These achievements are largely due to the efforts of the National Committee. The standards of legislation aimed at are: exclusion of children under 14 from the field of competitive industry; regulation of employment of children between 14 and 21; and prohibition of night work for children under 16. (See XVI, Labor Leg

of a special committee of which Dean child employment and the kinds of Thomas W. Balliet of New York labor in which it shall be allowed. University was the chairman, the exhibit emphasized in many ways the tendency of the varied forms of childwelfare activities to focus in the schools or to cooperate with the school authorities. The educational section not only made a graphic presentation of the present school activities of the metropolis, but of the extensions which are urgently demand-islation.) ed. Among these were increase in the number of school shops, school kitchens, vocation schools, and supplementary visiting teachers and the wider use of school buildings for social purposes outside of school hours. Chicago. The Child Welfare Exhibit in New York City, the first of its kind on a large scale, was followed by a similar exhibition at Chicago, May 11-25. The exhibit, which was financed by Mrs. Cyrus Hall McCormick, Jr., was organized on a plan similar to that of New York, with certain additional features. Among the latter, was an impressive presentation of the condition of child labor in Chicago. It included copies of labor certificates issued to children who have just passed the 14-year age limit, many of whom have hardly mastered the elements.

Prominent among the organizations for promoting the well-being of the young are the American Physical Education Association (president for the current year, Dr. George L. Meylan of Columbia University), and the Playground and Recreation Association of America (honorary president, Theodore Roosevelt; president, Joseph Lee, of Boston).

Child Labor.-The most important body working in the interests of childhood is the National Child Labor Committee, with headquarters in New York, which called the annual conference on the subject last year at Birmingham, Ala., March 9-12. From a report presented by Owen R. Lovejoy, general secretary of the committee, it appears that during the past seven years, five southern states and the District of Columbia have passed their first laws regulating child labor, and almost every state in the Union has placed increased legal restrictions upon the hours for

School Gardens.-The increase in the number of city school gardens has been phenomenal since the first essay of the kind was made at the George Putnam Grammar School in Boston, in 1891. The Massachusetts Horticultural Association encouraged the work from the first. The establishment of school gardens in connection with normal schools, after the example set by Boston in 1901, has made the management of school gardens a part of the training of teachers generally and thus insured the wide diffusion of the work. Cornell University, through its Bureau of Nature Study, has given an immense impetus to the movement in New York State, and while its efforts are primarily intended to aid children of the country, its influence has been felt in the cities also. In Washington, D. C., the school garden and the nature lessons to which it leads have been brought within the reach of the

entire school population through the coöperation of the Bureau of Plant Industry in the Department of Agriculture, and the intelligent supervision of Miss Susan B. Sipe, one of the chief directors of this work in the United States. In some cities, the school-garden activity has merged with the playground movement, and parts of the former are beautified by the work of children. The School Garden Association of New York, which has a membership of about 1,500, maintains five model school gardens, one in each borough of the city, and through the efforts of the association, aided by other citizens, 123 school gardens have been established by private funds. The park associations have given liberal aid. The Manhattan Department of Parks has recently set aside $10,000 for this purpose.

INDUSTRIAL OR VOCATIONAL EDUCATION

Organization. The recent move-port a law was enacted creating the ment for industrial or vocational ground-work for an independent systraining has in view provision at tem of industrial high schools in public expense for preparing young cities of more than 5,000 population. people for specific industries. The An independent tax may be levied by movement differs in this respect such cities, and the state will supfrom the earlier manual-training plement this tax with an equal movement; and it differs also from amount. Local advisory boards, repthe narrow forms of industrial resenting labor unions and trade intraining by its broader scope as re- terests along with the educators, will gards both the programs of the be coördinated through the State schools and their general establish- Commission Industrial Education ment. Two systems of public schools Board. of this class have already gained recognition; one, maintained as a part of the regular public school system of a given city, and the other organized under a special state law and subject wholly or in part to state control. Four states have the latter system, namely, Connecticut, which maintains two schools wholly at the cost and under the control of the state; Massachusetts, which pays half the cost of maintaining any public industrial school established with the approval of the state commission on industrial education; twenty such schools are reported from the state, and also three independent incorporated textile schools; New Jersey, which likewise contributes half the annual cost of any such school, between the limits of $3,000 and $7,000; and New York, which contributes annually certain sums based on the length of the school session and the number of teachers employed. An enrollment of at least 25 pupils is necessary to obtain this state aid. So far, 11 schools have been established under this provision.

