TABLE 9.-Number of children 10 to 15 years of age, classified by race and nativity, with proportion of breadwinners in each class.

TABLE 10.-Number of children 10 to 14 years of age, number illiterate, and distribution by race and nativity.

THE COTTON MILL IN ITS RELATION TO CHILDREN.

The most suggestive study reported by the Census in this connection is that relating to cotton mills. This industry was selected for special consideration because, as the report states, it furnishes employment to children to a greater extent than any other manufacturing or mechanical industry. The tabulated returns show that it ranks fourth among all occupations in the actual number of children employed and third in the proportion of children among the total number of operatives.

In 1900 the number of cotton-mill operatives 10 to 15 years of age was 44,427, and they formed 18 per cent of the total number of persons over 10 years of age who were reported as engaged in that occupation. The data relative to these operatives of chief importance in the present consideration are comprised in the following table:

TABLE 11.—Distribution of the 44,227 cotton-mill operatives 10 to 15 years of age, by States and by age periods.a

"Compiled from Census Bulletin 69, Child Labor in the United States, Table 24, p. 43.

From the above table it will be seen that the entire number of children in the Northern and Western States 10 to 15 years of age employed as cottonmill operatives was 16,404, of whom the greater portion, namely, 82.8 per cent, were 14 or 15 years of age; 10.9 per cent were 13 years of age, leaving only 1,041 children, or 6.3 per cent of the whole number in those States, in the industry below 13 years of age.

In the Southern States the total number was much larger, namely, 28,023, of whom 10,902, or 38.9 per cent, were below 13 years of age.

With respect to the bearing of these figures upon the effects of compulsory school laws, the point to be emphasized is the very high proportion of the cotton-mill operatives below 13 years of age in the southern divisions of the country, where such laws are generally wanting, as compared with the corresponding proportion in the Northern and Western States.

It should be recalled that the statistics above considered relate to 1900. Since that time there has undoubtedly been a decrease in the proportion of children of school age employed in the cotton mills of the South, and especially in those States which have recently passed child-labor laws.

It should be said that the census investigation above considered was not limited to the mere numbers of children employed. It included certain particulars of their home conditions, and for limited areas the endeavor was also made to ascertain the proportion of illiterates among the children employed in cotton mills. But the results from these additional inquiries are either too fragmentary or too remote in their nature for use in our present consideration. Furthermore, comparison between the statistics pertaining to children at work

and those at school can only be made on totals, as it has not yet been possible to secure for any large extent of the country a classified analysis of school enrollment corresponding to that applied to the comparatively small numbers of children at work. The statistics as they stand reveal tendencies only; but they are tendencies of great significance. They indicate plainly the conditions of industry, of nationality, and of race that in particular sections of the country interfere with the normal progress of children. It is undoubtedly true that organized industry increases these disturbances, hence it furnishes occasion for increase of watchfulness and protective legislation. It should be remembered, however, that in many instances these very industries have given rise to efforts for the social and intellectual development of young operatives which are full of suggestion for those charged with the conduct of public schools.

The effect of the vigorous campaign against the evils of child labor conducted throughout the country during the last two years is seen in the marked increase in the number of restrictive laws recently passed and in the amendment of many such laws previously enacted. Committees have been formed in nearly every State, largely through the efforts of the Federation of Women's Clubs, to cooperate with the National Child Labor Committee in efforts to excite public interest in the matter, stimulate legislators, and prevent evasions of the laws." The chief need of the moment in respect to this matter is that of adequate machinery for the enforcement of the laws. Not only should the number of inspectors be greatly increased, but they should be most carefully selected, with a view to avoiding both the danger of undue pressure from local interests and ignorance of local conditions. That the child-labor laws are too generally evaded admits of no question, and unfortunately the public conscience is too apt to become indifferent as soon as the laws are on the statute book.

