age, and even the graduates of the secondary schools, did not take
hold readily of trades or business, and were hard to “break” to
new tasks. For many years a remedy had been sought in
manual-training schools, mostly secondary, which undertook to help the boy
and girl to meet the manufacturer and employer by specific training
in shop practice. The new steel town of Gary, Ind., introduced a
general system of industrial schools, in which the pupils in the lower
grades took various kinds of shop work. A National Society for
the Promotion of Industrial Education became the focus of a movement
to organize what now became generally known as vocational
education throughout the country.
A national commission was appointed by President Wilson, in 1914, to consider the whole subject. The Federal Government was making annual grants to the state agricultural and mechanical colleges, founded by the Morrill Land Grant of 1862. This idea of grants-in-aid was incorporated into the report of the commission, and into the resulting Smith-Hughes Act, Feb. 22 1917, which provided the machinery and laid out the outlines of plans for action throughout the Union. It created a Federal Board for Vocational Education which framed an elaborate plan for instruction in the four vocational fields of agriculture, commerce, industry and home-making. The Act promised to appropriate Federal funds rising to about $7,000,000 in 1925 and thereafter, to be paid to such states as would match these funds dollar for dollar.
The underlying idea was that training for life-tasks was to be carried on in regular public schools alongside the usual culture studies; that it ought to begin in the lower grades and run all the way through; that it ought to apply to girls, particularly in the fields of home life and women's industries; and that it ought to offer facilities for those already employed, through continuation and part-time schools.
Private enterprise went alongside this movement by building up advanced engineering and trade schools of a high type, such as the Carnegie Institute at Pittsburgh; by improving the private commercial schools, and establishing advanced schools of business training in colleges. Some of the great manufacturers, especially in the automobile trade, set up schools within their own works.
When the United States plunged into the World War in 1917, and it was discovered that a vast number of young men were physically and intellectually unfitted for military service, a new influence was brought to bear in favour of a type of public education which would help to make citizens. The Government established a variety of vocational schools to train men for the numerous specialties of military service. It made great use of the shops and other vocational facilities of the existing schools and colleges. When the war was over, those institutions were used by the Government for “rehabilitation,” preparing partially disabled soldiers for self-support. At the same time the schools and colleges of the traditional cultural type advanced in resources and efficiency, many of them taking on vocational subjects as suitable for higher education. Great sums were raised by special “drives” among the alumni and friends of the endowed institutions, and the state universities were allotted hitherto unheard-of grants. The strictly vocational schools were admitted into fellowship with the other institutions. The students fraternized, joined in athletic contests and alumni associations and university clubs. There seemed room for both the old and the new types of national education. (See Education: section United States.)
Foreign Policy, 1913-7.—Woodrow Wilson was naturally a man of peace, and so was Secretary Bryan. At the outset of the administration they set themselves to aid the cause of general peace by enlarging the plan of arbitration treaties which had been urged by Root and Taft. Secretary Bryan prepared a definite project for treaties by which the parties should pledge themselves in case of difficulties to submit their grievances and claims to a special arbitration commission; and to abstain from war or preparations for war until the commission should have had time to report. This method avoided the difficulty which had either wrecked or weakened previous arbitration treaties, namely the exclusion of certain matters from arbitration. On the other hand, under such treaties no country would be bound to accept the finding of a commission. The presumption was that a sensible nation would submit to the judgment of an impartial tribunal. There was little difficulty in concluding more than 30 treaties upon this basis in the course of a year. They were never effective, and they disregarded the fact that since the first suggestion of general arbitration on a large scale by the Hague Conference of 1899, there had been five important wars, in not one of which had any contestant expressed a desire for arbitration by an impartial tribunal. The truth was that the American people as a whole had been little accustomed to international questions and had no definite foreign policy.
The Government of the Philippine Is. was altered by setting up the first Filipino Assembly in 1908. Under President Wilson, Gov.-Gen. Cameron Forbes was withdrawn and Burton Harrison was appointed his successor, to carry out a policy of liberalization and preparation for independence. The Filipinos were allowed to hold a majority of the seats in the Commission, which was a kind of administrative upper House. Natives were substituted for Americans in many of the civil offices. The Filipinos were thus given a definite opportunity to govern themselves. In response to the pleading of President Taft, Congress in 1909 grudgingly included them within the customs boundary of the United States and thus in practice abandoned duties on goods arriving in the United States from the islands. The Jones bill proposed even greater local powers. As enacted Aug. 29 1916, it greatly enlarged the power of the popular part of the Government, and the Commission ceased to exist. The bill promised that the Filipinos should be given their independence when their ability to govern themselves should be demonstrated. In April 1919 President Wilson publicly declared that he was ready to grant complete independence. There was no answering sentiment in the United States, perhaps because the World War had made it clear that so feeble and unarmed a state could not hope to live without the continued protection of the United States.
At the other end of the American empire, Cuba, while nominally independent, remained a protectorate of the United States. March 2 1917 the Porto Ricans were for the first time made American citizens and received a popular Government of two elected Houses, possibly a preparation for statehood. President Wilson continued the practical administration of San Domingo which dated back to Roosevelt. He also took military control of Haiti in 1914 and followed it by a treaty which was ratified by the Senate Feb. 28 1916. He carried even farther Taft's policy in Nicaragua by a treaty (ratified by the Senate Aug. 14 1914) which converted that State into a virtual protectorate. Another area came under control of the United States by a treaty for the annexation of the Danish West Indies (Aug. 4 1916); these islands were duly organized under the title Virgin Is. of the United States. Little opposition was made to this creation of a virtual empire, including dependent provinces. No reluctance was shown by the American people in extending their borders, their influence and their naval stations, so as to include portions of the West Indies. They were unconsciously preparing the way for a policy of Caribbean activity, under which the United States would take that predominance in the West Indies which Great Britain had held for over a hundred years.
Latin America and the Orient, 1913-7.—The peaceful policy of the United States towards its neighbours was severely tested by disturbances in Mexico. Soon after Wilson's inauguration in 1913 Madero, president of that turbulent republic, was murdered and Gen. Huerta, an insurgent officer, thereupon declared himself the head of the State. The almost invariable policy of the United States had been to recognize any de facto head of any Latin-American Government, without inquiring into the source of justice of his title. To President Wilson and to many others it seemed an iniquity to recognize murder as a proper means of changing a Government. He therefore adopted what he called a policy of “watchful waiting.” He steadily refused to recognize Huerta, who was compelled to battle for his dictatorship against Carranza, the bandit Villa and other rival revolutionists. Not having recognized Huerta, Wilson was not in a position to protect American rights of life and property in Mexico. Some years later a record was published of 112 murders or violent deaths of Americans. All Wilson could do was to declare neutrality as between Huerta and his rivals. In April 1914 a trifling dispute arose as to a salute of the American flag and Wilson, apparently yielding to strong public sentiment, ordered the navy to attack and capture Vera Cruz, of which the United States remained in possession for some months. The real object appears to have been to discomfit Huerta, who was compelled to flee the country. Two years later, further and more serious trouble arose when the brigand Villa raided the town of Columbus, N.M., and killed several soldiers and civilians. The Government of Mexico had no control over Villa, and President Wilson ordered a military expedition under Gen. Pershing to advance into the interior of
