this committee to recommend specific legislation to Congress to carry out these ideals and promises enthusiastic support from its sections. Right at this time, I would like to ask Mrs. Zimand to just file a statement. She cannot stay.

STATEMENT OF MRS. GERTRUDE FOLKS ZIMAND, GENERAL SECRETARY, NATIONAL CHILD LABOR COMMITTEE

Mrs. ZIMAND. I would like to file a statement, and I would like to enumerate the four points that we are asking.

Senator JOHNSON. Proceed.

Mrs. ZIMAND. The National Child Labor Committee urges the enactment of the Federal aid to education bill as a result of its studies. covering more than four decades of child labor and school attendance and the reasons prompting children to drop out of school for employment and to attend irregularly.

In the statement that I am filing we make four points with elaboration, both statistically and otherwise, and I would like merely to enumerate these.

The first is the fact that nearly 3,000,000 boys and girls, 7 to 17 years of age, inclusive, are not enrolled in any school. This percentage varies widely both between States and between urban and rural, nonfarm and farm communities.

Our studies of children out of school have forced us to the conclusion-and this is true for both urban and rural regions-that, contrary to the popular belief there are probably as many children working because they are not interested in school and do not want to go to school as there are children who leave school because they are forced to take employment for the financial return.

Senator JOHNSTON. According to that we need more stringent attendance laws, isn't that true?

Mrs. ZIMAND. It would be partly a question of compulsory-attendance laws, but primarily a question of the type of education and the caliber of schools that are offered to children.

That brings up the second point; that is, that nearly 15 percent of the children enrolled in school are not attending school. That again reflects the failure of the schools to hold the interest of the children and to convince their parents that education is worth while. It also reflects the failure in some States and inadequacy in others of machinery to 'enforce the compulsory-attendance laws, and I have included a table with regard to the number of attendance employees in the 32 States reporting on that item.

The third point is the wide variation in the amount of schooling provided for children throughout the country, and at all these points this statement gives the range from the highest State to the lowest and for urban and for rural areas separately. The information on different age groups is reported separately. The figures on the number of days the schools were in session are taken in conjunction with the figures on average daily attendance which indicates that many children are having only 5 months of schooling a year.

The fourth point-and we regard this as especially important-is this: That the demands upon the schools have increased greatly, and will continue to increase, as the age at which children may enter fulltime employment is raised. At present there are 13 States, only 13, which require children to stay in school until 16 years of age and which do not permit them to leave school for employment under 16 years except, in most cases, in agriculture and domestic service. Most of the States are now considering, as a postwar measure, raising the school-leaving age to 16 years, both because of the desirability of education for children and as a method of removing that group of young workers from what would be an overcrowded labor market. In addition, efforts are being made to try and persuade the children, young people between the ages of 16 and 18, to stay in school voluntarily.

Now, 14 years is the general age for completion of the elementary school in an eight-grade system. This means that the bulk of these children will be secondary-school students. It means that the secondary schools will have to provide a very different type of education, and a more expensive type of education than is now provided if these children. would keep on going to school because they cannot go to work and are not to merely idle away their time in the classroom instead of idling it away on the street.

We believe that Federal aid for education may spell the difference between making those extra years of schooling a profitable experience for boys and girls or a mere marking of time until they are free to leave school and look for jobs in an already overcrowded labor market. Senator JOHNSON. Are there any questions?

If not, we certainly appreciate your coming before the committee. (The statement submitted by Mrs. Zimand is as follows:)

STATEMENT OF MRS. GERTRUDE FOLKS ZIMAND, GENERAL SECRETARY OF THE NATIONAL CHILD LABOR COMMITTEE, IN SUPPORT OF S. 181

The National Child Labor Committee strongly urges action by Congress this year to provide Federal financial aid to the States for education and endorses S. 181.

The National Child Labor Committee's belief that Federal aid is essential to raise educational standards in this country is a result of its study, covering four decades, of child labor and related problems. It became evident to the Committee, even in the earliest years of its work, that there was a close, causal relationship between the problem of children dropping out of school at an early age for employment and the nature and extent of educational opportunities offered to children. It became equally obvious that efforts to remove children from unsuitable employment were futile unless there were schools ready to receive these children who were kept out of industry and to give them a type of education that was adapted to their varying interests, aptitudes, and abilities. Oher agencies have submitted competent and impressive information on educational conditions in this country, the inadequacies of and inequalities between educational opportunities offered to chldren in the various States, with special reference to rural communties, and the extent to which such inadequacies and inequalities are due to the inability of many States to meet the costs of adequate schooling for their children without the assistance of Federal funds. The Na

. tional Child Labor Committee will not repeat these facts and figures. It wishes, however, to call attention to four factors indicating the need for Federal aid on which it believes it is in a special position to offer testimony because of its long study of the problems of school attendance and child labor, and the reasons prompting children to leave school and to seek employment.

I. Nearly 3,000,000 boys and girls, 7 to 17 years, inclusive, are not in school

One of the most startling aspects of education in this country, and one which cannot be disregarded in our efforts to build up an educated citizenry as a sound basis for democratic government, is the extent to which persons of school age are not enrolled in school.

