Public education in Illinois has been influenced during the past year both directly and indirectly by the legislative acts of the Seventy-third Congress and by the executive orders of the President of the United States in connection with emergency-relief matters. It cannot be said, however, that either the legislative or the executive branch of the federal government has made demands on public education or sought to deprive the state of its control over the public schools. In response to urgent demands from school officials through their state and national organizations, emergency legislation was broadened to include education, together with business and industry, in the relief and recovery measures. As a matter of fact, some of the new laws have had to be interpreted rather freely to permit the schools to share in the federal beneficences provided. A large majority of the school people in Illinois and in the other states wanted federal aid for education. What they received may not have been what they desired; and now that the federal government has come into the educational picture, they may or may not like the terms under which the aid is provided. The purpose of this article is to report what has been done by the federal government during 1933-34 to aid the public schools in Illinois and to evaluate the effect of the assistance given. The preparation of the article necessitated an analysis of the activities of nine agencies of the relief and recovery program of the federal government, namely, the NRA (National Recovery Administration), AAA (Agricultural Adjustment Administration), ECW (Emergency Conservation Work, designated CCC or Civilian Conservation Corps by the War Department), CWA (Civil Works Administra-