The Bridgeport evening farmer., 1909-01-26
CHILD LABOR
Tendency of the Times With Respect to
 Parmonnt Sociological Problem.


 Sunday evening, in the Congrega- Aonal church at Stratford, Rev. Dr. Packard devoted his discourse to the heme of Child Labor. A little more han 100 years ago, he said, the first legislation upon child labor was passed n the English Parliament. That was n 1902. For the 100 years since there las been maintained a steady and on he whole a successful fight to pro- tect the tender years of childhood in England and our own country. The Manchester Board of Health in 179e passed this resolution: "The untimely abor of the night and the protracted Rbor of the day. with respect to chil- tren, not only tend to diminish future expectations as to the general sum of fife and industry, by impairing ttreDgth and destroying the vital ttamtna of the rising generation, but t too often gives encouragement to dleness, extravaganza and profligacy If parents, who contrary to the order If nature, subsist by the oppression of heir offspring
 The past century has witnessed the yradual adoption of the new view of he child in the social fabric. Dr. Felix Adler tells us that in the slow 'ise of humanity there have been three tages in the general idea of the child list, the Chinese notion, the child as he conserver of the life of the parent liter death. 2d. the English notion IS the preserver of property. And 3d, he modern idea, the child as the build .r of the future. Today the advanced students of this great problem are as- ,erting what, as Christian people, we LII ought to accept, that the child has ! right to be born well; the right to grow up without being stunted by pre- mature labor and the right to be happy wen in school, as he will be if allowed ! fair degree of freedom to continue h school through the important years rom 12 to 16. If the child is to be- tome a useful member of society he must have an education to help him hto useful occupations and the right 10 progress beyond the point where inc father left off. Sometimes men iuhject by saying:
 HI began to earn my living when I was nine years old and have I suf- tered from 1t? never wore flannels when was a boy, why should the boys wear them today? I had only schooling in the winters for three ponths and why should my children have ten months in the year?" But yuch arguments from. ignorance are how rarely heard. Child labor is a aational problem. How much child labor is there? It is impossible to furnish accurate statistics for many reasons. In the factories, coal mines, glass works, a great many children of foreign parentage are employed and poor parer IS, short sighted, want their little children to begin earning money early. They will evade the laws by professing their children are of legal Lge when they are not. 1t makes lit- tle difference whether there are one or :wo million children under age for nard labor in this country-the princi- pie is the same. But we assert to be- gin with that there is a great amount pf child labor in the cotton belt of the South, in the mines of Pennsylvania, md in the glass works of New Jersey. In Connecticut there are more than 10000 at work between the ages of IA md 16. The textile industries employ them in large numbers. The evils of because democracy, to be successful. requires the highest grade of physical well-being and mental and moral strength. The demand for cheap la Dor often means infant labor. The progress of inventions and devices often increases the number of little children who can run machines. Thou s1lluS OA AAtCiC pOyS ana SlFlS AT0 0n- gagged in long continued labor, which icterforates them. Often capitalists demand cheap child labor to secure arge profits. More often lazy and av- Aricious parents live off the premature soil of their children.
 Surpose we say that there are two million children in our country set to work before they have had any fair sbancc to learn in school, and kept at work through the dangerous period of when nature demands a amount of freedom. Here, for example. before me is picture ,f a boy at work in a glass factory. He sits bent over his low stool for 10 aours and his task is to tie glass stop- pers to bottles, doing 300 dozen a day. As a machine he is perfect, but the stopped shoulders and hollow chest. he bent back and flabby limbs, the ,allow face and lusterless eyes and the luivering of every nerve when rest time comes, all combine to tell the story of a wasted life. He gets $45O ] week. He began at 10 to do this work. Seven thousand boys, from lO 70 16. worked in glass houses in 1900. The Increase of this business means the increase of small boys fed to the machine. In most of these houses boys work on day and night shifts. They go out of the overheated rooms De-