A GIBSON COUNTY FARMHOUSE 



This type of child labor is not an unwholesome one, for parents and 

 children and neighbors and neighbors' children work together out in the 

 open air. The lessons learned here, and at chore time, are not the least 

 valuable part of the farm boy's education. School is supposed to let out 

 during cotton-picking time, from the middle of September until the 

 middle of November, so as not to interfere with what is really an economic 

 necessity. Sometimes, however, the cotton is not all picked when school 

 begins; in this case the average attendance at school is very low. As late 

 as November 24 the investigator visited one schoolhouse which enrolled 

 normally 130 pupils, and found only 20 present. "The cotton is not 

 picked yet," the teacher explained, and across the road was good evidence 

 of this — a farmer and four flaxen-haired youngsters, hard at work, in 

 their cotton-patch. 



Diagram No. 1 shows the age of marriage for 193 young people in 

 eluded in the sample plots. 



SOCIAL INTERACTION 



Centers of Informal Meeting 



The country store plays its usual important role in bringing men 

 together informally. There are 45 of these scattered through the county. 

 It is here that the farmers meet each other most frequently, and swap 



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