o- cent of cost. illementary 92. 93 74. 68 Secondary 5.35 10.08 Higher 1.71 15.24 Practically all of these boys who are in the 92 per cent class are to-day deprived of any kind of vocational or industrial training. And because of this fact they are swelling the ranks of our outcasts and criminals and filling our jails and asylunis with the flotsam and the jetsam of our social life. They form the very scum which rises to the top of the great seething caldron of uneducated humanity and is forming that uncontrollable element' which is the natural out- growth of the injustice which is to-day being practiced on the sons 44 VOCATIONAL EDTJCATION". of our toiling millions in the matter of withholding from them a decent measure of vocational and industrial training. Mr. President, there is no truer saying than that " talent should lay its tribute upon the altar of human need." If there is any human need demanding tribute from the best talent of this Senate more than the need of the avM-age American boy, I do not know where it is. To-day, in my humble judgment, the sons of our toiling millions are not receiving that fair equality of opportunity to which they are entitled ; and let us not deceive ourselves with the idea that these boys, as they ^ow up, will fail to note and keenly feel that inequality of opportunity. They have minds no less acute, perception no less keen than those of us who have enjoyed a better education. They know they have not had a square deal, and, knowing this, is it any wonder that there is discontent and that as a result of this discontent the standard of citizenship is being lowered ? Is it not true that in the minds of by far too large a percentage of them the Stars and Stripes is not that emblem of justice and equality which it ought to be? And yet, Mr. President, when we confront a proposition like the one now before us we are met with the cry of expense, cost, and unconstitutionality. I wish to state with all the force at my command that, in my judg- ment, any bill the chief purpose of which is the promotion of good citizenship is not unconstitutional, because good citizenship is an absolute sine qua non for the general welfare and common defense. The very foundations of good citizenship lie in loyal, contented, and intelligent and prosperous people. Mr. President, it is a condition, and not a theory, that confronts this Government to-day. If our citizens in the generation ahead of us are not able to earn a decent livelihood and give their children such an education as wiU equip them to run the race of life with a fair measure of success, it will be impossible to convince them that they are receiving that equality of opportunity to which they are en- titled and without which they can not be loyal citizens. Mr. President, this is an age of steam, of electricity, of enterprise and progress. To-day there are few, it any, laboring men in this country who do not, through the press and otherwise, keep in touch with the most advanced modem thought in so far as it relates to their own personal welfare. Tlie Grange and other like organizations r^resent the farmer ; the American Federation of Labor, the American Manufacturers' Asso- ciation, and kindred associations and organizations represent those engaged in industrial pursuits; and I wish to state to this Senate to-day that if there is a single association of any considerable size, either along the lines of agriculture or the mechanic arts, that has not discussed this measure fully and passed judgment upon it, I do not know where that organization is. It has been said that the leaders in the American Federation of Labor were opposed to the education of large numbers along indus- trial lines. It is not true. It has been said that the great Association of Manufacturers find it more profitable to work ignorant than skilled men. It is not in my judgment, true. It is an interesting fact, Mr. President, that dur- ing one of the days of March last, Mr. H. E. Miles, chairman of the VOCATIONAL EDTTCATION. 45 committee on industrial education of the National Association of Manufacturers, and Samuel Gompers, president of the American Federation of Labor, were together here at Washington. I sought an interview at which both oi them should be present, but the two orgaaiizations were so antagonistic and hostile that my efforts to brmg about a conference between them were unsuccessful. This being the case, I asked this official of the National Association of Manufacturers to write me a letter setting forth the views of his association touching this bill, and at my meeting with Mr. Gompers I read this letter. At the close of the reading, he said : That letter expresses the views of the American Federation of Labor exactly, and it states them better than I could state them myself. I think this fact is worthy of being especially emphasized. Here are two organizations which, so far as I know, disagree upon every or almost every other point. They represent conflicting interests in the labor world, and yet on this vocational education measure they are in entire and hearty accord ; and from one end of this country to the other the associations which represent the great industrial interests of our land are sending me letters and telegrams approving this bill and assuring me that if it passes it will smve better than any other plan before the American people at this time one of the most vexa- tious economic problems that now confronts us. Let me quote very briefly from the views of Mr. Gompers, repre- senting the American Federation of Labor, and Mr. Miles, represent- ing the National Association of Manufacturers. Mr. Gompers says: Under this proposed law the Federal Government, the States, and the local communities would be united in a cooperative movement to place within the^ reach of every boy and girl in the country the opportunity of securing both a general and a vocational education. The prosperity of a nation depends upon its industrial and commercial suc- cess, and, in respect to these, success depends upon the training and intelligmice of its citizens. It is therefore plainly evident that a national educational sys- tem determines its destiny. The compilation of statistics relating to the period of school attendance by the young of the country, the study of these statistics, and the result of the lim- ited attendance of so large a proportion of the school population which they have disclosed have attracted the attention not only of men engaged in educa- tional effort, but the people generally. The fact that so large a proportion of the boys in the United States are leaving school at or before the completion of an elementary course of instruction, that the major portion of them are subse- quMitly to earn a living by the work of their hands, that at an early age they seek employment largely in unskilled industries, because they are fitted for nothing better and because they are too young to enter upon the work of ap- prentices, even were that possible, and that the prospects of emergence from unskilled to skilled industries is so small, is attracting attention to the prob- lem and demanding solution. Mr. Miles says: The need of industrial education is coming to be seen in all quarters, and the movement has a tremendous impetus.. The purpose of the Page bill is not to develop engineers through technical schools, etc., but to educate the 'boys and girls who are gomg to earn their own living in factories, stores, etc., and as wives of our working people. This money (the money appropriated by this bill) would be spent in continua- tion schools, evening schools, and in day schools for boys and girls of about 14 years of age and over. This would be the first appropriation to make happy and efficient and educated, in a measure, to their life work the children of the common people who live in the cities and towns. 46 VOCATIONAL EDUCATION. The Page bill likewise recognizes the other half ef our population, those who live by agriculture, by giving about the same amount for agricultural and the domestic arts, not in the high-grade schools that turn out experts, but In the common schools, where are educated the boys and girls who will be the real farmers of the future. Not one dollar has ever been given educationally to the factory boys and girls, and this bill proposes that it shall now be given. I think very few Senators have ever stopped to consider the mag- nitude of this great proposition and the millions upon millions of geople which it wouM favorably affect from ocean to ocean and from anada to the Grulf. Mr. President, the nations of the earth are now engaged in a race for commercial supremacy, and in that race to-day Germany is con- fessedly taking the lead. It is said that she annually exports a bil- lion dollar's worth of her products, and this fact is, in large meas- ure, owing to that other fact that she is more progressive in the ina.t- ter of industrial education than any other nation in the world. In Germany every boy, even to the sons of the Emperor, must learn a trade. Japan has recently adopted an educational system. She studied the educjttional systems of the world and then adopted the German system. Men like to do what they can do well, and no boy entering any manufacturing establishment can do his best work if he understands that his equipment for that work is so inferior to those with whom he is associated that he is at a disadvantage. The boy does not stand still ; he is either progressive or retrogres- sive. Inspire him with faith in himself, and he puts forth his best efforts to succeed. We all work better under encouragement and in- spiration than under the lash and spur. To learn more is to earn more. If the boy could have discovered this fact before being thrown upon his own resources as he passed from the grammar school, he would have put forth his best efforts to secure a vocational education. But this fact was not pressed home to him. Indeed, under existing school conditions the opportunity to learn more about the practical things of life does not exist, and it is one of the main purposes of this bill to bring into existence schools which will give the average boy the equipment which his restless, progressive nature demands and which he, as a prospective citizen of this country, is entitled to receive. I dislike to seem to criticize our school methods, because I recog- nize that a multitude of our wisest and best men are unselfishly and patriotically devoting themselves to the education of the young men and women of our land. That they are doing good work is shown by the fact that during the last decade the ratio of illiteracy has decreased from 10.7 per cent to 7.7 per cent, or, to state it differently, it was 39 per cent higher in 1900 than in 1910. Have we not too long assumed that the mere school definition of illiteracy is misleading? Have we realized what a small part of our people are vocationally trained? Have we not stopped with teach- ing our youth the three R's? Have we taught them to make use of their elementary training in gaining knowledge and skill in the great vocations open to more than 92 per cent of them? Have not our educators been asleep as to the latent cultural power and value of the body of knowledge in the great major vocations of the farm, the shop, and the home? VOCATIONAL EDTJOATIOIT. 47 "But I submit, not as a criticism but as a suggestion for the consid- eration of the Senate, that there is something wrong in a school system which drives the average boy away from school life at the very time when he should be just beginning to realize the great im- portance of education. It is absolutely futile to argue that it is the boy's own fault. If there is any criticism to offer upon our system of education it is that the curriculum repels rather than attracts the average boy, and, worse still, the father of the average boy. Mr. President, we shall never change this condition, in my judg- irient, until we introduce into our school system a greater or less measure of vocational education. To just what extent this can be done is a problem which we must work out. It is a problem which our educators, as they to-day look upon the school curriculum, will not solve except by slow and tedious processes, unless something is done to stimulate and point the way substantially as is contemplated by this bin. " Unless Senators have given the matter some thought, verj^ few of them realize the extent to which training along industrial lines can be made to contribute to a general cultural education. We all re- member how our boys were given abstract problems in arithmetic when they were young. They learned to add, substract, multiply, and divide. But if the men who prepared the arithmetics for those boys had known that they were going into a machine shop after leaving school, and if they could have provided an arithmetic which would have been just as well suited to give the boys a cultural edu- cation and at the same time equip them with a practical knowledge, this change of textbook would have been of incalculable value to them when they went into the shop. I have before me an example of problems found in a textbook published by the General Electric Co., of Schenectady, N. Y. This company assists in the training of boys who are to find work in its shops later on. Let me read two or three of the problems which they give to their students : If a hollow cylindrical casting is 3 feet long and 1.5 feet inside diameter, and 2 feet outside diameter, what will be its weight if cast iron weighs 0.26 pound pel' cubic inch? What will be the cost at $2.25 per hundred? If In finishing we take a cut one-fourth inch inside and one-fourth Inch out- side and sell the metal turned off at 50 cents per hundred pounds, what Is the final cost of casting? The arithmetic of this company is full of concrete problems like the two I have cited. In brief, the cultural is attained through the voca- tional, and who can say it is not a wise change? In seven States — Massachusetts, Connecticut, New York, New Jersey, Maryland, Michigan, and Wisconsin — recent laws have been enacted relating to vocational training for the industries, and Massa- chusetts has a commission on industrial education. Under her law enacted in January, 1906, 17 independent industrial schools were organized prior to January 1, 1910. This law is be- lieved to be one of the best, and I ask consent to publish it as an appendix to these remarks, as it may be of assistance to those who would study the practical workings of industrial education. The underlying principle of this Massachusetts law is that those who reap the benefits of the appropriation shall contribute a share of the expense. The law, among other things, provides that the Com- 48 VOOATIOIirAL BDUOATIOX. monwealth shall repay to any city or town one-half the expense of these schools. I quote one section of the law : Upon certification by the board of education to the auditor of the Common- wealth that a city, town, or district, either by means raised by local taawtlon or by means donated or contributed, has maintained an indj^eodcnt ladastrUil school, the Ccuiiinonwealth, in order to aid in the maintenance of such acheols, shall pay anually from the treasury to such cities, towns, or dlBtrlctfl, a sum equal to one-half the sum raised by local taxation for this purpose. Mr. President, at one of our hearings before the Committee on Agriculture and Forestry, Mr. Herbert Myriok, presidMit of the or- ganization which publishes the Orange- Judd agricultural papers, at Sprin^eld, Mass., appeared before us and exhibited a chart giving the money value of industrial training as shown by the Newark Technical High School, at Newark, N. J. I confess that the figures seemed to me so absolutely unbelievable that I did not wish to give them to the Senate as facts without having them verified, so I wrote to the principal of the school, quoting Mr. Myrick's statement. His reply was that in the main the statement was correct. Here is the statement : The so-called skilled mechanic In the industries of New Jersey earns fifteen to twenty-five dollars per week, but let the same adult mechanics spoid their evenings for a while acquiring technical training and industrial education and so greatly is their capacity developed that at the age of 45 th^ occupy positions . that pay an average of $66 per week. This is the actual result of the census taken of the graduates of the Newark (N. J.) Tedinical High School, which is an evening school. These are mechanics who work at their trade during the aay and come in and attraid evening classes. I have, from what I believe to be good authority, the information that this result was obtained from an actual canvass of the graduates of this Newaric Tedinical School for a period of years, and that the replies received covered 86 per cent of those who had graduated. Whether the replies to the other 16 per cent would materially change the proportion upward or downward, I am unable to say. In any event, it could not change it very much. Let me repeat that the average so-called skilled mechanic received from fifteen to twenty' five dollars per week, while these graduates from this Newark Teda- nical School averaged $66 per we^, thus showing that the men who were sufficiently enterprising and ambitious to take the training at this school rose to positions as managers, foremen, and overseers. In passing, let me refer to one point in connection with this sdbtocd, because it illustrates how I hope this bill will work out with refwenoe to the separate schools for the trades and industries provided for in section 4 of the bill. There are, in round numbers, 1,600 towns and cities in this country having a population of 4,000 or more. Let us suppose for a moment that every one of these should avail itself of this appropriation, and let us suppose that the $3,000,000 which section 4 appropriates is matched by a State appropriation in each State, making $6,000,000, and then that these cities shall add thereto as much more by local taxation, making $12,000,000 in all. This would mean an average of $7,500 for each sdiool. Educators say that it takes $100 per capita to conduct a good sdiool of this kind. This means that these schools would have an average of 75 sdiolars each, and that these 1,600 schools would annually send out to infuse VOCATIONAL BDT70ATI0W. 49 new life into our manufacturing industries approximately 120,000 trained men. You will observe, Mr. President, that I have predicated my conclu- sions upon the hypothesis that local taxation wiU supplement and match the Federal and State appropriations. Bearing upon this point, I wish to say that the law of New Jersey, under which the Newark Technical School was established, provides that whenever any board of education, school committee, or other like body in any city, town, or township in the State shall certify to the governor that a sum of money not less than $3,000 has been raised, it shall be the duty of the governor to cause to be drawn by warrant on the comptroller an amount equal to that contributed by the particular locality for the said object, and when any school or schools have been established in any localities aforesaid there shall be annually contributed by the State for the maintenance and sup- port thereof a sum equal to that contributed each year by said locsfi- ity for said purpose, provided, however, that the moneys contributed by the State to any locality shall not exceed in any one year the sum of $5,000. It will be observed that the State of New Jersey helps those who help themselves, and that is what this bill designs to do. It really is an offer on the part of the Federal Government to share with the States in making offers of funds to those cities and communities which win help themselves. _ Mr. H. E. Miles, chairman of the committee on industrial educa- tion of the National Association of Manufacturers, in an address on vocational education, speaks of America as being likened to a huge stevedore bearing down to the ships of the sea the crude or semicrude material for the use of the capital, labor, and intelligence of foreign nations. These exportations are a depletion of our national re- sources, the heritage of the ages, and are irreplaceable. We now see that under present processes those resources will be exhausted within a period that to the farsighted is as a day. We sell our cotton to Switzerland at 14 cents per pound with scarce any labor in it; we buy it back in the form of fine handkerchiefs at $40 per pound, nearly all labor. The extent to which we may change these conditions by increasing the efficiency of the rising generation through industrial education will measure the degree of prosperity and progress which this coun- try is in the future to enjoy m its struggle for commercial supremacy. No nation approaches us in inventive genius, none in natural push and vigor; and if we will stop thinking in small sizes for a brief period while we start on an upward trend the generation now coming upon the stage of action, by the use of that efficiency which comes from a better and more practical education, we can distance the world. The official figures just issued by the Census Bureau show that we increased our manufactured products from fourteen billions in 1904 to twenty billions six hundred millions in 1909 — a gain of 40 per cent in five years. We increased the number of our manufacturing establishments from 216,118 in 1904 to 268,491 in 1909. We increased the capital invested in manufacturing these products $5,700,000,000 in these five years. We increased the number of our wage earners 21 49159— S. Doc. 845, 62-2 4 50 VOCATIONAL EDUCATION. per cent in that time, and, best of all, it may be said that while we increased the number only 21 per cent, we increased the wages 31 per cent. . . Dr. Schwedtman, president of the Citizens' Industrial Association, of St. Louis, says : We have every reason to be gratified with our showing ; but the greatest value of past records of patriotic, progressive, and ambitious men is this — they pro- vide a standard for the future. Standing still is impossible. We must go back- ward or forward. The record of the past five years must be surpassed by that of the next five years. But, in his judgment, we now strike an economic fact which must be carefully considered. He says that while in the past much of our industrial growth has been accomplished by increase of industrial territory, increase of raw material, and added immigration of skilled foreign mechanics, we must look for our future progress principally to higher efficiency in our shops, to higher grade of output, to a better grade of American mechanics. We must export less pig iron and more sewing machines, less steel billets and more watch springs, less copper and more dynamos. It has been truly said that the man deserves well of his country who makes two blades of grass grow where one grew before. Is this not equally true of men who turn raw-cotton exports at 14 cents per pound into fine handkerchiefs at $40 per pound ? Mr. President, only 38 per cent of the population of the United States are breadwinners. Fifty-five per cent of the Austrian popu- lation, 53 per cent of the Italian population, and 48 per cent of the French population are breadwinners. We must convert the idlers of this Nation into producers; and, in my judgment, we may do so if we will take the hundreds of thousands of boys, now almost running wild in our larger cities, and, by indus- trial education, by instruction along the lines of the trades and industries, and by finding them places to labor, turn them from vicious paths into self-respecting, self-supporting, contented producers. In England the percentage of population engaged m manufactur- ing, mining, trade, and com~merce is 64 ; in the United States it is only 40. Is it not our duty to provide for this additional 24 per cent of our population by converting them from consumers to producers ? The United States produces approximately 5,500,000,000 pounds of cotton annually, but we manufacture only 2,000,000,000 pounds of that cotton into finished products. England produces in India 1,350,000,000 pounds of cotton, but she manufactures approximately 2,250,000,000 pounds into finished articles. If we figure raw cotton at 15 cents per pound and finished cotton products at 30 cents per pound, we have a difference of $525,000,000 annually which might be paid to skilled workers in the United StateSj which now goes to the skilled workers of England and other countries. We appropriate millions of dollars every session the benefits of which are largely local, but the benefits of the appropriations flowing from this bill will reach every; city, town, village, and hamlet, and practically every child resident therein. And yet, Mr. President, the time will never come when the appropriations under this bill will aggregate at their maximum more than IJ cents per month per capita of our population. VOCATIONAL EDXJOAXION. 51 In 1916 our population will be more than 100,000,000, and if the total appropriations under the bUl at that time were to reach $16,- 000,000 — and they will not — ^it can be seen at a glance that the per capita expense to the American people under its provisions would be only 15 cents per annum. Think of it, Mr. President. We shall have given to every one of the sons of the toilers of this country an oppor- tunity to acquire an education, which shall make us a Nation of more efficient producers, of more self-respecting, more contented, more happy men and women, and consequently a Nation of better and more law-abiding citizens, and that, too, by an annual appropriation from the National Treasury of only 16 cents per capita of our population. HOME ECONOMICS. Mr. President, I shall now devote a few moments to the question of home economics, although I have given to the subject a somewhat less extended examination, perhaps, than I ought to be qualified to speak interestingly upon it. I have, however, proceeded far enough in my investigations to become fully satisfied that the education of our girls along the lines of the trades and industries and in home making as contemplated by this bill is one of the most important economic problems now before the American people. Mr. President I have never taken pains to figure out just what part of the funds appropriated by this bill would be used for the benefit of home making, but I have asked prominent educators how they thought the bill would work out, and they have expressed the opinion that of the nine millions appropriated — three millions for the separate schools in citiesj three millions for the industrial schools connected with the high schools, and three millions for the district agricultural schools — about 25 per cent would probably find its way into the field of home economics for the education of girls. Home economics or the science of home making is a much more comprehensive term than one would believe who has not given the matter some thought. Broadly speaking, it refers to the improve- ment of the conditions of home life, but the avenues through which this improvement comes are many. Primarily they include cooking, sewing, making articles of house- hold use, vegetable gardening, home nursing, care of children, and so forth. But these are only the elementary studies, and the girl who would fit herself to be a true home maker should understand the preparation of foods for invalids, first aid to the injured, the value of foods that enter into daily consumption, and how to buy them so as to eliminate waste. She should understand ventilation, hygiene, physiology, the prevention of preventable diseases, serving of dinners, laundry work, house planning, millinery, making her own clothing, art needlework, household decoration, household bookkeeping. Indeed, her studies should cover that broad field "which will fit the girl to prudently and economically manage household affairs when she becomes a wife and mother, and to have such an understanding of household administra- tion as will enable her to eliminate waste and plan prudently, as one must do who provides for and presides over the household and has to do largely with the family living expenses. 52 VOCATIONAL EDTJCATION. Mr. President, the difference between the girl who leaves school on the completion of the seventh or eighth grade without any Imowledge of these practical affairs of life, and the one whose school hfe has been prolonged for an added year or two in the study of home economics is very often the difference between success and failure as a wife and mother. A good, well-kept home, presided over by an intelligent woman, educated along both general and practical lines, means health, happi- ness, prosperity, with healthy children and all those essentials which make life worth living. The country is fast awakening to the fact that probably 50 per cent of all diverces would have t«en avoided had the girls been good cooks, good home makers, and good mothers. The country is also awakening to the fact that infant mortality is largely owing to lack of that knowledge touching motherhood which ought to be better understood in all our homes. Fifty years ago every girl believed her proper calling in life was to become a good home maker, wife, and mother. To-day they look forward to a position in some trade or industry, or, perhaps, to office work as stenographers, typewriters, or telephone girls. Aid when — as is usually the case — they find themselves brought face to face with married life and the home, they fail to bring to the discharge of the wifely and motherly duties that experience, skill, and knowledge so absolutely essential to a good home maker. The picture is an unpleasant one, Mr. President. It is one which affords no gratification to a student of public affairs. The results are that in too many instances home life is unendurable, and year by year more and more do the divorce courts show the results. We must give our girls a training different from that with which we now pro- vide them, for if we do not, and if race suicide and divorces continue to increase as they have for the past 25 years, our social conditions will become unbearable. What greater problem confronts us to-day than the health of our people, and especially the health of the young? And who does not know that it is only by that better knowledge of sanitation, hygiene, cooking, and ventilation gained by an education in home economics that we can give the rising generation a higher standard of health and physical force? We must come to realize that a sound mind in a sound body is one of the essential prerequisites of wholesome, forceful manhood or womanhood. I rejoice in the fact that home economics is rapidly assuming the prominent place which it deserves in all schools which girls attend, from the elementary to the collegiate. This bill, if it passes, will generally accelerate this essential movement toward better home mak- ing, and mothers who are bringing up the rising generation in con- formity with the laws of health will be accorded a higher status in the social ranks of American women. It is a most regrettable fact that by far too large a portion of our American girls are not good housekeepers and are lamentably ignorant of the duties of motherhood. We might profitably consider this great proposition along other and collateral lines, including the great question of race suicide, but I hesitate to discuss this pn^lem here. A mere reference to it ought to bring a blush to the cheek of every student of our social conditions. VOCATIONAI. EDTJOATION. 