which it is proposed the allotment shall be used, the plan of administration and supervision to be followed by the state board, the qualifications of teachers, the courses of instruction, the methods of instruction to be used, and the plans for training supervisors and teachers.

5. Federal Board Duties; Pass upon Plans

It is the duty of the federal board to examine these plans and approve the same, if believed to be feasible and found to be in conformity with the provisions and purposes of the federal act. The federal board must certify on or before the 1st day of January of each year to the Secretary of the Treasury each state which has accepted the provisions of the act and complied therewith, including the amounts which the state is entitled to receive. Once the plan of the state is approved by the federal board the administration of the act in the state is in the hands of the state board for vocational education, with the federal law and the state plan as the plans and specifications to guide the work.

6.

Federal Board Duties; Studies and Investigates

It is the duty of the Federal Board for Vocational Education to make or cause to have made studies and investigations and reports with particular reference to their use in aiding the states in the establishment of vocational schools and classes and in giving instruction in agriculture, trades and industries, commerce and commercial pursuits, and home economics. Such studies, investigations, and reports include agriculture and agricultural processes and requirements upon agricultural workers; trades, industries, and apprenticeships, trade and industrial requirements upon industrial workers and classification of industrial processes and pursuits; commerce and commercial pursuits; and requirements upon commercial workers; home management, domestic science, and the study of related facts and principles; and problems of administration of vocational schools and of courses of study and instruction in vocational subiects.

7. Organization

The federal administrative agency designed by the act is the Federal Board for Vocational Education. This board consists of seven members, four ex officio and three appointed by the President. They are the Secretary of Labor, the Secretary of Commerce, the Secretary of Agriculture, the Commissioner of Education, and three citizens who represent, respectively, the manufacturing, commercial, agricultural, and labor interests of the nation.

The state administrative agency provided in the act is a state board for vocational education designated or created by the legislative authority of the state, and consisting of not less than three members and having all necessary powers to co-operate with the Federal Board for Vocational Education in the administration of the provisions of the vocational education act.

Each state has employed a technical staff to carry out the provisions of the state plan and the Federal Board for Vocational Education employs a staff consisting of (1) an executive staff, comprising a director and four chiefs of service, and (2) a number of agents for each service who are technical experts in their respective fields. The general duties of this staff are: To assist the states, more

especially the technical staffs of the states, in carrying out the provisions of the state plan in the most effective way. This responsibility is discharged through working in the closest co-operation with the state officials and almost entirely on request, and includes such matters as interpretation of policy, advice, and suggestion as to the carrying on of the various kinds of vocational education, and suggestions for the improvement of the work. The second general duty of the staff consists in the conducting of research work and making the results of that research available to the states through the publication of bulletins, through individual conferences with state representatives, or through state and regional conferences. This work is also carried on in close.co-operation with the states. The organization is further graphically presented in Chart 44. The composition of the "regions" therein referred to is as follows:

8. Publications

(a) Annual Report to Congress of the Federal Board for Vocational Education. Government Printing Office, Price, 25 cents.

(b) Federal Board for Vocational Education, Statement of Policies. Revised Edition, May, 1922. Government Printing Office, Washington, D. C.

(c) The Federal Board for Vocational Education. Service Monograph No. 6, issued by Institute for Government Research, 1922. Appleton, N. Y.

CHAPTER 72

SMITHSONIAN INSTITUTION

1. Origin and Mission

James Smithson, of England, a graduate of Oxford University, Master of Arts, Fellow of the Royal Society, a chemist and mineralogist, made his will in 1826 bequeathing his estate to the "United States of America to found at Washington under the name of the Smithsonian Institution" an establishment for the increase and diffusion of knowledge among men. He died in Italy in 1829. In July, 1835, the Secretary of State was officially informed of the bequest, and on December 27 President Andrew Jackson communicated the papers to Congress. The message of the President was referred to the Senate Committee on the Judiciary and to a select committee of the House of Representatives. After deliberate discussion of the authority and propriety of the United States government to accept such a trust for the purpose stated, Congress authorized1 the President to assert and prosecute with effect the claim of the United States to the Smithson legacy, and Mr. Richard Rush was appointed agent of the United States for that purpose. The bequest, amounting to $508,318.46, was reported, on December 3, 1838, by the Secretary of the Treasury, as paid into the Treasury of the United States. 2

3

On December 6, 1838, President Van Buren invited congressional attention to the obligation devolving upon the United States to fulfill the object of the Smithson bequest. The subject was under consideration in the Senate and House for eight years, resulting in the founding of the Institution by an act of Congress, and by law the Smithsonian fund was made perpetually entitled to an annual income of 6 per cent. interest, and definite resources were thus assured for carrying out the purposes and objects of the founder of the trust.

In discussing the acceptance of the Smithson bequest in 1836, John Quincy Adams, in the House of Representatives, said:

"Of all the foundations of establishments for pious or charitable uses, which ever signalized the spirit of the age, or the comprehensive beneficence of the founder, none can be named more deserving of the approbation of mankind than this. Should it be faithfully carried into effect, with an earnestness and sagacity of application, and a steady perseverance of pursuit, proportioned to the means furnished by the will of the founder and to the greatness and simplicity of his design as by himself declared 'the increase and diffusion of knowledge among men,' it is no extravagance of anticipation to declare that his name will be hereafter enrolled among the eminent benefactors of mankind.

"The Smithsonian plan of organization embraces the two objects named by the testator: One, the increase of knowledge by the addition of new truths to

1 Act of July 1, 1836 (5 Stat. 64).

2 Administration and Activities of the Smithsonian Institution, by A. Howard Clark, 1917 (publication No. 2450 of the Smithsonian Institution).

3 Act Aug. 10, 1846, c. 178 (9 Stat. 102).