The Eleanor Roosevelt Papers, Digital Edition > My Day
My Day by Eleanor Roosevelt

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WASHINGTON, Wednesday—Due to the fact that the President of Peru's plane was delayed in Panama, he probably will not arrive here until tomorrow, so the household has been very busy switching all of Thursday's engagements to Wednesday and vice versa. The dinner for the President of Peru, given by my husband for the officials of the government, will take place tomorrow night. The reception here for the delegates to the Pan-American Child Congress will take place tonight.

I go today to a luncheon given for the delegates to this congress. The afternoon is very full of appointments to see various people who are trying to do something useful at present, but who for one reason or another find themselves faced with difficulties.

I am very much troubled by the fact that in the reorganization of the National Youth Administration and the Civilian Conservation Corps, everything has been cut except such training for industry as will enable these young people to be more quickly available for work in war industry plants.

No aid is being given to young people going to college or to high school. The high school aid is less necessary at this time, since more and more people are now employed and can give their children the little that is needed to make a high school education possible. To have college aid given up, however, seems to me rather tragic.

I had hoped that this part of NYA was just the beginning of a real democratization of education in this country. There is no reason why good students who should become professional people should be denied the opportunity to enter these fields simply because they can not afford to go to college. They will amply repay the country for their education.

Young people who have received NYA assistance in college have nearly always stood among the first ten of their class. All over the country the vast majority of college presidents are distressed at having this opportunity for education and usefulness taken away from young people just because they cannot pay for it. It is a short-sighted move and a present economy which will cost us dear in the future.

It is true that Administration leaders and Members of Congress cannot do things which their constituents do not wish done. I cannot believe, however, that the majority of the people in this country really want this comparatively small expenditure, which meant so much to so many young people, cut out at the present time.

E.R.

(COPYRIGHT, 1942, BY UNITED FEATURE SYNDICATE, INC.)


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About this document

My Day by Eleanor Roosevelt, May 7, 1942

Roosevelt, Eleanor, 1884-1962
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Digital edition created by The Eleanor Roosevelt Papers Project The George Washington University 312 Academic Building 2100 Foxhall Road, NW Washington, DC 20007

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MEP edition publlished on June 30, 2008.

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Transcription created from a photocopy of a UFS wire copy of a My Day column instance archived at the Franklin D. Roosevelt Library.
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