The Mankato free press. [volume] (Mankato, Blue Earth County, Minn.) 1879-1924, 1905-01-13
From Thursdays Daily.

The school board took up the truaney
matter in earnest last night and made
some substantial progress toward eradi
eating the evil, but yet did not strike
at the root of the matter. What was
done was good as far as it goes, but the
til the board has named Chief Donahue
as truant officer or appointed someone
else to the position with instructions to
round up every child of school age who
is out of schol without an excuse from
the superintendent of schools and place
him in one of the public schools.
Rev. George H. Davis called up the
amendment to regulation 33, that he pro-
posed two months ago, and offered it
with IAN amendment, moving its adop-
ton 1t reads as follows:
"Truancy being an offense that should
be controlled by the parents or guar
dams, no truant shall be readmitted to
school, until the parents or guardians,
having notice from the teacher of the Of
Tense, shall call upon the superintend-
ent and ask for such readmission, prom
Using cooperation in securing regular at
tendance thereafter. When truancy
continues and parents or guardians neg
lect OF fail to correct the evil the board
will expei the pupil, or, if deemed wiser,
will take the regular legal steps to en-
force sec. 4, chap. 22G, statutes of 1899
as amended in 1901, sec. 2, chapter l56,
which provides for the sending of tru-
ants to the state training school at Red
Wing.
Further, when parents or guardians
neglect or refuse to keep pupils in school
regularly and furnish no satisfactory ex-
cuse to the teacher or superintendent,
the same shall be referred to the school
board for action as case of truancy
if in the judgment of the board such
shall be deemed wise and expedient."
The regulation was adopted after some
discussion
Mrs Smith reported the case of four
children in a West MankatO family who
are out of school, This had come to the
attention of the Ladies' Relief society.
She also spoke of another case where
mother had said that she never learned
to read or write and had gotten along
very well, and she didn't intend to send
her children to school.
The need of truant officer was dis
One member said that some of the
children have no proper clothing, and the
other children would make fun of them.
Rev. Davis. and Mrs., Smith said that
they had known of teachers attending to
the matter of getting such children prop
erly clothed and given bath.
Mr.. Fletcher said that in some cases
the parents are poor and need the
money that their children can earn.
Mr.. Coughlan said that he had known
of such cases. There are many young
girls in the knitting mill because their
parents need the money.
Rev. Davis asked whether these girls
had excuses.
President Hughes said that he thought
e 1, L.
en- had expired Sept. lst.
Superintendent Mcconnell said that
he knew of sixty cases where children
are out of school. Thirty-eight excuses
held by knitting mill employees expir-
ed Sept. lst, and as the superintendent
is given authority by the state law
to grant excuses he had renewed the ex-
cuses until JAN. lst, that he might be-
come more familiar with the cases. The
problem is difficult one. Some parents
had come to him and said that they
want their children to work in order to
earn money to help support the families.
He had given excuses to the end of the
year to a very few. The law prohibits
the granting of excuses to any children
under fourteen years of age, or to those
who cannot read and write, or to any
to work unless it is for the purpose OF
earning a living.
Every member of the board was pres
emit and considerable business was trans.
acted.
Capt. 'Keysor reported that the repairs
and improvements in the high school
buildings had been found to be good
deal more extensive than had been anti
cipated. Instead of cutting an archway
between. the physics laboratory room
and the adjoining cloak room, it hat
been found necessary to take out the
partition, making one nice large room
for the laboratory, just doubling its size
The other cloak room had been subdivid
ed by partition and is plenty large
enough. A good job had been done in The
chemical laboratory on the first floor. A
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