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 No provision of the labor law was repealed, suspended,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?