Under the stimulus of Federal funding, since 1965 the number of State Departments of Education having Directors of Adult Education has increased from less than 10 to 50; the number of graduate programs has grown from 14 to over 100; and public adult education programs are now offered in over 10,000 local education agencies. The report provides an account of how the U.S. Office of Education's discretionary adult education program for Fiscal Year 1974 attempted to meet such challenges as reaching those adults most educationally disadvantaged; linking these efforts to adult career education; providing strong in-service training programs for educators, trained and oriented to other pursuits; and providing pre-service programs to develop fulltime professionally devoted adult educators. The report is organized in two parts, providing descriptions of adult education special experimental demonstration projects and of teacher training projects, funded under the adult education act. Fiscal summaries of grants awarded are presented. (Author/AJ)