Trade Schools for Girls are rare, and are almost exclusively located in the northeastern manufacturing states. Of 18 schools of this class, recently reported, 14 are in Pennsylvania, New York and Massachusetts. Their courses of instruction are mainly limited to the various forms of dressmaking, garment making and millinery.

Wisconsin. The Wisconsin Commission of Industrial and Agricultural Education made an exhaustive report to the governor of that state in Jan., 1911. As a result of this re

Associations. An important feature of this movement is the interest which it has awakened on the part of two great organizations, namely, the National Association of Manufacturers and the American Federation of Labor. Two national associations have also been formed in the interest of this cause: the Nation Society for the Promotion of Industrial Education, organized in 1906 in New York City, which now has branches in 10 states, and state committees in 16 other states; and the National League for Industrial Education, established in 1909 for the specific purpose of promoting the enactment by Congress of measures pertaining to the subject. Every action of public authorities in the matter is narrowly scanned by the Federation of Labor to prevent the adoption of any measure which threatens to restrict the development of the children of the laboring classes or to give any particular industry an advantage over others.

move

Private Endowments.-The ment for industrial education at public expense was anticipated by private endowments for the same purpose. Among the most important of the endowed trade schools is the School of Applied Industries, which forms a department of the Carnegie Technical Schools at Pittsburgh. The city contributed an ample site for the institution, and funds for buildings and equipment have been supplied by the founder, as needed from time to time, in addition to which he has increased his original gift of a mil. lion dollars to the present endowment of $7,000,000. The first group of

Education in the United States." | fered in commercial and business

The report is not only an exhaustive presentation of the entire matter, but is a model in arrangement and classification.

COMMERCIAL AND BUSINESS
SCHOOLS

The earliest form of vocational training for which provision was made in this country was that of

schools. The enrollment in these schools reached its maximum in 1908 when 558 schools of this class reported 154,963 students; in 1910 the number of such schools was 541, and the total number of their students, 134,778. There were also 98,862 students pursuing business and commercial courses in schools and higher institutions for general education, making a total of 223,640 students preparing for business life.

SECONDARY EDUCATION

THE PROBLEM OF STANDARD- | the statement, it is enough to refer

IZATION

to the new plans of admission adoptIed this year by Harvard University and by the University of Chicago, which are considered under the head of higher education. The position of the high schools themselves in this matter was summed up in an elaborate report on the subject submitted to the department of secondary education of the National Education Association at its meeting in San Francisco, which was quite the most significant event of the meeting. The report maintained that any student who has successfully completed a well-planned high-school course should be admitted to college. It was made clear, however, that a "well planned course" in the meaning of the report was a stiff disciplinary course.

The chief problems of education, considered as a formative force in national life, pertain to the province of secondary schools. They are universal problems, but they present a startling complexity in this country, on account of the conflict between the democratic theory of equality of opportunity for all children, and the unequal pressure of circumstances which forces young people into distinctive groups. This collision between theory and conditions has brought about the separation of public high schools into classical, technical and business, to which a fourth group, the agricultural high school, has recently been added. This fourfold classification is now accepted as a settled policy, and a new problem, that of standardization, absorbs attention. The latter has furnished the chief topic of discussion during the year in every association that pertains to secondary education; in a number of cities and states special committees have been appointed by the educational authorities with a view to the readjustments required. One fact pertaining to this subject stands out clearly in the year's record. The universities which have heretofore controlled the matter of standards, are yielding place to the schools themselves, or rather to the dicta of the people which is instinct in the public high schools. For proof of

Private high or secondary schools are not so deeply involved in this discussion, because they are generally intended as college preparatories. This class of schools, however, joins the public secondaries in the protest against the varied requirements of different universities; by this action they have assisted in bringing about unity in a system of equivalents, to the great advantage both of the schools and the higher institutions. The endowed secondary schools have also peculiar advantages in dealing with matters of internal discipline common to all schools of this grade, such as those of fraternities and athletic contests, which have been peculiarly disturbing the past year.