I have been using the word ``vocational'' as a layman would at first sight think it should be used. I intend to include under the term all the practical courses open to boys and girls. These courses develop skills other than those we think of when we use the adjective ``academic.'' Practically all of these practical skills are of such a nature that a degree of mastery can be obtained in high school sufficient to enable the youth to get a job at once on the basis of the skill. They are in this sense skills marketable immediately on graduation from high school. To be sure, in tool-and-die work and in the building trades, the first job must be often on an apprentice basis, but two years of halftime vocational training enables the young man thus to anticipate one year of apprentice status. Similarly, a girl who graduates with a good working knowledge of stenography and the use of clerical machines and who is able to get a job at once may wish to improve her skill and knowledge by a year or two of further study in a community college or secretarial school. Of course, it can be argued that an ability to write English correctly and with some degree of elegance is a marketable skill. So, too, is the mathematical competence of a college graduate who has majored in mathematics. In a sense almost all high school and college courses could be considered as vocational to the extent that later in life the student in his vocation (which may be a profession) will be called upon to use some of the skills developed and the competence obtained. In spite of the shading of one type of course into another, I believe it is useful to talk about vocational courses as apart from academic courses. Perhaps a course in typewriting might be regarded as the exception which proves the rule. Today many college bound students try to take a course in personal typing, as they feel a certain degree of mastery of this skill is almost essential for one who proposes to do academic work in college and a professional school.