IMMEDIATE RETURNS FROM CHILD LABOR DO NOT MAKE UP FOR LOSS OF SCHOOLING
Ransom County:
About half our county is consolidated. I find that we have 1,750 pupils enrolled in our graded and consolidated schools, the average daily attendance of which is 75.4 per cent. There are only 993 pupils enrolled in the one-room schools, and their per cent of attendance is 59.4 per cent.
In South Dakota the actual attendance of those enrolled in the country schools is less than 60 per cent. [48] From Campbell County it was reported as follows:
Most of our people are German-Russians and do not favor long terms of school, as they want the labor of their children. For this reason it is hard, even impossible, to secure regular attendance. Their schools must not begin earlier than October, and close by April 1st.
The Superintendent of Public Instruction of Nebraska reports for 1916 as follows:
The average daily attendance, based on enrollment, is a fraction of 72 per cent. The loss is mostly to the rural children. Country people find it somewhat easier to provide employment for their children than do the people of our towns and cities, consequently the attendance in our city schools is larger and more regular, and a much larger percentage enroll.
In California the compulsory-school-attendance law is rigidly enforced, except in the case of floating families. In this connection the Commissioner of Public Education made the following explanation to the writer: The California industries are mostly seasonal, which means that the vast majority of labor forces are seasonal and floating. During the seasons of fruit and hop-picking, cannery and lumber operations, large numbers of laborers' families move from place to place. To keep track of their children and to compel their school attendance is almost beyond the power of the present school authorities, especially as they are now organized.
The state school-attendance laws vary greatly, and one finds still more variety in the enforcement of these laws. The greatest difficulties are experienced in the rural districts. Using child labor in farming is a deep-rooted tradition. The children are looked upon by their parents as their economic asset. Moreover, it is a hard-headed conviction among the rural population that child labor is beneficial to the children themselves; they learn to work, their bodies are strengthened, they acquire good habits of life, etc. That the children are deprived of the opportunity to play—to develop as their nature requires—and to acquire a general education; that this results in their mental abilities and social instincts being undeveloped, the young people remaining bashful and shy; and that even their physical development is greatly restricted by overwork—the rural advocates of child labor cannot understand nor recognize.