Truancy and non-attendance in the Chicago schools; a study of the social aspects of the compulsory education and child labor legislation of Illinois

Front matter

f,

TRUANCY AND NON-ATTENDANCE IN THE CHICAGO SCHOOLS

THE UNIVERSITY OP CHIOA&O PBESS CHICAGO, ILLINOIS

Preface

This study of the truant and non-attending school children of Chicago was begun as a continuation of an inquiry into the care of the wards of the Juvenile Court of Cook County, which we undertook some years ago in the Department of Social Investigation of the Chicago School of Civics and Philanthropy. A study of the delinquent children of the court was published four years ago' and it was planned to follow that volume with similar studies of the truant and the dependent children who also come before the Chicago Court.

The present volume, however, has taken us beyond the juvenile court children with whom we began. A study of truant children, which was planned as the second volume in a juvenile court series, led us into the larger problem of school attendance, for it was apparent that a study of truancy would be of little value without an inquiry into the broader questions of non-attendance during the compulsory-attendance period and the enforcement of the child labor laws which should protect the children who are near the age when the required period of school attendance comes to an end.

Thirty-three years have passed since the principle of compulsory school attendance was adopted in the state of Illinois by the passing of the first "Act to secure to children the benefit of an elementary education." The following chapters show how slow we were to adopt this principle and how reluctantly, after it was adopted, the local educational authorities of the various cities, towns, and counties to whom its enforcement was

' See The Delmquent Child and the Home: A Study of the Delinquent Wards of the Juvenile Court of Chicago, New York, Russell Sage Foundation, 191 2.

viii PREFACE

intrusted, proceeded to act under it. Experience has taught us that almost any form of social legislation that is left to be enforced by a multitude of independent local authorities will be brought slowly to its promised usefulness. Unfortunately it was not possible for us to extend our study far beyond the limits of Chicago. Chaps, xvii and xviii, however, throw some light on the present compulsory-attendance situation throughout the state and raise once again the question whether a state educational authority— commission or bureau — should not be created with the power of supervising the work of the local authorities in the enforcement of the state school laws.

Some criticism may fall to our lot because we have ventured to write of educational matters connected with the Chicago public-school system when we have never had any connection with the Chicago schools. Our excuse must be that such a book obviously could not be written by those inside the school system. A further excuse which should perhaps be offered is that for nearly a decade we have been closely connected with the social agencies of Chicago and that this study deals only with the social aspects of school problems. It is our belief that there should be a closer co-operation between the schools and those who call themselves "social workers" in all our large cities; for, after all, the teachers in our elementary schools should form the largest body of social workers in every depressed and congested district where there is a field for social work.

In the course of collecting material for this inquiry we have incurred many obligations which we can acknowledge only collectively. To the members of the Chicago school system, the Department of Compulsory Education, the Chicago Parental School, and the Chicago Juvenile Court we are greatly indebted for information cheerfully given in response to many tedious inquiries. It is a pleasure to express here our deep appreciation of the generous co-operation which was given by Judge Merritt W. Pinckney, of the Chicago Juvenile Court, and by

PREFACE ix

Mrs. Ella Flagg Young, who for five years, never to be forgotten by those interested in educational progress, was superintendent of the Chicago public schools. Although they had no part in suggesting, planning, or directing this inquiry, they both welcomed any attempt, honestly made, to obtain information regarding the working of the great institutions which are maintained for the poorest and most friendless of the children of Chicago.

We must also express our appreciation to our friend and former colleague at Hull-House and the School of Civics and Philanthropy^ Miss Julia C. Lathrop, now chief of the Federal Children's Bureau. Miss Lathrop read the entire manuscript, and we are indebted to her for valuable suggestions. It is scarcely necessary to say, however, that no one of the persons mentioned has the smallest responsibility for any of the opinions expressed in these pa.ges.

To our friends in the social agencies of Chicago, especially the Immigrants' Protective League, the Vocational Supervision Bureau, the Juvenile Protective Association, and the United Charities, we are deeply indebted. Through their experience, working as they do day after day and year after year with the families of the children that the compulsory education and child labor laws were designed to protect, they have an invaluable store of information regarding the administration of these laws, and this experience they have generously shared with us.

