The Catholic bulletin. [volume] (St. Paul, Minn.) 1911-1995, 1918-01-26

are required. Compulsory education
laws were improved in six States, and
mothers pension laws were enacted
for the first time in Arkansas, Della
ware, Maine and Texas, and amended
in ten other States, making total of
"a States which now have mothers
pension laws
In outlining the week for the next
year, Owen r. Lovejoy, secretary of
the National Child Labor Committee,
says: ''As standards of child labor
legislation rise in the different States
it becomes increasingly evident that
further steps for the protection of
children against exploitation must be
taken in closer cooperation with
other measures for the welfare of chill
dren. The problem of safe
guarding the child is one which in
wolves consideration of health, educa-
ton, recreation, and general well-bal-
anced training for useful service to
the community. We believe it is the
duty of this committee to seek closer
cooperation than has been possible
heretofore in developing legislation
that shall safeguard children in all
these respects, so that legislation may
be built up as consistent whole ex-
pressed in some clear code easily I'M
derstood by all the citizens of any
commonwealth"
In addition to the annual report of
the National Child Labor Committee
the November Child Labor Bulletin
contains a study of Child Labor and
Juvenile Delinquency in Manhattan by
Mabel Brown Ellis, the National Child
Labor Committees Special Agent on
Juvenile Courts The records of 1892
children who passed through the Chill
dren's Court in New York in 1916 were
studied by Miss Ellis to find out wheth-
er there is greater tendency to delin-
quency among employed or unemploy-
ed children. The popular feeling is
that the child who is not employed
is more likely to get into mischief than
the employed child; but Miss Ellis
found quite the opposite to be the case
that working children contributed
four times their share to the ranks
of juvenile delinquency. They are also
responsible for larger proportion of
serious offenses than the non-working
children. Among the recidivists, or
repeating offenders" says Miss Ellis,
both the absolute and relative num-
bers of workers are very much in ex-
cess of the unemployed" In an effort
to account for the poor showing of
the working children material was
gathered showing the age, amount of
schooling, nationality and home condi-
lions of these children as compared
with unemployed children. In every
case it was found that conditions were
about the same for the two groups
that the working children had as mach
education, as intelligent parents, and
as good homes as the non-working
children. 1t is hard to avoid the
conclusion says Miss Ellis, that the
mere fact of being at work, irrespec-
tive of occupation, was more potent
factor than age or family conditions
in bringing these boys before the Chill
drens Court
In her recommendation Miss Ellis
urges better enforcement of child labor
and compulsory education laws, the
establishment of more special schools
for the retarded boy who is not men
tally defective, and vocational guild
ance of children who are of the legal
age for employment and are mentally
and physically unfit to go to work.