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Reprinted from The Agricultural Education Magazine Feb. 1987; Vol. 59; Num. 8
In almost any course in agricultural education or vocational education, one thing that is likely to be mentioned is the Smith-Hughes Act of 1917. I suppose that in nearly every graduate course in vocational education I have ever taken or taught, the 1917 Act and its impact on the present form of the profession have been discussed. Vocational educators often attribute the very beginnings of our profession in the U.S. to this single piece of legislation.
If you read all of the theme articles in this issue, you will find that was not the case, and that vocational and agricultural education were already accepted parts of the American educational scene well before 1917, and, in fact, were growing steadily more popular. The Act, however, did establish vocational education as a federal program and provide both the form and much of the substance of vocational education as we have known it over the past 70 years. Indeed, there is general agreement that the passage of the Smith-Hughes Act of 1917 is the most important single event in the history of vocational and agricultural education in America (Camp & Crunkilton, 1985).
We also often speak of Smith and Hughes as though they originated vocational education; whereas, that is certainly not true. This is not to minimize the critical roles played by either of these two men in the passage of this benchmark legislation. However, this article will point out that there are four men whose efforts and influence were largely responsible for the formulation and passage of the Smith-Hughes Act of 1917. And, of those four, Smith and Hughes probably played lesser roles in the action than did the other two.
The Players
Prosser
Charles Prosser was the only professional educator among the four principal players. As a prominent educational leader with experience in industrial education program development, Prosser was hired in 1912 as the first Executive Secretary of the National Society for the Promotion of Industrial Education (NSPIE). The NSPIE had been formed in 1906 for the expressed purpose of securing federal support for industrial education. In that position, Prosser's sole function was to work toward what would eventually become the Smith-Hughes Act of...