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VOCATIONAL EDUCATION.

By WILLIAM T. Bawden,

Specialist in Industrial Education, Bureau of Education.

CONTENTS.-Important factors of progress-The Federal Board for Vocational Educa tion The Students' Army Training Corps-Vocational training in Army hospitalsSpecial training in the shipbuilding industry-Vocational education in the NavyConferences on special phases of industrial education-The continuation schoolPrevocational education and the junior high school-Manual training in secondary schools receives new impetus-Criticism examined.

IMPORTANT FACTORS OF PROGRESS.

The two years under review constitute a period of unprecedented progress in vocational education, since it is probably conservative to say that the tangible results accomplished equal those of any decade preceding. The important factors in this development may here be noted, briefly, as follows:

(1) Most important of all has been the culmination of a 10 years' campaign for securing Federal aid for vocational education, resulting in the enactment of the Smith-Hughes law and the creation of the Federal Board for Vocational Education.

(2) Second in importance only to the activities under the SmithHughes Act has been the gigantic experiment in industrial education conducted by the Committee on Education and Special Training of the War Department. The practical working out of this plan for training the "fighting mechanic" will undoubtedly be regarded as one of the achievements of the war.

(3) The Emergency Fleet Corporation of the United States Shipping Board developed a unique and comprehensive plan for greatly increasing the available supply of skilled mechanics for the shipyards. The need assumed such large proportions and the emergency was so threatening that those in charge of the work were forced to devise a special system of teacher training, which involved original and suggestive methods and plan of organization.

(4) Important contributions were also made by a number of other governmental and other agencies, including: The Navy Department: the Department of Labor, through its Training and Dilution of Labor Service; the Council of National Defense, through the War Industries Board and other channels; the National War Work

Council of the International Young Men's Christian Association, and related organizations; the Bureau of Education through a series of conferences, by bringing about the formulation of a constructive program of industrial arts instruction, and in other ways.

(5) During the past two years there has been an unprecedented reliance upon the machinery of popular education for the accomplishment of undertakings of the gravest importance, not to this Nation only, but to the world. This has been true not only in official circles, but nearly every individual and every organization that has had a program for helping to win the war has conceived of the publicschool system as an indispensable and prominent feature of the measures proposed for bringing about the desired results. It is significant that a conception of the intimate relation between education. our recent achievements as a Nation, and the future security of the Republic has caught the popular imagination, and is reflected in the public statements of responsible officials and other leaders of thought. It is of the greatest significance also that the great bulk of this concerted educational effort, certainly one of the phenomena of history. has found its inspiration and its expression in terms of the vocational phases of education.

(6) There has been an observable increase in both the amount and the proportion of attention given to the problems of vocational education in public discussion. In this increased tendency to think and talk and write in terms of vocational education, it is believed that evidence can be found of a disposition to consider "practical" education and so-called "cultural" education as complementary, rather than alternative, as some alarmists would have it.

(7) This widespread popular interest in educational matters has been accompanied by a new and more critical appraisement of school programs and courses of study and an inquiry as to just what service is being rendered to children. New emphasis has been given to the meaning and aims of education; education is being thought of more and more as something having a definite purpose, other than simply preparation for more education; there is increasing demand that this purpose shall have more definite relation to life and the means and manner of living. The increased emphasis on definition of aims and purposes of types of school, curricula, and special subjects of study, has undoubtedly been stimulated by the operation of the SmithHughes Act. The very fact that schools of certain types have been set up, with definite aims declared, has raised these inquiries as to aims and purposes with respect to other schools which have been accepted hitherto without question.

(8) Another significant evidence of progress is to be noted in the gradual diffusion of the idea that secondary education should be thought of as something to be adapted to the needs of young per

sons of ages 12 to 18 years approximately, rather than something whose content and methods should be determined by the fact that its students are expected at entrance to have completed the prescribed routine of a certain number of grades, and are expected at graduation to meet the arbitrary entrance requirements of higher institutions. Out of this conception comes the growing interest in the junior high school, the continuation school, the cooperative school, and, in part at least, vocational guidance.

(9) More general recognition of the fact that the work of teaching demands special fitness and preparation is one of the encouraging signs to be noted. There is a technic in teaching, as there is in a skilled trade. As an indication of the extent to which this view is spreading, it is worthy of note that during the summer of 1918 there were special classes for the preparation of teachers of vocational subjects conducted under the direction of State boards or departments of education in 26 States, with length of session ranging from 2 to 10 weeks. At the same time it is becoming more and more apparent that the average mechanic, with his lack of education and limited opportunity for acquiring a broad outlook on life, can not with certainty be made into a skillful and inspiring teacher through the medium of these short courses alone.

(10) Our experience in the great war has served to emphasize one serious national weakness, to which, however, attention had frequently been called before. The old-time, all-round apprenticeship system has been allowed to disappear in certain important trades, without any adequate provision for something to take its place, either in industry or in education. No effective steps were taken to insure a continual supply of all-round mechanics, even in those trades in which the need was recognized.

(11) One of the serious shortcomings in the program for vocational education in this country is that, as yet, no adéquate measures have been taken looking toward the proper coordination of compulsory-education legislation, vocational-education legislation, and childlabor legislation. There can be no justification for neglecting the fact that in most States a hiatus exists between the close of the period of compulsory schooling and the beginning of the period when young persons are permitted by law to work for wages. The dangers both to society and to the youth are obvious.

(12) There has been a noticeable tendency in public school manual training shopwork toward the industrial point of view, in subject matter as well as method. "Projects, shop experience, community service, jobs, not 'models' are the common objects of discussion" on the programs and in the conferences of manual training directors and instructors.