A Smith-Hughes Act background note:

1914-1915 debate between

David Snedden
(Administrative Progressives/Educational Utility and Social Efficiency)
         &
John Dewey
(Pedagogical Progressives)
 

Administrative Progressives believe that high school curriculum should be stratified based on a student's social trajectory and identifiable intelligence level... predetermined subject centered instruction.
 

Pedagogical Progressives believe in facilitating student learning processes through active engagement in student-directed discovery of the world with as little teacher involvement as possible... student centered education.
 

Perennial efforts to bring about progressive reforms to traditional (liberal) education in the United States led to early 20th century efforts to insert Vocational Education into curriculum development. Snedden and Dewey were debating the philosophical framework that should surround that development through articles that were published in The New Republic.
 

Snedden's approach, was largely shared by his protege, Charles A. Prosser, who became known as the Father of Vocational Education in the United States and was the architect of the 1917 Smith-Hughes Act. However for political acceptance of the Act, Snedden's insistance on strict separation between vocational and general education had to be left out.
 

"Pedagogical Progressivism still stands on the outside of the gates to the schoolyard trying to break in... and it continues to call on Dewy's name for support" (see: Labaree, D. F. (2010). How Dewey Lost: The Victory of David Snedden and Social Efficiency in the Reform of American Education).