The Project Gutenberg eBook, Our Schools in War Time--and After, by Arthur
Davis Dean
This eBook is for the use of anyone anywhere at no cost and with
almost no restrictions whatsoever. You may copy it, give it away or
re-use it under the terms of the Project Gutenberg License included
with this eBook or online at www.gutenberg.org
Title: Our Schools in War Time--and After
Author: Arthur Davis Dean
Release Date: July 22, 2014 [eBook #46365]
Language: English
***START OF THE PROJECT GUTENBERG EBOOK OUR SCHOOLS IN WAR TIME--AND
AFTER***
E-text prepared by Jonathan Ingram, Wayne Hammond, and the Online
Distributed Proofreading Team (http://www.pgdp.net) from page images
generously made available by Internet Archive/American Libraries
(https://archive.org/details/americana)
Note: Project Gutenberg also has an HTML version of this
file which includes the original illustrations.
See 46365-h.htm or 46365-h.zip:
(http://www.gutenberg.org/files/46365/46365-h/46365-h.htm)
or
(http://www.gutenberg.org/files/46365/46365-h.zip)
Images of the original pages are available through
Internet Archive/American Libraries. See
https://archive.org/details/ourschoolsinwart00deanrich
OUR SCHOOLS IN WAR TIME--AND AFTER
by
ARTHUR D. DEAN, SC.D.
Professor of Vocational Education, Teachers College
Columbia University, and Supervising Officer
Bureau of Vocational Training, New York
State Military Training Commission
Ginn And Company
Boston · New York · Chicago · London
Atlanta · Dallas · Columbus · San Francisco
Copyright, 1918 by Arthur D. Dean
All Rights Reserved
518.6
The Athenæum Press
Ginn and Company · Proprietors · Boston · U.S.A.
FOREWORD
It is not an army that we must shape and train for war; it is a
nation.... The whole nation must be a team in which each man shall play
the part for which he is best fitted.... Each man shall be classified
for service in the place to which it shall best serve the general good
to call him.... The significance of this cannot be overstated. It is a
new thing in our history and a landmark in our progress. It is a new
manner of accepting and vitalizing our duty to give ourselves with
thoughtful devotion to the common purpose of us all.--WOODROW WILSON,
_Proclamation, May 18, 1917_
CONTENTS
CHAPTER PAGE
I. BRINGING THE WAR INTO THE SCHOOLS 1
II. WAR AND COMMUNITY USES OF OUR SCHOOLS 17
III. THE FIELD FOR INDUSTRIAL AND TRADE SCHOOLS 53
IV. OUR COLLEGES AND TECHNICAL INSTITUTES 80
V. THE OPPORTUNITY FOR MANUAL AND HOUSEHOLD
ARTS 115
VI. THE WORK IMPULSES OF YOUTH 135
VII. ORGANIZED BOY POWER VS. MILITARY DRILL 165
VIII. RED CROSS AND OTHER COMMUNITY WORK 192
IX. REËDUCATION OF THE DISABLED 211
X. FARM CADETS 234
XI. THE ORGANIZATION OF A CADET CAMP 272
XII. A SUMMARIZED PROGRAM OF ACTION 304
INDEX 331
OUR SCHOOLS IN WAR TIME--AND AFTER
CHAPTER I
BRINGING THE WAR INTO THE SCHOOLS
The summer of 1917 found America realizing that the war which it had
entered was not going to be won by the mobilization of an army and a
navy, however strong and efficient they might be. In the proclamation
of Woodrow Wilson the whole nation was called upon to mobilize with
a clear, succinct purpose of organizing those forces of industry, of
education, of woman power, which are back of every successful struggle
of a nation in peace or in war. The ready acceptance of the slogan "Win
the War in the Air," with the public clamor for aviation, was but an
indication of the general awakening of the public to the truth that the
war must be won by the use of forces as yet undeveloped, or undirected
towards national ends.
The mobilization which teaches the saving of our national resources,
which directs the thoughtful distribution and wise use of our products,
which cultivates the patriotic spirit of service in the boy and girl
power of the nation, properly belongs to the field of education, not
only in war but in peace. To the schools of America, therefore, the war
has come as an opportunity for developing a closer relation between
education and life, between life and service.
Our gradual entrance into the war and our distance from the conflict
have given us the chance of pausing and surveying the situation before
acting,--advantages which were unfortunately denied England and France.
At the beginning of the war England apparently almost wrecked her
schools, and is slowly repairing the mistakes of hurried action in
suspending the attendance laws. France is saving her schools that the
nation may go on after the war. _It remains for America to use the war
to make better schools._
The mobilization of our schools is not concerned with the introduction
of military drill, whether voluntary or compulsory. It is an experiment
in working out the relation of education to war. We are, all of us,
empirics in this experiment; there is no body of tradition and theory
to help us. The ancient world offers us no parallels; the modern German
system throws no light on it. America, equally with the nations of the
older world, is a pioneer in the field. This is a novel experience
for us who have been originators only of free education in the past
or of administrative systems, not of types of new education. Largely
what we have to guide us is some experience of France and England in
what to avoid. This negative counsel is valuable in restricting our
experiments, but is scarcely constructive in its nature. One of its
most valuable lessons, however, is to show us that we must not take
our schools into the war, as England did, but _bring the war into the
schools_.
The fact that the problem is a novel one and that it is experimental
does not make it futile. All education is experimental in adapting the
individual to his changing environment.
During recent years our schools have had to consider the outside forces
of the changing world. It was in 1881 that the first manual-training
high school opened its doors under the hostile gaze of incredulity and
disapproval. Since then our educational system has been bombarded with
essays on the relation of education to life, on practical aspects of
education, on vocational guidance, on trade schools, etc. We have only
to look at the vastly differentiated courses of our colleges (some
of which have lost all trace of the humanities), at the variegated
courses in our high schools, at our remodeled elementary courses, to
realize that in thirty years the whole attitude of the people towards
our schools has undergone a vast change. These changes were regarded as
revolutionary at first. But it is no more revolutionary to introduce
the war into our schools than it was to introduce the laboratory study
of sciences, or agricultural studies, or courses in millinery and
home-making,--that is, if we understand the meaning of _war into the
schools_.
It is not to be denied that the educational emphasis is different. The
student who takes an agricultural course, and thus prepares himself to
be a modern efficient farmer, is only indirectly doing work of service
to the State. His aim is individual improvement, an advance which
results in general benefit to the State; whereas a girl who does Red
Cross work in school, or a boy who works in a war garden, benefits the
individual through the larger service of collective responsibility in
serving the nation directly.
We are not unmindful of the fact that war is a temporary condition,
and we must not crowd out the fundamental studies to meet the needs of
a temporary environment, however urgent the need may be. In carrying
the war into our schools we must emphasize those permanent elements
which are as necessary in war as in peace; we must use the war as an
opportunity to develop service to the State,--service which may be
vitalizing and ennobling, full of purposeful appreciation of collective
responsibility.
In our study of the introduction of the war into our schools we may
properly shut out discussions of elements which have no educational
value. Many of the proposals for the war uses of our schools have
been of a haphazard nature, called out by a well-meant desire to meet
the emergency. Much of the legislation concerning itself with the
employment of school children or of those under compulsory school
age has been, and may yet be, harmful. The suggestion of using the
schools as recruiting stations has lost value with the operation of the
selective draft. Ill-considered proposals to turn over the vocational
and manual-training departments to the government for the purpose
of making munitions have shown a lack of knowledge of their meager
equipment for an industry highly specialized with standard jigs and
fixtures. A department store, a clothing factory, a library, or an
office building would be about as fit for such a purpose as a school
building. The same may be said of the use of our schools as hospitals.
Our schools must be retained as educative plants,--training munition
workers, if we will, but not making munitions; providing the government
with skilled artisans and scientists, but by no means converting their
function of education into that of industrial production.
The war work of our schools is more easily planned in those which
have technical and vocational departments than in those which contain
only the desk and office equipment. Distinctions must be made, too,
between schools in agricultural and industrial centers. The experiments
made in New York with "farm cadets" show that the country boy has
certain advantages over the city boy in all forms of rural and
garden employment. We must not expect the same kind of work from the
high-school boys and girls in New York City that we may exact from
country children of the same age.
The city boy may be needed in emergency office and factory work.
Instead of contributing service as a farm cadet, he may become a
"coöperator," giving part-time service to industry and to commerce and
part time to school, as many of our city boys are now doing.
In dealing with the institution of higher grade we find as many
distinctions in service. In the college of the cultural type--the
college of individualism--it is the individual who serves the State,
how nobly may be seen in the English universities of Oxford and
Cambridge. In the public schools and socialized institutions with
vocational work, however, it is the institution which serves. This
service of the institution may be classified under two heads. In the
case of the elementary schools to some extent, and of the high schools
to a greater extent, our war work should be brought into them. In
the technical, vocational, and trade schools the institution should
reach out towards the war. In the first instance the function of the
elementary and secondary school should be to adhere to the purposes
for which they were created. The function of the higher technical,
vocational, and trade schools should be to prepare the skilled students
to take the places of those who are called to military service; to give
scientific training, indispensable in war; to assist, through courses
for the blind and crippled, in the reëducation of those disabled in
war service,--that is, our technical schools may be schools of special
preparation and industrial readjustment.
We shall observe, in working out the problem, that we have offered to
us by the war an opportunity to make our schools better by bringing
education closer to life, not only materially but spiritually. If we
have failed to train our youth in coöperation and service to the State
in the past, the war gives us a new motive. For to impart skill in use
of hand or brain without teaching collective responsibility is to fail
in our national duty. To our schools we must look as the agencies which
are to carry on the great work of education in service, a noble and
purposeful objective for which to work, directing the growth of our
children into an efficient and devoted citizenship.
Someone will urge: "The war will soon be over and we shall hardly get
started in war service before there will be no need for such service."
Of course those who believe, or at least seem to practice the belief,
that the schools are to lag far behind every economic, industrial, and
social movement and are to be mere looking-glasses for the workaday
world,--such people would not be expected to bring the war into the
schools until some historian had written a text setting forth the
dates, drawing the battle lines, naming the commanding generals, and
picturing the final boundaries determined by some Hague conference.
It is such professional obstructionists who make no provision for
the millions of our foreign born to learn the English language and
American customs through the establishment of up-to-date methods in
teaching the adult illiterate. It is such _laissez-faire_ persons
who allow children to slide out of school unprepared physically,
mentally, or vocationally for the life ahead. It is such who insist
upon the disciplinary-value idea of subject-worth in the face of
modern psychological thought. It is such conservatives who say that
agriculture can be taught only on the farm; that it is the business
of the factory to teach the trades; that girls may learn to cook from
their mothers; that elementary courses in woodworking and freehand
drawing constitute vocational training; that algebra, Latin, ancient
history, and trigonometry are essential features of the curriculum for
training capable stenographers. It is these people who say that "the
public schools of America are bulwarks of the nation," and consistently
erect bulwarks against every agency which actually reflects the social
and economic needs of the day.
But those who believe that the school should study the past and live
in the present and strive for a better future will find that the war
brings out for the schools not only the lessons of a day, but the needs
and opportunities of a decade.
It has been stated that movements or men unresponsive to the present
world crisis and failing to meet present needs and opportunities do
not deserve to exist. Whether the statement be exactly true or not,
it is evident that the up-to-the-minute man or the live school or the
progressive industrial establishment or the efficient department of
government is responding to the national need in exact proportion to
the response made to the needs and opportunities existing before war
was declared.
It is this responding power which is testing our men and women, our
institutions of government, our industries, and our schools. Nothing
makes this clearer than the daily news. We read that since the
Railroads War Board has been established, the railroads have increased
their operating efficiency 26 per cent, with the result that they are
now handling twice the freight and have 75 per cent fewer idle cars;
that aëroplane motors are soon to be built as rapidly as a certain
well-known automobile can be; that standardized destroyers and merchant
ships are to be turned out by the scores; that dyes equal to those
formerly imported have been evolved; that prominent men of means have
contributed their services to men in authority in Washington; that
well-known social workers are on their way to France and Belgium.
All these things and countless others show us how a military necessity
has brought out the best that is within us. And the best of it all
is that there is nothing which we are doing in the way of making
standardized products or in extending the services of useful men that
cannot be permanently useful after the war is over. Our military
necessity is teaching us new and permanently effective standards of
making things. Meanwhile, are the schools of America to fail by not
rendering service to a nation in time of need, by not establishing
permanently effective standards in the making of useful boys and
girls,--"boys and girls," as Roosevelt puts it, "who realize that they
are a part of Uncle Sam's team"?
The schools and colleges that were alive before the war began are
breathing the breath of life more deeply now. Those which were asleep
are waking up and not only learning to serve, but through this service
learning to live. A little school in Vermont in a report on what it
has in the way of war equipment states that it has only ten benches,
but adds that these have been used by sixty boys who take manual
training. A school system which can be as efficient as that in time of
peace may naturally be expected to state, as it does in response to a
recent inquiry: "Our instructor has been on the job all summer, helping
especially where the boys and girls are working on the farms or have
gardens. He has also organized canning and drying clubs and is giving
instruction to different groups of boys."
The university which has extension courses in time of peace naturally
has war extension courses. The prominent business man of Massachusetts
who for years interested himself in state Y.M.C.A. work would naturally
be expected to enlist, as he has, for Y.M.C.A. work in France. Now if
the college or institution or individual serves in time of need because
of a habit of serving, might it not be equally true that a somnolent
individual or school, if once stirred to service, might through such
service learn always to serve?
At this time the government of the United States is going to learn how
to become efficient. The state colleges of agriculture are testing
their former efficiency,--the test being the power to serve. Schools
may now learn what it means to be efficient by the service which
they may now render. Not an activity is proposed nor a principle of
educational practice given in the chapters which follow but should be
brought into our schools in times of peace.
We are going to sew now for the Red Cross because it is war time. Later
we shall sew for institutions in our community. Now we are going to
develop part-time schools because industry needs boys. Later we shall
have coöperative courses because boys at work need further schooling.
Now we are placing city boys on farms because the farmers need labor.
Later we shall place farms on the minds of boys because youth needs
contact with nature. Now we have current-events discussions about
loans, submarines, aëroplanes, and I. W. W.'s because the government
needs support. Later we shall teach the meaning of the same things
because thoughtfully trained people are needed by the government. Now
we are to teach patriotism and thrift because the nation needs them.
Later we shall teach them because they are essential in themselves.
Now we have extension courses in economical cooking for adult women
as a war measure. Later we shall have it as a home measure. Now we
are bringing adult women into the schools to receive instruction with
their children. Later we shall do the same thing because it is the only
sensible procedure under any and all conditions. Now we think in terms
of reëducation of disabled soldiers because of the immediate need of
helping these honored men. Later we shall turn what we have learned to
do for these men into better provisions for making self-supporting our
crippled and blinded children who are now in dependent institutions
being made still more dependent by the very nature of the poor apology
for vocational training which is given them. Now we have clearly before
us the need for industrial education because the government is crying
for workers. Later we shall see the need for industrial education
because those who are to work in the industries need it. Now we hold
a child-labor law before youth tempted by industry. Later we shall
endeavor to hold before youth better opportunities for vocational,
physical, and mental training in our schools as an inducement to stay
in them.
What are the schools and colleges going to do about it all? Certainly
they will not intentionally injure the cause of education by starting
ill-developed ideas of war service. But the desire to avoid the bad
should not by any means imply inaction. This is the psychological
moment for all of us to justify our very existence as individuals or
as parts of an institution or a movement. One could only pity a school
man who recently said: "Really, I am envious of some of my colleagues.
They have something to do at this time, while the subject which I am
teaching can make no contribution."
There has never been a time in our school life when taxpayers, boards
of apportionment, women's clubs, state granges, boards of trade, could
be made more interested in having the schools broaden out along lines
of continuation-school and part-time work, differentiated courses in
our high schools, physical-training courses, evening courses for adult
illiterates, thrift measures and school savings, teaching of current
events, more practical science work, teaching of agriculture, unit
courses in household arts, and a score of other things which the school
men of America say they want and which they are always saying "the
public will not stand for."
Shall we let the golden opportunity for enrichment pass until after the
war, when cities will most certainly preach and practice poverty?
Now is the time to evaluate our school subjects, to bring in the new if
they are worth while, to scrap the old if they do not stand the test
of national needs. If a community will not "stand for" cooking when
the H. C. L. rises like a specter before our doors, it will never vote
for household arts after the war. If a city school favorably located
near the open country will not now extend its educational program to
include community gardening when prices of farm products are excessive,
it will hardly broaden out when the crisis of our material needs is
over. If a state will not line up with the Federal Board of Vocational
Education for national aid for its vocational schools when its
industries are crying for trained youth, it will never move forward in
time of a normal demand. If we do not reorganize our schools to bring
in the best while we may, we shall in all probability be required in
the near future to discard some things which we have, without having
any opportunity to develop the new things which we have stated in our
conventions and teachers' institutes that we earnestly desire. World
conditions challenge our schools. What is their program?
CHAPTER II
WAR AND COMMUNITY USES OF OUR SCHOOLS
An evaluating test for each of our school subjects has at last been
found. _The test is the capacity of the subject to respond to a
national need or a national ideal._ In many instances of the countries
concerned in this great war the schools as a whole have amply justified
their existence, and many of the subjects taught have stood through
this world emergency the acid test of meeting national needs. The
scientific and efficiency spirit of Germany is reflected in the posters
spread over Berlin: "Send your cherry, peach, and plum seeds to the
schoolhouse with your children," seeds being used for making fat and
oil. The spirit of France has been reflected, as will be seen in the
following pages, in the work of the teachers and the children for the
preservation of that wonderful nationalism of France. The schools of
England are reshaping themselves--in fact, are being remade--as a
result of the shortcomings set forth by the war.
The schools of America are to go forward. Patriotism now has a new
meaning. The principal from his school platform has opportunity for
announcements and talks other than those dealing with routine matters.
The cooking teacher has opportunity to develop new recipes adapted to
present needs. The teacher of history may redraw almost every day the
map of Europe. The teacher of manual training may substitute problems
in concrete for those requiring high-priced wood materials. The school
buildings near soldiers' camps may, like the Washington (D. C.)
buildings, be opened for educational purposes for soldiers, that they
may take up general or special educational work. Teachers of English
may have their pupils study President Wilson's messages of state as
models of English composition and expressions of American democracy.
The opportunity is before the schools and the children. There are
in our school system three elements which may be of use in war: the
building itself with its equipment, the school population of boy and
girl power, and the teaching force.
In England, during the first year of the war, all three were called
into requisition. Within a few months over 1000 school buildings
were in temporary military use, and even on August 1, 1916, 180
elementary- and 20 secondary-school buildings were still occupied for
war work,--for hospitals, billeting of troops, housing of munition
workers, etc.,--the number of children displaced being 129,855. In
many cases the use was expected to be temporary, but many buildings
have been retained permanently. The children whose schooling was thus
interrupted, when too young for employment, generally drifted aimlessly
into juvenile delinquency, while those older, although below the
established employment age, went to farms and munition factories. That
is, the taking away of the school building was concomitant with the
suspension of restrictions on age of employment and hours of labor.
The children of the prosperous class were likewise affected by the
departure of over 50 per cent of the teachers for military service.
These many interruptions in the carrying on of educational work were
the result of the short-war fallacy; they were emergency measures
adopted to meet a condition which it was generally supposed would last
but a few months. When, however, it was realized by statesmen and the
public that the interference with education and the suspension of
laws regulating employment were resulting in irreparable injury to
health and morals of an employed child population under 13 years of
age of 150,000, and an idle younger population variously estimated at
from 200,000 to 300,000, corrective measures were adopted. American
schools must learn from English experience what to avoid. There are
many legitimate uses of schools which England is now employing; and the
warnings of interested English educators should keep our legislatures
and municipalities from breaking down the compulsory-education laws or
converting our schools into industrial plants. Our aim, as previously
stated, should be to bring the war to the school curriculum for
educational purposes, not to take the schools into the war, losing
sight of their definite function.
In France, at the outbreak of the war, many of the school buildings
were requisitioned, and 30,000 teachers were called to the colors.
The hardship to the young resulting from this patriotic sacrifice was
met as far as possible by the generosity of private citizens who gave
rooms or buildings for classes, and by professional men, too old for
service, who volunteered to carry on the work of teaching. France was
swift to realize that education must be carried on at all costs. In
districts near the fighting line schools were of necessity transformed
into hospitals, often with a staff of women teachers temporarily acting
as nurses and attendants; but it has been the policy of the department
of public instruction to regard this service as temporary, and the
teachers as conscripted for education.
The trying circumstances under which the schools have been carried
on, serving nobly during the term after hours and during vacations,
make their achievements a record of honor. In the country districts
where all the local officials were mobilized, the teacher became the
sole agent of government, making out passports, requisitions, relief
lists, etc., procuring food, operating a public kitchen, acting as
postmaster, doing guard duty, and rendering numberless other services
to the community. One of the first tasks of the primary schools was to
undertake entire care of children left without adequate protection.
In country districts the teachers were, in default of newspapers, the
dispensers of official information, explaining government loans and
giving talks on the progress of the war. Thus the entire village was
brought into the schoolhouse, which became the real center of the
community.
In the United States and Canada the schools may well copy some of the
measures initiated in Europe. That we are 3000 miles from the actual
battleground ought, for the present, to keep us from considering
any lowering of educational bars or from converting our buildings
into purposes other than educational. Europe advises us that such
transformation is of an emergency nature and only to be made under
stress of an invasion.
It is the purpose of this chapter to consider some general uses of
our buildings, our equipment (including the teaching force), and the
activities of our pupils, which have been made in the past two or three
years, excluding and reserving for the most part for later discussion
the introduction of war work in manual-training, domestic-arts, and
domestic-science courses, and the part-time agricultural labor.
An important use of our schools, and one which should be made more
general throughout the country, is that of a distributing center for
government pamphlets, information cards, etc. In New York City the
various welfare committees appointed by Mayor Mitchel designated the
public schools as mediums through which to circulate papers on "safety
first," fire prevention, uses of various food products, etc., and
thus reach the families of the vast foreign population through their
children. The city's pledges of national loyalty to be signed by adults
were circulated by the pupils shortly after the declaration of war.
Wider publicity can be given to federal regulations, tax measures,
employment modifications, etc., by the distribution of notices to
pupils of upper grades, following the explanation by the teacher. While
our people as a whole read, though hastily, the newspapers morning
and evening, and may find in them all governmental measures, it is
nevertheless true that we shall be assured of a wider distribution
of information by using the pupil as the carrier of it to the home.
In England the schools, as well as the Boy Scouts organization, have
served as national distributing agencies for war-office notices,
Parliamentary information, and agricultural propaganda.
A portion of a letter from Sir Robert Blair, chairman of the Education
Committee of the London County Council, to Superintendent Maxwell of
New York City, in May, 1917, calls attention to the service of the
schools in this connection.
War has come upon us so unexpectedly that our people not only
did not understand the true position but on the whole knew very
little about the causes which had led to the outbreak. The public
press, bookstalls, and the public libraries were considerably
augmented by books and pamphlets on the subject, and it was a
natural prompting that gave rise to the issue to the schools of a
considerable number of documents, memoranda, and pamphlets. These
circulars and pamphlets were mostly all issued within the first
year of the war. The first phase of the pamphlets is historical,
while the second became economical. The economical phase in its
first stages was concentrated on war savings for the purpose of war
loans and in anticipation, by the provision of "nest eggs," of the
dislocation that might occur at the end of the war. In its later
stages--within the last six months--the economical phase has been
directed chiefly to economy in food, owing to the menace of the
submarine campaign.
A further use of the school population in hours outside the daily
session is that of giving help in taking a census. In England school
teachers and pupils did most of the work of compiling the National
Register, a card census of inhabitants. To some extent similar work has
been done in the United States, such as the taking of the agricultural
census in fifty-six counties (no census was taken for the counties of
Hamilton, Kings, Queens, Richmond, and New York) in the state of New
York in April, 1917. Under the joint auspices of the State Food Supply
Commission and the State Education Department a survey was ordered of
the agricultural resources of the state and of the requirements for
increased production, the details of which were worked out at Ithaca
at the State College of Agriculture. Through the appointed county
enumerators, instructions were transmitted to the various school
districts.
The actual work of this census was begun in most counties on April 23,
the records being practically all obtained by April 25, the teachers
and pupils in each district, assisted when necessary by other persons,
procuring the original facts from farmers and making the summaries
for their school districts. From these records the state was within
ten days furnished with the complete amount of seed and live stock
wanted by farmers and for sale by farmers; with the statements of
the transportation difficulties; with the itemized needs of labor,
fertilizer, and spray materials; and with the complete enumeration of
the state,--people, land, and live stock.
Such work by pupils might well become an established yearly activity.
The practice of gathering and tabulating information has an obvious
arithmetical value; and the interest developed in investigating the
resources of the community has an educational significance which should
keep us from limiting it to emergency periods.
The comparative table on page 26 (one of thirteen developed out of the
census) not only illustrates facts which the children obtained, but
also shows the magnitude of the work they undertook.
One of the best community uses of the school is as a center for
instruction in conserving food products. With the absolute shortage
of the world's food supply, Americans must anticipate this shortage
in coming seasons and revert to the preserving methods of their
grandparents,--measures fallen into disuse in crowded cities because
of lack of storage room and the ease with which the fresh products have
been obtained, whatever the season.
ACRES OF CROPS IN 56 COUNTIES IN NEW YORK WITH COMPARISONS FOR THE SAME
COUNTIES IN 1909
======================+=============+===========+==============
| | |ACRES EXPECTED
CROP | ACRES (U.S. |ACRES GROWN|TO BE GROWN IN
|CENSUS, 1909)| IN 1916 | 1917
----------------------+-------------+-----------+--------------
Corn for grain | 511,339 | 336,543 | 495,469
Corn for silo | 259,082 | 362,413 | 422,867
Oats | 1,302,041 | 1,102,004 | 1,250,346
Barley | 79,955 | 92,422 | 111,634
Buckwheat | 286,128 | 257,911 | 300,090
Winter wheat | 289,126 | 344,278 | 387,813
Spring wheat | 289,126 | 12,373 | 32,425
Rye | 130,449 | 114,691 | 120,239
Field beans | 115,695 | 194,053 | 275,790
Alfalfa | 35,343 | 160,985 | 181,912
Other hay | 4,737,326 | 4,073,333 | 3,963,678
Cabbage | 33,770 | 38,898 | 68,890
Potatoes | 390,552 | 305,649 | 382,840
Canning-factory crops}| | 44,098 | 60,155
Other vegetables and }| 131,686 | |
garden }| | 58,340 | 71,833
Miscellaneous crops | 21,843 | 35,056 | 40,895
Apples | 281,061 | | 346,633
Cherries | 4,211 | | 12,414
Peaches | 15,340 | | 50,149
Pears | 13,378 | | 36,802
Plums | 5,742 | | 8,569
Vineyards | 52,999 | | 52,350
Small fruit | 22,388 | | 28,171
----------------------+-------------+-----------+--------------
Total | 8,719,454 | | 8,701,964
======================+=============+===========+==============
Even villages which have no gas supply may follow the example of cities
and towns in using the school kitchen, already installed as part of a
domestic-science equipment or newly supplied by popular subscription,
as a community canning center. Certainly schools are as well adapted
for the purpose as department stores and Young Women's Christian
Associations, which have been leaders in the movement.
The teaching of methods of preserving is primarily the function of a
school, and every suitable school building should be employed for it.
The old-fashioned preserving meant time, drudgery, expense, quantities
of sugar, and doubtful results. A demonstration of the newer methods
and the opportunity for community canning should be given by the school
to the neighborhood. Community canning induces a far more effective
conservation of food than is possible for the individual kitchen. Few
households can afford to buy and store the vast kettles, the perfected
drying and dehydrating ovens, which can be included in the equipment
of a school teaching the scientific preserving of food and vegetables.
As this is done almost wholly in the summer, it would not interfere
with the term's work of the pupils and, in fact, offers the high-school
girls an excellent opportunity to assist in civic service of a most
practical nature. In the summer of 1917 Seattle maintained 20 centers
for home-economics teaching for adult women, the government bulletin
"How to Select Food" being used as a textbook.
There have been wholesome experiments in community canning in Lakewood,
and in Bernards Township, New Jersey. In the latter in each school was
an experienced teacher to supervise the work of preserving performed
by high-school girls of the neighborhood, the fruits and vegetables
being sold by the townspeople to the school or brought by them to be
conserved by coöperative canning for their own use in the future. This
service of the girls was on an equality with that of the boys who
belonged to the agricultural army. In Kansas City the surplus garden
products canned by schoolgirls were used for the school lunches.
England's schools now have "open days" on which parents may be admitted
to receive the instruction given to the children in the economical
cooking of the food which the food controller's instructions show
is likely to be available for general consumption; also (quoting
from a letter from Sir Robert Blair of the London County Council,
May 30, 1917) the responsible mistresses of the evening schools and
the domestic-economy staff employed in these schools are organizing
traveling kitchens in 29 boroughs within the county. These traveling
kitchens form practically a demonstration set of apparatus by which
the simplest forms of cookery can be shown to 100 or 200 people. The
demonstrations are well attended, and the people in small villages
thus have the opportunity of those in larger settlements to learn
from experts methods of making palatable the food products less well
understood.
It may be urged that community canning has its place outside cities
of the first class. New York City certainly cannot be held to be the
center of an agricultural district, and yet valuable experiments in
food conservation are being made there. One is concerned primarily
with the prevention of waste. Of the thousands of pounds of perishable
vegetables and fruit which are brought each day to the produce piers,
much is prohibited from being sold to retailers because of injuries
received in transportation. When more than 20 per cent has been
injured, it has not paid wholesalers to salvage the uninjured portion.
As a result, a ruinous quantity of produce has gone to waste, often
being dumped in the harbor for want of better disposal. The loss as
estimated by the board of health has been 225,000 pounds a week.
To save this food by making quick use of it, in July, 1917, Mayor
Mitchel's Committee of Women on National Defense opened a conservation
kitchen in a disused school building in the Williamsburg Bridge
section. Here the uncertain quantity of vegetables salvaged from the
produce piers was brought to the school, picked over, and sterilized,
partly by paid labor, partly by the volunteer labor of members of the
Women's University Club and other organizations, or city women who were
willing to contribute their labor in the cause of food saving. This
work was aided by the State Food Supply Commission and New York's board
of health, one of whose inspectors passed judgment on the food used in
the canning and drying experiments. The salvaged food was brought from
the piers to the kitchens by Boy Scouts, ubiquitously useful in any
public undertaking. If it had not been that the kitchen was opened in
vacation, the school population would have had its share of work to do.
To this kitchen any woman might go to be taught processes or actually
to can produce.
While it was not possible to use all the produce brought in, even by
keeping the kitchen as full of workers as space would allow and cooking
as much as 480 gallons of food at a time, the work in this old school
building is illustrative of what can be done in community centers
to eliminate waste, and is a vital example of the efficient use of a
school building in vacation. The cost in this case was met by special
contributions of organizations and individuals. But in smaller places
this work might be maintained by the town itself on a less elaborate
scale. Such work should not be limited to the war period. It is a
practical and efficient plan for all time.
The continued war will undoubtedly increase not only the price but the
scarcity of cotton and woolen goods. Where it has hitherto not paid to
make over clothing repeatedly because of the cheapness and ease with
which new garments and children's wear have been procured, it is now
important to understand thrifty saving of all kinds of fabrics and
apparel.
Home-economics women of Berkeley, California, aided in collecting and
making over old clothing. In Portland, Oregon, a cleaner and dyer took
as his bit of service the cleaning and disinfecting of all the clothing
which was remade by the school children.
In England's county schools there have been held exhibitions of thrift,
to show children when and how economies can be practiced. Some of the
examples shown under the heading of "Utilization of Waste Material"
were as follows: old linen collars and cuffs made into baggage labels,
window cleaners made from pieces of old gloves, house slippers made
from old felt hats, mops made of bits of rags fastened to a nail. Ways
were shown of making use of scraps of wool left over from knitting,
the wasting of an inch of wool being regarded as treasonable in the
country's shortage; methods of refooting stockings were also displayed,
as well as many uses for pieces of worn table and bed linen and old
carpets.
In times of normal plenty such exhibitions would not attract attention,
but no greater evidence of the reduced state of a nation at war can
be had than the seriousness with which these exhibitions of household
thrift have been viewed by the population. A clipping from a newspaper
of rural England requests that children go into the pastures and pick
from the bushes the bits of wool which the sheep have rubbed off.
For several years, at least, there will be high prices and scarcity
of materials. Our children must be taught the necessity of preventing
waste of fabrics as well as of food. Millions of dollars worth of
cotton and wool have been destroyed in military and munition use.
But it is not only because war conditions have made material scarce
and high that thrift in their use must be insisted upon in every
household; we must remember that billions of dollars will be required
to pay for this war and each household will be required to make its
contribution. Expenditures in every direction must be curbed and the
wise disposition of every dollar must be made. A year or so ago the
Bankers Association of America launched a campaign for thrift teaching.
We were then told that, as individuals, we must save for the future.
The present high cost of living shows that we are obliged to save in
the present in order to live in the present, but the future will tell
us to save in order that we, as a nation, may pay for the war.
[Illustration: Old-fashioned methods of preserving must again prevail.
There is educational value in community conservation. Montclair (New
Jersey) boys made community evaporators, having a capacity of from five
to eight bushels of fruit a day, at a cost of only $10.]
[Illustration: A mowing machine is a problem in high-school mechanics,
and these farm cadets of New York State see, perhaps for the first
time, a use for it.]
[Illustration: A day's outing for a purpose. Albany and Troy (New York)
orphan-asylum boys on their way to "do their bit" in the currant fields.]
[Illustration: A lesson in service geography. Boys from Albany and
Troy (New York) picking currants, near Hudson (New York), which were
preserved in Yonkers Trades School for shipment to France.]
Many community services may be rendered during the war by the principal
of a school. He may, as has been done, organize patriotic meetings,
enlisting the aid of the churches and arousing the interest of chambers
of commerce, civic clubs, and women's clubs in the Red Cross, the
Liberty Loan, and school war gardens. His assembly exercises may
be made vital through talks to the pupils on opportunities for war
service; through platform recognition of boys and girls rendering
special farm, garden, Red Cross, and food-conservation help; by placing
on a conspicuous bulletin a roll of honor of graduates and students
engaged in such work; by keeping the school in touch with graduates
who are enlisted in the army and navy by reading their letters to the
school and sending school packets to them. He may advise economy in
the use of foods and clothing, the elimination of expenditures in soda
water, ice cream, and gum, and the sacrifice of pleasure for national
ends. He may urge the use of savings in the purchase of government
bonds and war-savings certificates. Where the school has been raising
money for pictures or a phonograph, he may suggest that the funds
raised be used for the purchase of one or more government bonds, to be
held by the school as an asset until the close of the war, when the
bond may be sold and the money used for its original purpose of buying
the phonograph or pictures. In the case of some private secondary
schools, and large public schools like the Washington Irving and DeWitt
Clinton high schools, New York, the pupils and teachers have subscribed
money and given entertainments for the purchase of an ambulance, the
gift of the school to the American Expeditionary Force. In one New York
City school, through the efforts of a student organization, Liberty
Loan bonds to the amount of $479,800 were sold.
The principal in country districts should make himself fully informed
of the details of the federal farm-loan plan, the sources of available
seed supply, the posters and bulletins of nation and state regarding
the mobilization of schools and colleges, and, of course, he should be
especially active in encouraging the home-garden projects.
A correspondent in the London _Times_, June 14, 1917, writing of that
indispensable teaching of thrift in household affairs, of making the
present generation of young girls intelligently self-sufficient in
domestic and industrial life, cries, "This brings us to the crux of
the whole situation: Who shall teach the teachers?" The government and
state bulletins on food production and conservation, the literature
sent out by state councils of defense and public safety on improved
methods of preserving, the pronouncements by banking houses on thrift
measures and means of attaining them, the Boy Scouts, Y.M.C.A. and
Y.W.C.A. leaflets on war gardens and food economies are, in America,
beginning to answer this question.
Assuredly the war places an additional burden on the teachers and
gives them a new opportunity for educating the pupils. A teacher does
not have to belong to the department of domestic arts and science to
organize Red Cross circles nor to instruct girls in food conservation.
A ten-minute talk each morning by teacher or pupils, before the opening
of school, with discussion on such topics as "Why a man with a hundred
dollars to invest should buy a Liberty Bond," "New occupations open
to women because of the war," "The reason for the scarcity of certain
products," "Home substitutes for various manufactured necessities," and
many others suggested by new conditions should be very helpful.
An unusually significant experiment known as the "War Savings"
movement has been made in English schools. On May 5, 1916, the Board
of Education issued a circular asking for the assistance of local
education authorities in making known through public elementary schools
the facilities afforded by the issue of War Savings certificates.
Then, with the coöperation of these authorities and teachers, special
lessons were given on the subject, and copies of a leaflet explaining
the purpose of the War Savings Association were widely distributed
to the parents through their children. As a result a large number of
War Savings associations were formed in direct connection with the
schools. The success of the movement is evident from the records given
in the report of the Board of Education for 1915-1916. In one populous
midland county the great majority of the schools have established
associations; in another, a northern county, some 70 per cent of the
schools have taken part and record nearly 10,000 subscribers. In one
midland town a school of about 1400 children purchased certificates to
the value of £585 in three months. But it is not only in large schools
that the pupils have contributed generously; a remote little school
in a northern county, with only 10 children on its register, has 10
subscribers to its credit and has saved £35, buying 43 certificates.
In view of the fact that successive issues of bonds must be made by the
United States and other governments of the world, this method of making
subscription to the war loan popular is worthy of attention. The public
schools have, as never before, the opportunity of showing the practical
value of investing, in peace as well as in war time, in government
and other bonds. Pupils should realize the difference between money
invested in a way to be beneficial not only to the investor but to his
state and country, and money invested in ordinary channels.
New York State teachers had an opportunity similar to those of England.
The Regents of the University of the state of New York gave formal
approval of a plan by which teachers throughout the public schools of
the state could aid the Liberty Loan committee of the Federal Reserve
Bank in giving instruction and information about the second Liberty
Loan. A special committee was appointed by the Board of Regents to
act in a supervisory capacity to keep the State Education Department
in touch with the large financial interests conducting the loan. The
secretary to Commissioner Finley, as the representative of the Regents
and the State Education Department, was assigned for temporary services
in the office of the Loan committee.
The program in brief was to have the teachers act as agents for
subscriptions for the Liberty Loan. They distributed blanks to pupils
in the school, who in turn took them to their parents. They were
encouraged to subscribe themselves. They did not handle any money or
checks, but turned the subscription blanks over to the local bank,
which was, of course, in direct touch with the Loan committee in New
York City.
A primer of instruction for teachers was prepared in the simplest
possible terms. As published by the Publicity Bureau of the United
States Treasury Department it was called "A Source Book of the Second
Liberty Loan." This primer explained in detail the nature of the bonds,
their security, and the terms and prices; it described the nature of
bond markets in general, the sources from which interest is paid, the
previous records of United States bonds, and all other matter which was
of value in elementary financial instruction. It was all set forth in a
way which was very helpful not only in assisting in the sale of bonds
but in the larger sense of furthering instruction in bonds, interest,
discounts, etc., in connection with work in arithmetic. And in what
better way could arithmetical instruction be furthered?
It is highly probable that this plan of informing the public relative
to government issues of bonds and certificates, initiated in New York,
will extend to all parts of the country in connection with the next
Loan campaign.
How the responsibility of the teacher has been met in France is in part
suggestive. The teachers have collected large funds to finance the
enterprise of caring for thousands of families of Belgian and French
refugees. They also collected from the civilian population several
millions of francs, the teachers taxing themselves according to a
fixed schedule. They have been especially successful in bringing to
light for investment stores of hidden gold in the homes of provincial
savers. Surprising results have been attained through their persistent,
methodical propaganda. In one large provincial town, after a talk to
the older pupils by the mistress of the school, in four days an amount
equal to 7200 francs was brought in. In the same school the following
composition was given out to the pupils as part of an admission
examination in penmanship.
THE GOLD OF FRANCE[1]
France has need of its gold to defend its invaded territory. It is a
sacred duty for every French man and woman, rich or poor, to send to
the coffers of the State the hundreds of louis from their strong boxes,
the few louis hidden in the linen chest at home, even the single louis
in the children's toy bank. To keep in one's own possession, selfishly,
the money which could serve our dear France is a crime against
patriotism. So, little girls, do not hesitate to break open your banks,
even if they have only a half louis inside, and gladly take in exchange
the note which the Bank of France will give you. More than that, in
your vacation in the country, set yourselves to get grandmother to
empty her stocking,--she is sometimes rather stingy with her money. But
you know well enough how to coax those who love you when you want a
toy, or ornament, or bonbons. Use your influence with your grandparents
now, so that they will bring into the public treasury the gold of
France. In this way you will have contributed to the coming victory
that we are all hoping for, you will have helped our brave soldiers to
clear away the German whose presence defiles our land. Go, then, all of
you! Hunt out all the money that is lying idle. It is for France!
[1] Edouard Petit, De l'école à la guerre, p. 175. Paris, 1916.
Thus the schools have worked to bring to light the hoarded gold of
thrifty peasants for investment in the national loan.
Tangible as this service of the teachers has been to France, of
greater importance has been their work of making clear to the villages
the cause of France. In November, 1914, the Department of Public
Instruction sent out an appeal to the professional and volunteer
teachers in the secondary schools, saying that the schools must adapt
their program to the duties and needs created by the hostilities.
The teachers will do their best to make the schools serve in
the national defense. In the evenings the old men, the youths, and
the women will gather together, and the teachers will tell them the
news, explain things that happen, speak to them of patriotism, and
read to them from our writers whose pages are inspired with the
glorious deeds of our history past and present.
It is reported that in the girls' schools in France war has changed
the whole aspect of education. History, geography, lectures on
literature, subjects for literary composition or moral instruction,--in
fact everything,--is treated from the point of view of country and
of patriotic duty. In music practically nothing is sung but the
"Marseillaise," the "Chant du Depart," and the national songs of the
Allies. Reading is confined often to official military orders and
reports, while drawings are usually of war material or characters.
It is no less the duty of our teachers to make clear to their pupils
the "cause" of America. Soon after the opening of the European war a
United States senator traveled through the belligerent countries. His
articles on Europe at war commented caustically on the ignorance of
the English working people of the cause of the war, and of the purpose
for which the Allies were fighting. An article on America at war could
truthfully contain like criticism of a considerable portion of our
population.
Shortly after the United States entered the war a teacher in one
of our largest city high schools, where a large proportion of the
pupils are of either foreign birth or foreign parentage, asked 200
pupils of from 14 to 18 years to write a brief statement of what they
considered to be the cause of America's entrance into the war. While
these answers covered an incredible range of inaccuracy, not one
showed an understanding of the events which led to the declaration of
April, 1917. "Congress has declared war so that the rich folks can
get richer," "We are at war because this is a rich man's country,"
predominated as replies. When asked what a citizen owed his country
in return for political and religious freedom, students replied in as
vague and cynical a way as to the first question.
To combat this ignorance of national motives the teacher distributed
copies of President Wilson's address of April 2, with the ostensible
purpose of analyzing it as an exercise in argument and exposition,--a
study which finally resulted in enabling these students to make
intelligent, if occasionally unsympathetic, answers to questions
regarding the nation's action and policy.
Now to residents of favored parts of the country where the population
is English speaking and largely American born, inheriting American
ideals and traditions, the ignorance of these high-school pupils seems
exceptional, but educators know from experiments made in colleges
and secondary institutions that the majority of students are not
intelligent on modern events of national significance, any more than is
the average worker. Nearly all high schools have in their curriculum
the study of current events, whether in history or oral English
courses. It is the duty of the teacher to use the study in such a
manner as to obtain a patriotic reaction to the topics presented and
discussed, and in this manner to make clear why we are fighting and
what we are fighting for.
Out of this war we must obtain a new spirit of patriotism. Now is the
time to strike. Events depicted in the daily press show how great is
the need. In this connection the Council of Defense of Connecticut, in
an effective campaign working through the schools, states in a recent
publication:
The war is bound to have a deep influence on American life
and thought, and we should be watchful to direct this into right
channels. The country is shot through and through with the
one-sided philosophy that the State is an institution to be leaned
upon and filched from, but not to be served. The schools should
train the children in the fundamental contract between citizen and
State. The idea of mutuality should be developed. The State owes
duties to the citizen, but the citizen owes reciprocal duties to
the State.
In September, 1914, as soon after the declaration of war as military
and agricultural conditions would permit the schools to open, the
French Minister of Public Instruction sent an official circular to all
of the schools. He stated that the first lesson in every school should
be devoted to France: to its present danger and its heroic resistance;
to the ideals of humanity and justice for which she fought; to the
memory of the valor of her soldiers; to the justice of her cause. He
desired to make certain at the earliest possible moment that every
school child in France take his part spiritually and intellectually in
the epic conflict which France was waging for right and justice.
His decree outlining the first lesson for every child of France
expresses so clearly the French attitude and feeling that the following
free rendering of the circular letter is well worth reading.
The _lycées_, colleges, and public schools are about to open
everywhere except where the superior need of improvised hospitals
in school buildings caring for our glorious wounded renders this
impossible.
I decree that on the opening day in every city and in every
class the first words of the teacher to the pupils shall be
designed to bring the hearts of the pupils into accord with the
sacred struggle in which our armies are engaged.
Throughout the entire country at the same hour the sons of
France shall pay respect to the spirit of their nation and shall
pay tribute to the heroism of those who are pouring out their blood
for liberty, justice, and human right.
