The Waterbury Democrat., 1939-04-25

AAbA OAAOOlR oOAAlCtA1AlC6, HI Clle abling bright youngster to go on to college; sometimes. in giving him a bit of a job, a little money to put in his pocket, and change to find out what he wants to do in the world and how he can it himself to do 1t.
 MORE KIDS
 NEED HELP
 But although this is being done for 650,000 youngsters, MT. Williams feels that the IVA has hardly scratched the surface.
 We have done no more than take the most obvious and desperate cases" he says. We take about one out of four, or even one out of six or seven, of the youngsters who come to us. These others whom we can't take are just as much in need of something in the way of occupa- tion, money in their pockets, and a feeling that they're going some- where"
 Altogether, MT. Williams figures there are between four and five million Americans between the ages of 16 and 24 who need that sort of help.
 We have no hope of reaching all those people," he admits. "If we get that extra $50,000,000, we could add around 500,000 youngsters, and give them some form of constructive &C., tivity and a chance to earn a small amount of money" A little money goes quite way in this business. IVA is today keep ing some 275,O00 boys and girls in high school, at an average cost of about $5 month apiece. It is keep ing 125.000 in college, at an average cost of around SIS a month apiece And it is spending about $25O a year per capita to keep 25O,00O youths busy on its work projects. WHAT THE
 MONEY DOES
 Is all of this worth what 1t costs? We'll for one thing it is enabling 400,0 ,000 youngsters to continue their education. It is giving a quarter of a million more the experience by which, later on, they can get jobs and become elf-sustaining.
 The material it is working with is pretty high grade, too. Currently, for instance, 88 per cent of the IVA students are among the top-rank- ing students in their respective schools.
 Perhaps it is a general recogni- ton of that fact that has spared the IVA much of the criticism that is visited on so many other New Deal projects. MT. Williams likes to tell about a recent visit to big eastern university. He asked the president of the institution to in- troduce him to "the crustiest re- actionary on the faculty"
 The president took him to a Vermont-born cattleman who taught in the college of agriculture, and MT. Williams asked the man what he thought of the IVA work as he had seen it.
 Well" said the cattleman, "I've no use for you. think you're just another Washington crackpot. I don't like Harry Hopkins, and every time think of Franklin Roosevelt being trusted with s bill I think, God save the republic!' But I hope you keep on with the Youth Admin istration program"
 TEACHERS STRONG
 FOR PLAN
 Incidentally, MT. Williams says that the country's educators are the stoutest defenders the IVA has. Partly, no doubt, this is because the program has been kept flexible and decentralized.
 Some 1900 colleges and 24,0O0 high schools are cooperating in it. In each case, the local college or school authorities are in complete charge. They select the students and pro- vide the work by which the students cary the money which enables them to keep in school; the IVA simply plays the bills.
 Copyright, 1889, NEA Service, Incl CALEDONIA NY. BANK