Federal Aid to Vocational Education

Federal Aid to Vocational Education

BY FRANK S. HARRIS, PH. D., PROFESSOR OF AGRONOMY, UTAHAGRICULTURAL COLLEGE

To those members of the Mutual Improvement Associationswho have, during the last two or three years, been devoting them-selves to helping young people in the selection of a vocation, itwill be of interest to learn that a movement is on foot to give fed-eral aid to vocational education. The question of more effectivelyfittitng young people for the work of life has been discussed in allparts of the country during recent years, and we may expect thisdiscussion to be crystalized into some form of legislation. Locallegislation has already been enacted in many places; but the pres-ent agitation seems to be to make the movement nation-wide.

President Wilson in his recent message to Congress said theGovernment should give greater attention to vocational education.This is taken by some to mean that legislation along this line nowhas a better chance to pass than during previous sessions of Con-gress; for this question has been up a number of times. In 1912the Page bill, covering this field, passed the Senate, but failed inthe House. Without doubt a number of measures that have beenproposed have been visionary and inconsistent with conditionsas they exist in the country; but these failures have helped to clar-ify the subject till something suitable will without doubt bebrought forward in the near future.

The present session of Congress will probably have the op-portunity to vote on what is known as the Smith-Hughes billwhich embodies the recommendations of the President's Commis-sion on National Aid to Vocational Education, appointed in 1914.It is the purpose of the bill "to extend to the states the help of theo-overnment in establishing vocational education and in trainingpersons to teach it. This "is to be done by grants of money, andby the establishment of a Federal Board for Vocational Educationto work with and through the states in starting this form of edu-cation. The purpose of the proposed law is not to enable the Fed-eral Government to enter the educational field and establishschools, but rather to extend such aid as will stimulate the variousstates to develop the work themselves."

The commission, after going over the situation thoroughly,found a tremendous wastage of youth on account of lack of train-ing for work. They found 25,000,000 persons in the country,eighteen years of age and over, engaged in farming, mining, man-ufacturing, mechanical pursuits, trade, and transportation. Of

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the 14,250,000 engaged in manufacturing and mechanical pursuits,not one per cent have had, or at the present time have, any chanceto secure adequate training. The commission comments on theloss due to the lack of training as follows:

"If we assume that a system of vocational education, pursuedthrough the years of the past, would have increased the wage-earning capacity of each of these 25,000,000 to the extent of tencents a day, this would have made an increase of wages for thegroup of $2,500,000 a day, or $750,000,000 a year, with all thatthis would mean to the wealth and life of the nation. This is avery moderate estimate, and the facts would probably show a dif-ference between the earning power of the vocationally trained andthe vocationally untrained of twenty-five cents a day. This wouldindicate a waste of wages, through lack of training, amounting to$6,250,000 every day, or $1,875,000,000 for the year."

While these figures are almost startling, it seems probablethat they are not far from the truth. The nation cannot affordto allow this gigantic waste to continue; no more can the smallcommunity afford to have the energies of its workers dissipated onaccount of lack of training for the work that is to be done.Whether Congress passes any measure to aid this condition ornot, it seems that the officers and members of the Mutual Im-provement Associations should not slacken their efforts to assistyoung people in finding the right work and in preparing them todo it in the best way known to man.

LOGAN, UTAH

PLANTING THE M. I. A. BOY SCOUT TREE

In the new city park, Vernal, Utah, April 15, 1915. J. Winter Smith,Stake Scoutmaster.