McKeever: Farm Boys and Girls, pages 171-196.
Galton: Inquiries into Human Faculty.
CHAPTER VII[ToC]
WORK, PLAY AND EDUCATION.
55. Child Labor and Its Effects.—Excessive child labor away from home is one of the evils that has called for reform more than the lack of employment. The child has a right to the home life. It is injurious for him to be kept at a monotonous task under physical or mental strain for long hours in a manufacturing establishment, or to be deprived of time to study and to play. Yet there are nearly two million children in the United States under sixteen years of age who are denied the rights of childhood through excessive labor.
This evil began with the adoption of the factory system in modern industry. The introduction of light machinery into the textile mills of England made it possible to employ children at low wages, and it was profitable for the keepers of almshouses to apprentice pauper children to the manufacturers. Some of them were not more than five or six years old, but were kept in bondage more than twelve hours a day. Children were compelled to hard labor in the coal-mines, and to the dirty work of chimney sweeping. In the United States factory labor for children did not begin so soon, but by 1880 children eight years old were being employed in Massachusetts for more than twelve hours a day, and in parts of the country children are still employed at long hours in such occupations as the manufacture of cotton, glass, silk, and candy, in coal-mines and canning factories. Besides these are the newsboys, bootblacks, and messengers of the cities, children in domestic and personal service, and the child laborers on the farms.
The causes of child labor lie in the poverty and greed of parents, the demands of employers, and often the desire of the children to escape from school and earn money. In spite of agitation and legislation, the indifference of the public permits it to continue and in some sections to increase.