The words of the teachers on this occasion should be simple and
to the point. They should be adapted to the age of their hearers,
some of whom are children, some youths. Each of our schools has
sent its quota of combatants to the firing line,--professors,
teachers, or pupils; the words of the teacher to the class should
call forth the noble remembrance of the dead, in order to exalt
their example and engrave it forever in the memory of the children.
Moreover, in its broad lines, calmly, clearly, they should tell
the causes of the war,--the aggression without excuse,--and how
before the civilized world, France, eternal champion of progress
and right, has been compelled to prepare herself, with her valiant
allies, to repel the assault of the modern barbarians.
The furious conflict which we are carrying insistently to
victory adds each day to the glory of our soldiers a thousand deeds
of heroism from which the teacher may take the best part of this
lesson. He should prefer these supreme models of action to the vain
repetition of phrases, in order to make a fit impression on the
minds of the children.
A vivid recollection of this first school hour ought to remain
imprinted forever in the spirit of the pupil, who is the citizen of
to-morrow. The teacher who has known how to make this impression
will remain worthy of the confidence of the republic.
America too will have its lesson sheets, and a most timely one on
"Lessons of the Great War in the Classroom" has been prepared for
teachers of history by the National Board for Historical Service
(Washington, D.C.) with the distinct purpose of suggesting certain
aspects of history, ancient and modern, which have gained a new
interest in the light of the great war. The following excerpts are
extremely suggestive of special opportunities and obligations for
teachers in school service:
There is the duty of keeping, for teacher and for pupil, the
habit of at least trying to see things as they really were and
are.... Every great war is fought not merely by armies and navies,
but by the governments at home which direct the fighting forces....
No one can take an intelligent part in a great conflict for the
safety of democracy under an orderly system of international law
unless he is really interested in and knows something about other
nations than his own.... There is some connection between the
conditions which made the valleys of the Tigris and Euphrates one
of the great seats of ancient civilization and those which are
making Mesopotamia to-day one of the chief theaters of the great
war.... This terrible catastrophe, with its wholesale destruction
of the finest products of human civilization, its life and death
struggle between opposing nations and opposing ideals, has seemed
a reason for thinking not less but more of the great mysterious
forces which brought about the rise and decline of the ancient
empire.... Great campaigns are again carried on where Xenophon
marched with his famous Ten Thousand, where Alexander the Great led
his armies to the conquest of the East.... The opportunity must now
be seized to study the whole of Europe and its influence on and
connections with the rest of the world.... Some account should be
given of the way in which the ruling class in Prussia has been able
to use science, modern business methods, and social legislation
in the service of the military state.... War is the business not
only of governments but of the nation as a whole, and there are
few kinds of human activity which do not have some relation to its
success or failure.... We are fighting partly, indeed, to defend
international law on the high seas, but partly also to make _the
world_, not merely America, "safe for democracy."
Teachers are recognized as the instructing force of America. If they
are not, who is? If the country sorely needs clear, definite, authentic
information on the situation of the world and our own position as a
belligerent power, who is to give it if not the teachers? It is they
who must inform and arouse. It is they who ought to participate in a
speaking campaign which should be as deep as the danger, as wide as the
country, and as high as the patriotic spirit of the people. They should
be distributing agents for printed material which analyzes the subject,
and should be able to refer to the best and most available authorities
and to put before pupils and the public the texts of the most important
speeches, diplomatic notes, and other approved material to back up
statements of fact.
Strange as it may seem, it is the children's convictions which take
effect not only when as children they carry word to their parents but
also when they come out of childhood into adult life.
Was the boy in the New York high school right when he said, "It is a
Wall Street war"? Are our enemies justified in charging us with the
same motives of self-interest and the abasement of other nations which
animated themselves? Are we really at war for conquest or seizure,
or for the benefit of commerce, or for defense against aggressions
that have not yet been made? And is it a dollar war for bankers and
ammunition makers?
It is to answer these and other questions that a systematic effort to
inform and arouse the American people should be taken up and carried
into effect by public-school teachers, having in mind that the most
effective and most important work may be done in the classroom in
connection with lessons in civics and history. To wait for textbooks
on the present European war is to wait until it is over. To wait
to put the study of the present war into a course of study in its
chronological sequence is to wait until the next generation of children
come upon the stage. No, now is the time for our schools to include the
teaching of the war and to discuss officially proposed peace plans,
when the street is alive with soldiers, when the newspapers display
huge headlines and the bill-boards are covered with recruiting posters,
when magazines furnish helpful material for teachers, and when the
whole world is charged with feeling.
The National Security League (New York City) has outlined a plan
for public addresses and lectures, and it has printed a little book
entitled "Wake Up, America." The following topics have been selected
from an outline furnished by this league:
Foreign military systems and international relations.
Spirit of the American people as shown in our history of
liberty and democracy.
Causes of the war between the United States and Central Powers.
First two and one-half years of the war in relation to the
principles of the foreign policy of the United States.
Universal military training and service as now provided by
Congress.
Organization and work of the army and navy: selection;
supplying needs.
General military preparations in the country at large:
materials, transportation, and public finance.
Duty of the citizen in relation to obligations of all citizens
as an offset to benefits of citizenship.
Service outside of military and naval; as, for example, the
munition work, transportation, building of ships and machinery,
farming, etc.
Faithfulness of foreign-born citizens.
Need of efficiency and economy in local, municipal, and state
governments.
Description of modern warfare as defining the immediate task
of the American people in regard to organization and action of the
various services; as, for example, men in the trenches, health
protection, Red Cross, etc.
Accessories; for instance, patriotic music and recitations,
flag marches, and parades.
Illustrative material, such as maps and charts illustrating
the problems of recruiting; slides and movies; posters in public
places; exhibitions of foreign posters.
These topics as outlined here are not sufficiently related to the
actual conflict. They are excellent from the formal point of view, but
they fail to get at the center of living interest in the vital present
moment of history. Often when it has been asked of the children in
France: "What are you studying?" "What are they teaching you?" the
answer has been: "The war, madam." "The war, monsieur." And if the
question was taken up with the teacher, the answer has been:
By means of our war map on which is marked the present position
of the French and German troops, the particular spot in the line in
which the parents of our boys and girls are fighting, we teach not
only current history, but in the most vital way geography and many
related subjects.
By means of our use of great contemporary political documents,
by the speeches of Viviani, Deschanel, Ribot, and the other
statesmen, by the famous orders of Joffre, Pétain, and our
military leaders, by the interpretation of the war by our great
philosophers,--we teach in the most vital way the need of the
country, the ideals of France, and much of the history of France.
By reason of the war work instituted in every school as part of the
regular curriculum, we teach commercial geography, economics, and
many branches of science as they are actually related to human life
and experience, and not in the abstract manner in which they are
treated in the textbooks.
Mr. Albert Sarraut, Minister of Public Instruction in France in
1914-1915, said in a public address:
If there remains in the schools of France a single teacher who
has not been profoundly touched by the war and who goes about his
usual occupation of teaching in the same way that he did prior to
August 2, 1914, teaching the same subjects in the same way, doing
only the ordinary, familiar school tasks, whose work has not been
entirely transformed and inspired by the war, we have yet to hear
of him or her, and we do not believe that such exists.
It is inevitable that many of our school subjects will change their
emphasis after the war. To some teachers the awakening will be cruel,
to others a blessing in the form of new opportunity.
CHAPTER III
THE FIELD FOR INDUSTRIAL AND TRADE SCHOOLS
For ten years a group of men in America have been trying to convince
Congress that we should set up a national program of secondary
vocational education. As a precedent we have had a system of
agricultural and mechanic-arts education of collegiate grade in
existence for the last fifty years. But we have had in the past
no system of national aid for promoting and maintaining a type of
vocational education in agriculture, mechanic arts, and home-making,
which would reach a much larger clientele than could possibly be
touched through any land-grant college system. It has been an up-hill
fight to get Congress to see the importance of providing vocational
education for industrial workers. Bill after bill was introduced
providing for national aid. These bills defined vocational education
as including all types of industrial, commercial, agricultural, and
home-making schools, between the upper grammar grades and the college,
whose controlling purpose is to fit for specific profitable employments
and which receive pupils 14 years of age and over.
President Wilson in his second inaugural message called the country's
attention definitely to the fact that a vocational-education bill was
before Congress and that it ought to receive favorable consideration,
not only on the grounds of educational advantages contained in the
bill, but also on the grounds that it fitted in with a national
economic and industrial policy.
Perhaps the measure would have met the fate of its predecessors
if war had not been declared. Friends of the measure feared lest
discussion incident to national preparedness should overshadow the
vocational-education bill, but fortunately Congress saw that vocational
education and national preparedness were linked together, and the bill
passed almost unanimously.
The full significance of the Smith-Hughes Bill, as it will always be
known by those who worked for it, can hardly be appreciated. On the
surface it merely creates a Federal Board of Vocational Education
and provides that federal grants shall be made for the purpose
of coöperating with the states in the promotion of industrial,
agricultural, and home-making teaching. But if we scratch the surface
we shall see that the federal money is not paid to local communities
except after their work has been approved by a state board of control
on the basis of this federal act, and the principles and policies
which were adopted after conference between the Federal Board and
the state boards of control. It furthermore limits federal aid to
definite vocational training and eliminates all aid to any dilettante
or superficial types of practical-arts education which do not meet the
idea of preparing young persons over 14 years of age for useful and
profitable employment in agriculture, in the trades, in industries, or
in home economics. It has been stated in preceding chapters, and will
be emphasized more than once in succeeding chapters, that the schools
which are able to serve most effectively in time of war are the schools
which are serving or may serve in times of peace. It has been and will
again be shown that school methods usable in meeting a war emergency
are the methods not only usable but desirable under normal conditions.
There is absolutely nothing in the following discussion of the field
for war service for industrial and trade-school education which does
not have its direct application in promoting and administering a
national system of vocational education. Definite suggestions are
given for organizing day-industrial, trade, part-time and continuation
schools, evening vocational schools, trade classes, and off-time
courses; for transferring the teaching equipment into the factory; for
transferring the technical-supervision equipment of the factory to the
school; and for making commercial products. It will be seen that the
service of our industrial and trade schools differs from the service
of the industrial and household-arts courses in the regular schools. A
comparison of what is suggested for war service with what is required
by the terms of the federal grant shows that the two are in accord.
For example, the latter requires that all-day industrial schools must
have at least half the time given over to the actual practice of a
vocation on a useful or productive basis; that agricultural schools
shall arrange for directed or supervised practice in agriculture either
on a farm provided by the school or on other farms for at least six
months a year; that part-time schools or classes must be established
if the state and the community expect to receive the full benefits
of the federal grant for the salaries of teachers of the trade,
home-economics, and industrial subjects; and finally, that evening
classes for industrial workers are provided in which the instruction is
required to be supplemental to the daily employment. However, for the
duration of the war, at least, the last requirement needs modification.
War preparedness undoubtedly influenced Congress to pass the
Smith-Hughes Bill. War service of our vocational schools will
undoubtedly influence the vocational-education movement along right
lines more than anything else which could possibly have happened.
Industrial and trade schools stand ready to make their contribution for
war service. Some rather unwisely, and certainly unthinkingly, sent
telegrams to Washington, offering their equipment to the government.
Others said that they would make ammunition. Still others announced
that they would wait for the government to tell them what to do. In the
early stages evidently most of them forgot that their chief, if not
only, business must be, as it has been, that of training recruits for
industry or giving trade extension work to those already in a chosen
vocation.
Of course we are all aware that new tasks of stupendous proportions are
being undertaken by the country as measures for national defense, and
that while a large army is being recruited and trained, a still larger
army is being drawn into industrial production to equip and support
the army and navy directly on the lines of defense. We know that
$600,000,000 has been appropriated for aëroplane construction; that
from 50,000 to 100,000 shipbuilders are needed for our shipbuilding
program; that tool-makers and gauge-makers are needed in large numbers;
that the government military service will require large numbers of
mechanics in its quartermaster's, engineering, signal, aviation, and
navy corps.
In other words, there is convincing evidence that there are bound
to be not only increased demands for labor but also changes in the
relationship of labor demand and supply. There is going to be an
enormous increase in the demand for specialist workers in metal, and
considerable increase in the call for skilled all-round workers in
metal; a material increase in the demand for woodworkers in shipyards;
an increase in demand for workers in manufactured clothing and army
equipment; a great increase in demand for electrical workers in
all lines, including operators, field men, telephone and telegraph
service. We know that there will be a demand for automobile mechanics,
gas-engine operators, plumbers, horseshoers, wheelwrights, steam
engineers, bakers, cement workers, and gas and steam fitters. It is
probable that there will be a diminution in the demand for printers;
for women in dressmaking, millinery, and novelty lines; for laborers
on public works, including streets, sewers, water systems, public
buildings, canals, and bridges.
In short, we know that the war emergency will create an extraordinary
demand for some kinds of labor, attended by a probable diminution of
demand for other kinds, and there will be occasion for much shifting of
labor from one occupation to another. It is obvious, furthermore, that
many readjustments must be made by public and private industrial and
trade schools in these days of war pressure.
To determine what adjustments are most urgent, those in charge of these
schools should go directly to the industries and confer as to what
service is the most desired. It is practically useless to wait for
industrial managers to come to the schools for help. In many cases they
will not appreciate the fact that the schools can be of help. If, in
times of peace, industry has hardly recognized the full possibilities
of public vocational training, it is not likely that it would recognize
it in the stress of increased production. Sir Robert Blair of London
states that unless the educational staff of England had made it its
business to satisfy the manufacturers that it could train semiskilled
workers, the vocational-training shops would have been obliged to close
soon after the war started. He states that in the earliest days of the
work of these training shops, the manufacturers were indisposed to
believe that industry had anything to learn from trade or technical
schools. The manufacturers said that these schools were "academically
right and practically wrong."
What industrial and trade schools can do for manufacturing plants
will, of course, vary in each community. Each manufacturing center
has its own sets of activities. Proper military authorities should be
approached by administrators of industrial schools to determine what
can be contributed toward providing the training which is needed.
Letters to military authorities in Washington will not bear so much
fruit as a personal visit to a local recruiting station, camp, or
cantonment for definite advice as to how schools may best serve. It is
expected, however, that the National Board of Vocational Education will
be helpful with suggestive material.
At the present moment the most effective contact between the school
that may give the training and the place that needs it can be brought
about through coöperation either with cantonment authorities or with
local manufacturing plants. Industrial and technical schools in England
in the early days of the war formed connections with government
arsenals and began the manufacture of gauges for shell-making, mostly
of the inspection type. At first the technical institutes were
very diffident about undertaking the work, the standard of skill
required being so high; but after a few appeals on the ground that it
was a great opportunity for trade education to show its value, the
institutions started the work, so that there are now something like a
dozen such schools working on the manufacture of these instruments.
It is to be understood that the majority of the workers thus employed
were metal workers before they took up this work. Others were
manual-training teachers in the elementary schools. They have turned
out approximately 50,000 inspection gauges, and it is the opinion in
England that the trade institutes never undertook a better work.
In general terms the shortage of help in the industries is going to
be met by training operatives selected from unskilled workers; by
training foremen of those operatives who will be selected from the
skilled help; and by training highly skilled specialists who will
be selected from the workmen already skilled. The training plan
in the New England Westinghouse plant will be interesting in this
connection. In this ammunition plant 80 per cent of the workers are
listed as operators, the majority of whom are trained from carefully
selected unskilled labor. To train these operators skilled machinists
are employed as instructors. One instructor is in charge of a group
averaging about thirteen men. In other words, 7-1/2 per cent of the
force in the operating departments are on the instruction staff and
known as foremen, linemen (set-up men), and instructors. Instruction
is given incidentally in turning out the regular product. No equipment
is set aside primarily for instruction purposes; any equipment in
the plant may be thus used. This method of instruction is called the
group-instructor plan, in which one instructor or foreman has charge
of teaching a group of operators working on an assigned task. While
under instruction the group is employed on regular production. The
instructor is not required to produce, but gives his entire time to
group teaching. In the tool-making department, men of mechanical
ability, not necessarily all-round machinists, but in some instances
from other trades, are trained in making jigs and fixtures. In
these cases the ratio of instructors to workers is less than one to
thirteen, the helper plan being used. The helper plan is that in which
a skilled worker is employed in special work, such as tool-making or
gauge-making, and has under him from one to three helpers. In this case
the man who gives the training does not confine his entire efforts to
instruction, but is required to work at his particular occupation. If
satisfactory results are to be secured, only a very limited number of
helpers can be assigned to one worker.
The industrial schools will prove to be a small factor in training
operatives, in view of the fact that industry itself is able to
train them quickly and satisfactorily. It takes only a few days to
make a Polish farm hand of Connecticut into an ammunition worker in
Bridgeport. Foremen and specialists may be trained through evening and
day part-time courses. Of course it is assumed that these schools will
have equipment requisite for training in the kind of work for which
help is needed. The Springfield (Massachusetts) Vocational School
expects to shift some of its pupils from house to ship carpentry in
view of the new demand for men with a knowledge of shipbuilding,--a
demand which will extend, undoubtedly, over a term of years.
At least, one way for a trade school to be of service and yet not
purchase additional equipment is to lend its skilled instructors to
a local manufacturing plant where an organized plan for training
foremen and specialists exists. This has been done by the Quincy
(Massachusetts) Industrial School, which coöperates in furnishing part
of the instruction given in the Fore River shipbuilding plant. This
company is giving instruction to a selected group of workers under pay
for a full industrial day of ten hours. A night shift of training for
eleven hours is also given to another group of men. Instructors are
training an assigned group of operators on regular production and under
usual employment conditions. Some part-time instruction in technical
subjects, and in some cases on special operations, is also given to
certain groups of selected workers while under employment in the plant.
This plan has a significance worthy of attention after the war.
General Manager Smith of this company, at a conference of state
administrators of vocational schools held the middle of July in New
York City, made an interesting statement as to the need of trained help
in the shipyards. A summary of his remarks follows:[2]
For shipbuilding purposes men trained in the building trades
offer little advantage over intelligent untrained men, as the
character of work in the shipbuilding industry is so different from
that in the building trades.
However, industrial and trade schools can give preliminary and
thorough instruction to ship-fitters and loftsmen. The course for
the latter should include ship-drafting. More limited instruction
can be given in other ironworkers' trades and in the shipwright
trades.
Trained instructors are needed. Instructors may be employed in
the plant and, if so, should have full power to instruct and should
not be employed on production, as the best results in instruction
can only be obtained by having the instructor concentrate his mind
on his work.
Shipbuilding in the United States has been one of our smaller
industries. If the present crisis is to be adequately met, the
industry will be one of our most important ones.
Of the large amount of money to be spent in shipbuilding,
practically one half will be expended on labor in the shipyard; the
remainder is for material purchased from outside parties, but which
at the works of such subcontractors is again largely labor. Of the
labor expended in the shipyard about one third is for ironworkers,
and it is in this trade that the greatest shortage occurs, as there
is only a small percentage of men for the ironworkers' trade now to
be found in this country.
In the past very little instruction in the specialized
shipbuilding trades has been given in the United States, and the
number of men who have served apprenticeship in these trades is
small, a great supply of skilled men in these trades coming from
Great Britain. There is an imperative need for a supply of men in
the ironworkers' trade.
Some instruction must always be given in the shipbuilding
plant, but it is possible to give a great deal in the industrial
schools, and, as the wages are good, men should be readily
attracted to the shipbuilding trades.
While ironworkers' trades consisting of loftsmen, ship-fitters,
riveters, chippers, calkers, reamers, bolters, packers, and some
others are peculiar to shipbuilding as well as the shipwright's
trade, the trades of plumber, pipe fitter, coppersmith, etc. are
very materially different in the shipbuilding trades from what they
are in the building trades.
[2] Taken from bulletin of the National Society for the Promotion of
Industrial Education, for August, 1917, "War Demands for Industrial
Training."
On the other hand, it is possible to send instructors from the
factories to the school. In several instances in England the
manufacturers supplied the schools with instructors and all the
necessary material in order to teach women and boys the identical
operations which they would be called upon to carry out in the factory.
In this way a number of schools combining manufacturing with training
were able to supply local factories with boys and women trained in the
special operations involved. This plan is also significant and has an
important bearing upon the administration of public vocational training.
The question whether industrial schools should make ammunition or
equipment pertaining to war service will come up. Having substantial
amounts of available equipment, they will doubtless at times be
tempted to use their organized day and evening classes for purposes of
emergency productive work. In machine-shop schools, for example, the
teachers being skilled machinists and the pupils capable of turning out
a substantial amount of productive work, inducements to subordinate
educational ends to those of an economic nature may be expected. It
is therefore suggested that industrial-school authorities resolutely
resist all attempts to subordinate their rightful purpose of giving
industrial education. It is clear that a certain amount of production
is necessary for purposes of education, but it is important that this
should never be made a primary purpose in any industrial school. A
letter from Director W. C. Smith of the Troy (New York) Central School
illustrates the productive work of one school which retains educational
value.
A Troy corporation is engaged on a large contract with the
government for uniforms. Its shops are taxed to the limit, and it
has found it necessary to utilize every available shop in town for
making various machines used in cutting cloth for this contract. It
has entered into an arrangement whereby our complete machine-shop
equipment is turned over to its use under the supervision of our
own instructor. Our graduate boys are employed in the shop and are
now at work perfecting twelve machines for use in different parts
of the country on this contract.
The public vocational schools must face, sooner or later, the question
of shop production on a commercial basis. They exist, primarily, to
train producers and not to make products. Are the two inconsistent?
Perhaps the war service of these schools will bring this debatable
issue to a head.
Obviously the industries engaged in the making of automobiles,
aëroplanes, machinery, and ammunition have for some time past absorbed
the available supply of skilled help. With the emergency of war
preparation upon us, we must find ways of pressing thousands of workers
into lines of work with which they are almost altogether unfamiliar.
Except with boys who are fourteen to sixteen years old, it will be of
little avail to think of giving all-round trade training. The labor
supply which we now need must be trained immediately and intensively.
From what has already been stated it is clear that workers may be
trained in three ways: first, in day industrial or technical schools;
second, in industrial plants such as have been mentioned in the case
of the Westinghouse Company; third, through part-time employment in
industry, with part-time attendance in industrial or technical schools.
The industrial-school authorities should send into the factories
capable instructors who have had trade experience, in order to learn
the needs for trained help and to analyze the trade processes for which
men need to be trained. In this way the school may determine whether it
can best meet the situation by training the youth in its day schools
to go to work in industrial plants upon leaving school--although this
is not a very immediate way of meeting the emergency--or whether it
would be better to move the classes, so to speak, over to the plant
and have the instructors teach a group of unskilled workers on the
group-instruction plan. Perhaps the school could perform its best
service by giving trade extension courses to those already engaged in
productive work. Anyhow, these alternatives must be fully considered.
These instructors or trained experts, when visiting typical yards or
plants in a specific industry to learn of the needs for trained help,
must be able to reanalyze the trade processes in terms of training as
distinct from terms of production, and out of this analysis to draw
up suitable schemes for giving such training. The question of whether
this training should be given entirely in the school or entirely in the
plant or partly in the plant and partly in the school should be left to
experts, who know best the possibilities of each of these schemes.
This is no time for industrial schools to stand on their dignity and
claim that they can do all that is necessary in their day schools
without coöperation with those who employ. It is readily granted
that, generally speaking, directors of industrial schools know their
job quite well when it comes to giving trade-preparatory training
to youth before it enters industry; but at a time when the country
needs thousands of workmen we are quite sure that the better plan for
training operators and semiskilled workers is directly in the plant
itself. In a time of great emergency this intensive, immediate training
must be given in large part by the industries themselves within their
own plants. They have the equipment, they have the men who need the
training; all they lack is the proper instructing force, as they cannot
take men away from production for instruction purposes. It follows
that the instructors of our schools must give their instruction in the
plants or must have the unskilled operatives and helpers come to the
school for part-time work.
The present all-day industrial schools, even in normal times, need this
direct contact with industry to save themselves from shop methods which
savor of manual-training schools.
It is assumed that the regular all-day industrial and trade schools
will continue. Of course they are now largely attended by comparatively
young students, and it is quite likely that the enrollment will
diminish, as there is an unusual demand for boys in every branch of
industry and commerce. It will be increasingly difficult to hold such
boys in school in the face of financial returns rather extraordinary
when one considers their youth.
In the interests of conservation of youth and the training of a
suitable supply of skilled workers for the future, there should be
no diminution of effort to develop and extend day-school work, even
though the young people thus trained will be too young to contribute
definitely to the present emergency, unless, of course, it should last
more than a year or two. Nevertheless, the enrollments are likely to be
less. A partial compensation for this situation is that groups of more
mature workers coming from the industry itself on a part-time basis can
be accommodated for special instruction, or groups of young men who are
now elevator boys, messenger boys, clerks in stores, office boys, can
be induced, perhaps, to come to the all-day school, and through short,
intensive courses be put into the way of earning, in some factory
making war supplies, a sum equal to from two to three times what they
are now earning. No attempt should be made to hold such youths in the
school beyond the period necessary to give them immediate and intensive
training.
After the war it will be an open question whether intensive courses
should not be more generally adopted in our day industrial schools.
Obviously the largest immediate service that can be rendered by
industrial and trade schools will be through the readjustment and
extension of evening and other off-time courses. As usual, the
especially important function will be the training of men already in
the trades for more skilled tasks or for directive work. Ways must
be found for extending the evening-school facilities. One way is to
operate the evening courses throughout the entire year. Most of our
industrial schools operate only from October to April, but in this time
of pressure they should be open continuously. The other way would be to
carry on trade extension work not only in the evening but also early
in the morning or late in the afternoon. These are technically known
as off-time courses and came into existence originally in some cities
which made provision for training workers from plants operating night
shifts.
Fundamentally, even in times of peace, there is no sound reason for
ever completely closing a day industrial school. It might run during
the summer as well as the winter; in the late afternoon and early
morning as well as in the evening. In the middle of June, 1917,
President Wilson addressed a letter to Secretary Redfield making the
suggestion that the vocational-training schools of the country should
be open during the summer, when it would be possible to train a large
number of young men under military age, either to fill the places in
our industries left by men who enlist or are withdrawn for military
service, or to carry on special occupations called for by the war,
such as inspectors of material and apparatus. In this connection,
where the President speaks of "inspectors of material," it may be said
that one of the prominent industrial-education experts of the East has
been asked to train a group of men selected for special government
inspection work. These men will then be responsible for organizing a
force of assistant inspectors in the plant to which they are assigned,
and of supervising the work of the assistant inspector under their
personal direction.
The course of inspectorship training is made up of two units:
one dealing with the business and accounting side of inspection and
the other with the technical instruction which is given through
participation in the actual work of inspection at the arsenal,
observation of the manufacturing processes, and direct group
instruction.
The first unit is given at Washington and usually requires
from four or five days to a week for its completion. The second
unit is given at the Rock Island arsenal and covers eleven days
as a minimum. Only the most experienced men, however, complete
it in this length of time. The men enter the school at irregular
intervals in groups of four or five at a time. The number in
training at any one time varies from thirty-five to fifty.
The men are moved from department to department on a fixed
schedule. When a man completes his training he is assigned to a
plant in accordance with his qualifications as indicated by his
previous experience and his record at the school. Further plans
for training the inspector after he has been assigned to the field
have been proposed but have not yet been put into effect. Many of
the candidates for this training are instructors in vocational
training.[3]
The opportunity for promotion of skilled workers was never so great as
at present, and the opportunity for schools to train them will never
be greater than at present. The schools may well organize intensive
short courses in practical training, as well as other courses designed
to advance qualified workers to positions of directive work in the
factories.
While the part-time plan offers excellent opportunities for advancing
selected workers in order that they may acquire certain technical
knowledge, it is doubtful whether much of this work during this
emergency period can be done in the public or private industrial and
trade schools. We all know that certain industrial concerns have
established part-time schools in their plants. These classes in the
works are especially adapted, in the present emergency, for training
selected workers to become specialists and foremen. If the school is
near the plant, so that industrial workers can attend for part-time
day instruction for a period of six or eight hours a week without loss
of time or without interfering with production, it may be possible to
develop some part-time courses in the schools, but, generally speaking,
it would be better for the instructors in these schools to go directly
to the plants themselves and give this part-time instruction there. In
another chapter mention will be made of a feasible part-time system
and the necessity for some such system, but it refers only to boys and
girls between fourteen and sixteen years old who belong primarily in
school and not primarily at work. It is assumed that the group of which
we have been thinking is the older group of workmen who wish to become
foremen.
[3] "Vocational Education and Government Service," News-letter issued
by National Society for the Promotion of Industrial Education, October,
1917.
[Illustration: War needs open new fields for schools. After the war,
stereotyped courses in trade schools and technical institutes will have
lost their hold. Dunwoody Institute (Minneapolis, Minnesota) is one of
the few schools having a training course for bakers.]
[Illustration: An example of an effective adaptation to a national
need. Dunwoody Institute meeting a shortage of army bakers.]
[Illustration]
[Illustration: Educational efficiency as measured by its response to
a national need. Dunwoody Institute is one of the several institutes
teaching radiography and power testing to navy men.]
Sir Robert Blair, in his report already referred to, speaks of the
manner in which technical and trade schools in and about London train
semiskilled workers for munition work.
At first we gathered together all the metal-working apparatus
of our elementary schools and placed it in two of our technical
institutes. Shafting was put up, power was installed and the
lathes started, and they have been running ever since July, 1915,
for twelve hours a day in three periods of four hours each. At
first the period of training was for one period a day for six
days a week for six weeks, or a total of 144 hours, but later,
to meet the demands, the manufacturers took upon themselves the
training of more highly skilled turners, of machine erectors,
of milling-machine hands, and so on. We began to train women
for tracing in drawing offices and subsequently for mechanical
drawing. We trained lead-burners for employment in factories making
explosives. We trained gauge-makers for employment in tool rooms
of our shell factories (many of these men have been drawn from the
jewelry and silversmithing trades). The more skill we gave the
training, the longer it took to train these people, and so the
number produced weekly has diminished, but in two years we have
trained, certified, and placed 6000 workers.
And again he speaks of other training apart from furnishing additional
munition workers.
One institution has done a great deal of work in training in
cold shoeing over 1000 men belonging to the Royal Field Artillery,
Royal Engineers, and the Army Service Corps. The same institution
has also been used for the reception, inspection, and dispatch
of many of the horse-shoes required by the army. At another
institution over 3500 students have been trained for Red Cross
duties, and a great work has been done in recruiting men for the
skilled sections of the Royal Flying Corps. Besides we have trained
men for tinsmithing, copper work, and wireless telegraphy. A third
institution took on the general direction of the preparation of
synthetic drugs in the chemical departments of the technical
institutes, and the medical organization of the army was largely
indebted to these chemical departments for the production of the
much-needed drugs.
Assuming that administrators of industrial education are interested in
the welfare of factory workers,--something often apart from instilling
technical skill and knowledge,--it will be necessary for them to
provide courses for men and especially for women workers, giving
instruction in the laws of health with which every employee in factory
life should be familiar. In England the memoranda of the British Health
of Munition Workers Committee have demonstrated conclusively the
great necessity of this teaching of hygiene: that the causes of ill
health of workers in munitions factories were not alone the result of
fatigue from long hours, but quite as much the result of insufficient
or ill-prepared food, inadequate sleep and ill-ventilated sleeping
quarters, and failure to appreciate the consequences of disregarding
safety devices.
It may not be amiss in this chapter to say a word about our government
naval schools, for some may not be aware that the government has for
a number of years been maintaining a very efficient system of trade
education. The purpose of the naval trade schools is to train young men
for various trades or occupations required on shipboard. In going over
the list it is likely that administrators of industrial education will
see an opportunity to connect the work of their schools with the work
of the naval schools. In addition to the practical instruction given
at the training stations where these schools are located, a course of
academic instruction is conducted throughout the naval service. This
instruction does not stop at the training station, but continues on
shipboard, and every encouragement is given for advancement. Electrical
schools are located at the Brooklyn Navy Yard and at Mare Island,
California. The course of instruction comprises machine-shop work,
reciprocating steam engines, steam-turbine engines, internal-combustion
engines, magnetism and electricity, dynamos, motors, motor generators,
alternating-current batteries, etc. Members of the radio class are
trained in the duties of a radio operator and are given constant
practice in the use of the mechanism employed in recovering and sending
messages.
The artificer school is located at the Norfolk Navy Yard, and is
composed of classes for shipwrights, ship-fitters, blacksmiths, and
painters.
The machinist and coppersmith schools are located at Charleston,
South Carolina, and are open only to reënlisted men who have certain
experience.
The aëronautics school is located at Pensacola, Florida, and is divided
into two courses: mechanics of aëronautics, and flying.
Gasoline-engine instruction is given at Charlestown Navy Yard in
connection with the machinist's school, preference being given to
reënlisted men.
Commissary schools for ships' cooks, bakers, and stewards are located
at San Francisco and Newport.
Musicians' schools are maintained at Norfolk, at Great Lake, Illinois,
and at San Francisco.
Seaman-gunner schools are located at the Washington Navy Yard and at
the torpedo station at Newport.
All of these schools give short, intensive courses ranging from three
to eighteen months in length. The students are paid wages, and all
expenses are met the same as with other enlisted men.
Seven free marine-engineering schools and thirty free navigation
schools are being started on the Atlantic, Gulf, Pacific, and Great
Lakes coasts to train men already having some experience for better
places at advanced pay as engineers and deck officers in the new
merchant fleet. The graduates are being placed as fast as they are
graduated. The need for their services is expected to last for many
years after peace is restored.
For several years our industrial continuation schools have had as their
motto "Earn and Learn." But the naval technical schools have shown a
way whereby young men may both serve and learn.
CHAPTER IV
OUR COLLEGES AND TECHNICAL INSTITUTES
It is to be hoped that if we can realize, as England did not, that
education, to quote Arnold Bennett, "is the very last thing that
we ought to economize in," we shall spare ourselves some of the
unnecessary calamities of war. England, France, Italy, and the Central
Powers have thrown into battle a very large percentage of their
educated and trained men, including most of the young professors
and instructors in their universities and colleges, gymnasiums, and
_lycées_. Their colleges and universities are almost empty. The young
men who would under normal conditions be receiving the education
and training necessary to prepare them for leadership in the future
development of these countries are fighting and dying in the trenches.
In view of the fact that all of these countries must needs go through a
long period of reconstruction, industrial and otherwise, it is a pity
that the sacrifice of its best youth had needlessly to be made. As a
matter of fact, we see now that no university, college, or technical
school that can possibly avoid it should permit its faculty or student
body to be scattered or its energies dissipated. All concerned should
redouble their energies and concentrate them upon those things which
will be of the most service in the progress of the war and will prepare
the students for the most effective service when the war is over.
President Wilson, three months after the severing of relations with
Germany, in response to a request for an opinion on the continuance of
a college or a technical-school education during the war, wrote this
letter:
The question which you have brought to my attention is of the
very greatest moment. It would, as you suggest, seriously impair
American prospects of success in this war if the supply of highly
trained men were unnecessarily diminished. There will be need for
a larger number of persons expert in the various fields of applied
science than ever before. Such persons will be needed both during
the war and after its close.
I have therefore no hesitation in urging colleges and technical
schools to endeavor to maintain their courses as far as possible
on the usual basis. There will be many young men from these
institutions who will serve in the armed forces of the country.
Those who fall below the age of selective conscription and who do
not enlist may feel that by pursuing their courses with earnestness
and diligence they also are preparing themselves for valuable
service to the nation.
I would particularly urge upon the young people who are
leaving our high schools that as many of them as can do so avail
themselves this year of the opportunities offered by the colleges
and technical schools, to the end that the country may not lack an
adequate supply of trained men and women.
It must be said that while students were restless and anxious to
perform a service, the college authorities themselves adopted a very
hopeless and helpless attitude toward the war in so far as it reacted
on the internal economy of these institutions. Commencement exercises
were abbreviated and shorn of their customary festivities. College
presidents and executive committees of alumni associations began to
"talk poor" and to wax lugubrious over the small senior class of 1918.
These men even wanted to drop athletics, which, to the facetious layman
outside, constitutes the main reason for a college's existence. The
general action of the colleges in this matter of abandoning so many
athletic and other activities drew from President Wilson a letter
deprecating such action and advising that the colleges maintain
all their usual sports if they did not detract in any way from the
military purpose of the nation. In an address at Princeton University,
Major General Wood deplored hasty action of students in enlisting for
service in the army and navy, urging them to complete their school
work for the year, and that they mark time pending the carrying out of
provisions of the selective-draft law.
It is clear, on one hand, that many college authorities, especially
those of the older type, passed through a state of academic
institutional hysteria, while, on the other hand, their student bodies
translated the emotions of the moment into a deep conviction by
enlisting.
At the same time the spirit of mobilization was present in many a
university, college, and technical school. In the cultural college it
was the individual who enlisted, as the institution was not of the
type whose work directly and definitely counted for important war
service. In the universities where courses are given in agriculture, in
medicine, in technology, and in practical arts, the institution itself
enlisted, in that it offered war-emergency courses.
It is perhaps interesting at this point to see how response came from
these two types of institutions. In the first instance it came from
individuals in the college, which was no more than could be expected of
classical colleges, which have for years laid emphasis on the benefits
of individualistic training. In the second instance the vocational
colleges, as they are sometimes disparagingly called, responded from
the viewpoint of collectivism; that is, the college as a whole,
because of its service departments, was able to offer to the state and
to the nation a course of training of immediate military value to the
country.
But thoughtful people can never again speak disparagingly of any
university or technical school. While the movies have been filled
with the citizens of our democracy, and the cafés crowded with people
to whom war was something apart from existence, and the white-light
gayety of the streets has been apparently undimmed, the youth of our
colleges--the best youth in the world--have enlisted in Plattsburgs,
joined the Naval Reserves, taken up signal-corps work, entered the
research laboratory, followed their instructors into the medical corps,
joined a school of aëronautics, or donned overalls in the shipyards.
Doctor Finley, Commissioner of Education of the state of New York,
in an address delivered before the Illinois chapter of the Phi Beta
Kappa, speaks of his visit to Oxford just before the war and of a visit
to Cambridge, England, a few weeks after it had begun. At Oxford he
found the calm of the cloister, with its memorials of poets, scholars,
statesmen, princes, and soldiers, where there were ancient academic
conventions that paid no heed to the passing customs of the world
outside. Only six weeks later at Cambridge--a Cambridge which had a
month or six weeks before been as Oxford--the town was filled with men
in khaki. In this charming address Doctor Finley speaks of a portrait
of Samuel Butler which he saw at Cambridge,--a portrait of the man who
described in his book "Erewhon" a land where criminals were treated
as sick, and the sick as criminals; where there were "Colleges of
Unreason," colleges in which students were promoted for excellence in
vagueness and were plucked for insufficient trust in printed matter,
colleges where the principal courses were those in hypothetics,
colleges in which mediocrity was fostered, colleges whose graduates
almost invariably suffered from atrophy of individual opinions. And
Doctor Finley says that as he stood before this portrait, in a hall
almost deserted, he thought of those students of courses which Butler
had called "hypothetical" and "atrophying," who had gone forth to prove
the valor of their cloistered and unpractical learning.
The university which apparently had paid no heed to the passing customs
of the world outside had now mobilized herself; and this has been true
of the colleges and technical schools of our own country,--truly a
mobilization of the spirit of sudden forgetting of self-concerns for a
selfless service.
The college of individualism, as has already been suggested, mobilized
through its individuals, while the college of service mobilized itself.
In the spring of 1917 I happened to be in a Western university. The
campus was practically deserted. Instructors in foreign languages had
joined the government interpreters' service; some of the professors of
science had gone to government research laboratories, while a chosen
few were off in some secret place working under government direction in
scientific research concerning submarine warfare. The older students
had enlisted, and the younger ones were marching in squads on the
athletic field. Truly a mobilization, but largely individualistic.
I came East to another college where more than 2000 students were
devoting their time to a series of special short courses dealing
with the various problems of an educational, social, and practical
nature which the war had thrust upon the country. In this way the
institution--Teachers College, Columbia University--had mobilized
itself. Special arrangements had been made by the college authorities
whereby all but a very few students could participate in these
emergency courses without seriously deranging their regular courses.
In general, the aim of these emergency courses was not merely to meet
those conditions which exist at or near the battle line but to help
in the solution of the hundred and one urgent problems which must be
solved by that great majority of teachers and social workers whose
service will of necessity be given in home communities. Accordingly,
courses on social relief were offered, and among others the following
topics were considered: "Administration of relief in time of war and
emergency," "Care of orphaned and neglected children." Under the
organization of rural communities were discussed "Conserving the
food supply," "The health problem of the rural community," and "The
organization of school pupils for agricultural service." The matter
of social service in military camps was thoroughly gone into and
reports and lectures were given by men who had actually worked with the
soldiers themselves. The Boy Scout and Camp Fire Girl movements were
also discussed in special courses, and the practical questions of the
amateur gardener were carefully considered.
In the School of Practical Arts special attention was given to the
making of children's garments, the sewing of Red Cross material, and
the renovating of millinery and clothing. In addition to lectures on
thrift in food the department of cookery gave a course on emergency
cookery for men, which was especially designed for army cooks and Boy
Scout leaders. There was also a series of lectures and demonstrations
by a government expert on the preservation of food, including canning
and drying. Other courses considered the essentials of diet planning
and of how to buy in large quantities for camps and hospitals. The
departments of chemistry and biology gave special instruction in the
analysis of water and of milk, and in the technique of diagnostic
bacteriology. The fine-arts department made some rather unique
contributions, including a study of protective coloring with reference
to _camouflage_ for military purposes, the designing of posters, and
topographical sketching. There was a course on tin-can work for home
and camp, in which, from discarded tomato cans and powder boxes,
were produced all sorts of useful things--coffee pots, camp stoves,
hot-water bottles, lanterns, and candlesticks. A special course in
photography for hospital and field work was offered. In the modeling
class the manipulation of plaster of Paris was demonstrated for nurses
and Red Cross students, to be used in connection with occupational work
for convalescent soldiers. An extremely interesting series of projects
in plastic material was worked up, particularly some clay models of
trenches and dugouts.
Another course which attracted some hundred and fifty students was the
emergency instruction given by the physics department in automobile
mechanics. The object of the instruction was to equip the average
student with a stock of general information that would enable him
to operate a car, to make minor repairs, and to diagnose trouble
intelligently. Some of the matters discussed were the four-cycle
engine, carburetion, transmission and differential, and the storage
battery. For experiment and demonstration purposes the laboratory was
supplied, among other apparatus, with a detachable boat motor and two
automobiles. The latter were thoroughly dissected and then reassembled
from spark plug to tires, and in every possible way the mechanism was
examined and experimented with.
The departments of nursing and health and of physical education offered
some ten courses in all, including home nursing and emergencies,
surgical dressings, care of children, public-health problems, first
aid, medical gymnastics, and invalid occupations.
The department of music offered three courses designed especially to
prepare students to lead music appropriate to patriotic meetings and to
present selections at hospitals and camps.
Two courses were offered by the department of speech: one planned for
those intending to do emergency speaking and lecturing, and the other
arranged to meet the demand for entertainment for little children, the
sick, and soldiers during the war.
In addition to these technical courses there was a series of lectures
on economic problems contributed by various Columbia experts, and
another series of special lectures by such speakers as Mr. Joseph
McCabe, the noted English author, and Mr. Frederick C. Wolcott,
director of the Polish War Relief Commission. Finally, there was a
wonderful and never-to-be-forgotten address by Ignace Paderewski, in
which he reviewed the long and troubled story of his native land and
in impassioned words pleaded for the restoration of Poland's ancient
liberties.
It may be said without exaggeration that in all some millions of people
throughout the United States will, directly and indirectly, profit by
this emergency instruction at Teachers College, for the students who
attended are for the most part experienced teachers, who, in their
turn, will organize and instruct their home communities in similar
preparedness courses.
At the same time another university, unique in its way,--the
University of the State of New York,--was holding, through its Board of
Regents, a meeting to determine academic standards of the schools and
colleges of the state in a war crisis. This university was modeled upon
the University of France, the constituent units of which have proved
themselves wonderful instruments in the waging of war. The universities
represented have organized themselves into a civil army, preventing the
wastes of duplication, misdirected endeavor, and isolation so common
everywhere.
In the building where the Board of Regents met, two conferences were
being held, one representing the schools and colleges of the state,
the other representing the agricultural and industrial interests. In
one place men were discussing how the academic status of professional
schools and colleges might be maintained, and in another room men
and women were participating in a discussion of public markets, food
conservation, services of agricultural teachers, the taking of an
agricultural census, the releasing of boys from school, the organizing
of canning clubs, and all those affairs of the state and its schools
which might contribute to the nation's welfare. These two meetings
offered a picture of two lines of work which must always go together in
time of war.
As Commissioner Claxton has said:
Students should be made to understand that it is their duty
to give to their country and to the world the best and fullest
possible measure of service, for both country and world will need
more than they will get of that high type of service which only men
and women of the best education and training can give. Patriotism
and desire to serve humanity may require of these young men and
women the exercise of that very high type of self-restraint which
will keep them to their tasks of preparation until the time comes
when they can render service which cannot be rendered by others.
On the other hand, these same colleges and schools must contribute
out of themselves that important vocational service so necessary in
time of war, and the gathering at this meeting of agricultural and
household-arts teachers, of farm-bureau men and county agents, of
representatives from granges and women's clubs, of bankers, and of
publicists was after all typical of the other half of the university or
school contribution.