53 Mr. President, the American School of Home Economics has very forcefully expressed its disapproval of our great economic waste in the matter of our home management. It says that $10,000,000,000 are expended annually in the United States for food, clothing, and shelter, when, with greater knowledge and efficiency, better satisfac- tion could be obtained and $1,000,000,000 saved for higher things. Half a million lives are cut short and 5,000,000 people are made ill by preventable diseases every year. With universal knowledge of hygiene and sanitation nearly all deaths and illness from such causes could be prevented. Six hundred thousand infants under 2 years of age end their little span of life yearly, while millions of children fail to reach their best physical development, because their mothers and fathers do not understand how to care for them in the light of science. With more knowledge at least half these babies could be saved and the physical standard raised immeasurably. I will ask permission at this point to insert a clipping from the Washington Post of June 4, 1912. The Vice PEEsmENT. In the absence of objection permission is granted. The clipping referred to is as follows : TWO HTJNDEED THOTJSAND LIVE BUT A MONTH — OF BABIES WHO PERISH TEABLT, FIFTEEN THOUSAND ARE BOBN IN NEW TOBK. <■ New Yobk, June S. Two hundred thousand infants die every year in the United States before com- pleting the first month of life, of which number 15,000 are born in New York City. This statement was made to-day during a meeting called to start a new campaign of Infant welfare in this city. It was decided to call a meeting for next Monday afternoon, to which will be invited representatives of all hospitals, dispensaries, and similar institutions in New York. It will be proposed that there be established a central oflSce in the health department building, which will be a clearing house for aU work intended to aid Infants. This will not interfere with the integrity or independence of any one of the individual organizations. Mr. Page. Mr. President, thousands of homes are wrecked, tens of thousands of lives ruined, and hundreds of thousands are made un- happy because the home-keepers of our country have no training in that greatest of all professions, the " profession of home making and motherhood." All must live in some sort of a home, for every- one finds his chief happiness there. Character is developed there. No great advance, spiritual or mental, is possible which does not begin with the home. The home makers of America have the making of the Nation. Every girl is a potential mother. Every mother should be a home maker. Every girl should have the best of health, some knowledge of her peculiar functions, some specific preparation for playing her part in the best possible home. Society must come to recognize that woman's work is to promote the best possibilities of the next generation. Let us at least be as sensible with' reference to the health of the woman who bears the child as we are with reference to the breeding of stock. There is such a close connection between home economics and the education of women for industrial pursuits that we hardly know where one leaves off and the other begins ; but this bill provides edu- 54 VOCATIONAL EDTJCATION. cation for them in both relations. The young girl in the city nmst not only earn a livelihood at some manual trade, but must broaden somewhat her field of general knowledge. This she is able to do by the separate industrial schools provided for in section 4 of this bill. Indeed, it is presumed that the appropriation made by section 3 for a separate division in the village high school will afford the girl who must earn a livelihood after she leaves the grammar school and before she becomes a wife a fair equipment for such branches of special service away from the home as she may find it necessary or convenient to enter. That this special training for the girl works out practically is shown by the examination of some of the schools which have under- taken this class of work. For instance, the Manhattan — New York City — ^Trade School for Girls began its work in 1902 under the inspiration of a group of men and women interested in philanthropic, sociological, economic, and educational work. They found upon examination that the wages of unskilled female labor were declining, while those of skilled labor were advancing, and that the supply of skilled labor was inadequate. They reached the conclusion that the condition of the young and inexpert working girl must be ameliorated in some way. The principles of the school, as laid down by its organizers, were to improve the worker physically, mentally, morally, and financially ; to better the conditions of labor in the workroom, and to raise the char- acter of the industries and the conditions of the home. It was not expected that immature girls of 14 or 15 years of age would, immediately upon entering the labor market, make large sal- aries, out the purpose was to educate these girls for situations for which their qualifications best fitted them, and to make possible a steady advance to better occupations, better wages, and a better life. Here is just a brief statement as to five of the different occupations taught at this school and the improved financial change Avhich resulted : In dressmaking the girls started at $3 to $S per week ; after train- ing in the Manhattan school they were able to earn $5 to $12 per week. In millinery the girls started at $2.50 to $4 per week; after training they received from $4 to $10 per week. In operating ma- chines the girls started at from $3 to $6 per week ; and after train- ing they received from $5 to $30 per week. In novelty work the girls started with wages from $3 to $5 per week ; after training they earned from $6 to $10 per week. In what is known as " trade art " the wages of the girls at the start were from $5 to $8 per week ; and after training they increased from $8 to $15 per week. These schools in New York have what are called " night continua- tion classes," and an examination shows that the classes are not only well attended, but that the results are excellent. The cost of equipment of schools to teach these subjects is rela- tively not large. As regards garment or dress making, it is estimated that a room for 20 workers may be plainly furnished at a cost of $300 to $500. The equipping of a workroom for electric power operating, includ- ing general and special machines, motor, cutting and work tables, cabinets and chairs, is, of course, considerably more expensive than one for garment making. In the latter, one sewing machine can be used for several workers, but in electric operating each worker must VOCATIONAL EDUCATION. 55 have her own machine. The electric motor adds also to the expense. The minimum cost of thus equipping a shop for 20 workers is about $1,000 to $1,500. Arthur D. Dean, chief of the division of vocational schools of the State department of education of New York, says : We are only at the beginning of a new conception of woman and her work. She will be educated only as she Is master of herself and master of her job — master of herself in the sense that she must know of her possibilities as a woman of splendid health, of personal power, and of genuine poise ; master of her job only as she is fitted for a God-given motherhood and a community- given vocation. Charles Wagner says : The more a woman shall have learned to live by herself the better she will occupy her position in wedded life should she marry. Trained to direct her- self, to earn her own living, capable of energy and decision, a woman, if she marries, brings a precious cooperation to her husband. If she never marries she will know how to be all-sufficient to herself. She will not believe her life lost nor make of it a morbid matter. I believe Senators make a great mistake when they underestimate the benefits which will flow from that part of this bill which pertains to home economics. I have become intensely interested in it, and the more I study it, the more I think it is one of the great features of this bill. GOOD CITIZENSHIP. Mr. President, I wish I might say that no Senators were objecting to this bill, but I can not. There are a few who urge its expense as sufficient reason for opposing the measure, while others urge its un- constitutionality. The latter insist that there is no warrant in the Federal Constitution for the cooperation of the Federal Government with the States in matters of education, and for this reason say this bill should not pass. I am not a lawyer and speak only as a layman, but it seems to me that if there is any one matter upon which Congress — ^and, indeed, the great American people — ^have passed repeatedly and affirmatively, it is the question of the constitutionality of Federal aid to education. In discussing this matter of constitutionality with a Senator who has had a very long experience in congressional life, he made this answer to my suggestion : Senator, I did believe that if any State wished to secede from the Federal Union it had the constitutional right to do so. Perhaps I might truthfully say that I so believe at this time, but this matter was decided in 1865 once and for all time. The question of the constitutionality of Federal aid to the cause of agricultural and industrial education was decided in 1862. That decision has been again and again reaffirmed. I have no desire to reopen the question at this time. During the Sixty-first Congress, acting in conformity with a de- mand from the American people which was simply irresistible, we practically went into the banking business by establishing postal sav- ings banks and borrowing money from the American public to reloan to the banks of the country. No one has claimed that there is any express warrant in the Constitution for this legislation, but the measure is meeting the approval of the American people, and no one to-day thinks of repealing the postal savings bank act or of raising the question of its constitutionality. 56 VOCATIONAL EDUCATION. It seems now probable that, acting in conformity with a demand that is almost equally irresistible, we are about to go into the express business through the medium of the parcel post, and I imagine that if that accessory to our Post Office Department shall prove to be a financial success no one will be heard to question that legislation be- cause of its unconstitutionality. Mr. President, if there is any act upon our statute books to which the people of this land have given their most hearty approval it is the Morrill Act of 1862. Congress has reaffirmed that approval "again and again, first by the Hatch Act of 1887, appropriating $15,000 annually to each iState for experiment stations, then by the second Morrill Act of 1890, giving an additional $25,000 annually to each State for the benefit of the agricultural colleges established by the original Morrill Act. It was again reaffirmed in 1906 by the Adams Act, which doubled the appropriation under the Hatch Act by giving an additional $15,000 annually to each State for these same agricul- tural colleges and State experiment stations ; and no later than 1907 it was further reaffirmed by what is known as the Nelson amendment, offered by the distinguished senior Senator from Minnesota, by which was added another $25,000 per annum to the agricultural college fund of each State. These four appropriations supplemented the original Morrill Act by giving to each State $80,000 per annum additional. Eemember that the original Morrill Act was passed iq 1862, at a time when we were in the throes of the Civil War, and when the bur- dens of the Government were infinitely larger than they are to-day. "^A'^e took our new departure on these lines then and decided that the general welfare was so dependent upon industrial and agricultural education that we might well lead the way in that great work. The new departure taken in vocational education in lS62 has worked wonders in the way of giving to the country an army of trained specialists in agriculture, engineering, and home economics. This skeleton army has laid the foundation for the larger, broader work which by this measure we seek to accomplish. Without these trained specialists we should be in a condition of unpreparedness which would be absolutely deplorable. As it is, we are now ready to go on with the broader work ; and the great American people now in- sist that we do go on with it in some such manner as is outlined by Senate bill No. 3, now before us. Mr. President, I do not think I can be mistaken in regard to the attitude of the country with reference to the better education of our boys and girls along agricultural and industrial lines. I wish Sen- ators might have been associated with this work as I have been during the past 14 months, for I am sure if they had been they would realize more fully than they now do the intense interest which prevails throughout every section of the country — East, West, North, and South — on this great question. This movement for vocational education is not confined to any one section nor to any class of people, but has taken deep hold upon our agricultural, our commercial, and our manufacturing population. There is scarcely an important organization in this country, which has for its object the uplift and betterment of our people, that has not considered this particular bill — Senate bill No. 3 — and, by specific resolution, approved it, usually in its entirety, but always as to its fundamentals. There is scarcely one of the great educational organ- VOCATIONAL EDUCATION. 57 izations of this country which has not passed' upon this bill, and, barring sonae of its administrative features and some of the diffi- culties of its articulation with State laws, approved it unqualifiedly and enthusiastically. It occurs to me that there is no impropriety in reading to the Senate the resolutions of a few of the more important of these organizations and associations which, in convention, have made this bill the subject of debate and have passed resolutions indorsing it. The National Grange is one of the most important organizations which speaks for agriculture. It is the recognized mouthpiece of a very large body of the farmers of this country. At its annual meet- ing at Columbus, Ohio, last fall, it passed the following resolution : Resolved, That the National Grange, in its forty-fifth annual session assem- bled, does hereby Indorse the Page bill — Senate bill 3 — to provide for vocational education In secondary schools, the training of teachers for these schools, agricultural extension, and agricultural demonstration. The International Dry Farming Congress is an organization whose special field of labor is in the semiarid regions of the trans-Mississippi States. I am told by Senators from the intermountain States that the organization is helping to successfully solve the great dry- farming problem which is being worked out to-day in those sections of our country which have very little rainfall. That congress, at its annual gathering at Colorado Springs in October last, unanimously adopted the following resolution with reference to Federal aid for industrial education : This congress reiterates the conviction voiced by former congresses in favor of financial Federal aid for rural education and agricultural extension, the same to be expended exclusively by the several States in the interests of agriculture, home economics, and the mechanic arts, and for preparing teachers for the same. * * * This congress urges upon its members that they use all legiti- mate influence to the end that the coming session of the Congress of the United States may witness the enactment into law of a comprehensive plan for agri- cultural and vocational education and training in the common and high schools. While this dry-farming congress makes its special work the im- proved methods of tilling arid lands, its members interest themselves generally in those educational matters which are supposed to be for the general welfare. Among the subjects especially considered by that congress was that of woman's work — the home and home economics ; and since this con- stitutes an important feature of this bill, I wish to read the resolu- tion of this organization touching home making : Realizing that the results of agricultural education during the past two decades have demonstrated the equal importance of the education of the farm women along parallel lines with the education of the farmer, and also realizing the importance of the carrying forward of agricultural propaganda, in so far as it relates to the establishment of happy, contented homes on all farms, * * * this congress heartily indorses the bill now pending before the United States Senate which provides for a permanent annual appropriation to each State experiment station for the purpose of conducting original or confirmatory experiments dealing with the whole field of home economics, and requests our respective Senators and Representatives to urge this bill for early passage. There is a very strong organization in the South, known as the American Education and Cooperative Farmers' Union, and an- other — of perhaps equal or greater strength — the American Society of Equity. It is said that the two together represent several million farmers. 58 VOCATIONAL EDUCATION. I do not know how they compare in importance with the National Grange, but I imagine that they are to the South what the National Grange is to the North. I shall not read their resolutions, but will simply state that at the joint meeting of these two organizations they passed resolutions approving the provisions of this vocational education bill and earnestly urged the Members of the National Senate and House of Representatives to favor its passage. The International Congress of Farm Women is another organiza- tion which is quite active m some sections of the country, and at their last annual gathering they passed the following resolution : Resolved, That this congress indorses the vocational-education bill now pend- ing in the Congress of the United States, whereby the States and Nation may combine in a comprehensive plan of effective vocational training in secondary schools, through which the rural elementary schools may be benefited. The National Association of Manufacturers is one of the strongest organizations in this country devoted to the improvement of indus- trial conditions. It is constantly entering new fields of labor in a philanthropic way. At its last annual meeting held in New York City it passed the following resolution with reference to industrial education : That this association earnestly devote itself, with reasonable outlay of funds, to the promotion of ipdustrial education, to the end that such education may be made available, as soon as possible, to every child who needs it. Resolved, That we favor the establishment in every community of continua- tion schools wherein the children of 14 to 18 years of age, now in the industries, shall be instructed in the science and art of their respective industries and in citizenship. The National Educational Association, at its convention held in Boston some time ago, passed the following resolution by a unanimous vote : That while the members of this association are of the opinion that the old courses of study, which had as their chief object the giving of culture to the individual and of transmitting to him the best ideas and ideals of the past, should in no manner be weakened, we nevertheless, very sincerely indorse the movement to maJie the courses of study offered in our schools more demo- cratic, that they may meet the condition of our modern commercial and Indus- trial life. However, to meet adequately these new demands imposes upon the schools of the country additional financial responsibilities, and this association appeals to the Nation and to the States for more liberal appropriations for educational purposes in order that this additional work in agriculture, in the trades and Industries, and home economics may be effectively undertaken. The Southern Educational Association, a very important factor in educational life in the South, covering the Southern States, at a meeting at Houston, Tex., unqualifiedly indorsed this bill. I have stated that agricultural, industrial, labor, and manufac- turers' associations are demanding the passage of this bill. I might add that boards of trade, federations of women's clubs, the National Metal Trades Association, the National Association of Builders' Ex- changes, the American Institute of Electrical Engineers, the Ameri- can Society of Mechanical Engineers, the International Typograph- ical Union, the Young Men's and Young Women's Christian Associa- tionSj and a very large number of other National, State and local associations, have indorsed this measure. They cover all sections of the Union, and I shall take great pleasure in showing them to any Senator who feels interested*'to know the attitude or organizations in his own immediate section of the country. VOCATIONAL EDUCATION. 59 If there is any association connected with or especially interested in educational work anywhere in this country which does not earnestly and enthusiastically indorse the great principle of vocational edu- cation sought to be worked out by this bill, I am not aware of it. It is not best that I further take the time of the Senate by quoting from resolutions and letters from distinguished educators and others, showing that the country is thoroughly alive to and very deeply in- terested in its support of this great educational measure ; but, with the consent of the Senate, I will include them as an appendix to my remarks. Let me say in passing that they cover every State in the Union, and collectively they show beyond doubt or question that the Ameri- can people are in favor of immediate action by the National Congress on this important measure, and in my opinion, they will regard any longer delay in legislation providing tor cooperation between the Federal Government and the States as utterly inexcusable and not in the line of true economy. Mr. President, the great mass of our people are insistent that something be done about this matter, and be done now. The field is already white for the harvest. I believe it is not an exaggeration to say that more than 95 per cent of all the letters received by me — and they number several thousand — are earnestly commendatory of the fundamental principles of the bill, and that as a whole they regard the measure more pregnant with importance to the welfare of the American people than any other of the many general bills involving constructive legislation now before Congress. It has been said that the greatest act of Abraham Lincoln's life was the emancipation proclamation, and that second only in impor- tance was the signing of the Morrill agricultural college bill. If objections on the ground of centralization, paternalism, and uncon- stitutionality were relegated to the past in 1862, there are a hundred times as many reasons why we should cease to plead those objections now, for while, as statistics actually show, the Morrill Act tends to five higher education to less than 2 per cent of our boys this bill irectly affects 92 per cent. But, Mr. President, in my judgment there is an argument in favor of this bill which places it upon infinitely higher grounds than any that have been urged or that can be urged for the postal savings bank, the parcel post, or for the Morrill Act, and that is the promotion of good citizenship. The laboring men of this country, including the farmer, feel that their sons are not receiving that equality of opportunity in the struggle for life to which they are entitled. They believe that taxes are levied which call upon them for a disproportionately large ex- penditure of money. They also believe that these expenditures are too largely for the benefit of the 1.71 per cent who enjoy a college course or the 5.35 per cent who complete only the high-school course, while the other 92.93 per cent are most unfairly neglected. Our school statistics not only show that but 8 per cent of the chil- dren of school age ever reach the high-school grade, but also that only 25 per cent of the balance ever reach the eighth or highest grade in the elementary or grammar school. Why this is so, I will discuss later. For the time being I state the plain tact as a justification for the other fact stated, to wit, that the men comprising our so-called 60 VOCATIONAL EDUCATION. working class feel that in some way or other, and for reasons which they can not understand, a great wrong is being perpetrated upon them and their children. That those comprising this class are justified in viewing the matter from this standpoint, I think, will be admitted by every Senator who will take the trouble, if he has never done so before, to recall the con- ditions actually existing in the vicinity of his own home, as these conditions are substantially alike in every section of the country where mining, quarrying, and manufacturing bring together aggre- gations of laboring men. The pupil struggles along through his first six grades of elementary school life, and then for some reason he begins to dislike his schooL Thomas A. Edison, the great electrician, in speaking of this matter recently, gave voice to a thought which we might all well considOTi He said : " My boy is an average boy, but he hates his school life." Mr. Edison was stating a concrete fact, tcxuching his boy, which applies equally well to probably 75 per cent of all the boys in the eighth or highest grade of the elementary schools. They hate the school, and they plan and figure in every possible way to avoid a continuation of their school life. Mr. President, there is something wrong here, and wCj as legisla- tors, must not shut our eyes to that wrong, because it is pregnant with an importancCj in my judgment, second to no other problem now before this Nation. To continue conditions longjer as they now are is to criminally neglect the largest asset of this country, the American youth. I do not wish to criticize either the judgment or the conscience of that great body of highly educated men who stand at the head of our educational work, and who are rendering a noble service in giving us the highly trained minds that are annually graduated from our higher institutions of learning. I do not wish to be misunderstood in this matter. If we could send our boys and girls through high school and to the college, I should feel that we had almost reached the millennium. But we can not do this, and I believe I voice the sentiment of hundreds upon hundreds of the more thoughtful educators and publicists of our land to-day, who give it as their opinion that the curriculum of the elementary or graded school is largely impracticable and does not fit for the great struggles of life that are before them the 92 per cent of our boys and girls who never pass beyond the eight grades. I believe that when the child reaches the seventh grade we should begin to take an account of stock of what that child is. He should be studied physically, mentally, and psychologically. The natural bent of his mind should in some way or other be brought out; and when we have discovered what that bent is, we should continue his education along practical lines, and in the direction of his natural abilities, for as many years as his conditions and needs warrant, that we may make of him an efficient worker in some useful line. As it is to-day, he looks from the elementary school to the cur- riculum of the first year of the high school, and there he discovers Latin, French, geometry, algebra. He goes to his father and mother and lays his troubles before them. He says to them, " I don't want to learn French, I don't want to learn Latin, I don't want to study algebra. They will never do me any good." Nine times out of ten VOCATIONAL EDUCATIOIT. 61 I th,e father believes with the child, and opportunities are too often ^iven him by the parents to avoid school life, even during the last or eighth year of compulsory attendance, and as soon as he has com- pleted the eighth grade he takes final leave of school. The father then says to his son: "John, you must this year earn enough to pay for your own clothing and to provide your own spend- ing money, and you must pay your mother a dollar or two a week toward your board." With this injunction the boy starts out, and, fpUowingthe lines of least resistance, he is fortunate indeed if he does not find himself in that class in which statistics tell us that more than 40 per cent of the American boys in our large cities land, viz, in the class of errand boys, bootblacks, and newspaper vendors. What is the result? Evil associates surround and control the boy during the two or more years of this most impressionable period of his life, and on arrival at the age when he is permitted to enter upon an apprenticeship or take up some employment he finds that his environment has been such as to weaken every higher moral quality. Instead of there being a growth for the better from the fourteenth to the seventeenth year, he has actually been allowed to degenerate; whereas, had these years been spent in part in some vocational school where he was learning the fundamentals of that trade or calling which he has elected to pursue, he would not have found himself where he must^ on entering the workshop, take his place alongside the cheapest, lowest illiterate from some foreign land. Men like to do that which they can do well. Place a boy in a position where he must work in the lowest grade of the establish- ment with which he is connected, and work to him is drudgery. Give him such work as a year or two of education along vocational lines would have permitted him to do, and all is changed. He sees not only a higher wage, but he sees promotion, preferment, and honors. The boy who has been drifting downward from the fourteenth to the seventeenth year soon comes to know that he has not had a square deal in the race of life, and he joins the order of malcontents and anarchists. Educators are practically unanimous in the belief that every proper incentive should be used to continue the school life of the boy after he reaches the eighth grade by another year or two at least; three to five years would be better still. But this we can never do under our present system of education. Indeed, Mr. President, there is but one opinion to-day touching this matter, and that is that only by holding out both to the father and to the boy the great, practical advantages to be derived from vocational training — a training that shall equip the boy for the duties of life — may we stimulate, even in a small degree, that much-needed extension of his school life. All are agreed with Edison that the great majority of our boys at the age of 14 — at the completion of the eighth grade — ^hate their school. If we can, by placing before them the benefits of vocational education, induce them to add another year to their school life, they would then come to see the necessities of a bettei- education from a broader, higher viewpoint. The addition of one more year of school life would oftentimes mean the still further addition of two, three, or even more years to that life, and that, as we all know, would mean an advantage of inestimable value to the future of the boy. 62 VOCATIONAL EDXICATION. Industrial education, more than any other agency, will augment and intensify the desire for more knowledge, both general and voca- tional. It will unquestionably arouse into action thousands of boys possessing latent ability and talent, a,nd with their desires whetted for still greater knowledge every institution of learning now in ex- istence will become the direct beneficiary of the joint action of the Nation and the State in providing, as here proposed, a stable founda- tion upon which can be builded a broader education. I state a fact which every Senator knows when I say with. reference to the school life of the great majority of the sons of those men who toil in the mills, the workshops, and the quarries, that they are most sadly neglected. The father is usually unable to find employmoit for his 14-year-old boy in the shop or quarry where he works, and the boy is too young to be sent away. In support of the correctness of my contention that many boys drift into a criminal manhood when they are turned loose from the grammar school, I quote from Prof. George Walter Fiske, who, in his series of lectures on " Boy life and self-government," says : Our reformatories and jails are still filled witli mere boys. The maximal age for malicious mischief is only 14; for petty larceny and assault, 15; for crimes against property, 16; while the maximum curve for fornication is at 17. Early and middle adolescence is still the great crime period. The shirking of the average home largely accounts for this boy waste, but the ethical failure of the public school is, to a degree, responsible also. Judge Merritt W. Pinckney, of the New York juvenile court, says that apparent neglect and incompetence are responsible for most of the delinquency which brought to his court three-fifths of the 12,000 children who have passed through it during his incumbency of that ofBce. Judge William McAdoo, the chief magistrate of the New York City municipal court, in making his annual report, says : There is growing up in this city a menacing army of boys and yoimg men who are the most troublesome element the authorities have to deal with. From the ranks of these lawless, reckless rowdies, who are organized in bands or bound up with chums or pals, come most of the crop of burglars, truck thieves, holdup men, and other criminals .ind dangerous characters. Mr. President, this great asset of ours — the American boy — on completing his eighth or elementary grade, is thrown, like the worthless ore from the copper mine, into the dump; or, to state it differently, he is turned adrift and allowed to degenerate into a cheap and oftentimes criminal manhood. One of the leading journals of Canada — the Toronto Globe — ^in commenting on Judge McAdoo's report, uses the following lan- guage: This description applies fairly well to many of the older boys and the younger men of all cities, towns, and even villages. Probably the cause is the same in all cases : Physical energy craving for active exercise, mental activity dissatis- fied with the perfunctory routine of the graded school, and a tendency to romance, at once nurtured but debased by the criminal Ideals presented not merely la works of lipagination, but In the criminal records of real life. A very large proportion of youths of the class described by Judge McAdoo are capable of being diverted from their downward careers and developed Into an excellent type of law-abiding citizens. Among the various means of reclaim- ing boys of the class above described none Is more effective than the " indus- trial " school, which makes provision for keeping the body as well as the mind in a state of activity. VOCATIONAL EDTJCATION. 