It is a pleasure to explain that this study, like the earlier juvenile court investigation, has been carried on with the assistance of students in the Department of Social Investigation of the School of Civics and Philanthropy. It is unfortunately not possible to mention by name all the students who have had some share in the work. Special acknowledgment must, however, be made of the work of Miss Grace P. Norton (now Mrs. Lorenz), Miss Natalie Walker, Miss Margaret Hobbs,

X PREFACE

Miss Helen Campbell, and Miss Fanny R. Sweeny (now Mrs. Wickes). We are also indebted to Miss Maud E. Lavery, of the School of Civics and Philanthropy, for assistance of many kinds. Finally, we must record our appreciation of the help given by the Russell Sage Foundation, which generously supplied the funds necessary for the carrying out of this inquiry.

Chicago School of Civics and Philanthropy November 23, 1916

Part One: Legal Principles: History Of Compulsory Education Legislation In Illinois Chapter Page

I. Legal Aspects oe Compulsory Education Legislation I

11. History oe Compulsory Education Legislation IN Illinois: The Struggle for a Free School System, 1818-55 ^7

III. The Struggle for a Compulsory Attendance Law

in Illinois, 1855-83 40

IV. The Growth of the Compulsory System, 1883-99 • 53

V. Parallel Development of the Illinois Child Labor and Compulsory Education Laws, 1893- 1916 69

Part Two: Present Conditions And Methods Of Treatment

VI. Extent of Truancy and Non-Attendance in Chicago: A Study of the Attendance Records OF Nine Selected Schools 89

VII. The Transfer System as a Factor in Non-Attendance lOI

VIII. A Detailed Study of the Extent of Non-Attendance in Two Selected Schools 114

IX. Non-Attendance at the Source ......128

X. The Habitual Truant and the Schoolroom Incorrigible 148

xi xu TRUANCY AND NON-ATTENDANCE IN CHICAGO

CHAPTER PAGE

XL The Parental School 165

XII. Truancy and Non- Attendance in Relation to Mental and Physical Defects of School Children 177

XIII. Truancy in Relation to Dependency and Delin-

quency 189

XIV. Enforcement of the Compulsory Education Law

IN THE Municipal Court of Chicago .... 200

XV. The School Census as a Means of Enforcing the

Attendance Law 211

XVI. The Visiting Teacher as a Remedy for Truancy

AND Non- Attendance 226

XVII. The Truancy Problem in the Chicago Suburbs and

IN Other Parts of Illinois 245

XVIII. The Special Problem of the Immigrant Child . 264

XIX. The Employment Certificate System and the Safeguarding OF THE Compulsory Attendance Period 287

XX. The Need of Compulsory Education for Children

BETWEEN Fourteen and Sixteen Years of Age . 317

XXI. Summary and Conclusions 346

LIST OF APPENDIXES

Appendix

I. Extracts from Documents Relating to the Agitation FOR A System of Free Schools and a Compulsory Attendance Law 354

II. Extracts from Publications of the Board of Education Relating to the Compulsory Education Problem in Chicago 389

TABLE OF CONTENTS xm

APPE>fDIX PAGE

III. Documents Relating to the Enforcement of Child

Labor and Compulsory Education Laws in Illinois 402 Extracts from the first four annual reports of the Factory Inspectors of Illinois

IV. Early Laws of the State of Illinois Relating to the

Establishment of Free Schools, Compulsory Education, AND Child Labor 431

V. Table Showing in Parallel Columns the Development OF THE Compulsory Education and Child Labor Laws of Illinois, 1870-1916 440

VI. A Note on Statistics Relating to School Attendance IN Chicago 447

VII. The Development of the Chicago Bureau of Employment Supervision 455

Index 467

Part I

LEGAL PRINCIPLES: HISTORY OF COMPULSORY EDUCATION LEGISLATION IN ILLINOIS

Chapter I Legal Aspects Of Compulsory Education Legislation

Many questions of interest suggest themselves in connection with the attempt of the community to provide educational opportunities for all the children and to insure to all the children the enjoyment of those opportunities. First, perhaps, should be considered the question of the agency by which such provision should be made. Should this be done by the federal government or by the forty-eight different state governments ?