At this meeting of the Regents the following resolutions were adopted
on the recommendation of the administrators of schools and colleges
who were in conference with the Regents. These resolutions are given
in full because they express significantly the point of view of the 36
colleges and 964 secondary schools in New York State.
1. Realizing that one of the most urgent needs of the country
in the present crisis will be the training of officers for
military service, and that it is the peculiar duty of colleges and
universities to contribute in supplying this need, we recommend
that the several colleges and universities in the state establish
one or more units of the Reserve Officers Training Corps, as
provided in general order No. 49, including courses leading at the
same time to a commission and to a college degree.
2. In order that the extraordinary burdens and sacrifices of
war may be shared in just proportion by all the nation, and that
the calamitous experiences of the past under the voluntary system
may be avoided, it is our judgment that in the raising of the
necessary military forces the principle of universal obligation to
service be applied by a process of selective conscription.
3. That members in good standing of the graduating classes of
the professional schools of the state who shall have been accepted
for military service by the government be granted their degrees
without special examination.
4. That members in good standing of the graduating classes in
the undergraduate departments of the colleges and universities of
the state who would normally be graduated in June, 1917, and who
shall be accepted for military service by the government should be
granted their degrees without special examination.
5. That members of the graduating classes in the high schools
of the state who would normally be graduated in June, 1917, and
who have been accepted for military service shall be granted their
diplomas, and that the colleges of the state be requested to honor
these diplomas for purposes of admission.
6. That college students in good standing pursuing medical
preparatory courses who enlist or are called into military service
before the completion of the college year be granted certificates
of completion of their year without examination.
7. That absence from college or high school by reason of
enlistment in military service shall not prejudice the award or the
retention of university scholarships.
8. That while the immediate service which women may perform
in connection with the war will be in medicine or nursing and
other work for general public welfare, and that while the greatest
service for which they may eventually be called will be the
supplying of positions vacated by the enlisted men, we recommend
to the United States government the appointment by the Council for
National Defense of a commission which shall outline an appropriate
policy for women students in our colleges, with respect both to
their college studies and to their enlistment for national service.
9. That this board approve the plans of the National Research
Council and proffer our hearty coöperation.
10. That students in colleges and universities of the state who
are liable for military training under the military-training law
be exempt from the training prescribed by the Military Training
Commission if they pursue courses in military training under
approved instruction at their respective institutions.
Further, that as there are numerous resources in both the
elementary and the secondary schools of the state which can be
used to advantage at this time,--among the most important of which
resources are the use of high-school pupils for the farms and for
necessary clerical and other work that can be done by pupils who
remain in school, the use of teachers for summer work, the services
possible through industrial and household-arts departments, and the
enlistment of upper-grade children for home gardens,--the board
adopts the following resolutions:
1. That the State Agricultural Department in conjunction with
the State Education Department formulate a plan for enlisting
and placing high-school boys upon the farms, for directing and
supervising the work of such boys, for determining qualifications
as to age and fitness, for determining compensation and school
credit, and for the adjustment of any other problems connected with
the safeguarding of these boys who enlist for farm service.
2. That the State Education Department secure through the
necessary sources a statement of the needs that might be met
through the industrial and household-arts departments and other
resources of the schools herein stated, and transmit such a
statement to the schools of the state, to the end that these
resources may be used intelligently and through regularly
constituted channels.
3. That the State Education Department consider the
practicability of securing some provision by which during the
summer vacation and at other times of the year boys 12 years of
age or over may be employed if a certificate of proper working
conditions can be furnished.
It is impracticable to outline even briefly all that the various
colleges and institutes have contributed to war service. The
Massachusetts Institute of Technology is hardly mentioned in what
follows, and yet it is conducting a score of activities of immediate
emergency value. Drexel Institute has contributed not only courses but
also its president, Doctor Godfrey, who is serving as a member of the
National Council of Defense in special charge of war needs as met by
education and science.
To name all the institutions which are serving in one way or another is
to call the roll of nearly every college and technical institution in
the country. To give here a brief account of what a few are doing will
show the range of the activities and the nature of the service.
Early in May Columbia University inaugurated a series of emergency
courses of a military, naval, and general nature arranged for the
purpose of training students who desire to serve the national
government in time of war. They were classified as intensive courses
and were opened without restriction to all those who desired to be
trained in any of the various subjects offered. These courses included
military map making, field-service regulations, general telegraphy,
radio telegraphy, camp sanitation, map reading and map interpretation,
practical navigation, and electrical devices of the navy.
Harvard University has many achievements to her credit, for example:
advanced training for selected officers under the leadership of six
French officers; a cadet school for ensigns; a naval school for
wireless operators; a course in orthopedic surgery; the furnishing of
the medical personnel for four base hospital units; and war service by
departments of dentistry, medicine, psychology, and foreign languages.
Iowa State College gave a six weeks' course in special military
and military-engineering work. Regular two-year noncollegiate
courses were offered electrical workers and stationary engineers,
mechanical draftsmen and mechanics, structural draftsmen and building
superintendents, surveyors and road makers.
At Cornell University all professors and instructors in the
marine-engineering department and all the senior students of marine
engineering were in either private or public shipyards on or before
graduation day.
The University of Wisconsin, anticipating that a large number of
persons who had been trained in the administration of stores would soon
be needed in the civil section of the Quartermaster's Department, in
the Ordnance Bureau of the War Department, and in the Quartermaster's
Officers' Reserve Corps, decided to aid in training for these services
by offering special courses in the classification and handling of
stores for those departments.
This university also planned a summer session with courses in wireless
telegraphy, first aid to the injured, Boy Scout movement in theory and
practice, and gave a course of war lectures especially designed for
teachers, and a course for Red Cross volunteers who wished to take
part in civilian relief work. This last course was in coöperation with
the Red Cross organization, which, as explained in another chapter,
will have much to do with relieving families deprived of their natural
heads. The men and women in this course studied the basis of family
life, psychological and economic principles underlying bodily health,
the resources of the state to preserve the family group, and methods of
social service and friendly visiting.
Aviation schools for training candidates for the aviation corps were
established at the University of California, Cornell University,
Georgia Institute of Technology, University of Illinois, Massachusetts
Institute of Technology, Ohio State University, Princeton, and the
University of Texas. The first navy aëronautic school has also been
established recently at the Massachusetts Institute of Technology.
The College of the City of New York offered an emergency war course
in bookkeeping and office practice to help fit men and women to fill
the positions made necessary by the increased work of the national
government, and to train people to take the places of those who
responded to the call to arms. It also offered its regular winter
courses during the summer in order to speed up the graduation of young
men already enrolled in the college who might be drafted.
This college also placed in every armory and military headquarters in
Greater New York a teacher of conversational French. This work was very
popular and highly successful.
The University of Kentucky offered to women and civilians two special
courses in its College of Electrical Engineering: a course in
automobile engineering especially designed to teach women how to drive
and take care of motor ambulances, and a course in wireless telegraphy.
The Pennsylvania State College offered a six weeks' course in
storekeeping under the direction of the Quartermaster's Department.
In Massachusetts, through the extension department of the State Board
of Education, lessons were given in conversational French in the
armories and encampments. In one armory as many as five instructors
were engaged in this service. The vocabulary of the soldier being
quite unlike the French dictionary, the military terms and expressions
actually used were emphasized. Necessary French slang and words used
commonly for distances, rations, arms and equipment, money, measures,
and military orders were dwelt upon. Spoken French for doctors and
nurses who are going to the front has been given in coöperation with
the Metropolitan Chapter of the American Red Cross.
A six months' course in wireless telegraphy for women was offered at
Hunter College, New York City, the course of training being in three
divisions: laboratory work, technical work, and the use of code. This
course was given with the expectation not that women wireless operators
will be placed on ships of war or on transports, but rather that
they will be placed in land stations and on coastwise steamers, thus
releasing men for more active service. It is understood that on the
mechanical side the work is harder for the women, but that on the code
work they are much quicker than men.
The field for service of a college is not necessarily limited to
extending the usefulness of its vocational departments to meet the
war-emergency demands. As has already been noted, the department of
French may give courses in conversational French in armories and in
cantonments. Sir Robert Blair writes:
We had this plan in England, and as volunteering grew to very
considerable dimensions towards the close of 1914 and there were
tens of thousands of soldiers grouped within the near neighborhood
of London, an arrangement was made with the war-office authorities
for the teaching of French.
Courses in mathematics applicable to war needs may be given. The
college may send tutors to cantonments to give instruction to
undergraduates who have not completed their college work and who would
like to receive a college diploma. Colleges can coöperate with the
Y.M.C.A., to which has been given the privilege of looking after the
recreational features in cantonments. American college boys and others
will not be satisfied with formal military training. They will want
health talks, entertaining and educational lectures, and instruction as
to many things helpful in civil as well as in military life.
There is a large opportunity, in a field as yet hardly touched, for
departments of psychology in universities to help in selecting men for
different branches of war service and to give vocational guidance to
men who leave the service unfitted by war work to reënter their former
occupations and perhaps untrained to enter a new service. A staff
of psychologists is now at work in each of our cantonments applying
intelligence ratings.
There are two distinct uses for the ratings which are given the men
as a result of the psychological examinations. One of these uses is
military and consists in furnishing a commanding officer with the
rating of each man in his command, by which he may, if he chooses, be
guided in selecting men for promotion, or for special duties requiring
more than average intelligence and mental quickness. The other use is
medical and is the thing specifically sought--to find men who are so
markedly below the average in intelligence as to demand consideration
for discharge or for assignment to simple manual work under careful
supervision.
The general method of the test is as follows: The men of each company
are divided into 4 groups of 75 to 80 each. Each group is first given
a simple literacy test which takes about five minutes and shows only
which of the men can read and write. The illiterates are withdrawn at
this point to be given examinations for manual skill. All those who can
read are then given the "group-intelligence examination."
Those who do not get good ratings are now re-examined in a group to
discover whether they are merely slow or are of low-grade intelligence.
If any fail to make a satisfactory showing, they are grouped with the
illiterates who were separated from the rest of the group after the
preliminary examination.
All these--illiterates, and literates who have not done well in the
group examination--are given tests for manual skill and ingenuity.
These tests are such as putting together dissembled mechanisms, etc.
After further individual examination those who receive the poorest
rating are likely to be considered for discharge or as suited only for
manual work under supervision.
Those who display special mental or manual ability are brought to the
notice of their company commanders as men who may be given assignments
for superior intelligence or skill.
The aims of the entire psychological examination are to measure native
intelligence and ability, not schooling; to disclose what a man can
do with his head and hands, not what he has learned from books; and
to help the medical officers quickly to discover and sift out the
extremely incompetent, and thus prevent the inefficiency and injustice
resulting from putting men in places which they are not qualified to
fill.
Of course there is a tremendous opportunity for the college to help
people understand the causes of war. This has already been referred to
in the chapter on "War and Community Uses of our Schools."
Colleges having teacher-training departments will have the opportunity
of giving short courses to men and women who will take the places of
those who have gone to war. There is also a field for great service
in discovering ways and means of improving our public-school systems
through lessons drawn from the war.
Every college and university has a large library, and this should
be examined with a view to discovering its possible contribution to
national defense in war time. Aside from their functions of supplying
fresh news and judgments of current events, libraries surely have a
vital part in that work of organized research which is behind Germany's
scientific and industrial efficiency. Successful research rests as much
upon adequate and well-organized book resources as upon laboratories
and trained men. The plain and immediate duty of a college situated
near a cantonment, or having a portion of its student body enlisted in
a camp, would seem to be to build up a military library adequate as a
center of military information for those who are studying new methods
and instruments of attack and defense. Such a library would be a
technical library assisting the large number of specialized schools and
fields of training for officers and men in every branch of the service
and even in different duties in the same branch. Medical libraries
of colleges should be available, with new and important material on
military hygiene, medicine, sanitation, and surgery, and this material
should be given the widest publicity with reference to its usefulness
for the military, medical, and hospital corps.
The college library might well lend to a cantonment a member of its
library staff for the development of not only a technical library but
also a general reading library for those soldiers who desire only
general reading.
The geological department of a college can help in deciding on
foundation conditions for army-work constructions, on the location
of camp sites with reference to topography, drainage, and water
supply, and on the location of trenches with reference to dryness,
underdrainage, and rock deposits. Such a department can participate
in the study of earth vibrations in connection with heavy artillery
discharges for the accurate determination of the distances of enemy
batteries. It can also help the government in giving more exact
training to young men in the interpretation of geological and
topographical maps.
It is obvious that the technical college and the technical institute
may render the greatest government service through its faculty and
student body. Armour Institute of Chicago has a large number of its
graduates and older students in concerns which are producing munition
supplies and war-ships. Many have entered the signal service, and a
large class in marine engineering has been specifically organized to
prepare men for service with the government.
Wentworth Institute in Boston, under the direction of Principal Arthur
L. Williston, has been giving instruction in various branches of
military engineering to the First Regiment of Engineers of the Fifth
District, U. S. A. This regiment was originally an infantry regiment,
but the men voluntarily elected to train themselves to become an
engineering regiment. The commissioned officers and non-commissioned
officers and all the enlisted men gave three nights a week to the work
for several months. In addition some sixty of the men in the regiment
voluntarily resigned from business positions in order to devote eight
to ten hours a day, six days in the week, to the work. This institute
instilled what Mr. Williston calls "mechanical gumption" into the
enlisted men through short unit courses in mapping and surveying,
topographical sketching, and map reading; gasoline-engine operation,
repairing, and maintenance; portable steam-power plant construction
and operation; electrical-power plant operation; field telephony;
electric-line construction and maintenance; timber construction,
including pontoons, timber trusses, timber suspension-bridge
construction, machine-gun shelters, dugouts, and dugout tunneling
and framing; strength of materials; concrete construction, including
culverts, bridge abutments, gun-carriage and engine foundations;
acetylene welding and demolition work; thermite welding and emergency
repair; machinery erection and alignment; forging, hardening, and
tempering; hydraulics and drainage, especially trench drainage; and
rigging. The time was too short to give any elaborate theoretical
training. The instruction was given through brief and intensive courses
in a very practical way. In many instances it showed men who had
practical experience and ability how to adapt their particular kind
of skill to the special needs of the given service. Many of these men
already had skill, but they needed to have it adapted to military ends.
[Illustration]
[Illustration: Technical colleges and institutes believe that education
is the very last thing in which they ought to economize. Illustrations
of class work in national-emergency courses for the army and navy given
by Pratt Institute, Brooklyn, New York.]
[Illustration:
BOYS AMERICA'S
INDUSTRIES
NEED YOU
PREPARE AT
BUFFALO VOCATIONAL SCHOOLS]
[Illustration: A poster which accomplished its purpose. War time, even
more than normal times, requires an educational appeal to the work
impulses of youth.]
Pratt Institute, Brooklyn, New York, has been conducting 8 evening
classes in machine-shop practice, 6 classes in machine-drafting
design, 1 evening class in elementary ship drafting, and day courses
for a large body of enlisted men from the navy electrical school
and from the signal reserve corps. Those who come from the signal
reserve corps are being trained for active service in telegraphy,
the institute furnishing the technical instruction in elementary
and applied electricity, and army officers furnishing the military
and field-service instruction. A mess for the men of this corps is
conducted at the school of household science connected with the
institute, and here details of men are trained for this work through
a course in army cooking. The men from the electrical school are
quartered at the navy yard, and spend five and one-half hours a day at
the institute taking courses in machine-shop operation, steam-engine
practice, elementary electricity, armature- and field-coil repair work
on electrical machines, elementary chemistry, and batteries. It is
interesting to note that Pratt Institute made a special effort to hold
intact its student body of the regular courses, on the theory that the
thoroughly trained mechanic or technician in service is many times more
valuable to the nation than a private in the ranks. As a result of this
effort, very few of the students of the day school dropped from the
regular courses.
The William Hood Dunwoody Institute of Minneapolis began immediately
on the severance of relations with Germany to serve as a recruiting
station for the United States Engineers' Enlisted Reserve Corps,
the United States Signal Enlisted Reserve Corps, the United States
Quartermaster's Enlisted Reserve Corps, the United States Civil
Service Commission, and the United States Navy.
It also outlined a scheme for taking a census of mechanics and
technicians for the state of Minnesota, which is now being carried out,
and on the basis of which recruiting will go forward for every branch
of the government service.
It made arrangements for bringing to Minneapolis, on the first of
August, 425 recruits from the Great Lakes Naval Training Station at
Chicago, and distributed them among the following classes in training
at the institute: general electricians, radio electricians, carpenter's
mates, machine-shop operators, gas-engine operators, blacksmiths,
coppersmiths, cooks, and bakers.
The institute is training more than 200 novices in day and evening
classes in telegraphy. Of these about 60 per cent are girls and
women, this course being offered in response to a direct request from
railroad and telegraph lines in the vicinity of Minneapolis. It is also
giving some instruction in operating-foremanship work for a prominent
local steel and machinery company, as this company has renewed the
manufacture of munitions and needs operation foremen. The institute was
called upon to select the most promising men and to train them in one
process of which they are later to have charge in the shop. Director
Charles A. Prosser in making a report to the secretary of the National
Society for the Promotion of Industrial Education said:
We have 154 people taking radio work in day and evening
classes. This group is made up of a number of different types.
First, there are the amateurs with licenses who have enlisted in
our first radio company of the United States Signal Service and
have gone into that class to improve their speed. Second, there
are other young men who have gone in to learn the work so as to be
recruited into another radio company of the United States Signal
Corps or into the naval service, and there are, in the third place,
young men who have gone in with the idea of offering their services
to the Marconi Company, either for land work or for duty on board
the merchant ships which are being built.
Somewhere in the neighborhood of 500 mechanics and technicians
have been sent into different branches of the government service
by Dunwoody Institute. This number is made up in part of our own
students from our school--particularly from the evening classes,
although some of our day boys have gone--and in part of mechanics
and technicians throughout Minnesota who have gone into the service
through Dunwoody Institute, where we conduct a recruiting station
and where we are recruiting into the service every Wednesday,
applications being taken in the interim.
We have sent into the service 1 motor-truck company; 2 others
are in process of organization. We are sending out 1 radio company,
which is ready to go, and are about to organize another. We are
also organizing 1 wire company, 1 baking company, and 1 company of
cooks. In addition we have sent men to the Brooklyn Navy Yard and
are sending men to the Puget Sound Navy Yard. We have also put men
in touch with the Civil Service Commission and sent them into the
service in this way.
The response of these and other colleges and technical institutes
justifies as nothing else could their past claims that they train not
only for the spirit of service but for the life of service.
The effect of the war on the college curriculum cannot be hastily
measured. Institutions of collegiate grade are slow to make radical
changes in the requirements for the bachelor's degree. Some have
already shortened the college course to three years. Others have
decided as a war measure that students ought to be through college by
the time they reach conscription age. Some are offering opportunity
for all-the-year-round work. Others are allowing war service to count
toward a college degree. The English universities are already thinking
of strengthening their courses in science and laboratory research, of
giving more attention to modern languages, and of developing vocational
courses.
Certainly in America there will be an immediate and greater demand
for so-called "practical" subjects. It may be that one of the effects
of the war will be the sharpening of the differentiation and an
increase of competition between the idealistic and the practical groups
of studies. This will be unfortunate. There should be no sharpening
of differences of opinion. They had much better be dulled. There
is no real necessity for antagonism between the cultural and the
vocational subjects. People only _think_ there is a need for constant
justification of the one against the other. Such thinking has become a
habit of mind.
The French have a way of saying that the cultural subjects are merely
the moral conditions, the ethical history, and a judgment as to the
ethical value of the world complex of vocational and economic life; for
this reason any conflict between cultural and vocational subjects is
impossible, and the more vocational education is developed, the more
will the cultural aspects be needed and the more highly developed will
they become. The French point out that what we term cultural subjects
developed in two civilizations which were very highly practical,
vocational, and militaristic; namely, Greece and Rome. They speak
of the humanities as being essentially the abiding lessons of those
civilizations which in vocational and military efficiency stood much
higher above their fellows than Germany stands in those respects above
contemporary civilization to-day.
Vocational subjects are direct-service subjects always. By their very
nature they respond immediately to an emergency. The cultural subjects
are more indirect in their effect. They could not be otherwise. I
often wish we could get into the habit of speaking of liberal subjects
in the sense in which this term was used in the older days of our
colleges, when the term "liberal" implied that the subjects classed
under this head were liberalizing; that is, they liberated, or set
free, the minds, spirits, and bodies of men and women from prejudice,
selfishness, tradition, passion, cruelty, and so on. I have never seen
how one could _elect_ culture, for it is always a by-product coming out
of thinking and living. To study the language of an ancient people and
to learn nothing of their government or ideals is useless. To study
this government and these ideals of an older civilization and to see no
lessons for the world of to-day is almost valueless. To study the past
in terms of problems of human society is liberalizing.
New meanings of the realities of war are before us. New concepts of
two great ideals of government confront us. New methods of making
war more horrible strike our eyes with every news issue. New schemes
for patching up human life that it may go forth again to battle or
return to industrial warfares of peace are heralded every week.
New societies for the relief of human suffering due to the war are
chartered constantly. New alignments of political groups committed to
reform are in the making. New groupings of nations not formerly allied
stand before our eyes. New methods of combining activities of great
corporate interests for government needs are published daily. New trade
possibilities now latent are prophesied as being inevitable. New ideals
and new ideas gathered in the trenches are appearing over battle lines
for new governmental practices. New advances in the field of government
control of prices startle us continually.
Out of it all there looms up a new science of chemistry, improved
methods of transportation in the air, a still greater standardization
of making industrial products, a new conception of government control
of trade and industry, a system of government insurance for individuals
and corporations, new concepts of legislative authority and action,
and a score of other things all heading up into a new sense of
nationalism,--and who knows but even a sense of internationalism!
Is it credible that education alone will remain unaffected by these
world changes?
CHAPTER V
THE OPPORTUNITY FOR MANUAL AND HOUSEHOLD ARTS
A new spirit of teaching practical arts is upon us. The aims,
materials, and methods of instruction in manual training, cooking,
sewing, agriculture, and commercial branches are changing. They have
been influenced by the vocational-education movement, and because of it
practical arts in general education must justify themselves or else be
put into the scrap heap.
The development and organization of differentiated courses in
industrial, agricultural, and household and commercial arts adapted
to junior and senior high schools--more particularly in connection
with the education of children from 12 to 16 years of age--offers a
new field of service to teachers of these subjects who, up to now,
have been following methods unsuited either to the needs of vocational
training or to the needs of general education. Already the set of wood
and iron models taken from the Russian system of the early seventies
has disappeared, and the sampler book in sewing has passed away. The
era of the coat hanger and sleeve board in manual training and of the
set of doll's clothes and models of undergarments is doomed, and the
cooking outline which starts out with making cocoa in September and in
the thirteenth lesson takes up the making of an angel cake will soon
meet the fate of flowerpot holders, doll's aprons, and book agriculture.
But there is a great field for the practical arts in general
education,--a field which no scheme of vocational training can possibly
occupy. Each has its place. Vocational training is fitting young
persons for profitable employment in chosen vocations. Practical arts
in general education consists of varied lines of activity taken from
the fields of agriculture, commerce, industry, and the household and
taught in the school for the purpose of developing capacity to deal
with concrete things and of arousing social and industrial interests in
the workaday world.
In the early years of the child's life practical-arts work has a strong
motor and social value. In the middle years, say from 12 to 16, it has
a social and vocational-guidance value. The chapter entitled "The Field
for Industrial and Trade Schools" gives a number of suggestions as to
the work which boys and, to some extent, girls may offer as their
service contribution in time of war. However there are fewer than 100
industrial and trade schools in the country. The majority of our youth
are taking some practical-arts work as a part of general education in
either the elementary or the secondary school, and surely these young
people will want to do something in this emergency. And certainly the
teachers of sewing, manual training, cooking, and agriculture will
desire to do their part, not only because they can be of service at
this time but also for the reason that through war-service work they
will be able to improve upon the practical-arts work and make it
conform to the new spirit. The whole spirit of the new methods is based
upon getting away from individual models created out of the mind of a
teacher and imposed upon an unsuspecting student body which follows
a "course in models" in about the same way that it takes a course in
arithmetic.
The present scheme of teaching practical arts is based upon the project
plan and not upon the model or exercise plan. It no longer depends upon
the teacher's course of study founded on tool exercises or logical
sequence of processes. It now comes out of a need which is as clear to
the student as it should be to the teacher. The progressive teacher
of manual training starts out with such a project, for example, as a
garage. This involves making a sketch, working up a bill of materials,
finding out the cost of lumber, cement, and so on. It involves work in
concrete, laying the floor timbers, putting up the sides, laying out
the roof, setting in the window and door frames, putting on the tarred
paper or shingles or galvanized iron, and painting and staining.
The progressive teacher of domestic arts no longer thinks of catering
merely to the personal decorative sense of young girls. She no longer
has the girls spend the entire year making graduation dresses, or
dish towels, caps, and aprons. She thinks in terms of quantity and in
terms of social service which the domestic-arts work may render. She
discovers that a hospital needs towels, aprons, caps, and bed linen, or
that the orphan asylum near the school is sorely in need of children's
garments, and then she tells of this need to the girls in her charge
and the latter take up the problem in the same way that the boys take
up the problem of building a garage. Each girl works in conjunction
with others for a common purpose which all recognize as being worth
while.
Progressive teachers of cooking are realizing that the idea of 20
cooking units in a schoolroom, where little batches of 20 model
biscuits are made and where at the close of the lesson each girl has
one of these small eatables, is far behind the practice of those
manual-training teachers who are making drawing tables, benches, and
looms, or laying concrete walks, building outdoor gymnasium apparatus,
and so on. Some of the teachers have insisted on having a flat or
tenement or entire house near the school, where girls taking domestic
science can go to learn to make real beds that are really slept upon,
to clean bathroom bowls that are really used, to cook meals that are
really eaten by people who pay for what they eat, to shake real rugs
that become really dirty, and to shop at stores where they come in
contact with actual commercial conditions and at the end of a week
discover that it really costs money to run a real home. A few teachers,
and in time there will be many, desire to go still further. They
believe that home-making cannot be taught without having some babies
around, and so they have established day nurseries in connection with
the home-making classes.
It is because of these things which have been mentioned in some
detail that I was glad, as director of the Division of Agricultural
and Industrial Education of the New York State Education Department,
to send out a circular letter early in April, 1917, to our
manual-training and household-arts teachers, in which I stated that
every teacher of manual training, sewing, or cooking should be thinking
in terms of mobilization service, and that any teacher of manual
training who was conducting his course of models, instead of thinking
and working in terms of food production or industrial war service,
was absolutely out of touch with the needs of the day. I advised him
to turn his shop work over to home and community gardens, to increase
the time allowance given to manual work, and help fill the cellar
and pantry. I advised him to give his Saturdays and afternoons after
school and even his vacation period to supervising garden work in the
community. I said, furthermore, that any teacher of sewing who was not
thinking in terms of Red Cross, and of mending, darning, and repairing,
was as far away from the service idea as she possibly could be. I told
her that with the increase in price of materials and with the scarcity
of dress goods there would be necessary repairing and making over which
would give her an opportunity to do some real things. I even told her
that she might drop some of her sewing and help the cooking teacher
in organizing classes in preserving. I told the teachers of cooking
that if they were running through their outlines with no reference
to the food shortage of next winter and the year after, they showed a
lack of comprehension of the meaning of their jobs. I stated that the
early summer and fall suggested lessons in preserving, while the winter
season conveyed the idea of conserving. I asked whether they were
planning to stop their work in June, before the canning season really
began, and leave everything idle until school should open, when the
canning season would be nearly over. I wondered what provision had been
made in the community for using the summer service which they either
had offered or, I hoped, were about to offer.
A few weeks later word came from England of how the manual-training
teachers had been urged by those in authority to do garden work. A
portion of these directions follows:
Surely wood and metal work have not the monopoly of the
educative value in manual operations. The harvesting of an orchard
of fruit or a field of potatoes by a class of school children,
accompanied by an enthusiastic teacher imbued with the right ideal
of his work, can be made to serve other purposes than merely that
of simple mechanical utility. A discussion started at first hand
between child and teacher on such matters as variety and quality
of produce, the destructive fruit pests and diseases encountered,
the crating, packing, and distribution of produce, the weighing
and measuring actually performed, the calculating of the value
of produce and of labor, and a knowledge that the coöperative
effort is in response to a call of England's need, would provide
open-air lessons in nature study, geography, arithmetic, and civics
quite as educative as any obtained in the elaborately equipped
manual-training centers.
This is true, especially the phrase "a knowledge that the coöperative
effort is in response to a call of England's need," which embraces the
socializing value of the manual-arts principles,--a value which we
often talk about and as often fail to attain.
Teachers of cooking, in this food crisis now upon us and the greater
one which may come, ought to suspend temporarily some of their work in
teaching children and turn their attention to teaching adults. To be
sure the girl of to-day will be the mother of to-morrow, but the mother
of the immediate to-morrow is also the mother of to-day, and the food
crisis will be over, it is to be hoped, by the time the girls in our
present cooking classes have grown into motherhood. These courses to
adults should be intensive and in short units. The printing schools
should print leaflets giving practical and helpful recipes to be
distributed to the adults. If the women will not come to the school,
then the schools should go to the women. By this it is meant that
classes can be organized in churches, vacant stores, and settlements.
In this connection it may be of interest to quote from the Leicester
(England) education committee:
Arrangements have been made in connection with the local
food campaign whereby the ordinary schemes of work at the
domestic-science centers have been temporarily suspended and
special short courses in cookery instruction provided instead.
These courses have been designed primarily as a means of
instructing as many women and older girls as possible in the
method of preparing and cooking suitable substitutes for bread
and potatoes. In addition to the rooms equipped for cookery
instruction, those normally devoted to the teaching of laundering
and housewifery are being used for this special work. The course
is arranged to cover 4 lessons given on consecutive half days to
each group of attendants, and at the conclusion of each course the
women and girls attend one evening for a review lesson including a
practical demonstration to which outsiders are invited. Leaflets
have been prepared and sent to the schools for distribution. The
children themselves write out the scale of rations as applied to
individual families and take their copies home, thus becoming the
active agents in the food campaign.
In Albany, New York, the regular work in cooking was discontinued early
in June for the school year of 1917, and a special course of 10 lessons
in food conservation was given at 4 domestic-science centers. The
course consisted of 1 lesson in the preservation of eggs, 3 lessons on
canning, 1 on making soap, 1 on butter substitutes, 2 on jellies and
marmalades, and 1 on the drying of a number of agricultural products.
Not only may the domestic-science teacher go to adults by the
way of churches or settlements, but she may go directly,--in the
rural districts, at least,--with demonstration kitchens mounted
on automobiles. In Lindsay County, England, for example, a
domestic-science lecturer arranged an experimental course of lectures
and demonstrations on economical cookery, and equipped with necessary
utensils a traveling kitchen at a cost of $100. She covered each of
the larger villages in the area selected, spending one day in each
place, the morning being given over to traveling. In the afternoon,
exhibitions of wheat-flour substitutes were arranged and demonstrations
given that were based upon left-overs from her preceding evening's
lesson. She also gave short talks on beekeeping, horticulture, fruit
bottling, and so on. In the evening she gave a cooking demonstration.
The "van" used by the women of Long Island, New York State, consisted
of a train of cars behind a steam locomotive, from which demonstrations
were given in fruit and vegetable preserving. The County of Nottingham,
England, gave similar demonstrations and in addition gave lectures to
mothers on the necessity of taking unusual precautions with reference
to the health of babies at this period. It was customary in much of the
work in England to have an agriculturist go with the teacher and give
talks on spraying, elimination of pests, and conservation of garden
products.
One of the greatest services that the domestic-science teacher can
render, whether she labors in rural or in urban fields, is the
organization of canning clubs. The canning club enlists the services
of women, girls, and even boys. It can be made as much of a social
institution as corn husking and barn raising were formerly. But the
teacher must, in most instances, move out of her domestic-science
kitchen with its little gas stoves and quart sauce-pans. In the country
district the equipment will be the stove in the village church,
with a wash boiler, galvanized vat, washtub, or other vessel with a
well-fitting top, which can easily be transformed into a home canner
by making a false bottom with lifting handles. In a village or small
city it may be necessary to beg, borrow, or buy the necessary cooking
utensils, and to obtain free use of a vacant store, asking the local
gas company to install, free of charge, some gas ranges. The boys will
prepare the fruit; the women and girls will can it or dry it, as the
case may be. To dispose of the product is a simple matter. It may be
sold and the proceeds divided. It may be taken to the homes and the
expense of producing shared.
In the city the domestic-science teacher serving as a leader of the
canning club must watch closely the market and buy when the price is
right, particularly when there is a surplus that may otherwise be
wasted. It will be a new experience for many domestic-science teachers.
It is a rather different proposition from canning a few baskets of
strawberries, cherries, or currants in a classroom.
Naturally other containers than glass jars or tumblers will have to be
used. In fact, the canning club after one season of experimentation is
likely to resemble, with its larger and more efficient equipment, a
miniature canning factory.
In Berkeley, California, the children of the entire city had a Jar Day,
when they went out and collected every discarded and undesired jar.
These were cleaned and sold and the money was turned into a "service
fund." Many jars, also, were filled with surplus vegetable products to
be used for the poor in the winter.
Of course the old drying methods of grandmother's days must be
rejuvenated. Mr. Fred P. Reagle, supervisor of manual training in
Montclair, discovered one of the old-fashioned evaporators and had
a large number made up by the boys in his school and passed out to
neighboring communities. Here is an old home industry which may be
revived in the home or the community.
Mr. Reagle, in describing his evaporator, writes:
I was obliged to build something which could be used anywhere
regardless of the availability of steam heat, electric fans, or
coal. Furthermore, it was necessary to construct from common stock
material and to use some stock stove. I hit upon the idea of using
a common laundry stove which could burn either wood or coal. I
made 20 frames, covered with galvanized wire, to hold the fruit.
The control of the air circulation was obtained by means of an
adjustable sliding door beneath the stove. The heated air passes
around and over the stove and through the fresh food products,
taking out the moisture and going out through the adjustable
ventilator at the top. The evaporator has a capacity of from 5 to 8
bushels of fruit and vegetables a day.
Another activity for domestic-science teachers of more experience will
be in the training of cooks for the army, or, as the director of the
School of Practical Arts (Teachers College) believes, "in the training
of people to train cooks."
The following quotation from a letter written by Sir Robert Blair of
London to Superintendent Maxwell of New York City shows what was done
in London:
In the summer recess, 1915, 264 of our domestic-science
teachers volunteered part of their holidays in order to help in the
work of training 2500 soldiers to cook and to meet the ordinary
requirements in this line of the private in the field. The War
Office drew men from different units from all over England and
brought them to London in two great groups and paid 1/9 a day for
the up-keep of the men. The soldiers were billeted in the school
buildings and the preparation of their food formed the basis of the
cookery instruction. Each group was taken for a period of ten days.
The War Office was most appreciative of the work done by these
domestic-economy instructresses. The War Office did not ask us to
repeat this the following summer, although it was repeated to some
extent in other parts of England. The War Office, however, did ask
us to lend them 30 carefully selected teachers of cooking for the
purpose of visiting army canteens and giving advice both on cooking
and (what I believe is more important) on quantities used.
Still another service can be rendered by the cooking teachers,
especially in our large cities and in our industrial villages. This
service consists in giving meals to children who are in want. Of course
at the present moment we see little need for this work, but the pinch
of poverty has come upon England, France, and Germany, and our own
land may not always be one of plenty. When the need arises, teachers
should be prepared to furnish lunches to the children and possibly even
breakfasts, to say nothing about suppers. The dislocation of many
ordinary trades and lines of business, the taking from the home of the
family's means of support, the increased cost of food and provisions,
and the prevalence of sickness due to neglect may necessitate the
feeding of children in school. In London the list of children to whom
meals were given daily increased rapidly from something like 32,000
in July, 1914, up to 75,000 about the middle of September, 1914.
Fortunately, however, as trade and industry became better adjusted
there was a steady decline in the number of children that were fed,
so that in May, 1917, there were only about 12,000--the children then
on the list being mainly the children of widows who were forced to go
out to work. The number of meals provided per week in the schools of
England in July, 1915, was 200,000. In a year this number had dropped
to 120,000.
[Illustration: MENACING WAR-CLOUDS
OVERSHADOW OUR LAND
INCREASE THE FOOD SUPPLY
AND KEEP OUR MEN IN EUROPE]
[Illustration: "AN ARMY MARCHES
ON ITS STOMACHE"
WILL YOU DO YOUR BIT?]
Good posters have a great influence on civic life at any
time. Now they are invaluable. War-service posters designed by Manual
Training High School boys of Brooklyn, New York.
[Illustration: Girls at work; mothers watching. Why should not
both work in a community kitchen equipped with evaporators, large
containers, proper stoves, and utensils for doing a real piece of work?]
The drawing departments might well have their students design posters.
Those designed by American illustrators for the first Liberty Loan
were surprisingly ineffective. Only one stood out--that with the
reproduction of the Statue of Liberty with the accompanying symbol and
direct wording. Our enlistment posters have been crude, lacking in
psychological appeal as well as in design. It is questionable whether
recruiting is aided by a picture showing a naval officer lounging
under a palm tree while in the distance a marine is seen standing
amid bursting shells on a battleship. There has been and will be an
opportunity for students to design posters for Red Cross work; for
enlistment as farm cadets; for enrollment in a home-service unit for
girls, in community canning clubs, in Boy Scout work, in school, home,
and community gardening; for patriotic meetings and a score of other
occasions. Good posters have an almost incalculable influence on civic
life at any time. Within the last year there have been held in many
cities various competitions in poster work of pupils with such subjects
as "Red Cross," "Thrift," "Safety First," "Fire Prevention," "Pure
Milk," and "Liberty Loan."
There is plenty of work for the manual-training teacher. Mention has
already been made of garden work, not so much in school gardens,
however, as in community gardens, for, like the canning-club work,
here is a splendid opportunity to bring adults and children together.
In a number of small cities in the country where tillable land could
be obtained, the manual-training teachers directed a community-garden
project. The boys built the tool house; the Boy Scouts took turns in
acting as watchmen; plots were laid out on a family or individual
basis; seed was purchased in bulk and distributed at cost; experts,
hired by the day, plowed and harrowed the ground; stakes marking the
plots were made in the school; and the manual-training instructors, or,
as they were termed, the garden directors, spent their summer vacation
in a useful service.
The manual-training teacher may help the Red Cross chapter in
packing supplies into the boxes which his boys have made. He can
be planning the hospital furniture which he may be called upon to
make, as in France, where the boys built furniture for improvised
hospitals and installed electric lights. He can be thinking how he
shall, if required, make hospital-bed racks, cots, tables, and simple
reclining chairs. Perhaps he may have to supervise, as have the
manual-training teachers in England, the making of hand-grenade bags,
chaff bags, dummy cartridges for the training of troops, or sand bags.
In a single secondary school in Bradford, England, more than 1200
articles--including splints, crutches, bed-boards and rests, screens,
rollers, trays, etc.--have been made in the manual-training department
in one year. Perhaps in the early spring latrines can be designed and
built for the farm cadets, as was done in the Newton (Massachusetts)
school, or shacks for troops, as was done at Plattsburg, New York, by
the boys from the Stuyvesant High School, New York City. The teacher
may have his part to play in giving vocational training to maimed
soldiers (see chapter on "Reëducation of the Disabled"), as all of the
instructors in manual-training schools of the Dominion of Canada are
now doing.
A manual-training teacher in Nashville, Tennessee, Mr. John M. Foster,
has his boys make jigsaw puzzles, checkerboards, and bandage winders
for the use of our soldiers in France. During the summer of 1917 he
organized a boys' auxiliary of the Red Cross, and the group made
packing cases according to official specifications. The organization
included a shop foreman, a timekeeper, and a stock man. Lumber and
other materials were contributed by local dealers.
Perhaps the manual-training instructor will coöperate with the teacher
of domestic science, as male strength is needed, in providing comforts
for the soldiers, such as socks and mufflers made on knitting machines,
and in helping with the packing and crating. In this connection there
is another quotation on the work of London children:
At the end of the first year of the war we began to organize
efforts to provide clothing and other necessities for Belgian
and Serbian children. In a few months the schools were able to
furnish 10,000 complete kits made to the pattern and color and size
supplied by the two embassies. It is reported that the making of
these kits was one of the best exercises in planning, cutting, and
sewing which the schools ever undertook, and probably nothing has
done more to foster the school _esprit de corps_ in the history of
municipal schools since their origin, in 1870.
In France a number of schools, when the buildings were turned into
hospitals, equipped either the entire hospital or a considerable number
of beds at their own expense and by their own work. Hospital service
was largely organized by these schools. One school would be responsible
for the linen, another for mending, another for table service, another
for cooking, and another for sending and receiving packages. A workroom
established by the school girls in one of these hospitals had sent to
the front in a year and a half 25,330 packages. One little village
school of only 30 pupils in a short period collected 2542 eggs for the
wounded soldiers and made socks and mufflers in addition. In another
small district each of the schools specialized in some kind of work,
one making up parcels for war prisoners, another knitting sailors'
gloves, another making clothing for refugees, and still another
providing candles for troops in trenches.
A small country school in the Midlands of England, in addition to
weekly contributions of vegetables to the local hospital for wounded
soldiers, has made 26 bed cradles and a dozen crutches, while the
youngest boys have made splints.
A report from a northeast-coast district of England mentions
manual-training centers where bed tables, toilet tables, bed rests, and
clinical-chart carriers are made for the local hospital. Even the girls
have made splints and bed tables. Of course hundreds of sand bags have
been made in the schools.
The report closes with these significant words: "The effect of all this
work has been most remarkable. Even districts where formerly little
interest was taken by the children seem suddenly to realize the value
of it all." This is what might have been expected, and what we in
America may expect when we make our practical-arts work socializing,
useful, and contributory to some great cause that the children see is
worth while.
CHAPTER VI
THE WORK IMPULSES OF YOUTH
Since August, 1914, there have been presented to us new aspects
of the relation of children to industry. Up to that time the only
consideration for those who had the welfare of children at heart was
the child himself; but with the war, the welfare of the child became
tied up with the problem of the welfare of the country and its demands
for service on the whole population. The endeavor to adjust these two
in nice balance has resulted in experimental legislation or in action
without legislation, both of which have often been of no genuine or
lasting benefit to either interest concerned.
In America, in the first half of 1917, many of our states
appeared to be following the lead of England in abrogating the
compulsory-attendance law, urging the same reason for permitting
children within school age to work in fields and factories. Everyone is
familiar with the facts presented by farmer and industrial employer.
In sections whose activity has been stimulated by the production of
war products, such as Bridgeport, Connecticut, other industries and
mercantile establishments have found it impossible to run as usual
owing to the presence of munition plants, which attract an abnormal
number of workers.
Not only is neighborhood business affected by the presence of war
industries, but the farm shortage is aggravated; for the supply of
intermittent labor, the kind demanded for berry picking, harvesting,
and canning, is not forthcoming when the workers are offered steady
employment in munition and textile plants. In 1917 many small canneries
were threatened with the prospect of closing and letting the adjacent
crops spoil in the fields; hence their call for schoolboys to assist
them in cultivating and harvesting. This resulted in an unprecedented
rush of children between 14 and 16 to obtain employment certificates,
and a clamor from those below 14 to be allowed to leave school and go
to work.
With the nation and the state urging farmers and food producers to make
every exertion to increase the food supply, legislatures must render
assistance in solving the labor-shortage problem. It need hardly be
pointed out that the farmer cannot be expected to plant additional
acres unless he is reasonably sure that it will be possible for him to
have his acres cultivated and harvested.
England as early as September 1, 1914, was feeling the shortage created
by the numbers of men enlisting, and every Local Education Authority
was being besought by farmers and manufacturers to obtain modifications
of the law which, generally speaking, held children in school up to
14 years. An order of the Board of Education to the Local Education
Authority in Northamptonshire, answering such a plea, stated:
While the Board of Education have no power to give any general
directions overriding the ordinary law with regard to school
attendance and the employment of children,...a Local Education
Authority is under no obligation to take proceedings in respect of
nonattendance of a child at school if they are satisfied that there
is a reasonable excuse for nonattendance.
The "reasonable excuse" was found in the overpowering clamor of farmers
and munition makers who were suffering from lack of workers, as in
Staffordshire, where the petition sent to the Education Authority by
the bolt-and-nut manufacturers at Darlaston stated that owing to the
enlistment of men in various branches of his Majesty's forces and
because of the fact that the firms concerned were largely engaged on
work of great urgency for the naval and military services, "it was
desirable, in order to prevent delay in the execution of this work,
that the school-attendance by-laws should be relaxed for the duration
of the war so as to permit of the employment of boys over the age of 13
years."[4]
It cannot be stated too strongly that England has realized too late
the practical impossibility of recovery for school of the children
thus released, and the dangers to the nation of allowing the junior
population to go into industry without supervision. There will be
introduced into our legislatures in 1918 and later many bills which
will parallel English action, and the various states must watch
carefully to see that in their zealous attempts to increase food
or necessary manufactured supplies they do not create and sanction
disastrous conditions for the health and morals of the young.
Now action in regard to our schools may be of several types.