63 A great educator lias embodied a whole theory of common-sense treatment of youth in the simple injunction to "put the whole boy to school." If all schools were what they should be there would be fewer recruits developing into confirmed criminals, less work for the guardians of the public peace, and a finer type of citizenship even among those respectable people who have never needed repentance. A great city can not afford to do without an " industrial school " any more than it can do without public schools. Such an institution should have for its invariable concomitants ample room for outdoor exercise and ample oppor- tunity for institutional activity. Bools learning is worth cultivating, but It should not be promoted at the expense of manual sliill directed to useful ends by trained intelligence controlled by common sense. This measure purposes to do exactly what Judge McAdoo would accomplish, but instead of waiting until the Itoy has become a criminal it takes him as he passes from the elementary school and safeguards him during the early period of adolescence. New York City has apparently awakened to the fact that some- thing must be done, and she has already taken steps to move for- ward on vocational education lines. She has established a voca- tional school for boys in charge of Dr. Charles J. Pickett. He says, touching his school: This school is not the preparation for life; it is life Itself. There is no jumping out into the world, there Is no break; what a boy does after he leaves school is only a continuation of what he has been doing here. We fit a boy to do something definite, and there is no trouble for him to get work after he leaves. The difference between our boys and those at ordinary elementary schools is that when the latter leave school they look for a job and take any- thing they can get, while our boys know what they can do and have no diffi- culty in securing the kind of work for which they are fitted. In every possible way Is the school identical in form with the actual activities in the industrial world, so that the boy at school feels that he has already gone out into the world. There is probably no State in the Union more progressive to-day along educational 1 lines than Massachusetts. In 1911 she provided a general system for vocational training and established a State board of industrial education. The executive officer of that board, Dr. David Snedden, has a reputation as one of the great educators of this country, and his reputation is not confined to the Atlantic, biit extends to the Pacific coast as well. He believes that vocational education may be so extended as to include the liberalizing influences of a cultural education. He hais — and, I believe, properly — reached the conclusion that since we can not give the boy Latin and algebra, we should adopt a curriculum which, while it teaches the boy the practical things of life, to the .end that he may earn a livelihood when he leaves school, shall at the teame time give to him a reasonable measure of cultural training. \ I want to quote from Dr. Snedden, for it shows that he has caught the inspiration of the present and is not wandering in the trackless f ( irest of the educational past — trackless, because under the condi- tJDUs confronting us to-day those tracks lead to nowhere, so far as 9 ! per cent of our boys and girls are concerned. Dr. Snedden thinks we may make the practical at the same time cultural and thus reach tl e cultural ends while at the same time equipping the boy with a p: actical education. Dr. Snedden says : For many reasons a vital vocational education, resting on concrete founda- ins and making due allowance for expansion into the related fields of science, t, history, economics, and civics, may become an exceedingly effective means ti 64 VOCATIONAL EDUCATION. of liberalizing the minds of several types of boys and girls, and especially those least capable of abstract thinking or school idealism. The demand for vocational education under school conditions Is a widespread one and Is rooted in the social and economic changes of the age. Klghtly organized vocational education will prove a profitable investment for society. There is in this country what is known as the National Educational Association. At its national convention held in Cleveland, Ohio, in 1908, this advanced ground was taken : The public high schools should not be chiefly fitting schools for higher insti- tutions, but should be adapted to the general needs, both intellectual and indus- trial, of their students and communities. Fully realizing that trained and skilled labor Is a primary essential lo the industrial and commercial welfare of the country, we cordially indorse the establishment by municipal boards of education of trade schools and evening continuation schools, and further recom- mend that the Instruction in these schools be practical and efficient and have the advice and approval of the trade Interested, to the end that graduates of these schools may at once become advanced apprentices or journeymen. Anyone who has given serious consideration to the broad question of school curriculum can not have failed to observe that the naen at the head of our State educational boards are largely graduates of universities. They have believed, and I share in that belief, that it is wise for every boy to have a college training. The curriculum of practically all our schools looks forward to the college as the ulti- mate end of all school life. Every college-bred man regards it a great misfortune that our young men are not receiving a more gen- erous cultural training, and so do I. But, Mr. President, these men forget that only 1.71 per cent of our boys ever enter the college or university. They forget that only an additional 5.35 per cent ever enter the high school. They forget that only 25 per cent of the balance ever get as high as the eighth or upper grade of the elementary or grammar school. They forget that lees than 50 per cent ever complete the seventh grade. In brief, Mr. President, they predicate their plans for the school life of the boy upon what ought to be rather than what is. They would have every boy thoroughly educated; so would I; but since this can not be, let us be practical. Let us not forget that much as we would have it otherwise, the school life of the American boy must of necessity be so changed as to teach him how to get a living. Mr. President, it is not easy to estimate the advantages which will come into our country life by the passage of this bill. Teachers of agriculture and home making will be prepared in large numbers by the agricultural colleges and the State normal and other training schools. The secondary school department will provide in the looS schools the beginnings of vocational education. The district agricultural schools will send back to the farms hun- dreds of thousands of boys to join with the father, who meanwhile has been educated by the farm or college extension work provided for by the bill; and together they would join in vitalizing, stimulat- ing, and energizing that more intelligent and more profitable farm management of which our country to-day stands in such great need. The extension work will furnish instruction and inspiration to millions of our mature farmers. The present splendid movement for the betterment of country life will be impelled forward at a faster rate. The aspirations of our best people to live on the land will be aroused. We shall see the genetically best of our great white race again seeking the land instead of deserting the country for the city. • VOCATIONAL EDTTCATION. 65 Mr. I^esident, I think I am naturally optimistic. I do not share the opinion that any one man or any set of men can destroy this Gov- ernment or for any protracted period retard its prosperity. Our people are too intelligent and too patriotic, and in the end, whatever policies may be followed, wise counsels will prevail and a generous measure of prosperity will continue. If, however, I were called upon to state what, in my judgment, was the most threatening omen of the futore, I think I should say the in- dustrial question. There is, in my judgment, only one way to remove this great spirit or unrest, and that is by giving to the sons of our laboring men an education along industrial lines. Do this, and we shall make them more self-respecting, more law-abiding, and, I hope, more patriotic citizens. Failing to do this, I fear the red flag of anarchy will even- tually be hoisted. It is not the trampling of the American flag under foot, as was done recently in New York City, that is disquieting, but rather the fact, which this trampling evidences, of a deep-seated hatred for this Gov- ernment on the part of an increasing number of our population. We are receiving into the body politic a larger quantity of material of difficult digestion than it can assimilate. The immigrants arriv- ing in this country during the month of March, 1912, were 83,654, as against 75,306 last year. We can stand this influx only by so educat- ing the next generation that we may assimilate them into our political - system. The sons of these men who come to us from southern and eastern Europe are anxious to learn, and to their credit be it said their parents are willing to make sacrifices to an extent that Ameri- can parents seem oftentimes slow to make. I believe it is within our power to so legislate that all our people, or practically all, nlay have an honest occupation — a vocation, an opportunity to earn a livelihood, an opportunity to obtain, through pleasurable labor, the wherewithal to supply the legitimate, reason- able, frugal demands and desires of mind and body. There are only two alternatives connected with this great prob- lem—first, to close our doors against immigration, or, second, to see to it that the children of those whom we permit to come from foreign shores are given an education that will fit them to earn a respectable livelihood. Since it is the policy to permit immigration, we should combine with that policy the industrial educational features of this Give the children of these immigrants an education along voca- tional lines, so that they may see that their condition is bettered be- cause of their change of residence to the United States, and they will love our institutions, love our country, and respect our flag. _ Deprive them of such an education as will make them efficient and permit them to earn a respectable livelihood and we may well fear that the red flag of anarchy will take the place of the Stars and Stripes Educate these foreign boys and they are a blessing; omit to do it, and they become a menace. Which shall we do ? Disraeli in speaking of the temperament of the Irench people. What tie French people want is bread and a clrcns— bread with which to fill their stomachs, and a circus to iinuise them. 49159— S. Doc. 845, 62-2 5 66 VOCATIONAL EDUCATION. The American people want, most of all, occupation, and at wages which will give them bread and enable them to give their children an education that will equip them for the struggles of life. Mr. President, we must not do injustice to the laboring man. Out of the abundance of our great wealth and our great prosperity we must at least see that his children have the opportunity to receive an education, and that kind of an education, too, which shall fit and equip him to be self-respecting and self-supporting, to the end that he may take his place alongside of his more favored brother. "We must so combine the advantages of the city and the country that more of our best people will live on the farms ; and, with larger and stronger families, they can help our race to gain that world leadership which can only be attained by a combination of large numbers with a high average of industrial eiSciency. Mr. President, the occupied man is a good citizen. It is easy for the agitator to call the idle man to deeds of violence and anarchy, but the agitator is not able to lead the honest arm from the anvil and the plow into deeds of destruction. Wise statesmanship lies in so administering our affairs as to give the greatest measure of universal contentment. National defense is just as effectually provided for in promoting good citizenship as in building battleships. An illiterate, unedu- cated citizen, disloyal and anarchistic, as he oftentimes is, is a greater menace to our national safety than the combined battleships of Great Britain, France, and Germany. Mr. President, parsimony is not necessarily true economy. There is that which withholdeth and yet tendeth to poverty. Sound econ- omy, in my judgment, demands the appropriations called for by this measure. If enacted into law, we shall find within the next 10 years that, instead of proving to be an expense, it will prove an investment which will return to us five, ten, or even twenty fold from an eco- nomic standpoint; and if considered with reference to that greatest of all our assets — the American boy and girl — it will prove an invest- ment which will pay returns in the form of happiness, contentment, and efficiency that reach to the infinite. Kant, the philosopher, once said that there were two things which overwhelmed him with awe as he thought of them. One was — The star-sown deep of space, without limit and without end; the other was right and wrong. Right, the sacrifice of self to good; wrong, the sacrifice of good to self. " Opinions alter, manners change, creeds rise and fall, but the moral law is written on the tablets of eternity." If in doubt as to our true pathway concerning the right and justice of this problem, let us make equity and duty our guiding stars. Mr. President, in our efforts to be prudent let us not'' be unjust. We must not be parsimonious in the treatment of this great ques- tion, for it is not only an economic but a moral and an ethical prob- lem. Dollars and cents should not be placed in the balance over against right and duty in considering this movement for the benefit of the sons of those who toil on our farms, in our mills, our mines our workshops, and our quarries. ' Let us not, Mr. President, as we pass through the wilderness keep our eyes so closely fixed upon the manna that we fail to behold the exalted peaks of Sinai. APPENDIX. 67 ENDORSEMENTS AND CRITICISMS BY LEADING EDUCATORS OF THE PAGE BILL FOR VOCATIONAL EDUCATION. AXiABAMA. J. A. Wilkinson, commissioner of agriculture and industries, says: " We of Alabama are very much interested and concerned about vocational educatiob, and we believe that the time is at hand when the Federal Government should move in this direction. " I believe that if the Federal Government would make an appropriation and lead the States in this movement, this would be one of the wisest steps that could possibly be taken by our great statesmen in Washington." James X. Powers, president State Normal College, Florence, says : " I have read the bill with interest, and hope to see it passed at an early day." J. W. Watson, A. B., president of the first district agricultural school, Jackson, says: " I am heartily in favor of the vocational educational bill, whidi is now pending in Congress, and I sincerely hope that it will pass. The progress of vocational education is very much retarded because of lack of funds ; in fact, as I see and under- stand the situation in the States, very little progress can be made along agricultural and industrial lines until Congress comes to our rescue and gives us an appropriation." Walter S. Buchanan, president State Agricultural and Mechanical College, Normal : " I have read with interest the entire bill and several com- ments on the same, and I much prefer your bill and hope it will pass. I think it the best thing that has been before Congress in several years." James K. Powers, president State Normal College, Florence : " I thank you for recent favors with copies of the Page voca- tional education bill (Senate bill No. 3) and advising me of its gf of-rig " I sincerely trust that you wUl. be able to push it through substantially as it is — certainly with all branches of the work provided for." ^ • 69 70 VOCATIONAL EDtTCATION, ABIZONA. A. J. Matthews, president Tempe Normal School of Arizona, Tempe : " I thank you for the bill relating to assistance for agricul- tural instruction -from the United States Government. I am much interested in it just now, and it is a very pertinent ques- tion at the present time. We are just about to adopt an ele- mentary agricultural course in connection with our normal school, as we have 600 acres of excellent land, and should your bill pass we would undoubtedly be benefited. "I agree most heartily with your stand for broadening the application of Federal assistance for agricultural education, and in no place can this work be more emphasized than in the State normal schools, where teachers are prepared for the public schools. It seems to me that the very root of the matter is reached through our schools. If teachers are competent and enthusiastic in such work, they have an opportunity to arouse an interest in the homes of the grammar-school pupils which represent the great mass of the pupils of our public-school system. " I congratulate you upon the far-reaching benefits of the pro- posed measure and trust that it will be made a law in the near future." Hon. Eichard E. Sloan, governor of Arizona, Phoenix : " I have carefully gone over your bill, and have consulted with some of our leading educators as to its provisions, with the result that I heartily commend the general plan outlined for the establishment and maintenance of agricultural high schools, to be supported jointly by the Federal and State Governments. Vocational training more and more is claiming the attention of educators, and wisely so, in my judgment, so that your plan is in line with this general movement and puts agriculture upon an equal footing in this regard with other applied sciences. The practical value of agricultural courses in high schools is apparent, and if our agricultural colleges are to do work of the highest quality and breadth they should be supplemented by such pre- paratory courses in the high schools. " We have made a start in this direction in Arizona, and although the amount which shall be apportioned to our State under your bill is small, still it will be a help and an encourage- ment to receive any substantial sum from the National Govern- ment, to be extended in this behalf. " I sincerely trust your bill may receive the support it deserves and that it may become a law." A. H. Wilde, president Tluiversity of Arizona, Tucson J " I am much interested in the contents of your letter and hope earnestly that your bill will yet pass." E. H. Forbes, University of Arizona, Tucson, says: "Eeplying to yours of December 4, allow me to express my heartiest appreciation of the motives actuating Senate bill No. 3, a copy of which you have just forwarded me." VOCATIONAL EDUCATION-. 71 AKKANSAS. George B. Cook, State superintendent of public instruction, Little Kock, says: _ " I regret it is impossible to attend conference, but send hearty indorsement of Page bill and assure you of most cordial cooper- ation of the Arkansas department of public instruction and my- self personally. This measure specifically recognizes the most important duty that rests upon the Nation as well as upon the individual, community, and State, the duty of training for citi- zenship through public schools." J. J. Doyne, president Arkansas State Noi-mal School, Conway, says: " No measure that has been presented for years, it seems to me, means so much to the rapid advancement of those measures so vital to the prosperity of our country." Victor C. Kays, State Agricultural School, Jonesboro, says : " This bill is one of vital interest to the fanning people, not only of the South, but of the whole country. On our farming people depends the prosperity of the rest of our population. Heretofore the farmer has received little recognition along the lines of instruction from the Federal Government. When we compare the expenditure for the uplift of the farming people with those which have been made for other classes of our popula- tion and for other purposes which are not constructive in their nature, the sums meted to agriculture and the mechanic arts seem to be a mere pittance. The people throughout this State are thoroughly alive to the benefit to be derived from aid of this sort, and they are watching the acts of their Eepresentatives with a great deal of interest to see that every effort is put forth for the passage of this bill, which seems to us to be best adapted to our needs at the present time. It would seem, with the proper direction of the efforts of our statesmen who are interested in benefiting the condition of the agricultural community, that this bill should become a law." 0. F. Adams, dean and director College of Agriculture, Univei'sity of Arkansas, Fayetteville : " The Page bill meets with my personal ideas, and is wholly adaptable to this State." CALrPORNIA. Edward Hyatt, State superintendent of public instruction, Sacra- mento, says: " Please count me in to do everything I can in my bailiwick for the Page bill. You are free to quote me to any desired extent as farvoring the bill and being ready to further its inter- est in all legitimate ways." Jesse F. Millspaugh, president California State Normal School, Los Angeles: " Important as it is, agricultural education, if given in colleges and universities only, will never popularize the farm or develop 72 VOCATIONAL EDUCATION. widespread interest in rural concerns. With well-supported agri- cultural colleges in every State to develop the science and estab- lish foci for its extension, the high schools and the normal schools must carry this gospel^ to the people and particularly to the boys and girls of the Nation if its teachings and spirit are ever really to infect the population. " I believe that no more important educational measure has ever been proposed than that which is contemplated by the Page bUl. It is said that, with the exception of the emancipation procla- mation, the most far-reaching act of President Lincoln's adminis- tration was his signing of the Morrill bill establishing our national system of agricultural and mechanical colleges. The Page vocational bill, when enacted into law, will take its place in history as the natural supplement of that great achievement and of equal importance to it." G. W. Shaw, college of agriculture, University of California, Berkeley : " It is my firm opinion that the passage of the Page bill will mean more to the country than two-thirds of the money which is spent in various engineering projects, and that it is a move in the right direction. It has my hearty indorsement, and I sin- cerely hope that Congress may pass the bill as it stands. " I shall certainly give you all the assistance possible in urging the passage of a measure which is so vital to the agricultural and industrial interests of the country." M. Lillian Trimble, department of home economics. Mills College, Mills College Post Office: " The Page vocational education bill, to which you have re- cently called my attention, receives my heartiest approval. It will inevitably raise the standard of living of the masses through instruction in the use of resources. I want to commend you and your coworkers for your activity in promoting a measure so full of promise." E. W. Hilgard, college of agriculture, University of California, Berkeley : " I have received and perused with great satisfaction the bill introduced by you for the purpose of aiding the States in estab- lishing instruction in agriculture in the schools. This is a matter about which I have spoken and written for the last 35 years, being convinced that agricultural colleges, established under the Morrill Act, will never be able to attain their full usefulness in educating teachers and leaders of progress, until instruction in agriculture is introduced into the elementary and intermediate schools. They have been charged with ' educating boys away from the farm,' where, as a matter of fact, it is the public schools fashioned upon a schedule applicable to the city children which alienates them from the farm, since in no way is their attention directed to farming, except by hard work at home. The nation-wide movement now on foot for correcting this evil is what I have been hoping for all of m.j life, and I welcome most warmly the initiative taken by you m giving national aid VOCATIONAL EDUCATION. 73 to this important subject, provided the States will do so them- selves." Mrs. Nellie W. Hnnt, secretary California State Grange, Napa: " Your letter under date of March 2 is before me. After hav- ing read over the literature which accompanied this letter, I can assure you that the bill meets with my entire approval. " I have mailed the literature to the chairman of our committee on education, who I know will give it his very earnest considera- tion, and be prepared to bring the matter to the attention of our State grange at the proper time." COLORADO. Z. X. Snyder, president State Teachers' College, Greeley : " I had been interested in Senate bill No. 3 by Senator Page ever since its first introduction into the United States Congress. I do not know of anything that the United States Congress could do that would so directly aid in the development of the general intelligence of the people through an educational process as the passage and carrying into effect properly this bill. Edu- cation for efllciency must, first, train an individual to earn a living to secure and own a home; second, to be of service to others in making life better and richer ; and third, in having an abiding interest in the development of our institutional life, as the home, the school, and the State. These mark the efficiency of the school system. Our school system has not been such as to attain these ends. It seems to me this bill will lead more directly to it than any other means apparent at the present time. I am heartily in favor of it ; the people of the State of Colorado are in favor of it; the State Teachers' Association and the Educational Council of Colorado have made a report in favor of it ; the State institutions of Colorado have given a report in favor of it— indeed, there are none against it" At a meeting of the Colorado Teachers' Association a resolu- ticm fOTmally indwsing Senate bill 3 was adopted, and at a later meeting of the educational council of Colorado the com- mittee on vocational instruction made a report strongly favoring the enactment of Senate bill 3 and mdorsed the action of the Colorado Teachers' Association. COWNECTICtrT. Henry T. Burr, principal State Normal Training School, Wil- lim antic : " I have carefully read the report on vocational education and the bill which accompanies your letter of February 29. With the objects of this bill I am in entire sympathy. I sincerely hope the bill will pass . ■,■ . ,. , "The need of greatly extended opportunities for vocational education is felt by nearly everyone who is connected with the schools. It seems to me that the matter is of great importance to the country at large, and I believe that Congress would be 74 VOCATIONAL EDTJOATION. altogether justified in appropriating money for the purposes noted in this bill." Howell Cheney, member State board of education, South Man- chester : " I agree with you most decidedly that education for the en- couragement of the trades and industries has not had its fair share of public support, which certainly can not be said of the agricultural schools." Charles L. Beach, president of the Connecticut Agricultural Col- lege, Storrs, says: " I am heartily in favor of the passage of a bill in aid of agri- cultural extension. The results from an investment of this character promise large returns, and I trust that the present Con- gress may take favorable action upon this important measure." BELAWABB. Harry Hayward, director Agricultural Experiment Station, Dela- ware College, Newark: " I have your letter of February 16, inclosing a revised copy of Senate bill No. 3, known as the Page bill. I. have examined this bill with some care, and it will be a pleasure for me to exert all my influence to secure its passage. I am confident that I also speak for the State board of education, as well as for the trustees of this institution, when I say that I hope the bill will pass dur- ing the present session of Congress. "I hope that you will have no difficulty in getting your bill through, as I believe that it is the most comprehensive measure of its kind ever presented to Congress." DISTRICT OF COLUMBIA. Clarence J. Owens, secretary-treasurer of the Southern Commercial Congress, Washington, says : " The Southern Commercial Congress, through its executive officers, has approved the Page vocational education bill now pending in the Senate. Without sectional or political motives the Southern Commercial Congress has been named by friends of this measure as the national headquarters for the advocacy of the passage of the bill." Dr. Myers, principal of the McKinley Manual Training School at Washington, says: "After considerable study of the subject, with particular at- tention to Germany, which is far ahead of other countries in training for the industries, I am forced to the conclusion that a satisfactory system of industrial education in this country must include a working over of the elementary school curricu- lum in such a way as to make the industrial activities of the community the vitalizing factor in it." VOCATIONAL EDtTCATION. 