1917] EDITORIAL. 707 



annually thereafter. Corresponding appropriations are made for 

 the payment of salaries in the industrial subjects, but it is provided 

 that no more than 20 per cent of these appropriations may be used 

 for the instruction in home economics. The main appropriation for 

 preparing teachers and supervisors is likewise $500,000 for the first 

 year, but increases to $700,000 and $900,000 respectively for the next 

 two years and then becomes $1,000,000 per annum thereafter. 



The basis of allotment to the States also varies with the different 

 groups. For salaries of the school instruction staff, the basis for 

 each State is, for agriculture, the proportion which its rural popu- 

 lation bears to the entire rural population of the country; for the 

 industrial subjects, the corresponding proportions of the urban popu- 

 lations ; and for the appropriation for preparing teachers and super- 

 visors, the relative proportions of the total populations of the State 

 and the Nation. 



Provision is also made, however, whereby each State, regardless 

 of its population, may receive at least $5,000 per annum from each 

 fund, and ultimately at least $10,000. In order to provide this 

 minimum allotment, small supplementary appropriations are 

 granted, totaling for the entire country, when the system is in 

 full operation, $27,000 per annum for salaries of the agricultural 

 instruction staff, $50,000 for salaries of the industrial group, and 

 $90,000 for teacher preparation. Assuming that these sums are 

 utilized in full and that the States accept the act in its entirety, the 

 ultimate permanent appropriations under the act, including the main- 

 tenance fund for the Federal Board, may aggregate $7,367,000 per 

 annum. 



As finally passed, this act embodies a system of federal and state 

 administration of vocational education which is a compromise be- 

 tween the views of those who thought a separate system of public 

 education should be organized for vocational purposes and those 

 who believed that the unity of our present public school system should 

 be maintained. While a separate Federal Board has been created 

 it is closely linked with the Bureau of Education, which deals with 

 the whole public school system. Each State is left free to establish 

 a separate system or to make the vocational schools and courses a 

 part of its existing system. It is therefore probable that different 

 plans will be adopted in the different States, and that thus there 

 will be many experimental efforts to solve the problems of vocational 

 education. 



Thus far, vocational education on a broad scale has been attempted 

 only in the older countries, where class distinctions have made it 

 comparatively easy to fix the industrial, and to a great extent the 

 social, status of the youth at a comparatively early age. There it 



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