First, there may be passed laws which abrogate the existing
compulsory-attendance law; such legislation would be that permitting
children below compulsory school age to leave school. Second, it is
possible to have the existing laws interpreted so as to excuse absence
from school, as in North Dakota, where the attorney-general in an
open letter to school officers, April, 1917, interprets the section
of the school law exempting children from school attendance in cases
of necessity to apply to children of school age actually engaged in
tilling the soil. A third type of action is that which suspends the
compulsory-attendance law under certain conditions; such a law is the
so-called "Brown Bill," chapter 689 of the Laws of 1917, New York
legislature, to which reference will be made later. Action may also be
taken in regard to shortening or lengthening the established school
year, shifting vacations, and changing hours of session. For instance,
the Bureau of Education at Washington has suggested keeping school open
twelve months, and this advice may be taken in some localities; it is
possible, also, that a continuation of the demand for agricultural
labor of students may result in a different allotment of vacations in
the apple- and peach-growing sections, so that students employed in
harvesting may lose a minimum of school attendance.
[4] Quoted from correspondence of the Board of Education to the Local
Education Authority in Northamptonshire.
Events moved very rapidly in the spring of 1917. We were called upon
by national and state governments, by chambers of commerce and boards
of trade, by bankers and railroads, to raise crops. We were told that
America must be the pantry for all Europe and that, do the best that
we might, we should not do overmuch. Obviously, with such authority
back of a movement for increased agricultural production, it did not
take very long for state boards of agriculture and state departments of
education to respond, to say nothing about the propaganda set forth by
settlements, women's clubs, the Y.M.C.A., the Boy Scouts, the National
Security League, the Women's Patriotic Service League, and a score
of other organizations, that put a psychological persuasion into the
situation which was hard for school authorities and school children to
resist.
The following data relative to the action of a number of the states
were compiled by the National Child Labor Committee. In general
the data showed no provision made for supervision, for physical
examination, for wages, or for definition of "passing grade." In some
instances there were even no age limitations.
_California._ During continuance of state of war, state board
of education with approval of governor may reduce school term to
six months when necessary "for the planting or harvesting of crops
or for other agricultural or horticultural purposes."
_Indiana._ Letter from state superintendent of public
instruction to county superintendents, April 10, 1917, saying in
part: "It is my wish and order that you permit such high-school
girls and boys, and also such eighth-grade girls and boys as may
care to engage in Home Projects work looking toward the increase
of our agricultural output, to engage in such work and to receive
therefor full credit on the school records, provided this work
is done to the satisfaction of the county agent and the county
superintendent."
Plan formulated later by principals and state superintendents
for supervising, certifying, and accrediting such work did
something to stop a general exodus, but came too late to do much
good.
_Illinois._ State superintendent wrote to local
superintendents, April 10, advising that all boys eligible for
working certificates be excused from school May 1 and receive a
working certificate upon assurance that they have employment on a
farm or in a garden, credit to be given for work upon guarantee
that summer months have been spent in farming or gardening.
_Kansas._ State board of education advised local school
officials, April 17, that it would "approve granting a full year's
credit to pupils who have passing grade and who find it necessary
to withdraw from school before the end of the school year either to
enlist in the military service or actually to engage directly in
food production."
_Maine._ Boys 16 and over excused from school attendance, June
1 to October 31, for work on farms under supervision of Y.M.C.A.
official. (See chapter on "Farm Cadets.")
_Maryland._ Superintendent of schools, Baltimore County, in
open letter to school officials, May 11, authorizes the employment
on farms of "boys and girls who are old enough to be of real
productive value." On days when not so employed they are required
to attend school. Children over 13 who have attended school one
hundred days during the year may be employed without permits;
those who have not attended one hundred days must have permits.
Children under 13 must have a permit, "which should not be issued
to a child who is too immature to do work for which the permit is
asked." Permits issued for twenty days or less may be renewed upon
application of parent.
Similar plan was discussed by state board of education but not
approved on ground that it might lead to abrogation of the laws on
child-labor and school-attendance.
_Missouri._ State superintendent of public schools wrote to
local officials April 13, suggesting that they "excuse at once from
high school all boys over 14 years of age who will go to farms and
work. Give them full credit for their year's work at the end of the
school year, with the standing they have at present. Have the boy
who gets the credit give evidence satisfactory to you as to his
work on the farm. Include boys who live in the country and boys who
will go to the farm to work. Extend the same privilege to girls
where you deem it advisable."
_New York._ (Referred to later in this chapter.)
_North Dakota._ Attorney-general in open letter to school
officers, April, 1917, interprets section of school law exempting
children from school attendance in cases of necessity to apply to
children of school age actually engaged in tilling the soil.
State superintendent of schools in open letter to school
officials, April, 1917, recommends that schools should not open
earlier than October 1, with a spring vacation of four or five
weeks, and that the school be kept open through June and July
when there is less and cheaper farm work to do. "This would make
available, and with a minimum loss of school time, some 5000 of the
older boys at a time when labor is scarce and wages are high."
_Pennsylvania._ State board of education, April 19, issued
circular letter stating that farm and garden work should be
considered valid excuse for absence from school, and for children
12 and over in good standing such work should be credited in lieu
of school attendance.
_New Jersey._ State board of education sent out a circular
letter to superintendents and principals in which it was stated
that credit towards graduation might be given in place of school
work during the time a pupil was actually engaged in farm work as
a member of the Junior Industrial Army, or while called out in the
service of the state or of the nation as a member of its organized
military forces. (Boys and girls over fourteen years of age are
allowed to enroll in the Industrial Army in the agricultural or
home-garden or the girls' service division.)
Possibly no great harm was done by the action of these state officials
and state boards. Yet the action affords food for thought; and perhaps
the best way to bring about reflection is to pass immediately, without
comment, to a quotation taken from the London _Times_ of July 19,
1917,--a quotation which gives a picture of the end of the road on
which some of us in this country started in the spring of 1917.
The reply, last week, of Herbert A. L. Fisher, Minister of
Education, to a deputation of the Committee on Wage-earning
Children was sympathetic and not merely a common-form shelving of
the issue. The deputation asked for legislation restricting the
labor of school children out of school hours. The extent of the
evil was indicated by the deputation, but it is doubtful if even
the educational public know how widespread and deleterious it is.
On October 5, 1915, we pointed out that nearly half a million
children between the ages of 12 and 14 years were receiving no
education, or no education worth having, and that all of these
were at work which led nowhither at the very age when their moral
and physical development was at stake. Since then the conditions
which we condemned have passed from bad to worse. Many thousands
of children under the age of 12, under the ages of even 10 and 11,
are at work, and willingly at work, since the younger the child,
the more readily it responds to the demand for helpfulness. Mr.
Fisher cannot but realize the evil of this exploitation of young
children by parents and tradesmen. It is an evil affecting not only
the efficiency of school life but our whole economic system. There
never was an economic need for this child labor, and the Board of
Education admitted in their circular to local authorities last week
that there is no economic need in rural districts for such labor
even now. This circular was a letter from the National Service
Department and dealt with the pressure on education authorities
in rural areas to release boys and girls under 12 for service on
the land. The letter definitely states that, in view of the labor
released from the army and the number of women now available, "it
would appear that there should be no necessity for such a serious
interruption as is contemplated of the education of the nation's
children."
This should suffice to determine the policy of the
rural-education authorities. But the position in towns is even more
urgent, and Mr. Fisher and the government might give additional
powers to local authorities to deal with the labor of children in
full-time school attendance. It was certainly a mistake in the
legislation of 1913 to make it possible for the street trading of
such children to receive official recognition. But street trading
is not the chief cause of anxiety. Another is the employment of
little children by shopkeepers and distributing agencies before
school, in the dinner interval, and after school. The local
authorities should be empowered to forbid all employment for wages
of children under 12 and to restrict within very narrow limits the
employment of children at school under 14.
Naturally Mr. Fisher must not overburden or imperil his bill,
or interfere with the labor necessary for the war. He cannot be
expected to change the face of England in a moment. But he can
strike deep without disturbing the organization of society. He can
transform from below by ameliorating the conditions of very young
children. The country is ready now for changes that seemed Utopian
two years ago. By means of nursery schools the nation is dealing at
last with the raw material that is to be the England of to-morrow.
The same principle should be followed in the case of children
between the ages of 6 and 12 years. The physical welfare of these
children is of the first importance. Yet between these ages
thousands, through the carrying of heavy weights and other means of
over-strain, are receiving life-long physical injury. All efforts
for educational reform are being balked by their employment. The
elaborate scheme of the Half-Time Council, which was reported in
our last issue, depends, as indeed practically all of the reform
schemes and Mr. Fisher's own proposals depend, on the physical
efficiency of the children. The deputation asked that provision
should be made for the education of children abnormally employed
during the war.
Out of all the literature which has been put forth on the relationship
of children to industry in war time it would appear that Dr. Claxton,
United States Commissioner of Education, most adequately states the
fundamental principles, in his circular letter to the educational
authorities of the country issued in June, 1917. Portions of his
letter bear directly upon employment of children in time of war. Other
portions are closely related to statements in other chapters. It is
well worth quoting in full:
It is of the utmost importance that there shall be no lowering
in the efficiency of our systems of education. Schools and other
agencies of education must be maintained at whatever necessary
cost and against all hurtful interference with their regular work
except as may be necessary for the national defense, which is, of
course, our immediate task and must be kept constantly in mind and
have right of way everywhere and at all times. From the beginning
of our participation in the war we should avoid the mistakes which
some other countries have made to their hurt and which they are now
trying to correct.
If the war should be long and severe, there will be great
need in its later days for many young men and women of scientific
knowledge, training, and skill; and it may then be much more
difficult than it is now to support our schools, to spare our
children and youth from other service, and to permit them to attend
school. Therefore no school should close its doors now or shorten
its term unnecessarily. All young men and women in college should
remain and use their time to the very best advantage, except
such as may find it necessary to leave for immediate profitable
employment in some productive occupation or for the acceptance
of some position in some branch of the military service, which
position cannot be so well filled by anyone else. All children in
the elementary schools and as nearly as possible all high-school
pupils should remain in school through the entire session.
When the war is over, whether within a few months or after
many years, there will be such demands upon this country for men
and women of scientific knowledge, technical skill, and general
culture as have never before come to any country. The world must
be rebuilt. This country must play a far more important part than
it has in the past in agriculture, manufacturing, and commerce,
and also in the things of cultural life--art, literature, music,
scientific discovery.
Russia and China are awakening to new life and are on the
eve of great industrial development. They will ask of us steel,
engines, and cars for railroads, agricultural implements, and
machinery for industrial plants. They will also ask for men to
install these and to direct much of their development in every
line. England, France, Italy, and the central empires have thrown
into battle a very large per cent of their educated and trained
men, including most of the young professors and instructors in
their universities, colleges, and _gymnasia_, _lycées_, and public
schools. Their colleges and universities are almost empty. The
young men who would under normal conditions be receiving the
education and training necessary to prepare them for leadership in
the future development of these countries are fighting and dying
in the trenches. All these countries must needs go through a long
period of reconstruction, industrially and in many other respects.
Our own trained men and women should be able and ready to render
every possible assistance. It should be remembered that the number
of students in our universities, colleges, normal schools, and
technical schools is very small as compared with the total number
of persons of producing age--little more than one half of 1 per
cent. The majority of these students are young men and women who
are becoming more mature and fit for service. The older of the
60,000,000 men and women of producing age are growing more unfit
and are passing beyond the age of service. It should also be
remembered that the more mature the young men who volunteer for
service in the army, the more valuable their services will be.
Therefore a right conception of patriotism should induce
all students who cannot render some immediate service of great
value to remain in college, concentrate their energies on their
college work, and thus be all the more ready and fit when their
services may be needed either for war or for the important work of
reconstruction and development in our own and other countries when
the war shall have ended.
All schools, of whatever grade, should remain open with their
full quota of officers and teachers. The salaries of teachers
should not be lowered in this time of unusual high cost of living.
When possible, salaries should be increased in proportion to the
services rendered. Since the people will be taxed heavily by the
federal government for the payment of the expenses of the war,
teachers should be willing to continue to do their work, and do it
as well as they can, as a patriotic service, even if their salaries
cannot now be increased. All equipment necessary for the best
use of the time of teachers and students should be provided, as
should all necessary increase of room, but costly building should
not be undertaken now while the prices of building material are
excessively high and while there are urgent and unfilled demands
for labor in industries pertaining directly and immediately to the
national defense. Schools should be continued in full efficiency,
but in most instances costly building may well be postponed.
During school hours and out of school, on mornings, afternoons,
Saturdays, and during vacation all older children and youth should
be encouraged and directed to do as much useful productive work
as they can without interfering with their more important school
duties. This productive work should be so directed as to give it
the highest possible value, both economically and educationally.
For children and youth in schools of all grades there will be need
of more effective moral training, and provision should be made for
this. While the war for the safety of democracy is in progress, and
when it is over, there will be greater need for effective machinery
for the promotion of intelligent discussion of the principles of
democracy and all that pertains to the public welfare of local
communities, counties, states, and the nation. To this end every
schoolhouse should be made a community center and civic forum with
frequent meetings for the discussion of matters of public interest
and for social intercourse.
One phrase in Commissioner Claxton's letter is especially significant.
It is _This productive work should be so directed as to give it the
highest possible value_, _both economically and educationally_. In this
whole question of children and industry in war time, we are brought
face to face with several facts. The first is that industry, both
agricultural and manufacturing, will demand the services of children.
Second, that organizations like state and national child-labor
committees, which have fought for the welfare and development of
American children, will continue to oppose all attempts to break
down the school system through relaxation of the enforcement of
compulsory-education laws, or to break down the labor laws either by
giving young children special permits to work or by exempting certain
establishments from the laws limiting hours of labor. Third, that the
children themselves will desire to work rather than go to school.
The comparatively high wages which will exist during a war emergency
will call them as can no course of study. Fourth, that families whose
earning member or members are off to war, and who feel in addition
the higher cost of living, will look upon their children as being a
possible added source of income. And fifth, that school authorities
will thus stand amidst half a dozen fires. Some will back against the
wall and say: "I don't believe in closing the schools," "Under no
conditions will the child-labor laws in this state be relaxed," "The
war hysteria makes me enforce child-labor laws more vigorously than
ever," "Children have plenty of time to garden after school." Others
will, under pressure, lose their heads, and shut their eyes to the fact
that children are working illegally. Some may seek for a "reasonable
excuse," and they can find plenty of such excuses by referring to the
action in England. Still others will go on peacefully without thought
or action one way or the other. But the rest, and it is to be hoped
that their numbers are legion, will try to discover some means of
making this emergency count in an educational way. Here are some of the
factors which enter into the situation.
In the first place, children like to work, that is, outside of school,
and these work impulses of youth ought to be organized to contribute to
the educative process. It is readily enough granted that they have not
been in the past. In fact, these work impulses have been exploited for
private gain. Now, on account of the war, they are aroused to a high
pitch, and we ought to be able to organize them in connection with the
new work opportunities for higher economic efficiency as well as for
higher social efficiency.
In the second place, it is doubtful whether we can much longer continue
the policy of increasing the regular attendance of youth at school
without giving some consideration to the educative value of labor. The
educative process taken in its largest sense goes on for twenty-four
hours a day. It concerns health, character, mental capacity,
citizenship, and useful work. To most people the educative process
merely centers around the schoolhouse, and such think of education
in terms of schooling. To them, to increase the number of years that
youth is obliged to go to school is to increase the number of years
given over directly to the educative process. But the child goes to
school for about five hours a day for five days in the week for about
thirty-six weeks in the year, and in this time he deals largely with
books; and many find it a reasonable excuse, because they are "going
to school" and "getting an education," to avoid any useful work. Now
some kinds of work are wholesome and educative. Most farm work comes
in the class of useful and profitable employment. When the hours are
not too long and the factories and stores are sanitary and the pay is
reasonable, work in these places may be profitable to youth. Because
this is not always the case is no reason why we should not attempt to
make it so.
It would seem that educators now occupy a strategic position from which
they may exert a tremendous influence in the direction of standardizing
the work of juveniles in terms of the deepest social significance,
and a good start in this direction may be made in meeting the war
emergency. The subject is so large and the previous discussion of it
so limited that we have not very much background on which to work, and
it is not advisable at this time to do more than merely hint at some
possible procedures.
First, why not have the rural schools for children up to 12 years of
age open early in September and close the first of August, and make
provision for stopping the school work of the youngest children during
the winter months in those parts of the country where it is difficult
for them to reach school? Why not organize classes in dandelion
digging, berry picking, currant picking, and even, once in a while,
weeding, by having a series of field and harvesting days under the
direction of the school teacher with the coöperation of the parents?
Why not have able-bodied boys in these rural schools released from book
work in April and remain out of school until the first of November,
and then require them to attend school faithfully for six days a week
during the rest of the year? Why not have the boys between 14 and 16
drop out of school in June and July to pick small fruits and berries
and to work in vegetable gardens? Under certain conditions, in regions
where such service can be used,--which is not often,--they might stay
out in September to pick fruits and gather small crops.
Of course it is to be expected that the answer to all of these
questions will be a most emphatic No. Yet they have not been set up
primarily because the farmer tells us that he needs labor, but rather
because it is felt that boys need labor; that is, useful labor.
Second, why not devise in cities a scheme of part-time education for
youths between 14 and 18 years of age who will be needed in the war
emergency in factories and stores, as well as for youths who need
useful labor as a part of the educative process? If the war falls
heavily upon us in America, we shall find that these children will
go anyway. We shall find that the male teachers who teach them will
be drafted. We may even find--although it is hoped not--that the
school buildings will be taken over for military purposes. But I
am not thinking particularly of war needs. I am thinking of child
needs. England proposes to reintroduce into the school system children
who are now abnormally employed in the war. It further proposes to
develop out of its war experience, on a large scale, the part-time and
continuation-school idea. It is reported that in France a part-time and
continuation-school bill will be introduced in 1918.
Now why not take hold of this whole matter of juvenile employment
in a constructive way? As long as war is upon us we have better
opportunity than ever of passing through the legislature part-time
and continuation-school measures. We have at the same time, out
of all the experience of England, every opportunity to formulate
laws for the employment of juveniles in a way which will not break
down the educative process, but will rather build it up; and above
everything else we ought to enforce strictly all child-labor and
compulsory-education laws which we have on the statute books. We
may modify them, if we will, to meet war emergencies, if it appears
absolutely necessary, but better than that, we may reconstruct them in
the interests of the educative value of labor when combined with proper
rules and regulations relative to the employment of children.
Furthermore, why not find some way of bringing agriculture into the
educative process of the city boy? Would it not be a good idea to
establish country branches for city schools, providing for the older
boys a winter course of study in the science of agriculture, together
with the ordinary academic branches of secondary-school education,
followed in the spring by practice in an agricultural training camp?
Later on in the season they would go out to work individually or in
groups for farmers. (See chapter on "Farm Cadets.") The older of these
boys would make admirable assistant teachers and supervisors for the
younger group of 14-year-old to 15-year-old boys who would be sent to
these camps after schools had closed. We cannot much longer avoid the
question of bringing agriculture to the city boy or, rather, taking the
city boy to agriculture; and the past summer's experience with city
boys working on farms brought forcibly to our attention the advantages
of a closer relationship between city children and country life.
Mention has been made of the modification in 1917 of the
school-attendance law of New York State. Three sections of the act
by which these modifications were made are quoted in full, as they
represent legislative action as well as discretionary powers of the
state educational official.
SECTION 1. The provisions of Art. XXIII of the education law,
relative to the compulsory education of children, may, in the
discretion of the Commissioner of Education, be suspended for the
period between the first day of April and the first day of November
of each year, or any portion thereof, during the time that this act
shall remain in effect, for the purpose of aiding and performing
labor in the cultivation, production, and care of food products
upon farms and gardens within the state. Such suspension shall be
subject to such conditions, restrictions, and limitations as may
be imposed by the Commissioner of Education, and shall be subject
to rules and regulations to be prescribed by him. In case of such
suspension, provision shall be made for the welfare and protection
of the children affected thereby, and during the period of such
suspension and while engaged in such work, they shall be under the
supervision and direction of the school authorities of the city or
district in which they reside....
SECTION 4. A pupil in the public schools or in any state school
or institution who is relieved from school work and is engaged
satisfactorily in agricultural service during the present school
year shall be given credit for the work of the present term without
examination, on the certificate of the person in charge of such
school or institution that his work therein up to the time of
engaging in such service is satisfactory. A pupil in such school or
institution who engages in such service during the present school
year shall not incur any loss of standing or credit on account of
such service. All pupils in public schools who are candidates for
college-entrance diplomas or other credentials to be issued to them
at the close of the present school year shall be granted such
diplomas or credentials on the certificate of the principal of the
school that their work up to the time of engaging in such service
is satisfactory. The Regents of the University shall make rules
for the purpose of giving credit to pupils in the public schools
who have been in attendance at school during the present school
year and who have left the schools for the purpose of rendering
agricultural or industrial service.
SECTION 5. The Commissioner of Education shall cause
appropriate certificates or badges to be prepared and issued to
pupils in the schools of the state who shall perform satisfactory
agricultural or industrial service under rules and regulations of
the Commissioner of Education.
It will be noted that the compulsory-attendance law was suspended only
between certain periods and at the discretion of the Commissioner of
Education, and for the sole purpose of permitting children to labor in
the cultivation, production, and care of food products upon farms and
gardens within the state.
This bill did not authorize the employment of girls in general domestic
service. No provision of the labor law was repealed, suspended,
or modified, and the provisions of the labor law relating to the
employment of children in canneries or in any factory or mercantile
establishment still remain in force. It is true that a bill suspending
temporarily in whole or in part, at the discretion of the Industrial
Commission, provisions of the labor law in relation to any employment
in the state passed the two legislative bodies, but this was wisely
vetoed by Governor Whitman.
It will be further noticed that the children thus employed within the
dates mentioned are to be under the supervision and direction of the
school authorities in the city or district in which such children
reside. The Commissioner of Education thereupon issued certain
regulations relating to children who might be employed within the
compulsory school ages. A brief summary follows:
Boys only, 15 years of age and above, residing in cities.
Boys only, 14 years of age and above, residing elsewhere than
in a city.
Girls, 14 years of age, and above, residing outside of cities,
may work at home in the district in which such girls reside,
or at a place sufficiently near such girls' homes as to afford
supervision by their parents.
No child shall be employed or permitted to work on farms and
gardens until such child shall obtain a farm-garden permit.
No child shall receive a farm-garden permit who does not
present to the issuing officer the written consent of his parent or
guardian and who is not found to be physically competent to perform
the labor proposed.
In the chapter on "Our Colleges and Technical Institutes" reference
was made to resolutions of the Board of Regents and to the fact that
the State Education Department formulated a plan for enlisting and
placing high-school boys on the farms, for directing and supervising
the work of such boys, and for the adjustment of school credits. With
this resolution in mind the Commissioner of Education sent out, on
April 16, the following letter to all school superintendents and school
principals of the state.
To meet the present national emergency, the New York State
Education Department, after careful consideration, issues the
following regulations concerning matters that vitally affect the
interests of the pupils of the secondary schools of the state.
1. The June Regents' examinations will be given as previously
announced for all pupils who remain regularly in school and also
for pupils who may enlist for service and who wish to take the
examinations and are situated so that they can do so. For the
latter class the time requirement will be waived.
2. Announcement is made to all the schools of the state that
any pupil who enlists for military service or who enlists for and
renders satisfactory agricultural or industrial service will be
credited with the work of the present term without examination
on the certificate of the school that his work up to the time of
enlistment is satisfactory.
3. Candidates for college-entrance diplomas who are in the
graduating class of 1917 will be granted the diploma on certificate
of the principal that their work up to the time of enlistment is
satisfactory. The average standing will be computed on the basis of
the examinations already passed.
4. Appropriate certificates will be prepared to be issued to
those pupils in the schools who shall enlist for agricultural or
industrial service and who shall present satisfactory evidence of
such service.
5. That all other questions regarding conditions affecting the
1918 high-school class be held in abeyance to await developments.
It is believed that principals, teachers, and pupils in all
secondary schools of the state will appreciate the vital importance
of prompt action in the present crisis and that each will esteem it
a privilege to "do his bit" for the common good.
As soon as the schoolboys of the state knew of this letter, they
all seemed to hear very suddenly of jobs on farms, but some, rather
unfortunately, failed to continue to hear this call when the end of the
school year came and they could no longer receive school credit for
work on the farm because, of course, school had closed. It being likely
that there would be the same general tendency for the boys to discover
work on farms about the first of September when the schools open, it
was thought well to have a clear understanding of the conditions of
release of boys for farm work in the fall. Of course a great many boys
were out of school during May and June and continued to work all
summer on individual farms or in camps with other boys, but "slackers"
wanted to stop as soon as they received their school credit, and the
same slackers might be just as slack in returning to school, hence the
following letter issued by the Commissioner of Education on August 11,
1917:
To Superintendents, Principals, and Boards of Education:
In answer to many inquiries as to releasing boys for farm
service this fall, and in response to the appeal of the Food Supply
Commission, which states the imperative need of such labor as the
youth of this state can give in harvesting the crops, I would urge
the educational authorities of the state in those sections where
the need exists to make all possible provision for the special
tuition of those pupils who may, under the labor laws of the state
and the compulsory-education laws, legally engage in such service.
Such special instruction, either after hours or in holiday periods,
may be the special patriotic contribution of some teachers to meet
the need which seems at present to demand whatever coöperation the
school authorities can give. This will be most easily arranged by
limiting the enlistments, as far as possible, to the upper classes,
and by arranging for work in relays, so that the period of absences
may not be unnecessarily long. We ought not to remit in the
slightest our educational requirements and disciplines, nor take
children or youth out of the educational processes, but we ought to
do all that we can, on the other hand, to make it possible for the
boys of proper age and strength to perform this service when it is
of real public necessity.
The department, wishing to coöperate to this end, makes the
following determination, effective until November 1, 1917:
The time of study requirements for admission to the Regents'
examinations, in January and June, 1918, may be waived in the case
of any pupil who presents evidence that
_a._ He was regularly registered in school at or near the
beginning of the term in September, 1917. (Boys already at work at
a distance from the school may, with the permission of the local
principal, register by mail.)
_b._ He was released by the principal from school for
agricultural service.
_c._ He was actually and satisfactorily engaged in needed
agricultural service while absent from school.
This privilege should be interpreted conservatively. School
authorities should excuse pupils from this service only where
the need is urgent and where it is possible to maintain such
supervision that certificate of the facts can be made from certain
knowledge.
During the summer and fall of 1917, schoolboys from Maine to California
responded to the nation's call for increased food production. Other
seasons of scarcity of labor, with the shortage of farm and garden
products and resultant high prices, are doubtless before us. Indeed,
we are told that for five years at least we are to continue to feel
the stress of labor shortage due to war and other conditions. The
United States Boys' Working Reserve, through state councils of defense
and state and national departments of labor and agriculture, will
continue to issue proclamations calling upon youth to serve the nation.
Legislatures will pass or amend laws permitting absences from school
for industrial and farm service. State educational officials will issue
edicts interpreting legislative action. Schools will devise methods of
giving school credit for useful service. Boys will again leave school
to earn and serve. Parents will continue to speak with pride of the
earning of their lads or complain about their treatment. Farmers will
recall their first experiences with city boys. Everything will center
about products, laws, rules, school credits, and dollars.
Few of us will think of the deeper significance of what is behind.
We shall hardly realize that the law-makers have thought only of a
possible increase of acreage under cultivation, or increased production
in factories; that the farmers and the manufacturers had visions merely
of good labor at a low figure; that the parents saw only an opportunity
for a "change for the boy"; that the boy had in mind only a spending
account and release from school.
We shall forget our unscientific experiments, the light handling and
selfish exploitation we have given to that wonderful possession of
youth--the work impulses. And the question we should ask ourselves is,
What educational justification have we for this service which the boys
have rendered?
CHAPTER VII
ORGANIZED BOY POWER VS. MILITARY DRILL
The war has already brought about drastic economic changes in
Europe. The recall of men from the trenches to perform a more useful
professional and industrial service behind the lines has demonstrated
the importance of the supporting civilian army. From the viewpoint of
the individual, nothing can equal the supreme sacrifice of a life.
"What good," wailed a Yiddish woman on the East Side of New York City,
"is a free country to me if my Abie is killed?" But in the judgment of
the nation the garment worker, Abie, who is drafted into service in the
army is of no greater value than his friend the skilled machinist who
is allowed to remain in his present occupation. The military exemptions
of men in European armies, the adoption of the selective draft in the
United States, are acknowledgments of the equality of the military
and the civilian occupations indispensable to military activity.
To include in our educational law such a recognition, adopting a
measure permitting the substitution of types of vocational training
for military training, is but to follow the lead of the national
government in declaring such exemptions a military necessity. New York
State has made a beginning in this direction.
In 1916 the legislature enacted the so-called "Welsh-Slater" bills,
making military and physical training compulsory in the secondary
schools of the state for boys above 16 and under 19 years of age. Such
military training is to aggregate not more than three hours each week
between September first of each year and June fifteenth of the next.
The law further provides, within the limits of appropriation, for the
establishment of military camps with attendance of from two to four
weeks. While the operation of these camps and, indeed, the introduction
of military drill, have been imperfectly carried out, owing to the lack
of suitable state appropriation to carry on the work on the necessary
and large scale for a working-boy and schoolboy population of 240,000,
it is the intention of the Military Training Commission to insist on
the requirements of the law.
The law as passed in 1916 contained a significant clause relative to
the excusing of boys exempted by the Military Training Commission. It
was felt by the critics of the bill that, although the law requiring
military and physical training was a movement in the right direction,
it left much to be desired. The ambiguous word "exemptions" is one
subject to fine distinctions. Furthermore, it was felt that the law was
essentially one of discrimination. The schoolboy of 16 to 19 was in an
exclusive military class, set apart, in his capacity to be trained for
national service, from the employed boy of the same years.
It is not easy to justify the selection of the high-school pupils of
the state as the only young people who shall be the recipients of
military training. The report of the New Jersey commission appointed
to study military training in its relation to high schools covers this
point admirably.
The duty of the common defense is one which belongs properly to
all who are physically capable, and none should be deprived of the
opportunity of qualifying himself, if such opportunity is offered
to any, to perform this duty effectively. It cannot be claimed
that the boys of the high schools are exceptional, and that they
are the only ones who can receive this instruction profitably. If
there is any advantage in it, all boys equal in age and physique to
high-school boys can receive it with equal probability of profit.
If it is claimed that the reason for providing this instruction for
the high schools is that the pupils can best afford the time for
it, it must be answered that very many of these derive an income
from labor out of school hours which enables them to attend school.
These are as worthy of exemption from military instruction as those
who leave school because they lack the ambition to continue their
education, or because they are compelled to do so by circumstances.
Whether this instruction is compulsory or optional with pupils of
the high schools, if required or offered at all, it should apply to
all boys, out of school as well as in school, of prescribed ages
and strength.
Military training and service, if they are necessary, are
obligations of citizenship, not of education alone.
It is difficult to contemplate with satisfaction or even
complacency the social cleavage which is bound to result from a
system of military instruction which is applied to high-school
pupils and not to other boys. To assign or reserve the privilege,
or duty, or obligation, however it is regarded, of preparing to
fight for the country to the better-educated class is just as
repugnant to democratic ideals as was the practice in days long
gone by of leaving it to the nobility. To select high-school pupils
for this training is open to the same objection as would be a plan
of selecting adults for actual military service solely on the basis
of their occupations or professions--a plan which would receive no
consideration.
Military authorities admit that the fundamental aim of every
form of military training must be to cultivate physical health
and strength. As Dr. George Fisher, secretary of the Physical
Department, International Committee, Y.M.C.A., and a member of
the New York State Military Training Commission, puts it, "In the
training camps in England it takes a full year to get the men in
condition after they enlist. England's experience in this war
indicates that the big problem is not primarily the training of
the men on military tactics or drill, but conditioning the men.
Therefore the lesson to us should be to discover what methods can
best be used to put and keep men in good physical condition."
If any evidence of the accuracy of this opinion were needed,
it is necessary only to consult the records of the United States
War Department. The following table shows the number of applicants
for enlistment in the United States army, furnished by the several
recruiting districts, together with the number accepted or rejected
in said districts, fiscal years ending June 30, 1911 to June 30,
1915:
====================+==========+====================+====================
| | | ACCEPTED | REJECTED
|TOTAL +---------+----------+---------+----------
|NUMBER OF | |Per cent | |Per cent
|APPLICANTS| Number |of total | Number |of total
| | |applicants| |applicants
--------------------+----------+---------+----------+---------+----------
Total for five years| 747,704 | 157,043 | 21 | 590,661 | 79
====================+==========+=========+==========+=========+==========
In order, therefore, that all citizens may be properly trained
and prepared to perform effectively all their duties, no matter
what they may be, we recommend and strongly urge that the necessary
steps be taken to provide for all the schools of the state a
complete and thorough system of physical training. This system
should be compulsory for all pupils, and should include carefully
selected exercises adapted to the different ages of pupils, and
designed to protect their health, stimulate bodily functions, and
promote physical strength. It should apply to all girls as well as
boys. It should aim to prevent bodily abnormalities or deformities,
or to correct them if they are found to exist. It should include
personal and community sanitation, first aid in emergencies,
bandaging, and all forms of instruction in personal safety. It
should encourage outdoor activities. It should provide abundant
games for all pupils in which group activities are prominent, and
in which appeal may be made to the spirit of competition. It may
include those features of military drill which properly serve
the purposes of physical training, but which must be regarded as
subordinate to these purposes. It may even include practice with
the miniature or the service rifle, if such practice is regarded
as necessary to develop steadiness of nerve, bodily control, and
accuracy of sight. In the case of such exercises the educational
error does not lie in their use, but in the exaggerated military
purpose which they are made to serve. All the features and
exercises of the thorough course of physical training which we
recommend should be intimately connected and interrelated, on the
one hand with the moral or character-forming instruction of the
schools and on the other with the complete provisions for medical
inspection which have already been made compulsory by law.
Now boy service should be democratic. The exemptions, whatever they
are, must be made on a basis of the equality of the schoolboy and
the boy engaged in wage-earning. A boy should not be excused from
his rightful preparedness training because he happens to be employed
as a bell boy in a metropolitan hotel. Such work is not industrially
productive, nor could any devised system of military equivalents make
it a substitution for personal contribution to national preparedness.
In the spring of 1917 the legislature amended the law to include all
boys--a drafting of the boy power of the state in much the same way
that the European nations in conflict make provisions for the full
utilization of man power. An additional amendment, as stated in chapter
49, Laws of 1917, reads:
Such requirement as to military training may, in the discretion
of the commission, be met in part by such vocational training or
vocational experience as will, in the opinion of the commission,
specifically prepare boys of the ages named for service useful
to the state, in the maintenance of defense, in the promotion of
public safety, in the conservation and development of the state's
resources, or in the construction and maintenance of public
improvement.
The commission was given power to establish a bureau of vocational
training. This, through careful inspection of the work of boys of the
ages named in industrial, commercial, and agricultural pursuits, will
determine the types of vocational training or vocational experience
which, in the opinion of the commission, specifically prepare boys for
service useful to the state.
Such a bureau would, under normal conditions, appoint a few inspectors
and investigators to study conditions in order that carefully laid
plans might be made for carrying out the provisions of the amendment.
But war emergency in the matter of food supply gave the Military
Training Commission an opportunity to organize at short notice one
branch of military-equivalent service, that is, the farm-cadet unit,
and it extended an offer of assistance to the Food Supply Commission to
organize farm-cadet bureaus in each of the six military zones of the
state. Through these the Military Training Commission has been useful
in placing boys upon farms, and in following up such farm service with
a view not only to determining its merit as an equivalent or partial
equivalent for military service but also (with the coöperation of
church and business organizations, the Y.M.C.A., and the Boy Scouts)
to giving the task which these boys have been doing on the farms its
proper place in relation to the physical, mental, and social ideals
which lie outside the hard and often unfamiliar round of field work.
Important as this farm-cadet service has been in the matter of looking
toward increased production, a more significant work to be developed by
the Bureau of Vocational Training is that of interpreting the spirit
and purpose of the amendment already referred to, which states that
provisions for the military-training requirement may be met in part
by certain types of vocational training or vocational experience. The
whole program of physical, military, and vocational training is most
significant, wholesome, and far-reaching. It is a program of universal
training which will be serviceable for war and peace alike--a program
which will require every boy to prepare himself to offer some service
in case of need, and which stamps that service as equally patriotic
with the narrower military service in which most of the world's supreme
valors have been recorded. As John Finley, Commissioner of Education
in New York State and one of the members of its Military Training
Commission, puts it:
In this amended law we have a program providing, on the one
hand, for the defensive training of the soldier and, on the other
hand, for the effective mobilization of the resources of the nation
in training boys for vocations--which training of itself exalts and
identifies as patriotic service all the effective activities of our
everyday life. It is a constructive provision for what would have
to be done otherwise in time of need through exemptions.
England has had to reach such a program through an exempting
provision in her plan of coöperative service. France has had to
come to it by taking men from the front for service behind the
lines. Germany is finding it necessary, in the midst of war, to
organize her entire man power.
It is most important that this vocational training or experience should
be _conscious_ service. The boy who offers it must clearly understand
why it is accepted in part for the required military drill. To fail
to inform him is to take from his military equivalent the educational
value given it by the law.
Dr. Finley, in his inimitable way, expresses this conscious service as
it might apply to an adult loyal citizenship:
I make this idea graphic to myself by thinking that every
man has an imaginary uniform (as every German soldier and French
soldier had in waiting his green-gray or his blue and red uniform),
an imaginary uniform of his own measurements always in readiness in
home or shop or office or in some public locker, that he may don
at call of his community, state, or nation, or perhaps at world
need, when under compulsion he goes to vote, to pay his taxes, to
fight against dishonesty, inefficiency, or waste, to inform himself
upon public questions, or upon his public duties, just as one
studies tactics in order to help in his country's defense, or goes
to school as an alien to learn the language and institutions of a
new land, or joins his neighbors in promoting the health of his
community, in conserving resources, in securing means of healthful
recreation for children and youth, in improving the highways--when,
in short, he performs any one of a hundred offices that are
required of him as an efficient unit in an organized society.
Those who oppose military training in the schools will be less critical
of its requirements when they are open to the broader interpretation
suggested in the amendment of 1917. Those to whom the thought of
training the young in the carrying of arms is repugnant may here see
the educative value of universal service. Early in the war Germany
discovered that the relation of industrial to military service is 2.7
per cent; that is, to keep one man in the field, nearly three men must
work in those occupations, industrial and agricultural, which support
the nation at war.[5] It is the work of the New York Military Training
Commission to select as a partial military equivalent such vocational
training or vocational experience as will, in the present or in the
future, serve the nation.
What shall the nature of this work be? The decision is to be left to
the state Military Training Commission. It is easy to weed out those
occupations which have no national productive or defensive value, but
there will be difficulty in selecting those vocations which may or may
not be military equivalents, which under war conditions may belong to
the work of an industrial or agricultural army, when in peace they seem
entirely separate from national service. Such an occupation is that of
a junior telegraph operator, which is not of a productive nature, and
yet a very necessary factor in war equipment. The case of a printer's
apprentice is less equivocal. Only in rare cases could his work be
accepted as a partial substitute for the required service.
[5] Authorities differ widely; some even state that the ratio is now as
high as one to eight.
The problem is not to separate the useful from the useless occupations,
but to discriminate between those which may be called upon to serve
the state and those which have value only to the individual. All the
productive and useful occupations are not socialized; and in selecting
those which are partial equivalents for the required military drill, we
have to make a distinction which has not been hitherto considered in
economic classification of occupations.
To Ruskin's generation his suggestion that Oxford and Cambridge
undergraduates should serve short periods as builders of roads for the
empire seemed little short of fantastic. And yet the turn of time may
even bring about the confirmation of this anomaly.
There is a parallel between the economic substitution for military
drill and what William James in an astonishingly pertinent essay
written in 1910 calls the "Moral Equivalent of War."
If there were, instead of military conscription, a conscription
of the whole youthful population to form for a certain number
of years a part of the army enlisted against _Nature_,...the
military ideals of hardihood and discipline would be wrought
into the growing fiber of the people.... To coal and iron
mines, to freight trains, to fishing fleets in December, to
dishwashing, clothes-washing and window-washing, to road-building
and tunnel-making, to foundries and stokeholes, and to the frames
of skyscrapers, would our gilded youths be drafted off, according
to their choice, to get the childishness knocked out of them, and
to come back into society with healthier sympathies and soberer
ideas.... Such a conscription, with the state of public opinion
that would have required it, and the many moral fruits it would
bear, would preserve in the midst of a pacific civilization the
manly virtues which the military party is so afraid of seeing
disappear in peace.
[Illustration: A farm camp is not merely a recreational camp, although
it may re-create the city youth in terms of country life. A group of
Long Island Food Reserve Battalion boys with the working impulse strong.]
[Illustration: Even hoeing requires special training and was one
activity in the pre-vocational course in agriculture given at the
concentration and training camp for Junior Volunteers of Maine.]
[Illustration: Instruction in mechanics, electricity, friction, heat,
horsepower, etc. nowadays centers about an automobile. This work at
Wentworth Institute (Boston, Massachusetts) has a military-equivalent
value.]
[Illustration: To learn a trade in an essential industry is to enlist
in national preparedness. A corner of a Buffalo (New York) vocational
school, teaching plumbing and steam fitting.]
Liberty Hyde Bailey, author and farmer, formerly director of the New
York State College of Agriculture, in a chapter of a recent book on
"Universal Service" expresses in concrete terms a similar thought from
the angle of the open country.
Not of all persons will be required the same duty. What one is,
that shall one give. Society will learn of every man and woman what
these gifts may be. Some day it will be expected that every able
person will report himself, at determined occasions, for definite
service, without pay, in one or more of the following privileges,
and other privileges, under orderly management and recognized
public authority:
1. To clean up the earth and to keep it sweet,--streets, roads,
paths, byways, vacant lots, stream banks, woods, fields, and all
open, or public, properties and public works. The clean-up days now
becoming popular are the beginnings. Of course this does not mean
that the work of street-cleaning departments and the like is to
be taken over or interfered with; but there are times for special
house cleaning. If every person felt it devolving on him to help in
keeping the earth decent, he would be likely to exercise a proper
restraint in befouling it; and as charity begins at home, so should
his restraint begin on his own premises, even extending to the
parts out of sight of the public.
2. To take part in the construction of halls and premises for
community activities.
3. To aid in the making of beautiful and public places
accessible and to protect them. Every community with a rural
environment, and practically every small city, has a near-by area
that could be reserved and opened by coöperative action of the
people,--days set aside when paths should be made, bridges built,
retreats discovered, trees and streams put in shape, insects
destroyed. Such reservations are not really public until the people
volunteer to help in them.
The farther places, the real backgrounds of the race, will
some day be opened as well as reserved, and made of much use to
very many people besides casual visitors and sight-seers. We shall
learn how to project whole counties and cities, and even larger
units, into the making and keeping of them in a way that is not
yet visioned. This can be accomplished as easily as armies can be
sent into the field, but it will require a type of organization at
which we have not yet arrived. It will be worth while to develop
public-service armies.
4. To demand the freedom of the earth for its inhabitants,
under proper recognition of vested rights. The conception of the
freedom of the sea has had an interesting evolution,--the escape
from the old sea fear, the long years of piracy, the buccaneers,
letters of marque and reprisal, treaty ports, smuggling, and all
the rest; finally has come the demand of equal opportunities for
all and the open door. We must have the open door to fields and
shores, to commanding hills that should not be exclusive property;
find trails and walks and avenues to places the people ought to
know. All this requires exploration, tramps far and near, maps,
propaganda. All scenic parts will be marked. The public shall know
all good places.
5. To protect the products of the earth; and to protect the
earth itself. The products to which I now refer are those not the
property of individuals,--the birds, the beasts, the fish, the
vegetation. The bird sanctuaries now so well accepted are good
beginnings, as also the wild-flower preservation societies, the
nature-study groups, and many others; but the individual is not yet
sufficiently impressed with this feeling in his own action.
To protect the earth is to save its fertility. This is the
fundamental conservation. Not all persons can participate here,
but every citizen can be mindful of the necessity of it and aid
in creating public sentiment. I wait for the coming together of
new organizations or societies that shall have for their purpose
the conservation of fertility. These will be much more than
agricultural and rural organizations, and their work need not be
technical or occupational. They may include all persons, and the
discussions and interests may run the range of man's relation to
land.
To leave his piece of earth more productive than when he took
it is the obligation of the good farmer, for there are constantly
more persons to be supported. In the large sense every one of us
is a farmer, for the keeping of the earth is given to the human
race. We begin to understand vaguely what relation the good keeping
of the land bears to national questions.
6. To keep the public health,--to protect it by keeping one's
body well, by taking care to commit no nuisance, to contaminate no
source of public infection, and to lend one's self to participate
in the correcting of abuses.
To be physically fit and uncomplaining is a public duty. Maybe
we shall find ways to demand physical training of the people as
effective as that afforded by military training but without its
sinister intentions.
Society will take over unto itself the oversight not only of
physical training and of providing that children shall be well born
but also more and more the oversight of the treatment of disease,
as a public necessity. We shall train the sound to care for the
unsound.
7. To come with personal succor as well as with money and goods
in time of flood and disaster, to visit the sick and the afflicted,
to relieve the poor and unfortunate. We shall learn how to organize
the vast resources in men and women who are willing but do not know
how, who are undiscovered and untrained, yet who could be shaped
into a great army of assistance.
8. To respond promptly to the call of societies or groups that
act in the public interest; to participate in the many neighborhood
coöperations.