75 r>r. William Davison, newly elected superintendent of public schools, District of Columbia, says: " I am in favor of working out further the idea of introducing vocational subjects into the curriculum of the schools. People are beginning to realize that boys and girls must be taught to earn a living and that they can not spend their entire time in studying so-called classical subjects. . AH children must be edu- cated on their ethical side and must be taught about the higher things of life, but they must also be taught that they must sup- port themselves and be given lessons in how to earn money. Our schools should be well balanced, with both these ideas kept well to the front. I have just written a letter giving my hearty in- dorsement to the Page bill, known as Senate bul No. 3. I am exceedingly pleased to know that you have received such an un- qualified and hearty indorsement of your bill from the State superintendents of the public institutions throughout the country." Myron Germain Jones, director of education in the Washington Young Men's Christian Association, says : " What private initiative has amply attested as wise and needed ; what careful investigations of educational leaders, econ- omists, and captains of industry have clearly shown to be the new demand if we are to be a nation of producers ; what States like Minnesota, Iowa, Ohio, and Massachusetts have already done in consolidated rural schools and in trade-training systems related to local industry, would all go to demonstrate the desirability of enacting the provisions of this bill into our Federal scheme of education, and that without delay. " The educational work is democratic and Christlike because of its humbler aims — ^humbler as regards culture per se, but vaster as regards humanity. It aims not, like the university, to reach and teach a maximum of knowledge and truth, but to evolve the maximum of individual manhood; to reach down to the man who has not had a chance, to help him up, to put his feet on the first step he can now reach, to help him upward, stair by stair, as he is able to advance, not necessarily to the highest reach of truth and knowledge attainable by man, but to the highest at- tainable by this man, practicable for him; to make his life the greatest, richest, and most helpful it can be made within his span of being." The Evening Star, Washington, says: "The rural educational problem is one that has long been neglected. It is also one of the most important problems of the present day. Fifty-five per cent of the population of the United States live in rural districts and in small villages. Sixty -five per cent of the children are there. In many parts of the country we still have the one-room school, where the teacher is supervisor, principal, superintendent, and teacher all in one. " Too many boys are being turned loose in the world to live in a makeshift way; turned loose without any one desirable thing 76 VOCATIONAL EDUCATION". having been well enough learned to make a living at H. A good brick mason is surer of a comfortable life than an indifferent law- yer and is a bigger factor in the upbuilding of the world. A. P. Bourland, of the board of trustees of the Peabody Education Fund, Washiugton : "I shall be obliged if you will have sent me 20 copies of the bill encouraging instruction in agriculture, along with 20 copies of the Eeport on Vocational Education. If you will let me know of any specific service I can render I shall be gratified, i am finding no opposition to the bilL" TLORIDA. William Halloway, State superintendent of public instruction, Tallahassee, says : " The State department of education and the friends of edu- cation throughout Florida are strongly in favor of the passage of the Page bUl." J. J. Vernon, dean of the college of agriculture, University of Florida, says: " The Page bill, Senate 3, is both practical and comprehensive. It is the best bill yet offered having for its purpose the training of the sadly neglected masses. It is socially and economically sound. Congressional action is necessary to draw out backward States. The action of Congress is urgently needed. I indorse the Page bill." W. B. Cate, principal Florida Normal Institute and Commercial College, Madison: ^" I have just read Senate bill No. 3, known as the Page school bill, and heartily approve of it." GEORGIA. M. L. Brittain, State superintendent of education, Atlanta, says: " I feel a great interest in the Page bill. It seems to me that the measure proposed is directed toward a vital need. It so happens that, through the concentration of wealth in urban localities, the child in the city and town receives from two to ten times as much educational assistance as the one on the farm. This, too, despite the fact that we are all dependent upon the results of the work of those engaged in agriculture. " I earnestly hope that the bill will pass, and that in this way more help may be given to each State to promote rural life and prosperity." Southern Machinery, Atlanta, says : " That industrial education has assumed national importance and is attracting attention throughout the United States is shown by a bill recently introduced in the Senate by Senator Carroll S. Page, with a view to Government aid to the States in promoting a better system of education along agricultural and industriiu VOCATIONAL EDTJOATION. 77 lines and in home economics. The bill as it stands at present may not be entirely satisfactory in every respect, but the subject is worthy the best thought of the Nation. Industrial education has been tried in a comparatively small way and found to be helpful. It has passed the experimental stage and bids fair to become one of the most important branches of public instruc- tion." Hon. G. Gunby Jorden, president board of education, Colimibus, says: " From, a long experience in manufacturing and in farming, together with continued service for several years as a trustee in one of the State schools of agriculture in Georgia, and as presi- dent of the boaxd of education of Columbus, Ga., I have had opportunities in forming a very decided opinion upon the neces- sity for vocational education in the United States. I have never had occasion to change my views as to the great necrasity for Federal aid in this regard. "A thorough training of the youths of this land in industrial, agricultural, and vocational work would save untold millions, wasted now in senseless strikes and pitiless lockouts, by a better and saner acquaintance between capital and labor. " The Federal Government, in my opinion, dealing equitably and fairly with all the States and Territories in this regard, is not only well within its constitutional rights but could make no appropriation of money which would so soon, so thoroughly, and so lastingly benefit the people." H. J. Pearce, president Brenan College Conservatory, Gaines- ville : " I have read with considerable interest your bill which you have had the kindness to send me, and I am entirely in sympathy with the general plan proposed." J. D. Wood, secretary of the Atlanta Builders' Exchange, At- lanta : " "We are pleased to acknowledge receipt of your letter of April 19 in reference to the Page bill now pending in the Senate, and to say that the same will have the hearty approval and sup- port of the Atlanta Builders' Exchange." IDAHO. G. M. Shepherd, State superintendent of public instruction, Boise, " It may please you to know that at a meeting of the Idaho State Teachers' Association, held January 4 to 6, the association passed a resolution urging our Kepresentatives in Congress to do all in their power to pass Senate bill 3. " I sincerely hope the bill will pass Congress at this session. 1 am particularly desirous that it pass at this time so that at our next legislature we may pass laws in harmony with the Page bill. The greater part of our Stat^ is agricultural and we need schools such as the bill makes possible. Too long has our educational system been at fault in tiiat it did not prepare our boys and girls 78 VOCATIOITAL EDUCATION. for useful citizenship. We need to educate them for the farm and the trades rather than away from them. " I hope a few narrow-minded people who are always crymg expense will be able to see that this is one of the greatest and best pieces of legislation for the welfare of the Nation that has ever been introduced. " We will be glad to assist in any way we can to secure the passage of this bill." Earl S. Woostei*, dean rural department, Lewiston State Normal School, Lewiston: " I am very glad to state to you that I am heartily in favor of the general purpose of the Page bill, and trust that nothing will stand in the way of its passage. I shall be very glad indeed to do anything within my power to assist in the passage of this bill." G. A. Axline, president State Normal School, Albion : " During the past six weeks either myself or members of my faculty have attended meetings of the public-school trustees of Fremont, Bonneville, Bannock, Lincoln, Twin Falls, Blaine, Owyhee, and Elmore Counties. In each one of these counties the trustees expressed a strong desire for vocational education in the public schools. You are right in believing that the people are demanding vocational education, and I believe that it will be a mistake for their Representatives in Congress to neglect this demand. " I readily appreciate the fact that men who do not come in as close contact with the patrons of the public schools as I do may not be aware of the very rapid and strong growth of public senti- ment toward vocational education during the past four years. I am quite certain that there are many Congressmen who would vote in favor of your bill if they understood the real situation who now are opposing it because they do not realize the demand of the people for a legislation of this sort." L. C. Aicher, superintendent Aberdeen Agricultural Experiment Station, University of Idaho, Boise: " I am heartily in favor of your proposed bill and shall do all I can to further its interests. " There is no question but what the passage of such a bill would cause a wonderful stimulus to the industrial, agricultural, and vocational work of our great country." J. S. Welch, superintendent Gooding Agricultural Experiment Station, University of Idaho, Boise : " Have carefully read copy of Senate bill No. 3 and am glad to give it my hearty indorsement. Hope that it may pass both Houses." E. J. Iddings, department of animal husbandry. University of Idaho : " I have your favor of some days ago in regard to the Page bill for extending aid to the agricultural colleges. I have looked over VOCATIONAL EDUCATIOlir. 79 the bill and earnestly hope that its provisions may be enacted into law. Agricultural education is immensely popular, and the great trouble in forwarding the movement for better agriculture is that we have not enough trained men to handle the work and are woe- fully deficient in funds for experimental work, demonstration work, teaching, and for carrying out other functions of the agri- cultural colleges and experiment stations. I wish to extend my support for whatever it may be worth toward the cause repre- sented by the Page bill." iLLnsrois. BTon. C. S. Deneen, governor of Illinois, says : " Since acknowledging the receipt of your letter of the 11th instant, I have read the bill inclosed and I am in sympathy with its provisions concerning the introduction of vocational instruc- tion in the public schools of the secondary class. These provi- sions are in harmony with the suggestions and recommendations of our State educational commission, which has just completed a codification of our school laws and the preparation of courses of study in agriculture, manual training, and domestic science for use in these schools, as well as in the country schools of the State. " With the general purpose of the bill to further the introduc- tion into the public-school system of the States of education in the practical arts and sciences, I am in hearty accord." Edwin G. Cooley, former superintendent of the Chicago public schools, says: "America's resources, though great, are not infinite, and we must learn the lesson of efficiency in work if we are to maintain our place. We can become a true democracy only when we are as much concerned about training a good blacksmith as we are about training a good lawyer — when our system of schools offers equal opportunities to all." Frank M. Leavitt, associate professor of industrial education in the University of Chicago, says: " The purpose of the proposed legislation seems to be to provide well-rounded vocational courses as well as general preparation for agriculture, trades, and industries, and home making suited to the respective sections of the United States. It includes encouragement for those permanently engaged in these vocations, and ' not necessarily graduated for elementary schools,' by the estabiishment of short, practical courses. It purposes to promote earlier interest in the scientific study of these fundamental human activities by giving appropriate in- struction in specialized normal courses. The movement to furnish an adequate education for the agricultural and industrial workers of the country is now well under way, and renewed interest would certainly be stimulated by the passage of the Page bill. The bill deserves the careful reading and, we believe, the active support of those who hope for the rapid extension of free public education." 80 VOCATIONAL EDUCATION. The editor of the Farm Homej Springfield, says: " This office will take great pleasure in aiding you in any pos- sible way in the passage of the bill." The editor of the American Bee Journal, Chicago, says: " I am in hearty accord with your effort and trust that it may be successful." The editor of the Farmers' Review, Chicago, says: "I consider this measure along the right line. There is no doubt of the need of greater activity along this line for our public schools. It should be included in every school curriculum." David Felmley, president Illinois State Normal University, Normal : " For several years I have been watching with great interest the gradual evolution of what is now known as the Page voca- tional bill. In this normal school we are now maintaining strong departments of agriculture, manual training, and domestic science'. Nine teachers are now employed in these branches ex- clusively. We shall be glad of the additional funds that the bill promises for further development of this department This institution is thoroughly committed to training teachers in the so-called vocational branches, and we heartily approve of your bill, especially of the provision for the aid to State normal schools." D. B. Parkinson, president Southern Illinois State Normal Uni- versity, Carbondale: " Your favor of recent date received. I am very grateful for a copy of the complete bill relative to the special provision for the department of agriculture and home economics. I am per- sonally very much interested in this bill, and was glad to be present in St. Louis this week when the normal school section indorsed said bill, a notice of which will doubtless be sent you. From my point of view, the provisions of the bill are most ex- cellent and will be of great benefit to the country. I most earn- estly hope that it soon may become a law." Miss Mary D. Chambers, Rockf ord College, Eockf ord : " I have read your bill with nothing short of enthusiastic de- light. My only wonder is that provision has not been made for the teaching of these subjects years and years ago. We have been following the stars and their courses in our educational curricula and ignoring the things that make for human welfare. " It is needless to say that the success of this measure has my heartfelt wishes." L. B. Eidmann, lecturer. Patrons of Husbandry, State Grange of Illinois, Mascoutah : " I heartily indorse the bill and shall use my influence to aid in the passage of the same." VOCATIONAL EDUCATION. 81 INDIANA. Hon. Thomas E. Marshall, governor of Indiana, Indianapolis : "I have read with much interest the document touching the Page vocational bill. I have never been quite sure whether it was the duty of the General Government to furnish higher edu- cation ; but if it is, I am quite sure it could put money to no better use than vocational training. The farmer and the skilled me- chanic will soon be as great a curiosity in America as the stone man if something be not done to render labor not only honorable but attractive." Charles A. Greathouse, State superintendent of public instruction, says: " The measure you are supporting is certainly a valuable one." IOWA, Albert M. Deyoe, State superintendent of public instruction, Des Moines, says: " I wish to thank you for a copy of Senate bill 3. I heartily approve of this measure, and wish to assure you that you may depend upon my support in bringing about its passage. " I believe that encouragement and assistance from a national source would be a great incentive to the promotion of vocational training in all the States. I believe there is no issue of more vital importance in the United States to-day than the matter of constructive legislation along educational lines." H. H. Seerley, chairman national committee on agricultural edu- cdtion, and president of the Iowa State Teachers' College, Ames, says : " The education of the whole people is so important and the training of teachers to do the work is so imperative that the United States should have a hand in the business. The State superintendents and the State normal schools give their enthusi- astic support to the Page bill. It ought to be treated as one of the greatest measures of this age, as it means the betterment of the whole country. "Appropriations thus made will help the people-to be self- reliant, self-directive, and self-supporting, and, in the end, bring returns in citizenship and in prosperity that can not be estimated. The making of this measure into the law of the land would pro- duce a revolution in educational lines that would create a new era of enterprise and progress. " Our present legislature is passing a bill that will introduce to a limited extent agriculture and domestic arts into at least 100 high schools during the coming year. This will be a step in the right direction, but the problem involves matters of such great importance to the country industrially that such slow procedure is hardly satisfactory. "I trust that the National Government may see fit to become cooperator in educational advancement as well as in other lines already so thoroughly indorsed." 49159— S. Doc. 845. 62-2 6 82 VOCATIONAL EDUCATION. G. F. Curtiss, of the Iowa State College of Agriculture and Mechanic Arts, says : " I am pleased to give the bill my hearty indorsement. The public-school system of America is lamentably weak in failing to make provision for this kind of education. The United States can not hope to hold a leading place among the industrial nations without the training of young men for efficient service in indus- trial work. " This problem lies at the foundation of industrial prosperity in all sections of our country, and the passage of this measure is of vital importance and ought not to be long delayed." J. F. Monk, of Tobin College, Iowa, says : " We sincerely trust that you may be able to secure the legis- lation of this character, for a comparatively small investment along these lines will certainly bring immense returns in the future." The editor of Pierce's Farm Weeklies, of Des Moines, the Iowa Homestead, Wisconsin Farmer, and Farmer and Stockman, says: " We are greatly interested in this matter, and intend to com- ment quite liberally upon your bill in an early number of Pierce's Farm Weeklies." The editor of the Creamery Journal, of Waterloo, says : " It seems to me that you have struck a very important line of work. There is no question whatever but that the Government should take an active part in this great educational movement, and you may count upon us for support." The editor of Successful Farming, Des Moines, writes : " The prosperity of the world depends on successful farming, and successful farming depends upon the rural schools. I hope your efforts will meet with success." The editor of Kimball's Dairy Farmer of Waterloo, says : " You are to be most heartily congratulated upon having intro- duced a bill of such far-reaching significance. Your bill most certainly ought to pass, and you may count upon us to do what- ever we can to promote its popularity." " I have been in position to know the need of instruction of this kind. In every village, town, and city there are many young people to whom the public schools are distasteful because they do not offer work that is of vital interest in fighting the battle for bread. "The purpose of such schools is to develop citizens. The courses that are being offered tend to stimulate mental activity and to cultivate an appreciation of literature and art. Both of these are commendable but they are scarcely sufficient in them- selves, and until we give the young people of this country a little training that willhelp them to provide means whereby they can enjoy these finer things of life we have not done our duty. VOCATIONAL EDUCATION. 83 " There are many boys who find their school work distasteful because it is so largely theoretical. If these same young people could be trained to use the hand as well a:s the brain their interest would be intensified and they would continue their school work longer than many are now doing. I can testify to all of the above from actual schoolroom experience. "Another thing that should commend this bill and secure its passage is the benefit that it wiU be to the agricultural in- dustry. It is a trite saying that prosperity goes on crutches when crops go wrong. Farming is fundamental to national prosperity, but the farms of to-day are different from the farms of 20 years ago, and the farmer of to-day has problems to solve which the farmer two decades ago knew nothing about. " Conservation of the soil is more vital than conservation of any other natural resources. The problems that are meeting the farmers to-day are only a foretaste of those that will confront the farmer 20 years from now. If we are to continue to enjoy Erosperity we must equip farmers of future generations with a Qowledge of fundamental principles that will make it possible ~ for them to meet the problems of larger production and better care of land and crops. " The funds which this bill provides for carrying on the work that it outlines should not stand in the way of its passage. They are so infinitesimal when compared with the benefits that are to be derived that they are scarcely worthy of consideration. " If the people of the United States are to continue to hold the enviable position which they now enjoy they must meet such problems in a businesslike manner. The farmers and taxpayers generally should be anxious to provide for the measure." John H. T. Main, president, Grinnell College, Grinnell : " I have your letter of February 22, together with Senate bill No. 3. I have read the bill with a great deal of interest and wish to assure you that I thoroughly approve of it. I have always been in favor of Federal appropriations for education. Fifteen million dollars annually for this purpose is small as compared with the money appropriated for some other pur- poses that seem to many people not so important as the money appropriated for them seems to indicate." Dr. Francis K Strickland, president, Simpson College, Indianola : " I thank you for sending me the bill on vocational education and the report of the subcommittee of the Senate. "Education, to serve the highest purposes of the Republic, must keep very close to the life of the people. When an educa- tional institution is out of touch with the life of community in which it exists, its days are numbered. I am very glad that the Federal Government is to cooperate in this big and important business." S. A. Beach, professor and vice dean departm'ent of horticulture and forestry, Iowa College and Experiment Station, Ames : " I have your favor concerning the Page bill (S. 3). I assure you that this bill has my hearty indorsement and I shall be pleased to do whatever I can to assist in securing its passage." 84 VOCATIONAL EDUCATION. KAIfSAS. E. T. Fairchild, superintendent of public instruction for the State of Kansas, Topeka, says : " I have just received your favor of June 26 and a copy of Senate bill 3. I have read this with much interest, and am glad to state that it seems to me to be a most worthy measure. I am heartily in sympathy with the motto ' more books and fewer battleships.' " The editor of the Western School Journal, of Topeka, says: " I have looked through the bill, and it seems to me it ought to pass." The editor of the Missouri Valley Farmer, Topeka, says: " Your bill seems designed to correct a great evil, and the Government may well concern itself about the matter." Joseph H. Hill, president, Kansas State Normal School, Emporia : " I wish to acknowledge the receipt of the report of the sub- committee of the committee on agriculture and vocational edu- cation, and in accordance with your request I am very glad to say that I am in general sympathy with the purposes of the bill mentioned." R. T. Campbell, president. Cooper College, Sterling: " Have read with interest the copy of your proposed bill touching instruction of agriculture and home economics in sec- ondary schools. I am glad to lend my indorsement to the pro- posed bill, and believe its passage would mean much for the majority of our boys and girls." A. M. Ten Eyck, superintendent Fort Hays Branch Experi- ment Station of the Kansas State Agricultural College, Hays : " I have carefully read the Page vocational education bill. It is a magnificent proposition, which, if carried out, will mean more to this country in the next 10 years in the way of material, industrial, and educational advancement than any brain can now conceive. " The feature which I especially like about this bill is the splendid aid which will be given toward teaching the teachers to teach agriculture, and inT)ringing instruction m agriculture to the masses of the people rather than to the 6 or 7 per cent who are able to secure a college or university training. " I am an agricultural college and experiment station worker. I am spending my life in the work of these institutions. But the Page bill treats our State colleges and experiment stations royally, besides making possible this greater and more impor- tant work — the industrial education of nine-tenths of our people who can never attend our higher schools and colleges." VOCATIONAL EDUCATION. 85 KENTUCKY. Barksdale Hamlett, superintendent public instruction, Hopkins- ville, says : "I have no hesitancy in stating on behalf of the people in Kentucky, and especially those who are alive to educational needs, that we regard this as one of the most important measures before the present Congress and sincerely hope that it will be passed at an early date and signed by the President. I believe that the passage of this bill, even though the appropriation will be small compared with the other great governmental expendi- tures, will do more for the cause of agricultural interests than anything that has been done in the past 50 years. I sincerely hope that it will be passed." J. G. Crabbe, president, Eastern Kentucky State Normal, Eich- mond, says: "I regret that previous engagements prevented my attending conference behalf of Page bill (S. 3). I beg to assure the con- ference that Kentucky educators believe this bill is vitally impor- tant to a broader national view and responsibility as to fitting our children for successful life. " It receives the hearty support of educators throughout the country, and in my opinion is a very desirable measure, as the questions involved are among the most important in present-day needs." The Courier Journal, Louisville, says: "The country is gradually waking up to the importance of vocational education. To put such an education within reach of the masses is a gigantic undertaking. Advocates of the Page bill believe that the measure presents the only practical plan that so far has been devised." Ellsworth Eegenstein, late State superintendent of public instruc- tion, Frankfort, says : " Your letter of the 2d instant, with inclosed copy of Senate bill 3, has been received. The bill meets with my approval, and I shall be glad to cooperate with you in bringing about its passage." LOUISIANA. T. H. Harris, of the department of education, Louisiana, says : " I have examined the bill and wish to give it my indorsement. I think it is a good one and trust that it will pass both Houses. I wish that I could be present in person and render all possible assistance." Brandt V. B. Dixon, president, department of education and hygiene. The Tulane University of Louisiana, New Orleans : " Your bill in favor of vocational education appeals to me very strongly. I am not prepared to discuss the matter from the standpoint of political considerations, but speaking as a teacher, 86 VOCATIONAL EDUCATION. and especially as a teacher of young women, I approve most heartily of any effort tending to advance the practical and vocational studies. . . - ., . " The great need of modern education, m my opinion, is that it should devote itself to the culture of the will— the constructive processes of the mind— by means of laboratory methods espe- cially. Our young women should be made more resourceful, self- reliant, fitted for success, than they are at present. The same amount of culture can be secured as by the methods now in use. ■ We will, however, need to develop a new race of teachers." MAINE. President Fellows, of flie University of Maine, says: " By means of assistance proposed in this bill we can accom- plish m five years what would otherwise require a century." Payson Smith, superintendent of public schools, Augusta, says : " I have examined with much care Senate bill 3, which you sent me with a request for suggestion. I fail to note any points what- ever in which this bill could be improved. It strikes me that it is so framed that it meets most acceptably the varying conditions of control of the several States. I am certainly much in favor of the enactment of a measure of this kind, and shall be very happy to be of any possible service in promoting its interests." MARYLAND. M. Bates Stephens, superintendent. State department of education of Maryland, Annapolis : " I congratulate you most sincerely on having the bill favorably reported. It looks to me like a good omen for its successful passage. " Let me know any time I can serve you in promoting the bill in any way." B. H. Crocheron, principal of the agricultural high school of Sparks, says: " I am greatly obliged to you for the literature relative to the Page bill, concerning which I am exceedingly hopeful. I, of course, believe in the bill, and am doing all possible to bring it before the people. I hope to secure its consideration at the National Country Life Congress to be held at Spokane November 23-29." James B. Hessong, secretary Baltimore Chamber of Commerce, Baltimore : "At a meeting of the board of directors of the Baltimore Chamber of Commerce held on the 11th instant, a report was submitted by our crop improvement committee regarding Senate bill No. 3, as amendedj now before Congress. " We consider this bill, if passed, will be of great advantage to Maryland, and our board desires to call your attention to same with the request that ybu support it with your vote and in- fluence." VOCATIONAL BDITCATION. 