Smith-Hughes Act

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Assistant Professor of Education and History, Brown University. Author of School, Society, and State. Her contributions to SAGE Publications's Encyclopedia of Educational Reform and Dissent.

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Smith-Hughes Act, U.S. legislation, adopted in 1917, that provided federal aid to the states for the purpose of promoting precollegiate vocational education in agricultural and industrial trades and in home economics. Although the law helped to expand vocational courses and enrollment, it generally did not live up to the lofty aspirations of its supporters. Historians have also pointed to its unintended effects in differentiating the secondary-education curriculum in ways that often reinforced existing class- and race-based inequalities.

Historical background

In the late 19th century, a variety of groups in the United States began to advocate for the creation of new vocational-education programs in schools, reflecting the then widespread belief in the moral, educative, and practical value of work. Many supporters of vocational education, including businessmen and labour unions, saw it as a solution to problems of skilled-labour shortages and unemployment in a rapidly industrializing society. Employers hoped it would weaken the power of labour unions over the training of industrial workers, whereas workers saw it as an opportunity for individual advancement and as a means of dignifying labour itself. Many philanthropists and moral reformers regarded vocational training as an opportunity to inculcate the moral value of work, which they feared was being eroded by modern society. In contrast, many educators and pedagogical reformers saw vocational education as a way to put into practice new teaching methods and philosophies that emphasized cultivating children’s interests through active learning.

In the early 20th century, supporters of vocational education began to advocate more systematic programs and to emphasize its economic and utilitarian values more forcefully. Business groups, for example, began to argue that American economic progress and global competitiveness demanded public funding of trade instruction. In 1905 the Massachusetts state legislature appointed the Massachusetts Commission on Industrial and Technical Education, also known as the Douglas Commission, which recommended in its final report that the state expand technical and industrial training. However, it did not clearly address the question of whether such education should take place in existing public schools or in newly created vocational schools. During the next decade, Massachusetts and many other states, as well as individual cities, established both separate technical and trade schools and vocational programs within existing public school systems.

Origins and passage

The findings of the Douglas Commission were embraced by a diverse group of reformers who promoted vocational education at local, state, and national levels. In 1906 they formed the National Society for the Promotion of Industrial Education (NSPIE) to lobby on behalf of vocational education and to coordinate the efforts of supporting groups, including the American Federation of Labor, the National Association of Manufacturers, the National Education Association, and social welfare reformers.

Eight years later, the congressionally appointed Commission on National Aid to Vocational Education declared that national vocational education was an urgent necessity. Vocational training, it argued, would vitalize general education and democratize schooling by adapting it to the real needs of children, promote industrial efficiency and national prosperity, decrease labour and social unrest, and promote a higher standard of living for workers. It recommended federal grants to the states to promote vocational education, with particular focus on training vocational teachers. It proposed legislation that was later introduced by two of the commission’s members, Sen. Hoke Smith and Rep. D.M. Hughes, both of Georgia, and passed by Congress (with minor modifications) in 1917 as the National Vocational Education Act, subsequently known as the Smith-Hughes Act.

Provisions and effects

As one of the first federal grant-in-aid programs, the Smith-Hughes Act provided federal aid on a matching basis to states and established requirements regarding how the money was to be used. It created the Federal Board of Vocational Education to oversee the distribution of funds and approve state plans. The act required every participating state to designate or create a state-level body that would act as a liaison between the federal board and local districts; it thereby augmented the power of state governments at a time when they were beginning to expand their oversight of local schools in new ways.