tions indicate that in the academic year 1936-37 the estimated number of students above the junior year who were preparing in colleges and universities for the teaching of vocational subjects was 10,606. The estimated number of persons graduated with completed training for teaching in each of the vocational fields was as follows: Agriculture, 1,097; home economics, 2,181; trades and industries, 627. These figures give some indication of the extent to which the Federal Government is participating in the preparation of teachers for the program of vocational education.

Requirements for teachers. From the beginning there has been an insistence on suitably qualified teachers in the federally reimbursed program of vocational education; usually the requirements are stated rather broadly in terms of training, experience, and personal qualifications. The States are permitted to suggest the minimum qualifications that will be accepted, but Federal influence has been exerted in the direction of increasing the level of teacher preparation. Table 19 presents data to show the number of States

TABLE 19.-Number of States and Territories having various academic requirements for full-time teachers of vocational subjects, by vocational field, 1932-37 1

1 Data derived from U. S. Office of Education, Vocational Division, Analysis of State Plans for Vocational Education for Five Year Period Ending June 30, 1937 (mimeographed), pp. 17, 45, and 62. Qualifications of day-school teachers (or all-day trade shop instructors) are used.

Nine of these have supplementary requirements such as the amount or proportion of the work which must be taken in the major and related fields. Forty-four of these States and Territories have certain teacher-training requirements. See ibid., p. 18.

Forty-one of these States and Territories have certain teacher-training requirements. See ibid., p. 44.

Thirty-four of these States have other supplementary requirements as to the amount or proportion of the work which must be in specified fields. There is no separate tabulation of teacher-training requirements.

which in their plans for vocational education make certain specific training requirements for full-time teachers in each of the three fields included in the program.

In the fields of agriculture and home economics, the academic qualifications for teachers in vocational classes compare very favorably with the qualifications for high school teachers of other subjects in the better schools in the country. In trades and industries, the emphasis on the qualifications of teachers is placed more on competence in a trade than on academic preparation. This seems to be an entirely suitable emphasis for specialized schools at the adult or junior college levels; at the high school level it is probably not so defensible, in view of the necessity for broad vocational courses and thorough integration with the whole secondary program.

The preparation of teachers for vocational education in trades and industries, especially for all-day schools, has proved a most difficult problem, because of the necessity of finding in one person the combination of a high degree of competence in the trade and at least the minimum of cultural background and professional training suitable for a teacher. Because of the insistence of the Federal program on a narrow and highly specialized type of vocational education, vocational competence, equal at least to that of a journeyman, is considered a primary qualification for a teacher. One who has gone through the usual apprenticeship plan in attaining this degree of vocational competence will typically not have had the opportunities for the broad academic and professional education that is considered desirable for any teacher.

The preparation of teachers for trades and industries should include also some training in elementary economics, labor problems, and similar materials from the field of the social sciences. As long as the content in vocational education emphasizes the teaching of skills instead of a background understanding of trade problems, it will be difficult to set up broader requirements for teachers.

The present plan is to recruit vocationally competent persons and to persuade them to accept teaching positions in trades and industries; they are then offered opportunities for

building up the aspects of their preparation which may be deficient. If the instruction offered in the vocational program were less specialized, however, it might be possible to obtain reasonably well-qualified teachers more readily. In general, the teachers of the less specialized industrial arts or manual training types of courses in the high school are better qualified academically and culturally than the teachers of the highly specialized vocational subjects in the Federal program. Insistence upon high qualifications for teachers in the program of vocational education has been a valuable protection to competent personnel. The teaching and administrative staff in the federally reimbursed program are seldom subjected to unwarranted interferences with tenure. Dismissal for political or personal reasons, a type of occurrence that is distressingly frequent in general education, is seldom known among teachers in the vocational programs. It is relatively difficult in the program of vocational education for local jealousies or political forces to bring about the dismissal of a member of the staff for reasons not related to his competence or capability as a teacher or administrator.

