The Man Nobody Liked: Toward A Social History of the Truant Officer, 1840-1940

flattering. In 1880 a writer in Harper's Magazine expressed a common view: purpose of agent ... is to let loose upon truant scholars and nonattendants legal 'dogs of war,' and woe be to hapless urchin who becomes object of his terrible eye. Petitions, complaints, warrants, and commitments are hurled at his devoted head, until he is thrust headlong into Attendance School-a sort of earthly purgatory. In 1918 supervisor of attendance in Milwaukee complained that his department was the Cinderella of school system-does most of unpleasant work, has no appreciation from anybody, only criticism if something goes wrong. Most people today, when a truancy or attendance officer is mentioned, have only idea that he is a baby-catcher or children's scare; his main occupation is to drag hookey-player, delictum horribili, to school by force. The commonest image of truant officer was that of decrepit tyrant, an archaic 'hookey-cop' with his bogey-man whiskers and a big tin badge on his breast or an asthmatic, broken-down police officer whose arches no longer support him on a beat. Half fearsome, half ridiculous, he was butt of cartoons and jokes (see Plate 1). Edgar Bergen had Charlie McCarthy call truant officer old ramshackle-a talent scout for reform school.'