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 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
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