Our Schools in War Time—and After

by Arthur D. Dean

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 and will report for service:

From mo.___day___to mo.___day___

From mo.___day___to mo.___day___

Kind of work desired; picking fruit, vegetable gardening, general farming, etc.

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 asstated 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.