ABSTRACT
For more than a century, North American schools have used a school-year calendar which includes an interruption of formal instruction for 3 months at a time. In the early years of this arrangement, there were clear purposes for the interruption. Helping hands, even young hands, were needed during the summer on farms and ranches to process cash crops or tend the animals to increase the family’s income and to provide for the family’s welfare. This agriculturally-based, economically-driven calendar served its purposes well: rural family survival depended on a productive summer of work, whereas wealthier urban families could provide their children with suitable activities that befitted their standing, such as dispatching their children to foreign cities or specialized socialization programs.