87 MASSACHUSETTS. M. L. Burton, president Smith College, Northampton: "Senate bill No. 3 with the report of the subcommittee on vocational education reached me in due time and I have read it with the deepest interest. Of course, it is impossible for me to enter into the details of the actual administration of the bill, but I can not tell you how thoroughly and heartily I approve of the general plan which is involved. I believe there is noth- ing more fundamental for the American Nation in the future than that there should be Federal aid for agricultural and vocational education. It lies at the very basis of our whole national life. In saying this I, of course, do not mean for a moment that our colleges of liberal arts should be altered or that their ideals should be changed, but merely that alongside of our present educational system there should be fine oppor- tunities for every boy and girl to equip themselves for work on the farm, in the shop, and m the home. I am with you in this matter and appreciate very highly the work you are doing." L. H. Murlin, president Boston University, Boston : " I have been quite interested in your bill providing for a Federal appropriation to encourage vocational eckication. I most heartily agree with the principles involved. I should not want any reflection made upon the old ideal of education — the study of the classics, and mathematics; but I quite agree with you that wider educational opportunity should be offered in elementary education." Louis H. Buckley, chairman board of trustees, "Worcester Trade School, Worcester : " I will be glad to hold myself in readiness to assist you in any way possible in the advancement of the passage of this bill. " I hope that you may be successful in your efforts to enact this bill which promises so much for the advancement of agricultural and industrial education in our country." Miss Alice J. Bunce, director Mack Industrial School, Salem : " Have received a copy of Senate bill No. 3 and also the re- port of the subcommittee on agriculture and forestry. " I most heartily approve of the bill and believe that the pas- sage of such a bill would improve our country's condition and would well repay the money to be spent." ■ G. M. Winslow, principal Lasell Seminary for Young Women, Aubumdale : "I have been much interested in looking over the bill which you have introduced into Congress for the advancement in in- struction in agriculture, trades, and household economics. " For many years our school has been giving special attention to preparing yoimg women for home making, consequently we feel that in this department you are giving a big boost to one " No work which we have done has seemed to us more worth while in its results than the help we have been able to give our 88 VOCATIONAL EDUCATION. Students in the way of fitting them directly for the work which they are bound to have later. .r.- • "Your bill if carried through will do the same thing in a broader field. If carried out in the same spirit, this bill will be comparable in its beneficent results to the Morrill bill, which every Vermonter refers to with pride as a work of a fellow statesman." James A. McKibben, secretary Boston Chamber of Commerce, Boston : " The committee on education of the Boston Chamber of Com- merce has carefully considered Senate bill No. 3, giving Federal aid to education in industry, agriculture, and the domestic arts in the secondary schools of the several Stateis, and believes it to be one of the most important measures which has been before Congress this year. " The passage of this bill would stimulate further efforts in those States in which vocational education is already provided and it would encourage this important tjrpe of education in the States that are now ^x)0 poor or too indifferent to take the initia- tive themselves. Above all, it will focus public att«ntion in the best way possible upon the important part in the development of the United States which sound vocational education is certain to play. The bill is so framed as to encourage gradual and sound development of the right types of vocation education. "The measure is so safeguarded that the Federal money is not likely to be wasted; and with such bodies as the National Society for the' Promotion of Industrial Education and the National Association of Manufacturers watching the work of the law and aiding the States in carrying it out, there is every reason to believe that the results of this legislation will be far- reaching. "The directors of the chamber at their meeting on May 9 unanimously adopted the report of the committee on education, recommending that the chamber heartily indorse this bill. I trust that you will use your influence in promoting the passage of this bill." .John Golden, general president United Textile Workers of America, Fall River : " I am taking this means of informing you that, as a member of the executive committee of the National Society for the Pro- motion of Industrial Education, and also on behalf of the inter- national organization I represent, that I am heartily in favor of the bill introduced in your name bearing on industrial edu- cation." The "Weekly Bulletin, Boston, says : " The educational bill recently introduced in the United States Senate by Senator Page, of Vermont, is printed in full in this week's issue. The scope of this bill and the good that it is intended to do the young people of the United States is of tremendous importance and shows a policy on the part of Sen- ator Page of endeavoring to carry through one of the best meas- ures which this country has every seen." VOCATIONAL EDUCATION. 89 Herbert Myrick, president National League for Industrial Educa- tion, and editor of the Orange Judd Agricultural Weekly, at Spring- field, says : "Rest assured that not only our periodicals but our entire or- ganization will do every thing possible to promote this beneficent bill." Deputy Commissioner C. A. Prosser, of the State board of edu- cation, says: " The vocational school differs from the regular high school in aim, content, method, and social function. The high school gives general training for life; the vocational gives specific training for a definite calling. The difference is organized knowledge with deferred values as contrasted with applied knowledge and immediate values. The method of the high school is abstract and formal; that of the vocational concrete and direct. " The two should not be regarded as competitive, but as par- allel institutions, each tapping a different school strata." The Commercial Bulletin, Boston, says : " The bill introduced by Senator Carroll S. Page, of Vermont, to encourage instruction in agriculture, the trades and indus- tries, and home economics in secondary schools, is still pending before Congress. " There is no doubt that industrial education is not developed to anything like the extent to which it mi^ht well be developed in this country, and if we are to remain in the front rank of manufacturing nations, we must have not only the best machinery in the world, but also the best-trained hands and brains to operate it. " Whether Senator Page's bill will accomplish all that is hoped from it is, of course, uncertain, but it is gratifying to note that the legislative branch of our National Government is devoting intelligent thought to a problem that is as serious and important as any bill that can come before them, as it concerns the welfare and progress of our people." The Journal of Education, of Boston, says: "A bill of considerable interest to educators, and especially to those engaged in vocational training, was introduced in the United States Senate last April by Senator Page, of Vermont. As the bill is framed, it seems to be in shape for final passage, and it is certainly a bill that we should like to see made into a law. Its provisions are generous, and it would stir up all those States that are in need of an incentive along the lines of indus- trial education and vocational training." Lewis C. Grandy, editor the Printing Art, Cambridge, says: "We have read with much interest the copy of the bill you recently introduced in the Senate to encourage instruction in agriculture, the trades, industries, etc. There is a great need of the Government xmdertaking this work. 90 VOCATIOKAL EDUCATION'. "It is obvious that there is great need for more industrial schools in this country, such as those in which German workmen are trained. The establishment of such schools can be brought about if a determined effort is made. A comjDrehensive plan for education along agricultural and industrial lines is included in a bill Senator Page, of Vermont, has recently introduced in the United States Senate. This may not be entirely satisfactory to everyone and some of the details can perhaps be amended slightly, but its general purpose is such that it should receive hearty support." Horticulture, published at Boston, says: " Senate bill 3, by Senator Carroll S. Page, now in the hands of the Committee on Agriculture and Forestry, provides for Government aid to the States in promoting a better system of edu- cation along agricultural and industrial lines and home eco- nomics. The problem of wise and efficient training of young men and young women, always a paramount one, becomes now more serious than ever, under the restrictions on a broad-gauge, mechanical knowledge imposed by existing factory methods in the division of labor and by labor union prescriptions. The high school, the academy, and the college are taking excellent care of those boys who are financially able to avail themselves of their advantages, but for him who can not, little remains but the pros- pect of a cheap manhood. If the entry of the National Govern- ment into a comprehensive and liberal cooperation with the States for instruction in agriculture and the trades will modify and improve these defects in our industrial system, then by all means let us have it, even if it becomes necessary to economize by cutting out a battleship or two. It is an excellent measure, and we hope it will receive a favorable reception everywhere." Max Mitchell, superintendent of Federated Jewish Charities, Bos- ton, Mass., says:' "I am very much interested in this bill and want to add a word of indorsement for the passage of the bill, which tries to cooperate with the States in encouraging instruction in agricul- ture, trades, and industries. " In the work that I am doing I have for many years felt the great need of work of this kind. I feel that the poor boy does not get a fair chance or an equal chance with the rich boy or the boy of the well-to-do parents to obtain a proper education. In the early years, when the child is 14 and upward, when he is about to get the understanding of an education, he must go to work and earn enough to help support his home. He is thus cut short at the most important time from continuing his studies. "I believe in giving education to the great masses of this great country instead of the small number of 10 per cent as is given to-day. ' " To my mind no expenditure is too large that gives the people of the country a proper understanding of themselves, of the conditions surrounding them, and especially a proper under- standing and a love for whatever professional trade they are engaged in, because with that kind of education, I am sure VOCATIONAL EDUCATION. 91 develops a love for one's country and for one's neighbors and for mankind in general." MICHIGAN-. Hon. Chase S. Osbom, governor of Michigan, writes: " Your bill to cooperate with the various States in encourag- ing instruction in agriculture, the trades and industries, domestic economics in secondary schools, etc., is a good measure in my opinion. No nation is better or stronger than the average of its people. The activity you seek to encourage is necessary, and I nope sincerely that your bill will pass." Jesse B. Davis, principal Central High School, Grand Rapids, says: " My attention has been called to your bill to encourage voca- tional education among the States in secondary schools. I have read the bill with much interest and wish to express my appre- ciation of your efforts in this most worthy cause. My expe- rience of over 16 years in the largest secondary schools of the West has made me a strong supporter of this phase of modern education." The editor of the Michigan Tradesman, Grand Eapids, says: "I am very glad to commend this measure both personally and editorially, because I believe it is in the interest of progres- sive citizenship and good Americanism." James' H. Kaye, president Northern State Normal School, Marquette : " I received a copy of your bill and the report of the Com- mittee on Agriculture and Forestry. " I believe in the provisions of the bill most sincerely, and I trust that it will be passed. Should this bill pass I believe it will mark a great epoch in educational advancement in the United States." Fannie E. Beal, teacher of home economics, Addison : " The copy of the Page vocational educational bill has reached me and I wish to say that I heartily indorse the bill. As a teacher of home economics in secondary schools I believe that every girl needs a training in the affairs of the home and that she should be required lo take such a training." Clara Wheeler, principal Kindergarten Training School, Grand Rapids : " In reply to your letter and documents of February 29 I write to sav that I am interested in vocational education. I also favor the general purposes of the bill known as the Page vocational bill." W H French, department of agricultural education, Michigan Agricultural College, East Lansing: " I have read the amended bill very carefully, and I think your corrections have removed all of the objections stated in my 92 VOCATIONAL EDUCATION. former letter. The bill in its present form seems all right, and if it should become a law it would certainly stimulate the teaching of agriculture to a very large degree." MINNESOTA. Hon. Moses E. Clapp, United States Senator from Minnesota, says : "Am in receipt of your proposed bill. Permit me to say that while arbitration treaties and trust regulation laws may com- mand more attention, there is no measure pending before Con- gress that ftxceeds in importance your bill, because it goes to the very foundation of all our national problems, the development of the citizen. If the Eepublic will care for the youth of the land to-day, the youth will care for the Republic." A. F. Woods, dean and director at the University of Minnesota, St. Paxd, says: " Executive council of the department of agriculture of the University of Minnesota, consisting of the dean and chiefs of divisions, indorses the Page bill (S. 3), first, because it gives as- sistance through already organized educational agencies; second, it includes most agencies that need aid in reorganization for in- dustrial education; third, it is a carefully worked-out system based on actually existing conditions ; fourth, the McKinley and McLaughlin bills are good as far as they go, but relate only to part of the problem." The editor of the Daily Record, of St. Paul, says : " We are very much interested in this bill, and think it should have the support of everybody." Charles P. Craig, of Duluth, uses this language: " To my mind no other bill pending before Congress is so important to this country at large in a constructive way as this bill, because its purpose is to lay the foundation broad by the training of all the youth of the Nation for constructive work. " Vocational education will not down. The people are awakening to its value, and with that awakening grow more determined that a national policy of secondary education shall be established, just as has been done with higher industrial education; consequently your bill admirably fits the growing popular demand. Politics and selfish interests may postpone but will never prevent, ultimately, the passage of this or a similar bill. " Of my own knowledge I know of foreign-born parents in our city of Duluth who have sent their sons back to the old country to learn a trade, witH the purpose of coming back here and being skilled tradesmen." A. D. Wilson, superintendent University Farm, St. Paul, says: " Your letter of December 7 received. This morning we took up at our executive council meeting, consisting of the heads of divisions in our institution, the matter of the Page bill S. 3. We sent you a telegram expressing our views in favor of the bill. VOCATIONAL EDUCATION. 93 We certainly believe in the Page bill, and are ready to give any assistance we can to secure its passage." C. G. Schulz, superintendent department of public instruction, St. Paul, says: "I heartily approve the provisions of this measure. It is along the same lines as those in which Minnesota has under- taken to foster that work in connection with high schools, secondary agricultural schools, and the college of agriculture. " I am fully satisfied that the plan outlined in your bill for industrial training, not only in secondary schools but in colleges and normal schools, is practical, comprehensive, fair, and de- manded by present-day conditions. The school must be a train- ing institution which directs the child's activity not only along one line but many. There must also be the means, in profes- sional schools, of fitting leaders, directors, and teachers. This your bill makes possible." The Minnesota State Dairyman's Association at its annual con- vention held at Wadena, January 16-19, 1912, passed the following resolution : " In view of the need of a more practical type of education in our schools and the demonstration of improved methods of production on our farms, be it '■^Resolved, That this association approve the Page bill intro- duced in the National Congress with these ends in view. We hereby request our Senators and Eepresentatives to do all in their power to secure the passage of this measure, the secretary of this association to forward copies of this resolution to our Senators and Representatives, the chairman of the Senate and House Committees on Agriculture, and to Senator Page." Lilla P. Frich, supervisor of domestic science, board of education, Minneapolis : " Your letter of March 1 and the copy of Senate bill No. 3 is received. " This measure has my hearty approval, and I trust there will be no difficulty in the passage of this bill." Mr. L. L. Everly, principal Teachers' Training School, St. Paul : " Your letter of February 29 inclosing a copy of Senate bill 3 is at hand. I am heartily in favor of this bill with its sub- stantial provisions for vocational and industrial education. I believe no more important bill will come before this Congress. This institution thoroughly indorses the plan outlined in this ■ bill." Andrew Boss, department of agriculture, University of Minnesota, St. Paul: " Our institution has stood squarely for your bill. We are all in accord on the merits of the bill, and I believe that it should be passed It is so much more comprehensive than the Lever bill, and still so elastic that any State need not be burdened with financial difficulties, that we consider it decidedly the best measure." 94 VOCATIONAL EDTJOATIOlir. MISSISSIPPI. J. C. Hardy, president Mississippi Agricultural and Mechanical College, says: " I am heartily in favor of this bill for industrial and voca- tional education. While I appreciate the importance of training ' captains of industry,' yet in my judgment there is a still greater need of giving the ' privates of industry ' that training that will fit them for coping with modern industrial conditions and that will make them more efficient in dealing with all the complex problems of modem life. I think the man or woman who is serving the world by manual labor is entitled to as much con^ sideration by the State and Nation as those who are engaged in the professions and other intellectual pursuits. " This bill, as I view it, is an effort to adapt education to the needs of the democracy. The State needs men and women who can do things more than it needs men and women of culture. " This institution thoroughly indorses your bill, and each and every man here stands ready to help in every possible way to develop public sentiment, that will demand its passage. " Our people in hearty sympathy with the principle of bill. It means more to the development of our section than any bill since Hatch Act. It has full indorsement of this college. All conditions should be fixed in bill ; leave nothing to be fought out in the legislature; command us to fullest." W. L. Hutchinson, dean of the School of A^culture, Starkville, says: " ReOTet I could not be present at the conference of the friends of the jPage bill; the objects sought to be accomplished by the bill are laudable and much to be desired." MISSOTTRI. William P. Evans, State superintendent of public schools, Jeffer- son City, says: " In general. Senate bill 3, encouraging and aiding industrial education has my hearty approval. The purposes of the measure are very laudable, and I shaU be willing to lend my influence toward securing its passage. " We are hoping to push in this State rapidly the establish- ment of rural high schools and are proposing to secure a per- manent fund for this purpose from the voters of Missouri at the next general election. It is this proposition that I refer to in my letter to Gov. Hadley. The proposition for the permanent education fund, will be voted upon at the next general election, under the initiative and referendum. This, you see, is along precisely the same lines as your movement in Senate bill 3, to enlarge the unit of taxation. " In general, this measure of Senator Page's and the measure that we are advocating for Missouri is a movement to enlarge the taxation unit. They are twin movements, one may say. The permanent education fund is a movement to derive fund= VOCATIONAL BDTJCATIOIT. 95 from the State at large in order to equalize opportunities for the weak districts. The same thing may be said of this national movement. It is a proposition to make the unit Nation wide, and in this broad way equalize opportunities for all of the youth of the land. " It seems to me that the bill should be amended somewhat and should pass. I shall be very glad if you see fit to encourage its adoption, even in its present form, for provision is made, you will note, that each State shall receive that portion of the appropriation for which it is prepared, and if the appropriation is made for these district high schools and the district high schools are not established, we will receive the other aid which we are ready for. " I heartily favor the bill, except the clause relating to district agricultural high schools. I advise that the appropriations for such schools be added to that for public secondary schools and normal schools for brief reasons in a letter which follows." W. G. Carrington, State Normal School, fourth district, Spring- field, says: " I assure you I am doing all I can in my territory to secure / support for this measure. I am writing some letters to our Senators about it." Anthony Ittner, of St. Louis, late chairman of the committee on industrial education. National Association of Manufacturers, says : " The point with me is to have the Page bill so framed as to benefit the 98 per cent of the young men of our country — ^those that need help. The 2 per cent that pass through colleges and universities are the sons of wealthy parents who, being able to help themselves, do not need help from State government." Dr. Lowell M. McAfee, president Park CoUege, Parkville : " Replying to yours of the 22d of February, will say I find myself cordially in sympathy with the purposes of Senate bill No. 3, if I understand it in detail. I agree with you most cor- dially that the surest way to save our young fellows is to fit them for the experiences which are sure to be theirs. Park College was organized and has operated on that basis for a good many years." MONTANA. J. M. Hamilton, president Montana Agricultural College, says : " We heartily indorse the principles of Federal aid for second- ary industrial education as set forth in the Page bill, and would especially emphasize the features providing for agricultural high schools and agricultural extension." F. B. Linfield, director of the Montana Agricultural Experiment Station, Bozeman, says : ''As director of the agricultural experiment station and a member of our board of farmers' institutes, am keenly interested 96 VOCATIONAL EDUCATION. in educational efficiency on agricultural and industrial lines. I am heartily interested in the Federal appropriation as outlined in the Page bill. I trust the friends of agricultural education, who all agree on the principles at the foundation of these bills, will work out a plan of development that will be satisfactory and beneficial to all interested." The editor of the Eocky Mountain Husbandman, Great Falls, says: " We heartily indorse your bill. Hope it may pass." C. AT Duniway, president University of Montana, Missoula : " I am much interested in your inquiry concerning Senate bill No. 3, known as the Page bill. The passage of some measure of this character would greatly advance the public welfare. I have no suggestion to make concerning the details of your bill. Its passage in its present form woula seem to me to be desirable." NEBBASKA. James E. Delzell, State superintendent of public instruction of Nebraska, Lincoln: " I am very much pleased with the Page vocational education bill. I will be glad to assist in every way possible to advance this bill." J. W. Crabtree, formerly State superintendent, department of public instruction, Lincoln, says: " Permit me to thank you for sending me a copy of the bill which you introduced offering encouragement to the teaching of agriculture in the public schools, normal schools, and colleges of the country. I sincerely hope you may be able to secure the passage of this bill. If its provisions are carried out, this infor- mation and instruction in agriculture and home economics will be brought right down to the homes of the people. It seems to me that this is the important step to be taken at this time. I shall watch with interest the progress of this bill and use my influence wherever possible in its behalf." Editor Hatch, of the Nebraska Farm Journal, writes : " There is no man of average information and intelligence but who knows that this country is letting the brains of the Nation go to waste because no adequate vocational training is provided for the large middle class of America. Your bill seems to pro- vide the only practical way to quicken, increase, and develop the average American deficiency. We hope your measure wUl pass." E. C. Bishop, former State superintendent of public instruction. State of Nebraska, says: "A copy of the bill, S. 3, which you kindly inclosed, meets my approval, and I am glad to do what I can to encourage its passage." VOCATIONAL EDUCATION. 97 NEVADA. John Edwards Bray, superintendent of public instruction, Carson, says: "I heartily approve Page bill for encouraging instruction in agriculture, the trades and industries, and home economics in secondary schools. If the secondary schools are to get into touch with the industrial progress of the age, all these things must be made features of practical instruction. National aid is needed, and it will be worth more than a thousand battleships." The several district educational institutes of Nevada have re- cently held meetings at Elko, Tonopah, and Las "Vegas. At every one of those institutes this bill was one of the important subjects of discussion, and at each meeting the bill was very strongly indorsed. At the Elko Institute the following resolution was adopted: " Resolved, That we approve the Page bill now pending in the United States Senate providing for national aid m the various States for agricultural and industrial training in the high schools as a measure of enlightened statesmanship. The bill proposes to place yearly at the disposal of the States several millions of dollars, the first use of the money to be for the prepa- ration of teachers for this work." At Tonopah Institute the following resolution was adopted : " Whereas there is pending in the United States Senate a measure known as the Page bill, which has for its object the ap- propriation of national funds to aid and encourage agricultural and industrial training in the secondary (high) schools of all the States; and " Whereas such expenditure would be of vastly more benefit to our country than the millions now annually spent in building battleships for the destruction of human life or for useless dis- play : Therefore be it " Resolved, That we strongly favor the Page bill and earnestly request Senators Newlands and Nixon and Representative Roberts to give it their support." At the Las Vegas Institute the following resolution was adopted : " Be it resolved. That we favor the introduction of the elements of agriculture and industrial training in the school curriculum. We commend the Page bill now pending in the United States Senate. It proposes to appropriate national funds for agricul- tural and industrial education in the various States, first for the training of teachers, and then for the maintenance of such in- struction in all secondary schools." NEW HAMPSHIRE. J C Kendall, director New Hampshire Agricultural Experiment Station, New Hampshire College, Durham, says: " I am in hearty sympathy with the work which the Southern Commercial Congress has undertaken in pushing the Page bill, 49159— S. Doc. 845, 62-2 7 98 VOCATIONAL EDUOATIONi and I would like very much to be present at the conference which is to be held in Washington December 14, 16, and 16, but I am afraid that it will not be possible for me to be away at that time. "A large problem before the people of the United States to-day is putting within the reach of all the opportunity for education along the lines of their every-day life. We must change our school system in such a way that they will recognize the fact that when properly treated and when suitable instructors are provided there will be just as good training in the study of farm problems as in reading Greek. " I wish for you and your associates and the organization that you represent success in the passage of this bill, which will mean so much to the future industrial development and prosperity of the country." Ernest L. Silver, principal State Normal School, Plymouth: " It seems to me that this bill is particularly sane and sound and that its enactment into law would be an immense benefit to our country. I believe that any abridgment or substitution would be inimical to the cause of popular education and the progress of American civic and industrial life. I assure you that this is not my opinion alone, but the opinion of all the educational men of New Hampshire." NEW JERSEY. Franklin Dye, secretary of the State board of agricultiire, Trenton, writes : " Believing your work to be in the right direction, I can but wish you good success." E. K. Johnstone, superintendent of the training school at Vineland, writes : " I have received your letter of December 1 and a copy of Senate bill 3, introduced April 6. May I express my hearty approval of its provisions? " K. C. Davis, principal college of agriculture, Rutgers College and Scientific School, New Brimswick: " I think your bill is the best one now before Congress look- ing toward the extension of agricultural education, and I hope it will pass." Emily S. Hamblen, secretary of the Public Welfare Committee of Essex County, N. J.: " No educational measure could meet with heartier approval from me than does this bill, and I am confident that I am speak- ing unofficially for our society, for I know that both collectively and individually we stand for such solutions of our social and economic problems. " I believe that such constructive work, beginning at the foundation in educational methods, as will fit the individual VOCATIONAL EDUCATION. 