Although the Federal program has operated to raise the standards of teachers in the vocational subjects, not much has been done to provide training for administrative officers in vocational education. The efforts of one outstanding institution, which a number of years ago attempted on its own initiative to develop courses for the preparation of supervisors and directors of vocational education, were met with discouragement from Federal officials. In another institution, in which training for administrative positions was developed recently, the work was of such inferior quality as to call into question the whole standing of the sponsoring institution. One evidence of the inattention to the training of this type of personnel is the almost complete failure of the State plans to make any requirement that the State supervisors shall have had special training in methods and procedures of educational administration. In the home economics program in several States the requirements for teachers are higher than those for the State supervisor. This and other features found in some State plans make it appear that in some cases

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requirements for State supervisors have been written primarily with the purpose of retaining the incumbents in office, or of making the position available to only one person.

Specific preparation for administrative service in vocational education would not need to be maintained in many centers, but in possibly five or six of the major universities of the country there should be graduate programs which would fit those who are to hold responsible positions in State and Federal offices for their specific duties. Encouragement should be given staff members in administrative as well as in teaching positions to take time off at intervals for additional study and research. Provisions for leaves of absence for further study are at present conspicuously inadequate in the federally reimbursed program of vocational education.

On the basis solely of the equipment of the personnel now in charge of programs at responsible levels, it may be judged that the greatest training need is for leaders and supervisors in the field of trade and industrial education. The leadership in homemaking and agriculture seems in general to be much more satisfactory than in the other vocational fields.

Teaching experience has long been accepted as one of the necessary qualifications for an educational administrator. In the field of vocational education, however, this policy leads to difficulty because the kind of person who goes into the teaching of a specialized vocational subject, particularly in trades and industries, is normally not the type suitable for administrative responsibilities. If promotion to the higher administrative positions is limited to those who have come up through experience in teaching a highly specialized trade subject, with preliminary qualifications in trade competence equivalent at best to a journeyman's status, relatively few persons can be found with suitable executive ability. It would perhaps be wise to develop alternative sources of executive personnel for the vocational program, instead of looking to the teaching ranks for the entire supply of persons qualified for promotion to administrative positions. In-service training.-The federally reimbursed program of vocational education has to its credit the development of a well-organized plan for the in-service training of teachers.

In practically all the States more supervision is provided for teachers of vocational subjects than for the teachers of the regular academic subjects. This provision of in-service training is typically carried on through the State office for vocational education; in a few States the institutions training such teachers have developed follow-up programs of inservice training for their graduates. A program of in-service training, if carried on effectively, is expensive, for the instruction is of an individual type. Although this provision is advantageous, it is probably needed also in other phases of the school program as well as in vocational education.

Use of teacher-training funds for State and local supervision. The Smith-Hughes Act provided that after June 30, 1920, no State should receive any appropriation for the salaries of teachers, supervisors, or directors of agricultural subjects until it had taken advantage of at least the minimum amount appropriated for the training of teachers, supervisors, or directors of agricultural subjects nor any appropriation for the salaries of teachers of trade, home economics, and industrial subjects until it had taken advantage of at least the minimum amount appropriated for the training of teachers of trade, home economics, and industrial subjects.31

The Act also provided that "not more than sixty per centum nor less than twenty per centum of the money appropriated under this act for the training of teachers of vocational subjects to any State for any year shall be expended for any one of the following purposes: For the preparation of teachers, supervisors, or directors of agricultural subjects, or the preparation of teachers of trade and industrial subjects, or the preparation of teachers of home economics subjects." 32

Thus the States are compelled, under penalty of losing all rights to grants in any one field, to establish and maintain a program for training vocational teachers in that field which is sufficient to use at least the minimum amount set aside for teacher training in that field.33 When this provision

31 Sec. 5.

32 Sec. 12.

"The policy of requiring each State to expend its allotment within its own borders has militated against the development of strong regional centers for teacher training in sparsely settled areas or in regions where the States are small.