WHAT OF THE HARVEST? .235 



wherever labour was short. But many farmers refused to 

 avail themselves of these Exchanges, and instead, petitioned 

 the County Education Committees to release little boys of 

 thirteen, or even of twelve years of age from school attend- 

 ance to come to the rescue of British agriculture ! 



The Board of Education had no powers to override the 

 law with regard to school attendance in the employment of 

 children, and the local authority was under no obligation 

 to take proceedings for non-attendance if they were satis- 

 fied that a reasonable excuse had been given. The farmers 

 who controlled the Rural Education Committees stretched 

 this elastic " reasonable excuse " to cover in some districts 

 children of twelve and even eleven years of age whom they 

 wanted to employ. 



Between the beginning of September, 1914, and the end 

 of January, 1915, no less than 1,152 boys and 42 girls had 

 been allowed to leave school, 1 including 34 between eleven 

 and twelve and 763 between twelve and thirteen. 2 



It soon became evident that the children needed pro- 

 tection against being robbed of their education, whilst 

 their natural protector was away fighting our battles in 

 the trenches. 



Nothing is meaner in our war annals than this exploit- 

 ation of childhood ; nothing rendered us smaller in the eyes 

 of the world. The action of farmers, who had always looked 

 upon the education of their labourers' children with a cold 

 eye, we can understand ; but what are we to say of "' cul- 

 tured " persons who presided over Education Committees 

 and supported this exploitation with Gradgrind fervour ? 

 They displayed little exquisite sensibility. For that high 

 quality we had to look to the man who had followed the 

 plough the man who was sorely tempted to stoop to this 

 mercenary traffic in childhood to condemn it with no 

 uncertain voice. The National Agricultural Labourers' 

 Union strongly protested against the employment of child- 

 labour, and the crime for doing so rests primarily with our 



1 Of these West Sussex was responsible for 210. The Board of Edu- 

 cation informs me that complete figures up to date are not availab le. 



2 The Times, March 5, 1915. 



