Photo from National Child Labor Committee.
We have thousands of children in America doing work which they ought not to do.
The War and Childhood. The war has put a new emphasis upon the value of children as industrial assets, and many states attempted to rescind the laws protecting children so that they might be allowed to work in the munition factories as a war measure. England had her experience. Schools suffered, juvenile delinquency grew, and chaos resulted from the short-sighted policy of those who wanted children to help out in a time of need. An English periodical is quoted as saying, “When the farmers clamored for boys and girls at the outbreak of the war, it was ‘for a few weeks only,’ and ‘to save the harvest.’ The few weeks have spread out to a few years; and a few years cover all the brief period ‘’twixt boy and man’ when character is molded, education completed, and skill of hand and eye and intellect acquired. Even in the time of peace one of our statesmen said that one of the most urgent national problems was how to check the evils by which too many of our bright, clean, clever boys leaving school at the ages of thirteen or fourteen, had become ignorant and worthless hooligans at seventeen or eighteen. Much has been done in recent years by patient, skilful endeavor to stanch this wound in the body politic; but now all is reversed and the hooligan harvest promises to be truly plenteous. The victims are of two classes. First, the little children taken from school at illegal ages for a few weeks under promises that their interrupted school time should be completed later on—a ‘later on’ which was never really practicable, and is now frankly abandoned. Secondly, the boys and girls, who, having completed their legal school attendance, would normally have gone to learn a trade, and would by a few years of patient training and industry at small wages have made themselves skilled workers and worthy citizens. But training for any future efficiency, either industrial, social, or moral, has been brushed aside by the necessities or the hysteria of war time.” It remains to be seen whether we will learn the lesson from Britain’s experience.
The Church’s Part. There is no one thing in which the church should be so much interested as in the welfare of the children. When Jesus was asked who was the greatest in the kingdom of heaven, he took a little child and set him in the midst of the disciples. If any one offends a child, he said, it were better for him that “a millstone were hanged about his neck, and he were thrown into the sea.” Entrance into his kingdom was dependent upon a childlike attitude, and the measure of rewards and punishments was to be meted out according to the treatment of children by the individual man and woman.
“Lord, when saw we thee hungry, or athirst?” is the question which we must ask. “Inasmuch as ye did it not unto one of these least, ye did it not unto me,” is the promised reply. The program of the church relating to the children is perfectly simple and plain. Each church should keep in close touch with the work of the National Committee on Child Labor. Information can be secured by writing to the Secretary, Owen R. Lovejoy, 105 East Twenty-second Street, New York. One Sunday in each year, the fourth Sunday in January, is set aside as Child Labor Sunday. Every church should take pains to observe this day and make it a time when the members of the church will be made acquainted with the work being done by the Child Labor Committee; and should strive to understand the conditions concerning the child laborers of America, and the plans and purposes that are being devised for meeting needs and for protecting our nation’s greatest asset. Child Labor Sunday was observed in nearly 10,000 churches last year.
The child laborer suffers because we do not know about him. His life is lived in a world apart. While he is producing the things that we accept, we have forgotten or passed over lightly the needs of the producer himself. The war puts a new responsibility upon us. Its agony and suffering have made us seemingly callous to suffering and we stand in grave danger of losing our power to sympathize. It is during such periods as these that the hard won gains of generations may be lost. We have gone far in our legislation for the protection of children since the days when the Earl of Shaftsbury first began his work for the poor boys of London. Much remains to be done. The church cannot slacken its efforts nor clear its skirts of responsibility if it does not exert every effort and put forth all its strength to pass new legislation, and steadfastly to set its face against every effort to break down existing laws or set them aside even as a temporary measure.
The battle for democracy cannot be won, and will not be won, even with the destruction of German autocracy if we allow the bulwark that has been built up for the protection of the children of democracy to be torn down.