The Telegraph-courier. [volume] (Kenosha, Wis.) 1888-1946, 1910-12-08
BUREAU DOING GREAT WORK
Annual Convention of Rural School
Boards Hears Interesting Discussion
1t Court House This Afternoon-In-
spector Larsen a Speaker,
(From Wednesdays Daily


consin State Bureau of Labor and In
dustrial statistics was presented to peo-
pie of Kenosha county this afternoon
when Deputy State Factory Inspector
Henry P. Peterson of Superior spoke
at the annual convention of the rural
school boards of Kenosha county and
showed to the school officials of every
district in the county the part that the
state factory inspectors are taking in
the enforcement of the compulsory
educational laws of the state. Mr..
Peterson is now giving his entire time
to the truancy work Of the state bur
eau and he. is the best posted man in
the state of Wisconsin in regard to
the enforcement of these laws. In
speaking before the more than a hun
dred representatives of the various
school districts in the county Mr.. Pet
erson said: cit is one of the first
duties of the state to see that every
child gets it's birthright which is a
square deal. Nearly all of the politi-
cal ills. of today are the outgrowth of
ignorance and the ballot in the hands
Of an ignorant man is a menace to the
state and to the nation. The state of
Wisconsin levies taxes to the amount
of 81 100000 for the support of edu-
cation and this added to the amount
spent in the maintenance of parochiaI
schools brings the, total up to from
$12, ooo, 900 to $4,000, 900. The amount
spent for the education of the children
is greater than any other item in the
state budget. It is greater than any
other item of your county or city budg-
ct. l want to impress upon you tins
fundamentalism that it is the greatest
work of this generation to educate the
next generation. We live in our child
rem and it should be matter Of pride
for every father to hand down to the
next generation his name by the pro-
per education of his children
Mr.. Peterson spoke of the condi-
tions that led up to this work being
taken up by the state bureau "We
have the child labor problem under con
troll in Wisconsin, he said, 'Eand now
we are reaching out to aid you to solve
the truancy problem. At the present
time there are 10000 children in Wis
consin not attending school. Some of
these delinquents may live outside the
two mile school limit but the great ma
jority of them could be kept in school
if the laws were enforced. We have
adopted the plan of taking the child
rem out of the factories with one hand
and showing them into the schools with
the other. We are trying to make an
intelligent enforcement of the laws for
the education of children and our eff
forts have been crowned with album
dant success. We have found that it
must be an outside force in order to
make the enforcement Of these laws
possible and we are absolutely impair
tial between the public and the paro-
chial schools in the work that we are
doing"
Mr.. Peterson spoke in detail Of the
manner of enforcing attendance in
schools as pract1ced by the bureau.
"We take the complaints and send
notice to the parents and the teachers
and order that the child be sent to
school within FIVE days. IF the order
is not obeyed we take the parents into
court and force them to see that the
laws in regard to their children are
obeyed. We have found that in the
great majority of cases the parents
when shown the law are willing to fol
low the orders and out of large num-
Der of cases started in the state bur
five have resulted in fines being inn
posed and every one of the defendants
fined have been Indians. Mr.. Peter
son assured the members of the various
boards that TIE department was ready
to give its corrective influences to Ken
osha county.
The convention was the most success
full gathering Of school officers ever
held in the county. County superin-
tendent J. J. Kerwin was in charge
ana the other speakers at the two SEES
sions included State Rural School In
spector W. E. Larsen of Madison and
Mrs. Mary D. Bradford, superinten-
dent of the Kenosha schools.
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