466 Journal of Agriculture, Victoria. [10 Aug., 1918. 



Government and tlie States for the promotion of vocational education 

 in tlie fields of agriculture, home economics, and industry. It insures 

 an annual appropriation for the stimulation of this work, and creates 

 machinery for expending the money in accordance with the law. 



The money granted in 1917-18 by the Federal Government amounts 

 to $1,860,000 (£387,500). The amount increases annually for ten years, 

 when the appropriation will be $7,367,000 (£1,535,000). This is an 

 interesting example of the principle of Federal aid to education. 



The Federal Government proiposes to grant this money to the States 

 on a population basis on the following conditions : — 



(1) All schools receiving Federal aid must ibe under public 



■supervision. 



(2) The purpose of the education is to fit the individual for 



useful employment. 



(3) The instruction must be less than academic grade, and 



designed to meet the needs of ipupils over fourteen years 

 who are preparing to enter upon farm work. 



(4) Every dollar of Federal funds must be matched by a dollar 



of State funds, or local funds, or both. 



As the States must contribute dollar for dollar, the ultimate annual 

 expenditure will be over 14,500,000 dollars (£3,021,000) for vocational 

 training. Six and a quarter million dollars are to be expended on 

 agriculture, a similar amount on trade and home economics, and 

 10,000,000 dollars (£2,084,000) on the training of teachers. 



The Board appointed by the Federal Government to control the 

 vocational educational work is located at "Washington. I met the 

 Director of the Board and the Head of the Agricultural Division, and 

 secured valuable informaton on the work of the Board. The principle 

 underlying this new method of teaching agriculture is to concentrate 

 all the educational work of the school around a " project," e.g., the 

 raising of some specified crop, such as corn, wheat, potatoes, on the 

 home farm or some neighihouring farm. 



The boy from fourteen to eighteen, who does not intend to go to 

 the Agricultural iCollege, but who wishes to take a course in agriculture, 

 will carry on some project (raising crops or caring for animals, e.g., 

 production of baby beef, raising of calves, poultry, or pigs), and spend 

 half his time on the project. In the school he receives instruction in 

 ajgricultural science, English, and civics. Practically the whole of the 

 instruction is to be linked up and correlated with the particular project 

 in hand. I understand that this system of training has produced 

 remarkably good results in Massachusetts, in which State there are a 

 number of agricultural schools (high schools) which have had great 

 success in training boys in this manner. Inasmuch as the Federal 

 Government, with the unanimous consent of the States, has decided to 

 support this type of instruction with Federal money, it would seem 

 that the system must have some merit. I propose to insipect one or two 

 of these typical Agricultural High Schools in Massachusetts, to judge 

 for myself the results of this system of vocational training. 



I have not attempted to give details of the work at Illinois and the 

 Ohio Colleges of Agriculture, nor of the many-sided activities of the 



