age, went to farms and munition factories. That is, the taking away of the school building was concomitant with the suspension of restrictions on age of employment and hours of labor. The children of the prosperous class were likewise affected by the departure of over 50 per cent of the teachers for military service.

These many interruptions in the carrying on of educational work were the result of the short-war fallacy; they were emergency measures adopted to meet a condition which it was generally supposed would last but a few months. When, however, it was realized by statesmen and the public that the interference with education and the suspension of laws regulating employment were resulting in irreparable injury to health and morals of an employed child population under 13 years of age of 150,000, and an idle younger population variously estimated at from 200,000 to 300,000, corrective measures were adopted. American schools must learn from English experience what to avoid. There are many legitimate uses of schools which England is now employing; and the warnings of interested English educators should keep our legislatures and municipalities from breaking down the compulsory-education laws or converting our schools into industrial plants. Our aim, as previously stated, should be to bring the war to the school curriculum for educational purposes, not to take the schools into the war, losing sight of their definite function.

In France, at the outbreak of the war, many of the school buildings were requisitioned, and 30,000 teachers were called to the colors. The hardship to the young resulting from this patriotic sacrifice was met as far as possible by the generosity of private citizens who gave rooms or buildings for classes, and by professional men, too old for service, who volunteered to carry on the work of teaching. France was swift to realize that education must be carried on at all costs. In districts near the fighting line schools were of necessity transformed into hospitals, often with a staff of women teachers temporarily acting as nurses and attendants; but it has been the policy of the department of public instruction to regard this service as temporary, and the teachers as conscripted for education.

The trying circumstances under which the schools have been carried on, serving nobly during the term after hours and during vacations, make their achievements a record of honor. In the country districts where all the local officials were mobilized, the teacher became the sole agent of government, making out passports, requisitions, relief lists, etc., procuring food, operating a public kitchen, acting as postmaster, doing guard duty, and rendering numberless other services to the community. One of the first tasks of the primary schools was to undertake entire care of children left without adequate protection. In country districts the teachers were, in default of newspapers, the dispensers of official information, explaining government loans and giving talks on the progress of the war. Thus the entire village was brought into the schoolhouse, which became the real center of the community.

In the United States and Canada the schools may well copy some of the measures initiated in Europe. That we are 3000 miles from the actual battleground ought, for the present, to keep us from considering any lowering of educational bars or from converting our buildings into purposes other than educational. Europe advises us that such transformation is of an emergency nature and only to be made under stress of an invasion.

It is the purpose of this chapter to consider some general uses of our buildings, our equipment (including the teaching force), and the activities of our pupils, which have been made in the past two or three years, excluding and reserving for the most part for later discussion the introduction of war work in manual-training, domestic-arts, and domestic-science courses, and the part-time agricultural labor.

An important use of our schools, and one which should be made more general throughout the country, is that of a distributing center for government pamphlets, information cards, etc. In New York City the various welfare committees appointed by Mayor Mitchel designated the public schools as mediums through which to circulate papers on "safety first," fire prevention, uses of various food products, etc., and thus reach the families of the vast foreign population through their children. The city's pledges of national loyalty to be signed by adults were circulated by the pupils shortly after the declaration of war. Wider publicity can be given to federal regulations, tax measures, employment modifications, etc., by the distribution of notices to pupils of upper grades, following the explanation by the teacher. While our people as a whole read, though hastily, the newspapers morning and evening, and may find in them all governmental measures, it is nevertheless true that we shall be assured of a wider distribution of information by using the pupil as the carrier of it to the home. In England the schools, as well as the Boy Scouts organization, have served as national distributing agencies for war-office notices, Parliamentary information, and agricultural propaganda.

A portion of a letter from Sir Robert Blair, chairman of the Education Committee of the London County Council, to Superintendent Maxwell of New York City, in May, 1917, calls attention to the service of the schools in this connection.

War has come upon us so unexpectedly that our people not only did not understand the true position but on the whole knew very little about the causes which had led to the outbreak. The public press, bookstalls, and the public libraries were considerably augmented by books and pamphlets on the subject, and it was a natural prompting that gave rise to the issue to the schools of a considerable number of documents, memoranda, and pamphlets. These circulars and pamphlets were mostly all issued within the first year of the war. The first phase of the pamphlets is historical, while the second became economical. The economical phase in its first stages was concentrated on war savings for the purpose of war loans and in anticipation, by the provision of "nest eggs," of the dislocation that might occur at the end of the war. In its later stages—within the last six months—the economical phase has been directed chiefly to economy in food, owing to the menace of the submarine campaign.

A further use of the school population in hours outside the daily session is that of giving help in taking a census. In England school teachers and pupils did most of the work of compiling the National Register, a card census of inhabitants. To some extent similar work has been done in the United States, such as the taking of the agricultural census in fifty-six counties (no census was taken for the counties of Hamilton, Kings, Queens, Richmond, and New York) in the state of New York in April, 1917. Under the joint auspices of the State Food Supply Commission and the State Education Department a survey was ordered of the agricultural resources of the state and of the requirements for increased production, the details of which were worked out at Ithaca at the State College of Agriculture. Through the appointed county enumerators, instructions were transmitted to the various school districts.

The actual work of this census was begun in most counties on April 23, the records being practically all obtained by April 25, the teachers and pupils in each district, assisted when necessary by other persons, procuring the original facts from farmers and making the summaries for their school districts. From these records the state was