The problem of the education of the people in the elementary branches is essentially a national problem which should be looked at from a national point of view. As a result of the ease of migration in America and of the mobility of labor required under our present industrial conditions, the probability of a person's spending his later life in the place in which he spends his childhood is very slight. Nor is there any possible way of forecasting his movements. A minimum standard of education becomes, then, a matter of concern to the entire country, any portion of which may suffer from the burden of inadequate training and consequent industrial and civic inefSciency. This general concern has been registered in the grants by the federal government of public land for educational purposes, and all questions relating to education should, in fact, also be regarded from a national point of view. This is, however, impossible under our constitutional limitations, and our federal government' confines its activities in the field of education, except in the matter of land grants, to the collection

' Except, of course, in those jurisdictions over which the federal government exercises direct governmental control, as in the District of Columbia.

and the publication of educational material' and to grants in aid of special forms of education, as for example, mechanical, agricultural, or vocational training. Under our American system, therefore, the control over education is left to the jurisdiction of forty-eight different state governments. The result of this has been, of course, lack of uniformity with regard to every question of educational policy, irregular and halting progress, and standards established by the educational authorities which vary from state to state.^ So universal, however, is the interest in this subject, so widespread the belief in its importance, that the expenditures for the support of the state educational systems amount to very large sums. The Commissioner of Education, for example, reports that in a single year^ the value of the common-school property in the various states amounted to $1,266,382,277, while the expenditure reached the sum of $482,886,793, the number of teachers employed 547,289, and the enrolment in public elementary schools 17,077,577. The corresponding figures for Illinois show that the value of school property and school funds amounted to $110,860,023 and the expenditure amounted to $34,217,582. The number of teachers was 30,473 and the public-school enrolment 912,811.4

Another question relating to the agency which should provide educational facilities for the people, and one which has

' See the annual reports of the Commissioner of Education. This is, of course, an incomplete statement, if agricultural and mechanical education under special acts of Congress be recalled. See, for example, the so-called Smith-Lever bill (Annual Report of the U.S. Commissioner of Education, 1914, I, 296). It is, however, substantially true with reference to the provision of general educational opportunity.

^ Note the varying expressions with regard to private schools cited below, p. 4.

3 See Annual Report of the U.S. Commissioner of Education, 1913, II, 17 ff.

'' Ibid., p. 20. There was an estimated enrolment of 193,734 in private schools that year.

been the subject of bitter controversy in other countries, is that of the relative claims of the church and the state to make such provision. In the United States, the issue has not in general been drawn between the claims of the church on the one hand and of private initiative of a non-ecclesiastical character on the other; or between the church with its spiritual sanction and the state with its organization of compulsion, as it was drawn in England during the first three-quarters of the nineteenth century, when the church retained the right to control the form of educational organization and the state only gradually and almpst surreptitiously assumed the power first to standardize and then directly to organize the school system/ It is interesting to recall the fact that, in England, efforts to develop a system of public education were opposed by those jealous of the prerogatives of the church on the one hand and by those who feared that the results of bureaucratic organization would be to replace by monotony, uniformity, and mediocrity the variety, initiative, and freedom which should characterize hberal education. John Stuart Mill, for example, wrote that a "general state education is a mere contrivance for moulding people to be exactly like one another. "^

Although the issue has never been drawn in this way in the United States and although the organization of a public system of education has from the earliest settlement of the country been regarded as a proper exercise of governmental power, the government has never attempted to monopolize that function

' A review of the development of the free compulsory school systems in other countries is beyond the scope of this study. For a general survey of these systems, see DeMontmorency, State Intervention in English Education; Balfour, Educational Systems of Great Britain and Ireland; Craik, The State in Relation to Education; Munro, Cyclopaedia of Education; Parker, History of Modern Elementary Education; Halsbury, The Laws of England, Vol. XII.

* Essay on Liberty. Mill discusses the possibilities of the state's requiring but not providing education.

or seriously to interfere with the freedom of private education^ beyond setting in general terms a minimum of instruction to be offered and in some states requiring that instruction to be in English.