99 both to adapt himself to varying conditions and to develop the natural resources of our country is worth all the political recon- struction ever proposed or dreamed of." Dr. Byron D. Halstead, director New Jersey Agricultural College Experiment Station, New Brunswick: " Your kind favor of the 20th instant is received. I have read your bill No. 3 and the report upon the same; and it gives me much pleasure to reply, as you suggest, and as follows : The in- tents of the bill are most excellent, and I trust that it will be en- acted. This is a natural sequence of the land-grant act of 1862 and the Hatch and Adams Acts of more recent date, for they have provided a proper foundation for a popular vocational education that is designed to reach all the industrial classes. The passage of this bill will help to bring the United States to an educational plane that will command the admiration of all those nations now far ahead of us in the prime essentials of pro- gressive citizenship." W. S. Willis, principal Normal and Training School, Newark: " Vocational training will occupy a large place in our educa- tional system, and, if the best results are to be obtained, special preparation for this should be given for this work. I trust the appropriations, as suggested in your bill, will prevail." NEW BIEXICO. Hon. W. C. McDonald, Governor of New Mexico, Santa Fe : " I am just in receipt of your letter of the 14th instant inclos- ing copy of the report on your vocational-education bill. I can ■ say without hesitation that I am in thorough sympathy witii such a measure, and will give it my unqualified support. Our first State legislature will convene on March 11. There will then be chosen two Senators to represent New Mexico at the National Congress, and I ani quite sure they will help along with your industrial-education bill." Frank H. H. Roberts, president New Mexico State Normal Univer- sity, Las Vegas : "At a recent meeting of the board of education of the State of New Mexico Senate bill No. 3, known as the Page bill was m- dorsed, and your honorable body is petitioned to pass the same. E. A. Drake, president New Mexico State School of Mines, Socorro : " Tn reiDlv to your esteemed favor of February 22, I beg leave to say that I am heartily in favor of the Page bill, or any other bill for the encouragement of vocational education. C. M. Light, principal Normal School of New Mexico, Silver City: "I am 'in receipt of Senate bill No. 3 in reference to voca- tional education. I heartily approve of the plan of the bill, 100 VOCATIONAL EDUCATION. especially that feature of it referring to instruction in vocational training through the normal schools. This matter appeals very forcibly to the Spanish-American people throughout the State. If there is any people who need vocational training it is the Spanish-American. He seems fit for nothing but positions of drudgery ; his knowledge of agriculture and the trades is_ very crude. The system of training according to the plan in this bill is the very thing which, it seems to me, he needs. Any aid which we can give you in the passage of the measure will be cheerfully given." William H. Andrews, Territorial Delegate from New Mexico, says : " I thoroughly believe in this bill, which I have read care- fully." B. S. Gowen, New Mexico Normal University, says : " I am interested in the bill whose purpose it is to encourage instruction in agriculture, the trades, and home economics. Such work as this is of unusual importance in New Mexico, where we have so large a population that it must necessarily depend on other lines besides those, in which scholarship of the ordinary kind plays the chief part." Prof. Luther Foster, dean and director division of agriculture. New Mexico College of Agriculture and Mechanic Arts, Agricultural Col- lege, New Mexico : " I am pleased to acknowledge yours inclosing a copy of the Page bill and also report of subcommittee on the same. All things considered, I believe it the most satisfactory bill for all interests concerned that has been presented, and I would be very glad to see it become a law." NEW YOKK. Dr. J. G. Schurman, president of Cornell University, says: " I am greatly interested in the subject, as I feel very deeply the need of making better provisions than we now have for encour- aging instruction in agriculture, the trades and industries, and home economics in institutions of instruction readily accessible to the mass of our people." Chancellor James R. Day, of Syracuse University, says : " It is not enough to educate a few specialists for management of large estates or the farms of fancy farmers. Farm education should be as extensive as farming. It should be within reach of all parts of the State as plain, practical courses of study, illus- trated by object lessons of farms and grounds and by animals, plants, fruits, insects friendly and destructive, birds beneficial and harmful, and in practical farm industries and in higher courses in chemistry, bacteriology, soil analysis, and animal and plant breeding, farm economics, farm architecture, and engineer- ing. In short, the farmers should be prepared for their high calling, as are the doctors, lawyers, and teachers. The time VOCATIONAL EDUOATIOMT. 101 must come, is inevitable, when the farmer ignorant of his calling and conditions will be as unusual and impossible as an ignorant doctor or lawyer at his practice." Eli W. "Weaver, chairman of students' aid committee of the High School Teachers' Association, New York City, says : "There are in New York City to-day thousands of young people who have been trained to high ideals in the homes of self-sacrificing parents, who have deserved and received con- siderate treatment in the schools and who have enjoyed the respect and esteem of their associates, who have afterwards gone out to earn their own living in those occupations usually open to young people; but too frequently these young people have been compelled to wander around for days in an aimless search for employment; they have been persuaded to accept places at pitiful wages, with promises of advancement, in which they have afterwards learned that there were never any prospects of advancement; they have outgrown places in which there was no special skill or knowledge to be acquired,* from which they were turned out without faith either in themselves or their fellow men or a belie'f in the existence of a sense of fairness or justice in society. JHowever well equipped the barks in which the youthful sailors launch out on the troublesome seas of com- mercial and industrial life may be, the chances are against them unless they are provided with sailing directions. Since society must in some way or other care for the disheartened, the broken- spirited, and the ruined, it might be well for society to provide the sailing directions." Mr. Dean, chief of the division of trade schools, New York, says : "The school of yesterday trained its youth for a job, while the school of to-morrow will train its youth for a vocation. It provides for every vocation for which there is reasonable demand, and in that school the boy must remain until there is ground for believing that he has found a calling for which nature and his own effort has prepared him. " My father sent me to a school of yesterday so much that I very nearly missed an education. "The school of to-morrow will have over its door, 'We con- serve the whole boy.' " Francis J. Cheney, principal State normal and training school, Cortland, says: " I regret exceedingly that I shall not be able to be present at the conference of the friends of the Page bill (Senate bill 3) on December 14 15, and 16 on account of duties m connection with mv work as 'principal of the State normal school. I am very ereatly interested in this bill and believe that its passage will be for the best interests of the young people whom we are training for citizenship. Certainly the idea embodied m the bill is tak- ing a ffreat hold on the country. The Page bill is an effort m the right direction to the better fitting of our young people for useful and successful lives." 102 VOCATIONAL BDUOATIOIT. Benjamin E. Andrews, secretary-treasurer of the Teachers' College, New York City, says: " I am glad to know that your bill for Federal aid to education is securing increasing support. I judge from the talk of econ- omy that it may be impossible to secure enactment at this session, but I hope that you can get favorable action in the Senate. It will be a great step forward." The Knickerbocker Press, Albany, says: " The Page bill seems admirably suited to promote the ends desired, and its advocates should receive the fullest cooperation from the representatives of the Empire State." The National Provisioner, New York, says: " The bill of Senator Page deserves really active, not merely perfunctory, support. " Educators of national reputation are giving their support to the bill, and jt should pass; but, like all measures proposed in Congress, merit alone will not be sufficient to secure its enact- ment. Public sentiment must be aroused and its virtues made known. "This seems to be a sensible, systematic way of increasing knowledge of how to expand our supply of live stock and other agricultural products, as well as to educate the future genera- tions in other useful directions." C. W. Burkett, editor of the American Agriculturist, New York, says: " I am very much interested in your bill, which proposes that the National Government shall cooperate with the States in encouraging instruction in agriculture, the trades, industries, and home economics in secondary schools and in preparing teach- ers for these vocational subjects. I do not hesitate to say thai this measure, if enacted into law, will be of the utmost benefit, not only to agriculture, but to the entire country. " I have made a very careful examination of the bill and ha.ve studied the needs of the schools for a great many years, and I am confident that this measure is one of the most needful now before Congress, and that I am expressing the opinion of tens and hundreds of thousands of farmers and industrial people when I urge the passage of this measure. " The American Agriculturist weeklies are with you heart and soul in this matter. In the past we have given page after page to the effort to secure a better system of education along agricul- tural and industrial lines. Just recently I have had an editorial telling about the Page bill and what it seeks to do. We shall keep right at this matter, hoping that in the end the idea will win." The Business Men's Association of Newburgh gives expression to a most important thought in this language : " The lack of knowledge of how to till the soil is the great economic evil of our country, and it can easily be corrected by VOCATIONAL EDUCATION. 103 teaching the rising generation the art of agriculture. No nation can be truly great that is not firmly established on a sound agri- cultural basis. "Everyone takes a great interest and pleasure in his work, no matter what it is, if he can do it well, and his joy is in his work in proportion to his skill. " The dissatisfied workers resort to strikes and employers to lockouts, creating enmity where there should be friendship and cooperation. ******* "Are we leading the world, as we should do, in solving this problem ? Are we even abreast of other nations in this respect ? No; by no means. We are perhaps third or fourth to Ger- many, Switzerland, Denmark, and probably Sweden. What are they doing that is better than our methods? They are first developing children physically and training their hands as much as the brains and giving each a trade. Rich and poor alike must learn a' trade, even to the sons of the Emperor of Germany. They have then an appreciation of the dignity of labor instead of despising it, as we do. " We have great conventions of governors in Washington to beg for a conservation of the resources of our country, when ovir Nation's greatest resources, the lives and health of our children, are being squandered in nearly every school in the country." The Engineering News, New York City, says : ",I heartily agree with you that the greatest need of the country to-day is to better the instruction in our common schools and secondary schools, so as to better fit the students therein for the real work of life." The Commercial, Buffalo, says: " There is little doubt that eventually some system similar to that proposed by Senator Page will become effective. More and more the attention of the country is being turned to the necessity of better facilities for industrial and agricultural education for the young of the rural sections, and the present bill, while it may have its defects, is sure to have its influence in securing legisla- tion along the lines suggested. " It is a remarkable coincidence that another Vermont man. Senator Morrill, was the father of the bill which established the State colleges of agriculture and the mechanic arts." The editor of the Financial World, New York, says: "We quite approve of any efforts made that will lead to an increased efficiency of our men of to-morrow." L P Alford editor of the American Machinist, New York City, says: " Your letter of July 17, with its inclosure, a copy of Senate hill 3 is before me. I have read both with a great deal of .in- terest!" For some four years I have been studying the problem of 104 VOCATIONAL EDUCATION, industrial education, and a great deal of space has been devoted to it in our journal. "As a simple act of justice it seems to me that our Federal Government should appropriate funds for the furthering of the education of industrial workers in the same way that it fosters the spread of agricultural knowledge. " I most heartily agree with the sentiment expressed in your letter to the effect that we must do something for the boys and girls of the great middle classes in order to reaUy fit them for earning a livelihood. We are far behind Germany and Switzer- land in this particular. Something must be done at once to aid in transforming the green boy of the country and the untrained lad of the city into men trained and educated in some trade or vocation from which they can earn a comfortable living, and by the exercise of which they will be valuable units in our industrial life. I shall watch the course of this bill with a great deal of interest. The purpose of this bill is worthy, and I shall support it as far as it is proper for me to do in the columns of my journal." Fred W. Atkinson, president the Polytechnic Institute, Brooklyn : " I am in heartiest sympathy with your bill, and a rather care- ful reading of it suggests no important changes. You certainly are on the right track." Charles H. Levermore, president Adelphi College, Brooklyn : " Of course you are on the right track. I sincerely hope that Senate bill No. 3 will become a law." Prof. Mary Schenck Woolman, teachers' college, Columbia Uni- versity, New York City: " The proposed bill is as important to the woman of the United States and to the homes as to the industries. Women are going untrained into the industries and are in grave danger to their health and to their morals. The passage of this bill will provide a preparation which will give girls a training which will be of equal value in the homes as well as for wage earning and provide the qualities for the best class of citizen. In providing for teach- ers' training you recognize a very valuable part of the work. The old teacher of manual training is helpless in this new field, as also the academic teacher. They dp not know industry nor its sociological, economic, and technical needs. They fail in teach- ing and inspiring the students on account of their lack of op- portunity and special training." F. L. Holtz, Brooklyn Training School for Teachers, Brooklyn: "I have read the bill for encouraging instruction in industritil education, and am in favor of such legislation." VOCATIONAL EDUCATION. 105 ^ Miss Mary E. Williams, department of education of New York City: " Please accept my thanks for the copy of the Senate bill No. 3, and your report thereon. It is intensely interesting to me and my staff of 170 teachers, and you have our most earnest wish and, every good word that we may be able to say of the passage of a bill so important to the Nation. " In New York City we are teaching home economics for the last 10 years in the secondary schools, as you will see by the course of study inclosed. For some years we have been able to extend the work to girls over age in the grades below 7 A, but we were obliged to drop all these special classes this year be- cause of shortage of funds. On this account hundreds of girls will go to the different trades and vocations without any in- struction in the highest of all vocations — that of home making." L. Eay Balderston, teachers' college, Columbia University, New York City: " I am in hearty sympathy with^the work as being pushed by the Page bill. It is to be hoped that it passes and brings all the good bound to follow." Prof. Arthur W. Gilbert, college of agriculture, Cornell Univer- sity, Ithaca : " I am very pleased to indorse your bill on vocational educa- tion, Senate bill No. 3. I am strongly convinced that the passage of this bill will enormously benefit the people of the United States. " Such a measure will greatly stimulate instruction in agricul- ture, the trades and industries, and home economics in agricul- tural schools." E. J. Goodwin, principal of the Packer Collegiate Institute, Brooklyn : " I write to indorse heartily Senate bill No. 3, designed to encourage vocational education along the lines of the trades and industries, agriculture, and home economics. I am sure that this bill, if enacted into law, would open a much needed new era for the industrial training of our boys and girls." F. J. Trinder, superintendent of apprentices. General Electric Co., Schenectady : " Senate bill 3 to provide for the industrial training of boys and girls as introduced by you deserves to meet with the hearty support of your colleagues, also of the parents, the citizens, and the voters of the country. " We are very much interested in any of the vocational school I work, no matter by what name it is known, either as trade school or part-time school, so long as it is planned and conducted in a way that shows that real intensified work is accomplished. " If our State educational bureau would wake up and do something in tliis line really worth while our boys would be 106 VOCATIONAL EDXTCATIOK. raised in a few years above the standard of pool-room attend- ants, street loafers, and would not be applicants for the county house at the age of 50, when too old to perform the duties of a laborer or street sweeper." William Church Osborne, president Children's Aid Society, New York City : " With reference to your bill (S. 3) for Federal aid to agricul- tural and industrial education, I heartily approve of your prop- osition if carried out in the amended form." Miss Helen Kinne, professor of household arts education, Colum- bia University, New York City: " I hope that my delay does not make my letter useless. I cer- tainly approve the bill and will do whatever is in my power to forward it. I am telling the students in this department about the purport of the bill, and as they go to their homes they will, of course, spread the knowledge of it. While that may not have a direct and immediate result it certainly should help in the future." NORTH CAROLINA. Hon. William W. Kitchin, governor of North Carolina, says : " In reply to your letter of the 11th, I favor the extension of agricultural, mechanical, and industrial education, and favor the general purposes of the bill which you inclosed." D. H. Hill, president College of Agriculture and Mechanic Arts, Kaleigh, says: "I have gone over the biU, which you were kind enough to send me, with a great deal of care. The general features of the bill commend themselves very strongly to my judgment. The Nation certainly needs training along the lines suggested in the measures embodied in this bill, and I hope that the general plan may be carried out." C. N. Evans, of the board of governors of the Southern Commercial Congress, Wilmington, says: " Eegret I can not appear before you in warm support of the Page bill. In the interest of a broader national view and of our children especially, I urge the adoption of the Page bill and trust its provisions may meet the approval of your committee." J. Y. Joyner, superintendent of public instruction of North Caro- lina, says : " I heartily favor the passage of the bill. "About 82 per cent of the people in the Southern States are engaged in agricultural pursuits. No adequate provision has been made by any State for the proper education and training of children for the pursuits that the large majority of our people are now following for a living. " The bill proposes to stimulate and help the States to help themselves without being paternalistic, without interfering with the autonomy of the State systems of education, or without any VOCATIONAL EDtrCATIOW. 107 undue interference in any way by Federal authority with State authority." The editor of the Progressive Farmer Gazette, Ealeigh, says: " We shall be only too glad to do all in our power to help carry out your ideas. The measure meets with our hearty approval." William C. A. Hammel, State Normal and Industrial College, Greensboro : " I certainly wish to indorse your bill on vocational training and will lend all aid to help you in any way possible. " Having taught manual arts for 20 years and working with the teachers of the whole South in my summer-school work, I feel that the bill introduced by you will help along the 94 per cent of the boys and girls who never reach the high school. "If I can be of any service to you in your cause, please do not hesitate to write me. I stand ready to help." W. A. Withers, North Carolina College of Agriculture and Mechanic Arts, West Raleigh : " I have read over the bill carefully and am satisfied that its passage will result in a great advancement of the agricultural interests of the Union. As the progress of our whole country depends to a large extent upon our rural population, you will be serving the entire people in securing the passage of this bill. If I am able to assist you in any way it will give me great pleasure to do so." NORTH DAKOTA. George A. McFarland, president State Normal School, Valley City: " I know of nothing that would be so influential in bringing our educational practice up to the practical demands of the times as the passage of the Page Senate bill. Our high schools, normal schools, and colleges need the stimulation this bill will give them. * * * "As an agricultural State, I am satisfied that the entire State is much interested in the passage of this bill. Vocational educa- tion has a great hold upon the minds of our people. They would be unwilling to accept the argument that there is no money for such an appropriation when the Government is considering the building of battleships that will cost nearly twice as much as the annual appropriation for vocational education. " You may count on me for any assistance that I can possibly render in your efforts to get this bill through Congress." E. L. Ladd, dean department of chemistry, North Dakota Agri- cultural College, Agricultural College: " Senate bill No. 3, to promote vocational education, is a meas- ure that should receive the support of every right-thinking man who is anxious for the promotion of education for all the people. With the support as proposed in this bill for the furthering of industrial education, great good will come to the industrial 108 VOCATIONAL EDUCATION, classes of the United States ; and the development of agriculture and the industries will be assured along lines that will make for the best interests of the country at large. " I am, therefore, heartily in sympathy with the measure and trust that it may become a law." J. W. Preston, president normal school at Madison, says: "Our State teachers' association last week indorsed Senate bill 3 and urged our congressional delegation to support same. Educational sentiment in this State strongly favors tiie bill." Hon. L. B. Hanna, M. C, says: " I am in receipt of your letter of 9th instant. It goes without saying. Senator, that I will do everything I possibly can to help you to push this matter along. I believe the bill is right." H. L. BoUey, dean department of biology, North Dakota Agri- cultural College, Agricultural College: " I have your letter of February 20, inclosing Senate bill No. 3, a bill to cooperate with the States in encouraging instruc- tion in agriculture, etc. I am not an expert on the technicalities of law, but reading the purpose and intent of the bill, I am con- vinced that it should prove a great boon to this country. Just in proportion as our people are enlightened as to agriculture and enlightened in the trades and industries of life will this country prosper. I believe that the bill is well worded to give a proper stimulus along lines in which much aid is needed. OHIO. H. C. Minnick, dean Ohio State Normal College, Oxford: " Your letter of recent date received, also a copy of your voca- tional bill and report of the Subcommittee on Agriculture and Forestry. If Congress shall make such provision for the pro- motion of industrial and vocational education as is described in your bill, it will make the greatest contribution toward realiz- ing the modern aim of education for the masses that has ever been made in this country. The high schools as they are now established provide training almost exclusively for those who are going into the professions. The schools are organized on that basis, and it is almost impossible to reconstruct them. The provisions of your bill will make it possible for the reorganiza- tion of secondary education in this country so that the 96 per cent of the workers will receive an education preparing them for their work as well as the 4 per cent or the professional class. The bill is comprehensive in the fact that it makes provision for the encouragement of the industries, provides schools in which the industries may be taught and provides for the preparation of teachers to instruct in these industrial studies. I consider it a great contribution to the forward movement in education." A. B. Church, president Buchtel College, Akron : " In my judgment, you are working along the right lines for the elevation and betterment of the coming generations. The VOCATIONAL EDTJCATION. 109 broad, distinctive characteristic of our American civilization is its broad, democratic system of public education. It is the hope of this Republic more than of any Eepublic that has existed or can exist as a transformation of a monarchial form of govern- ment. I sincerely hope that you will succeed in your undertak- ing. I congratulate you upon the step you have taken, and offer you my cooperation." James W. McLane, principal normal training school, Cleveland : " Although ours is a city normal school, and not included in the provisions of Seijate bill 3, the Page bill, I wish to enroll my name on the list of those who favor the cause of vocational, and especially of agricultural education. The onljr possible explanation of our slowness in reaching the formulation of such a bill as yours, is that we have not really understood the full import of the word ' education.' "What we call ' education ' has been too far away from what we call ' life ' ; and legislative enactments like the one you propose will go far to bridge the chasm that still yawns between the two. " So courage to your soul, and wisdom to your counsels. We shall eventually value properly the practical in education, with-, out the least danger of sacrificing the cultivative in the inspira- tional." Lee E. Knight, principal Perkins Normal Training School, Akron: " Your favor of February 29 and the report on vocational education were duly received and read. " I am thoroughly in sympathy with the purposes of the bill, and I am unable to see how any intelligent citizen can hold any other attitude. Education of the people presents the funda- mental problems of the Nation. And this is no mere cant. Edu- cation has tended to become limited to the world of books, to become cultural in the wrong sense of not Jpeing useful save for ornament to the superior mind supposed to possess it. "Poverty oppresses the land, but it is a poverty of potent ideas, not a material poverty. There are, perhaps, enough ideas; but too many of them are pale and attenuated from being dis- sociated from the activities of life. In other words, poverty means paucity and impotency of ideas; fewness and feebleness, not as applied to dollars, but as applied to ideas. Vocational education should strongly tend and ultimately result, if wisely conducted, in a mighty amelioration of conditions." A. D. Selby, Ohio Agricultural Experiment Station, Wooster : "I had been much interested in the discussions on the Page bill before the Association of Agricultural Colleges and Experi- ment Stations in Columbus in November last. I have recently run through amended bill and wish to express my heartiest approval of the measure." 110 VOCATIONAL EDUCATION. Hon. J. J. Whitacre, M. C, Ohio, says: " I beg to acknowledge receipt of your kind invitation asking me to take part in the conference called December 14-16 for the discussion of the Page vocational-education bill. I regret to say that I can not attend because of meetings of the House Agricul- tural Committee, but I hasten to assure you that I ani in com- plete sympathy with the objects of the bill, and anything I can do to further the movement, as a member of the House Agri- cultural Committee, will be done most willingly and cheerfully." Henry G. Williams, dean of the State Normal College of Ohio and member of the national committee on agricultural education, says : " Your notice of the 7th concerning the meeting of the Senate committee, December 14, 15, 16, at hand. I would like very much to be present and assist in presenting the matter to the committee. It may be possible for me to do so. If I am not present you may expect a night letter. I am very much inter- ested in it, and have 'done as much perhaps as anyone else to further the campaign on ifcehalf of Senate bill 3." The editor of the Farm and Fireside, of Springfield, writes : " I believe that the future of agriculture in this country de- pends upon a basic reform in rural schools in the direction of the correlation of the rural schools with rural life. I am there- fore intensely interested in your letter and in the bill which accompanies it, and promise you the active cooperation of Farm and Fireside in so far as our space will permit. Personally I think the bill would accomplish an educational revolution of the most beneficent sort." B. M. Davis, president of the agricultural and rural education department of the National Education Association, Oxford, says: " I am greatly interested in the provisions of the bill, and have been ever since the matter was first started." Eugene F. Cranz, secretary Ohio State Grange, Ira : " I have again been reading over your vocational-education bill, S. 3, and I am strongly impressed with the far-reaching provisions it contains." OKLAHOMA. U. J. Griffith, president Southwestern State Normal College, Weatherford : " I am a believer in the Page bill and am doing what I can in its support. " The time is at hand when education must stand upon some other foundation than cultural sentimentality. At least State education must do so. Against the Page bill are arrayed all the forces of f ogyism and pedantry ; and it will encounter the bitter antagonism of all who believe in special privilege — the educa- tional hard-shells who are opposed to education ' as a means of grace,' but would reserve it for the ' edification of the saints.' " VOCATIONAL EDUCATION. Ill Dr. Edmund D. Murdaugh, president Southeastern State Normal School, Durant: __ " Let me at once thank you for your letter and the accompany- ing report, which I have read to-day with pleasure and profit. ' Please command my efforts to aid in so worthy a cause." B. C. Pittuck, dean college-extension division, Oklahoma Agri- cultural and Mechanical College, Stillwater: " I have your letter of February 16 and wish to thank you for the copy of the revised and perfected Page bill. President' Connell and I have been doing all in our power since our visit to Washington to create a proper interest in your bill, and I believe that some good has been accomplished. This institution will work for the Page bill as strenuously as possible." Prof. Minna C. Stoner, Oklahoma Agricultural and Mechanical College, Stillwater: " Your, letter with literature concerning Senate bill 3 received. I heartily indorse everything the bill involves because of the great impetus it will give to our American system of education and industrial economic problems." Gov. Lee Cruce, of Oklahoma, says: "I wish to thank you for copy of Senate bill 3 introduced by you. "I shall be glad to cooperate in any way possible with the State superintendent to bring about proper action along this line." E. H. Wilson, superintendent department of education, State of Oklahoma, Oklahoma City, says : " I want to say that I can not speak too highly of the Page bill. It will certainly be of great assistance to this section of the country." J. H. Connell, president Agricultural and Mechanical College, Stillwater, says: " Oklahoma is earnestly in favor of this bill because with Fed- eral aid we can quickly reach 5,000 common schools and develop a new agricultural civilization. , , ^ " We are not waiting for the Federal Government, but would quickly and largely benefit by the wisely expended assistance provided by this measure. o .