The Cordova daily times., 1919-03-12
FOR PROTECTION OF CHILDREN.

FOR PRO ECTION OF CHIEDHEN.
 That better enforcement of the child-labor and compulsory education laws throughout the country will be the result of the intensive drive now being carried on by 11,000,000 Ameri- can women to return to the schools children under 16 years of age, is the confident expectation of officials of the children's bureau at Washington.
 In a leaflet recently issued by the bureau in connection with the back to-the-school drive, attention is called to the fact that both England and France have set the United States an example of unusual efforts in behalf of education.
 The law passed by England in Au- gust, 1918, providing "that all children shall attend school without exemp- tions or exceptions until the age of IA years" demonstrates the importance attached in that country to the neces- sity of protecting its youth from work which interferes with proper school ing. And the fact that this law was passed at the close of the fourth year of the war; when England's labor needs were greatest, shows that such legislation was put upon the statute books as a direct result of the lesson taught during these four years of the irreparable damage done by too early withdraway of children from school.
 Just before the outbreak of the war England's child-labor and school-at- tendance laws had been allowed to break down. Children were with drawn from school in large numbers to work on farms, ill mills, and in fac tories
 With the coming of war this general laxity degenerated into regular raid upon the schools, with the result that hundreds of thousands of children were thrust prematurely into industry. When it was finally realized, however, that the work contributed by these children in fields and factories could not compare in importance with their education, steps were at once taken not only to restore the restrictions in force before the war, but to raise the standards for the protection of the working child.
 The result of this new trend of pub lie opinion was the passage by Parlia- ment of the new education bill, known as the Fisher bilI" In addition to requiring that no child be exempted from school under IA years of age, the local educational authorities are given the power to prohibit the employment of a child in an occupation which is detrimental to it's physical develop ment. The law further provides that all employed children between the ages of IA and 16 years shall attend school 320 hours per year. For the first seven years after the law shall have taken effect this compulsion is to apply to working children between IA and 16 years to attend continuation schools on employers time. After that period children between 16 and IS years of age will automatically come under the get.
 This law protects not only the city child but the rural child as we'll. In the United States the rural child has never enjoyed the protection of child labor laws.
 France also has shown considerable concern about the training of the ris- ing generation. A vocational educa- ton bill is is now pending which will insure to all pupils some sort of prep aration for their future career, and will likewise require of all children
 who are past the age at which full.
 time attendance Is compulsory part time attendance at continuation school.
 These new educational standards