This minimum will be found in the provisions for compulsory attendance and is expressed in several ways. Schools "taught by competent instructors" are accepted by some states for attendance in place of the public schools.^ Instruction in "branches usually taught in the public primary schools" fulfils the requirement in others.^ Instruction in "approved private schools" is the phraseology used in the laws of other states.4 In some states, as for example, Massachusetts, the statutes prescribe the conditions on which approval may be given, namely when all instruction in subjects prescribed by law is in the English language and equals in thoroughness and efficiency, and in the progress made therein the instruction in the public schools in the same place.s

It is obvious that from the administrative machinery provided for the enforcement of compulsory attendance laws, devices for standardizing the private, and, in particular, the sectarian parochial schools might be developed. This has,

' Freund, Police Power, sec. 266.

^ For example, by Colorado, Kansas, Montana, New Hampshire, and Pennsylvania.

3 California, Connecticut, Iowa, Michigan, Nevada, New Jersey, New York, North Dakota, North Carolina, Oregon, South Dakota.

4 Maine and Massachusetts.

5 The power of "approval" is given to the school committee, i.e., the local educational authority. In New York, the six "common school branches" are enumerated, viz., reading, writing, spelling, arithmetic, English grammar, and geography, and the teaching must be substantially equivalent to that given to children of like age in the public school, with at least as many hours a day and no considerable difference in the number of holidays. The records of attendance must be regularly kept and open to the inspection of school authorities. Rhode Island has a similar provision.

however, been found to be a difficult task, and one element in that difficulty undoubtedly lies in the fact that education is a matter of state rather than federal jurisdiction, and the opposition based on sectarian considerations may disguise itself in innumerable ways according to the issues presenting themselves in the various communities.

While the development of the American system of public education has not been openly resented by the ecclesiastical organization as in England, it has yet had two definite, open sources of opposition to overcome. The first is the claim of the taxpayer not to be compelled to bear the burden of the system unless actually sharing directly in the benefit of the system by receiving instruction. It will appear, for example, that in Illinois, after an unsuccessful attempt had been made in 1825 to enable the majority in any school district to tax themselves for school purposes, it took thirty years, during which time there existed only voluntary provision for those who attended voluntarily, to establish the principle that the "property of all could be taxed to educate the children of all."

The right of all children to an education^ has now, however, been recognized in Illinois, so that every child may enter school^ when he has reached the age of six^ and, except for purposes of necessary discipline^ or for the purpose of protecting the school against a present menace in the form of contagious disease, may not be excluded from a school session,^ which cannot legally last less than six months.^

' Illinois Revised Statutes, chap. 122, sec. 114, par. 9. " Regardless of color. See People v. Board of Education of Quincy, loi Illinois 308.

3 Board of Education v. Bolton, 85 Illinois Appellate 92. '^School Directors v. Breen, 60 Illinois Appellate 201; 167 Illinois 67; Thompson v. Beaver, 63 Illinois 353; Riilison v. Post, 79 Illinois 567. s People V. Chicago Board of Education, 234 Illinois 422. * Illinois Revised Statutes, chap. 122, sec. 274.

The second source of opposition was found in the doubt as to the power of the state to interfere with the parental right of the father to determine the amount as well as the kind of education his children should have.'' One of the most important rights assured the parent under the common law was that of directing the education of his child.^ The parent was likewise supposed to be under a duty to educate his child, but this was only a moral duty ,3 unenforced by any sanction, and, in the absence of public provision or free religious provision, unenforceable with regard to the poor parent. Moreover, for the poor at earlier periods, education was sometimes related to the child's apprenticeship, and the father, with the right to direct his education, enjoyed likewise the right to place his child at work and to appropriate his earnings. In order to state the situation clearly, the fact may be recalled that the father at common law was entitled to the custody and the control of the child's person with the right to appropriate the child's earnings. The corollary to this right was an alleged duty to maintain, to protect, and to educate.^ The duty to maintain was so slightly enforced, however, as to give rise to a question as to its very existence ;s the duty to protect gave rise merely to certain legal defenses, while the duty to educate was declared by Blackstone to be a natural and not a legal duty. So long, therefore, as the community merely provides facilities for public education

' On this point see Mill's interesting statement in the Essay on Liberty.

^ Freund, op. cit., sec. 264; Blackstone's Commentaries, Book I, chap, xvi, "Parent and Child"; Halsbury, The Laws of England, Vol. 17, article on "Infants and Children."

