The Truant Officer's Fine
A father in Old Town is jailed over school attendance, highlighting the strict new enforcement of compulsory education laws.
For refusing to send his 13-year-old boy to school, Frank Plan, of Old Town, was arrested yesterday and fined $20 by Justice E. M. Card. When Plan told the court that he would promise to send his boy to school hereafter the fine was suspended, but Plan was sent to jail to pay the costs of the action. The boy was found wandering about the streets by Truant Officer Hill.
“The boy was found wandering about the streets by Truant Officer Hill.”
Compulsory education was a major civic battleground in the early 20th century, as the state sought to formalize childhood and labor. Today’s debates over school attendance and truancy remain rooted in this same tension between state authority and parental autonomy.
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