FOREWORD BY THE COMMITTEE The Advisory Committee on Education was appointed by the President of the United States on September 19, 1936, initially for the purpose of making a study of the experience under the existing program of Federal aid for vocational education, the relation of such training to general education and to prevailing economic and social conditions, and the extent of the need for an expanded program of Federal aid for vocational education. The Committee was requested to develop recommendations that would be available to the Congress and the Executive. Under its original assignment, the Committee was known as the President's Committee on Vocational Education. In a later letter dated April 19, 1937, the President stated that he had been giving much thought to the general relationship of the Federal Government to education, that numerous bills in connection with educational matters were pending in the Congress, and that it was his understanding that the Committee was already in possession of much information bearing upon the subject. He therefore requested the Committee to give more extended consideration to the whole subject of Federal relationship to State and local conduct of education, and to prepare a report. In accordance with this request, the Committee enlarged the scope of its work and prepared a comprehensive report, which was transmitted to the President on February 18, 1938, and was transmitted by him to the Congress on February 23, 1938. The report was printed as House Document No. 529, Seventy-fifth Congress, third session. An indexed edition of the report, differing in pagination but not in text, was also printed for public use by the Advisory Committee, and has been made widely available.1 1 The Advisory Committee on Education, Report of the Committee, for sale by the Superintendent of Documents, U. S. Government Printing Office, Washington, D. C. Price 35 cents. M146247 IV FOREWORD BY THE COMMITTEE The Committee was assisted in its work by a temporary staff of specialists in education, public administration, and economics. The major function of this staff was to collect, analyze, and interpret available data bearing upon the problems under consideration by the Committee. Time did not permit any extensive amount of original research, and original research was not attempted except in areas where the existing information seemed entirely inadequate. The work of the staff did result, however, in a number of studies which present in convenient form a large amount of information bearing upon the status and problems of education in the United States. The present volume is one of the studies prepared by the research staff. The statements and conclusions contained in it are those of the author, and do not necessarily conform to those of the Committee. The findings of this study were considered by the Committee, however, in formulating the conclusions and recommendations that appear in its own report. Dr. Carleton B. Joeckel, the author of this study, is professor of library science, Graduate Library School, University of Chicago. He is an outstanding student of the relationships of libraries to other agencies of education. He has had extensive experience in library administration, teaching, and research. The present study continues research in the field of Federal relations to libraries with which he has been concerned for several years. In the prosecution of the study, Dr. Joeckel was assisted by a special committee of the American Library Association, but he is solely responsible for the findings and views contained in the study. AUTHOR'S ACKNOWLEDGMENTS In the preparation of this report the author has received valuable advice and assistance from a special committee of the American Library Association, composed of Dr. Louis R. Wilson, dean, Graduate Library School, University of Chicago, chairman, Dr. Harry M. Lydenberg, director, New York Public Library, and Jerome K. Wilcox, assistant librarian, University of California Library; from Miss Julia Wright Merrill and William H. Clift, of the headquarters staff of the American Library Association; from Dr. Willard O. Mishoff, Dr. Lulu R. Reed, Dr. G. Flint Purdy, and W. C. Haygood, who assisted in the necessary research work; from E. M. Foster, Chief of the Statistical Division of the Office of Education; from the staffs of the Works Progress Administration and the National Youth Administration; from many librarians in the Library of Congress and other Federal libraries in Washington; and from the staff of the Advisory Committee on Education. Special thanks are due to Dean Louis R. Wilson, of the Graduate Library School of the University of Chicago, for his generous permission to use maps and data from his volume, The Geography of Reading (Chicago: American Library Association and University of Chicago Press, 1938). |