As an illustration of the manner in which a military equivalent may
be determined, an illustration has been taken from some agricultural
activities. Before considering the military equivalent in farm work it
is necessary to give a brief description of the basis upon which the
Military Training Commission will probably work in this matter. The
basis, in brief, is the "man work unit" idea as developed by Dr. George
F. Warren, Professor of Farm Management, New York State College of
Agriculture.
A man work unit is the _average_ amount of work accomplished by a
man in ten hours. A horse work unit is the _average_ amount of work
accomplished by a horse in ten hours. For New York conditions, _an
acre_ of the following crops represents the man and horse units
indicated below. In a majority of cases the numbers which follow are
based upon cost accounts. In some instances, where data were limited,
the results are more or less an estimate.
===========+=============+==========================================
MAN UNITS | HORSE UNITS | CROPS
-----------+-------------+------------------------------------------
6 | 6 |Corn for grain husked from shock (New
| |York method)
3 | 5 |Corn for grain husked from standing stalks
| |(Western method)
5 | 6 |Corn for silage
3 | 5 |Fodder corn
6 | 6 |Sweet corn
10 | 10 |Potatoes
4 | 5 |Field beans
10 | 10 |Cabbage
20 | 7 |Tobacco
50 | 8 |Hops
15 | 12 |Roots (field beets, mangels, etc.)
2 | 3 |Buckwheat, oats, barley, wheat, spelt, rye,
| |field peas, and mixtures of these
1 | 1 |Hay for cutting, alfalfa, clover, timothy
2 | 3 |Oat hay, millet, and other grains cured for hay
15 | 5 |Apples, bearing, when cared for in a commercial
| |way
3 | 1 |Apples, bearing, when little or no care is given
15 | 5 |Other tree fruits, bearing
2 | 1 |Fruit not of bearing age
20 | 5 |Berries
3 | 5 |Peas for canning factory
1 | 1 |Seeds (alfalfa, clover, timothy)
3 | 5 |Sorghum
12 | 6 |Cotton
10 to 35 | 2 to 10 |Truck crops
===========+=============+================================================
For live stock listed below, the man units and horse units are as
indicated.
===========+=============+=============================================
MAN UNITS | HORSE UNITS | LIVE STOCK (Basis of One)
-----------+-------------+---------------------------------------------
15 | 2 |Cows, ordinary dairy (majority grades)
20 | 2 |Cows, pure-bred dairy (majority pure-bred)
15 | 15 |To be added per cow when milk is retailed
2 | 0.1 |Heifers, calves, bulls, steers, and colts when
| |running loose
2 | 0.1 |Steers or other cattle, fattened or only
| |wintered
0.5 | 0.05 |Breeding ewes and bucks (covers work on
| |lambs)
-----------+-------------+---------------------------------------------
0.2 | 0.02 |Other sheep or lambs, fattened or only wintered
3 | 0.05 |Brood sows (covers work on pigs till weaned)
0.5 | 0.1 |Boars
0.5 | 0.1 |Other hogs raised during the year
0.15 | 0.02 |Hens and other poultry
0.15 | 0.02 |Pullets, etc., raised during the year (covers
| |work on cockerels)
1.0 | 0.05 |Bees, per hive
6 | 0.0 |Day-old chicks per 1000
===========+=============+=============================================
In order to interpret the man-work-unit idea in terms of the military
requirements of New York State that 16-year-, 17-year-, and 18-year-old
boys are to participate in such military training or as a partial
equivalent may offer farm experience or farm training, it is necessary
to translate the number of hours required for such military instruction
into crop values or, to use the term already understood, man work units.
Since there are 288 days or 41.1 weeks in the required
military-training period (September first to the fifteenth day of June
next ensuing), a boy must drill 123.3 hours. This represents on the
average 12.33 man work units.
For example, if a boy grows 1.2 acres of potatoes or takes entire
charge of .6 acres of berries, including cultivation, picking,
marketing, etc., for a period of one year, he has spent in productive
agricultural work the number of hours required for military drill.
===========+=============================================================
MAN UNITS | MILITARY EQUIVALENT
-----------+-------------------------------------------------------------
6 | 2.05 acres corn for grain husked from shock (New York
| method)
5 | 2.46 acres corn for silage
6 | 2.05 acres sweet corn
10 | 1.233 acres potatoes
4 | 3.08 acres field beans
10 | 1.233 acres cabbage
20 | .616 acres tobacco
50 | .246 acres hops
15 | .822 acres roots (field beets, mangels, etc.)
2 | 6.16 acres buckwheat, oats, barley, wheat, spelt, rye (field
| peas and mixtures of these)
1 |12.33 acres hay per cutting (alfalfa, clover, timothy)
2 | 6.16 acres oat hay, millet, and other grains cured for hay
15 | .822 acres apples, bearing, when cared for in commercial
| way
3 | 4.11 acres apples, bearing, when little or no care is given
15 | .822 acres other tree fruits, bearing
2 | 6.16 acres fruit not of bearing age
20 | .616 acres berries
3 | 4.11 acres peas for canning factory
1 |12.33 acres seed (alfalfa, clover, timothy)
3 | 4.11 acres sorghum
10 to 35 | 1.233 aces truck crops
===========+=============================================================
In the case of live stock a boy can do all the man work necessary in
caring for 6 heifers or 82 hens or approximately one ordinary cow in
the time which another boy may be giving to military training.
The exact military equivalents are shown in the second column.
===========+==========================================================
MAN UNITS| MILITARY EQUIVALENT
-----------+----------------------------------------------------------
15 | .82 cows, ordinary dairy (majority grades)
20 | .616 cows, pure-bred dairy (majority pure-bred)
2 | 6.16 heifer, calves, bulls, steers, and colts
2 | 6.16 steers or other cattle, fattened or only wintered
0.5 |24.66 breeding ewes and bucks (covers work on lambs)
0.2 |61.6 other sheep or lambs, fattened or only wintered
3 | 4.11 brood sows (covers work on pigs till weaned)
0.5 |24.66 other hogs raised during year
0.5 |24.66 boars
0.15 |82 hens and other poultry
0.15 |82 pullets, etc, raised during the year (covers work on
| cockerels)
0.3 |41.1 hives of bees
6 | 2.05 thousand day-old chicks
===========+==========================================================
Military equivalents as related to farm training or farm experience
appear to be much easier to develop than those concerning mechanical
training and experience, especially where the work of 16-year-old to
19-year-old boys is concerned.
At the present writing there seems to be on the part of the public
no very clear understanding of the government's policy relative to
exemption for persons who are performing industrial and farm service.
If it is difficult to determine an exemption policy for drafted men,
it is very evident that when boys of 16, 17, and 18 years of age have
become industrial drifters and have not decided upon a vocational
career, the determination of a military-equivalent policy for them is a
problem much harder of solution.
Again, a study of boys' occupations reveals the fact that only a very
small proportion of those "above the age of 16 years and not over
the age of 19 years" who are at work in our cities are engaged in
occupations that will specifically prepare them for service that has
productive or defensive value. Under the auspices of the Committee
on Vocational Help to Minors the Bureau of Attendance of New York
City made an extended survey, during the summer of 1915, of 5000
children who had left school between the ages of 14 and 16 and entered
industry. Because of the vast amount of labor involved in tabulating
the data that were collected, a random sampling was made of 150 boys
and the same number of girls from each of 5 attendance districts.
The 5 districts were selected to represent as nearly as possible the
general character of the city. Each of these 1500 cases, 750 boys and
750 girls, was given a key number so that when the information was
tabulated it would be possible to identify each case and verify the
information. Of the 750 boys 546 were within the ages designated by
this statute, 188 were under 16 years of age and 16 of the boys were 19
years old.
Half of the boys were either errand-messengers, clerks, or office boys.
There were 213 in the errand-messenger service, 107 clerks, and 55
office boys. Another 100 were either stock boys, wagon boys, or packers
and wrappers. The largest trade group was made up of 14 boys who were
classed as machinists' apprentices, and the second largest trade group,
that of electricians, had but 5 boys.
The departments in which these 750 boys were working indicate the
nature of the employment. There were 265 in offices, 134 in the shop
departments of factories, 165 in shipping and delivery departments, 92
in salesrooms, 35 in stock rooms, 31 in other departments, and 28 cases
where the investigator had failed to secure this information.
A careful study of the work done by each of the 750 boys resulted
in the selection of 32 who seemed to be doing work that might give
them the specific training indicated as essential. The result of this
study can be summarized under the headings of the trades the boys were
learning.
_Blacksmith._ The one boy apprenticed to this trade had been
working in the shop for seventeen months, was earning $13 a week,
and was perfectly satisfied with his work. So he was likely to
continue until he learned the trade.
_Brass worker._ Of the two boys of this group, one had served
twelve months and the other twenty-four months at the trade. They
earned respectively $5 and $6.50 a week and both intended to remain
at the trade until it was learned.
_Carpenter._ There were two boys serving as carpenter's
helpers. With one it was simply a temporary position. The other had
been working at the trade for a year, and although he was receiving
but $4 a week, he intended to remain at the trade.
_Electrician._ Three of the five boys working at this trade had
been employed for over eighteen months as electricians' helpers.
The other two had had four months and two months respectively of
such experience. The five all expressed a determination to remain
long enough to learn the trade.
_Ship fitter._ The one boy in this group, although out of
school over a year, had been working at the navy yard but two
months.
_Locksmith._ With only ten days' experience this boy was ready
to quit.
_Machinist._ The average time spent by the 14 boys classified
as machinists was less than three and one-half months, and not one
of the group had worked as long as a year. Three were running drill
presses, 1 was cleaning the wheels and pipes of a feather-bone
machine, 2 were not employed. Most of these were dissatisfied and
looking for other work. A boy who had been working eleven months
on a screwing machine, 1 who had worked nine months repairing
autos, and 1 who had worked eight months as a machinist's helper--3
out of the 14--had worked long enough at the trade to know that
they liked it, and expressed the intention of learning the trade.
_Plumber._ Three of the four boys classified as plumbers'
helpers had worked over a year and a half at the trade, liked the
work, and expected to follow it. The fourth boy was using it as a
temporary job.
_Solderer._ The one boy in this line was dissatisfied with the
job and with his pay.
_Sheet-metal worker._ The one boy serving as a tin-roofer's
helper had worked for the firm for a year and was perfectly
satisfied with all conditions.
There seem to be 14 of the 750 boys who had been working long enough at
a trade and were sufficiently pleased with the prospects for the future
to make one safe in saying that they would probably complete their
apprenticeship--although this conclusion may not be justified. These 14
were distributed as follows:
Blacksmith 1
Brass worker 2
Carpenter 1
Electrician 3
Machinist 3
Plumber 3
Sheet-metal worker 1
---
Total 14
This study of Mr. Chatfield's shows that not only were very few of the
boys between the ages of 16 and 19 receiving vocational experience
that would train them to be useful to the state in the maintenance of
defense or in the other interests of the state as outlined in the bill,
but also boys of these ages are likely to change their work rather
frequently. There were 184 of these 750 boys who had been out of school
between three and four years when this study was made. Of these 184
boys 41 were still working at the job they first had when they left
school, 47 were on the second job, 41 were on the third job, and 13 had
made eight or more changes.
I know of no study which more clearly points out the "blind alleyness"
of the employment of children. However, some of us, including Dr.
David Snedden of Columbia University, feel that a better term than
"blind-alley occupations" would be "occupations involving juvenile
employment." To us the evil of errand-messenger, clerk, or office-boy
service is not that boys wander into or are thrust into a line of work
which may be a blind alley, but rather that _no provision is made
in the public-school system for giving the boys a short preparatory
training helpful to them in this temporary service, and that no
training which would help them to get out of such work is given them
in the office, store, or factory_. If society would frankly recognize
that there are juvenile employments and that boys might well work
in them while they are juveniles and yet be trained through such
work, and apart from such work in continuation schools, to discover
themselves and to prepare themselves for other work, we might develop a
constructive educational program.
This study certainly shows the waste of the boy power of the state
and proves conclusively that there is need for the state to grapple
consciously with the problem of conserving its youth; and when one
reads this summary of an accurate and previously unpublished report,
one is led to believe that William James, John Dewey, Liberty Hyde
Bailey, and John Finley are right in their contention that there
should be a mobilization of the boy force of the state looking toward
conservation of the boy power that it may lead into training for
skilled work, into citizenship, into sturdy health, and into right
living.
CHAPTER VIII
RED CROSS AND OTHER COMMUNITY WORK
Thoughtful people are becoming disposed to criticize the present
methods employed in many of our sewing, cooking, and millinery classes.
It is felt that the girls in these classes, through the work which they
do, think of themselves first, last, and all the time. They spend time
on embroidery to cater further to decorative instincts long established
by custom without much thought as to artistic values. They spend half
a year making graduation dresses which they may wear before admiring
parents. They copy the latest fashion in hats without thought as to
utility or beauty. They knit feathery neck pieces and neglect stocking
darning. They laboriously sew by hand articles which had better be made
on a machine.
Our girls must learn to think of others than themselves. Their sewing
and millinery must get away from the individual-problem idea. Of
course girls must learn to sew by hand, especially when the home in
these days teaches so little in the way of hand sewing. But after they
have learned to sew by hand, they should not continue to use hand
sewing on work that should be done on a sewing machine. Of course it
is wise to train girls to make some of their own clothing, but to make
this clothing without regard to study of textiles or adaptation to
personal needs or the eternal fitness of things is not in accord with
the educational purpose of our schools, which is to train personal
character as well as to develop skill in domestic arts. When the family
hosiery needs darning, and the small children of the family need
clothes, and the schoolgirl needs a middy blouse or a school uniform,
it is unwise to spend so much energy on continuing a type of domestic
art which lacks the socialized appeal necessary to conform with modern
social needs and modern industrial methods.
The teachers of household arts are beginning to see the need for
reform. Many are bringing into the school life such problems as the
mending and darning of the family clothes; cooking school luncheons;
managing day nurseries for babies of working mothers; making table
and bed linen for hospitals; making jams and jellies for charitable
societies. Such teachers have welcomed the opportunity offered by the
present war to forward the new idea of socializing domestic-arts work.
They have been impatient of the dilettante work which they formerly
did when their girls practically wasted hours of school time in making
things which could be bought for less than the cost of materials,
to say nothing about the cost of time of the girls themselves, who
are in school but a few years at best--years when they should be
receiving instruction in subjects which have real training values.
These progressive teachers have desired that their girls develop more
speed; that they receive training helpful in meeting the actual trade
conditions in dressmaking and millinery shops; that they learn to work
together on some common problem which all may see is worth while and
for a purpose which is larger than themselves. Red Cross work has given
these teachers the opportunity which they sought. They believe that the
Red Cross work during the war may easily be converted into community
work after the war is over. Hospitals, charity organizations, orphan
asylums, and homes are always with us. The great appeal now, obviously,
is Red Cross work. The permanent appeal is always the need of the home
and the community.
An activity which has been very general throughout the country, as well
as in France and England, has been the voluntary contribution of the
work of women's organizations to the Red Cross Society. The making of
hospital supplies belongs more peculiarly to women than do many forms
of war work, and it is easily incorporated into the sewing courses
of our elementary and secondary schools. A feature that makes it
especially adaptable to schools is the standardization by the present
business manager, under whose direction blue prints, photographs, and
written and pictured specifications have been prepared.
Those of us who are interested in the methods employed in vocational
schools to turn out standard products appreciate the benefit to the
girl of learning to work from well-planned directions and of turning
out a product exactly corresponding to specifications. It is believed
that this manner of doing the work holds an educational value which
entitles it to a place in the sewing course of every school. Both
technique and speed elements are necessary for the condition of need
which the Red Cross is meeting. As pupils are called upon to respond to
this demand for quantities of garments and hospital supplies, as well
as for accurately made articles, they will become trained in speed and
accuracy while rendering a distinct service to their country.
In the state of New York about 3000 girls in sewing classes began
work for the Red Cross on March 1, 1917, under the direction of Anna
Hedges Talbot, state specialist in girls' vocational work; the work
being done voluntarily by both schools and pupils. To obtain materials,
arrangements were first made with local Red Cross chapters; but in
many places the lack of a chapter or its lack of funds prevented the
coöperation with the schools, and material was supplied by liberal
contributions from women's clubs, which realized the necessity of
making use of the offer of the girls' services, thus causing more work
to be turned into Red Cross channels than would have been possible
without this financial aid. In organizing the work the various
localities sent an authorized school person, generally the teacher
of household arts, to confer with the Red Cross people as to what
articles were needed and how they should be made, and to bring back to
the school written specifications, paper patterns, and models. In many
places the teachers took a course of instruction under some Red Cross
nurse specifically qualified to give sewing instruction.
In this careful way the schools proceeded, and within six weeks
returned reports to the State Education Department showing that every
kind of article which was needed, from the simplest surgical dressings
to the most carefully finished surgeon's gown, had been made by about
3000 girls working on an average of one or two hours a week during
their regular school time. That none of this work had to be ripped or
done over when it reached the Red Cross headquarters reflects credit on
both girls and instructors.
One comparatively small sewing class in the vocational school at Mount
Vernon, New York, filled a box for the Belgian Relief, according to Red
Cross specifications, as follows:
18 hot-water-bag covers
54 sheets
36 pillow cases
27 wash cloths
27 pairs of pajamas
36 hospital-bed sheets
9 pairs slippers
9 convalescent gowns
36 pairs socks
18 pairs bed socks
18 bath towels
36 face towels
In addition this class shipped in a few months over 2000 separate
articles to Red Cross headquarters; as, for example,
75 children's dresses
149 tampon bags
224 baby bootees
219 ward shoes
76 hospital nightshirts
62 crocheted trench caps
597 slings
19 petticoats
14 chemises
403 body bandages
42 eye bandages
373 bathing suits
12 air cushions
77 pneumonia jackets
50 bath towels
All the schools of the state inquired if they might go on with this
work when the schools opened in September. Schools which were not
able to do the work in the spring were ready to begin on the first
day of school in the fall. The work, however, has hitherto been
neglected except in the curriculum of schools which have vocational
courses, so that only girls electing domestic arts have had the
opportunity of doing it as a part of their school program, but there
is no reason why it should be limited to these girls. Those who are
taking academic courses in high schools--and they greatly outnumber the
vocational students--should have a chance to render service through
the schools. In this connection it is well to say that the burden of
doing productive work in war service should not be limited entirely
to students in vocational courses. It will be a mistake to throw the
burden of useful service upon a special group and in this way help
develop the notion that those who take classical courses have nothing
to do but look on, while those in vocational courses are to do the work.
Voluntary after-school clubs were organized in a great many schools,
but no voluntary work can be systematized or directed so well as
courses incorporated in the curriculum, and it is suggested to the
schools of the country that special Red Cross courses be offered and
that all girls be expected to devote a few hours a week to the work.
The following quotation from Édouard Petit's book "De l' école à la
guerre" on what the normal schools of France are doing ought to be
enough to inspire our American girls.
The girls of the normal schools of France are working very
hard, knitting, sewing, making hospital supplies, in the intervals
of their school work; also acting as laundresses, secretaries,
bookkeepers, etc. They are not old enough to be nurses. In addition
to the work for the armies, they give a part of their time to work
for other students. They are providing for the girl students of
the normal schools in the invaded districts, many of whom were
obliged to make long journeys on foot, clad in summer clothes,
with no chance to carry even a change of clothing with them. The
school at Fontenay appealed to the normal schools for aid for
its students; other appeals followed, some from schools in the
districts from which the invaders were driven out. Very soon in
all the normal schools of France girls were cutting and sewing,
providing new garments, or garments from their own supply, to be
sent to the towns in the north of France. Some of these supplies
are held in reserve for the towns that are still to be liberated.
One teacher writes: "Our young girls are glad to come to the aid
of their fellow students who are not known to them but who are
coming to seem nearer as I have them learn about the schools, read
the letters that are received, etc. Anything which makes real and
tangible the responsibility of this friendly help ought to be
encouraged."
As the need arises, our secondary-school girls will respond in
like manner.
The preparation needed to initiate Red Cross work in any large way
in the schools of a state is considerable. There is a good deal of
organization and consequent detail connected with it. The domestic-arts
teachers of a school district or county ought to be called together and
instructed in the minutiæ of garment-making and surgical dressings.
With the blue prints, photographs, and written specifications already
issued by the Red Cross headquarters at Washington these teachers could
then work out a full set of directions for each article which would be
specific and graphic. These could be printed by the state printer or,
better, by the boys in a vocational school. In addition, moving-picture
reels of processes carried on according to the most modern methods of
workroom procedure could be shown to those who have not been in contact
with present-day modes of work.
In order to excite interest on the part of the community in rural
districts where this work has not as yet penetrated to any extent,
moving pictures of processes of making surgical dressings, pajamas,
surgeons' gowns, or children's dresses could be exhibited as
illustrating what other sections of the state are already doing. These
moving pictures could be taken of girls at work in an up-to-date New
York City factory, and the reels could be either purchased outright or
rented from an educational-film company. In Washington the Department
of the Interior has a number of reels which have been put at the
disposal of the Red Cross, and will make more if the occasion demands.
Slides too could be made showing special operations, special garments,
and special methods of arranging work. When public interest has been
aroused at a public meeting in a small center, the school will find
it easy to take up the work and push it forward. The person in charge
of the work would have to keep in constant touch with the Red Cross
headquarters as to the needs for garments and hospital supplies, as
well as to the changes that from time to time have to be made in the
kind and quality of supplies. A chart could be made of the capacity
as to equipment and number of pupils, and the present grade of their
working ability, for each place where a school is located. Brief
reports could be sent to a state director from these schools as to what
they could make, when they could make it, and when specified articles
could be finished. Thus there would be a line out from a central
supervisor to each school in the state where pupils are old enough
to do any work of this public-service nature. Along this line would
travel the information as to what was being done and what would be the
next thing to be done.
Knitting by hand is one of the occupations which many girls and women
are taking up. One drawback to hand-knitting is that it takes a good
deal of time, and in the case of socks, at least, the results of
amateur work may be uncomfortable to the wearer. It is suggested that
schools put in knitting machines. One school at Yonkers, New York, has
such a machine. It enables its operator to finish a sock every twenty
minutes, or 12 pairs in an eight-hour day. It is possible to knit
wristlets and sleeveless sweaters on these machines. The Vacation War
Relief Committee of New York City has been responsible for the sale of
980 of these machines, on which over 85,000 pairs of socks have been
made during the past year.
A letter written to me by Mettie B. Hills, Director of Girls' Work in
Troy, New York, relative to her Red Cross work is so full of human
interest and gives in such detail the excellent methods which she
employed that I quote it in full. It will serve as suggestive material
for other equally enthusiastic and competent teachers.
My office has been turned into a cutting room. Girls are now at
a large table cutting hospital bed shirts with just as little waste
as possible. Smaller girls are snipping the few waste pieces,
and one little girl at the end of the table is filling a fracture
pillow with the snips. In my machine-sewing room the girls are
making hospital bed shirts. Each girl has a different operation.
The shirts move through the cutting room to this room and from one
machine to the next just as they do in a factory. They finally
reach the inspection table, where they are inspected as they are
folded, and an inspection card is placed in the pocket. They are
then piled up for that final inspection which I give every article
before it goes to our stock room. Here we hold all articles until
we have enough to make the moving worth while, and then they are
taken to Red Cross headquarters in the city truck. The chairmen
of each Red Cross division of our local chapter are notified
beforehand that things are coming and they are at headquarters to
receive our work and sign for it. I tell you, it is a big day for
all when the school work is turned in. I hear about it for weeks
afterward.
The girls do not stay at one operation. As soon as they are
ready, they are promoted to the next. [And in this connection may
I call the reader's attention to the chapter which brought out the
new spirit of teaching the household arts?]
The little jacket which is hanging in my clothespress is
only the beginning of a big piece of work which I expect to push
during the winter, a piece of work which I believe will do more to
standardize the girls' work than anything we have yet done.
Another room is given over to knitting, and the girls pass
from one type of work to another. We have a teacher from the Red
Cross rooms who is showing the older girls how to make oakum pads.
The work is really fascinating, and fortunately we no longer have
to think of the money for the materials, as the work done in the
schools has been of so much higher standard that the local chapter
has voted me $500 in order that there might be no danger of our
stopping the work. I am inclosing a list of what our schools have
done in the past three months.
I. For the Red Cross Society
1. Hospital Supplies
Hospital boots 48
Hospital shoulder wraps 36
Hospital shirts 156
Pajama suits 48
Surgeons' operating gowns 6
Surgeons' operating caps 12
Surgeons' operating helmets 48
Slings 492
1-inch bandages 12
2-inch bandages 13 rolls
2. Surgical dressings 22
Oakum pads 20
Fracture pillows 20
II. For the Soldiers' Welfare League
1. "Housewives" for Second New York Regiment 48
2. "George Washington kits" for Second New York
Regiment
3. Neckerchiefs for Second New York Regiment 120
4. Pajama suits 32
III. For the National Navy Comforts League
1. Knitted mufflers for the army and navy 313
2. Knitted sleeveless jackets for the army and navy 25
3. Knitted wristlets for the army and navy 40 pairs
4. Knitted caps for the army, navy, and aviators 2
5. Knitted hospital socks 7 pairs
IV. For the Surgical Dressings Committee (French)
1. Slings
2. Fracture pillows
3. Eye binders
V. For Belgian Relief Committee
1. Kits for small children (full set of clothes)
VI. For National League for Woman's Service (adults)
1. Two commissariat classes
2. Motor classes with 30 enrolled
Of course the Red Cross work need not be limited to girls and women.
Boys under 14 are able to pick over oakum and to do other work that
girls of the same age can do. The older boys can adjust and tend the
knitting machines and pack and deliver the finished product.
Men and women in many of the state institutions will be glad to
contribute a share in service. Thomas Mott Osborne, while warden at
Sing Sing, organized through the Mutual Welfare League a large class of
men who enthusiastically gave up their evening periods of recreation in
order that they might knit for soldiers in foreign fields.
A number of young boys, none over 14, from Troy and Albany orphan
asylums were taken in auto trucks 30 miles into the country to a
currant-producing section, where they picked 5000 quarts of currants
which had been donated to the county Red Cross organization. These
currants were shipped in a refrigerator car 90 miles down the river to
Yonkers, New York, where the girls made them into jelly and currant
juice, the sugar being donated by a local refinery.
Possibly the largest service that boys can render will be the making of
Red Cross splints. As has already been stated in another chapter the
Canadian schoolboys are doing a great deal of this work in connection
with their manual training. An article in a recent issue of the _Manual
Training Magazine_ describes in detail the work of the manual-training
centers of British Columbia. These splints are made merely for first
aid, and are used where it is not necessary that they conform exactly
to the contour of the limbs or body. They are padded a little with
cotton or cloth and fitted on the injured part of the soldier.
A general conception prevails that Red Cross work is limited to
battle-field relief, but it must be remembered that this organization
also carries on civilian relief. It is very likely, as time goes on,
that the schools will come to realize that there is probably no better
agency than the Red Cross with which they can associate themselves in
allaying the suffering and relieving the distress in the community. It
must be remembered that the Red Cross is splendidly organized, with
its great central headquarters at Washington, its division headquarters
in larger groups of states, and its local chapters in every county.
There is no activity of the Red Cross which a child cannot duplicate
in its own sphere of life, and the American school may well become
a center of interest in Red Cross work in time of war. One of the
departments already organized is that of Home Service, which exists
to help families maintain their standards of living. School-service
work under a Junior Red Cross has been organized in order to bring the
schools into direct touch with the work. The schools can give lessons
in first aid, elementary hygiene, and home care of the sick, in home
dietetics, and in the preparation of surgical dressings. It can make
the necessary supplies for local soldiers who are in mobilization
camps. It can make supplies for the soldiers' families, especially
during the winter months. It can raise money by means of entertainments
of an educational nature, and here opportunities are often presented
to correlate the work with history and English. In short, during the
stress of war, with its rising cost of food, its industrial changes,
its uncertainties in living conditions, with the home often handicapped
by the withdrawal of the chief wage earner, there will be an excellent
opportunity for the school to come in with its aid. The diet of the
family, both in quality and variety, may be improved through the
helpful advice of the teacher of home economics; children who are in
need of medical care may be sent to the dispensary. The Home Service
Department suggests that teachers may do helpful vocational-guidance
work; for in the absence of father and older brothers many a boy and
girl can be helped by a teacher's encouragement to go into occupations
where there is a future, where skill can be acquired, and where there
is a chance for advancement.
The following quotation from the London _Times_ of some Red Cross work
in France pointedly illustrates what home and school service in the Red
Cross movement may mean in America.
The most detailed enumeration would hardly exhaust the
activities of education in the common cause--voluntary
contributions to the national funds deducted from the salaries of
teachers; liberal subscriptions from pupils; participation in the
collection of gold; the dispatch of packets to soldiers, and of
books to the children of reconquered Alsace; help given to orphans
whom a school or class has taken under its charge; manual labor
on behalf of soldiers at the front, the wounded, the lame, and
prisoners; material or moral assistance to refugees; a welcome
given to all abandoned children, Belgian or French, in the families
of masters or of friends of the school; correspondence with
soldiers at the front, wounded, and prisoners; attendance at the
funeral of soldiers who have died of their wounds; the public
reception by schools, _lycées_, and universities of colleagues or
old pupils wounded, promoted, or quoted in dispatches; befriending
soldiers who have no family to look after them; the institution of
workrooms for men and women who are out of work; participation in
the celebration of Belgian Day, the Serbian Day, the French Day,
the Day of the 75, the Day of the Orphans, and so on,--tasks which
will have to be continued during the coming school year, because
the need for them will still be present, and doubtless, for some of
them at least, during the years immediately after the war, when the
school will still have before it a splendid opportunity for social
service.
[Illustration: Service recognizes no school grading. Girls of the lower
grades are snipping waste pieces for fracture pillows and working with
the older girls who are cutting hospital bed shirts, Troy, New York.]
[Illustration: The new spirit of household arts in the schools is based
upon the project plan and community service. War needs create new
school practices. Troy (New York) girls at work on Red Cross supplies.]
[Illustration: A country school need not be idle during the summer.
This one housed a group of farm cadets]
[Illustration: Flying squadron leaving camp on an emergency call for
berry pickers at Highland, New York.]
President Wilson has honored the school children of our country by a
proclamation dated September 18, 1917, in which he calls upon them
to do their part in the war by joining the Junior Red Cross, thus
assisting in the mercy work of the senior organization. A portion of
his message is quoted:
The school is the natural center of your life. Through it you
can best work in the great cause of freedom to which we have all
pledged ourselves.
Our Junior Red Cross will bring to you opportunities of service
to your community and to other communities all over the world, and
guide your service with high and religious ideals. It will teach
you how to save in order that suffering children elsewhere may
have the chance to live. It will teach you how to prepare some of
the supplies which wounded soldiers and homeless families lack.
It will send to you through the Red Cross bulletins the thrilling
stories of relief and rescue. And, best of all, more perfectly than
through any of your other school lessons, you will learn by doing
those kind things under your teacher's direction to be the future
good citizens of this great country which we all love.
Our President is a master of good pedagogy as well as a leader of
men, and he expresses the very best in modern educational thought. He
tells the children to think of their school as the natural center of
their lives; to serve the community in which they live; to reach out
through service and study to the larger world outside; to have behind
all action high ideals; to save that others less fortunate may have; to
learn how to do and through doing how to grow; to learn directly of the
world of action while it is in action; to work with their elders for
a common purpose,--the common purpose of being useful citizens of our
great country.
CHAPTER IX
REËDUCATION OF THE DISABLED
In all probability not one person in a hundred ever heard the word
"reëducation" before reading the very recent newspaper accounts of
the government's plans as announced by Surgeon-general Gorgas for
rehabilitating and reëducating the disabled soldiers. We have been in
the habit of seeing blinded and crippled men selling lead pencils at
street corners, and we have given our pity and our penny. We have seen
the wonderful rugs woven by the blind (assisted in the designing and
setting up by people who could see), and we have bought them, impelled
by a sympathetic interest in a charitable cause. We have heard some
exceptional person, who has overcome tremendous physical disabilities,
describe her methods of studying college subjects and competing
successfully with those who are unhandicapped, and we have said "How
wonderful!" and stopped thinking at that point.
As a nation we have failed in our duty to make the physically
handicapped economically self-supporting and normally strong. It is
an educational problem as great as, if not greater than, that of
assisting the mental defective.
Only within two years have the vocational schools of our country
even thought of instructing their pupils in the general principles
of safety. Only since workingmen's compensation laws and industrial
insurance have come into the foreground in legislative halls have
public men considered the appalling need for "safety-first" instruction
in factories and in technical schools.
For the duration of the war our thought of safety appliances for
industrial life in peaceful times sinks into the background, and we
think only of devices for preventing suffocation by poisonous gases,
of means of withstanding liquid fire, of deflectors for bullets
and camouflage for marching troops. But notwithstanding all these
precautions, the inevitable results of war are before us.
The multitude of men who have been injured in the present war is out
of all proportion to the number injured in any war with which history
or experience makes us acquainted, and the fitting of them to be
economically self-supporting is a task of stupendous proportions. For
the problem of the support of these men cannot be met entirely by
pensions; even if this were possible, the man would thus become a dead
weight for the rest of the country to carry, an unenviable position
from all points of view. In the case of the professional man, he may,
even if handicapped, carry on his work; but the man with a trade, when
maimed or blinded, must be taught some other vocation or be provided
with some mechanical substitute for his loss in legs or arms and often
with special tools and other apparatus which will enable him to carry
on his former occupation or a new one. It will not be possible to place
all these men as ticket sellers, news vendors, gatemen, and in other
positions hitherto appropriate for the industrially disabled; and our
vocational schools, the medical profession, and the national government
must coöperate in a study of the reëducation of injured soldiers with
the aim of putting them on the pay roll.
On July 31, 1917, announcement was made through the press of the United
States that a government system for the rehabilitation and reëducation
of men disabled in the fighting abroad would be made an adjunct of the
proposed scheme for the federal insurance of soldiers and sailors, and
that the plans for the rehabilitation of these men would probably, like
those in Canada, be modeled after the systems in use in France and
England. It is, of course, part of the government's duty to provide for
the future of men crippled in its service. It is not the province of
the several philanthropic agencies which in the past have commendably
endeavored to care for the blind and the crippled by teaching them the
handiworks of weaving, brush-making, etc. The work must be done on a
sound and scientific basis, and be adjusted to economic conditions on a
vast scale such as no philanthropic society can hope to maintain; that
is, it must not be relief work, it must be governmental constructive
work in reëducation which shall teach the disabled man how to overcome
the disadvantage of his infirmity in reëntering the industrial world.
To learn the extent of what may be done in this work of rehabilitation,
England, Canada, and the United States look to France,--to the
municipal vocational-training school for soldiers at Lyons known as
L'École Joffre and the many schools patterned after it in other cities;
to the Institution of St. Maurice, at Paris, which has been established
by the French government to be a model for other institutions; to
the Laboratory of Research on Vocational Work, in Paris, directed by
Dr. Jules Amar; and to the Anglo-Belgian hospitals, especially that
at Vernon. It has been announced that the United States will pattern
its training school after the Institution of St. Maurice, which is a
clearing house of experiments and research for the continent.
There are also in France, as in England and Canada, convalescent
homes for disabled soldiers,--many of which are supported by private
benevolence,--where trades are taught. At the Institute of Les Amis
des Soldats Aveugles, in the suburbs of Paris, the blind soldiers are
taught the trades of basket-making, bootmaking, brush-making, netting,
harness-making, and bookbinding, the course taking about six months
before the pupils become proficient. The institution runs its own
printing establishment for literature in Braille (the print for the
blind). The blind are peculiarly incapacitated, and the occupations
open to them are consequently limited. Private benevolence has done
much to lessen their economic misfortune, and the government must
do more. Some French doctors believe that tobacco manufacturing and
matchmaking are adapted to the blind because of their well-known
delicacy of touch; many hospitals are giving them lessons in the art of
massage, for the same reason, believing that the blind man can qualify
for this employment in a few months. The work, however, is still in the
experimental stage. But the most progressive work in France has been
done in the municipal and government training schools in equipping the
maimed and crippled for work, and it is this of which this chapter will
treat.
The government institution of St. Maurice follows the lead of the
now famous L'École Joffre, which in turn learned much from a school
at Charleroi, maintained before the war for victims of industrial
accidents. L'École Joffre was the pioneer which has blazed the way for
the technical instruction of the wounded. It was founded under the
direction of the city of Lyons, with the mayor of the city, Edouard
Herriot, most active in the undertaking, and Maurice Barrès to spread
its fame with winged words. To house it, an old disused château in a
populous part of the city was put in order late in 1914, and early
in 1915 the men discharged from the hospital and pronounced suitable
for training entered upon their course of instruction. The first one
hundred cases received were restricted to those disabled but cured of
wounds, the partially paralyzed, and those recovered from amputation.
To direct the technical work, Monsieur Basèque, a professor in the
industrial-accident school at Charleroi, was chosen. The success of
the school was immediate, and by September another was opened in the
outskirts of the city to accommodate 80 men.
Naturally, at first, experiments were made, and the experience of
L'École Joffre is most valuable to us. Three schemes were inaugurated:
one, called _placement à domicile_, where an allowance was made the
man, who was to live in his own home while he entered a workshop to
learn a craft of some sort; another, _la mode de l'externat_, where
the man pupil lived at his home or in lodgings while attending classes
daily, receiving at the school at noon a canteen meal in order to save
the time which would otherwise be taken in going home; and a third, _le
régime de l'internat_, where he lived in the institution as a pupil
in a boarding school. Experience developed that this last method was
the only one which might be adopted with any assurance of success,
the others subjecting the men to possible discouragement, through the
jealousy shown by other shop workers, the necessarily slow progress,
the inequality of pay, the varying degrees of instruction, and
insufficient supervision. Canada too, after investigation, has found
that the men throughout their training must live at the school and be
under supervision, in order to avoid discouragement and the forming
of bad habits of idleness and alcoholism, and to insure continuity of
interest in their work.
The condition of entrance to L'École Joffre in Lyons is that the man
must be pronounced permanently unfit for military service. Next he
is examined to ascertain his fitness for industrial work, a matter
determined by his freedom from disease, his previous work, his general
education and ability, the employment preferred, and the occupations
open. Whenever possible, the man is kept in his former employment.
This principle is sound economically and psychologically, and must
be adhered to in our schools. The employments for which training is
given are bookkeeping, shorthand and typewriting, paper-stitching,
bookbinding, toymaking, shoemaking, woodworking and drafting,
tailoring, wood carving, gardening, and machine adjusting. Office work
offers special opportunity to the one-handed and the crippled, as
stenography and typewriting do to the blind. The course with commercial
subjects, it was found, had to be carefully restricted, for many
without sufficient education wished to take it up, and there was danger
of sending too many men into occupations already well supplied with
competent workers.
L'École Joffre is a municipal undertaking, a free school, the men
pupils paying no board or tuition. It is in a measure subsidized, for
the school receives from the Ministry of War a grant of 3 francs 50
centimes for each pupil for each day's attendance. The other funds to
support the school are provided in various ways--popular subscriptions
and grants by provincial organizations and other official bodies. As
for the men themselves, they do not, while in training, receive the
government pension of 1 franc 70 centimes a day, but the school makes
each man an allowance of 1 franc 25 centimes a day from its own funds,
so far as they permit of such liberality.
The work done by the city of Lyons has been followed in many
localities,--Bourges, Bordeaux, Marseille, Rouen, and others, in most
cases endowed by the municipalities. At Bourges additional classes are
held in silver-engraving, hair-dressing, and locksmith work.
In the similar school in Marseille, tinsmiths, foundry workers,
jewelers, and metal workers are trained. At Cluses, in 1915, seventy
partially disabled men were serving an apprenticeship in clock-making.
This is sitting work, but it demands the possession of one hand and at
least two fingers on the other, and an exceptionally good eye, so it is
not so generally taught as other trades. At Cluny a course of training
has been established for the former workmen who wish to become master
workmen and designers; that is, the school specializes in training
those whose ability is above the average.
It must be remembered that in French provinces there are many more hand
processes in use than in the United States. Joinery and carpentry,
for example, employ tools to make parts which in this country are
turned out in factories. The industrial difference is evident in some
of the photographs of the rehabilitated French workmen who are shown
ingeniously at work with artificial "hands and arms" on processes
for which there is no field here. Many French soldiers, too, find
employment in toy making, a real industry for France and Germany, but
one which is unlikely to be developed here to any extent. In America
we must fit our disabled men to tend machines, and not make the
blunder of preparing men for operations which are out of date in our
standardized machine industries. In a very moving little book, "Les
jeunes filles françaises et la guerre" (Jules Combarieu, Paris, 1916),
we read of a man who was employed in a joinery establishment after
suffering the amputation of both hands. His left arm was furnished
with a leather glove to which was adapted an ingenious instrument for
holding nails. His right arm was fitted with another glove arrangement
to which a hammer was attached. With the left he took the nails; and
with the right he pounded them into a piece of wood. Marvelous as
the achievement may be, in America this workman would belong to the
class for whom special relief workshops must be maintained. Work in
reëducation must naturally be adapted to the demands of the vicinity;
the French towns of Nancy, Clermont, and Montpellier have not the
industrial conditions of Pittsburgh, Worcester, or Birmingham.
In Paris the model government institution of St. Maurice contains both
a convalescent hospital and a training school for discharged patients.
It has the advantage over L'École Joffre of uniting hospital and
school, giving an opportunity of combining physical with industrial
reëducation. It is therefore possible to have at St. Maurice, under
the direction of Dr. Bourillon, physiotherapy by massage, electricity,
medical gymnastics, and mechanotherapy, which prepare the man for his
reëducation. Dr. Bourillon affirms that this preliminary medical care
reduces the effort which the patient must make to learn and exercise a
trade.
The French government also maintains at Paris the Laboratoire des
Recherches sur le Travail Professionel,--an establishment for the
scientific examination of wounded men, particularly to ascertain the
percentage of their disability in the labor market. The question of
how many disabled men are capable of reëducation is one not rigidly
determined. There are, of course, some hopeless cases which will have
to be entirely dependent on the government for their support, whether
by pension or other means under discussion. But the figures of Dr.
Jules Amar, director of this laboratory of industrial research, a man
who has devised mechanical apparatus for developing the capacities of
injured limbs, show that of the maimed cases which have come under his
observation at least 80 per cent are capable of vocational reëducation.
Of this proportion 45 per cent succeed in earning normal salaries after
a training including some specializing; 20 per cent are partially
restored to normal wage earning; while the remaining 15 per cent can
only obtain work in shops maintained especially for the disabled, such
as a toymaking studio. Of the reëducation of this 80 per cent Dr.
Amar says: "It is a question of science and method; it demands the
organization of training schools.... It unites medical and technical
knowledge to the end that artificial limbs shall be adapted to satisfy
physical and vocational capabilities. The proportion of men dependent
upon relief is then reduced; and one must endeavor, without ceasing, to
diminish it."[6]
The method in the Paris schools is scientific. "In the training
schools," he continues, "the object of the instruction is to
supplement the diminished physical capacity of the disabled man with
a greater knowledge of his trade, superior technical instruction, or
better vocational adjustment."
[6] Special Bulletin of Military Hospitals Commission, Canada, April,
1916.
The first responsibility falls on the medical examiner. To reëquip
the maimed physically, an indispensable prosthesis (an addition of an
artificial part to supply the missing member of the body) is made,
the _dynamical_ prosthesis--not the kind which _replaces_ the member,
but that which reëstablishes or repairs the _functions_. What the
wounded man needs is not an admirable imitation of the missing arm or
leg, ingenious and often fragile appliances, but a practical working
tool,--a socket into which a variety of tools can be fitted.
Next, in the laboratory of the school an analysis of the workman's
movements is made in relation to their regularity, direction, speed,
and according to the force they expend. The measure of the man's
physical incapacity is deduced from impressions gathered in this
analysis, and from it the method of training must be devised. Furnished
with his card of qualifications, the man passes from the hospital
laboratory to the workshop, where experts instruct him in theory and
practice. The first thing to determine is whether a man cannot perform
the operations of his former trade. In many cases a man imagines that
the disability caused by amputation of fingers, hand, or arm makes him
unfit for the work he did previous to the war. But where the school
is attached to a hospital and the man's disability can be accurately
known, the union of medical skill and technical instruction makes it
possible to restore him to usefulness with the minimum of effort and
waste.
Dr. Amar recommends for special relief work for the 15 per cent who
are not capable of any great degree of reëducation, shops which will
execute orders for easily manufactured articles, involving such
processes as light cooperage, stamping, plaiting, toymaking,--work such
as is offered at the shop in Rue de la Durance, Paris.
Another institution whose methods are similar to those employed at St.
Maurice and by Dr. Amar is the Anglo-Belgian Military Institute, at
Port Villez, Vernon, under the technical director Major Haccourt. It
accommodates over 800 men, and is self-supporting, the land where it is
situated having been originally covered with forests, the sale of which
financed the undertaking at first. Forty-three trades are taught here,
and a large farm is maintained on which horses wounded in war are cared
for and made useful. The workshops provide for commercial courses,
telegraphy, wall-paper designing, the manufacture of motor vehicles
and electrical machinery of all kinds, plumbing and tinsmithing,
rabbit and poultry farming, fur curing and dyeing, etc. The shops
make fuse boxes for munitions, and various army supplies. At Vernon
the men pupils are regarded as still in the Belgian army, receiving
military pay; they have no option as to entrance, since they are under
military discipline, but enter as soon as they are discharged from
the Anglo-Belgian hospital at Rouen. In this school the services of
the best professors in different trades are obtained without trouble,
for the director can requisition any man in the Belgian army for any
required purpose. Before the war Belgium had a large proportion of
highly trained workmen; and with compulsory reëducation and military
discipline the operation of this institution is much simplified.
