Society: Its Origin and Development

by Henry K. Rowe

The harmful effects of child employment are numerous. It is true that two-thirds of the boys and nearly one-half of the girls employed in the United States are occupied with agriculture, most of them with their own parents, an occupation that is much healthier than indoor labor, yet agriculture demands long hours and wearisome toil. In the cities there is much night-work and employment in dangerous or unhealthy occupations. The sweating system has carried its bad effects into the homes of the very poor, for the younger members of the family can help to manufacture clothing, paper boxes, embroidery, and artificial flowers, and in spite of the law, such labor goes on far into the night in congested, ill-ventilated tenements. Children cannot work in this way day after day for long hours without serious physical deterioration. Some of them drop by the way and die as victims of an economic system and the social neglect that permits it. Others lose the opportunity of an education, and so are mentally less trained than the normal American child, and ultimately prove less efficient as industrial units. For the time they may add to the family income, but they react upon adult labor by lowering the wage of the head of the family, and they make it impossible for the child when grown to earn a high wage, because of inefficiency. The associations and influences of the street are morally degrading, and in the associations of the workroom and the factory yard the whole tone of the life of individuals is frequently lowered.

56. Child-Labor Legislation.—Friends of the children have tried to stop abuses. Trade-unions, consumers' leagues, and State bureaus have taken the initiative. Voluntary organizations, like the National Child Labor Committee, make the regulation of child labor their special object. They have succeeded in the establishment of a Federal Children's Bureau in Washington, and have encouraged State and national legislation. Most of the States forbid the employment of children under a certain age, usually twelve or fourteen years, and require attention to healthful conditions and moderate hours. They insist also that children shall not be deprived of education, but there is often inadequate provision made for inspection and proper enforcement of laws.

The friends of the children are desirous of a uniform child-labor law which, if adopted and enforced by competent inspectors, would prevent factory work for all under fourteen years of age, and for weak children under sixteen would prescribe a limited number of hours and allow no night-work, would require certain certificates of age and health before employment is given, and would compel school attendance and the attainment of a limited education before permission is granted to go into the factory. Without doubt, it is a hardship to families in poverty that strong, growing children should not be permitted to go to work and help support those in need, but it is better for the social body to take care of its weak members in some other way, and for its own sake, as well as for the sake of the child, to make sure that he is physically and mentally equipped before he takes a regular place in the ranks of the wage-earners.

57. The Right to Play.—The play group is the first social training-ground for the child outside of the home, and it continues to be a desirable form of association, even into adult life, but it is only in recent years that adults have recognized the legitimacy of such a claim as the right to play. It was thought desirable that a boy should work off his restlessness, but the wood-pile provided the usual safety-valve for surplus energy. Play was a waste of time. Now it is more clearly understood that play has a distinct value. It is physically beneficial, expanding the lungs, strengthening muscle and nerve, and giving poise and elasticity to the whole body. It is mentally educational in developing qualities of quickness, skill, and leadership. It is socially valuable, for it requires honesty, fair play, mutual consideration, and self-control. Co-operation of effort is developed as well in team-play as in team-work, and the child becomes accustomed to act with thought of the group. The play group is a temporary form of association, varying in size and content as the whim of the child or the attraction of the moment moves its members. It is an example of primitive groupings swayed by instinctive impulses. Children turn quickly from one game to another, but for the time are absorbed in the particular play that is going on. No achievement results from the activity, no organization from the association. The rapid shifting of the scenes and the frequent disputes that arise indicate lack of control. Yet it is out of such association that the social mind develops and organized action becomes possible.

If these are the advantages of play, the right to play may properly demand an opportunity for games and sports in the home and the yard, and the necessary equipment of gymnasium and field. It may call for freedom from the school and home occupations sufficient to give the recreative impulse due scope. As its importance becomes universally recognized, there will be no neighborhood, however congested, that lacks its playground for the children, and no industry, however insistent, that will deprive the boy or girl of its right to enjoy a certain part of every day for play.

58. The Right to Liberty.—The present tendency is to give large liberty to the child. Not only is there freedom on the playground; but social control in the home also has been giving place during the last generation to a recognition of the right of the individual child to develop his own personality in his own way, without much interference from authority. It is true that there is a nominal control in the home, in the school, and in the State, but in an increasing degree that control is held in abeyance while parent, teacher, and constable leniently indulge the child. This is a natural reaction from the discipline of an earlier time, and is a welcome indication that children's rights are to find recognition. Like most reactions, there is danger of its going too far. An inexperienced and headstrong child needs wise counsel and occasional restraint, and within the limits of kindness is helped rather than harmed by a deep respect for authority. Lawlessness is one of the dangers of the current period. It appears in countless minor misdemeanors, in the riotous acts of gangs and mobs, in the recklessness of corporations and labor unions, and in national disregard for international law; and its destructive tendency is disastrous for the future of civilized society unless a new restraint from earliest childhood keeps liberty from degenerating into license.

59. The Right to Learn.—There is one more right that belongs to children—the right of an opportunity to learn. Approximately three million children are born annually in the United States. Each one deserves to be well-born and well-reared. He needs the affectionate care of parents who will see that he learns how to live. This instruction need not be long delayed, and should not be relegated altogether to the school. There is first of all physical education. It is the mother's task to teach the child the principles of health, to inculcate proper habits of eating, drinking, and bathing. It is for her to see that he learns how to play with pleasure and profit, and is permitted to give expression to his natural energies. It is her privilege to make him acquainted with nature, and in a natural way with the illustration of flower and bird and squirrel she can give the child first lessons in sex hygiene. It is the function of the mother in the child's younger years and of the father in adolescent boyhood to open the mind of the child to understand the life processes. The lack of knowledge brings sorrow and sin to the family and injures society. Seeking information elsewhere, the boy and girl fall into bad habits and lay the foundation of permanent ills. The adolescent boy should be taught to avoid self-abuse, to practise healthful habits, and to keep from contact with physical and moral impurity; the adolescent girl should be given ample instruction in taking care of herself and in preparing for the responsibility of adult life.

60. Mental and Moral Education.—Mental education in the home is no less important. It is there that the child's instinctive impulses first find expression and he learns to imitate the words and actions of other members of the home. The things he sees and handles make their impressions upon him. He feels and thinks and wills a thousand times a day. The channels of habit are being grooved in the brain. It is the function of the home to protect him from that which is evil, to stimulate in him that which is good. Mental and moral education are inseparably interwoven. The first stories told by the mother's lips not only produce answering thoughts in the child mind, but answering modes of conduct also. The chief function of the intellect is to guide to right choice.

Character building is the supreme object of life. It begins early. Learning to obey the parent is the first step toward self-control. Learning to know the beautiful from the ugly, the true from the false, the good from the evil is the foundation of a whole system of ethics. Learning to judge others according to character and attainment rather than according to wealth or social position cultivates the naturally democratic spirit of the child, and makes him a true American. Sharing in the responsibility of the home begets self-reliance and dependableness in later life.

The supreme lesson of life is to learn to be unselfish. The child in the home is often obliged to yield his own wishes, and finds that he gets greater satisfaction than if he had contended successfully for his own claims. In the home the compelling motive of his life may be consecrated to the highest ideals, long before childhood has merged into manhood. Such consecration of motive is best secured through a knowledge of the concrete lives of noble men and women. The noble characters of history and literature are portraits of abstract excellences. It is the task of moral education in the home to make the ideal actual in life, to show that it is possible and worth while to be noble-minded, and that the highest ambition that a person can cherish is to be a social builder among his fellows.