Our Schools in War Time—and After

by Arthur D. Dean

The school board and its executive officer, the superintendent, should do everything to save the school buildings for school purposes. They are literally factories turning out, it is hoped, handmade products; and in time of war their service should be increased rather than diminished. To use them as hospitals will be a mistake,—better by far confiscate department stores. Bring the war into the schools in the spirit already interpreted in preceding chapters, but do not take the schools into the war.

Do not eliminate studies indiscriminately. Evaluate if you will,—and this is always well,—but wholesale cutting out is to be avoided. It may be that the cost and value of instruction in freehand drawing will have to be compared with the permanent value of the study of Latin. It may be that instead of adding to the vocational department a machine-shop equipment, which is always expensive, it will be discovered that a coöperative course can be developed, employing the equipment of a neighboring factory, and that all the school need furnish is a teacher for blackboard work in mathematics, drawing, and science. It is likely that a longer school day will be advisable and also a longer school year. It is quite probable that the introduction of the methods of the Boy Scout movement into the public schools will be found superior to some of the present teaching of nature study, recreational work, civics, and conduct.

Provision must be made for filling the places of the male teachers who will be drafted. Many of these will be instructors in science and mathematics. It ought to be possible to secure the services of retired civil or mechanical engineers for teaching these subjects. It is feasible to draft into service married women who have once taught. It is to be hoped that the government will eventually recognize that educational enterprise as well as industrial enterprise ought to furnish grounds for exemption. As war comes closer to us provision must be made for keeping the schools open twelve months in the year, and from eight in the morning until ten at night for six days in the week. Every child up to the age of 14 must be kept in school. It is the best place for him, provided, of course, the school rises to its full height,—and it is taken for granted that it will. The physical condition of the younger children especially should be watched very carefully. The teacher should discover the conditions at home. It may be that some pupils have had no breakfast and are not likely to have a suitable lunch or even a supper. Some will have to be fed in the schools, and here is an opportunity for the older girls in domestic-science classes. Some will report certain home conditions that will require that the school make a report to the local Red Cross chapter or some other relief agency. Again there is opportunity for the older girls to serve through their knowledge of home nursing, infant feeding, and first aid.

If the war strikes us hard, we may have to think of part-time work for children above 14, but we must never let the children get away from us as they have in England. We must control the exodus. We must not abrogate the existing compulsory-attendance laws and the existing labor laws. We must not interpret these laws with laxity and shut our eyes while the children go by us on their way to work. We may do well to amend these laws if in so doing we can incorporate useful labor into the educative process. In other words, we must be constructive in any part-time measures which are adopted. The educative value of profitable labor need not be lost.

It will be well for us to look into the real value of military training for schoolboys before we adopt in a wholesale fashion obsolete militarism. The value of wooden-gunism is questionable. Physical training, vocational training, athletics, Boy Scout work, team play, and discipline are far more valuable. Military drill given in addition to these activities may be advisable. However, on this point there is still a difference of opinion. But to give formal military instruction without considering its adaptability to the methods used in modern warfare and the training incident to effective preparation for them is neither military preparedness on the one hand nor sensible educational procedure on the other.

School boards ought to organize at once vocational courses to secure state and national aid, and seek from the legislature state aid for directors of community gardens, as, from now on, these will be a permanent feature of community life. Some sort of provision ought to be made relative to bringing agriculture into the city school or taking the city boy to agriculture. A country branch of a city school is possible. Play and recreation centers must be developed. The increase of juvenile offenses in both England and France during this war has been tremendous. Many of these offenses are committed by children who are still at school. There is much evidence that owing to the absence of military service of their fathers,—and, perhaps even more, of their elder brothers,—the industrial employment of their mothers, the darkened streets, and other circumstances, many school children are suffering from the lack of proper care and discipline and are exposed to serious risks of deterioration. These conditions have been mitigated through the establishment of evening play centers, which provide the children with suitable occupation and amusement after school hours.

The principal of a school can play a large part in a war-emergency program. He can develop the idea of War Savings among the children in his school. Announcement has been made that the government intends to develop the War Savings Certificate plan of England. These certificates are perhaps better adapted to persons of small means than a Liberty Bond. The United States Treasury Department has set forth a plan for advertising and selling these certificates through the public schools of the nation. The aim is to have every pupil an owner of a "little baby bond" and a participant in a democratic plan of government security. A campaign for thrift has been started. The schools must do their part.

The principal can organize patriotic meetings at which he can explain the purposes of the Red Cross, the Liberty Loan, and the garden and conservation movements. He can distribute pamphlets relating to war service. In a small community he can be the leader of the Red Cross movement, only he must always remember that he is to work with state and national organizations and is not to write to Washington when he can perhaps step across the street to local headquarters or write directly to state headquarters. Of course, he will follow closely the printed directions with reference to bandages, shipping, etc., for the general organization has put more thought into it and gained more experience than he could possibly gather.

Obviously the principal ought to allow no competition between school organizations and local organizations. If the local organization is strong and effective, he ought to work under it. If it is not, he may well work over it. By all means he should inform pupils of the meaning of the war, that they in turn may carry word to their parents; and such work is not always limited to districts where people are foreign born. There may be as much need for such work in the West as in New York City. A Western farmer is reported as saying that he did not care who owned the country or whether the Germans took it or not so long as he sold his wheat crop.

The principal may direct a state census on some particular data for which state authorities may call. He should bring together various bulletins issued by state and national governments which concern food production and conservation, sanitation, public health, nursing, dietetics, etc., and by publishing lists of such material in newspapers and posting them on school bulletin boards, bring the information within them to the people who need it most. He should make the hall exercises in the school mean more than ever. Let us hope that "America" may be sung with more vim, and that the principal will know the second stanza. The "Marseillaise" and other national songs of our allies may be sung. Of course a service flag made by the girls in the school hangs prominently in the assembly hall, and each of its stars speaks for a teacher, a student, or a graduate who represents the life-giving contribution of the school to the cause of democracy.