The work done by the Bureau in administering the first federal child labor law has already been described.*

Children's Year Features. Measures to stimulate public interest in working children and their needs formed a part of the Children's Year program. A Backto-School Drive was inaugurated in the fall of 1918 with the object of encouraging children, especially those who had been tempted to leave school for war work, to return to school. This was followed in February, 1919, by a Stay-in-School campaign. In connection with the Back-to-School Drive a number of popular pamphlets dealing with several phases of child labor were issued though several of these are no longer distributed:

Back-to-School Drive

Suggestions to Local Committees for the Back-toSchool Drive

Scholarships for Children

Advising Children in their Choice of Occupation and Supervising the Working Child

The Visiting Teacher

The Employment-Certificate System

The States and Child Labor

Every Child in School

The most recent pamphlet of this character, “Child Labor in the United States: Ten Questions Answered," originally published in 1922 and revised in 1924, was issued in response to a popular demand for information regarding the extent and legal regulation of child labor in the states. Charts showing the state child-labor standards and the state compulsory school attendance standards affecting the employment of minors were issued in 1921, and a pamphlet giving the legal provisions of

'See page 5.

the various states regulating the employment of minors 16 years of age and over, was published in 1924. A pamphlet giving outlines for the study of child labor was issued in 1924 in coöperation with the Federal Board for Vocational Education. A report on physical standards for working children with a record form for the use of physicians examining children who apply for certificates to work was prepared in 1921 by a committee of physicians appointed by the Bureau. The Director of the Industrial Division served as Secretary of the committee, whose report was issued by the Bureau. The appendix giving the legislative requirements of the states on this topic was later revised to include laws of 1924. All of the legal publications are revised from time to time to embody changes in state legislation.

A bibliography on child labor was issued in 1916 and a supplementary list of references covering the years 1916 to 1924 was in press in May, 1925.

In General. The surveys and reports of the Industrial Division of the Bureau have, in general, been concerned not only with the employment of children, but also with that of mothers of young children and with the industrial status of the father as it affects the welfare of his children. The Division has attempted to scrutinize juvenile employment from three aspects: (1) The extent, character, conditions, causes and effects of child labor; (2) the methods of regulating child labor, including child labor in its relationship to school attendance laws and their administration; and (3) the transition of the child from school to work, including his preparation for industrial life, requirements for admission to the various trades, and methods of directing young people into employment and supervising their entrance into industry.

Dependency, Mothers' Pensions, Delinquency, Juvenile Courts, and Mental Defect. Studies and reports relating to dependency, delinquency, mothers' pensions, juvenile courts, and mental defect have been made under the auspices of the Social Service Division.

Mental Defect Studies. A study of mentally defective children in the District of Columbia was undertaken and completed in 1914 at the request of a local citizens' committee. Following this, at the request of a state committee, two studies-one urban and one rural-were made in Delaware in collaboration with the United States Public Health Service. A brief study of the relation between juvenile delinquency and mental defect was made in coöperation with the Georgia Commission on the Feeble-Minded in 1919, and during the same year the Bureau entered into a joint inquiry with the Public Health Service in one of its series of psychiatric studies of delinquent girls.

Mothers' Pensions. The mothers' pension laws of the various states and of Denmark and New Zealand were collated and published in 1914; a revised edition including the mothers' pension laws of Canada was issued in 1919, and a bulletin containing the text of such laws passed in the United States from 1920 to 1923 was issued in 1924. A report on the administration of the aid-to-mothers law in Illinois was published by the Bureau in 1921. In 1922 a conference on mothers' pensions was held under the auspices of the Mothers' Pension Committee, Family Division of the National Conference of Social Work, and the Children's Bureau, which published the proceedings of the conference. A report on this subject, entitled "Standards of Public Aid to Children in Their Own Homes," is based on investigations in nine communities chosen

as examples of different types of administration and deals primarily with the standards of living of the families receiving aid. This earlier study has been followed by a recent investigation undertaken by the Bureau at the request of the Family Division of the National Conference of Social Work and including counties in eight states and the Province of Manitoba, Canada. The inquiry was directed especially toward the analysis of prevailing standards of housing, health, sanitation, and recreation. State laws in effect November 1, 1922, concerned with public aid to children in their own homes were summarized in a legal chart which was later revised to include 1924 legislation and the texts of the laws of certain states.

Illegitimacy. Contributory to the dependency problem is that of children born out of wedlock, and the Bureau's studies of illegitimacy have had special reference to the burden of dependency resulting from illegitimacy, and the need for enforcing parental responsibility and improving the legal status of these children. Two reports have been issued dealing with legislation, and two studies on illegitimacy as a childwelfare problem, one of them being a field inquiry in Massachusetts. The third in this series, issued in 1924, deals with the treatment of the problem by the social agencies of several different communities. In 1920 two regional conferences were held and proceedings were issued on the subject of standards of legal protection for children born out of wedlock; this material formed the basis for the work of a committee of the National Conference of Commissioners on Uniform State Laws, appointed to consider a model law on status and support. This law was approved by the Commissioners in 1922 and has been adopted, with slight modifications, in four

states. In 1925 the Bureau published a study showing that the infant mortality among illegitimate babies in Baltimore had decreased 50 per cent between 1915 and 1921, apparently as the result of the increase in breast feeding made possible by the Maryland law of 1916 forbidding separation from their mothers, except under specified conditions, of babies under six months old.

Dependency. In the general field of dependency, a report has been issued relating to children deprived of parental care. Considerable legal and other research material has been prepared for limited distribution in temporary form, especially in connection with the Bureau's coöperation in the work of state commissions for the study and revision of child-welfare laws, on which a bulletin was issued early in 1924. A study of county boards of child welfare or public welfare in Minnesota, North Carolina, California, New Jersey, and New York was published in 1922. During 1923 a field study was made of the organization and methods of work of childcaring agencies in ten localities chosen as presenting examples of some of the best work in child placing in different parts of the country. The Bureau had in preparation in 1925 a handbook of instructions, standards, and information for boards of directors, superintendents, and workers in institutions for dependent children.

A collection of papers on the subject of foster-home care for dependent children, contributed by eleven of the leading authorities in that field, was also issued in 1924. A study of dependent children in the District of Columbia, which covers the work of the Board of Children's Guardians and, in less detail, that of private institutions, came out in the same year, and a report has been written of a field study of children indentured by the Wisconsin State Public School for de