Little or no attention has been given as yet to the ears, teeth, nervous and respiratory systems, and the general health of our school children. The inspections conducted by Dr. Cronin and his assistants in New York City are by far the most important yet made in the United States, and show the importance of this largely neglected subject. When I have stood in some of our American public schools and observed the way in which the medical inspections were made,—as many as 2000 children being “inspected” in ten or twelve minutes,—I have with shame contrasted the farcical proceeding with the thorough, systematic work done in several European countries. In this, as in so many other matters, the United States and England are far behind countries like Belgium, France, Germany, Italy, Norway, and Switzerland.^[175]

In Brussels every child in the public elementary schools is medically examined once every ten days. “Its eyes, teeth, ears, and general physical condition are overhauled. If it looks weak and puny, they give it cod-liver oil or some suitable tonic. At midday it gets a square meal ... and the greatest care is taken to see that no child goes ill shod, ill clad, or ill fed.”^[176] In Norway there is a very similar system. Sickly children are put upon a special dietary and given special individual medical care. There are sanatoria and convalescent homes in connection with the schools.^[177] In Switzerland again poor children are fed and frequently clothed or shod at the public expense. Day homes are provided for the very young children. Every child is medically examined before being admitted to the schools, and periodically thereafter. Sick children are sent to the school sanatoria and convalescent homes for treatment. “Holiday Colonies” are provided, to which hundreds of children are sent each year for a period of twenty-five days each. The cost of this is partly borne by the city, out of the “Alcoholzehntel”; partly by private contributions to the “school fund,” and partly by the payments received from parents. The “Alcoholzehntel” is perhaps worthy of explanation. It originates in this manner,—the manufacture of spirits is a federal monopoly, and yields a handsome profit. This is divided among the various cantons, which are bound to spend one-tenth of the sum so received to combat the effects of alcohol.^[178]

Very similar to the Swiss Holiday Colonies are the Colonies Scolaires of France. These “School Colonies” take two forms. In one case the arrondissement hires or borrows a boarding-school in the country for the summer months, to which it sends several hundred children. In the other case, it acquires a former château in the country, to which it despatches relays of children during the year. The ordinary stay for each child is three weeks, and the effect upon the physique of the children is remarkable.^[179] Berlin and, I believe, several other German cities, not only provide for the regular, thorough medical examination of every child, but weak, sickly children, especially those who are predisposed to tuberculosis, are sent to school homes in the country, not far from the city, where, amid the most healthful surroundings, they are given special medical and tutorial care until they are entirely well and strong.^[180]

In view of such facts as these, which might be multiplied almost indefinitely, it will be seen that there is nothing impracticable or Utopian in the proposal that there should be a regular medical examination of every child, both before its admission to the school, and at stated, frequent periods during the whole of its school life. In fact, there should be two inspections, one medical, the other dental.^[181] Every school should have a well-equipped dispensary connected with it, and a dental laboratory, so that the children could get prompt treatment. Provision should also be made to remove physically weak and sick children from the crowded city schools to more favorable surroundings with a view to preventing their degeneration, and restoring them to health and vigor. While the responsibility for these things should rest upon and be accepted by the municipality, with, possibly, some subvention from the state, there seems to be no good reason why some of our puzzled millionaires, who find the wise bestowal of their wealth an increasingly difficult problem, should not contribute to the city treasuries for that special purpose.

XI

When we come to deal with the child-labor problem, or, rather, with the problem of its repression by legislative enactment, we are at once confronted with a great difficulty that arises out of our political system rather than out of industrial conditions. The child-labor problem is a national one, but when we face the question of its solution, we are handicapped by the division of the country into forty odd states, a division which makes it almost impossible to deal with any of our great social and industrial problems nationally upon uniform principles. The same difficulty exists, of course, in connection with all our social and industrial problems. We have legislation in the various states of a conflicting character, adding to the complexity of the problem the legislators meant to solve. But because this is conspicuously so in the case of child-labor legislation,—every advance made in the Northern states serving as a premium upon reaction and delay in the Southern states,—I have chosen to deal with it in this connection.

Up to the present time, the advocates of child-labor legislation have, apparently, shrunk from making any definite proposals upon this important question, while fully recognizing its tremendous importance. Sooner or later, if ever our greatest social problems are to be intelligently dealt with, the question of state rights will have to be fought out and the paramountcy of the nation in all such matters established, and I can imagine no better issue for raising that question than the legislative protection of children. Here, again, we must turn for guidance and suggestion to the Old World. In Germany they have had to face a similar problem, the difference being one of degree only, and they have found a solution which might well be adopted in the United States. Child labor in Germany is regulated partly by the ordinances of the federal council and partly by the legislation of the different states of the Empire. The federal enactments establish a minimum standard for the whole Empire, and it is specifically provided that each state may enact more stringent measures as it may desire.^[182] It is difficult to see why this principle could not be applied to the problem here in the United States, giving us a uniform minimum standard of legislation throughout the whole country. Such a law should prohibit the employment of any child under fifteen years of age at any employment whatsoever, and the employment of any child or young person under eighteen years of age in all “dangerous occupations” specified by a federal commission. It would be well, also, to insist upon a certain educational test up to eighteen years, the test to be made in all cases by the school authorities.^[183]

