Читать книгу Our Schools in War Time—and After - Arthur D. Dean - Страница 6

Old-fashioned methods of preserving must again prevail. There is educational value in community conservation. Montclair (New Jersey) boys made community evaporators, having a capacity of from five to eight bushels of fruit a day, at a cost of only $10.

A mowing machine is a problem in high-school mechanics, and these farm cadets of New York State see, perhaps for the first time, a use for it.

A day's outing for a purpose. Albany and Troy (New York) orphan-asylum boys on their way to "do their bit" in the currant fields.

A lesson in service geography. Boys from Albany and Troy (New York) picking currants, near Hudson (New York), which were preserved in Yonkers Trades School for shipment to France.

Many community services may be rendered during the war by the principal of a school. He may, as has been done, organize patriotic meetings, enlisting the aid of the churches and arousing the interest of chambers of commerce, civic clubs, and women's clubs in the Red Cross, the Liberty Loan, and school war gardens. His assembly exercises may be made vital through talks to the pupils on opportunities for war service; through platform recognition of boys and girls rendering special farm, garden, Red Cross, and food-conservation help; by placing on a conspicuous bulletin a roll of honor of graduates and students engaged in such work; by keeping the school in touch with graduates who are enlisted in the army and navy by reading their letters to the school and sending school packets to them. He may advise economy in the use of foods and clothing, the elimination of expenditures in soda water, ice cream, and gum, and the sacrifice of pleasure for national ends. He may urge the use of savings in the purchase of government bonds and war-savings certificates. Where the school has been raising money for pictures or a phonograph, he may suggest that the funds raised be used for the purchase of one or more government bonds, to be held by the school as an asset until the close of the war, when the bond may be sold and the money used for its original purpose of buying the phonograph or pictures. In the case of some private secondary schools, and large public schools like the Washington Irving and DeWitt Clinton high schools, New York, the pupils and teachers have subscribed money and given entertainments for the purchase of an ambulance, the gift of the school to the American Expeditionary Force. In one New York City school, through the efforts of a student organization, Liberty Loan bonds to the amount of $479,800 were sold.

The principal in country districts should make himself fully informed of the details of the federal farm-loan plan, the sources of available seed supply, the posters and bulletins of nation and state regarding the mobilization of schools and colleges, and, of course, he should be especially active in encouraging the home-garden projects.

A correspondent in the London Times, June 14, 1917, writing of that indispensable teaching of thrift in household affairs, of making the present generation of young girls intelligently self-sufficient in domestic and industrial life, cries, "This brings us to the crux of the whole situation: Who shall teach the teachers?" The government and state bulletins on food production and conservation, the literature sent out by state councils of defense and public safety on improved methods of preserving, the pronouncements by banking houses on thrift measures and means of attaining them, the Boy Scouts, Y.M.C.A. and Y.W.C.A. leaflets on war gardens and food economies are, in America, beginning to answer this question.

Assuredly the war places an additional burden on the teachers and gives them a new opportunity for educating the pupils. A teacher does not have to belong to the department of domestic arts and science to organize Red Cross circles nor to instruct girls in food conservation. A ten-minute talk each morning by teacher or pupils, before the opening of school, with discussion on such topics as "Why a man with a hundred dollars to invest should buy a Liberty Bond," "New occupations open to women because of the war," "The reason for the scarcity of certain products," "Home substitutes for various manufactured necessities," and many others suggested by new conditions should be very helpful.

An unusually significant experiment known as the "War Savings" movement has been made in English schools. On May 5, 1916, the Board of Education issued a circular asking for the assistance of local education authorities in making known through public elementary schools the facilities afforded by the issue of War Savings certificates. Then, with the coöperation of these authorities and teachers, special lessons were given on the subject, and copies of a leaflet explaining the purpose of the War Savings Association were widely distributed to the parents through their children. As a result a large number of War Savings associations were formed in direct connection with the schools. The success of the movement is evident from the records given in the report of the Board of Education for 1915-1916. In one populous midland county the great majority of the schools have established associations; in another, a northern county, some 70 per cent of the schools have taken part and record nearly 10,000 subscribers. In one midland town a school of about 1400 children purchased certificates to the value of £585 in three months. But it is not only in large schools that the pupils have contributed generously; a remote little school in a northern county, with only 10 children on its register, has 10 subscribers to its credit and has saved £35, buying 43 certificates.

In view of the fact that successive issues of bonds must be made by the United States and other governments of the world, this method of making subscription to the war loan popular is worthy of attention. The public schools have, as never before, the opportunity of showing the practical value of investing, in peace as well as in war time, in government and other bonds. Pupils should realize the difference between money invested in a way to be beneficial not only to the investor but to his state and country, and money invested in ordinary channels.

New York State teachers had an opportunity similar to those of England. The Regents of the University of the state of New York gave formal approval of a plan by which teachers throughout the public schools of the state could aid the Liberty Loan committee of the Federal Reserve Bank in giving instruction and information about the second Liberty Loan. A special committee was appointed by the Board of Regents to act in a supervisory capacity to keep the State Education Department in touch with the large financial interests conducting the loan. The secretary to Commissioner Finley, as the representative of the Regents and the State Education Department, was assigned for temporary services in the office of the Loan committee.

The program in brief was to have the teachers act as agents for subscriptions for the Liberty Loan. They distributed blanks to pupils in the school, who in turn took them to their parents. They were encouraged to subscribe themselves. They did not handle any money or checks, but turned the subscription blanks over to the local bank, which was, of course, in direct touch with the Loan committee in New York City.

A primer of instruction for teachers was prepared in the simplest possible terms. As published by the Publicity Bureau of the United States Treasury Department it was called "A Source Book of the Second Liberty Loan." This primer explained in detail the nature of the bonds, their security, and the terms and prices; it described the nature of bond markets in general, the sources from which interest is paid, the previous records of United States bonds, and all other matter which was of value in elementary financial instruction. It was all set forth in a way which was very helpful not only in assisting in the sale of bonds but in the larger sense of furthering instruction in bonds, interest, discounts, etc., in connection with work in arithmetic. And in what better way could arithmetical instruction be furthered?

It is highly probable that this plan of informing the public relative to government issues of bonds and certificates, initiated in New York, will extend to all parts of the country in connection with the next Loan campaign.

How the responsibility of the teacher has been met in France is in part suggestive. The teachers have collected large funds to finance the enterprise of caring for thousands of families of Belgian and French refugees. They also collected from the civilian population several millions of francs, the teachers taxing themselves according to a fixed schedule. They have been especially successful in bringing to light for investment stores of hidden gold in the homes of provincial savers. Surprising results have been attained through their persistent, methodical propaganda. In one large provincial town, after a talk to the older pupils by the mistress of the school, in four days an amount equal to 7200 francs was brought in. In the same school the following composition was given out to the pupils as part of an admission examination in penmanship.