In working out plans for reëducation in the United States we must
have in mind certain principles. There is the necessity of making our
training thorough. Our problem will be not to find employment for
the period of the war, during which there is a constant demand for
workers, but to train the disabled for an occupation in which they
can hold a place after the temporary shortage of labor created by the
war conditions is over. It is obvious that if the men are incompetent
and ill-prepared for their work, they will be weeded out as soon as
skilled men are available. Their work is barred from that demanding
manual strength; nor can it hope to belong to that highly specialized
kind which would demand an arduous and elaborate training. But there
is a wide range of semiskilled occupations where a handicapped man
can earn more than if he should enter after a long course of training
the highly skilled trade where he would meet the competition of the
physically normal.
There are at least three kinds of disabilities our schools will have to
deal with. First, there is the man who has lost his right arm. This man
must, whenever possible, be taught to use his left hand in his trade,
although it is sometimes easier to learn a new process than to change
right-hand to left-hand methods in the old operation. In carpentry,
turning, and machine trades, however, the one-armed man may continue to
be employed, and our vocational schools should incorporate courses in
left-hand training. Here also we find another need: there must be built
for the disabled _left-hand machines_.
Next there is the case of the man who must be instructed in an allied
trade because his former one is pronounced by medical examination and
the tests of mechanotherapy to be impossible. And last there is the
case of the man whose injury makes necessary the fitting of delicately
adjusted prosthesis and a course of expert training before he can
become a wage earner.
Our chief difficulty in our work of reëducation will be to secure the
right kind of teaching force, and it is clear that our government must
establish schools to train our technical instructors how to adapt their
knowledge of trade teaching to the kind of work demanded in giving
instruction to the physically disabled. The selection of the proper
type of teacher is vital to the success of any scheme of reëducation.
The ideal instructor must not only know his trade but be able to suit
his methods to the individual case so as to get the best response from
each man under his direction. At present it seems as if there would be
no way of training instructors except by sending chosen trade teachers
to St. Maurice to study the French methods, that they may return to
this country properly equipped to select and instruct others, until
such time as a government school of the right type is well established
in this country.
As for the schools themselves, they must be undertaken by the
government, even if additional hospitals and laboratories for research
are maintained by private benevolence and bequest, for there should
be no limit to the funds available for carrying on this work of the
economic rehabilitation of the men injured in the service of the
country, and it must keep pace with the progressive work in France and
elsewhere. Branch schools in municipalities may be organized under
government control and subsidized by federal money. Some of our trade
and vocational schools and their equipment may be taken over by the
government for this purpose. Our trade and technical schools must
also include courses in training teachers for this special work, the
course to be supplemented by a special preparation prescribed by the
government.
In Canada the Military Hospitals Commission has made a careful study of
the French and Anglo-Belgian treatment in the restoration of disabled
soldiers, and has equipped the Central Military Convalescent Hospital
at Toronto with the mechano-apparatus similar to that used in France
by Dr. Amar and Dr. Bourillon. Profiting by their observation of the
foreign hospital schools, they have determined to consider the men
in training as still in hospital and under military rule, for in
Europe there is absolute unanimity of opinion that the influence of
convalescent homes and benevolent support is bad, conducive to lax
discipline and idleness. Canada has agreed that the earning power
subsequently acquired by a pensioner in training will not lessen his
pension. To pass upon the cases eligible for reëducation, Canada has
a board of three: a member of the Provincial Advisory Committee, a
vocational officer, and a medical man, thus combining with technical
and medical aid advice in the industrial choice and placement of the
man pupil.
Realizing that reëducation is a new idea to most soldiers and, indeed,
to the public generally, Canada has put forth a propaganda of making
popular the training courses. A bulletin has been posted conspicuously
in public buildings and a printed card circulated bearing the same
information, "What Every Disabled Soldier Should Know." Aside from
encouragement and directions of where to obtain help, etc., we find the
following:
That his strength and earning capacity will be restored in the
highest degree possible.
That if his disability prevents him from returning to his old
work, he will receive free training for a new occupation.
That full consideration is given to his own capacity and
desires when a new occupation has to be chosen.
That neither his treatment nor his training nor his
transportation will cost him a cent.
That his maintenance and his family's will be paid for during
his training and for a month after.
That his home province has a special commission to assist him
in finding employment on discharge.
To further the publicity of the work in Canada, moving-picture films
have been prepared, systematically illustrating the treatment and
reëducation of wounded soldiers in England, France, and Canada, and
showing their progress up to the stage of final recovery. These films
have been shown in hundreds of theaters throughout the Dominion.
It is encouraging that occasionally in France and Canada the vocational
training in connection with hospitals places a man in a better position
financially than before. The following examples are given out by the
Canadian Military Hospitals Commission and are testimonials of the
possibilities of rehabilitation.
Letter received is from an ex-private in the 13th Battalion.
Before enlistment he was getting $12 a week as driver on a city
milk round. "I always had a liking for drawing," he says, "and I
felt that if I ever had the chance I would take up a course in
mechanical drawing." This opportunity came to him at one of the
commission's convalescent hospitals. After six weeks' application
to the work there, he was able to secure an appointment beginning
with $75 a month, with good prospects of advance.
A locomotive fireman had enlisted, was severely wounded, and
had to have his left arm amputated. Under the commission's scheme
of reëducation, which is offered to all men incapacitated for their
former work by service, he received special training in telegraphy
and railway routine. As a result he secured an appointment as
station agent and dispatcher at $110 a month.
In England the high sheriff of Lancashire has formulated a scheme for
listing the employments open to the disabled. First, the employer is
asked, whenever possible, to give the returned soldier his old job.
Next, certain employments are listed as being within the powers of
partially disabled men, and with the help of labor exchanges and of
other agencies, these are reserved for them.
It is for the economic interest of the State to make possible the
employment of the disabled. The amount of a pension is not the measure
of the cost of the pensioner. The nation cannot afford to let any human
power go to waste or lie idle. To reëquip the maimed is to make him
partly forget his infirmity,--an indispensable mental advantage. France
is now discussing whether reëducation of one form or another shall be
compulsory, as in the Anglo-Belgian hospital. "But obligatory or not,"
says A. L. Bittard,[7] "the industrial reëducation must be above all
a national work. We should regard it as a debt owed to the wounded
and as an effective preparation for the future of the nation.... The
State alone is capable of giving all the mutilated the maximum equality
of treatment, where private initiative would be totally incapable of
realizing the minimum."
[7] A. L. Bittard, Les Écoles de Blessés. Paris, 1916.
The war simply makes the question of reëducating and rehabilitating the
disabled a striking one. But we must not forget that the problem of the
injured is always with us. It may not be amiss to point out that 54,001
men and women were actually killed in the United States during the year
1913. This means one killed every ten minutes. Over 2,000,000 men and
women are injured in the industries in the United States each year.
This means one injured every sixteen seconds. The economic loss from
accidental deaths and injuries is nearly $500,000,000 annually, and the
loss from preventable accidents and diseases would more than pay the
cost of maintaining all the public schools in the United States. These
are appalling figures.
At present the great fear of every boy who goes to war and of every
sister and mother of such a boy is that he may go through life maimed
and dependent. But we never think of the ever-present danger to these
boys of being handicapped physically by merely going to work; and yet
there are more persons so disabled through accidents in industrial life
in normal times than are disabled by war.
When our boys come back from the war, physically disabled, and through
the government work in rehabilitation and reëducation are made
self-supporting and self-respecting members of society, we shall
begin to appreciate that we have been extremely negligent in the past
in limiting our efforts to help the crippled and blinded to the good
offices of charity and philanthropy. It is a public matter. It is a
problem of education. It is an opportunity for service for the teachers
of vocational training, for the experts in vocational guidance and
direction, for the directors of placement and employment bureaus, and
for the designers of special tools and machines for the handicapped.
It is an immediate problem in this time of war; it is even more
significant in time of peace.
CHAPTER X
FARM CADETS
We can afford only one fad in war time, and that fad is to
be farming. It will be useless for little William Corning Smith,
aged 12, of Kankakee, Illinois, to stick his little spade into
his back yard before his admiring parent. Individual, unorganized
work on land not properly prepared for agriculture may be worse
than useless; it may be wasteful. Random efforts not coördinated
in a general scheme for the utilization of school children in
large units will be foolish, misdirected effort. State, county,
and even national organization are required to make available this
latent power. Purely isolated effort will be fruitless, both as
aids to the nation and education for the child. Organized work
will bring the greater moral advantages of developing the power of
concentration along with the interest in national and community
service. It will evoke an esprit de corps which may be capitalized
for national use and shift the usual interest in gangs and
athletics, both normal and natural, to work which opens the way to
loyal industrial educational training.[8]
[8] Columbia University War Papers.
This was written by John Dewey early in the spring of 1917 in a message
addressed to the principals and teachers of America on how school
children may be so organized for farm service as to
Aid the nation;
Increase the food supply of the country in war time and during
a world-wide shortage of food;
Conscript the national enthusiasm for athletics to national
usefulness;
Assure a vigorous and healthy rising generation;
Reap the advantage of organized effort with its moral and
educational results;
Develop constructive patriotism.
As may be gathered, Dewey's idea was not only to organize the rural and
village children for farm work but also to send the city children into
the country in camps and tent colonies. He said further that the plan
was not a dream and that it could be done.
A friend in writing to me of his attempts in Massachusetts to make the
dream a reality said, "It is like nailing a jellyfish to a board."
Referring to the difficulty of obtaining competent boys, on the one
hand, and of convincing farmers of the value of city-boy labor, on the
other, he further stated that it was a difficult proposition to sell
something we did not have to somebody who did not want it.
Few, if any, of us knew very much of the experience, in this direction,
of England, France, and Germany. To be sure, we had heard that France
had attempted in a large way to use children at farm labor, but had
given it up and had replaced them with old men, women, and partially
crippled returned soldiers; and we knew that with the alarm of the
scarcity of labor and the diminishing number of the world's acres under
cultivation England and Germany had called upon women and boys below
military age to help meet the needs of the situation. But we in America
did not realize, to quote Dewey again, "that we could enlist the school
children in this work in such a manner that they could serve with
results as beneficial to themselves as to the nation."
Before considering in some detail the idea of using agricultural labor
of children in America (and it is a subject worthy of elaboration, for
even if the war closes to-morrow, we shall be short of farm labor for
many years--perhaps always), let us see what England and Germany have
done to utilize school children for farm work.
In England many of the boys of 14 to 16 in the public schools have
volunteered for vacation and holiday agricultural work in hoeing,
planting, and harvesting; some of this was gratuitous labor, these boys
coming from the prosperous classes and therefore being able to give
their services.
In July, 1916, the Education Board published a report showing the
number of children excused from attendance at school for the purpose
of agricultural employment in England and Wales on May 31, 1916. The
total number so excused was 15,753, of which number 546 were between
the ages of 11 and 12; 8018 between 12 and 13; 5521 between 13 and
14, and of the remaining 1668 cases the ages were between 12 and 14.
Figures quoted relate solely to agricultural employment and do not
show the full extent of withdrawals from school. They also relate to
withdrawals of children who are not qualified for total exemption under
the law. The report also states that "the board has no information as
to the number of children who have been excused from school attendance
for purposes of industrial employment or employment other than
agriculture."
Early in 1917 several of the county education committees formulated
plans for using the labor of children who were to be excused only
for holidays, special periods, and part times, the general sentiment
being, even in the emergency, that no more children must be permanently
excused for agricultural or industrial employment. These schemes are
worthy of attention as endeavors to retain children in school, at the
same time modifying the arrangement of the educational requirements to
allow them to perform farm and garden work.
The Education Committee for the Lindsay division of
Lincolnshire considered, at a meeting held on April 13, 1917, the
desirability of taking steps to secure that the school holidays
this year are fixed at such times as will enable the children to
be of most assistance to the farmers, and it was resolved that the
finance committee should be requested to consider the preparation
of a scheme enabling managers to amend the school time-tables in
such a way as will give the maximum of opportunity for the older
children to work on the land during the spring and summer.... They
further considered...that in view of the present emergency and
the need of additional labor, especially in agricultural work, the
board will give favorable considerations to proposals for extended
or additional holidays in rural areas under certain conditions.
Two schemes were presented, setting forth alternative methods
which managers might be authorized to adopt by which advantage
can be taken of the concessions of the board, as follows: (1) A
scheme to give a number up to eighty additional afternoons on
which the older children can be employed on the land, managers to
be informed that a school year of not less than 320 attendances
will be accepted as fulfilling the requirements of the board,
instead of a minimum of 400 as heretofore. On up to eighty days,
older children, above prescribed age, may be released at noon for
employment on the land, whilst the school will be open as usual for
the younger children, and their attendance recorded, though not
in the official register. (2) A scheme to allow up to eight weeks
extra during which the older children may be employed on the land,
managers to be informed of the number of attendances required as in
scheme one. Older children, above a prescribed age, who are to be
employed on the land, need not attend school for a period up to
eight weeks in addition to the ordinary holidays. The school will
be kept open as usual during such weeks for the younger children,
and those attending will have their attendance recorded, but not in
the official register. Under either scheme it will be necessary for
the managers to fix the period or periods for the year during which
the scheme would be in operation, and in some of the larger rural
schools it might be possible to release a teacher as well as the
older children.
At a meeting held on April 27 it was resolved to issue the
schemes to the managers, impressing upon them the fact that the one
object is to secure increased production of food.[9]
At Grimsby a committee was appointed to consider the employment of
children on gardens, allowing an acre plot to each school, and 25
children, under a teacher, to work in cultivating it. All these
children are required to attend school in the morning, and the consent
of their parents must be obtained by them before they are permitted to
begin afternoon work. Since, as in Lincolnshire, the aim of the work
is increased food production, the crops derived from the cultivation
of the land acquired by the town are to be divided among teachers and
scholars engaged in the work.
In Hull, also, the Educational Committee, besides encouraging work in
school gardens, has authorized the labor of schoolboys in cultivating
spare land in various places as a substitute for their usual manual
training in the school shops.
[9] London _Times_, Educational Supplement, May 17, 1917.
In Hertfordshire there are school gardens for the production of
potatoes, parsnips, beets, and onions, with school instruction in
gardening given the pupils. During the period for planting there
is a schedule of half-time attendance. In Bradford the successful
vegetable gardening is correlated with the school work in nature study,
composition, arithmetic, and drawing, and emphasis is placed on the
educational value of the productive work.
It is difficult for America to see the food crisis as do the nations
which are near the exhaustion point. While everyone must deplore the
wholesale excusing of children to work without supervision, we ought
to watch with interest all schemes which will increase production and
yet will keep younger children in school for full time and will permit
those older to work part time. This part-time work should be confined
to the years of 14 to 18, except possibly in the case of work in the
school garden, where younger children may labor for short periods.
The appeal of Neville Chamberlain, the Director-general of National
Service, in the spring of 1917, for volunteers from such boys as were
able to make the sacrifice, connects the need for agricultural labor
with the necessity for providing proper supervision of the boys. His
plan for utilizing the labor of English schoolboys has many features
similar to devices employed in Massachusetts, New York, and New Jersey.
It is well understood that an abundant supply of labor for
the land during the coming summer months is an urgent national
necessity. Many schemes have already been organized for the
employment of soldiers, women, and prisoners of war, but it
is desirable to form a reserve of labor so organized as to be
available at short notice. For this reserve I turn to the boys at
our public and other secondary schools. During the last two years
many of them have given valuable help in hoeing, harvesting, and
timber cutting, and at the present crisis I confidently hope that
all for whom it is possible will make their services available both
in summer holidays and, if necessary, during the coming term. I
have accepted the offer of the Cavendish Association to place at
my disposal their organization, which will act in conjunction with
a committee--representative of schools and masters--having its
headquarters at St. Ermin's, and working under the director of the
agricultural section of this department. Full particulars of the
arrangements and procedure will shortly be issued by the committee.
The main points are as follows:
(1) The age of the boys permitted to volunteer should not be
below 16 except in the cases where the school authorities consider
boys of 15 sufficiently strong to undertake the necessary work.
(2) The boys will be organized in squads of varying sizes, each in
charge of a master or other responsible person. (3) It is proposed
that during term time the period of continuous whole-time service
should not exceed two weeks. Every effort will be made to find work
for schoolboy volunteers in the neighborhood of the school, but if
the work lies at some distance from the school, railway fares will
be paid and careful provision will be made for board and lodging.
No boy will be expected to volunteer for service during term whose
school work is of immediate importance; for example, a boy who is
preparing for a scholarship examination. I recognize that this part
of the scheme may present some difficulties to all but the large
public schools, but I hope that some of the larger state-aided
secondary schools may be able to join in it. Before doing so,
however, they should communicate with the Board of Education.
(4) In the holidays they will work for not less than three or
four weeks, and it is hoped that, if necessary, they may have
leave of absence from school until the end of September. (5) The
whole working hours will be carefully proportioned to the average
strength of each squad, and the wages adjusted accordingly. If the
total sum earned does not meet the cost of living, the deficit will
under special conditions be made up.
I trust that when the call for boys' help comes, parents will
recognize its urgency and will not hesitate to allow their sons to
render this service for their country.
In Germany there has been a systematic contribution from schools to
agriculture since March, 1915. Authority was given to the respective
school officials to grant the necessary leave of absence to older
children for farm and garden cultivation. With the increasing need of
securing a sufficient supply of food for the nation, excuses of pupils
from school increased. An additional service of pupils was required
by an order issued on May 15, 1917, relative to combating fruit and
vegetable pests.
Looking forward to future scarcity, Germany, with the help of the
teaching staff and government leaflets, next enlisted school children
in the work of collecting field and forest edible products. Children
were engaged in the work of gleaning, and in the summer of 1915 the
gleanings amounted to approximately $50,000, the greater part of which
was turned over to the Red Cross as the children's contribution. In
the summer and autumn of 1915 the children aided, too, in gathering
fruits. During the following winter the schools gave instruction in the
substitution of fruit products for fat and proteid. These were pointed
lessons both in frugality and in public spirit.
Additional requirement of the children's services was made when the
continued scarcity of fats made it imperative to conserve acorns,
horse-chestnuts, and seeds containing oil, the gathering of which was
impossible without the aid of school children. An order of August
21, 1916, authorized the employment of children to take part in the
extraction from trees in the state forests of resin needed chiefly for
the paper industry; and in the same season children were called upon to
engage in the collection of kernels of cherries, plums, and apricots in
enormous quantities for oil extraction.
The school administrators and teachers of America knew little, if
anything, of the farm-placement ventures of European countries. But
they were told most emphatically in the spring of 1917 that the
military force was but one factor in national organization, and that
the ultimate decision as to victory might well be with the farmer.
So in American fashion we started at it; New Jersey with its "junior
industrial army," Massachusetts with its bronze-badged boy farmers, and
New York with its "farm cadets."
We all thought we were original, and perhaps we were; and yet it is
certainly not new for schoolboys to work outside the school session
when of proper age. Whether for the father or a neighborhood employer,
boys 14 and over have worked in stores and gardens, in summer hotels,
in offices, garages, and manufacturing plants. Nor is it unusual, for
that matter, to have the outside work coördinated with the school and
receiving due credit in the curriculum. The coöperative high-school
and vocational courses in many cities--Fitchburg, Beverly, Providence,
Hartford, Indianapolis, Chicago, and New York--are well known to those
who are familiar with the extension and coöperative efforts of our
vocational schools.
Furthermore we are familiar with the two types of camps: the
adult-labor and the recreation camp. The work camp is much the older,
dating back to the building of railroads and the opening of lumber
districts. In the past decade the recreation summer camps have become
a potent factor in secondary-school life, making a complement of the
school year's work by laying stress on the physical development of
outdoor woodland and country experiences. Some of these camps, while
primarily recreational, have had courses in manual training, college
preparation, arts and crafts, and languages, yet so clearly is their
play nature of chief importance that no one thinks of them as work
camps.
Now the farm-cadet movement involves the farm labor of the schoolboy,
who is sent out and credited for his work by his school and is added
to a camp life where in a squad of his fellow schoolboys he is looked
after by an appointed leader as if in a Y.M.C.A. camp. Thus we have,
out of familiar ingredients, a new compound, bringing into relation the
boy, the parent, the supervisor, the employer, and the school.
This agricultural movement in connection with the schools had its
inception at the Philadelphia meeting of the Eastern Arts and Manual
Training Teachers' Association early in 1917. At once three Eastern
states--Massachusetts, New Jersey, and New York--began to formulate
plans for its operation.[10] For it was not to be the simple expedient
of excusing boys from school to work on farms, as has been the practice
in many localities, but a plan whereby the boy was to be retained in
the school system, substituting in his course during a portion of the
year agricultural work for the academic and vocational studies of the
regular curriculum.
In analyzing the problem it was found that there were three types of
boys to be considered: (1) the boy in a farming district, who could be
employed on the farm of his father or a neighbor; (2) the boy in a town
near an agricultural center, who could be employed within a radius of
a few miles of his home and school; (3) the boy from a city, who would
have to be sent to distant farms and whose welfare would not be in the
charge of his school principal and parents. The case of the first boy
is very simple; the second is also easy of solution; but if the third
boy is to be used, there will need to be a carefully worked-out plan
for his placement, record of work, accommodations, and general welfare.
It is for the third boy that the camp must be established, where he
will be looked after by a responsible person who will see that he has
the proper tent, board, work, and sanitary arrangements.
[10] California and Indiana developed plans about the same time. Before
the first of July, 1917, the movement became quite general in America.
The plans of the different states for utilizing boy power, while
aiming toward the one desirable end of increasing our food production,
have differed widely in detail, owing to the variation in the
compulsory-attendance laws, to the latitude exercised in some states in
excusing boys prematurely, and to the varying degrees of investigation
of placement, record of work, and supervision. All states agree in
giving the boy who is excused for farm work credit in his school work.
Canada, too, excuses boys over 14 for farm work, allowing them full
school credit for three months' labor. While it may be urged that it is
not pedagogically sound to give credit in one subject for the work in
another, a way out of the difficulty might be found in a rearrangement
of the school year and vacations in districts where there is a large
percentage of excused boys; or special classes could be devised for
these boys when they return to school. In the large high schools
shorter intensive courses could be included in the program so that
the boy who was preparing for college would not lose his work in such
subjects as English, history, and mathematics. In the case of language
and science there must be a loss which it is difficult to repair. If
the present conditions persist, administrative ingenuity can solve the
question of work and credits. It is not one of the serious aspects of
the problem, provided always that there is no release of children below
the compulsory-attendance age.
In Massachusetts the work of mobilizing schoolboys for farm labor was
in charge of the state's Committee on Public Safety. Their principles
in acting were as follows:
Mobilize the schoolboys; keep those under 16 at home to work on
home, school, and community gardens; enlist the high-school boys
between 16 and 18, too young for military or naval service, but
old enough to render real service; move them where farm labor is
needed; make them understand that enlistment for farm service is in
all ways as patriotic as any other service for the nation's defense.
With the appointment of a subcommittee to formulate the detailed scheme
of placement and supervision, having Frank V. Thompson, Assistant
Superintendent of the Boston schools, as chairman, the plan for the
coöperation of schools with agriculture is, for boys 16 and over, as
follows:
1. (_a_) The farm-labor service is to be recognized by a bronze badge
containing the seal of the commonwealth and inscribed "The Nation's
Service" and "Food Production." (_b_) An honorable discharge, similar
to a discharge from the army, containing the signature of the governor,
will be issued to boys who successfully complete their service on
farms. (_c_) Tufts, Boston University, Massachusetts Institute of
Technology, and Massachusetts Agricultural College have agreed to
give a trial term or year to such candidates as present an honorable
discharge, without further entrance requirements, provided their school
work was satisfactory up to the time of leaving and the principal so
recommends.
2. The existing school organization is used to conduct the enterprise.
For each 25 boys enlisted a supervisor is appointed, a male teacher of
strong ability in the local school,--in towns where there are several
supervisors, either the superintendent of schools or the principal
of the high school. A general head supervisor in charge of the state
work has an office in the Statehouse. Each local head supervisor and
each supervisor of 25 boys receives the same sum ($100), the money
being obtained from a local contingent fund, from an additional
appropriation, or by subscription.
3. The minimum wage of the boys is fixed thus: first week, no wages,
but allowance of $2 for expenses etc.; thereafter (_a_) boy living on
farm, not less than $4 a week and board, (_b_) boy living at home, not
less than $6 a week. Six days constitute a week.
4. The enlistment card and the issuance of honorable discharge are
controlled by the general head supervisor (Committee on Public Safety).
5. The enrollment for the period of May 1 to October 1 is made by the
boy, with the parents' consent and the school physician's endorsement.
When the boy is enlisted, a numbered badge is lent to him, for which he
signs a receipt; it is to be returned in case of unsatisfactory conduct
or service. He receives full credit for the year's school work.
6. Inspection of the physical and moral conditions of the place of
employment, the choosing of the boys from enrollment lists, and seeing
that both boys and farmers are satisfied, are part of the work of the
appointed supervisors.
7. Camps for the boys, when local conditions require, are established
under the direction of the medical expert for the State Board of Labor
and Industries. An expert on camps has supervision of the work of the
executive committee in standardizing and inspecting camps and obtaining
the equipment, layout, and food supplies.
With the coöperation of farm bureaus thousands of circulars and
labor-contract forms were sent to Massachusetts farmers. By June 16,
1917, there were camps established at 18 points, and arrangements
completed to employ 500 to 600 boys from these camps. In addition there
were at least 500 other boys released from school to work on home
farms, or living in farmers' homes.
An interesting feature of the Massachusetts scheme was the working
out of camp plans by the drafting students in the Newton Technical
High School, with detailed equipment of dining tent with wooden-horse
tables; sleeping tent with double-deck bunk; latrine; cook shack; etc.
In its system for handling the supply of boy labor, the state requires
the farmer to sign a definite application blank for the amount of
boy labor which he requires. It is understood that while the boys
are enlisted for the entire period up to October 1, the farmer may
take those boys for long or short periods of not less than a week
in duration, to begin or end at any time, as the farmer's necessity
requires. This application made by the farmer is also an agreement to
pay the wages stipulated by the Committee on Public Safety and also
to employ the boy on rainy as well as fair days, using his services
on rainy days under cover if possible. Further agreement is made, in
case the boy is unsatisfactory, to give him one week's notice or one
week's pay, providing him with a statement in writing of the reason
for his discharge. Whenever, in the opinion of the local supervisor,
the conditions of living or of labor are not satisfactory, the boy may
be withdrawn without prejudice to him. These arrangements insure that
there shall be a coöperative responsibility of farmer and state in
caring for the boy.
In establishing the camps in Massachusetts the money to start the work
was chiefly supplied by individuals. In the case of the New Bedford
contingent in Coonamesett camp, on an estate of 11,000 acres, the
boys were housed in militia tents, lent by the state,--two boys to
a tent. For their tent furnishings the boys supplied whatever they
needed. A mess house--a rough board building 75 feet long by 17 feet
wide, providing eating quarters for the boys and at one end a cook
room--was in part erected by the New Bedford Industrial School boys,
working under the direction of an experienced carpenter. The laying of
the 2500 feet of pipe to carry water to the camp was also the work of
the same school. The catering for the boys was under the direction of
an experienced woman and two Japanese cooks. In the morning the boys
started for the various farms, those at a distance being called for by
an auto truck. In this camp, for an eight-hour day and a six-day week
each boy received a maximum wage of $4 a week and board, the weekly
payment in charge of the supervisor. The camp was fortunate in having
as its directors the city superintendent of schools and a physical
instructor, the latter living in the camp.
In New York the placing of boys on farms has been the joint work of the
Food Supply Commission, the State Education Department, and the State
Military Training Commission. While younger boys have been released
for agricultural work by other agencies, the state placement by the
commission is concerned only with the boys of military training age--16
to 19. One of the first actions of the latter commission was to divide
the state into 6 military-training zones: New York City (including
Manhattan, Bronx, and Richmond); Long Island, including Brooklyn;
Hudson Valley, with center at Albany; East Central, at Syracuse; West
Central, at Rochester; and Western, at Buffalo. Next, a description
was obtained of the character of the work in each zone. For example,
the Hudson Valley Zone as far as Albany requires labor in harvesting
small fruits and general farm work, while the West Central Zone work
is that of muck farming, large-fruit farming, and general farming.
Each zone center has its individual office through which placements are
made. Meetings were held the latter part of April by zone supervisors
and farm-bureau managers, and attended by farmers' and fruit growers'
associations who stated what they needed and what they would contribute
in wages and housing for boy workers.
The inducements for enlisting offered by the state to boys released
from school work were the chevron given by the Military Training
Commission, to be awarded after thirty days' satisfactory work; the
military-training-equivalent value of the service; and the promise of
proper pay and care by the employer. As to credits, so important in
the New York system, farm cadets were permitted to take the Regents'
examinations though the course lacked a few weeks of completion,
the time requirement being waived in their case. Any pupil in the
schools of the state who enlisted for military service (this applied
to the colleges) or who rendered satisfactory agricultural service
was credited with the work of the term without examination, on the
certificate of the school that his work up to the time of enlistment
was satisfactory.
New York is an agricultural state, with a great variety of kinds of
farming and many districts remote from centers of the supply of labor.
The agricultural census, to which reference was made in Chapter II,
supplied data for determining the districts where and when labor was
most needed and where schoolboys could be most useful. For example,
in Orleans County, in the Western Zone, the demand varied from 163
laborers needed early in May to 1521 needed in October, an indication
that there was really more reason for excusing boys in October than in
May for work in peach- and apple-harvesting districts.[11] Conspicuous
among the types of New York farms where labor was sought were the great
fruit farms, such as the Sodus Fruit Farm, with a house on the shore
of Lake Ontario able to accommodate 100 boys, where it was planned
to harvest the entire peach and apple crop with schoolboy labor; the
vast tracts owned by the canning companies, with thousands of acres
of tomatoes, beans, and corn under cultivation; and the farms such
as those in the South Lima district, where there was muck farming
and where the work included the cultivating, sorting, and packing of
onions, lettuce, celery, and spinach. Calls were sometimes made upon
the state for as many as 1500 boys to assist in harvesting. It was
therefore necessary for the state to work on a large and definitely
planned scale.
[11] The following statistics for Orleans County show how agricultural
help is needed, as indicated by the census taken by school children:
May 10-20 163 Aug. 21-31 573 May 21-31 165 Sept. 1-10 1157 June 1-10
227 Sept. 11-20 1308 June 11-20 257 Sept. 21-30 1317 June 21-30 271
Oct. 1-10 1521 July 1-10 518 Oct. 11-20 1500 July 11-20 526 Oct. 21-30
1435 July 21-31 523 Nov. 1-10 38 Aug. 1-10 486 Nov. 11-20 13 Aug. 11-20
554 Nov. 20-30 1
Naturally the first boys to be placed were those residing in or
near farming districts. When, however, the supply of these boys was
exhausted, the call came, even from remote districts, for city boys.
In these cases the problem of transportation becomes serious, as well
as the housing and care of the boy in the new environment, where
association with other help is apt to be harmful.
The following description of a New York State camp is offered not
only because it has proved to be highly successful but also because
it affords an excellent illustration of the "farm-working, or
labor-distributing, camp," which is defined in the chapter following.
It was called The Erasmus Hall High School (New York City) Potato
Growers' Association, and was organized by F. A. Rexford, a teacher who
is much interested in agriculture and in boys.
[Illustration: Working and living in the berry fields. One of
twenty-five camps in the Highlands of New York State.]
[Illustration: Agriculture on a Western basis brings lessons in
organization, coöperation, and economy to Eastern boys. City boys
working on a large farm near Phoenixville, Pennsylvania.]
[Illustration: Employing able-bodied boys of city high schools for
farm production may become permanent. It may lead to the development
of country annexes to our city schools. Camp near Phoenixville,
Pennsylvania.]
The object of the association, which was formed in the school, was
originally fourfold: (1) to teach the farmer that the alert city boy
can and will perform agricultural tasks; (2) to increase the food
supply; (3) to relieve the help situation by organizing a group of boys
to work by the hour or day, and to recruit boys to work by the month
for individual farmers under supervision; (4) to fit boys for military
service if needed.
Ten boys from the school left New York on May 5, each armed with the
money necessary to pay such expenses as carfare, food, laundry, rent
of an acre of land, seed potatoes, phosphate, team hire, and spraying
materials. They went to Mr. Rexford's farm, located up-state. The _New
York Tribune_ contributed some money, and one of the teachers in the
school advanced $60 for the boys to grow potatoes for him. Some frail
boys, whose parents wanted them to go for their health, were refused.
At first the farmers were skeptical. The boys, however, went to work on
the land which they had rented from Rexford. In a week they began to
attract attention and farmers began to hire them. Rexford knew some of
these farmers by reputation. He believed that men who cannot keep their
own boys at home cannot succeed with boys from the city. He was in the
habit of having a straight talk with the employing farmers, telling
them that the boys must be treated squarely.
A large milk-distributing corporation offered to take every one of his
boys, but he argued that it could afford to hire men and did not need
boys, as did the farmers who could not obtain other help. It is evident
that large farmers have capital and backing, while it is the individual
farmer struggling with hard conditions who must have help.
Most of the boys who are with farmers by the month come back to the
main camp every Sunday morning for physical examination, general
assembly, and to go to church. This coming back to the camp keeps
before them the idea of a camp for farm cadets. They return to their
work Sunday night. For those boys who go out by the week the teacher
makes an arrangement whereby the farmer brings them back to the camp on
Saturday night and comes for them the following night.
The people in the community in which the camp is located have
established a nonsectarian church in an old cheese factory which has
been purchased for $200. Occasionally a minister from a near-by town
comes and speaks.
The camp has a professional cook, who was obtained from a college
fraternity, and the boys pay pro rata. The first expense was about
$2.50 a week for each boy, but prosperity has provided means for the
boys to spend more.
All vegetables which the boys raised and which they did not use on
the table were canned by the cook and Mrs. Rexford, and they will be
used in the early part of next year, before the fresh vegetables are
available.
Local store men have coöperated in giving the lowest prices, feeling
that otherwise the trade of the camp would go to the city, and
therefore choosing the opportunity of large business with aggregate
large receipts on small profit.
Breakfast consists of fruit, cereal or eggs, and milk, cocoa, or
postum, and sometimes corn bread or griddle cakes. The boys carry a
cold lunch with them, consisting of a pail of cold cocoa; four good
thick sandwiches of peanut butter, meat, or jam; a piece of frosted
cake; and a banana. Sometimes they take a pot of jam, which is disposed
of by the group. For dinner they have a roast or steak; potatoes and
other ordinary vegetables (beans, peas, lettuce, carrots); shortcake or
pie or pudding; cocoa, postum, or milk.
The boys take care of their own beds, wash the dishes, and keep the
place clean.
They have a study hour every evening from eight until nine, and the
same is true of the boys placed out with farmers. One boy, going
to Princeton in the fall, kept up his studies and took the Regents'
examinations at the country school, passing them with as good a mark as
he would have obtained at his home school.
After drill on Sunday morning the boys at camp have a baseball game.
They have had entertainments for the benefit of the Red Cross. In the
group at camp are the gold-medal orator of the school, two excellent
pianists, four mandolin players, and a whistler. All the boys are good
singers.
Rexford's application blank asked for the weight, age, previous
experience in farming, church preference, and habits as to smoking.
The teacher had the coöperation of the farm bureau. The farmers wrote
to the bureau for help; Mr. Rexford and the farm-bureau manager went
to each farmer, looked over the situation, and if everything was
satisfactory, furnished the workers. Mr. Rexford will not leave boys
on any farm without proper supervision. He visits the boys once every
week, neither the farmer nor the boy knowing when he is coming.
At first no wage scale was set, the arrangement being that the farmer
should pay what the boy was worth. If he was worth nothing, then it
was all right, and the boy ought to be the first one to know it.
However, most of the boys started at 20 cents an hour; soon this was
raised to 25 cents, and now the pay is 30 cents.
Most of the farmers in the vicinity had never done any spraying. They
now apply to Mr. Rexford when they want such work done and he sends out
two boys and horses and his own spraying outfit. The work is done at a
cost to the farmer of about 70 cents per acre for spraying potatoes,
in addition to the material; that is, 25 cents per acre for each boy's
work and 20 cents expense on the spraying outfit, for nozzles etc.
There was no illness among the boys during the summer, not even colds.
Sometimes the boys got wet through, but came home, took a dip in a hole
in the creek, and followed it by a good rub.
Meanwhile quite a number of New York City men teachers under the
leadership of two camp supervisors, H. W. Millspaugh and H. J.
McCreary, and acting under the authority of the Board of Education,
started out "to sell something they did not have to somebody who did
not want it." But these men had the courage of their convictions and
the results of their work (over twenty camps in two counties) give
ample evidence of the success of their venture.
Imagine the surprise of the fruit growers of the counties named when
they received the following circular letter:
It is proposed to bring a large number of boys from the high
schools of New York City to pick fruit in the fruit belt of Orange
and Ulster counties. In carrying out this plan it will be necessary
to have the full coöperation of fruit growers, school authorities,
parents, health authorities, and others. The part of the fruit
grower will be roughly as follows:
He will provide housing facilities, stove, fuel, refrigeration,
either by ice box, cellar, or spring, convenient water supply,
toilet facilities satisfactory to the board of health, straw for
mattresses, cooking utensils, working conditions that will enable
the average boy to earn a respectable wage, and a sympathetic
attitude toward the comfort and health of the boys.
Each boy will provide his carfare to and from the fruit
section, provide his own knife, fork, cup, plate, spoon, wash
basin, tick for mattress, pillow, blankets, etc., and pay for his
food and cooking. Boys will mess in groups of 12 to 25 or even
more. Each group will have a capable boy cook and in camps of
over 20, two boys. The first boy will receive $4 a week besides
his meals, the second boy $2.50 a week and may earn some more by
picking fruit. A teacher supervisor will supervise one large or
two or three small camps and advise as to preparation of food, buy
supplies, and act as camp director.
Regarding cooking outfit to be supplied by the fruit grower,
it may be said that all except stove and ice box can be purchased
new for about $10. It is desirable that these be ordered by the
camp director, who will judge the size and kind and take advantage
of wholesale rates. An oil stove and oven is recommended unless
a suitable stove is on hand. Inexperienced boy cooks cannot be
expected to satisfy a score or more of hungry boys with equipment
discarded by the skilled housewife.
It is further understood that these boys will not work on
Sunday nor will they be located on farms where farm help is not
treated with consideration.
An illustration of a "concentration and training camp" is that
established by the state of Maine. This state, in coöperation with
the state Young Men's Christian Association, developed a state camp
for the purpose of enlisting and training boys and young men to
supply the extra demand for farm labor made necessary through the
increased-acreage propaganda. The boys were organized under the title
of "The Junior Volunteers of Maine." They were virtually farm soldiers
of the state, and were sworn to obey all rules of the camp before and
after leaving it for the farms on which they were placed.
The boys are sent out in squads to work in different sections of the
state, as opportunity may offer, under the direction of competent adult
leaders. These leaders have full charge of the boys until they return
to the mobilization camp.
When a boy comes to the camp he is examined for his moral and physical
qualifications, and then is assigned to a company and to a tent. The
adjutant general provides necessary tents, uniforms, and camp utensils.
The boy is instructed with others in the squad how to pitch a tent and
pack camp utensils, and he is also given lessons in sanitation and
the elements of military drill. He has a lecture every day given by
a professor of the state agricultural college. He also works on the
Y.M.C.A. farm, which is being used for this purpose, and is taught the
use of machinery, and how to manage and care for horses, sharpen tools,
and milk cows.
It is not claimed that a week of this sort of training makes the boy
a finished farmer, but it does go a long way in that preliminary
education so essential to farm-mindedness. By the time the boy gets to
the farmer he is in excellent shape to understand the orders of his
employer. In the words of the director of the camp, "He is ready to
begin actual service as a trained novice."
Before the boy is admitted to the camp a searching examination is made
into his character and antecedents, and some responsible person must
answer certain confidential questions relative to the boy's physical,
mental, and social habits.
After the boy is admitted to the camp he takes an oath in which he
states that he will serve as a junior volunteer for farm service in
Maine until the last day of October, unless sooner released by the
governor of the state of Maine.
A charge is made on the farmer of $1 a day for each of the six working
days, and it is expected that if the boys show themselves worthy of
more, the farmer will recognize this and make a satisfactory adjustment
with the leader. In addition to the minimum charge of $1 a day the
farmer is required to furnish board. As a rule, however, the boys sleep
in near-by tents with their leaders. The farmer is not required to pay
transportation or other charges.
The farmer's agreement is with the state and not with the boy, as the
scheme works on the basis that the young men have been engaged by the
state for farm service and as employees of the state receive their pay
through the regular state channels.
On the first of July more than 450 boys had been trained and sent out
to various points in the state.
The following letter from the director-general of the camp gives in a
word his experience with these boys:
We feel that this movement can be justified from any one of
a half-dozen standpoints. We are taking city boys and in a few
weeks giving them a few carefully selected fundamental principles
relating to practical farm activities, which has enabled them to
go out to the farms under our leaders and give satisfaction. We
have not had a single complete failure yet. Only 3 boys out of 600
employed for the season have been changed because they could not
fill the requirements. The way these city boys have taken hold
of farm work has been wonderfully gratifying. In connection with
this training, we are conducting our camp along lines similar to
camps of National Guardsmen. The whole organization is nearly
identical with the regular army camps. While the training is not so
extensive, the boys are given the fundamentals in correct form. The
spirit and general training at the camp will be of great value if
any of these boys are ever called into the service.
Another important possibility, and from my experience with
city boys, a probability, is that some of these boys will become
sufficiently interested in agriculture to choose it as a vocation,
while others will choose it later in life as an avocation, because
of this experience.
Another mobilization camp of the "labor-distribution" type, with some
training features, was that of the Long Island Food Reserve Battalion.
This organization was initiated by the Nassau County Y.M.C.A. and
supported financially and morally by the Long Island Railroad, the
state agricultural school at Farmingdale, and by local residents. A
detailed description is unnecessary. There were 6 camps under this
organization scattered over the island, in each camp 48 boys under a
supervisor, a military instructor, and squad leaders (1 squad leader to
approximately every 7 boys). The last camp was developed at the state
school of agriculture with a group of 96 boys working in two shifts,
one beginning at 6 A.M. and stopping at 12 noon; the other beginning
at 12 noon and stopping at 6 P.M. A regular course of agricultural
instruction was carried on at all the camps. Lectures have been given
in entomology, farm chemistry, and marketing. During the first month
of the first camp it was difficult to place the boys. The idea was not
well received by the farmers, who claimed that the presence of boys
would "demoralize" their regular help, and that the boys would not
recognize the different vegetables and would hoe out corn as quickly as
they would pigweed. (One boy in a New York State camp did carefully hoe
out and pull up every corn plant for a half-day, leaving weeds.)
During the height of the season these same farmers were driving to
the camps and offering from $2 to $2.50 a day for the same boys that
they had laughed at hiring for $1.25 a day at the beginning of the
installation of the camps.
The "flying-squadron" idea is unique. An auto truck, with a trailer for
tentage and supplies, is always ready to respond with its load of boys
to an emergency call to save some particular crop. The group composing
this squadron is made up of "hand-picked" boys who are qualifying for
squad-leader positions.
An example of a camp which was conducted in such a manner that the boys
lost the minimum of school work is that of the Bushwick (Brooklyn, New
York), High School "Camp Squire" near Hicksville, Long Island. The
organization of this camp is interesting, not so much because it was
established with the purpose of making it self-supporting, but rather
because it provided definite opportunities for continuing with school
studies. The initial amount of about $175 was subscribed by teachers,
and the tent and mess house, intended formerly for harvesters, was
lent by the farmer on whose grounds the camp was placed. The leader
of this camp, a teacher in the same school from which the boys were
recruited, planned, after the schools opened in September, a day of
work and study, coaching the boys in their school subjects, so that
with at least three hours of study per day the boys were enabled to
keep up with their classes while at work harvesting until the middle
of October. In this, as in other successful camps, the boys formed
a unit organization before going to camp, and had the advantage of
a sympathetic instructor of academic and agricultural experience to
enforce voluntary school discipline. The boys were paid 20 to 25
cents an hour, working for neighboring farmers from 7 A.M. to 3 P.M.
The rest of the day was divided into silent study, consultation, and
recreation hours. It is expected that this camp, which will doubtless
be permanent, will become self-supporting in its second or third year
and the initial outlay will be returned.
The farm-camp idea is here to stay. Of that we are sure. The purely
recreational camp is a thing of the past. The days of the purely work
camp of ten to twelve hours a day ought to be over. Work, play, and
study in the future will be brought together in the summer time as
effectively as during the so-called "regular" season. Next year, and in
the years after, we shall organize this work around some educational
ideal and not merely around a necessity for food-production. The two
are by no means incompatible.
This year we have learned "how not to do it," as one camp leader put
it. In some instances the boys went home with less money than they
had at the start. In brief they paid the farmer for the privilege of
picking berries. Particularly in berry picking there was much piece
work, and such may carry with it nearly all the evils that it does
in the factory. Mr. Keller, a thoughtful leader of a New York camp,
says in this connection: "Judging the fair wage from the earnings of
the expert is manifestly unfair. It means that the average boy must be
speeded up beyond his point of endurance, or that he must receive less
than a living wage. The possibilities of speeding up are limited, and
so the alternative is longer hours."