According to the 1940 census there were 2,804,888 boys and girls, 7 to 17 years, inclusive, not attending school. These are classified as follows:

Not only was there a marked difference in the percentage of children in each of these out-of-school groups-urban, rural nonfarm, and rural-farm communities-but there was a great divergence among the 48 States. The range in the percentage of children of specified ages attending school is as follows' (United States census, 1940):

7 to 13 years:

Highest percent in school for urban children in Utah__-
Lowest percent in school for rural farm children in Arizona_

14 to 15 years:

Highest percent in school for urban children in Utah...
Lowest percent in school for rural farm children in Arizona and
Georgia

16 to 17 years:

Highest percent in school for urban children in Wisconsin.
Lowest percent in school for rural farm children in Georgia----.

Percent

98.3

76.3

97.6

75.0

91. 4

46.3

One of the chief reasons for such widespread nonenrollment of children in school is the fact that schools in many communities are of so low a caliber, and are so limited in their curriculum, that they can neither hold the interest of children nor convince parents that their children should be in school. This is true in both urban and rural communities. The city boy of 17 who regards high school as "kid stuff" and the farm parent who believes he "got along all right without schooling and children don't learn anything useful at school" reflect the failure of the schools to provide a type of education that meets the needs of today's children and young people.

1 According to the census, a school attendant was a person who during March 1940 was enrolled in or attending any school, college, university, or educational institution. Attendance at night school, extension school, or vocational school was included when such school was part of the regular school system.

2 This range omits Kentucky, where the percentage of attendance for rural-farm children reported in the 1940 census is so completely out of line with that of other States, and also with the 1930 census figures for Kentucky, that it has no validity for comparative purposes.

Studies of the reasons for school leaving carried out in various parts of the country indicate that the two primary causes leading children to drop out of school, and of about equal importance, are (1) economic conditions in the home, (2) lack of interest in school. Even studies limited to children who are out of school and at work lead to the conclusion that, contrary to the general belief, the number who are working because they wanted to leave school is about as great as the number who left school, because they had to go to work.

This problem has been greatly aggravated during the war years. There are now nearly a million less young people in our high schools than in 1940. Though many factors enter into this decrease, it is generally agreed that the primary explanation is the number of young people who have left school for jobsagainst the expressed advice of the War Manpower Commission. As a county school superintendent in California expressed it, "the school is definitely competing with industry for the time of young people. Can the public school make preflight aeronautics so attractive that the youngster wants to give up a job at $50 a week?" It might be added that relatively few children, in the country as a whole, have as attractive a course as preflight aeronautics as an inducement to stay in school.

Far more varied curricula adapted to children of different backgrounds, aptitudes, interests, and capacities, with greater opportunities for work experience as an integral part of the school program, better trained teachers, modern buildings, and modern equipment would go far toward persuading many of these young people to stay in school. Such changes, which will require considerably greater expenditures for education than we now make, cannot be achieved in many States without Federal funds.

II. Nearly 15 percent of the children enrolled in school are not attending school Another factor which lowers the educational standards of this country, and one which we believe could be changed materially if Federal aid were made available to the States, is the extent to which children enrolled in school fail to attend. Although the total enrollment in the schools in 1941-42 was 24,562,473, average daily attendance was only 21,031,322. A certain amount of absence due to sickness, weather, and family emergencies is inevitable. But when, on the average, 14.4 out of each 100 pupils enrolled are absent on each school daymore than three and a half million pupils-and when the degree of absence differs markedly between different States and between urban and rural communities, it is clear that a large proportion of this absence is preventable—i. e., it is due to indifference to schooling on the part of children and their parents, and in many cases to laxity in enforcement of the compulsory school attendance laws.

The range in the percentage of average daily attendance of enrolled pupils in 1941-42 varied as follows:

The extent to which the States are making an effort to secure attendance on the part of children of compulsory school attendance age is reflected, in part, by their provisions for attendance workers. The following table reports for 32 States the number of attendance workers employed. It indicates that in some States there is no provision for enforcing the school attendance law and in many others utterly inadequate provisions.

1 Statistics of State school systems, 1941-42, U. S. Office of Education, 1944.

Number of attendance employees in public day schools, by States, 1941–42 1

1 Statistics of State School Systems 1941-42. U. S. Office of Education, 1944.

Writing in Federal Probation, September 1944, Elsie H. Martens, of the United States Office of Education, says: "Absenteeism and truancy are especially difficult problems to cope with when the school is understaffed. In many places an already overburdened attendance corps is attempting to carry the load; in other communities teachers are serving as attendance workers in addition to their regular duties, and in some localities the work is just not being done for sheer lack of adequate personnel."

Under S. 181-section 5 (B)-Federal funds could be made available to local public school jurisdictions for the employment of school attendance officers or other personnel charged with the responsibility for seeing that children of compulsory school age are in school.

III. The amount of schooling provided for children varies widely throughout the country

Although the average number of days schools were in session in the United States in 1941-42 was 174.7, there was a difference of more than 2 months between States. The range in the country as a whole, as well as for urban and rural communities, was as follows:

When non-attendance is taken into consideration, as well as the number of days the schools were in session, it becomes evident that many children in some States are getting hardly 5 months of schooling a year. The average number of days attended per pupil enrolled, and this would include all grades, was as follows:

1 Statistics of State School Systems, 1941-42, United States Office of Education, 1944. 1 Statistics of State School Systems, 1941-42, U. S. Office of Education, 1944.