THE UNSOLVED PROBLEM OF SCHOOL ATTENDANCE,

In view of the extent of our country and the dissimilar conditions of different sections-in one, dense population and concentrated industries; in another, vast stretches of agricultural lands; in others, isolated communities in mountain valleys, or the rude condition of pioneer life-the universal provision of public schools enrolling above 16,000,000 pupils, employing nearly 500,000 teachers, and maintained at an annual expense of nearly $300,000,000, seems an amazing achievement. Moreover, as has been shown, nearly three-fourths of the population are subject to laws that compel, at least, a minimum of use of the opportunities thus supplied.

The mere ability to read and write indicates, however, a very slight remove from crass ignorance, and a large proportion of our people are in danger of stopping at this point. The early withdrawal of pupils from school is a fact universally recognized, although up to this time there have been few systematic investigations as to the extent and the causes of the evil. Such investigations as have been attempted relate to particular cities, differing widely in respect to growth and movement of population. It is, however, significant that they all indicate a marked decline in school attendance between the fourth and fifth school years or grades, and continued decrease thereafter. Dr. Calvin M. Woodward, from an exhaustive study of the conditions in the St. Louis schools, covering the successive years 1897 to 1900, inclusive, concluded that at that time nearly 6,000 boys and girls in St. Louis dropped out of school every year with the district school course of study only about half finished.

"These

For a review of the work accomplished in 1906, see reports from State and local child-labor committees and consumers' leagues made to the national committee at the Child Labor and the third annual convention, Cincinnati, December 13-15, 1906. Republic, 1907, pp. 142-181.

facts," he says, "have much the nature of a public calamity, and it is the solemn duty of those in responsible charge of the schools to point out as clearly as possible the probable causes and most practicable remedies.” a

A large proportion of the children who leave school before the sixth grade is reached are fit only for the lowest forms of industry and are poorly fortified against the debasing influence of low associates. This opinion is confirmed by recent investigations, psychological and sociological, which have brought us to a clear understanding of the nature of childhood, its innate impulses, its hypnotic susceptibilities. According to a German authority, the criminal code of Germany assumes that responsibility for crime is dependent upon the degree of mental development; it holds that children, as a rule, do not attain this degree of mental development before the completion of their twelfth year, which is the normal age for our sixth school grade. But competent authorities regard even this limit as too low. The law makes adults responsible for their acts, not only because it presupposes their knowledge of the culpability of their actions, but also because it presupposes with them a maturity of moral character which enables them to resist the impulse to perform an act contrary to law. "Experience," says this authority, "has proved that this degree of moral maturity is not attained by children in Germany, as a rule, before the close of the fourteenth year.” b

M. Fouillée, discussing the causes of juvenile crime in France, observes: Youth is the critical age, and everything depends upon a right direction at the start. It rarely happens, after the age of maturity is reached, that offenders pass the bound that separates occasional crime from professional crime. On the contrary, it is during childhood and youth that this step is taken-that one adopts the criminal profession. Now, it is the professional criminal that recruits the ranks of old offenders. What, then, is the principal means of putting an end to this class—that is, of accomplishing the proper object of penal law, regarded as a system essentially preventive, rather than expiatory? It is the prevention of juvenile crime.c

As regards the function of the school in this preventive work, we may well recall here the words of the former director of primary education in France, M. Buisson, in replying to the charge that the French primary schools fail to restrain the criminal impulses of youth:

The part of the school [he says] is rigidly limited. Its duration is too brief; it covers only the earliest years. The impressions which it makes are, it is true, vivid and often ineffaceable, but they are only the impressions of childhood, and other impressions the stronger impressions of youth and of adolescence-soon come to obscure them. A moral influence which ceases to operate the day after the child's confirmation may perhaps affect the child, but it can not form the man.

