Part 44 (1/2)
It was founded as a result of the discovery that there were not nearly enough jobs in Chicago to go around a the twelve or fifteen thousand children under sixteen years of age who left school each year to go to work; also that, though a statute of the State required a child either to work or to go to school, there were about twenty-three thousand youngsters in the city ere doing neither The law hadtrack of the children once they had left school
No one knehat had becoator for the School of Civics and Philanthropy and the Chicago Women's Club, set to work to find out
She discovered--and she can show you statistics to prove it--that ”buht irl, unable to withstand the temptations of the street, into the Juvenile Court And she found, as other statistics bear witness, that the fate of the children who found jobs was scarcely better than that of their idle brothers and sisters Undirected, they took the first positions that offered, with the result that ed in ”blind-alley” occupations, unskilled industries that offered little, if any, chance for advance for the future
The pay was poor; it averaged two dollars a week Working conditions were frequently unhealthful Moral influences of shop and factory and office were often bad For the most part, the industries that eirls were forced into long periods of inactivity between positions This state of affairs, combined with a natural tendency to vary the htest pretext, fro of many children that bane of modern industry, the ”casual” laborer
The Bureau--started inforations and kept alive through the grace of the Women's Club, until the Board of Education was ready to adopt it--has been able to do much in amelioration of the lot of the fourteen-to-sixteen-year-old worker But no statistics it can produce are as telling as the sight of the Bureau in operation Sit with your eyes and ears open, in a corner of the office in the Jones School and you will encies in the world; also you will learn rave subjects as the needs of our educational syste causes of poverty than you can learn out of fat treatises in a year
”Why do you want to leave school?” That is the first question the Job Lady asks of each new applicant who comes to the Bureau for work
Perhaps the child has heard that question before; for in those schools froe of fourteen, Miss Davis and her assistants hold office hours and interview each boy or girl who shows signs of restlessness They give inforrades about the opportunities open to boys and girls under sixteen; they discuss the special training offered by the schools and show the advisability of re as possible; they try to find an opportunity of talking over the future with eachclass
But even when the way has been paved for it, the question, ”Why do you want to leave school?” brings to light the most trivial of reasons In very few cases is it economic necessity that drives a child to work
”I ain't int'rusted,” explained one boy to Miss Davis ”I jest sits”
The Job Lady is often able to convince even the sitters that school is, after all, the best place for boys and girls under sixteen She persuaded between twenty-five and thirty per cent of the children that applied at the Bureau last year to return to school Soive the child a plain statement of the facts in the case--of the poor work and poor pay and lack of opportunity in the industries open to the fourteen-year-old worker Often she found it necessary only to explain what the school had to offer One boy was sent to Miss Davis by a teacher who had advised hirade, because he had ”too ht boy--one capable ofof himself, if the two important, formative years that must pass before he was sixteen were not wasted; so he was transferred from his school to one where vocational as part of the curriculuy in working with his hands Now he is doing high-school work creditably; and he has stopped talking about leaving school
But it isn't always the whim of the child that prompts him to cut short his education Sonorance or greed of his parents Miss Davis tells of one little girl as sacrificed to the great God Labor because the four dollars she brought home weekly helped to pay the instalrade just before graduation because his father had bought some property and needed a little extra irls are put to work because of the i of practical value to offer
Still, even the norant of parents can so a child in school until he is sixteen They are won to the Job Lady's point of view by a statement of the increased opportunity open to the child who is sixteen Or they are brought to see that the schools are for _all_ children, and that work, on the contrary, is very bad for some children
But often all the Job Lady's efforts fail The child is incurably sick of school, the parent remains obdurate Or, perhaps, there is a very real need of what little the son or daughter can earn Often some one can be found ill donate books, or a scholarshi+p ranging from car-fare to a few dollars a week Over four hundred dollars is being given out in scholarshi+ps each ood returns But often no scholarshi+p is forthco for the Job Lady to do but find a position for the sins the often difficult process of fitting the child to so the job to the child, and that is as it should be The Job Lady always tries to place the boys and girls that come to her office where there will be so But jobs with a ”future” are few for the fourteen-year-old worker The trades will not receive apprentices under the age of sixteen; business houses and the higher-grade factories won't bother with youngsters, because they are too unreliable; as one man put it, with unconscious irony, too ”childish” So the Job Lady must be content to send the boys out as office and errand boys or to find eirls in binderies and novelty shops But she investigates every position before a child is sent to fill it; and if it is found to be not up to standard in wages or working conditions, it is crossed off the Bureau's list
The Job Lady has established a o out fro those who are placed in the part-ti shops, where they will be learning a useful trade This infor of the standard of payment in a shop
In such manner, the Bureauprocess works both ways The Job Lady knows that it is discouraging, often de, for a child to be turned away, just because he is not the ”right person” for a place So she tries to ht person That she succeeds very often, the employers who have learned to rely on the Bureau will testify
”If you haven't a boy for et one It will save time in the end, for you always send just the boy I want”
The secret of finding the right boy lies, first of all, in discovering what he wants to do; and, next, in judging whether or not he can do it
Very often, he has not the least idea of what he wants to do He has learnedof the industrial world in which he irls, especially to those from the poorest families, an ”office job” is the ach, a respectability they have never been quite able to enco educational ideals, they scorn the trades
Into the trades, however, Miss Davis finds it possible to steer many a boy who is obviously unfitted for the career of lawyer, bank clerk, or, vaguely, ”business man” And she is able to place others in the coveted office jobs, with their tient boy need apply”
Often, given the honesty and intelligence, she must manufacture a child to fit the description Sometimes all that is necessary is a hint about soap and water and a clean collar So cupboard in her office must yield up a half-worn suit or a pair of shoes that sorown Occasionally, hers is the delicate task of suggesting to a preirl that soe and earrings; or that even the poorest people can wash their underwear Manners frequently coirls are placed, the Bureau, unlike encies, does not wash its hands of theun Each child is asked to report concerning his progress from time to time; and if he does not show up, a vocational supervisor keeps track of him by visits to home or office, or by letters, written quarterly The Job Lady is able to observe by this method, whether or not the work is suitable for the child, or whether it offers him the best available chance; and she is often able to check the habit of ”shi+fting” in its incipient stages She is continually arbitrating andadjustments, always ready to listen to childish woes and to allay theo, I went to a conference on Vocational Guidance There I heard, fro done by the Bureau held for the future One showed how it had infused new blood into the veins of an ane the schools a more efficient preparation for life--the life of factory and shop and office--than they ever had been before
Another h the schools, would strike at one of the deep roots of poverty--incompetency More people are poor for lack of proper equip a vocation, he said, than for any other one reason
A thirda control over e interests ”You treat our children well, and you pay them well,” the schools of the future, he declared, would be able to say to the e, ”or on't permit our children to work for you” A fourth had a vision of what the Bureau and the new education it heralded could do toward educating the hts as workers
And then there cas,” he said, ”the Bureau can accoet, in our pursuance of great ends, that it is the essential _humanness_ of the Bureau that has made it what it is”
Here was the final, immeasurable measure of its success It counts, of course, that the Job Lady helps along big causes, drives at the roots of big ills; but, soster I saw at the Bureau should have brought his woes to her His eiven him a problem to solve--and he couldn't do it He was afraid he'd lose his job He had never been to the Bureau before, but ”a boy you got a job for said you'd help me out,” he explained--and he was sent off happy, the problem solved