The CHAIRMAN. I have one more question: You spoke of the figures of 37,000; does that mean that there would be that many cases of tuberculosis?

Capt. SMITH. Yes, sir. The War Risk Insurance Bureau in this document, which I have in my pocket, have made a chart in which they estimate that in 1922 there will be 49,000 and something over. I say approximately 50,000 to abbreviate it. We will have to care for them, and the Federal board will be responsible for them. Of course, some of them will never go into training, but the majority of them will come in at some time or other. I have been in many Public Health Service hospitals for this work, and they are taking care of them nicely, and I think that they will become quiescent, or arrested to a great degree.

The CHAIRMAN. That is one of the by-products of war?
Capt. SMITH. Yes, sir; and a big one.

The CHAIRMAN. It is wonderfully serious.

Capt. SMITH. It is one on which we are trying to put all of the attention and energy we have.

The CHAIRMAN. I am very much obliged to you for the preparation of that paper. You have given a body of information there that is valuable for this record, and you have put it into a form in which I am glad to have it.

(Thereupon, at 5.15 o'clock p. m., the committee adjourned until tomorrow, Friday, May 14, 1920, at 10 o'clock a. m.)

COMMITTEE ON EDUCATION,

HOUSE OF REPRESENTATIVES,

Friday, May 14, 1920. The committee met at 10 o'clock a. m., Hon. Simeon D. Fess (chairman) presiding.

The CHAIRMAN. Dr. Quick, will you please take the witness stand?

TESTIMONY OF MR. WALTER J. QUICK, OF THE FEDERAL BOARD
FOR VOCATIONAL EDUCATION, WASHINGTON, D. C.

(The witness was duly sworn by the chairman.)

The CHAIRMAN. Doctor, give your full name and address.

Mr. QUICK. Walter J. Quick; I am located here in Washington, although my home is in Roanoke, Va.

The CHAIRMAN. What is your position just now, Doctor?

Mr. QUICK. I am with the Federal Board for Vocational Education.

The CHAIRMAN. What position do you occupy?

Mr. QUICK. Training officer for agricultural education for the United States.

The CHAIRMAN. Training officer?

Mr. QUICK. Yes, sir.

The CHAIRMAN. What is your rank?

Mr. QUICK. Well, I hardly know what the rank is.

The CHAIRMAN. I mean are you at the head of the work?

Mr. QUICK. I am at the head of the agricultural work in the training section.

The CHAIRMAN. How long have you been with the board?

Mr. QUICK. It will be two years in October. I was engaged by the board in October, 1918.

The CHAIRMAN. Have you held this one position during the time you have been with the board?

Mr. QUICK. No, sir. I was first with the board in its research

division as a special representative.

The CHAIRMAN. You were under Mr. Winslow?

Mr. QUICK. Under Mr. Winslow.

The CHAIRMAN. You went into that work when

you first came?

Mr. QUICK. Yes, sir: I was engaged in October, 1918. The CHAIRMAN. How long have you been at the head of the agricultural training work?

Mr. QUICK. Since the 26th of July. I believe my predecessor, Dr. E. L. Holton, resigned the 26th of July, 1919.

The CHAIRMAN. What had you been doing before you came with the board?

Mr. QUICK. I had been connected with the Virginia Polytechnic Institute as dean and professor of animal husbandry, and for the last few years had been general manager of the Virginia Immigration Bureau, a State incorporation.

The CHAIRMAN. Where is the Virginia institute?

Mr. QUICK. The Virginia Polytechnic Institute is the State agricultural college at Blacksburg, Va.

The CHAIRMAN. What is your salary now, Doctor?
Mr. QUICK. $3,500.

The CHAIRMAN. What was it before you came to the board?

Mr. QUICK. When I first came with the board it was $3,000, and the salary in the position I was holding was $3,000, the same that the board paid.

The CHAIRMAN. Where were you educated, Doctor?

Mr. QUICK. My first education was in Indiana, common school and high school at Columbus, bachelor of science degree, master of science degree, Purdue University, Lafayette, Ind.; doctor of phil osophy from Germany, Halle-Wittenberg.

The CHAIRMAN. That means you were a graduate of Purdue? Mr. QUICK. Yes, sir; B. S. and M. S., both.

The CHAIRMAN. How many people have you been able to put in agricultural training?

Mr. QUICK. The question you ask hardly applies to me. I am not on the case board, do not put the men in training, but supervise, direct and organize their training after they are approved for agri

culture.

The CHAIRMAN. Do you know how many men have been placed in agricultural training?

Mr. QUICK. Yes, sir; about 4,000, not taking into consideration those who are doing prevocation work. It is very necessary on ac count of their very low elementary grade, particularly of agricultural men, that they do prevocational work preparatory to taking the training in agriculture.

The CHAIRMAN. What proportion would that be of the 4,000? Mr. QUICK. I should think about one-fourth or something like onefourth; 25 per cent, I should think.

The CHAIRMAN. How long is the average course in agriculture unier your supervision?

