The Calumet news. [volume] (Calumet, Mich.) 1907-1938, 1914-01-24
SUBJECT IN SCHOOLS MONDAY
Necessity For Improvement in
Various States Will Be Put
up to Children
NOTABLE PROGRESS SINCE 1906

New York, Jan. 24.-The Child Labor
problem will he put before the children
themselves thro, ghout the country this
year for the first time. Tomorrow has
been designated as child Labor Day
10 he observed as has been the Gus
tom for the past ten years in regular
and special church services generally,
but new step has been taken by the
National child Labor committee in
calling upon teachers throughout the
country To observe next Monday as
ChDd Labor Day in the schools.
The main idea is To get children to
think in their own behalf on the prob.
lem of child labor 70 this end the Ma
r!onal Committee has been busily en-
gagged for a month past in supplying
teachers, as well as clergymen, with
the latest phases of the movement
a:ainst child labor ana proposes that
at chapel exercises or at some specially
designated period in Mondays school
work teachers shall in some manner
take up the subject of child labor with
their charges
Interest taken i'm the matter is re-
Elected in requests which have lately
come in at the rate of over 100 a day
for information, i'm reply to which the
National Committee has distributed
quantities of pamphlets on the rea-
tion Of child labor To education. Indl-
cations are that thousands of teach
ers will unite with clergyrncn i'm some
sort of observance of the day.
Since the first Child Labor Day was
observed in 1906, such striking pro-
Sress has been made that the rank
and file of states today have advanced
beyond the standard of the most pro-
gressive ten years ago. according to
Owen x. LovejoN general secretary of
the National Child Labor Committee.
Child Labor Laws Revised.
The child labor laws of practically
proved; knowledge as II the conditions
of working children has been widely
spread. the causes, effects and meth
DDS of prevention of child labor have
become matters of thorough scientific
study and treatment; "A Uniform child
Labor Law for the scvcra! states has
been widely approved, and the federal
government has put into successful op-
Grafton a Children's bureau.
But" Secretary Lovcjoy adds the
white list Of states with really efec-
tive child labor law covering ten or
more Of the common occupations of
children is still very short-only "a
states in all, and even these leave ccr-
tain kinds of work outside of the four |
tccn-Ncar limit
There are nine states which have
not yet reached 14ycar age limit |
even for factory work; there is no |
state i'm the union that has attempted |
years for ncwsbOys: and only seven |
states have reached a standard of II |
y ears age limit for night messengers.
Bows of fourteen or less are still |
employed at the peril of their moral |
and physical integrity in this night |
messenger work in "A score of states.
Agricultural work is still entirely |
outSiuc OF new Ofk ana |
Tennessee. and children of tender
y ears are doing an adults work in the |
berry fields and cranberry bogs.
MANY states that have made Child |
Labor laws are not seeing that they |
are enforced, and the National Com
mittee is now engaged in "a careful sur
vcy of the methods of administering |
the law in the different states.
Fall Below the English.
The standard of inspection service
Is steadily rising, but we fall far below
the English. There arc half dozen
states in which there is no attempt at
inspection of labor conditions and
therefore no attempt to enforce the
child labor law. And there are per-
haps score in which~the STAFF of in
spcctors Is so rldiculously small that
thorough statewide inspection is ply
sically impossible"
The whole subject of the administra-
ion of child labor laws Is to be taken
lp at the National Conference on Child
labor which will be held I'm New Or
cans next March. Plans are also un-
Ter way for celebration of the tenth
of the organization Of the
National Child Labor Committee which
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