^Hodges V. Hodges (1796), Peake's Add. Cas. 79; cited Halsbury, op. cit., Vol. 12, p. 4.

4 Blackstone's Commentaries, Book I, chap. xvi. The mother shares these rights under the so-called co-guardianship laws. See, for example, Illinois Revised Statutes, chap. 64, sec. 4.

5 Breckinridge and Abbott, The Delinquent Child and the Home, Appendix, p. 183; Garnett, Children and the Law, p. 30.

it is only aiding the parent in the performance of his natural duty. A further step is taken when, in addition to providing facilities of which the parent is willing to take advantage for the sake of his children, new duties are imposed on parents with reference to the care and education of their children. The right of the legislature to impose such new duties has been exercised, for example in Illinois, in the rapidly increasing body of statutes prohibiting cruelty to children,^ defining dependency and dehnquency,^ giving to the courts power to separate children from their parents when the good of the children demands such separation,^ punishing parents who contribute to the dependency or delinquency of their children,^ requiring parents to support their children,^ prohibiting the employment of young children,^ and requiring the parents to secure the attendance of their children at school.^ Questions have been raised as to the power of the legislature to impose upon parents

^Illinois Revised Statutes, chap. 38, sec. 53.

^ Ibid., chap. 23, sec. 169 fol. '* Ibid., chap. 64, sec. 24.

^ Ibid., chap. 38, sec. 42 hb. ^Ibid., chap. 48, sec. 20.

^ Concerning the very modern character of these duties, the following statement by Mr. Sidney Webb in an early issue of the Crusade may be noted: "We must take note in passing, that any such notion as enforcing parental responsibility is an entirely new thing. Speaking not pedantically as a lawyer, but broadly as a historian, it is an innovation of the past halfcentury — ahnost, we may say, of the present generation. Our ancestors never thought of enforcing parental responsibility. A hundred years ago, if a father left his children half-starved, scantily clothed in rags, with the most miserable lodgings, overcrowded and indecently occupied, with every kind of insanitation, so long as the parish was put to no expense, no one took proceedings against him. Cruelty to animals was made an offense long before cruelty to children. There was no attempt to constrain a parent to keep the child in health, to provide medical attendance for it, to supply education or moral training — least of all any idea of enforcing upon the parent any fulfilment of the obligation to furnish the all-important environment of a decent home. With the not very real exception that doing a child to death too suddenly might (we may almost say theoretically) be treated as murder, there was, a hundred years ago, so far as regards children in their parents' own homes, nothing Ln the way of enforcement of parental responsibility."

these new duties, but the courts have been unanimous in holding that one of the highest prerogatives of the state is its right gradually to raise the standard of parental care.'

So far the question has been raised before the courts in relation to compulsory attendance only in connection with provisions for fining parents who do not send their children to school. The question of the power to separate parent and child on the ground of truancy has not yet been considered by any court. The right has been upheld in the case of delinquent and dependent children; but the right is not so clear when the child is only truant, not delinquent, and when the parents, while faihng to secure their children's attendance, do not maintain homes sufficiently below normal to justify finding the children dependent. On this point Professor Freund in his treatise on the Police Power' says that "the commitment of the child is a measure taken against the child for the child's misconduct

^School Board for London v. Jackson, L.R., 7 Q.B.D. 502 (1881); State V. Bailey, 157 Ind. 324 (1902): " The natural rights of a parent to the custody and control of his infant child are subordinate to the power of the state, and may be restricted and regulated by municipal laws. One of the most important natural duties of the parent is to educate his child and this duty he owes not to the child only but to the community. If he neglects to perform it or wilfully refuses to do so, he may be coerced by laws to execute such civil obligation. The welfare of the child and the best interests of society require that the state shall exercise its sovereign authority to secure to the child the opportunity to acquire an education. Statutes making it compulsory upon the parent, guardian or the person having the custody and control of children to send them to public or private schools for longer or shorter periods during certain years of the life of such children, have not only been upheld as strictly within the power of the legislature, but have generally been regarded as necessary to carry out the express purposes of the constitution itself" (p. 329). See also State v. Clatter, 33 Ind. 409 at p. 411; Btirdick v. Babcock, 36 Iowa 562 at p. 566; also Washington V. Cozwior/, 69 Washington 361; 4iL.R.A.n.s.,p.95; Hochheimer, Custody of Infants, sec. 79. See also The Delinquent Child and the Home, Appendix, p. 181.

