a REPORT pg THE STATE BOARD EDUCATION 93g THE PROGRESS 935; THE CALIFORNIA POLYTECHNIC SChOOL, SAN IUIS leSPO, EéylFORNIA - JANUARY, 1955 HI STOB}: Any report on the California Polytechnic School during the current period must take cognizance of the history of this institution. No school in the country had greater possibilities for real educational service during the last thirty years than did the California.Polytechnic School. No institution has suffered more from warring political interests or adulteration of its original principles. Had not the school been founded on sound educational philosophy, it would have long since perished. The California Polytechnic School was founded and opened in 1903 as the result of the efforts of a few far-sighted individuals who recognized that the future needs of California were for trained men who could work as well as think. The prosperity of the State then, as now, lay in its agriculture and industry. In these fields, there is a place for ten vocationally—trained persons to every one professionally trained, yet the Polytechnic School did not achieve the goal which is its natural heritage by virtue of the actual educational demand. At the time the institution was established, there was little vocational work in the State, and its first years were strictly of high school level. Many of its graduates continued their education in institutions of higher learning to become agricultural and industrial experts. many more went into the fields of agriculture and industry as farm owners and managers, plant foremen and skilled workers. The basic functions of the school were followed up to 1917, although the level of instruction was limited to high school age and the scope of training equally limited. With the passage of the Smith-Hughes Act.in 1917 and the gradual spread of vocational agricultural, trade and industrial and home economics training in the high schools, the California Polytechnic School entered a period in - l _