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The Civilian Conservation Corps and the National Park Service, 1933-1942: An Administrative History Chapter Three: The National Park Service Camps |
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TRAINING AND EDUCATION
What to do with the enrollees during their free time provided a challenge for the various administering agencies. Prior to the creation of the ECW, the NPS had provided interpretive and educational talks to the visiting public at parks. In May 1933 NPS Director Albright offered the services of the Park Service to the Army in providing training and lectures on forestry and other topics of interest to the ECW youths. The Forest Service contracted for motion picture projectors to be used by their camps and other agency camps to show films of an educational nature. One projector was to be circulated between every eight to 10 camps. The Park Service obtained forestry training manuals from the Forest Service to distribute to the enrollees. The Park Service also produced a 32-page booklet entitled "The National Parks and Emergency Conservation" to be distributed to the camps. [29]
During the first year of the ECW's existence, the enrollees received only minimal training and education. With the continuation of the ECW, Park Service Assistant Director Harold C. Bryant, in cooperation with the Office of Education, began to establish a more formal education program. In December 1933 the president, the ECW director, War Department officials, and the commissioner of education set up a formal education program. The commissioner of education appointed an education director of the ECW who operated out of Fechner's office. His duty was to implement and supervise an educational program throughout the country. An educational advisor was assigned to each of the nine army corps headquarters and to each ECW camp as part of the camp superintendent's staff. [30]
The War Department on May 29, 1933, issued a memorandum urging camp officers to set up educational and athletic activities for the camps. The officers, in cooperation with NPS officials, set up as many as 20 evening courses per camp. In natural areas, forestry work was discussed; in historical areas, talks were given on the importance of that park in American history The enrollees expressed appreciation and interest in these programs. As the first period of work drew to a close, Director Cammerer requested that park superintendents and state officials assist the Army in preparing an expanded educational program for the winter months. Director Cammerer urged the organization of study classes, discussion groups, and hobby clubs; professionally guided field excursions to study significant historical, geological, or biological features in the area; lecture programs; visual presentations such as motion pictures or slides; and recommended additional reading material on appropriate subjects to supplement lectures and discussion group activities. Parks were to submit proposals to the director for final approval. As an example, the park naturalist at Acadia National Park recommended a program that would offer lectures once a week on natural history subjects. If enrollees expressed interest, a study group was formed with the park naturalist. [31]
On November 2, 1933, Commissioner for the Office of Education George T. Zook presented to Director Fechner an outline for an educational program for ECW camps. When the plan was presented to the ECW advisory council, the Departments of War, Interior, and Agriculture objected to it. Major General Douglas MacArthur argued that the ECW's mission was not education and that the original act and the president's directive did not mention it. General MacArthur eventually agreed that an education program could be carried out but that it had to be placed under the control of the Army.
On November 22, the president gave approval to a nationwide educational program placed under the auspices of the nine Army corps commanders. Each corps area was assigned an educational advisor selected by the Office of Education who assisted camp commanders in establishing an educational program. Each camp also had an educational advisor, while an assistant camp leader was chosen from the camp enrollees to help with the program. In 1933 full implementation of the educational program was left to the discretion of the camp commander. The program encouraged continued cooperation between the military and the Park Service and was conducted only at night. Only job-related training was permitted during working hours. [32]
In December 1933 Clarence S. Marsh was selected director of ECW education. His first task was to appoint approximately 1,000 educational advisors selected from the ranks of unemployed school teachers. By January 1934 a budget was prepared and submitted, and at the end of March the advisors were working in the camps. Courses taught were designed to assist the men in obtaining jobs after leaving the camps. [33]
During the second year school was held each night for half an hour per class, with the men divided according to their previous education. Classes were presented in reading, writing, arithmetic, grammar, spelling, history, civics, and geography, along with a special class for illiterates. On the national level each agency designated a representative to be on the educational advisory committee to give guidance to the program. (The Park Service representative was Dr. Harold C. Bryant.) Each camp employed an educational advisor at a salary of $165 a month, and camp youths selected to assist him were paid $45 a month. The educational advisors soon took over the responsibility for the camp's athletic and social programs. The program operated on limited funds and depended on help from the military and NPS staff. At first, the night classes were well attended, but after a month enrollment dropped dramatically. The superintendent of Morristown National Historical Park commented that his boys were not interested in formal academic classes but were interested in technical classes related to the conservation work. The educational program faced not only the skepticism of park superintendents but the hostility of some camp commanders. [34]
In 1935 the ECW education program attracted 53 percent of the enrollees. There was enough antagonism among the educational advisors, the camp commanders, and the project superintendents that the Washington Office of the Park Service directed project superintendents to extend full cooperation to the camps' educational advisors and to notify them formally that the parks' full facilities were available for their use. Camps at Death Valley National Monument offered 56 courses, the majority of which were to be completed by correspondence. The courses varied from the practical to the esoteric. In September 1935 Director Fechner announced that the education program was to be reorganized, with more emphasis on vocational training. [35]
A new system of training was adopted in 1936 that encouraged supervisors to instruct the youths to improve the quality of their work and to give training that would aid them in obtaining jobs when they were discharged. To achieve these objectives, the Park Service published a large number of technical leaflets for use in job training sessions with the enrollees. This type of job-related training was the responsibility of the Park Service. [36]
Starting in 1937 each camp commander was required to provide for 10 hours a week in educational and vocational training. The Park Service was not comfortable with teaching strictly academic courses and conducted some classes on a more casual basis, geared toward practical application. The Park Service preferred to take the workers out for field trips so that naturalists/rangers could use the parks as vast natural laboratories. In Wyoming the Park Service instituted a program of training designed to help the enrollees obtain jobs with private enterprise after their discharge. The preliminary results of this program were encouraging. On March 19, 1937, the Army, Forest Service, and Park Service again reaffirmed that the technical agencies would be responsible for work-related training, and the Army, with assistance from the two technical agencies, for the education program. By December, however, Morrell of the Forest Service and Wirth of the Park Service proposed to the CCC advisory council that the entire educational program be revamped. They suggested that the educational courses and educational advisors be removed from the camps and replaced by an on-the-job training program under the control of the technical agencies, or at least have the entire educational budget transferred from the Army to the technical agencies. Neither suggestion was acted upon. [37]
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