(truancy) and that the parent is deprived of custody is an inevitable incident to such a measure, just as a child may be deprived of parental care while a parent is imprisoned." Since, however, there is a doubt on this point and since there is a growing belief in the importance to the state of protecting the child in opposition, if need be, to the wishes of the parents, the decision of a test-case is likely to be more favorable to the child and to the community at a later date than at the present time. In the apparent conflict of interest between the community and the parent with reference to the child's early years, the right of the community is being slowly but surely strengthened. The education authorities have therefore undoubtedly acted wisely in not hastening a decision as to the power to remove the truant child from his parents. In the one Chicago case in which a parent has resisted the action of the court in committing his child and has resorted to the writ of habeas corpus, the educational authorities acquiesced and did not take the case to the Supreme Court.^

From this preliminary discussion it becomes clear that the enforcement of attendance at school involves the setting up of administrative machinery through which three services will be rendered: (i) that of supplying to parents and children information with reference to their duty under the law and due notice of failure to perform that duty; (2) that of invoking the aid of the appropriate court in the case of wilful and persistent refusal on the part of the parent to perform his duty; (3) that of enforcing discipline in the case of children whose parents are unable to secure their regular attendance and good behavior at school.

' A question which has not been raised, but which Professor Freund suggests, is the power to compel the parent to support the child during commitment to the Parental School. It is submitted that the duty of maintenance formerly unenforceable has now been sanctioned in various ways, and that there is no reason why the duty should cease because of default on the part of the parent or of the child.

lo TRUANCY AND NON-ATTENDANCE IN CHICAGO

This administrative agency in Chicago is the Compulsory Education Department of the Board of Education. The duties of the officers in this department are (i) to report all violations of the compulsory school law, (2) to enter complaints in cases of violation of the law by the parents/ (3) to arrest children of school-going age who become habitual truants, and to file petitions for commitment to the Parental School.^

As has been said, however, the duty of securing the child's attendance rests primarily upon the parent or the "person having control of the child."^ This duty is "annually to cause any child between seven and sixteen to attend a public or a private school" during the entire session, which must not be less than six months.

The duty is not always perfectly clear since the present Illinois statute recognizes as entitled to exemption under the law: (i) those children receiving instruction elsewhere in the elementary branches by competent persons, (2) those children whose physical and mental condition renders their attendance impractical or inexpedient, (3) those children who are in the words of the statute "excused for temporary absence for cause" by the principal or the teacher, and (4) those children between fourteen and sixteen years of age who are necessarily and lawfully employed during the hours when the school is in session. Many difficult questions arise in connection with the statutory list of exempt cases. Who is to decide when attendance is

'■Illinois Revised Statutes, chap. 122, sees. 274, 144. It is an interesting fact that the statute provides for a superintendent of compulsory education, while no statutory provision is made for a superintendent of schools. The former is therefore more independent in his relation to the board, which neither creates his office nor defines his duties, than the latter whose position is wholly a result of board action.

LEGAL ASPECTS OF COMPULSORY EDUCATION ii

"impractical and inexpedient" because of the mental and physical condition of the child ? What constitutes "necessity" of employment in the case of the fourteen- or fifteen-year-old child? A clear and universally accepted definition of these terms is essential to an effective enforcement of the law. And, yet, there are at present substantially no general principles governing the interpretation of these clauses.

For a failure, however, to perform the duty of securing the attendance of the child who is not exempt, the Illinois Statute provides that "the parent is liable to prosecution and shall forfeit not less than $5 nor more than $20 (with or without costs) and may be committed until payment is made." For misstatement as to the age of the child, which the parent is under duty to make known correctly, there may also be prosecution and imposition of a forfeit of from $3 to $20, without commitment. Prosecutions for these offenses in those cities in which there is a Municipal Court are held before the appropriate branch of that court,' before which are also brought non-supporting parents and those who contribute to the dependency and delinquency of their children.