-, -r, u■^^ -^i, "I favor the immediate passage o± the Page bill with some minor amendments." Grant B. Grumline, president Northwestern State Normal School, A.lva, says: " In the November issue of our monthly bulletin, which goes to about 1,800 school-teachers in this part of the State, we are urg- ing that each of them use their influence for the Page bill, Sen- ate bill 3." 112 VOCATIONAL EDUCATION. James A. Wilson, director Oklahoma Agricultural Experiment Station, Stillwater, says: " I am sending to-night by Western Union wire a night letter expressing as strongly as my vocabulary is able to the position which we take in Oklahoma toward the Page bill. Oklahoma stands squarely for the Page bill. Anticipating this nation-wide industrial system of education our State constitution directed our legislature to provide for such instruction in the conmion schools. Our normal and agricultural high schools are doing the grade of work indicated in the Page bill. It provides for our greatest need. I wish you the greatest possible success in this worthy movement." OKBGON. Hon. Oswald West, governor of Oregon, says: " Your letter of December 11 and inclosed copy of your Senate bill 3, together with data in regard thereto, reached- my oflSce dur- ing my absence in the East. From the hurried view that I have been able to give your bill its general provisions meet with my approval. I can say as a general proposition that any measure which has to do with the betterment and upbuilding of the agri- cultural school system meets with my approval if drafted along sane and consistent lines. "I wish you success in this direction." The Pacific Banker, Portland, says: ".Some time ago it was our pleasure to make brief favorable comment upon a bill which Senator Page, of Vermont, has intro- duced in the Senate, and which we again wish to give editorial indorsement because of its peculiar significance to the entire country, and to further encourage, if need be, the action of the committees appointed from Oregon, Washington, Idaho, and other Western States in its behalf. " The question which he agitates and which he would thus aid and abet is not new. There is no denial of the fact that the great- est phase of the problem of maintaining the future prosperity of this country lies in the need of our better knowledge, and the better knowledge of the generations to come, of the science of agriculture. It is eminently fit that the banker should lend his influence to the indorsement of Mr. Page's recommendation, which has already had the recognition of the Senate, for, if we are ever going to bring about permanent systems of agriculture in this country, the banker, above every other business man, has got to lend unto the endeavor his unfailing energy." W. J. Kerr, president Oregon State Agricultural College, Corvallis, Bays: "Your favor of the 4th instant, with inclosures, has just reached me. I heartily approve the general purpose of the bill as set forth in the resolution adopted by the Senate Committee on Agriculture and Forestry." VOCATIONAL EDUCATION. 113 The editor of the Kural Spirit, Portland, says: " I most heartily approve of your educational bill and assure you of my appreciation of your efforts along this line and of my willingness to cooperate at any and all times." "This bill is especially intended to aid agriculture, and is a very meritorious bill, and should have the support of farmers through their Representatives in Congress." The editor of the Northwest Poultry Journal, Salem, says : " I congratulate you on the bill. It ought to pass." Dr. Marion R. Drury, president Philomath College, Philomath: " I have yours of February 22. Replying, I would say : I am in most hearty accord with your proposition for a Federal appro- priation to encourage vocational education. I have read your bill. Senate No. 3, with much interest, and believe it is aimed directly at the more general education of the masses, a thing much needed in our present educational system. I shall be glad to know that the bill has passed." R. W. Allen, farm superintendent Oregon Agricultural College, Hermiston : " Your recent letter with Senate bill No. 3 inclosed has just been received. You have my most hearty indorsement of this biU, which so substantially supports and encourages the advance of vocational education throughout our entire Republic. The united efforts of the States and Federal Government will be able, through this measure, to accomplish what the Nation has been much in need of, namely, proficient means of industrial educa- tion in every part." The American Association of Agricultural Colleges and Experi- ment Stations of Portland : "Agriculture, including horticulture and forestry, should be a regular part of public secondary education. There should also be a limited number of special agricultural high schools in the different States. Special agricultural schools will fill a great need by attracting the more mature students who would not go to the ordinary high schools, and the ordinary high schools will have plenty ox agricultural students of proper high-school age." PENNSYLVANIA. Hon. John K. Tener, governor of Pennsylvania, Harrisburg: " Senate bill No. 3, copy of which you were good enough to send me, was discussed and indorsed by the Pennsylvania State Board of Education. A letter was written to each United States Senator and Representative in Congress from Pennsylvania, and favorable responses were received from most of them. " Vocational education deserves every encouragement. I trust that the bill will become a law." 49159— S. Doc. 845, 62-2 8 114 VOCATIONAL EDUCATION. C. B. Connelley, dean school of applied industries, Carnegie Technical Schools, Schenley Park, Pittsburgh: "Replying to your communication of April 15, would state I want to thank you very much for your letter^ and will say you can find me willing at any time to assist you m furthering your bill." M. Friedman, superintendent United States Indian school, Car- lisle : " I am tremendously interested in the Page bill for promoting vocational education in tlie American schools. I think it is one of the most progressive measures, as well as far-reaching, in the good it will do, that has been introduced in our Congress for . many a year. Educators all over the country are interested in its successful adoption." Thomas I. Mairs, professor of agricultural education, Pennsyl- vania State College, State College: "I want to thank you for the privilege of reading the Senate bill No. 3. I want to say that I am thoroughly in sympathy with the provisions of the bill. I sincerely trust that it will pass and believe that it will be of great benefit to our public-school system." John P. Jackson, dean school -of engineering, Pennsylvania State College, State College: " In reply to your letter and kindly action in reply to my tele- gram, I would say that I heartily support your measure and have already taken it before our American institute of electrical engineers educational committee, of which I am chairman, and have obtained their approval." E. E. Powers, secretary of the Pennsylvania Rural Progress Asso- ciation, Pennsdale, says : " We are all rapidly realizing the paramount importance of proper educational facilities as the main agent in eliminating the serious problems of country life. As the prime mover in bring- ing this question before the country as a concrete demand, we would like to have you speak, if possible, on the subject of the Page bill." P. M. Tyler, principal Chester Agricultural High School, says: " Unable to attend conference, but we realize urgent need for the Page bill." George M. Philips, secretary State board of education, West Ches- ter, says : " The State Board of Education of Pennsylvania strongly in- dorses this movement and Senator Page's bill, and at its direc- tion I sent a letter, as secretary of the board, to every Senator and Representative in Congress from Pennsylvania. I very much hope that this measure will pass this winter. You will get valuable and important support from Pennsylvania." VOCATIONAL EDUCATION. 115 Andrew Thomas Smith, principal State Normal School, Mansfield, " I write to add my word of encouragement and to express the hope that the, measure may be passed through Congress at this session. " It is a bill which will lend very great aid to a measure now occupying the chief place of attention among the educators of our country." Mrs. L. L. Blankenburg, vice president General Federation of Women's Clubs, Philadelphia, writes : "Senator Page, you recognize the fact that women are not your constituents, except in six of the Western States, and that our wishes do not have much weight with Congress, but if there is sufficient publicity given to this bill I believe club women will use such influence as they can command to secure its passage." Thomas F. Hunt, Pennsylvania State College of Agriculture, says : " For a number of years I have been deeply interested in the movement for the introduction of industrial training in the secondary schools of this country, as expressed in your bill. I believe it to be one of the most far-reaching movements for the progress of this country that has been before Congress in many years." The editor of the Tobacco World, of Philadelphia,- says : "Have given the bill hearty indorsement in editorial." The Times, McKeesport, says : "A conference on Senator Page's vocational bill is to be held in Washington, beginning with to-morrow. This measure is intended to provide a course of studies for the rising genera- tion which is not now afforded in all of the public schools, and if the bill goes through Congress and becomes a national law its results should be very beneficial. This bill as an educa- tional idea far transcends in importance all the political sparring of the session just opened, for it reaches down to the child upon whose life and efficiency national life and efficiency depend. "The purpose of Senator Page's bill is to add vocational studies to our public-school system. It follows closely upon the idea of Senator Justin Morrill, predecessor of Senator Carroll S. Page of Vermont. Former Senator Morrill was the father of the so-called land-grant act of 1862, establishing the State_ col- leges of agriculture and mechanic arts, and Senator Page's bill is intended to carry down to the secondary schools industrial education which Senator Morrill's bill created in State agri- cultural and mechanical schools. u -^ x " Combining all of the leatures oi the bill, it can be said to be a unified movement to have the Government aid in adding vocational work in the public schools throughout the States. The bill should interest every father and mother and every 116 VOCATIONAL EDUCATION. employer who wish our schools to prepare young people more especially for definite profitable work. It should meet with almost universal indorsement throughout the entire country, as it is a good measure tending in the right direction." Wilmer Atkinson, editor Farm Journal, Philadelphia, says: " We shall do what we can for the Page bill. I am glad the educators who met in Washington have indorsed your bill and will work for it. " Your bill commends itself to my judgment. While tech- nical schools have been educating coordinately the hand and brain of the favored few of the land, the great mass of our youth are forced to begin the battle of lire clumsily equipped for the struggle. Nowhere is technical training more urgently needed than on the farm and in the household. The demand of the time is for scientific efficiency, and this is the only lever that can lift agriculture to its rightful place. " The National Government can not spend money for a better purpose than in providing every normal hoj and girl in the land with a fair and equal chance. A nation of efficient workers is a nation committed to universal peace and world-wide prosperity. The bill is a reform and I hope that it will come quickly." Paul Kreuzpointner, chairman committee on industrial education, American Foundrymen's Association, Altoona: " This matter of the industrial education of the masses of our industrial workers is of vital interest to the present and future material welfare of our industries, and therefore of our country, because the increase in population, the diminishing of our natural resources in quantity or quality, and the desirability to export our surplus products in competition with nations whose older civilization gives them advantages in certain directions, has created and is creating economic conditions which make it im- perative to supplement the education of the few college graduates with the education of the many." BHODE ISLAND. E. E. Balcomb, of the Rhode Island Normal School, and secre- tary of the National Education Association, department of rural and agricultural education, and secretary of the national committee on agricultural education, writes: " Was very glad to get your letter and to note that you are not afraid to put yourself on record in favor of education as against battleships. Our committee hopes to carry on an exten- sive campaign favoring this bill." Mrs. Helen C. Putnam, chairman committee on public school edu- cation, American Association for the Prevention and Study of Infant Mortality, Providence: " The purpose of the bill is in accord with our views, and I am inclined to believe that its details are likely to secure sound ad- ministration of the fvmds." VOCATIONAL EDUCATION. 117 SOUTH CAROLINA. J. E. Swearingen, State superintendent of education of South Carolina, Columbia: _ " Thanks for your courtesy in sending me a copy of Senate biU No. 3 as amended. These amendments greatly improve the measure. _ If the bill is enacted it will be a statesmanlike and constructive piece of legislation." D. B. Johnson, president of the Southern Educational Association and of the Winthrop Normal and Industrial College, Roclihill, says : " The condition of rural delivery can be improved best and more surely by relating the work of rural schools to the life of the people served by them. To do this, elementary agriculture, home economics, and such practical subjects must be taught in the rural schools. " The interests of the agricultural classes demand the passage of this bill. " I have just returned from Houston, Tex., where the annual meeting of the Southern Educational Association was held and where I wrote and presented the resolutions which were adopted by the association. One of those resolutions indorsed the Page bill. I thought you would be glad to have this resolution, and I inclose you a copy. " The Southern Educational Association was attended by representatives of all the educational interests of all the Southern States, and the resolution indorsing the Page bill ought to have some effect with southern Congressmen." E. J. Watson, commissioner of the department of agriculture, com- merce and industries, Columbia, says: " I am in receipt of yours of December 7, inviting me to per- sonally attend or send a representative to Washington to attend the conference on the Page bill. I regret that absence from the State prevented my receiving your letter in time even to send the night letter requested. " I wish to assure you that this has been in no measure due to any lack of interest in this important matter, for there is no more earnest advocate of secondary agricultural and industrial education to be found in the country than myself. In the future, if there is anything I can do in this or any other matter of equal importance to the South, I trust you will not hesitate to call upon me." S. C. Mitchell, president University of South Carolina, Columbia : " I desire to express to you the deep interest that I feel in the success of the Page bill, Senate bill No. 3, seeking to promote vocational training throughout the Union. Speaking for the South I desire to say that this is a matter of great importance, and l' sincerely hope that you will be successful in your efforts to strengthen the agencies now at work for that cause. I shall be more than happy to do anything in my power to aid you to this end." 118 VOCATIONAL EDTJCATIONT. Dr. E. S. Wilkinson, president State Colored College, Orange- burg: " Your letter of February 16, describing the features of S. 3, known as the Page bill, revised and perfected up to date, re- ceived. Upon reading the same I find that its provisions are broad and liberal, and that if passed it would increase wonder- fully our opportunities of extension in agricultural instruction. " The measure has my hearty support and I shall do all I can to influence its passage." SOUTH DAKOTA. Hon. R. S. Vessey, governor of South Dakota, Pierre: " I am in receipt of your favor of the 14th inst., transmitting report on Senate bill No. 3, and in connection therewith have to say, on behalf of the people of South Dakota, that, in our opinion, the measure presents a very vigorous and effective aid to the proper and best development of our youthful citizenship ; hence it has our indorsement." C. G. Lawrence, State superintendent of public instruction, Pierre, says: " Regret my inability to be present at meeting December 14 ; am in hearty accord with the general principles of Page bill, and shall do all in my power to help secure its enactment. Such a law will meet with general favor in this State." J. H. Hetley, county superintendent of schools, Webster, says: " We have been trying in our weak way to aid the passage of your good measure^ and a few of us are now looking about to see how we can best do more toward securing the passage of so fine a bill. Any suggestions you might be willing to give will be followed out as far as practicable. " We shall have the matter brought up at our Northern South Dakota Educational Association and perhaps have some resolu- tion passed, but we think that this is not enough. Its measures are of vital interest to the future of our agriculture, and for this reason both our schools and our citizens will be greatly improved by the carrying out of its provisions. " The Page bill is good from my point of view. It will build up an immense corps of suggestive supervisors for the whole country. It will stimulate the agricultural movement and at the same time furnish some sane restraints upon the expenditure of public moneys." J. W. Heston, president State Normal School, Madison : "I thank you for copy of your Senate bill No. 3, and report on same. " I am certainly interested in its passage and feel confident our entire Congressional delegation will support the bill. Our Senator Crawford is member of your committee and wrote me sometime ago he was giving you all the help in his power. VOCATIONAL EDUCATION. 119 ' I have been on national committee on agricultural education for several years, working for this or a similar measure and I should be glad to do anything further in my power to secure its passage. I believe in every feature of the bill." H. F. Patterson, superintendent Better Farming Association of South Dakota, Aberdeen : "A great deal of interest in better farming is being taken in this part of the State, and I believe that your bill will be the means of spreading this kind of work through each of the Northern States." A. N. Hume, agronomy department. South Dakota State College, Brookings : "Although it is distinctly the function of the several States to provide for the education of citizens within their bound- aries it may well be a Federal function to assist the States. Any law providing for such assistance should be only restrictive enough to provide for the proper use of the funds. It seems to me that your bill embodies a number of the desirable fea- tures." G. W. Nash, president Northern Normal and Industrial School, Aberdeen : "At a meeting of the Northern South Dakota Educational Association at Webster the" committee on resolutions declared for your measure." TENNESSEE. The editor of the Progressive Teacher, Nashville, says : " I am ready and anxious to cooperate with you heartily and in every way possible." Prof. Catharine A. MoUigan, dean department of home economics. University of Tennessee, Knoxville: " It is with great pleasure that I indorse Senate bill No. 3, known as the Page vocational educational bill. " I am in favor of having home economics taught in every school in the United States." TEXAS. S. E. Mezes, president University of Texas, Austin : " Senate bill No. 3 appeals to me as a wise measure, conceived in a spirit of broad statesmanship. If it should become a law, as I hope it will, it would enable the Federal Government to cooperate helpfully and effectively with the States in improving the educational system of the country." A. Caswell Ellis, prof essor philosophy of education, division department extension, Austin, says: "A copy of your bill on agricultural education, together with your letter, was handed to me by Prof. Sutton, on account of the 126 VOCATIONAL EDUCATtOlSf. fact that I have been especially interested in this matter both here and abroad. " Let me express my very heartiest commendation of this bill. I wish especially to commend the encouragement of agricultural and industrial education in our normal sdnools, so that we have a supply of teachers in our regular schools who are competent to teach these subjects and are in sympathy with them. " Really, the success or the failure of the secondary agricultural education rests upon the training and character of men who teach this subject. " I wish also to especially commend that feature in your bill which allows either special agricultural high schools or regular high schools with properly organized agricmtural departments to secure the benefit of this appropriation. " I feel that I should apologize for intruding so much upon your attention, but the matter is one that greatly interests me and upon which I have done a great deal of work." The editor of Farm and Ranch, Dallas, says : " It is a most excellent measure and one that is designed to stimulate education in behalf of the farms and those who most need this practical information." The editor of the Texas Stockman and Farmer, San Antonio, writes : " Copy of your bill with view to promoting a better system of education along agricultural lines received. We wiU do all we can to aid you. ' The Daily Texas Live Stock Reporter says : " We spend millions of dollars in teaching our children things that are of ncv practical value to them in the struggle for exist-' ence. We call them to do work that we give them no training for doing ; we demand the tale of brick but we furnish no straw. Efficiency is value to the worker and to the Nation. The youth who goes out of school with a trained mind and hand is equipped for the battle that all must fight before success can be achieved. The money that is wasted in years of instruction in branches of learning that profits nothing because it is never applied would, if spent in teaching our children how to do things and the philoso- phy of practical affairs, count in making them more valuable as citizens and making us as a nation more forceful in the affairs of the world. Senator Page's plan is the beginning of a change for the better that deserves the approval of all thoughtful men." F. M. Bralley, State superintendent of education, Austin, says : " I have read Senate bill No. 3, recently received from you, and wish to say that the enactment of said bill into law would be of incalculable value to the educational interests of Texas and the entire country. I therefore heartily indorse the bill and express the hope that it will be given the support of every intelligent, patriotic Member of the United States Congress." VOCATIONAL EDtrCATION. 121 A. L. Paschal, superintendent Lubbock Agricultural Experimental Station, Lubbock: " I have read your amended Senate bill 3 and report, which you recently sent to me. I was very much interested in reading it and am very enthusiastic and anxious that it be unanimously adopted and enthusiastically put into practice. I heartily in- dorse it. T. W. Buell, superintendent Denton Agricultural Experiment Station, Denton: "A copy of the report on Senate bill No. 3, and a copy of the bill, reached me the other day. " The optional feature is a good idea, as this gives States not yet in shape to utilize all features of the work an opportunity to avail themselves of things that may be used and a chance to later use the others. I approve it quite heartily. " I' believe each State should be required to add as much to its share as it receives from the Government, but I believe you have practically so arranged the matter in section 6 of the act. " So far as I have examined the bill it has my hearty indorse- ment." Dr. J. O. Morgan, department of agronomy, Agricultural and Mechanical College of Texas, College Station: " In my opinion this is an extremely important measure. The country is at present badly in need of just such help as your bill provides. "I think that the various State governments will gladly co- operate with the National Government in this further effort to advance agricultural and allied industries. " I am highly pleased with the bill and offer you my hearty support in furthering its success." Rufus J. Nelson, editor Farm and Ranch, Dallas: " Our country could make no better investment than in train- ing the boys to be producers and the girls to be homemakers. A nation can rise no higher than the ideals of its citizens, and as the majority of our citizens must be producers^ it is the Nation's duty to educate and train her people for efficient production. Every dollar appropriated for industrial education will be an investment for this Government that will return dividends in products from our farms, factories, and mines, and the thousands of unfortunate boys and girls who are now unable to secure an education will be trained for citizenship. " Our schools do not now meet the needs of society. The tendency is now, and has ever been, to place emphasis upon the so-called art studies at the expense of industrial training. This is forcing thousands of bright boys and girls out of school an- nually. They become impatient to become breadwinners be- cause they recognize that the average high school or college course does not qualify them for a competence. 122 VOCATIONAL EDUCATION. " Industrial education will interest students because it trains for the everyday duties of life and makes efficient producers. Le<- us establish schools where boys and girls with but little means may become skilled producers and guardians of our domestic peace and prosperity. " I believe that it is our imperative duty to provide ways and means for training in the practical things of life those who are to live after us. Our own citizens who are to cultivate our farms, manufacture our products, operate our public-service utilities should have an equal chance with those who come from foreign lands. It is our patriotic duty to invest the people's money in educational institutions where the people may be trained for industrial service. Failing to do this, will we not be responsible for social unrest, for anarchy, and for the dimin- ishing returns in agriculture, which must inevitably follow unless our people be trained as breadwinners? " The Page vocational bill would be of inestimable benefit to us in Texas. We are an agricultural people, wholly dependent upon the products from our farms, but our people are not train- ing their boys properly to produce larger crops and their girls adequately to make home life better. We have wonderful re- sources — farm products, timber, minerals, etc. — but our children are not taught manufacturing. " But, the ' back-to-the-farm ' movement is being agitated, and our people want industrial and agricultural education for their children. The sentiment for vocational education is now apparent. This bill will make it possible for every boy and girl to secure industrial training. " I trust that you may have the hearty support and coopera- tion of the Texas delegation in Congress. I am sending a copy of this letter to our Senators and you may feel at liberty to quote all or any part of this letter if it will render you any assistance." UTAH. W. M. Stewart, principal of the State Normal School, Salt Lake City, says : " Our objection primarily is to the establishment of district agricultural schools of secondary grade and not to the other pro- visions of the bill. We believe strongly in industrial and voca- tional subjects as a part of the curriculum of the high school, but we think that the establishment of State district agricultural schools of secondary grade would be detrimental to our already established high schools. If this clause which provides for separate agricultural schools and experiment stations were elimi- nated, the bill would meet with our approval." Note. — The views of Principal Stewart have been met by the elimi- nation of that part of the bill which provides for separate experiment stations, but the provisions for district agricultural schools of second- ary grade is regarded as so all-important to the cause of agricultural education that it has been continued in the bill, notwithstanding the protest of Principal Stewart. VOCATIONAL EDTJOATION. 123 VERMONT. Hon. John A. Mead, governor of Vermont, says : "I have felt keenly for many years that in Vermont at least there was a great demand for increased facilities along agricul- tural and educational lines, and the conditions of said bill wiU afford the desired relief and where it is most needed. "My contention has been that the prosperity of our Nation more largely depends upon intelligent development of industrial agricultural life than to any other cause. Nature has been prodi- gal in her gifts to our State and Nation, and shall we exercise that industry and knowledge which will permit us to reap the bounty which has been placed at our door ? " You are working along the right lines, and may your success equal your fondest anticipations." Mason S. Stone, State superintendent of education, Montpelier, says: "As a financial measure it will be a wealth producer, as it will produce wealth producers. "As an economic measure, it will eliminate waste through mis- fit service and greatly increase the efficiency of each successive generation. "As a just measure, it will afford equality of opportunity to a million of boys by enabling each to discover the thing he can do best and by training him to do that thing the best he can. "As an educational measure, it will neutralize the traditional and bookish education of the present and will train pupils to think, to do, to be. "As a civic measure, it will greatly enhance the Nation's gen- eral intelligence, which is the guaranty of the Nation's peace, permanence, and prosperity. "As a moral measure, it will produce individual industry and contentment, community cooperation and harmony, and national integrity and righteousness. "It is the most important bill for the development of the agri- cultural resources of the country that has ever been introduced since the Morrill bill." Martin G. Benedict, principal St. Johnsbury Academy, St. Johns- bury, says : " The Page bill, a bill to cooperate with the States in encour- aging instruction in agriculture, the trades, industries, home economics, etc., has received my careful attention. I fully and enthusiastically indorse its provisions and urge our Representa- tives in Congress to do their utmost to secure its passage." The New England Farmer, Montpelier, says: " Senator Page's bill is one of tremendous and far-reaching importance to the people of this country. Its enactment will open the door of opportunity for tens of thousands of American boys. 124 VOCATIONAL EDUCATION. " We need to make our educational system more practical. This does not mean that we are to cut out the essential features that form the foundation of our educational system, but it does mean that we ought to provide a system of study that will help our boys and girls to a greater degree to go forth and earn their own living.. It is no secret that there have been a good many studies that have been of little practical benefit to the student and have been forgotten almost as soon as the textbooks were closed and packed away. "Battleships and standing armies are not the only means of protection for a nation. Danger from a foreign foe is a remote possibility. Danger from ignorance, inefficiency, and poverty is an ever-present peril. The foes of our own household are to be dreaded more than any possible invasion from overseas. If every year we fit several million boys and girls by the study of manual training, scientific agriculture, and domestic science we increase the wealth of the Nation by untold millions of dollars, because we make possible the earning of larger wages, the win- ning of greater profits, and the more economic expenditure of the earnings of the man who works with his hands. By increas- ing the possibility of securing more of the comforts of life we reduce thereby the army of the discontented, we lessen the num- ber of misfits in our economic system, and we make our country a safer and a better place in which to dwell." C. H. Spooner, president of Norwich University, Northfield, says: " I have given the bill a first reading. It does ' look good ' to me. May success attend you." G. L. Green, principal Vermont State School of Agriculture, Ran- dolph Center, says: " I am unable to be present at the conference concerning the passage of the Page bill, but I need not tell you that I am vitally interested in its passage. " This first Vermont State School of Agriculture is located in the home county of the late Senator Justin S. Morrill, father of agricultural education in the United States. Our school main- tains a two-year course, which is intented to fit the farm boy for practical and intelligent farming. We are filling a gap between the high school and college. For the first time, the farmers of the State have a school of secondary grade, established prima- rily for their benefit. " The appropriation which we have for the present year's use is far too small to establish our plant and provide even the beginnings of an equipment. Schools of this kind everywhere can not obtain State aid adequate to their needs, and any bill which Congress may pass which will help the cause along will be a great blessing to the Nation. May the Page bill speedily become an act.'' Edward S. Abbott, principal Montpelier High School, Mont- pelier, says: " I have read with much interest the bill introduced by you in the Senate. It seems to me that it contains the elements of says VOCATIONAL EDUCATION. 