The history of technology and industrial education in the United States provides lessons that should be heeded if current advances such as tech prep are to succeed. Practical, vocation-oriented education has been an urgent objective for U.S. education three times in the 20th century. At the turn of the century, manual training (later manual arts) was advocated, but despite the impetus of the Vocational Education Act of 1917, this trend subsided. The progressive education movement of the 1920s-1930s gave rise to industrial arts, which was not an outgrowth of but a reaction against manual training. The industrial arts movement was involved in the debate between the social-efficiency and student-centered rationales for public education. Although the post-World War II years were the strongest for industrial arts, the movement remained conservative when more liberal educational trends arose in the 1960s-1970s. Neither vocational education nor industrial arts embraced the 70s career education concept. During the back-to-basics educational reform era of the 1980s, industrial arts changed its name to technology education and attempted to establish itself as a basic. At the end of the century, practical educators once again have the opportunity to reach all public school students. The internal divisions and indecision that characterized past responses must be overcome if this present opportunity is to be seized. (Contains 63 references.) (SK)