I agree to employ the boy on rainy days as well as fair days, and on rainy days to use his service as far as possible under cover.
I agree, if the boy is unsatisfactory, to give him one week's notice or one week's pay, providing him with a statement in writing giving my reasons for his discharge.
Whenever in the opinion of the local supervisor, the conditions of living or of labor are not satisfactory, the boy may be withdrawn without prejudice to him.
The nature of the work for which the boy is required is
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Sign here ___________________________________________
(Farmer)
Phone ____________ Street address _____________________
Date ________________________ Town _____________________
The right leadership in a camp is very essential. The camp, after all, is but the lengthened shadow of its leader. It is not difficult to write the qualifications essential to leadership in a boys' farm camp, but it is another matter to find any one person who will fill all the conditions that are peculiar to a labor camp. A hundred-point man capable of measuring up to the problems involved in camp leadership must have had experience in school or Association work. He would have knowledge of cooking utensils and personal equipment necessary to take to camp; capacity to arrange for transportation for the boys by the most direct, convenient, and economical route; ability to deal successfully with the problem of the first night in camp,—a night when boys cannot or will not sleep, when they are stirred up by the novelty of the situation. He would be able to recognize good, substantial, nourishing food, and to see that the boys had proper food in such an emergency as the camp cook's suddenly being taken ill or deserting his job. He would have had experience in adjusting working conditions, would know how many quarts of fruit, for example, the average boy can pick; would be able to help these boys get the most out of their work by showing them the most effective method of harvesting; would understand how to use first-aid equipment. He would have to see that the boys kept up correspondence with their homes. He might have to sit up all night with a boy who had eaten more fruit than was good for him.
The right leader will also have to think of reading matter for the camp and of the problem of having the boys attend church services on Sunday when the membership of the camp has varied religious beliefs. He may have some orthodox Jews in camp when the country village has only a Methodist church. He must satisfy the boys who want to have a minstrel show, or the townspeople who offer to entertain the boys. He may even have to arbitrate in labor disputes. He may be the local placement bureau. He should be able to drive an automobile, in order that he may carry a flying squad five miles from camp for a day's work for a farmer who is in immediate need. He must be able to answer the questions asked on blanks sent out by the state departments of agriculture and education, by city boards of education, by state Y.M.C.A.'s, by child-labor bureaus, and by all other organizations more or less directly interested in the new aspects of old problems. If the boys have been excused from school, he must certify that their labor-camp work has been equivalent to the school work which they otherwise would have had. He must be the banker of the camp and help the boys conserve the money which they earn. He is accountable to the group for the expenses of the camp, in order that these may be divided pro rata. He must be able to buy supplies at the least cost.
It is with deliberate intention that this list has been made lengthy and of wide range, in order to show that no man exists who could meet adequately every condition imposed. He is bound to be "born short," as William Hawley Smith would state it, on some of these angles. If he is a social-minded man of the Boy Scout or Y.M.C.A. type, he will be long on entertainments, recreation, food requirements, knowledge of personal equipment, group work, first aid, and sanitation. If he is of the school-teacher type, he will probably be strong on discipline, efficient in looking after details of school credits, camp expenses, records, moral conditions, letter writing, and keeping boys busy. If he is a technical man in agriculture, he may know nothing about baseball on Saturday afternoon or how to organize a minstrel show, but he will probably know how to do more than keep boys busy. He will keep them effectively busy; that is, he will arrange to have certain boys do the lines of work adapted to their skill and knowledge. He will discover ways of utilizing the labor of the unskilled boy. He will be able to judge whether or not a boy is working to his full capacity, and he may be somewhat pitiless if the boy does not measure up to a farm-labor standard. In other words, such a man will be very largely interested in a working camp. He will be interested in meeting the conditions imposed by the farmers. He will know that the berries must be expressed by four o'clock and that the picking may have to stop promptly at two. He will know that a leaky crate of raspberries means a low price for possibly a whole carload. He will be less interested, perhaps, in the balanced ration and more interested in using the products of the community on the camp table. He will not be interested in the records required by school officials so much as in those expected of him by the farm-bureau agent. In short, his idea is to promote agriculture and not to promote the county Y.M.C.A. movement, the back-to-the-farm movement, or any other movement which may be allied with the farm-cadet service.
It is not possible to find any one man who is socially, pedagogically, and agriculturally minded. If he claims to be good in all three fields he probably is mediocre. The experience of the past year, however, shows some remarkably fine work done by leaders of boy camps. Some have been public-school teachers who have given their summer services for nothing or for a nominal fee. Some have been released from their duties as Y.M.C.A. secretaries in order that the association might make a contribution to the farm-cadet movement. Some have been physical directors in public schools. Some have been scout masters among the Boy Scouts. Others have been agricultural teachers who saw that this work was, after all, in the line of their usual duties.
The following illustrates one of the hundred things which a camp leader must know about: