Our Schools in War Time—and After

by Arthur D. Dean

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.