Pine Bluff daily graphic., 1919-02-22
AMERICAN WOMEN ARE WORKING TO PROTECT
 CHILDREN OF NATION
Other Countries Ahead of America in Solving Problems of
 Education.

That bc',el enforcement or the child labo" and compulsory education laws throughout the country will be the result of the intensive drive now i being carried on by 11,0OO,0OO Ameri- can women to return to the schools children under 16 years of age, is the 1 cnfident expectation of officials of the 1 children bureau at Washington In a leaflet recently issued by the bureau in connection with the Back to-the-School drive. attention is call ed to the fact that both England and France have set the United States an exaple of unusual efforts in behalf ot education.
 The law passed by England in Au- gust. 1918. providing "that all children shall attend school without exception or exemption until the age of If years. demonstrates tile importance attached in that country to the neces- sity of protecting it's 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 labor needs were greatest, shows that such i legislation was put upon the statute books during these four years of the irleparable damage wone by a too ear ly withdrawawl of children from school.
 Laxity in England. Just before the outbreak of tho war England's child labor and school attendance laws had been allowed to break down. Children were with drawn from school ill large numbers to work on farms, in mills, and in factories.
 With the coming of var this gen. eral laxity degenerated into regu- lar raid upon the schools, with the result that hundreds of thousands of children were thrust DrematGrely in- to industry. When it was finally real- ized, however, that the work contrib uted by these children in fields and factories could not compare in inn portance with their education, steps were at once taken not only to re- store the restrictions in force before the war, but to raise the standards for the protection of the working child.
 uC ICSuAI OA lnIo IlCW IiClu Ol puO- lie opinion was the passage by par liament of the new education bill, known the the "Fisher bill" In ad- dition to requiring that no child be exempted from school under IA years of age. the local educational author ities are given the power to prohibit the employment of a child in an occu- patton which is detrimental to it's physical development The law fur ther provides that all employed chill dren between the ages of 14 and 16 years shall attend school 320 hours per year. For the first seven years after this law shall have taken effect this compulsion is to apply to york ing children between 14 and 16 years to attend continuation schools on en- ,ployers' time After that period be tween 16 and IS years of age will automatically come under the act
 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 the child labor laws.
 Franco Prepares.
 France also has shown considerable concern about the training of the ris- ing generation. A vocational educa- tion bill is now pending which will insure to all nupils 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 which have been set by the English. and are now in process of being estab- lished by the French, should. ill the oninion of officials of the bureau. en- able the people of the United States to attack with fresh enthusiasm their own problems of child labor and ed- ucation. Whatever has heen done in England and in France. where the wars pressure has been so great. can. they consider. be more than matched in this country. if 9 concerted and united effort be made in behalf of the school child and the working child.