The influence ceases on the very day when there should begin, and when, in fact, for the children of the more favored classes, there does begin, that decisive culture whose impress will remain throughout life.d

a

Report of the Commissioner of Education, 1899-1900, Vol. II, p. 1368. A thorough and painstaking statistical study of the general subject of the withdrawal of children from school has recently been made by Dr. E. L. Thorndike, of Columbia University, and published by the Bureau as Bulletin No. 4, 1907, under the title "The Elimination of Pupils from School." In summing up his conclusions Dr. Thorndike states, among other things, that "at least 25 out of 100 children of the white population of our country who enter school stay only long enough to learn to read simple English, write such words as they commonly use, and perform the four operations for integers without serious errors. A fifth of the children (white) entering city schools stay only to the 5th grade." Edgar Loening: Juvenile Criminality in Germany. In Jahrbücher für National Oekonomie und Statistik. Jena, 1901. (Translated for Report of the Commissioner of Education for 1904, Vol. I, chap 9. See p. 706.)

Fouilleé: La France au point de vue moral, p. 147.

d F. Buisson: L'école primaire en France et sa part de responsabilité dans l'éducation morale du pays. (Jost's Annuaire de l'enseignement primaire, 1898.)

ED 1906-VOL 241

In the interest of good morals, in the interest of industrial efficiency, the school life of the masses should be prolonged and immensely enriched. How to accomplish this is the crucial school problem of the hour. The moral bearing of the problem most concerns society at large, but this can not be separated from its vocational bearings.

It would be idle to assume that compulsory school attendance laws, with the adjunct of a truant service, can of themselves insure the preparation of children for useful life and citizenship. They are forceful in so far only as they indicate a lively sense in the community of the significance of childhood, of the truth so impressively taught us by John Fiske, “that man's progressiveness and the length of his infancy are but two sides of one and the same fact." These laws are not remedies; they are merely the means of discovering the evils that ought to be remedied. Compulsion may put a child into school, but of what use is this if he is physically incapable of profiting by instruction when he is there, or if the school is a mere makeshift, offering nothing to fortify its victim against the temptations and collisions of life? The right of the State in this matter carries duties which are constantly increasing in scope, and number, and variety. With every stage of social progress there is needed advance in the methods and content of education. Compulsory school attendance laws are valuable just in proportion to the drawing power of the school, its adaptation to the needs and capacities of the pupil, and its appeal to self-interest or to the worthier ambitions which stir the hearts of even the humblest parents.

REMEDIAL AGENCIES.

The youth arrested for habitual truancy is a subject for criminal procedure, although this offense is far removed from the grosser forms of evil doing. The juvenile court, with its merciful provisions, completes then for him the chain of public agencies intended to save him from final absorption into the criminal class. As a rule, however, the absentee from school is a victim of conditions-hopeless poverty, the ignorance or unnatural greed of parents, the rapacity of employers--over which he has no control. The disclosure of these conditions is the chief public service rendered by compulsory school laws. As we have already seen, they are inseparable in their operations from the child-labor laws directed against the adult offender.

The latest phase of this slow process, through which we have come to a full realization of what is involved in the endeavor to educate every child in the land, relates to measures for relieving excessive poverty and the physical infirmities that it entails. Among such measures are the provision of what have been aptly termed “child-labor scholarships," the purpose of which is set forth in the following extract from the report of the secretary of the Child Labor Committee of New York:

These scholarships were created for the purpose of preventing hardship to a child laborer's family when the child's illegal earnings were really needed. An equally important object of these scholarships is to remove from the minds of officials who were charged with enforcing the law any fear of causing suffering to a family by requiring a full compliance with the law. This plan of substituting children's earnings where it was proved such earnings were genuinely needed has now been in effect in New York City for nearly fifteen months. As the scheme has become better understood by school officials and others who refer applications for scholarships to our committee, there is a distinct tendency to bring to our attention more cases which are directly within the scope of the fund, and probably more instances of genuine poverty. For the year

ending October 1, 1905-the first year of the plan-345 applications were received and investigated, either by the committee or at our request by representatives of the relief societies. Of this number 203, or 59 per cent, were deemed not to be in need of assistance. Of the remaining 142 cases, or 41 per