Coming to details for legislation within the states, it is perfectly obvious that legislation necessary for, and suited to, big cities would be useless and unsuited to the small towns and rural communities. In the case of messengers and newsboys, for example, in a town of 10,000 inhabitants, conditions are entirely different from those existing in a city of 50,000 or 100,000. What would be a perfectly harmless and unobjectionable occupation in the former city becomes in the latter a serious menace to health and morals. In the smaller community, the boy is under the supervision of his parents, his employers, and many of the citizens who know him personally. His paper business is not of the kind which takes him out upon the streets as early as four or five o’clock in the morning and as late as midnight, or after. The New York legislature, in April, 1903, amended the law relating to children employed in the streets and public places in cities of the first class, of which there are two—New York and Buffalo. The amendment provided “that no male child under ten and no girl under sixteen shall, in any city of the first class, sell or expose for sale newspapers in any street or public place. No male child actually or apparently under fourteen years of age shall sell or expose for sale unless provided with a permit and a badge. No child to whom such a permit and badge are issued shall sell papers after ten o’clock at night.” Such a law as that might, I think, be applied to the smallest town in the country without injustice to any one, but it is almost ridiculously inadequate to a great city. The city ordinance of Boston is a good deal better, though it is also inadequate to the needs of a great city. The ordinance provides that no child shall work as a bootblack or newsboy unless he is over ten years of age, nor sell any other article unless he is over twelve years of age. No minor under fourteen years of age is allowed to sell or expose for sale, in any street or public place, any books, newspapers, pamphlets, fuel, fruit, or provisions, unless he has a minor’s license. These minors’ licenses are only granted upon the recommendation of the principal of the school, or school district to which the child belongs. Of this law, again, I should say that it might very well be adopted as applying to all towns and villages in the United States up to a certain size, but that, in view of the terrible menace to the health and morals accompanying these occupations in our great cities, they should be absolutely forbidden for children or young persons under eighteen years of age. It should be borne in mind that the usual objection urged against child-labor legislation—that it would inflict hardship upon the parents—scarcely applies at all to these boys of the streets in our large cities. Most of them, it has been shown over and over again, are not at all subject to parental control, and contribute little or nothing at all to the support of their families.^[184]

It seems to me important also that, in the larger cities at least, and perhaps generally, the present system of allowing boys and girls to work during the vacation period should be abolished. The system not only robs the child of the rest the vacation was intended to give it, but it is a fruitful source of child labor. Many of those who go to work during the vacation periods never return to school again. The parents become dependent upon the extra earnings of the children in a surprisingly short time, and the children themselves are naturally unwilling to lose their newly acquired freedom and the extra pocket money which their labor entitles them to. The ideal system would be to establish summer school camps, something like the school colonies of Europe, in the country, where recreation amid healthful surroundings could be combined with a certain amount of instruction.

In this brief sketch of suggested remedial measures, I have confined myself entirely to those measures which have been successfully tried elsewhere. I have simply tried to correlate the constructive work in child saving which has thus far been accomplished into something like a definite and comprehensive policy. Discussion by earnest men and women who have given the matters dealt with careful and patient study will, doubtless, show the need of many changes, both in the direction of modification and of extension. The important thing at the present time is to secure an intelligent discussion of the whole problem of the duty of society to the child, and I venture to hope that the foregoing may help in that direction. While I have insisted mainly upon the legislative aspect of the problem, I am not insensible of the importance of individual responsibility and effort. Much of the child labor of to-day, for example, is due to the carelessness and indifference of purchasers’ forever demanding “cheap” goods; and a recognition on their part of all the monstrous wrong and tragedy hidden in that word “cheap” would do much to diminish the evil.

We need in our modern life something of that spirit which prompted David to pour out upon the ground the precious cooling draught his brave followers, at the risk of their lives, brought him from the well by Bethlehem’s gate. The water had been obtained at too great a cost, the risking of human lives, and David could not drink it.^[185] We need that spirit to be applied to our social relations. Those things which are cheap only by reason of the sacrifice, or risk of sacrifice, of human life and happiness are too costly for human use. While it is to a large extent true that there is no problem which depends more completely upon collective action, through the channels of government, it is also true that there is abundant room for well-directed private effort. The coöperation of all the constructive forces in society, private and public, is necessary if the children are to be saved from the evils by which they are surrounded, and the future well-being of the race made possible and certain. Here is the real reconstruction of society—the building of healthy bodies and brains to insure a citizenship free from physical and moral decay, worthy of liberty and aspiring to brotherhood.