One phrase in Commissioner Claxton's letter is especially significant. It is _This productive work should be so directed as to give it the highest possible value_, _both economically and educationally_. In this whole question of children and industry in war time, we are brought face to face with several facts. The first is that industry, both agricultural and manufacturing, will demand the services of children. Second, that organizations like state and national child-labor committees, which have fought for the welfare and development of American children, will continue to oppose all attempts to break down the school system through relaxation of the enforcement of compulsory-education laws, or to break down the labor laws either by giving young children special permits to work or by exempting certain establishments from the laws limiting hours of labor. Third, that the children themselves will desire to work rather than go to school. The comparatively high wages which will exist during a war emergency will call them as can no course of study. Fourth, that families whose earning member or members are off to war, and who feel in addition the higher cost of living, will look upon their children as being a possible added source of income. And fifth, that school authorities will thus stand amidst half a dozen fires. Some will back against the wall and say: "I don't believe in closing the schools," "Under no conditions will the child-labor laws in this state be relaxed," "The war hysteria makes me enforce child-labor laws more vigorously than ever," "Children have plenty of time to garden after school." Others will, under pressure, lose their heads, and shut their eyes to the fact that children are working illegally. Some may seek for a "reasonable excuse," and they can find plenty of such excuses by referring to the action in England. Still others will go on peacefully without thought or action one way or the other. But the rest, and it is to be hoped that their numbers are legion, will try to discover some means of making this emergency count in an educational way. Here are some of the factors which enter into the situation.
In the first place, children like to work, that is, outside of school, and these work impulses of youth ought to be organized to contribute to the educative process. It is readily enough granted that they have not been in the past. In fact, these work impulses have been exploited for private gain. Now, on account of the war, they are aroused to a high pitch, and we ought to be able to organize them in connection with the new work opportunities for higher economic efficiency as well as for higher social efficiency.