it next year. The boys say that they have gone back home with weight increased and with health improved. With one accord they express their deep gratification at having been of real service to the nation. In most cases the boys lived with the farmers' families, but in many states they worked from their own camps. The camp, under a competent leader, would be located in the neighborhood of a group of farms. The farmers would take the boys in vehicles to work each morning, and bring them back to camp at night. During the summer of 1917 there were more than three hundred (300) of these farm camps throughout the United States. A camp is not necessarily housing in tents, for in many instances the boys lived in vacant buildings of County Fair Associations, in barns and in warehouses. In all cases where the boys lived in camps and worked on surrounding farms they were under the most careful supervision.

Farmers Praise Reserve. At the beginning of the summer of 1917 many farmers said that an inexperienced city boy was of no use on the farm. At the end of the summer of 1917 hundreds of farmers wrote to officers of the Reserve to say that their judgment of the boys had been mistaken, and that many of the young fellows did better work than the men they were accustomed to employ for the harvest season. The farmers are asking that more boys be furnished to them next year so that the planted acreage may be increased.

Farmers' Grange Societies are passing resolutions commending the work of the Reserve and expressing the hope that it will be expanded and continued.

One large fruit grower wrote: "If you can guarantee us a supply of boys every year, we will erect comfortable quarters in which to house them. Tell us what you want and we

will supply it. We want the boys. We are tired of hobo labor."

The Federal State Director for Illinois reports that out of four hundred and five Chicago boys who worked on farms last summer only four were returned home on account of doing unsatisfactory work.

Industrial Service. While it is true that heretofore the chief function of the Reserve has been to supply boys for the farms, it is planned to extend its scope into essential industries and vocational training. Hundreds of Reserve boys were employed in "Essential Industries" last summer and many others are permanently employed.

Thirty boys of the Reserve went from the District of Columbia into New Jersey and labored in a glass factory where they made glass jars in which to preserve food. They took the places of men who were needed to make powder for the army, and the glass plant would have shut down had it not been for the boys who worked faithfully, doing a man's job in a man's way.

Eighty-six Gary (Indiana) boys have already been awarded the Federal Bronze Badge for service rendered to the nation by working in the wonderful steel mills and munition factories in that city. Gary is further distinguished by being the home of Henry J. Cecil, the first Indiana boy to be honored with this war-service medal.

PRESIDENT WILSON ENDORSES RESERVE

President Wilson, under date of April 15, 1917, said: "I call upon the able-bodied boys of the land to turn in hordes to the farms and make certain that no pains and no labor is lacking in this great matter."

On August twenty-first he referred to the Boys' Working Reserve in the following language: "Let me express the hope that the young men of the country not now permanently employed, may quickly enter the Boys' Working Reserve to fit themselves by training and study for good citizenship and productive service. In this way they can show themselves worthy of patriotic fathers who have fought for democracy in the past, sustain their patriotic brothers who are fighting for it to-day, and command the affectionate pride of the brave mothers who are silently bearing the burdens at home."

EX-PRESIDENT ROOSEVELT PLEDGES HEARTY SUPPORT

Ex-President Roosevelt says in a letter to the National Director: "I wish to express my hearty and unreserved support of what you are doing. You are now actually engaged in meeting the shortage of labor on the farm by the creation of the Working Reserve, to include the boys between the ages of sixteen and twenty-one who ordinarily would not be in productive labor, and who can be turned into workers on the farm. You have shown, and the farmer has been prompt to recognize the fact, that the strong, healthy boy is a tremendous help at this time, and that if his patriotism is appealed to, he will stick to the farm where the need is great, in spite of the offer of higher wages in the city. The training of boys to prepare for some essential industry where they can take the place of men called to the front is going to be of great benefit to the country.

"One of the great benefits you can confer is that of making a boy realize that he is part of Uncle Sam's team; that he is doing his share in this great war, that he holds his services in trust for the nation, and that although it is proper to

consider the question of material gain and the question of his own desires, yet that what he must most strongly consider at this time is where his services will do the most good to our people as a whole. I earnestly wish you every success in your wise and patriotic effort."

GOVERNOR GOODRICH APPEALS TO YOUNG MANHOOD

In a recent proclamation relating to the United States Boys' Working Reserve, Governor James P. Goodrich of Indiana said:

"I appeal to the virile young manhood of Indiana with the thought that every American boy at work opposes a boy in Germany, and in all seriousness remind him that he is facing a man's job, the burdens, hardships and sacrifices of which will increase as the war lengthens.

"To the people of the State of Indiana, I most heartily recommend the work of this Reserve as a permanent contribution to our economic forces and express the desire that the service to the state and nation rendered by these boys should be regarded by the public as just and useful and patriotic within the limits of the opportunity afforded, as the service rendered by the soldier in the trenches. In that spirit you should lend your cooperation.”

ENROLLMENT WHAT IT MEANS

Enrolling in the Reserve obligates a boy only so long as his parents or guardian are willing that he should remain in service. The parent's or guardian's written request is all that is required to secure his release from any duties to which he may have been assigned or his honorable discharge from the Reserve.