CHAPTER IV
THE GUARDIANSHIP OF THE STATE
The age of reconstruction is not complete, and for the moment we are left with the products of sentiment as revealed in the tangled and piecemeal legislation respecting boy labour. Before making new proposals, it is desirable to survey the existing laws on the subject, in order to discover to what extent the State acts as the guardian of the child by making provision for the three essential factors of a true apprenticeship system—supervision, training, opening. The present chapter will be concerned with a description of the statutory machinery; in the next the value of the machinery will be tested by examining its results in actual experience.
I.
State Supervision.
Supervision is the first essential of an apprenticeship system. A boy must remain under adequate control, as regards his conduct and physical development, until the age of eighteen is reached; before then he is too young to be allowed safely to become his own master. What part does the State, as guardian, play in this work of supervision? This volume is concerned with the answer to the question only so far as that answer has a direct bearing on the general problem of boy labour. A statement, for example, of the criminal law, of the law relating to public health, or of the poor law, lies outside its scope.
The guardianship of the State, in respect of supervision, is of two kinds. On the one hand the State appears as the guardian of the boy by restricting his employment, or by forbidding it under certain specified unfavourable conditions—State regulation; on the other hand—as, for example, in its system of education—it assumes a more active rôle, and itself provides for the boy some of the discipline and training he requires—State enterprise.
§ 1. STATE REGULATION.
The State, by regulation, may protect the boy in three ways—