Furthermore it is necessary for the government, state or national,
to take a hand in the distribution and the sale of farm products. It
made me sick at heart, on a trip of inspection to 25 camps, to see
hundreds of boys at work picking berries under the hot sun in a service
supposedly patriotic, and then to see the same berries, which had been
sold by the growers at a price not much above that of other years,
resold to the consumer at double the price of other years,--and always
with the remark: "You know labor is scarce this year, and the farmers
cannot get help." The result of it all has been that the consumer, for
whom the work was done, has been disregarded.
From the point of view of social reconstruction, education, food
production, and conservation only the surface has been scratched. The
state must take the initiative, assuring the consumer a moderate price
for the product, and the farmer, the dealer, and the boy a fair return
for their service.
The boy is not merely a labor unit in the conservation of food. He is
the essential feature of an educational program. The experience of
the past summer proves that with centralization, organization, and an
educational vision as fundamental sub-divisions of a far-sighted state
policy the placing of boy labor on farms could become a valuable and
permanent by-product of the war.
CHAPTER XI
THE ORGANIZATION OF A CADET CAMP
In organizing camps for supplying cadet labor it is well to keep
in mind that they are to be established on the basis of a business
proposition; that they are not primarily play camps or recreational
camps; that they are not to be located on a river or lake because there
happens to be a good place for boys to swim, if there are not paying
jobs near that river or lake on which the boys may work; that they are
not to be established at random without reference to the continuity
of work during the season, or without any real knowledge of the local
demand for labor.
Out of considerable experience during the past year it has been
discovered that there are three great elements: first, the boy; second,
the farmer; and third, the job. In addition there are the elements of
leadership, of housing, and of cooking. Of course there must also be
considered the elements of recreation, religious observances, and the
general social life of the camp.
With reference to the boy it would seem that he ought to be one of a
group which belongs to a public-school system, or to an institution,
or to some society or organization which is ready to coöperate in
placing him in a farm camp. We are hardly prepared as yet to take
individual boys, unassociated with any organization, and bring them
together in a camp where the lack of unity will give the leader little
hold. A number of boys from New York City were picked up at random and
sent out to a distant place up-state under the direction of a leader
who had never seen them before. The boys had not met one another until
they were put on a train in New York. Not coming from any single school
or organization, they felt no particular responsibility to anyone. All
they knew about the proposition was that they were to go to a certain
place, where they would be met by someone who was to conduct them to a
camp. They were undisciplined and later proved to be unmanageable. At
the very start the plan lacked that coördinating influence which would
have existed if the leader had been a teacher in a school from which
these boys had come as one group, or if a Y.M.C.A. boys' secretary had
organized a group from his association. Of course, some day a way may
be found to bring together a group of boys independent of previous
association and place them in a new environment in about the same way
that adult labor is gathered up in the streets of New York and shipped
by employment agencies to some distant point. But boys are not men.
The responsibility of sending a more or less irresponsible youth to a
distant point by the same methods that are used by employment agencies
in sending men is too great for any state or community to undertake.
It is generally understood that the best boys for farm work are
those who are over 16 years of age. This is true, of course, of boys
who engage in general farm work, such as plowing, milking, horse
cultivating, haying, and harvesting grains and potatoes. Many such boys
were placed in the dairying and general-farming regions of New York
State. These boys, in most cases, lived with the individual farmer and
were paid by the month. But it has been found from experience that the
14-year-old boy is often better adapted to certain types of farm work
than is the older boy. For example, the young boy, with his adolescent
enthusiasm, his nimbler fingers, and his general physical alertness,
is more desirable for picking small fruits, such as strawberries,
currants, raspberries, blackberries, gooseberries, and cherries. _The
14-year-old boy must, however, work on a different basis from the one
who is over 16._
It is necessary for the boys to pass a physical examination, because
no state authorities care to assume the responsibility of taking the
physically unfit. It is taken for granted that the boy is to fit into
the organization of the camp as a business proposition and that he is
to stick to his work, pay his share of the cost of the food and its
preparation, respond to leadership, and in every way do his part toward
promoting the general efficiency of the camp.
The enlistment blank used by the New York State Military Training
Commission is shown on page 276.
The farmer is as important an element as the boy; yes, even more
important, for the boy gradually loses his individuality in the camp
conscience. The individual farmer remains an individual. He has his
notions of what boys can do; he compares the work of the inexperienced
boy with the adult foreign labor which he has previously employed.
The latter has, until very recently, been available. Women with their
children came to his farm and picked the small fruits without much
regard to the length of the day's work or to living conditions, and, of
course, without any reference to the social life of the community. This
labor went out as it came in. If it did not like the job because the
pay was insufficient, it demanded higher wages and got them or left the
job and moved on to the next one.
+---------------------------------------------------------------------+
| NEW YORK STATE MILITARY TRAINING COMMISSION |
| BUREAU OF VOCATIONAL TRAINING |
| ENLISTMENT AS FARM CADET |
| |
|Name________________________________________________________________ |
|Residence_____________________________________________________Street |
|Age________yr. Height________ft.________in. Weight________lb. |
|Place of enlistment_________________________________________________ |
| (Name of institution, club, or association) |
+=====================================================================+
|I desire to enlist for farm work |Kind of work desired; as |
|and will report for service: |picking fruit, vegetable gardening,|
| |general farming, etc. |
+---------------------------------+-----------------------------------+
|From mo.___day___to mo.___day___ | |
|From mo.___day___to mo.___day___ | |
+---------------------------------+-----------------------------------+
|Can you drive a team?______________Can you milk?____________________ |
|Can you drive an automobile?________________________________________ |
|State briefly any other farm experience you have had. |
|_____________________________________________________________________|
|I have examined the applicant and do assert that he is physically |
|fit to do farm work. |
| ____________________________________ |
| (Physician's signature) |
+---------------------------------------------------------------------+
|I permit_________________________________)to enlist for farm work as |
|stated above________________________________________________________ |
| (Parent or guardian) |
+---------------------------------------------------------------------+
It did not mind shacks which lodged vermin. It was not particular about
sanitary conveniences; it was not particular about anything except
wages. In shifting from adult foreign labor to boy labor, the farmer
was obliged to readjust his mental attitude. Not only that, but he
often had to readjust the physical, economic, and social conditions on
his farm.
In April, at the time the New York agricultural census was taken, the
farmer said that he needed labor. He even said he would take boy labor,
but when it came actually to engaging such labor, he was inclined
to ridicule the idea. Untrained city boys were not in great demand
in May, but when the foreign labor did not appear on the scene and
strawberries were ripening on the vines, the farmer suddenly discovered
that he could use the untrained city boy. But he had expected the boys
not only to work as many hours but also to pick as carefully and as
much as adults. He expected the boys to work at the same price as had
foreigners for years past, regardless of the advance in price of food
and the standards of living. Of course he was disappointed, and this
is where the leader of the camp, through his authority, represents the
interests of the boys and the newer conditions of farm labor which have
come out of the employment of boys.
An instance of what happened in Highland, New York, will illustrate the
power of leadership on the part of a camp leader and the coöperative
instinct of a group of city boys who have considerable familiarity with
the principles of strikes, lockouts, picket duty, and street-corner
oratory. The boys were being paid one and one-half cents a quart for
currant picking. In years past this had been the usual rate. They
could, on the average, pick about 40 quarts a day, which brought them
$3.60 a week, assuming that they worked for six days in the week
and there was no rain or other interruptions. Meanwhile each boy's
proportion of the board at camp amounted to about $3.50 a week. At
this point a combination of training in school debating, listening
to speeches of industrial disturbers, and a knowledge of trade-union
methods came into play, for these boys gathered together and determined
to demand two cents a quart. They held a meeting and voted to strike
for two cents. They marched around the berry-storage houses, each
wearing an empty berry basket as a cap, on which was marked "two cents"
and which was decorated more or less artistically with bunches of
currants. A meeting of all farmers of the district was called by the
general camp supervisor of the district. The boys had presented their
arguments to the individual camp leaders, and in turn the supervisor
presented them to the farmers. The farmers, in turn, presented their
difficulties. They said they could not afford to pay more; talked about
middlemen, commission-men, express rates, greater cost of baskets and
crates, mortgage on the farm, and everything, in fact, except the
federal income tax. But the boys won out, and the meeting resulted in
a new price never before paid for picking currants. And the boys who,
up to then, had been able to pick only 40 quarts a day, were able to
gather many more after the advance in rate, picking 60 quarts a day
instead of 40 quarts. There are people who can read into this short
story an economic principle.
It is absolutely necessary to have a clear understanding between the
boy-camp group, through its leader or the organization sending the
camp, and the individual farmer or the group of farmers employing the
boys, as to fundamental points of remuneration, type of work expected,
length and permanency of service.
The boy-camp-group problem is wholly different from the problem
of the individual boy who works for an individual farmer and has
no established relations with any camp. The latter is a contract
relationship between the boy and the farmer. The farmer usually hires
the boy by the month for general farm work, and the duties incident to
such a job are familiar to everyone. The hours may be long or short,
the work hard or easy, the food good or bad, the boy's room clean or
unsanitary; but there is nothing unusual in this problem.
The one which is discussed here is that of the labor camp, where a
group of boys are projected into a strange community to work at a job
unfamiliar to the majority of them,--working for a farmer or a group
of farmers who have never before employed such a type of labor. Any
single employer of farm labor who is in a position to employ a group of
boys may be assumed either to be conducting a large farm on which there
is a great diversity of crops extending over a wide range of time of
harvesting, or to be a specializing farmer working in an intensive way
on a comparatively small area with special crops which are harvested in
short periods of time. Perhaps it may be better to think of three types
of jobs, or rather, three types of employers who have jobs to be filled
by groups of boys.
First, there is the individual farmer who is a specialist. Such
employers grow berries and other small fruits. Here the boys get very
little farm experience. They do obtain an idea of country life, and
they have excellent camp experience, but in order to learn much about
the fruit and berry business they ought to be on the farm during the
time of spraying, pruning, and fertilizing. In reality these boys are
but factory hands under farm conditions. Of course this type of work is
extremely well adapted to the inexperienced boy.
Second, there is the type of employer represented by the vegetable
grower. In this case it is readily seen that crops are put into the
ground as early as April, and seeding may continue until the fifteenth
of August, and with weeding, thinning, and cultivating, the work may
continue practically throughout the season. The harvesting of certain
crops may start late in June and continue until the ground freezes. In
this work the boys obtain the very best sort of farm experience outside
of that obtained from general farm work. The work which they do is
diversified, and they learn about many farm operations.
Third, another type of employer is the business organization made up of
farmers; as, for example, the shippers' or growers' association, where
a group of farmers unite under a more or less compact organization for
the purpose of raising and moving crops. Another illustration--somewhat
different for the reason that the organization is not made up of
farmers, but rather is allied with farmers--is that of a canning
company. In working for such a type of employer the boy may or may not
gain considerable agricultural experience, depending entirely upon
whether he is working on diversified crops for long periods of time or
doing specialized harvesting. It is necessary to keep in mind these
different types of work as represented by different types of employers.
It is clear that in some sections, under certain agricultural
conditions already described, the job might be guaranteed a group of
boys from the middle of April until the first of November, with almost
steady work for six days in the week. The nature of crops and weather
conditions determine continuity of work. A heavy rain means a good deal
of cultivating and weeding immediately afterward in order to conserve
the moisture. A light rain means that the boys can work for part of
the day in the fields, while in the case of small-fruit farming even
a slight rain prevents the picking of the fruit. Again, in vegetable
farming a boy may work all day if the fields are not too hot, without
any injury to his health or to the crops, because the vegetable plants
cannot be injured by handling, no matter how hot it is.
In the case of the specialized farmer, there is little or no guarantee
for work beyond a short and definite period; that is, the period is
necessarily short, but whether or not it is definite depends a great
deal upon the weather and prices of crops. It is obvious that an
abundant crop might cause a low market price,--a price too low to pay
for picking,--and employers who early in the season thought that they
wanted a group of boys might decline to accept them at the last moment.
They might even contract for the boy-labor camp and after the boys had
picked for a few days desire to drop the whole enterprise because of
a fall in the market price,--a fall which would not be evident until
the crops commenced to come. Or, again, the employer might contract
for a camp of boys to pick strawberries, for example, and complete
arrangements might be made for bringing the boys to the locality,
only to have the camp project abandoned because a week of rain had
absolutely ruined the strawberry crops. Such an experience was met
in New York State the past season. A hailstorm in Chautauqua County
completely destroyed in a few minutes the prospects of a camp for the
harvesting of tomatoes. Now, it is evident that it is a difficult
matter always to guarantee a job.
The Bureau of Vocational Training of the Military Training Commission
of New York State requested the zone representatives in the
farm-placement bureaus to see to it that jobs were guaranteed to
boys and that the time of service, place of service, and pay should
be clearly stated. It furthermore recommended that the job should
be guaranteed in writing by a single farmer, by a group of farmers,
or by the corporation desiring these boys; that the employing party
should state the kind of work, the pay, the number of boys needed, the
duration of service, the living conditions, the provisions made for the
food supply for the first week, and so on. It made it clear that there
should be an assurance in writing of what the boys were to expect, and
that someone should be delegated to see that the employer lived up to
his agreement. Out of a theory not based upon any previous experience
it was obviously easy to write up such a statement, but to expect it to
be carried out without a hitch in all parts of the state and for all
kinds of work and all types of employers, not taking into consideration
climatic and market conditions, to say nothing about the prejudices and
idiosyncrasies of employers and boys, was to count the chickens before
they were hatched. About all that can be said at this stage of this
movement is in illustration of the way the job guarantee was handled.
In what follows it must be kept in mind that much of what has been said
or what may be said about the proposition of guaranteeing the job is
not at all difficult to carry out in the case of general farming and
is only moderately difficult in the case of vegetable growing.
Every camp failure due to the lack of a workable contract justifies the
original contention that guaranteeing the job is extremely important.
MEMORANDUM OF UNDERSTANDING IN REFERENCE TO THE SOUTH LIMA (NEW
YORK) CAMP
Between the New York State Military Training Commission
Farm-Cadet Bureau, West Central Zone (Nathaniel G. West, Field
Inspector, Rochester, New York) and the Growers' and Shippers'
Association of South Lima, New York.
* * * * *
The Farm-Cadet Bureau, West Central Zone, agrees:
1. To furnish 25 or more unskilled farm cadets, 16 to 19 years
of age, for labor on muck and upland farms.
2. To furnish a camp leader, who shall have general charge of
the camp of boys, who shall hire out the boys to near-by farmers,
collect all wages, and purchase supplies.
3. That the camp leader shall keep an accurate account of all
wages paid to farm cadets and percentage collected, such accounts
to be open for inspection by committee designated by the Growers'
and Shippers' Association.
4. To furnish a competent camp cook who shall prepare all meals
for the farm cadets.
5. To pay each week, through the camp leader, to the Growers'
and Shippers' Association a sum for overhead expenses, as explained
below,--such sum to be procured by adding to all wages earned by
the cadets a sum equal to five per cent of such wages.
The Growers' and Shippers' Association agrees:
1. To provide work, as continuously as possible, for each of
the farm cadets in the above camp from June 11, 1917, to November
3, 1917.
2. To pay wages for each farm cadet at the rate of $2 per day's
work, such day's work not to exceed ten hours.
3. To pay at the end of such week to the camp leader all wages
earned by farm cadets during that week.
4. To pay in addition to the above wages a sum equal to 5 per
cent of the wages, such sum to be turned over to treasurer of the
Growers' and Shippers' Association for payment of overhead expenses
of the camp.
5. To arrange for rental of suitable quarters for the cadets,
furnish two ranges and fuel for same, furnish 27 or more cots,
tables, benches, and chairs for the quarters, install a telephone,
and arrange with local grocer for two weeks' credit for the camp
leader for the purchase of supplies.
6. To pay for the items mentioned under 5, above, out of the 5
per cent received from the camp leader, as agreed above.
MASSACHUSETTS PLAN OF INDIVIDUAL AGREEMENT
WITH FARMER
To the Committee on Food Production and Conservation
(Department of Mobilization of Schoolboys for Farm Service)
Dear Sirs:
I hereby apply for ____________ boys to be employed by me
as general farm labor according to the terms and regulations
on the reverse side of this application.
I shall require these boys to begin work upon ______________
and probably require their services, if satisfactory,
until ______________________________________________________
I agree to pay each boy $4 per week for the first two
weeks, and $6 per week thereafter; such payment to be
made on Saturday of each week. (Afterwards changed, see
chapter on "Farm Cadets," p. 250.)
If the boy lives in a camp, I agree to pay $4 per week
for his board, and if he lives with me, I will furnish his
board; the above to be in addition to his wages.
I agree to employ the boy on rainy days as well as fair
days, and on rainy days to use his service as far as possible
under cover.
I agree, if the boy is unsatisfactory, to give him one
week's notice or one week's pay, providing him with a
statement in writing giving my reasons for his discharge.
Whenever in the opinion of the local supervisor, the conditions
of living or of labor are not satisfactory, the boy may
be withdrawn without prejudice to him.
The nature of the work for which the boy is required is
_______________________________________________________
_______________________________________________________
_______________________________________________________
Sign here _____________________________________________
(Farmer)
Phone ____________ Street address _____________________
Date ________________________ Town ____________________
The right leadership in a camp is very essential. The camp, after all,
is but the lengthened shadow of its leader. It is not difficult to
write the qualifications essential to leadership in a boys' farm camp,
but it is another matter to find any one person who will fill all
the conditions that are peculiar to a labor camp. A hundred-point man
capable of measuring up to the problems involved in camp leadership
must have had experience in school or Association work. He would have
knowledge of cooking utensils and personal equipment necessary to
take to camp; capacity to arrange for transportation for the boys by
the most direct, convenient, and economical route; ability to deal
successfully with the problem of the first night in camp,--a night when
boys cannot or will not sleep, when they are stirred up by the novelty
of the situation. He would be able to recognize good, substantial,
nourishing food, and to see that the boys had proper food in such an
emergency as the camp cook's suddenly being taken ill or deserting his
job. He would have had experience in adjusting working conditions,
would know how many quarts of fruit, for example, the average boy
can pick; would be able to help these boys get the most out of their
work by showing them the most effective method of harvesting; would
understand how to use first-aid equipment. He would have to see that
the boys kept up correspondence with their homes. He might have to sit
up all night with a boy who had eaten more fruit than was good for him.
The right leader will also have to think of reading matter for the
camp and of the problem of having the boys attend church services on
Sunday when the membership of the camp has varied religious beliefs. He
may have some orthodox Jews in camp when the country village has only a
Methodist church. He must satisfy the boys who want to have a minstrel
show, or the townspeople who offer to entertain the boys. He may even
have to arbitrate in labor disputes. He may be the local placement
bureau. He should be able to drive an automobile, in order that he may
carry a flying squad five miles from camp for a day's work for a farmer
who is in immediate need. He must be able to answer the questions
asked on blanks sent out by the state departments of agriculture
and education, by city boards of education, by state Y.M.C.A.'s, by
child-labor bureaus, and by all other organizations more or less
directly interested in the new aspects of old problems. If the boys
have been excused from school, he must certify that their labor-camp
work has been equivalent to the school work which they otherwise would
have had. He must be the banker of the camp and help the boys conserve
the money which they earn. He is accountable to the group for the
expenses of the camp, in order that these may be divided pro rata. He
must be able to buy supplies at the least cost.
It is with deliberate intention that this list has been made lengthy
and of wide range, in order to show that no man exists who could meet
adequately every condition imposed. He is bound to be "born short," as
William Hawley Smith would state it, on some of these angles. If he
is a social-minded man of the Boy Scout or Y.M.C.A. type, he will be
long on entertainments, recreation, food requirements, knowledge of
personal equipment, group work, first aid, and sanitation. If he is
of the school-teacher type, he will probably be strong on discipline,
efficient in looking after details of school credits, camp expenses,
records, moral conditions, letter writing, and keeping boys busy. If he
is a technical man in agriculture, he may know nothing about baseball
on Saturday afternoon or how to organize a minstrel show, but he will
probably know how to do more than keep boys busy. He will keep them
effectively busy; that is, he will arrange to have certain boys do the
lines of work adapted to their skill and knowledge. He will discover
ways of utilizing the labor of the unskilled boy. He will be able to
judge whether or not a boy is working to his full capacity, and he may
be somewhat pitiless if the boy does not measure up to a farm-labor
standard. In other words, such a man will be very largely interested
in a working camp. He will be interested in meeting the conditions
imposed by the farmers. He will know that the berries must be expressed
by four o'clock and that the picking may have to stop promptly at
two. He will know that a leaky crate of raspberries means a low price
for possibly a whole carload. He will be less interested, perhaps, in
the balanced ration and more interested in using the products of the
community on the camp table. He will not be interested in the records
required by school officials so much as in those expected of him by the
farm-bureau agent. In short, his idea is to promote agriculture and not
to promote the county Y.M.C.A. movement, the back-to-the-farm movement,
or any other movement which may be allied with the farm-cadet service.
It is not possible to find any one man who is socially, pedagogically,
and agriculturally minded. If he claims to be good in all three fields
he probably is mediocre. The experience of the past year, however,
shows some remarkably fine work done by leaders of boy camps. Some
have been public-school teachers who have given their summer services
for nothing or for a nominal fee. Some have been released from their
duties as Y.M.C.A. secretaries in order that the association might make
a contribution to the farm-cadet movement. Some have been physical
directors in public schools. Some have been scout masters among the Boy
Scouts. Others have been agricultural teachers who saw that this work
was, after all, in the line of their usual duties.
The following illustrates one of the hundred things which a camp leader
must know about:
+----------------------------------------------------------------------+
| INSTRUCTIONS TO FARM CADETS ENLISTED FOR CAMP-SQUAD |
| SERVICE IN NEW YORK STATE |
| |
| _WHAT TO TAKE_ |
| NECESSARY ARTICLES |
| |
|Bed sack 75 × 30 inches (to be stuffed with straw at camp) |
|or cot mattress; enamel-ware plate, cup, saucer, sauce dish, also |
|knife, fork, and spoon; dinner pail or box, two heavy blankets, |
|small pillow, working clothes, sweater, gymnasium shirt, raincoat |
|or old overcoat, heavy shoes, toothbrush, tooth powder, small |
|mirror, towels, extra socks, rubbers or rubber boots, extra underwear,|
|hairbrush, comb, soap, handkerchiefs, pajamas, a good |
|disposition, and a spirit of loyalty to the camp and its aims. |
| |
| DESIRABLE ARTICLES |
| |
|Musical instruments, camera, baseball, glove, bat, needles, |
|thread, safety pins, notebook, pencils, writing paper, envelopes, |
|good books, magazines. |
+----------------------------------------------------------------------+
The methods of housing the boys differ widely. Ordinarily one thinks
of tents as being the most feasible, but the scarcity and high cost of
such equipment during the past year prevented the boys from living
under canvas. Generally speaking, it would be better to think in terms
of something more permanent than tents, as these do not last more than
three years, and if the camp idea of harvesting crops by the use of
boys is to continue,--and many believe it will,--it is advisable to
plan for a permanent and inexpensive type of building. A rough board
shack with a good roof is highly desirable in the early spring days and
in the late fall.
Many of the cadets in New York State camps were quartered in berry
houses (which are really packing and storage houses located in the
berry fields), in vacant houses, in schoolhouses, in grange halls, and
in buildings located on the fair grounds. Most of these berry houses
were two stories high, the first floor being used for the commissary
department and the second floor for dormitories. In such cases the
berries were packed in temporary shacks adjoining the berry houses. In
other cases the boys have used the first floor for a sitting room and
built a rough shack back of the berry or storage house for kitchen and
dining room.
One of the most significant camping places was that of a two-room
schoolhouse, where cots for fifty boys were put into the rooms, and
the basement was used as a kitchen. The boys built a table outside
and put up a canopy over it for a dining room. They next dammed up
a brook which ran back of the schoolhouse and made what they termed
a "bathtub," which was capable of holding about six boys at a time.
They also put into fine condition the rather disreputable schoolhouse
latrines. These boys made the schoolhouse ring at night with their
popular school songs; the old piano did its best to bring together the
heritages of the East Side and of the Highlands of the Hudson.
There are several ways of making provision for camp equipment. One
is to develop, under state, county, or local auspices, a series of
permanent camp quarters located in small-fruit, large-fruit, and
muck-land districts. This equipment need not be expensive. It will be
located very near the source of labor demand and can always be used,
whether boy or adult labor is employed. Fruit and produce growers and
kindred establishments have in the past provided, more or less, for
such an equipment.
Another plan is to use schoolhouses, grange halls, vacant farm
buildings, and agricultural-fair equipment. It is unfortunate that so
much property ordinarily used for public purposes lies idle for long
periods of time. Some may say that the city boy will not leave country
property in good shape, but experience so far has shown that the city
boys have left things better than they found them.
Still another type already spoken of is tentage, and perhaps the best
way to provide such an equipment is to have the state furnish it
through the adjutant general's office.
The sanitary aspects of any type of camp are highly important. In
Massachusetts the committee of public safety, which established boy
camps, required that the sanitary conditions of these camps should be
inspected by the board of health, and the committee furnished full
directions and a blue print for the building of a sanitary latrine.
Some of the camps burn their garbage in home-made incineration plants.
Ordinary garden hose with a watering-pot sprinkler attachment, or an
elevated barrel with a sprayer attached, and filled by the use of a
pail and ladder, were shower-bath devices worked out by the boys in
various camps.
All the camps devised some method of keeping food cool, ranging from
those that had a real city ice chest down to those that cleaned out a
spring and set in it a bottomless, covered box.
The job of feeding boys in camp is not a sinecure. Every scheme has
been tried, from engaging at a salary of one hundred dollars a month
a Pullman dining-car chef down to, or shall it be said up to, a boy
cook. The cook problem in a labor camp is as difficult to handle as
is the so-called "servant" problem of the city. The average cook knows
more about cooking than he does about dietetics. He is very likely to
lack adaptability. He is usually untrained for camp cooking and is
not particularly open to suggestions. Experience seems to show that
the best cook is the one who has done work in a Y.M.C.A. camp or in
a Boy Scout camp. Of course, this year there was a great scarcity
of the latter class to be found, as they were needed in their own
organizations, and therefore many camps were obliged to employ a
local woman of the matronly type to cook for the boys; sometimes an
experienced camp leader has developed some good cooks among the boys
in camp. Perhaps the best results, however, were obtained from boys
who before the opening of camps were given from two to four weeks of
camp-cooking instruction in the school system from which they came.
These boys were ready to use the products of the localities, such
as peas, beans, tomatoes, radishes, lettuce, and corn, while the
professional cook often seemed more familiar with the use of the can
opener.
The quantity and variety of food was practically in the hands of
the boys themselves, assuming that the cook was a good one. If the
allowance of fruit for breakfast, for example, consisted of four
prunes or one banana or half an orange, and the group as a whole
desired a larger portion, it was perfectly possible for them to secure
it by so voting, for it must be remembered that the food expense of
the camps was divided pro rata among the boys. Under these conditions,
however, it was found that the boys were very economical and frowned
upon the few malcontents who wanted to gorge themselves.
The cafeteria style of serving prevailed generally.
Providing amusements in recreation camps is always a problem, but farm
cadets require little in the way of entertainment after eight or ten
hours of field service. Camp-fire talks on agriculture, corn roasts,
toasting marshmallows, giving musical entertainments and minstrel
shows, holding mock trials, playing baseball on Saturday afternoons or
Sundays, constitute the chief forms of recreation. In every instance
the lads have been well received in the local communities. They were
popular features at church entertainments, Red Cross benefits, and
country sociables. Often the boys, especially in the berry-picking
regions, went swimming about 4 P.M., after the crates had been sent by
the afternoon express.
In every instance the village church and the county Y.M.C.A. took an
active interest in the farm cadets. Many of the boys played musical
instruments, and their confidence in themselves was contributory to
many supplementary boy choirs. The country pastors evidently made it
a point to do what they could for the pleasure of all the boys, and
without exception there seemed to be no religious distinctions. In
some camps the Catholic priest expressed his fatherly feeling for the
lads. In others the Jewish and Catholic boys attended the union village
church. In brief, the boys entered into the spirit of the rural life,
and both the country folk and the youth of the city were the better for
it.
A study of the different camps in operation in various parts of the
country seems to indicate that they might be grouped under six heads as
follows.
I. _Concentration, or training, camps._ These are usually located in
agriculturally strategic sections of the state, where boys may receive
preliminary training in camp life and in farm work under disciplinary
and instructional conditions. Of course such a camp can do nothing more
than give the boys a training in the elements of farm activities (such
as harnessing a horse, running a hand cultivator, using a hoe, driving
a team) and serve as a trying-out period for weeding out boys who are
unsatisfactory. These camps cannot be considered places which will give
a preliminary agricultural education, for that is very different from
giving a preliminary idea of farm operations. After these boys have
received a course of such training, they are sent out under leadership
to work in a section of the state where a group may work for one farmer
and live at the camp meanwhile or may work for individual farmers
and live with the employer. Obviously it is taken for granted that
such a camp is located in a good agricultural section and that its
surroundings have something more than fine swimming holes or beautiful
scenery. These boys must be trained in an environment and under
conditions similar to the farm life in which they are to participate
later. It would seem that the agricultural colleges of the country
and the secondary schools of agriculture would, generally speaking,
offer splendid locations for establishing training camps. Here
would be found, or ought to be found, good land. This is not always
true, because occasionally an agricultural college has been located
irrespective of good land. The technical and dormitory facilities,
however, would be available for the boys in training.
II. _Farm-working, or labor-distributing, camps._ These are
concentration camps in a certain sense, but they are located directly
in the farm district where the boys, after receiving their preliminary
training, are to find work in the community adjoining the camp.
Several camps of this order have started out with the idea of giving
a preliminary training in agriculture in the camp itself, and have
borrowed or bought farming implements and teams and leased land in
order to give the training. But in the majority of cases this idea was
abandoned, for it was found that these boys could receive all their
preliminary training with the farmers, provided the leader of the camp
could establish helpful relations between the boy and the employing
farmer and could, out of his wisdom and experience, protect the boy in
the early stages of the work and guide him in all its stages. In other
words, in this type of camp a city man, acting as leader, comes into a
community with a group of boys who live at the camp but receive their
training with the near-by farmers. A labor-supply camp, composed of
able-bodied boys, is a type which adequately meets the need at small
expense.
III. _Military farm-training camp._ This is a type of camp where city
boys, under the direction of a school or some organization, go into a
farming community and open up new land which otherwise would not have
been put under cultivation. These boys stay at the camp during the
season. They do not work for the farmers near by, or, at least, not
ordinarily,--the intention being to establish a self-supporting and
self-maintaining camp for the use of the boys who attend. The land is
tilled, the seed planted, and the harvest gathered for the benefit of
the boys. Any profits are given to the boys or to the school, and any
expenses for conducting the camp, or overhead charges, usually come out
of the organization or school represented. It is questionable whether,
generally speaking, this type of camp is on a sound economic and
agricultural basis. If such a camp could be carried on for a number of
years with a strong school or other organization behind it, and plenty
of capital, it is very likely that it would succeed. It takes capital
to establish good soil conditions and purchase tools, farm machinery,
and stock, and to put up buildings. It is a highly desirable type of
camp to consider in terms of many years or where a school wishes to
give its boys a military and farm experience. But in the food emergency
through which the country is now passing, it is doubtful if this type
of camp should ever have been started. It is, however, an excellent
type to establish as a permanent adjunct to a city school system.
IV. _Coöperative camp where the boys share in proceeds._ This type
of camp is practically like III, and if the farm land is new and the
camp leader is untrained in agricultural operations and the boys are
unskilled, it is about as likely to be doomed to failure as is the
other.
V. _The village- or country-school type of camp._ This is a camp
where the schoolboys, under the leadership of a teacher, go to the
outskirts of the village and develop a garden. If the land is good and
the teacher knows agriculture and the boys attend to business, they
will most certainly receive an excellent practical training useful to
them in life. They will have learned how to work in the soil, how to
work together for a common purpose, how to stick to a job until it is
finished, how to look ahead from the time seed is purchased until the
crop is placed in the hands of the customer. All these things are good
and they are useful to any boy, but, of course, from the standpoint
of increasing the food supply in any large way through the growing of
wheat, feed corn, oats, rye, buckwheat, potatoes, and large fruits
there is little to be said. The work is to be commended on the basis of
its value to the individual boy.
VI. _Short-term camp, sometimes called "flying squadron"._ This type
of camp is advisable only in an intensive-farming region where quick
service for the harvesting period is needed. The squad itself will
serve to keep a balance between the demand for labor and the supply.
It is easy to picture a fruit region around and through which are a
number of camps. Each one ought to be working to the limit, but, of
course, as a matter of fact in one section there would be a greater
demand for boys than could be met by the local camp. It is at this time
that the flying squadron comes in, when, in response to the SOS call,
a group of temporarily idle boys from one camp may be sent to another
camp which is short of help.
CHAPTER XII
A SUMMARIZED PROGRAM OF ACTION
Out of this war we are going to have a new spirit and method in
education. England has already begun to evaluate its present system.
It has issued a report on the assistance which education, if properly
directed, can give to industry and commerce after the war. The results
of a recent investigation afford--so the report states--a convincing
proof of the necessity of improving and extending the provisions
hitherto made for instruction and training in scientific studies as a
necessary foundation for fruitful research.
The report goes on to say that, in a sense unknown to former
generations, England has become a part of Europe; and in the interest
not merely of commerce but of the intelligent conduct of national
affairs an adequate knowledge of the languages--and, through the
languages, of the literatures, histories, and civilizations of European
countries--should be in the possession of a far larger proportion of
its population than in the past. It states that particular subjects of
instruction in the high schools and institutes cannot be divorced
from the consideration of their organization and of their curricula
as a whole, if a proper balance of studies is to be secured and if
higher education is to be truly liberal and humane in its spirit and
influence. It insists that access to the schools must be rendered
easier for native ability wherever it is found, and affirms again
and again that the needs of the nation cannot be satisfied merely by
changes affecting higher education or by a provision of educational
facilities confined to scholars of special gifts and abilities. It
closes by saying that the future will make new and increased demands,
especially in a democratic community, on the health, character, and
intelligence of every citizen; and these demands can only be met
by comprehensive and far-reaching improvements and developments of
elementary education.
[Illustration: Military engineering will become a popular and necessary
part of the curricula of our colleges and technical institutes. A class
in suspension-bridge work at Wentworth Institute, Boston, Massachusetts.]
[Illustration: Military preparedness of college boys and schoolboys
includes other activities than merely drilling. Trench drainage, one
of a score of war emergency courses, at Wentworth Institute, Boston,
Massachusetts.]
[Illustration: Returned convalescent soldiers, who would be idle but
for the opportunity offered to brush up their education. Ogden Military
Convalescent Hospital.]
[Illustration: A corner of the printing and photo-engraving shop at
Manitoba Military Convalescent Hospital, Winnipeg. These men have been
assigned to courses of reëducation because of inability to return to
their former occupations.]
The individual-industrial-efficiency idea which we obtained from
Germany will have to be interpreted in America not for military
purposes, but in terms of personal and vocational service for the
nation. Just as the academic militarism of the Old World has been found
wanting and has been gradually transformed into the mobilization of
all forces behind the lines on an entirely new basis and conception of
what may be done by a people in time of war, so we in this country
shall learn that we may in times of peace, through efficient and
effective living, prepare for defense. In this preparation we may
learn that improved elementary education, that vocational training,
that bringing into the schools the Boy Scout spirit, that teaching
of sanitation and personal hygiene, that organizing our courses on a
unit and project basis, that developing systems of student service
in school life, that extending school facilities to adults, and a
hundred other things which have been thought of as fads and pedagogical
idiosyncrasies will, to quote the New York State law relative to
military equivalents, "specifically prepare for service useful to the
state in the maintenance of defense, in the promotion of public safety,
in the conservation and development of the state's resources, or in the
construction and maintenance of public improvements." Truly, a program
for peace as well as for war.
The school board and its executive officer, the superintendent, should
do everything to save the school buildings for school purposes. They
are literally factories turning out, it is hoped, handmade products;
and in time of war their service should be increased rather than
diminished. To use them as hospitals will be a mistake,--better by far
confiscate department stores. Bring the war into the schools in the
spirit already interpreted in preceding chapters, but do not take the
schools into the war.
Do not eliminate studies indiscriminately. Evaluate if you will,--and
this is always well,--but wholesale cutting out is to be avoided. It
may be that the cost and value of instruction in freehand drawing
will have to be compared with the permanent value of the study of
Latin. It may be that instead of adding to the vocational department
a machine-shop equipment, which is always expensive, it will be
discovered that a coöperative course can be developed, employing the
equipment of a neighboring factory, and that all the school need
furnish is a teacher for blackboard work in mathematics, drawing, and
science. It is likely that a longer school day will be advisable and
also a longer school year. It is quite probable that the introduction
of the methods of the Boy Scout movement into the public schools will
be found superior to some of the present teaching of nature study,
recreational work, civics, and conduct.
Provision must be made for filling the places of the male teachers
who will be drafted. Many of these will be instructors in science
and mathematics. It ought to be possible to secure the services of
retired civil or mechanical engineers for teaching these subjects. It
is feasible to draft into service married women who have once taught.
It is to be hoped that the government will eventually recognize that
educational enterprise as well as industrial enterprise ought to
furnish grounds for exemption. As war comes closer to us provision
must be made for keeping the schools open twelve months in the year,
and from eight in the morning until ten at night for six days in the
week. Every child up to the age of 14 must be kept in school. It is
the best place for him, provided, of course, the school rises to its
full height,--and it is taken for granted that it will. The physical
condition of the younger children especially should be watched very
carefully. The teacher should discover the conditions at home. It
may be that some pupils have had no breakfast and are not likely to
have a suitable lunch or even a supper. Some will have to be fed
in the schools, and here is an opportunity for the older girls in
domestic-science classes. Some will report certain home conditions
that will require that the school make a report to the local Red Cross
chapter or some other relief agency. Again there is opportunity for the
older girls to serve through their knowledge of home nursing, infant
feeding, and first aid.
If the war strikes us hard, we may have to think of part-time work for
children above 14, but we must never let the children get away from
us as they have in England. We must control the exodus. We must not
abrogate the existing compulsory-attendance laws and the existing labor
laws. We must not interpret these laws with laxity and shut our eyes
while the children go by us on their way to work. We may do well to
amend these laws if in so doing we can incorporate useful labor into
the educative process. In other words, we must be constructive in any
part-time measures which are adopted. The educative value of profitable
labor need not be lost.
It will be well for us to look into the real value of military training
for schoolboys before we adopt in a wholesale fashion obsolete
militarism. The value of wooden-gunism is questionable. Physical
training, vocational training, athletics, Boy Scout work, team play,
and discipline are far more valuable. Military drill given in addition
to these activities may be advisable. However, on this point there is
still a difference of opinion. But to give formal military instruction
without considering its adaptability to the methods used in modern
warfare and the training incident to effective preparation for them is
neither military preparedness on the one hand nor sensible educational
procedure on the other.
School boards ought to organize at once vocational courses to secure
state and national aid, and seek from the legislature state aid for
directors of community gardens, as, from now on, these will be a
permanent feature of community life. Some sort of provision ought to be
made relative to bringing agriculture into the city school or taking
the city boy to agriculture. A country branch of a city school is
possible. Play and recreation centers must be developed. The increase
of juvenile offenses in both England and France during this war has
been tremendous. Many of these offenses are committed by children who
are still at school. There is much evidence that owing to the absence
of military service of their fathers,--and, perhaps even more, of
their elder brothers,--the industrial employment of their mothers, the
darkened streets, and other circumstances, many school children are
suffering from the lack of proper care and discipline and are exposed
to serious risks of deterioration. These conditions have been mitigated
through the establishment of evening play centers, which provide the
children with suitable occupation and amusement after school hours.
The principal of a school can play a large part in a war-emergency
program. He can develop the idea of War Savings among the children in
his school. Announcement has been made that the government intends to
develop the War Savings Certificate plan of England. These certificates
are perhaps better adapted to persons of small means than a Liberty
Bond. The United States Treasury Department has set forth a plan for
advertising and selling these certificates through the public schools
of the nation. The aim is to have every pupil an owner of a "little
baby bond" and a participant in a democratic plan of government
security. A campaign for thrift has been started. The schools must do
their part.
The principal can organize patriotic meetings at which he can explain
the purposes of the Red Cross, the Liberty Loan, and the garden and
conservation movements. He can distribute pamphlets relating to war
service. In a small community he can be the leader of the Red Cross
movement, only he must always remember that he is to work with state
and national organizations and is not to write to Washington when he
can perhaps step across the street to local headquarters or write
directly to state headquarters. Of course, he will follow closely the
printed directions with reference to bandages, shipping, etc., for
the general organization has put more thought into it and gained more
experience than he could possibly gather.
Obviously the principal ought to allow no competition between school
organizations and local organizations. If the local organization is
strong and effective, he ought to work under it. If it is not, he may
well work over it. By all means he should inform pupils of the meaning
of the war, that they in turn may carry word to their parents; and such
work is not always limited to districts where people are foreign born.
There may be as much need for such work in the West as in New York
City. A Western farmer is reported as saying that he did not care who
owned the country or whether the Germans took it or not so long as he
sold his wheat crop.
The principal may direct a state census on some particular data for
which state authorities may call. He should bring together various
bulletins issued by state and national governments which concern food
production and conservation, sanitation, public health, nursing,
dietetics, etc., and by publishing lists of such material in newspapers
and posting them on school bulletin boards, bring the information
within them to the people who need it most. He should make the hall
exercises in the school mean more than ever. Let us hope that "America"
may be sung with more vim, and that the principal will know the second
stanza. The "Marseillaise" and other national songs of our allies
may be sung. Of course a service flag made by the girls in the school
hangs prominently in the assembly hall, and each of its stars speaks
for a teacher, a student, or a graduate who represents the life-giving
contribution of the school to the cause of democracy.
The country-school principal has a great deal to do. His work differs
from that of the city principal in that he may be a recognized leader
in almost everything, while the city principal must necessarily
coöperate with individuals and organizations. The principal in the
open country can be the local agent for seed and fertilizer and for
the distribution of farmers' bulletins. In fact, he may be the local
representative for the state departments of education, of agriculture,
of labor, and of health.
He ought to use judgment in excusing boys from school for farm work.
He will know the exact circumstances under which a boy goes to work.
He will know whether he is working on his father's farm or that of a
neighbor. He can help that boy with his lessons so that he can do some
studying at home and keep up with his classes. And in the late fall,
when the boys return to school from their farm work, he can organize
a special class in order that they may satisfactorily make up their
studies. This extra work on his part and that of his coworkers will
make one of the answers to the call to the colors which comes to every
man and woman in this country.
A city principal can organize an agricultural course in his city
school, and obtain a state-aided teacher for giving agricultural theory
in the winter in connection with biological science, and have this
teacher take a group of boys into the country in the spring. He can
always think of his boys as going out to farm work on the basis of an
organized group, and on that basis only. A teacher from his school
might go with these boys and serve as their leader. It is probable that
educational experiments of this nature will lead eventually to country
branches of city schools.
It is clear that the industrial and trade schools, because of the
very nature of their purpose, may render unusual service, but they
must start out with the idea that they are to take their directions
from the state boards of control of vocational education rather than
go off at a tangent independent of any state or national movement. It
must be remembered that provision has been made for a national system
of vocational education with a Federal Board of Vocational Education
guiding it, and that every state board having charge of vocational
education is working in conjunction with the national board. We must
keep in mind that the Federal Board of Vocational Education is in
close touch with the National Council of Defense at Washington, and
consequently with all departments of the national government which
concern war measures. For a local school to jeopardize its chances for
national and state aid through failure to follow a program provided by
these authorities, or to develop types of work which are out of accord
with national needs, will not be the part of wisdom or common sense.
These schools must not forget that their primary function is to make
mechanics and not army supplies, but if they are called upon to do
the latter work, or if they can do it effectively, they must make it
educational in its aim and not merely productive work.
State officials ought to have inventories made of the equipment of the
vocational schools, with a census of the experience and training of
the instructors, and a state study ought to be made of plans to train
workers for the different branches needed. Such a study would point out
how the semiskilled may become skilled, how the unskilled may become
semiskilled, how the necessary training may be given to specialist
tool makers, and how there can be developed a type of industrial work
suitable for women and girls.
The directors of trade schools will provide opportunities for the
training of foremen in evening classes, or at other times if necessary,
using methods of instruction which will increase their skill in dealing
with green help or unskilled laborers. These men will adjust the
evening schools to run the year round, and also provide for off-time
classes.
In vocational schools of the commercial order, of which we have very
few in the country, provision will be made for short-unit courses in
commercial practice for women and girls to fit them to take the place
of men drafted.
As has already been stated, it is very likely that the day vocational
schools will have comparatively few pupils during the war period, as
young persons who ordinarily go to these schools will have readily
obtained work in factories. However, such youth can still be instructed
if the school will go to the factory and there establish training
courses.
The present is a good time to develop commercial courses which have
a vocational purpose, and which have methods more in accord with the
definition of vocational training. The commercial departments in the
majority of our high schools rather indifferently train stenographers,
typists, and clerks. They do not even attempt to train salesmen and
saleswomen, index and statistical clerks, comptometer operators, etc.
Very few of the commercial courses have either the definiteness of
aim of the industrial and trade schools or the practical contact with
actual commercial practice which will be necessary if they are to meet
the requirements of modern business. Commercial schools have not yet
caught the spirit of part-time, off-time, or short-unit programs.