Mr. QUICK. That question could hardly be answered. The men approved for a year take the course provided, that is, for a year's length. After studying the proposition very thoroughly in a number of States, we found preparation absolutely necessary. I recorimended a guidance school in prevocational common branches, supplemented by elementary agriculture or horticulture leading into the agricultural unit one year courses, which I also use as a substi tute or a stepping stone rather, to supplement the work until they go into the two-year course, if entitled to more than a one-year course. The CHAIRMAN. Have you any limit as to how long this preparatory course is to be continued?

Mr. QUICK. No, sir. We were formerly compelled to finish their preparatory course in 60 days, the law providing that there should be 50 per cent practical along with related subjects. By this new scheme that I introduced last fall, we give them practical of the same amount that we give them the theoretical, and the length of time that a man is kept in this prevocational work must depend and can depend, under these arrangements, upon the time that is necessary, that is depending upon the preparation or lack of preparation of the man.

The CHAIRMAN. That calls up two interesting angles, one is whether that is workable or not, to require 50 per cent to be practical work. Have you found that workable?

Mr. QUICK. Yes, sir; we have found it workable in 22 State institutions.

The CHAIRMAN. That would be a good test.

Mr. QUICK. Yes, sir; we have had reports from 22 institutions speaking very highly of the work.

The CHAIRMAN. Before the law was written, there had been some experience in places like Cincinnati, for example, in part-time work. Mr. QUICK. Yes.

The CHAIRMAN. And I think that has been introduced in New York and in a great many places, but those who were interested in this bill were not sure whether it would be practicable to make it 50 per cent practical work and 50 per cent theoretical, or just how to draw the line. It was rather arbitrary, and up to this moment I have not heard any one say whether that provision was practicable or not.

Mr. QUICK. It is very practicable in agriculture. It enables the man, whether he is approved for one or more years, to reach whatever grade he desires to make or whatever course he desires to take, whether it is one year or two years, or a collegiate four-year course, and we have some very interesting cases of men who entered an institution of advanced learning by making his mark and who are carrying on, and will have approval to carry on to the completion of a four-year course and a B. S. degree in a State agricultural college.

The CHAIRMAN. Taking in the prevocational and also the vocational, is there any limit as to the time a man can be under training; that is, any limit in years.

Mr. QUICK. There is no limit if a man's disability is such as to give him sufficient extension to go on in the work.

The CHAIRMAN. There was some testimony here about denying to a man the teaching of English. I think that was to this effect, however, that English was not to be regarded as prevocational and therefore could not be looked upon as vocational at all. What have you to say about that?

Mr. QUICK. I have this to say, that we must first of all recognize that general education is a necessary foundation to specialized vocational education, if we would train the man to his best advantage. If a man is an illiterate, either from the standpoint of native illiteracy or because he is a foreigner and does not know the English language, in either case if he is to receive instruction intelligently, he must know the English language. As in the mechanical trades and industry the man is given shop English and shop mathematics,

4661-20-vOL 2- 60

so we give the man vocational English, from an agricultural standpoint, or horticultural, if he is going to take that particular line of agriculture, and we give him farm-business arithmetic or from arithmetic or agricultural arithmetic, on which subjects we have a half dozen or more excellent texts.

The CHAIRMAN. So you do then give English?

Mr. QUICK. We certainly do. It is very necessary. The man must acquire a vocabulary or in other words, working words, so that he may acquire the instruction and be able to carry out the instruction.

The CHAIRMAN. Dr. Quick, suppose a man should come to you who is not preparing for any particular vocation, but wants a geaeral education, would the law permit you to give him a general education?

Mr. QUICK. I think not.

The CHAIRMAN. I think that is the differentiation that was mad the other day.

Mr. QUICK. This matter may be very well illustrated by a receiving station at the Massachusetts Agricultural College, at which point we put on the guidance school and the agricultural unit courses first, as a try out for the whole United States. This was done after my preparation of what we term "Miscellaneous 185," covering these subjects or any subject pertaining to agriculture, an. in fact, all subjects. This work was put on in the Massachusetts Agricultural College, and we found there 87 men in the receiving station, 57 of whom were of very low elementary grade, and, as I recall, there were 17 illiterates, 11 of whom were foreigners. I tested those men out myself and found many of them coul! not understand me nor could I understand them. Men had beeŋ. sent to this receiving station, notwithstanding it was an agricultural college, for the purpose of trying them out to ascertain what would be the best course for them to take training. As a matter of fact, after they had learned of the work and had been given the vocational English and mathematics from an agricultural standpoint, seven men that I have notes of took agriculture who had not intended doing so, but they had had experience in agriculture, and their past experience led them to believe and led us to believe they could accomplish more in that line. Besides, some of these men either had places of their own or their fathers had.

The CHAIRMAN. I see that you make a liberal interpretation of the law. You construe the law liberally in this respect, that if there is a vocation that this man wants to enter upon, and he is not capable of doing it until he takes some work in English or some prevocational work, the end justifies the means. He can not take this unless he takes the other, and therefore you enter him to take the prevocational work.

Mr. QUICK. Only this, Mr. Chairman, the man is not entitled to take prevocational education but 60 days. At the end of 60 days we must introduce some practical work, fifty-fifty, and we must decide by that time what course the man is going to take. Then, if he is going to take agriculture or horticulture, we give him elementary agriculture or horticulture by means of interesting talks and charts and maps and models, and by taking him to the barns and greenhouses and the dairies.