125 a mighty service to the Nation, in no way second to the Morrill law." A. S. Harriman, principal Middlebury High School, Middlebury, " I have carefully read the copy of bill introduced by you, and cordially approve of a bill so wide in its scope and so salutary m its provisions for the welfare of industrial training throughout our country." The following resolutions were adopted by the Vermont State Grange at its annual session December 12, 1911 : " Whereas a safe, surcj and sound development of the country industrially, educationally, and morally needs impulse and en- couragement, and " Whereas the agricultural conditions of the country are rapidly approaching a state demanding a greater knowledge and an intensive application of the science of agriculture on account of the occupation of nearly all available land and the constant increase in population : Therefore "5e it resoVued iy the State Grange of Vermont, in its fortieth annual meeting, that we heartily indorse the vocational measure before Congress, with such modifications or amendments as will adjust it to various vocations, and urge its passage." Mrs. Bertha M. Terrill, department of home economics, University of Vermont, Burlington: " Keenly interested as I am in every effort that looks toward the introduction of agricultural and home economic studies into our schools for the improvement of rural conditions of living, I am heartily in sympathy with your effort and hope it may succeed." Philip R. Leavenworth, principal State Normal School, Castleton: " I am in receipt of your favor of February 29. I have exam- ined the Page vocational bill and also the accompanying report on vocational education with much interest and pleasure. I can assure you that I very heartily approve of the bill in every re- spect and trust that it will soon become a law. " I believe that if this bill becomes a law it will be the greatest forward step in education in this country that has been taken since the passage of the Morrill Act. If there is anything that I can possibly do in any way to help the good work along, please call on me." VIRGIliriA. J. D. Eggleston, jr., superintendent of public instruction of Vir- ginia, says: " This measure has been discussed by leading farmers and edu- cators throughout the State of Virginia, and I am in position to know that the sentiment for it is very strong. My opportunities for observation have been unusually good, and I am safe in saying that were this measure put to a vote of our people it would be favored by an overwhelming majority." 126 VOCATIONAL EDUCATION. H. F. Button, director Manassas Agricultural High School, Ma- nassas, says: "I wish you all speed with the Page vocational school bill. We have conducted an agricultural school here four years with such success that 200 farmers testify to its value. We can not continue to grow without more money. The State can not support us; Congress can and should." Dr. E. A. Alderman, president University of Virginia, Charlottes- ville : " The bill embodies a great idea, and if enacted into law will render an enormous service. I think you would do well, if I may venture to make a suggestion to you, to make provision in this bill for giving aid to the departments of education now ex- isting in the State universities for the preparation of teachers for the secondary schools and for training men to direct the edu- cational machinery of the State. Every American university, especially those in the South, has either inaugurated or is pre- paring to inaugurate such a department. ' One already exists at this university, and I venture to predict that in 10 years every State university will have an organized department of education, which will not be a normal school and would not be so recognized. There will be, however, work of incalculable value in invigorat- ing the whole school system. Is it not possible for you to remedy this defect in your bill, if I may take the liberty of so calling it ? The bill would then seem to me to be an unusually powerful and well-thought-out scheme for the development of the educational life of the Nation." Note. — The bill has been so amended as to meet these criticisms of President Alderman. J. L. Jarman, principal State Female Normal School, Farmville: " Yours of the 29th ultimo is received. I have kept up witli the Page vocational bill since it was first offered and am thor- oughly in sympathy with it in every detail." Hervin U. Roop, president Eastern College, Manassas: " I have read your bill with much interest and certainly think you are on the right track. I am a firm believer in voca- tional education. Every Senator and Representative in Congress should support the Page bill." J. H. Johnston, president Virginia Normal and Industrial Insti- tute, Petersburg: " Your letter of the 29th of February has been received. In reply would say I have read very carefully the bill known as the ' Page vocational bill ' and think it very worthy of con- sideration and an early passage. We feel very grateful for your efforts toward passage of same, as general benefits will result to all the schools. " P. S. — I hope the delegation niay give united support." VOCATIONAL EDUCATION. 127 Dr. N. S. Mayo, Virginia Agricultural Experiment Station, Blacks- burg: " I have read very carefully Senate bill No. 3 pn vocational training. Many years' experience as a teacher in agricultural and mechanical colleges and a lecturer at farmers' institutes in extension courses convinces me that this bill will do more to advance the interests of the producing classes in the United States both in a material and educational way than anything else I can conceive of. I believe that this bill will add immensely to the welfare and well-being of the Nation. I congratulate you upon your foresight in the preparation and introduction of this bill. It certainly should become a law." Julian A. Burruss, president State Normal and Industrial School for Women, Harrisonburg: " Replying to your letter of February 29 relative to Senate bill No. 3, known as the Page vocational bill, I beg to say that our whole faculty are in entire accord with the purpose of the bill, and shall be pleased to do everything we can to secure its passage. We have already written our representatives in Congress urging its support." WASHINGTON. Henry B. Dewey, State superintendent of public instruction, Olympia, says: " I have very carefully examined Senate bill 3 and wish to give it my unqualified indorsement in every particular. I hope that the bill will pass substantially as printed without material amend- ment. It means more, in my judgment, for the youth of this country than any other bill now pending in Congress. It is the first definite step toward a redirect education." O. L. Waller, vice president of the State College of Washington, Pullman, says: " We are very much in hopes that before Congress adjourns some good bill providing for actual demonstration to the farmers and sons of farmers will be enacted into law. We have at this institution calls for men to do this kind of work that are far beyond the means we have to take care of such calls. We have not appropriation enough at present to either employ the men or provide the equipment for such work to meet such demands. I shall prepare to write you at a later date concerning Senate bill 3 and shall seek an opportunity to look it over more carefully. But you may be very sure that we are greatly interested in some legislation looking to actual services along the line of better farming conditions." C A Tonneson, editor Northwest Horticulturist, Tacoma, says : " Your kind favor of recent date and copy of your bill was dulv received in time for comment in our August issue. The measure you propose is along the lines we have been agitating for 128 VOCATIONAL EDUCATION. several years past, and therefore will be glad to cooperate with you in an endeavor to get final action on this bill. " The Horticulturist believes a measure of this kind enacted would help solve some of the perplexing problems of the day. Theory and speculation have been rampant in this country. Early training industrially will continue to make us strong in all the noble qualities for which the American Nation became noted a generation ago." N. D. Showalter, principal State Normal School, Cheney : " I believe this is one of the best measures that has ever been presented along this particular line. I feel that Federal aid in these particular lines will stimulate very largely the activities of the States to put the work on a good basis. All educators are very much interested in the trend of educational thought, more practical ideas, and I feel that our Commonwealth would be very much benefited by the improvement which is sure to come through the aid of this measure. " May I say further that I shall be glad to cooperate in every way possible, and if there is anything that I can do to further the interests of this bill I shall be only too glad to do so." W. E. Wilson, principal Washington State Normal School, Ellens- burg: " Yesterday we had a visit from nine superintendents from western Washington. At a dinner served to them with the mem- bers of our faculty and our board of trustees by our domestic science department, the Page bill and its value to this State was discussed and a resolution was proposed strongly urging the rep- resentatives from this State to support the bill. " The more I consider the provisions of the bill and the results that would surely follow the enactment of the measure the more do I appreciate the value of it as an educational measure. It seems to me that the bill is very wisely constructed. It provides for the preparation of teachers of these practical subjects and for securing in the country schools equipment for the education of children for country home life. If the United States does this it will place itself clearly in the front rank of nations in the matter of providing for the general education of the people in matters nearest to their interest and welfare." Fred W. Lewis, secretary Washington State Grange, Tumwater: " To the Memhers of Congress from Washington: " HoNOEABUi Senators and Representatives : At the last ses- sion of the National Grange the matter of vocational education was brought up, and after due deliberation it was decided to urge the adoption of the Page bill, known as Senate bill No. 3, as being a step in the right direction. " It is foolishness to cram our children's brains with matter that can be of no value to them in after life and allow their hands and minds to remain entirely untrained for the duties that will be theirs during their lifetime of effort to obtain a livelihood for themselves and their families. VOCATIONAL EDUCATION'. 129 " It will not be possible to give thorough education along any line of endeavor, but it is possible to give an idea of the funda- mental principles of all of those vocations which are the bases of the lifework of all our working people. " Washington State Grange wishes to urge upon you that you use your best endeavor to gain the adoption of this law, and as we represent the wishes of over 16,000 members, consisting of farmers and their families, we feel that you will take thought of our wishes in this. " The expense connected with this law, if put into effect, is very small when compared with the great number that will be benefited by it and although the figures look great yet when divided between those who will pay it will be very small. " Hoping this may meet with your approval and that your best efforts will be exerted in the effort to make this bill a law, I remain." WEST VIRGINIA. Hon. William E. Glasscock, governor, Charleston, W. Va. : " I have not had the time to give as much thought to you vo- cational bill as I would like to, but am profoundly impressed with the wisdom of such legislation and the great good that a law of that kind will do for a great majority of the people of this country. " I am sure that West Virginia would take advantage of such a law, and I can think of nothing that would be more encourag- ing to our people as a whole than the aid that is proposed to be given by the Federal Government to agriculture and kindred subjects." M. P. Shawkey, State superintendent of public instruction, Charles- ton, says : " I have studied quite carefully Senate bill 3 and find myself unable to improve upon its contents. " West Virginia is just now entering upon a determined cam- paign for bringing it into its own industrially, and especially agriculturally. We find the financial burden of such a project is somewhat embarrassing, and that Senate bill 3 will extend to us the strong hand of the Government. I most heartily indorse the bill and believe that its passage will prove to be a master stroke of legislation. " Our State supervisor of high schools, Prof. L. L. Friend, is much interested in this measure and is writing you his opinion, which you are at liberty to use if you so desire." Thomas E. Hodges, president West Virginia University, Morgan- town, says : " Yours of December 4, addressed to the State Agricultural College, Charleston, has come to me. „ c . u-n " I most heartily approve the general purposes oi Senate bill 3 a copy of which accompanied your letter. ' " The Association of Agricultural Colleges and Experiment Stations, at its recent meeting at Columbus, Ohio, gave their 40159— S. Doc. 845, 62-2 9 130 VOCATIONAL EDUCATIOIT. indorsement to the general proposition for Federal aid for instruction in agriculture and mechanical arts and domestic science in secondary schools and for Federal aid to the State colleges of agriculture for extension." Thomas C. Miller, principal Shepherd College State Normal School, Shepherdstown, says: " I beg to acknowledge receipt of your letter of the 5th, to- gether with a copy of Senate bill 3, which you have introduced in that body. I give it my most hearty approval. As a member of the national agricultural executive committee, I shall be glad to do anything I can to further the measure and should be glad to come to Washington at any time I can be of any assistance." L. L. Friend, supervisor of high schools, Charleston, says : " I have been watching with much interest the fortunes in Congress of the Page bill, providing for the appropriation by the Federal Government of funds to' promote the teaching of agri- culture in high schools and normal schools. The most impor- tant educational movement now in progress in this country is the movement for the betterment of rural education. The Page bill, if passed, will prove of incalculable benefit to this move- ment." WISCOiTSIW. J. W. Crabtree, president State Normal School, Eiver Falls : " I thoroughly approve of Senate bill No. 3. The agricultural colleges and the experimental stations of the United States have done and are doing a great work. I would favor the Nation's making still greater provision for those institutions than has been done in the past, but it seems to me your bill desires to render a more valuable service and a kind of service that can not be rendered by the higher institutions. " Your bill has in mind getting at this whole thing at its very foundation and of giving every child such a notion of agriculture and other vocational studies as to at least lead him to appre- ciate the wisdom of his going further in those lines." A. H. Cole, principal Lincoln County Training School, Merrill : " This bill meets my hearty concurrence. If there is anything that I can do to assist in the passage of this bill I shall be glad to do so." Duncan McGregor, private secretary of Gov. McGovern, of Wis- consin, says : " I am directed by Gov. McGovern to express to you his un- qualified approval of the purpose of bill 3, Sixty-second Con- gress, first session, introduced by yourself on April 6, 1911." Charles McKenny, president State Normal School, Milwaukee, says: " I have your letter of December 7 inviting me to a conference December 14, 15, 16, at Washington, D. C, to consider the Page VOCATIONAL EDUCATION. 131 bill (S. 3). I regret that previous engagements prevent my being present at the conference. I want to say that I am in sympathy with the general provisions of the Page bill." A. A. Johnson, superintendent Milwaukee County School of Agri- culture and Domestic Economy, Wauwatosa, says: " I am very much interested in the bill you have introduced contemplating Federal aid for secondary agricultural education in the various States. I hope it will pass." The editor of the Butter, Cheese, and Egg Journal, Milwaukee, says: " We fully appreciate the importance of greater educational interest along agricultural and home economic lines, and we shall endeavor to aid the cause to the best of our ability. We assure you of our hearty support." John F. Sims, State Normal School, says : " This measure, in my opinion, is a most desirable one for the whole country, as the questions involved are the most impor- tant in present-day needs. The bill, if made law, will stimulate the scientific study of agriculture, make the farm more attractive and more profitable, and encourage a wholesome move back to the country." Henry E. Miles, chairman of the committee on industrial educa- tion of the National Association of Manufacturers, says : " The present common-school system is cultural ; practical mat- ters are no part of its aim, nor can they be made a part. Less than one-half of our children go beyond the sixth grade ; only 1 in 3 completes the grammar-school course ; only 1 in 5 enters the high school ; only 1 in 30 graduates from the high school. Half of the children leave school at the age of 14. The Wisconsin Bureau of Labor, in its report for 1910, declares that only 12 per cent of the children employed under 16 years of age are in posi- tions where they can learn a trade. "Germany apparently prefers that the great body of her chil- dren shall enter the industries at the age of 14. The point is that Germany goes into the industry with the child ; the hand of the child is kept within the hand of the State. The school to which he goes is called the continuation school, for in this school his education is continued. In the continuation school only the science and art of the trade is taught. The child there learns the relations of his particular factory task to the whole of his industry. He is taught scientifically the higher reaches of his industry and up to the limit of his ability is made an accom- plished and scientific factor in his industry." A A. Johnson, principal La Crosse School of Agriculture and Domestic Economy at Onalaska, says : " I feel that your bill, as I understand it, will be a great aid to the development of the agricultural resources throughout the United States." 132 VOCATIOlsrAL EDUCATION. Prof. Ely, of Wisconsin, declares : " Industrial educationj not for the few but for all people, for every boy and girl born in the United States, without one excep- tion, is the chief economic demand of our times. " Comparatively little is attained by picking a few here and there and elevating them above the masses by technical schools. We want to extend the benefit of industrial schools to all alike." W. A. Clark, principal Eau Claire County Training School for Teachers, Eau Claire: " Your letter of the 29th ultimo with the copy of the Page vocational bill and the report on vocational education were duly received. " I am interested in the purposes which this bill seeks to ac- complish, particxilarly in the preparing of teachers for vocational courses in the State College of Agriculture, for which there is great need. " I also believe the many expenditures for the encouragement of instruction in agriculture in the secondary schools will be a splendid investment for the Nation. I find nothing in the bill to which I would take exception." WYOMING. Emeline S. Whitcomb, professor household science, University of Wyoming, Laramie : " Your bill has my hearty indorsement. I believe it will help more than any other existing measure along educational lines to help people to help themselves." EXTRACT FBOM THE REPORT OF THE COMMITTEE ON EDUCATION OF THE NATIONAL GRANGE AT ITS MEETING IN COLUMBUS, OHIO, 1911. The grange has ever stood for the highest and most thorough teaching of the young in the common schools, not only in the usual branches, but especially in the elementary principles of domestic science and agriculture, and we believe that in a nation depending so largely upon agriculture as a basis of wealth as does the United States, every child should be taught the basic principles of this science of agriculture. LAW OF MASSACHUSETTS RELATIVE TO INDUSTRIAL EDUCATION. Section 1. Tbe governor, by and with the consent of the council, shall ap- point a commission of five persons to be Ijnown as the commission on industrial education, to serve for the term of three years, and to receive such compensa- tion as the governor and council shall approve. The said commission on Its organization shall appoint a secretary to be its executive officer, who shall not be a member of the commission, and who shall receive such salary as shall be approved by the governor and council, and the commission may employ super- visors, experts in industrial and technical education, and such clerical and other service as may be found necessary. The necessary expenses of the VOCATIONAL EDUCATION. 133 commission, including clerk hire, traveling expenses, stationery, and all other Incidental expenses, shall be paid out of the treasury of the Commonwealth, as may be provided by law, but shall not exceed the sum of eight thousand dollars for the remainder of the present fiscal year. Section 2. The commission on industrial education shall be charged with the duty of extending the investigation of methods of industrial training and of local needs, and it shall advise and aid in the introduction of industrial educa- tion in the independent schools, as hereinafter provided; and it shall provide for lectures on the importance of industrial education and kindred subjects, and visit and report upon all special schools in which such education is carried on. It may initiate and superintend the establishment and maintenance of industrial schools for boys and girls in various centers of the Commonwealth, with the cooperation and consent of the municipality involved or the municipalities con- stituent of any district to be formed by the union of towns and cities, as here- inafter provided. The commission shall have all necessary powers in the con- duct and maintenance of industrial schools, and money appropriated by the State and municipality for their maintenance shall be expended under its direc- tion. Section 3. All cities and towns may provide independent industrial schools for instruction in the principles of agriculture and the domestic and mechanic arts, but attendance upon such schools of children under fourteen years of age shall not take the place of attendance upon public schools as required by law. In addition to these industrial schools cities and towns may provide for evening courses for persons already employed in trades, and they may also provide, in the industrial schools and evening schools herein authorized, for the instruction in part-time classes of children between the ages of fourteen and eighteen years who may be employed during the remainder of the day, to the end that instruc- tion in the principles and the practice of the arts may go on together : Provided, That the independent schools authorized in this section shall be approved as to location, courses, and methods of instruction by the commission on industrial education. Section 4. Two or more cities or towns may unite as a district for the main- tenance of the industrial schools provided for in the preceding section, but no such district shall be created without the approval of the commission on indus- trial education. Section 5. Whenever any city or town or any district, as provided in the pre- ceding section, shall appropriate money for the establishment and equipment and maintenance of independent schools for industrial training, the Common- wealth, in order to aid in the maintenance of such schools, shall pay anually from the treasury to such cities, towns, or districts, a sum proportionate to the amount raised by local taxation and expended for the support of schools for each thousand dollars of valuation, as follows : Cities and towns expending more than five dollars. for each thousand of valuation for the support of public schools to be reimbursed by the Commonwealth to the amount of one-half, those raising and expending between four and five dollars per thousand to the amount of one-third, and those raising and expending less than four dollars per thousand to the amount of one-fifth, of the cost of maintaining industrial schools: Pro- vided, That no payment to any city or town shall be made except by special appropriation by the legislature. . ^ ^ . , ^ ^. Section 6 The commission on mdustrial education shall make a report an- nually to the legislature relative to the condition and progress of industrial education during the year, stating what industrial schools have been established and the appropriations necessary for their jpaintenance, in accordance with the nreceeding section and making such recommendations as the commission on in- dustrial wiucation may deem advisable; and especially shall the commission poned to establish a normal department for the purpose of giving instruc- *w!^\r, the- plements of agriculture to persons desiring to teach such elements in thnnhlic schools, as provided in sections three and four: Provided, That the f nf such department shall not exceed the sum of five thousand dollars in ^ one year, and that at least fifteen candidates present themselves for such Instruction. 134 VOCATIONAL EDUOATION. Section 8. Section ten of chapter forty-two of the revised laws, and all acts and parts of acts Inconsistent with this act, are hereby repealed. (Approved, June 21, 1906.) In 1908 the term of the commission created by the foregoing act was extended to five years and its powers and duties were enlarged, as indicated in the following: The commission shall have all necessary powers In the conduct and mainte- nance of independent industrial schools, and money appropriated by the Com- monwealth or by municipalities for their maintenance shall be expended under its direction or with its approval. Any city or town may also establish inde- pendent industrial schools in charge of a board of trustees which shall have authority to provide and maintain such schools. Such schools, if approved by the commission on industrial education as to location, courses, and methods of instruction, shall receive reimbursement as provided in section four of said chapter five hundred and five. Any resident of Massachusetts may, with the' approval of the commission on industrial education, attend an independent industrial school, as provided for in this act, located in any city or town other than that in which he resides, pro- vided there is no such school supported in whole or in part by the city or town in which he resides, upon payment by the city or town of his residence of such tuition fee as may be fixed by said commission ; and the Commonwealth shaU repay to any city or town one-half of all such payments. If any city or town neglects or refuses to pay for such tuition, it shall be liable therefor. In an action of contract, to the legally constituted authorities of the school which the pupil attended under the approval of said commission. In 1909 section 5 of the law of 1906 was amended to read as foUows: Upon certification by the board of education to the auditor of the Common- wealth that a city, town, or district, either by moneys raised by local taxation or by moneys donated or contributed, has maintained an independent industrial school, the Commonwealth, in order to aid in the maintenance of such schools, shall pay anually from the treasury to such cities, towns, or districts, a sum equal to one-half the sum raised by local taxation for this purpose: Provided, That no payment to any city or town shall be made except by special appro- priation by the legislature. By another act passed in 1909 the commission on industrial educa- tion was consolidated with the State board of education and its powers were transferred to the new board thus constituted. Sections 1 and 2 of this act follow : The board of education shall consist of nine persons, three of whom shall annually in April be appointed by the governor, with the advice and consent of the council, for terms of three years, except as hereinafter provided. The mem- bers of the board shall serve without compensation. During the month of June In the current year the governor shall so appoint all of said nine members of the board, whose terms of oflice shall begin on the first day of July, nineteen hundred and nine, three for terms ending May first, nineteen hundred and eleven, three for terms ending May first, nineteen hundred and twelve, and three for terms ending May first, nineteen hundred and thirteen. Four of the present members of the board of education and one of the members of the commission on industrial education shall be appointed members of the board of education provided for by this act. The board of education shall exercise all the powers and be subject to .ill the duties now conferred or imposed by law upon the present board of education, or upon the commission on industrial education by chapter five hundred and five of the acts of the year nineteen hundred and six and by chapter five hundred and seventy-two of the acts of the year nineteen hundred and eight, and acts in nmendnient thereof and In addition thereto, except as may Jthei-\vise be provided herein. o Pamphlet Binder Gaylord Bros., Inc. Makers Syracuse, N. Y. PAT. M 21, 1308