This paper aims to describe the role of the National Society for the Promotion of Industrial Education (NSPIE) in the formation of public vocational education system in the United States. NSPIE, organized in 1906, was composed of industrialists, educators, social workers, and leaders of labor unions. The aims of this organization were: 1) to bring to public attention the importance of industrial education, and 2) to promote the enactment of laws for state and federal aid to vocational education. Discussions on the effective type of insitutions for vocational education was held in each annual meeting. In the first annual meeting, held in January 1908, advocates and opponents of trade schools and separation of vocational and general education expressed their views. But, the definition of trade school was not clear, although this society came to support the idea of an independent trade school from the general system of public education. The definition of trade school became clearer in the second annual meeting, held in November 1908. In this meeting, a trade school was defined as an all-day school for preparing pupils for a particular trade. In the third annual meeting held in December 1909, two kinds of schools for vocational education was proposed. One of them was intermediate industrial school, which aimed to provide prevocational education for youth between 13-16 years of age. The other was a trade school, in which definite trade training was offered for pupils of 16 years of age or older who had chosen a trade. Both of them were all-day schools. But, many advocates of part-time schools, evening schools, and corporation schools stated their cases in the fourth annual meeting, held in November 1910. Part-time schools were institutions for young laborers under 16 or 18, providing instruction during their work time. Evening schools aimed to give adult workers instruction in general subjects supplementing their job. The advocates of these kinds of institutions emphasized that the combination of school instuction and shop work in the factory made vocational education quite effective. Thus, NSPIE had four choices: all-day schools, part-time schools, evening schools, and corporation schools. But this organization dropped corporation schools from its argument for vocational education and confined their scope to public vocational education. It seems likely that the American Federation of Labor's opposition to corporation schools had some influence on this decision. That is the reason why "Princpiles and Policies That Should Underlie State Legislation for a State System of Vocational Education", approved by the sixth annual meeting in 1913, stated that there should be three kinds of institutions, i.e., all-day schoools, part-time schools, and evening schools. "Report of the Commission on National Aid to Vocational Education", which was issued in 1914 and which made recommendations on the enactment of a law for feredal aid to vocational education, made the same proposal. This report provided a major framework of the Smith-Hughes Act, the first law for federal aid to vocational education. In this way, the discussion on the efffective types of institutions for vocational education in NSPIE played an important role in the formation of the public vocational education system under the Smith-Hughes Act.

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