TRUCK-FARM LABOR IN NEW JERSEY, 1922 
19 
localities near their working places and were not the children of 
migratory agricultural workers who often present a difficult prob- 
lem to school authorities. 4 
Many families of migratory farm workers leave the cities, espe- 
cially Philadelphia, for truck-farm work in New Jersey in May at 
about the time strawberry picking begins, or even earlier. Xeed for 
the children's earnings, as well as the fact that the parents are 
leaving home, compels most of them to take their children with 
them. Whether or not the children begin work at once, they are 
taken from school and may not be able to return until after the 
cranberry harvest in October or later. This interruption to school 
work is serious, both for the educational progress of children and for 
the work of the school authorities in cities like Philadelphia, where 
hundreds of children are affected. New Jersey school authorities 
School Progress of Children Under 16 Years of Age Working on Farms Compared with 
Normal 
AGE GROUP 
8-9 YEARS 
IO-II YEARS 
12-13 YEARS 
IA--I5 YEARS 
AVERAGE 
UNDER 16 YEARS 
10 
20 
30 
PER CENT 
40 50 60 
70 
80 
90 100 
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\Backward i n school 
In advance of 
normal school progress 
Fig. 6. — The percentage of children not making normal school progress increased some- 
what with their ages. At no time was the proportion of backward' children less than 
33 per cent ; in fact 58.6 per cent of all Avere not making normal progress. Nearly 
all of these children belonged in New Jersey localities near their working places 
naturally look upon migrant families from outside of their State as 
nonresidents, and little or no effort is made to extend educational 
facilities to them. 
Occasionally New Jersey families become migrant truck-farm 
workers, but usually for not such long periods of the year as non- 
residents. The resulting interruption to the school work of their 
children seems less serious. While at home they are within the 
reach of truant officers, who, although making some allowances for 
family necessities and the agricultural labor situation, try to keep 
the children in school. When such families leave home to work else- 
4 Workers of the Children's Bureau, United States Department of Labor, found that of 
869 school children, largely Italians, who left Philadelphia schools to go w T ith their fami- 
lies to truck-farm work in New Jersey. 71 per cent of those between 8 and 16 years of 
age were from 1 to 6 years below their normal grades. (In this report children were 
considered to have entered school normally at the ages of 6 or 7 and to have completed a 
grade of work each succeeding year.) Tenth Annual Report of the Chief. Children's 
Bureau, United States Department of Labor, Washington, 1922, pp. 13-1*. 
