Our Schools in War Time—and AfterDean, Arthur D. (Arthur Davis)
History
Our Schools in War Time—and After
Dean, Arthur D. (Arthur Davis)
Education -- United States; World War, 1914-1918 -- War work -- Schools
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.
Public-domain text, read in full here on John Shaqi.
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