The Richmond palladium and sun-telegram. [volume] (Richmond, Ind.) 1907-1939, 1915-11-03
STUDY CHILD IN SHOPS
TO UPLIFT CITIZENSHIP
PLEADS MISS LATHROP

Improvement In law or In enforcement.
Birth registration will never be COM
plete In this country unless individual
fathers and mothers know about It
and want It. It IL complete In foreign
countries chiefly because standing ar
mics make 1t imperative that every
possible soldier should be located at
birth.
Womens Clubs Respond.
"Women's Clubs throughout the
country very generously responded to
the joint suggestion of the Bureau Of
the Census and the Children's Bureau
that they undertake Birth Registration
Test to learn how complete births are
recorded in varying localities. The
finest, and for American the most rel
evant, example In the world of low
infant death rate is that of New .Zea-
land. This country has for years en-
joyed the lowest infant death rate on
record. For the last eight years Z
volunteer organization entitled the So
ctety for the Health of Women and
Children has co-operated with the
Government in constant and success
full efforts to drive the infant death
rate still lower. The conditions OF
New Zealand are so analogous to those
presented by many Of our own States
that its work for infant welfare has
been made the subject OF q pamphlet
by the Children's Bureau. While the
wide understanding Of those who are
responsible for creating the Children's
Bureau gave it charter as broad as
childhood itself, It must be remem-
bered that the movement was largely
urged by those who had been specially
touched by the injustice Of allowing
some children to work while happier
children are at school or at play. And
the law especially directs studies of
the employment Of children. It also
directs studies of legislation affecting
children and the first bit of work done
by the Bureau in the industrial divis'
ion has been a compilation and analy.
sis of child labor laws and compulsory
education laws, showing by tables and
charts where they dovetai1. and where
the child suffers by their failure to
fit into each other. @
Report Of Census.
THE report Of the last census on
working children gave a new turn to
the attention of those interested In
the problems Of industry which affect
the young of the land, for 1t pointed
out that nearly q million and half
children are SO occupied with agricul-
tural pursuits, and their schooling is
so scattered and spasmodic, that they
can only be classed as working chill.
dren. It used to be said that no
could survive wflo was not
born upon the farm and worked at the
plough before he had learned his let
tiers. Those We're the days when
OF r.
tickle of the share and we had not be-
gun to hear about the law Of dimtn-
ishing returns. No greater change has
taken place in any department of life
than that which has taken place In
agriculture in the last century.
1t is recognized now that the sue
jsful agriculture ST the future is an
I cupation requiring intelligence as
II as hard work. Further, it is rec
ognized that the more intelligence is
put into it the more can the hard work
be minimized and the profit increased
and schools Of agriculture are begin
ming to spring up which give US some
inkling of that newer sort of practical
and cultured education that the next
generation will develop for its boys
and girls. A school inspector in one
of the largest agricultural states COM
mented on the boys who are kept at
home to work on the land:
There are over $4,000 boys on the
farms of this state between the ages
of III and Is years who only see four
months school each year. There are
over 10000 boys now in their 20's out
of school forever who have never CON-
pleted the fifth grade. Why? Because
those boys instead of being given the
scant seven months schooling that the
law contemplates and that the district
school board usually provides, they
are taken to do the work of men on
the farms"
Crops Are Mortgased.
IF this is to be said of many thous-
ands Of the sons Of prosperous land
owners, what is to be said of the sons
of tenant farmers or Of those who
work, mortgaging in advance every
crop in order to secure the food which
maintains them while it is made. The
question of child labor in this country,
great as are it's claims upon attention
mill and factory and the evils
Of crowded city industry. is problem
never to be settled until it is settled
upon the land as well.
THUS far the child labor laws have
been largely prohibitory. There is an
effort to make them con-
structive by fitting together the pro-
hibitions of child labor with the COM
pulsory school requirements and by
mothers pensions and school
allowances so that the child may not
be cheated of the value Of his school
ing because he is illfed and neglected
at home.
Better still is a growing feeling that
the States responsibility for the child
is constant and must follow him
wherever he goes. In the most highly
schools this is expressed
by the most careful attention to the
building and equipment Of the school
house itself, by painstaking exami-
nations on the part of doctors and