The manual-training teacher will find plenty to do; that is, if
the state departments of education furnish him definite data and
specifications for war-emergency work. It will be practically useless
for him to carry on special work in any large way unless the field of
service of the boy workers is organized in some such way as is the Red
Cross work. If boxes are needed for packing supplies, a working drawing
of the same ought to be furnished by the state department. If hospital
furniture, such as bed racks and tables, is needed, the articles should
be standardized in order that they may be made in quantities and may
be serviceable when they reach the source of need. The same is true
of splints. The reason for the great accomplishment of the French and
Canadian boys in the making of splints used temporarily on the field of
service is that they have been furnished with very definite directions
as to size, material, and method of making.
It cannot be too emphatically stated that the war-service work of
the elementary and secondary schools needs definite direction from
the state departments of education if the unity of effort based upon
directions common to all are to result not only in effective work but
also in fulfilling the social and civic purposes which are behind the
service.
This is an opportune time for the manual-training teacher to abandon
his set of models. They should have been set aside long ago. His
war-service duties will give an additional motive for socializing
his work. In small cities and villages where there is plenty of land
available for cultivation the director of manual training, on the
first of May, ought to change his title and assume his duties as
director of community gardens. He should have been preparing for this
work by giving instruction in garden work in the manual-training room
during March and April. Meanwhile he should have interested adults of
the community in the plan of a garden where both old and young might
work, and should have brought together civic forces to accomplish the
purpose--a purpose which is educational, social, recreational, and
useful.
Dealing with boys under fifteen, as the average manual-training teacher
will, it is possible for him to develop a type of manual arts which
will serve to create or arouse a set of industrial interests helpful
to the boy in determining his life career. With every temptation to a
pupil to leave school, the manual-training teacher will now have an
unusual opportunity to make his work so attractive and economically so
helpful that the boy may see the advantage of paying no attention to
industrial-service inducements.
This is a time for increasing the field of usefulness of the industrial
arts in connection with the problems involved in the junior high
school. This type of school is certain to meet with increased favor
during and after the war, and the reasons are both educational and
administrative.
So much has already been said in several places in this book about the
service which cooking and sewing teachers may render, that it is hardly
necessary in this place to do more than give a very brief summary. As
supplies for cooking lessons become more expensive, the cooking teacher
must make more of demonstrations to pupils, and less, perhaps, of
actual practice. The war recipes which she uses must be mimeographed or
printed and given the pupils to take home. She must organize classes
for adults in unit courses and hold them afternoons and evenings. In
fact, she might well have the mothers come with the children during
the regular session and receive some special instructions which the
children receive. She will be busy the year round; her larger work
will begin when the schools close, in that she will start her canning
and community-club work. A situation can easily be conceived wherein
she will have in reality very little teaching responsibility in the
classroom. She will be looked upon as the community organizer for
all types of food conservation, and some of her older girls will, in
all probability, be teaching in the regular classes. Of course, she
will interest all the children in the school in saving bottles, jars,
crocks, large-mouthed bottles, tumblers, small wooden pails, etc. for
containers for the jams, preserves, and fruit juices which will be put
up. She will obtain all the new bulletins on processes of drying and
dehydrating. Perhaps she may have initiative enough to discover a fruit
crop which will not be picked except through her efforts. Perhaps she
will find an orphan asylum in the community filled with boys and girls
who can pick this fruit crop.
The sewing teacher has more than enough to do. If the Red Cross chapter
does not keep her busy, then she can keep the chapter active. With the
price of materials as high as it is now and the quality as poor, there
is plenty of opportunity to look over, in every home, the last year's
wardrobe. She might organize a Thrift Club. Enthusiastic youth will do
almost anything under the name of "club."
It is to be hoped that every girl in the school above the age of ten
will enroll in the sewing class and not sit idly by while a few do
all the work. Very likely the household-arts teacher will organize a
home-cadet unit, just as the boys will be organized into farm-cadet
units. The girls will have their pledge of loyalty and perhaps will
wear their chevrons, badges, or buttons, and will enroll for specific
work in food, clothing, or shelter projects.
The agricultural teacher will have more than he can do. An effective
teacher in normal periods is always busy with his supervision of
home-project work, preparation of material for classroom teaching,
gathering of laboratory exhibits, etc. But in war time he must carry
on his shoulders still larger burdens. In the early spring he will
discontinue his formal agricultural teaching to the special vocational
group and broaden his work to include those who have not regularly
enrolled in the agricultural course. To the latter he will give some
very definite suggestions for immediate use on the farm; while the boys
who have been with him all winter will be excused from school to give
their entire time to their home projects. To those who have recently
come into the class there will be given special work in the classroom
which they may practice outside of school hours and which they can
follow for full time during the summer.
He will have a good deal to do with the farm-cadet idea, and in the
winter he will doubtless be thinking of the type of camp which he
will establish or with which he will be connected. He may decide that
he can do best by organizing a labor-distributing camp on his own
initiative, or that he will serve as an assistant at the state-farm
training camp, or that he will take his boys, if they are village boys,
to the outskirts of the village and establish a coöperative camp; or
he may get in touch with the teacher of biology in a city school and
offer the country schoolhouse and his services for a training camp
made up of city boys. It is assumed that he is in close touch with the
county farm agent; perhaps he is the local representative of the club
work which the United States Department of Agriculture is promoting;
and, of course, he is taking the responsibility of acting as agent in
his territory for the United States Boys' Working Reserve,--a really
wonderful organization full of immense possibilities.
This Boys' Working Reserve movement started under the auspices of the
United States Department of Labor in coöperation with the Council of
National Defense, for the purpose of mobilizing young men between the
ages of 16 and 21 for productive labor in the war emergency.
During the summer of 1917 the Reserve confined its activities
principally to giving federal recognition to those youths who, as
members of state organizations, had worked at least three weeks
on farms or in food production. At present it is organized in 40
states and in the District of Columbia. Recently it has extended
its activities to include industrial occupations. Each boy who is
physically fit and who, with the consent of his parents, has taken
the oath of service, is enrolled as a recruit and given an enrollment
button and a certificate bearing the great seal of the United States.
When he has worked faithfully and capably for the stated period, he is
awarded a federal bronze badge of honor.
After January 1, 1918, thirty-six days of eight hours each are to be
required on the farm or in food production in order to earn the badge.
In industrial occupations the boy will be required to work at least
sixty days of eight hours in some occupation considered essential in
helping the nation in the conduct of the war, in order to receive
recognition.
The national director, Mr. William E. Hall, encourages every boy to
remain in school and in spare time to pursue some vocational training
to make himself capable of performing a productive war service, in
the expectation that he will be awarded a badge of honor when he has
actually entered an essential occupation. It is expected that we shall
soon see a registered army of young men ordinarily not available,
which may be used to fill the gaps in the labor ranks caused by war
activities.
The Reserve has been indorsed by President Wilson in the following
language:
Permit me to express my great appreciation of the work
undertaken by the United States Boys' Working Reserve of the
Employment Service of Department of Labor. To give to the young men
between the ages of 16 and 21 the privilege of spending their spare
time in productive enterprise without interrupting their studies at
school, while their older brothers are battling in the trenches and
on the seas, must greatly increase the means of providing for the
forces at the front and the maintenance of those whose services are
needed here. It is a high privilege, no less than a patriotic duty,
to help support the nation by devoted and intelligent work in this
great crisis.
Theodore Roosevelt, in writing of the good work which the Reserve is
doing, says, in part:
I am glad that you intend to encourage the training of the boys
to prepare for some essential industry where they can take the
place of a man called to the front. One of the great benefits you
confer is that of making the boy realize that he is part of Uncle
Sam's team; that he is doing his share in this great war; that he
holds his services in trust for the nation; and that though it is
proper to consider the question of material gain and the question
of his own desires, yet that what he must most strongly consider at
this time is where his services will do most good to our people as
a whole.
The teachers of America, as well as the boys, are making themselves a
part of Uncle Sam's team; and they too hold their services in trust
for the nation. The Junior Red Cross movement in the schools has
swept the country. The school children have advertised and sold bonds
of the second Liberty Loan.[12] The teachers of cooking are serving
as local representatives for the food administrator at Washington.
Agricultural teachers have pledged themselves as community workers for
the summer of 1918. Manual-training teachers are developing plans for
substituting garden projects in the spring for the manual-training
models of the schoolroom. Technical colleges and institutes are filled
with students in uniform. Industrial and trade schools on the seacoast
are planning to discard their house carpentry for shipbuilding
courses. County superintendents of schools are studying government
bulletins for the last word in preserving and drying farm products on
a large scale, in order that they may give directions to the schools.
Teachers in academic schools have enlisted for service on relief, loan,
garden, thrift, and conservation committees. Men who were leaders and
supervisors of farm-cadet camps in 1917 are planning for similar work
in the future on a larger and improved basis. Programs for teachers'
institutes and state associations of teachers now include the topics:
"What can our schools do in war time?" and "Our schools after the war."
[12] In New York City 63,900 applications for bonds, having a total
value of $7,881,100, were obtained directly by principals, teachers,
and pupils, and forwarded by the principals to the local Bond committee
or the banks.
These efforts of the teachers and the pupils respond to our President's
appeal that each of us must do his share in making the world safe for
democracy.
At present, to be sure, we center our thoughts on how to make the world
safe for democracy. But what of the future? What of the contribution
of the schools after the war? Should not the schools then center their
aims and methods on making _democracy safe for the world_? If the
people themselves are to be masters, must they not be provided with
an education making for mastership? Is it not well for us to examine
our present schools to determine whether they are making a democracy
which will be safe for the world? Have we a system of education
which actually gives an opportunity for every child to make the most
of himself? Have we a liberalized course of study which actually
stimulates and develops intellectual and aesthetic interests in
music, art, literature, science, travel, and history? Have we evolved
a socialized education developing moral habits, civic incentives,
possession and use of ethical ideals and standards for a successful
group life? Has our formative process been able to bring about
refinements of social behavior beyond the point required for group
participation? Have we arrived at the point where we can say that our
people have even the common culture which it is expected all members
of a democracy shall possess, to say nothing about the development of
individual culture, which is a possession of the interested individual
and his congenial fellows? How far have we gone in recognizing that
"by-education" which comes through a child's self-direction of his
natural or spontaneous learning instincts and impulses?
How much have we accomplished in giving educational and vocational
guidance to children between the ages of 12 and 16? What has been
done in the way of fulfilling the national obligation to teach the
strangers within our gates our language and the principles and forms
of our civic life? What has been our program for subnormals in order
that they may be prepared for independent living in the competitive
social order? Have we established clear-cut distinctions between
subnormal and crippled cases that must remain custodial and those that
can be prepared for independent existence? What are we doing in the
way of education for delinquents? To what extent have we utilized the
discovery that these antisocial manifestations of youth are results of
heredity, or of inferior homes, or of a lack of playgrounds, or of poor
schools?
Have the schools missed a great opportunity for giving moral, civic,
and physical training to youth by failing to absorb the Boy Scout and
Camp Fire Girl movements and thus failing to grasp the full educational
significance of the methods adopted by those who so well understand
adolescent youth? Are the disciplinary methods of the teachers and the
general internal management of the schools such as will develop among
pupils a democracy which is safe even in the schoolroom? What have
we done in determining what is desirable and feasible for extending
general education to average adults who have early entered upon
specialized occupations?
How far have we gone in our program of vocational education to
recognize and to provide for the influence of automatic machinery upon
the physical, mental, and vocational welfare of workers? Have we so
thoroughly grasped the idea of an educational democracy that no child
in our schools is disadvantaged by the section of the state or of the
country in which he happens to be born?
Have we in our vocational training set up any program for the
industrial training of women which recognizes that the modern problem
of women's work concerns the following of some productive vocation
away from home? Have we even begun to realize that every person should
have definite vocational training with such distinctive purpose back
of it that it will produce the skill, knowledge, ideals, and general
experience that function in distinct callings?
Have we even thought of a program of education for leisure which will
develop enduring tastes and interests established toward the enrichment
of the individual and indirectly of social life? Do we fully understand
that to make democracy safe for the world all people should have some
leisure or time apart from vocational, civic, and physical necessities
of life, that such leisure should be filled with sociability,
amusement, recreation, and satisfaction of the aesthetic and physical
desires, and that the public schools must in some measure provide for
these?
Will a democracy proclaiming equality of opportunity as its ideal
require an education which unites from the beginning of the child's
school life, and for all pupils of the school, learning and social
application, ideas and practice, work and recognition of the meaning
of what is done? Or can a democracy be developed by dividing the
public-school system into parts, one of which pursues traditional
methods with incidental improvements, and another in which children
"learn through their hands" and are given only the "essential features"
of the traditional bookwork?
All that the schools are now doing in war time, and much more which
they are not yet doing, to make the world safe for democracy, may be
effectively used after war time to make democracy safe for the world.
INDEX
Agricultural education, establishment of, in city schools, 156, 314;
home-project work, 321;
relation of, to farm-cadet service, 322
Agricultural labor, resolutions of New York State Board of Regents in
regard to, 95;
shortage of, 136;
farm-garden permits for, 159;
release of schoolboys for, 161-163;
justification for employment of boys for, 164;
German women and children in, 236, 242, 243;
English children in farm work, 236-240;
organizing boys for, 246-256;
example of distribution of, 255-256;
social significance of boys in, 270-271;
age distinctions of boys, 274;
types of farm employers, 280-282
Attendance laws, abrogating of, in England, 135;
types of action possible in regard to, 138-139;
action of various states in regard to, 140-143;
lessons to be learned from England, 144-146;
modification of, 155;
changes in New York State, 157-159;
enlistment for farm service in New York State and relation to,
160-161;
relaxing, for agricultural work, 237-239;
constructive policy in amending, 309
Aviation schools, 98
Blind, the, reëducating, 211-213, 215
Boy Scouts, 87, 130, 140, 172, 306, 309, 328
Camp Fire Girls, 328
Canada, convalescent homes for disabled soldiers in, 215;
work of Military Hospitals Commission in, 228-231;
boys for farm work in, 247
Census, agricultural, by schools of New York State, 24, 277;
school principal may direct, 312
Claxton, P. P., 92, 146-150
Colleges, continuance of, during war time, 80-83, 92;
spirit of mobilization of, 83-86;
war-emergency courses in, 86-90, 96-103;
maintenance of academic status of, 91, 93-94;
field of service for departments of psychology in, 101-103;
contribution of geological departments of, 105;
effect of war on curricula of, 111;
demand for graduates of, 147-148
Commercial schools, indefiniteness of aim in, 316-317;
short-unit and part-time courses in, 317
Community canning clubs. _See_ Conservation of food
Conservation of food, need of, 25-28;
saving of waste in New York City, 29-31;
Columbia lectures
on, 87-88;
canning clubs, 125-127, 320;
drying and evaporating, 126-127, 320;
county superintendents' duties, 326
Continuation schools, enacting of laws for, 155
Council for National Defense, 94, 96, 315
Cripples, reëducating the, 211-233
Democracy, teaching of, 149-150;
making safe for the world, 326;
leisure necessary for, 329
Disabled soldiers, reëducating the, 211-233
Domestic arts, new spirit of teaching, 118;
criticism of existing teaching of, 192;
improvements in teaching, 193-194;
Thrift Club, 321
Domestic science, new spirit of teaching, 119;
teaching adults, 122, 319;
traveling kitchens, 124;
demonstration train, 124;
war recipes, 319;
home cadets, 321
Education, effect of war on, 113-114;
equal opportunity for, 327;
socialized, 327;
vocational guidance in, 327;
for subnormals and cripples, 328.
_See also_ Colleges, Commercial Schools, Schools, etc.
Employment of children, care exercised in, 146;
out of school hours, 149;
divergent points of view in regard to, 150-151;
recognizing work impulses in, 151-152;
occupational study of a group of boys, 186-190;
"blind-alley occupations," 190-191;
waste of boy power, 191
England's schools, use of buildings in war, 18-20;
as distributing agencies for information, 23-24;
compiling of National Register by, 24;
open days for parents, 28;
traveling kitchens in, 29, 124;
thrift teaching in, 31-32;
training semiskilled workers in, 59-60, 66, 75-76;
productive work of technical schools, 60-61;
courses in cantonments, 101-102;
garden work as substitute for manual training in, 121-122;
short courses in cookery in, 123;
training cooks for army, 128;
furnishing meals to children in, 129;
furnishing soldiers' kits and hospital equipment, 132-134;
abrogating attendance laws, 135, 137-138;
restricting labor of school children, 144-146;
children for farm work, 236-240;
plans for supervision of schoolboy farm labor, 240-242;
reorganization of, 304
Evening schools, trade-extension work in, 72;
training of foremen in, 316
Farm cadets, organization of, in New York State, 172;
reason for organizing, 234-245;
plan for use of, 246, 272-274;
rearrangement of school program for, 247-248, 313-314;
wages of, 249, 250, 253, 261, 262, 265, 267, 278;
agreements and contracts, 251-252, 279-280, 282-287;
New York State plan, 253-254;
physical examination, 264, 274-275;
enlistment blanks, 276
Farm-labor camps, explanation of, 245;
Massachusetts plan, 248-253;
agreements and contracts, 251-252, 265;
illustration of different types of, 256-261;
food cost and preparation, 258, 295-297;
menus, 259;
recreation, 260, 297;
wages, 261, 262, 265, 267-269;
labor distribution, 261-262, 266-268;
personal equipment, 262, 292;
camp equipment, 262, 264, 268;
illustration of training type, 263-266;
agricultural instruction in, 267, 297-299;
flying-squadron type, 267-268, 302-303;
leadership, 273, 287-292;
sanitation, 295;
definitions of various types, 298-303
Federal Board of Vocational Education, 54-55, 314-315
France, reëducation of disabled soldiers in, 214-225
French schools, use of buildings in war, 20-21;
war financing helped by teachers of, 39-40;
teaching the meaning of the war in, 41, 44-46;
changing aspects of, due to war, 41, 51-52;
sewing for soldiers in, 133;
part-time, 155;
normal schools' contribution to war service, 199;
Red Cross work, 208
German schools, efficiency spirit of, 17, 104;
contribution to agricultural labor, 242-243;
conservation of natural resources in, 243-244;
industrial-efficiency idea in, 305
History, teaching of, 46-47
Industrial and trade schools, contribution of, to manufacturing needs,
60;
war-emergency courses in, 63, 314-315;
question of production in, 66-67;
readjustment in war time, 71;
open in summer, 72-73;
part-time classes in, 74-76;
teaching of hygiene in, 77;
producing farm-camp equipment, 252;
inventories of equipment, 315;
state study of possible war uses of, 315
Junior Red Cross, 207, 209-210
Labor, war demands for, 58;
industrial schools meeting shortage of, 61, 68-69;
one method of training, 61-64;
educative value of, 152-153
Liberty Loan bonds, and the schools, 37-39, 311, 325
Library, service of, in war time, 104-105
Manual training, garden work in place of, 130-131;
war-service work in, 131-132, 317-319;
making Red Cross splints, 206, 317;
abandoning models, 318;
in connection with junior high schools, 319
Military equivalents, recognition of, in New York State, 171, 305;
experience in England, France, and Germany, 173;
necessity of conscious service, 174, 177-180;
types of occupations having, 175-176;
"Moral Equivalent of War," 176;
an example of, in
agriculture, 181-185;
an example of, in industry, 186-189;
farm labor as a military equivalent, 254
Military training, exemptions from, 165, 167;
compulsory in New York State, 166;
in high schools, 167-170;
including employed boys, 168, 170-171;
vocational training in relation to, 173;
adaptability of, 309
"Moral Equivalent of War," 176
National Board for Historical Service, 46
National Council of Defense, 94, 96, 315
National Security League, 49-50, 140
National Society for the Promotion of Industrial Education, 64
Naval schools, description of, 77-79
Off-time classes, importance of, 72
Part-time education, opportunity for, 74-75;
war-emergency courses in, 154-155;
enacting laws for, 155;
farm work and, 240;
as an economy measure, 308-309
Patriotism, teaching meaning of the war, 42;
necessity for teaching, 42-44, 48-49;
topics in relation to, 50-51
Physical training, compulsory in New York State, 166;
recommendations of New Jersey Commission in regard to, 167-170;
importance of, from military standpoint, 168-169;
advantages of, over military training, 309
Posters, war, 129-130
Practical arts, definition of, 116;
project plan of teaching, 117-118;
influence of war-service work on, 117
Principal, war duties of, 33-34, 310-314
Red Cross, work for, in schools, 194, 196-198, 311;
a state plan of school service to, 200-201;
use of knitting machines, 202;
work for, in Troy, N.Y., 202-205;
making splints, 206;
Home Service division of, 207-208;
Junior Red Cross, 207, 209-210;
what can be done in schools for, 207;
reporting home conditions to, 308
Reëducation, the problem of the physically handicapped, 211-213;
relation to federal insurance, 213;
a government problem, 214;
instruction for the blind in France, 215;
L'École Joffre, 216-219;
instruction in vocational subjects in France, 218-221, 224-225;
percentage capable of, in France, 222;
the problem in the United States, 225-228;
industrial accidents and, 232
Roosevelt, Theodore, 11, 324-325
Rural schools, agricultural labor under direction of, 153-154;
camp in connection with, 302
School boards, in relation to war service, 306-307;
provisions of, for drafted teachers, 307-308;
organization of vocational courses by, 310;
planning for agriculture by, 310;
work of, for avoiding juvenile delinquency, 310
School principals, 33-34, 310-314
Schools, as distributing centers for pamphlets, etc., 22, 311;
furnishing lunches to children in, 128-129, 308;
opportunity for poster work in, 129-130;
maintaining efficiency of, 146;
keeping children in, 147, 308;
postponement of construction work for, 149;
agricultural activities in rural, 153;
lengthening terms and hours of, 308.
_See also_ Commercial schools, French schools, etc.
Smith-Hughes Bill, 54, 57
Teachers, work of, in promoting French government loans, 39-40;
opportunities of, to teach history, 46-49;
New York State directions to, 119-121;
service of, on committees, 326;
war-service programs of, 326
Technical institutes: war-service courses in Wentworth Institute,
Boston, 106-107;
Pratt Institute, Brooklyn, 107-108;
Dunwoody Institute, Minneapolis, 108-111
Thrift, necessity for, 31-33;
practice of, in England, 31-32, 36-37;
teaching of, 35;
campaign for, 311;
Thrift Club, 321
Trade schools. _See_ Industrial and trade schools
Traveling kitchens, 29, 124
Unit courses, organization of, 73-74;
utility of, 306
United States Boys' Working Reserve, 163-164, 322-324
Vocational education, definition of, 53;
federal grants for, 54-55;
federal requirements of, 56;
adjustment of, to industrial needs, 59;
standardization of products, 195;
"safety-first" instruction in, 212;
opportunity for teachers in, 233;
influence of automatic machinery on, 329;
for distinct callings, 329
War Savings certificates, in England, 36-37;
in the United States, 311
Wilson, Woodrow, 1, 54, 72-73, 81-82, 209, 324
ANNOUNCEMENTS
BOOKS OF WAR-TIME INTEREST
Upon the schools falls in great measure the responsibility of training
and fitting the nation for service. To support the schools in
fulfilling this tremendous duty is the purpose of the two following
books.
OUR SCHOOLS IN WAR TIME--AND AFTER
By ARTHUR D. DEAN, Professor of Vocational Education, Teachers
College, Columbia University, and Supervising Officer, Bureau of
Vocational Training, New York State Military Training Commission.
335 pages, $1.25.
A book to challenge the spirit of every loyal American. It describes
the war work being done by schools in this country and others, and
gives practical suggestions for promoting the work in this country.
Conservation of food and other lessons in thrift, vocational education,
Red Cross and other community work, and reëducation of the disabled are
only a few of the important topics emphasized.
Eight inserts of photographic illustrations concretely visualize the
subject for the reader.
FOOD PROBLEMS
By A. N. FARMER, Superintendent of Schools, Evanston, Ill., and
JANET R. HUNTINGTON, State Department of Public Instruction, Wis.
27 cents, list price, or 20 cents, net, to boards of education,
teachers, and schools; carriage extra.
This book aims to introduce lessons of thrift into the home by
utilizing the enormous influence of the schools upon national thought
and habit. It embodies in arithmetical problems of the most practical
nature principles upheld by the Food Administration. Where the book has
been studied it has been found to fulfill a two-fold purpose: pupils
have worked with greater energy and good will, and both the children
and their parents have attacked with more determination the most
important, the underlying, problem--food conservation. To insure for
this book the immediate and wide distribution that it merits, Ginn and
Company are offering it at an unusually low price.
GINN AND COMPANY PUBLISHERS
INDUSTRIAL ARTS IN THE SCHOOL
EXAMPLES OF INDUSTRIAL EDUCATION
By FRANK MITCHELL LEAVITT, The University of Chicago. 330
pages, $1.25
The movement for industrial education is a part of a recent great
educational advance. This volume discusses the history and practice
of the movement to bring about universal and appropriate education,
especially in its relation to existing social, economic, and
educational institutions. The author outlines a constructive plan for
organization of this type of education by public schools and gives many
helpful suggestions for bringing such organization into vital relation
with the present system. Full descriptions of existing classes and
schools serve as examples to illustrate the general principles of their
classification.
FINE AND INDUSTRIAL ARTS IN ELEMENTARY SCHOOLS
By WALTER SARGENT, The University of Chicago. 132 pages,
illustrated, 75 cents
The present wide acceptance of the manual arts as an important part of
general education is rapidly removing them from the class of special
subjects. The purpose of this book is to present some considerations
upon questions arising from this readjustment. The distinctive
functions of the various subjects taught under the head of manual arts,
the organization of progressive instruction, and reasonable standards
of attainment from year to year are among the subjects given careful
consideration. The book includes a survey of the progression of work
in the elementary grades, which forms the basis for the more detailed
suggestions which follow.
HOW CHILDREN LEARN TO DRAW
By WALTER SARGENT and ELIZABETH E. MILLER, The University of
Chicago. 264 pages, illustrated, $1.00
A new and decidedly fresh viewpoint is at once apparent in this book,
which treats drawing as a means of self-expression, as entirely natural
as talking or writing. The book combines, in subject matter, theory
as to what is to be accomplished, practical reports as to how these
aims have been accomplished, particularly in the Elementary School
of the School of Education (The University of Chicago), and definite
suggestions for improvement of methods. It will be found an excellent
volume for reading circles as well as for use in normal-training
classes and departments of education.
GINN AND COMPANY PUBLISHERS
BOOKS FOR TEACHERS
Allen: Civics and Health $1.25
Bloomfield: Readings in Vocational Guidance 2.25
Brigham: Geographic Influences in American History 1.25
Curtis: Play and Recreation for the Open Country 1.16
Davis: Vocational and Moral Guidance 1.25
Finlay-Johnson: The Dramatic Method of Teaching 1.00
Gesell: The Normal Child and Primary Education 1.25
Hall: Aspects of Child Life and Education 1.50
Hodge: Nature Study and Life 1.50
Johnson: Education by Plays and Games .90
Johnson: What to do at Recess .25
Jones: Education as Growth 1.25
Judd: Psychology of High-School Subjects 1.50
Kastman and Köhler: Swedish Song Games .75
Kern: Among Country Schools 1.25
Leavitt: Examples of Industrial Education 1.25
Leiper: Language Work in Elementary Schools 1.25
Lincoln: Everyday Pedagogy 1.00
Moore: What is Education? 1.25
Moral Training in the Public Schools 1.25
Palmer: Play Life in the First Eight Years 1.20
Parker: History of Modern Elementary Education 1.50
Parker: Methods of Teaching in High Schools 1.50
Phillips: An Elementary Psychology 1.20
Prince: Courses of Studies and Methods of Teaching .75
Read: An Introductory Psychology 1.00
Sargent: Fine and Industrial Arts in Elementary Schools .75
Sargent and Miller: How Children Learn to Draw 1.00
Scott: Social Education 1.25
Smith: The Teaching of Arithmetic 1.00
Tompkins: Philosophy of School Management .75
Tompkins: Philosophy of Teaching .75
Williams: Gardens and their Meaning 1.00
Wiltse: Place of the Story in Early Education, and Other Essays .50
GINN AND COMPANY PUBLISHERS
BOOKS ON VOCATIONAL GUIDANCE
BUSINESS EMPLOYMENTS
By FREDERICK J. ALLEN, Vocation Bureau of Boston. 218 pages,
$1.00.
A comprehensive and thorough-going survey of business in its three
typical divisions--manufacture, trade, finance. This study has been
prepared from direct examination of the most modern and up-to-date
material available on the business organization and business methods
of to-day. In its absolute reliability and accuracy it will serve
excellently well the young person who wishes to learn of the nature,
extent, and opportunities of the business world.
READINGS IN VOCATIONAL GUIDANCE
By MEYER BLOOMFIELD, Director of the Vocation Bureau of Boston.
xv + 723 pages, $2.25.
This volume represents an extensive collection of the most note-worthy
literature on vocational guidance. It is not merely a careful
compilation, but is as well a carefully organized presentation, richly
suggestive for all who are interested in the subject. Much material
here included is not elsewhere available.
VOCATIONAL AND MORAL GUIDANCE
By JESSE BUTTRICK DAVIS, Vocational Director of Schools, Grand
Rapids, Mich. 303 pages, $1.25.
A significant volume into the preparation of which have gone several
years of practical experiment upon the problems of vocational guidance.
The result is a book invaluable in its wealth of definite and workable
suggestions for the organization and administration of vocational work
in schools.
OCCUPATIONS
By ENOCH BURTON GOWIN, New York University, and WILLIAM ALONZO
WHEATLEY, Superintendent of Schools, Middletown, Conn. 357 pages,
illustrated, $1.20.
This is a textbook for the student's own use, planned to cover both
vocational guidance and vocational information, with the emphasis
strongly upon the latter. Part I sets forth the importance of
vocational preparation; Part II is a survey of various occupations; and
Part III shows the student how to apply the knowledge gained in Parts
I and II. Besides being intrinsically interesting the book is well
organized for class use.
GINN AND COMPANY PUBLISHERS
* * * * * *
Transcriber's note:
Spelling was made consistent.
Punctuation was corrected without comment.
***END OF THE PROJECT GUTENBERG EBOOK OUR SCHOOLS IN WAR TIME--AND AFTER***
******* This file should be named 46365-8.txt or 46365-8.zip *******
This and all associated files of various formats will be found in:
http://www.gutenberg.org/dirs/4/6/3/6/46365
Updated editions will replace the previous one--the old editions
will be renamed.
Creating the works from public domain print editions means that no
one owns a United States copyright in these works, so the Foundation
(and you!) can copy and distribute it in the United States without
permission and without paying copyright royalties. Special rules,
set forth in the General Terms of Use part of this license, apply to
copying and distributing Project Gutenberg-tm electronic works to
protect the PROJECT GUTENBERG-tm concept and trademark. Project
Gutenberg is a registered trademark, and may not be used if you
charge for the eBooks, unless you receive specific permission. If you
do not charge anything for copies of this eBook, complying with the
rules is very easy. You may use this eBook for nearly any purpose
such as creation of derivative works, reports, performances and
research. They may be modified and printed and given away--you may do
practically ANYTHING with public domain eBooks. Redistribution is
subject to the trademark license, especially commercial
redistribution.
*** START: FULL LICENSE ***
THE FULL PROJECT GUTENBERG LICENSE
PLEASE READ THIS BEFORE YOU DISTRIBUTE OR USE THIS WORK
To protect the Project Gutenberg-tm mission of promoting the free
distribution of electronic works, by using or distributing this work
(or any other work associated in any way with the phrase "Project
Gutenberg"), you agree to comply with all the terms of the Full Project
Gutenberg-tm License available with this file or online at
www.gutenberg.org/license.
Section 1. General Terms of Use and Redistributing Project Gutenberg-tm
electronic works
1.A. By reading or using any part of this Project Gutenberg-tm
electronic work, you indicate that you have read, understand, agree to
and accept all the terms of this license and intellectual property
(trademark/copyright) agreement. If you do not agree to abide by all
the terms of this agreement, you must cease using and return or destroy
all copies of Project Gutenberg-tm electronic works in your possession.
If you paid a fee for obtaining a copy of or access to a Project
Gutenberg-tm electronic work and you do not agree to be bound by the
terms of this agreement, you may obtain a refund from the person or
entity to whom you paid the fee as set forth in paragraph 1.E.8.
1.B. "Project Gutenberg" is a registered trademark. It may only be
used on or associated in any way with an electronic work by people who
agree to be bound by the terms of this agreement. There are a few
things that you can do with most Project Gutenberg-tm electronic works
even without complying with the full terms of this agreement. See
paragraph 1.C below. There are a lot of things you can do with Project
Gutenberg-tm electronic works if you follow the terms of this agreement
and help preserve free future access to Project Gutenberg-tm electronic
works. See paragraph 1.E below.
1.C. The Project Gutenberg Literary Archive Foundation ("the Foundation"
or PGLAF), owns a compilation copyright in the collection of Project
Gutenberg-tm electronic works. Nearly all the individual works in the
collection are in the public domain in the United States. If an
individual work is in the public domain in the United States and you are
located in the United States, we do not claim a right to prevent you from
copying, distributing, performing, displaying or creating derivative
works based on the work as long as all references to Project Gutenberg
are removed. Of course, we hope that you will support the Project
Gutenberg-tm mission of promoting free access to electronic works by
freely sharing Project Gutenberg-tm works in compliance with the terms of
this agreement for keeping the Project Gutenberg-tm name associated with
the work. You can easily comply with the terms of this agreement by
keeping this work in the same format with its attached full Project
Gutenberg-tm License when you share it without charge with others.
1.D. The copyright laws of the place where you are located also govern
what you can do with this work. Copyright laws in most countries are in
a constant state of change. If you are outside the United States, check
the laws of your country in addition to the terms of this agreement
before downloading, copying, displaying, performing, distributing or
creating derivative works based on this work or any other Project
Gutenberg-tm work. The Foundation makes no representations concerning
the copyright status of any work in any country outside the United
States.
1.E. Unless you have removed all references to Project Gutenberg:
1.E.1. The following sentence, with active links to, or other immediate
access to, the full Project Gutenberg-tm License must appear prominently
whenever any copy of a Project Gutenberg-tm work (any work on which the
phrase "Project Gutenberg" appears, or with which the phrase "Project
Gutenberg" is associated) is accessed, displayed, performed, viewed,
copied or distributed:
This eBook is for the use of anyone anywhere at no cost and with
almost no restrictions whatsoever. You may copy it, give it away or
re-use it under the terms of the Project Gutenberg License included
with this eBook or online at www.gutenberg.org
1.E.2. If an individual Project Gutenberg-tm electronic work is derived
from the public domain (does not contain a notice indicating that it is
posted with permission of the copyright holder), the work can be copied
and distributed to anyone in the United States without paying any fees
or charges. If you are redistributing or providing access to a work
with the phrase "Project Gutenberg" associated with or appearing on the
work, you must comply either with the requirements of paragraphs 1.E.1
through 1.E.7 or obtain permission for the use of the work and the
Project Gutenberg-tm trademark as set forth in paragraphs 1.E.8 or
1.E.9.
1.E.3. If an individual Project Gutenberg-tm electronic work is posted
with the permission of the copyright holder, your use and distribution
must comply with both paragraphs 1.E.1 through 1.E.7 and any additional
terms imposed by the copyright holder. Additional terms will be linked
to the Project Gutenberg-tm License for all works posted with the
permission of the copyright holder found at the beginning of this work.
1.E.4. Do not unlink or detach or remove the full Project Gutenberg-tm
License terms from this work, or any files containing a part of this
work or any other work associated with Project Gutenberg-tm.
1.E.5. Do not copy, display, perform, distribute or redistribute this
electronic work, or any part of this electronic work, without
prominently displaying the sentence set forth in paragraph 1.E.1 with
active links or immediate access to the full terms of the Project
Gutenberg-tm License.
1.E.6. You may convert to and distribute this work in any binary,
compressed, marked up, nonproprietary or proprietary form, including any
word processing or hypertext form. However, if you provide access to or
distribute copies of a Project Gutenberg-tm work in a format other than
"Plain Vanilla ASCII" or other format used in the official version
posted on the official Project Gutenberg-tm web site (www.gutenberg.org),
you must, at no additional cost, fee or expense to the user, provide a
copy, a means of exporting a copy, or a means of obtaining a copy upon
request, of the work in its original "Plain Vanilla ASCII" or other
form. Any alternate format must include the full Project Gutenberg-tm
License as specified in paragraph 1.E.1.
1.E.7. Do not charge a fee for access to, viewing, displaying,
performing, copying or distributing any Project Gutenberg-tm works
unless you comply with paragraph 1.E.8 or 1.E.9.
1.E.8. You may charge a reasonable fee for copies of or providing
access to or distributing Project Gutenberg-tm electronic works provided
that
- You pay a royalty fee of 20% of the gross profits you derive from
the use of Project Gutenberg-tm works calculated using the method
you already use to calculate your applicable taxes. The fee is
owed to the owner of the Project Gutenberg-tm trademark, but he
has agreed to donate royalties under this paragraph to the
Project Gutenberg Literary Archive Foundation. Royalty payments
must be paid within 60 days following each date on which you
prepare (or are legally required to prepare) your periodic tax
returns. Royalty payments should be clearly marked as such and
sent to the Project Gutenberg Literary Archive Foundation at the
address specified in Section 4, "Information about donations to
the Project Gutenberg Literary Archive Foundation."
- You provide a full refund of any money paid by a user who notifies
you in writing (or by e-mail) within 30 days of receipt that s/he
does not agree to the terms of the full Project Gutenberg-tm
License. You must require such a user to return or
destroy all copies of the works possessed in a physical medium
and discontinue all use of and all access to other copies of
Project Gutenberg-tm works.
- You provide, in accordance with paragraph 1.F.3, a full refund of any
money paid for a work or a replacement copy, if a defect in the
electronic work is discovered and reported to you within 90 days
of receipt of the work.
- You comply with all other terms of this agreement for free
distribution of Project Gutenberg-tm works.
1.E.9. If you wish to charge a fee or distribute a Project Gutenberg-tm
electronic work or group of works on different terms than are set
forth in this agreement, you must obtain permission in writing from
both the Project Gutenberg Literary Archive Foundation and Michael
Hart, the owner of the Project Gutenberg-tm trademark. Contact the
Foundation as set forth in Section 3 below.
1.F.
1.F.1. Project Gutenberg volunteers and employees expend considerable
effort to identify, do copyright research on, transcribe and proofread
public domain works in creating the Project Gutenberg-tm
collection. Despite these efforts, Project Gutenberg-tm electronic
works, and the medium on which they may be stored, may contain
"Defects," such as, but not limited to, incomplete, inaccurate or
corrupt data, transcription errors, a copyright or other intellectual
property infringement, a defective or damaged disk or other medium, a
computer virus, or computer codes that damage or cannot be read by
your equipment.
1.F.2. LIMITED WARRANTY, DISCLAIMER OF DAMAGES - Except for the "Right
of Replacement or Refund" described in paragraph 1.F.3, the Project
Gutenberg Literary Archive Foundation, the owner of the Project
Gutenberg-tm trademark, and any other party distributing a Project
Gutenberg-tm electronic work under this agreement, disclaim all
liability to you for damages, costs and expenses, including legal
fees. YOU AGREE THAT YOU HAVE NO REMEDIES FOR NEGLIGENCE, STRICT
LIABILITY, BREACH OF WARRANTY OR BREACH OF CONTRACT EXCEPT THOSE
PROVIDED IN PARAGRAPH 1.F.3. YOU AGREE THAT THE FOUNDATION, THE
TRADEMARK OWNER, AND ANY DISTRIBUTOR UNDER THIS AGREEMENT WILL NOT BE
LIABLE TO YOU FOR ACTUAL, DIRECT, INDIRECT, CONSEQUENTIAL, PUNITIVE OR
INCIDENTAL DAMAGES EVEN IF YOU GIVE NOTICE OF THE POSSIBILITY OF SUCH
DAMAGE.
1.F.3. LIMITED RIGHT OF REPLACEMENT OR REFUND - If you discover a
defect in this electronic work within 90 days of receiving it, you can
receive a refund of the money (if any) you paid for it by sending a
written explanation to the person you received the work from. If you
received the work on a physical medium, you must return the medium with
your written explanation. The person or entity that provided you with
the defective work may elect to provide a replacement copy in lieu of a
refund. If you received the work electronically, the person or entity
providing it to you may choose to give you a second opportunity to
receive the work electronically in lieu of a refund. If the second copy
is also defective, you may demand a refund in writing without further
opportunities to fix the problem.
1.F.4. Except for the limited right of replacement or refund set forth
in paragraph 1.F.3, this work is provided to you 'AS-IS', WITH NO OTHER
WARRANTIES OF ANY KIND, EXPRESS OR IMPLIED, INCLUDING BUT NOT LIMITED TO
WARRANTIES OF MERCHANTABILITY OR FITNESS FOR ANY PURPOSE.
1.F.5. Some states do not allow disclaimers of certain implied
warranties or the exclusion or limitation of certain types of damages.
If any disclaimer or limitation set forth in this agreement violates the
law of the state applicable to this agreement, the agreement shall be
interpreted to make the maximum disclaimer or limitation permitted by
the applicable state law. The invalidity or unenforceability of any
provision of this agreement shall not void the remaining provisions.
1.F.6. INDEMNITY - You agree to indemnify and hold the Foundation, the
trademark owner, any agent or employee of the Foundation, anyone
providing copies of Project Gutenberg-tm electronic works in accordance
with this agreement, and any volunteers associated with the production,
promotion and distribution of Project Gutenberg-tm electronic works,
harmless from all liability, costs and expenses, including legal fees,
that arise directly or indirectly from any of the following which you do
or cause to occur: (a) distribution of this or any Project Gutenberg-tm
work, (b) alteration, modification, or additions or deletions to any
Project Gutenberg-tm work, and (c) any Defect you cause.
Section 2. Information about the Mission of Project Gutenberg-tm
Project Gutenberg-tm is synonymous with the free distribution of
electronic works in formats readable by the widest variety of computers
including obsolete, old, middle-aged and new computers. It exists
because of the efforts of hundreds of volunteers and donations from
people in all walks of life.
Volunteers and financial support to provide volunteers with the
assistance they need are critical to reaching Project Gutenberg-tm's
goals and ensuring that the Project Gutenberg-tm collection will
remain freely available for generations to come. In 2001, the Project
Gutenberg Literary Archive Foundation was created to provide a secure
and permanent future for Project Gutenberg-tm and future generations.
To learn more about the Project Gutenberg Literary Archive Foundation
and how your efforts and donations can help, see Sections 3 and 4
and the Foundation information page at www.gutenberg.org
Section 3. Information about the Project Gutenberg Literary Archive
Foundation
The Project Gutenberg Literary Archive Foundation is a non profit
501(c)(3) educational corporation organized under the laws of the
state of Mississippi and granted tax exempt status by the Internal
Revenue Service. The Foundation's EIN or federal tax identification
number is 64-6221541. Contributions to the Project Gutenberg
Literary Archive Foundation are tax deductible to the full extent
permitted by U.S. federal laws and your state's laws.
The Foundation's principal office is located at 4557 Melan Dr. S.
Fairbanks, AK, 99712., but its volunteers and employees are scattered
throughout numerous locations. Its business office is located at 809
North 1500 West, Salt Lake City, UT 84116, (801) 596-1887. Email
contact links and up to date contact information can be found at the
Foundation's web site and official page at www.gutenberg.org/contact
For additional contact information:
Dr. Gregory B. Newby
Chief Executive and Director
[email protected]
Section 4. Information about Donations to the Project Gutenberg
Literary Archive Foundation
Project Gutenberg-tm depends upon and cannot survive without wide
spread public support and donations to carry out its mission of
increasing the number of public domain and licensed works that can be
freely distributed in machine readable form accessible by the widest
array of equipment including outdated equipment. Many small donations
($1 to $5,000) are particularly important to maintaining tax exempt
status with the IRS.
The Foundation is committed to complying with the laws regulating
charities and charitable donations in all 50 states of the United
States. Compliance requirements are not uniform and it takes a
considerable effort, much paperwork and many fees to meet and keep up
with these requirements. We do not solicit donations in locations
where we have not received written confirmation of compliance. To
SEND DONATIONS or determine the status of compliance for any
particular state visit www.gutenberg.org/donate
While we cannot and do not solicit contributions from states where we
have not met the solicitation requirements, we know of no prohibition
against accepting unsolicited donations from donors in such states who
approach us with offers to donate.
International donations are gratefully accepted, but we cannot make
any statements concerning tax treatment of donations received from
outside the United States. U.S. laws alone swamp our small staff.
Please check the Project Gutenberg Web pages for current donation
methods and addresses. Donations are accepted in a number of other
ways including checks, online payments and credit card donations.
To donate, please visit: www.gutenberg.org/donate
Section 5. General Information About Project Gutenberg-tm electronic
works.
Professor Michael S. Hart was the originator of the Project Gutenberg-tm
concept of a library of electronic works that could be freely shared
with anyone. For forty years, he produced and distributed Project
Gutenberg-tm eBooks with only a loose network of volunteer support.
Project Gutenberg-tm eBooks are often created from several printed
editions, all of which are confirmed as Public Domain in the U.S.
unless a copyright notice is included. Thus, we do not necessarily
keep eBooks in compliance with any particular paper edition.
Most people start at our Web site which has the main PG search facility:
www.gutenberg.org
This Web site includes information about Project Gutenberg-tm,
including how to make donations to the Project Gutenberg Literary
Archive Foundation, how to help produce our new eBooks, and how to
subscribe to our email newsletter to hear about new eBooks.
