URRapy m rnf '^IVTRSJTV rp u Reprinted from The Elementary School Teacher, Vol, XIV, Nos. 2-3, -Oct.-Nov. 1913 % 2 FEB 19U FACTS ABOUT THE WORKING CHILDREN OF CIN- CINNATI, AND THEIR BEARING UPON EDUCATIONAL PROBLEMS HELEN T. WOOLLEY Cincinnati, Ohio This paper deals with the following series of facts about the working children of Cincinnati: the number who have left the schools to go to work each year since records have been kept; a classification of the children who left during the year September 1, 1911, to September 1, 1912, showing the type and location of the schools from which they come; their age, their sex, and their school grade; a tabulation of the kinds of occupations they engaged in; a study of wages; and an investigation of economic necessity as a factor in child labor. 1 The office which issues working certificates in Cincinnati is — like all similar offices in Ohio — a subdivision of the office of the Superin- tendent of Schools. When the Child Labor law of 1910 went into effect, a bureau of research to investigate various phases of the problems of child labor, vocational guidance, and industrial educa- tion was formed through the agency of Miss M. Edith Campbell of the Schmidlapp Bureau, and Mr. E. N. Clopper, of the National Child Labor Committee. Mr. Schmidlapp contributed half the funds for this new bureau, and a group of public-spirited business men made up the other half. To this Bureau, which we sometimes call the Vocation Bureau when pressed for a name, Mr. Dyer, who was then superintendent of schools, turned over the management of the work certificate office. 1 The tabulations presented in this paper are the work of many hands. For the original classification, month by month, I am chiefly indebted to volunteer workers — Miss Lisette Friend, Miss Claire Nelter, and Miss Alice Eichberg. Another volunteer worker, Mrs. Agnes Senior Seasongood, did most of the work of tabulating wages. Miss Rose Rankins and Mr. William Spencer, of the office force, made out and veri- fied the final tables. Miss Louise Boswell, with the assistance of Mrs. Charlotte Rust Fischer, both of the office force, made the study of economic necessity as a factor in child labor. SO 6o THE ELEMENTARY SCHOOL TEACHER The scope of the investigation includes, first, working out a good office system 1 to accord with the provisions of the new law, and keeping careful records to show the effect of the law; and secondly, carrying out a comprehensive investigation with a limited series of children, an investigation which involves a study of their physical and mental growth under conditions of industry, a study of the industries in which they are employed, a careful and detailed industrial history for each child studied, and an investigation of the homes. The present paper deals only with results obtained in working out the system for the office, not with those of the special research. The Child Labor law of Ohio, requires that a child shall be at least fourteen years of age, 2 and shall have completed the fifth grade in school before he is allowed to begin work. Each work certificate must be issued to a definitely named employer, on the authority of a contract signed by that employer. When the child changes his position, the previous employer is required to return the certificate to the issuing office, which then reissues it to the new employer upon the receipt from him of a signed contract. These regulations thus give the work certificate office a large measure of supervision of all working children until the sixteenth birthday, when a certificate is no longer required. Through careful co-operation with the schools, the truancy department, and the factory inspectors, the law is well enforced, so that we feel confident that the records in the office are now fairly complete for all the working children of the city under sixteen years of age. The office is keeping not only the necessary records, but many additional notes with regard to wages and conditions of employment. Only a small part of the information on our cards has as yet been tabulated, but enough facts to be of interest, and we hope of value, to teachers, are now at hand. NUMBER OF WORK CERTIFICATES ISSUED EACH YEAR SINCE 1904 The old books used in issuing certificates, containing a stub for each certificate issued, are in the possession of the office, and 1 For a more detailed account of the method of administering the Child Labor law, see The Survey, August 9, 1912. 2 In August, 1913, a new law went into effect which raises the age to sixteen for girls and fifteen for boys. The school grade was raised proportionately. THE WORKING CHILDREN OF CINCINNATI 61 the figures presented are taken directly from the books. The first records are dated, March, 1903. The number of certificates issued during the first sixteen months was 1,018, a number so small that it means no attempt to enforce the law. The continuous record begins in September, 1904, and the numbers for each year, from September 1 to September 1, are as follows: 1904-5 2,550 1908-9 2,856 1905-6 2,623 1909-10 3,348 1906-7 4,218 1910-11 .... 2,800 1907-8 2,053 1911-12. . . . 2, 66 The totals for the years previous to the year 1908-9 are of doubtful significance, since during that period there was very little systematic effort to enforce the child labor laws. The state factory inspector spent several months of the year 1906-7 in Cincinnati investigating the conditions of child labor, and with the assistance of the truant officers, he sent to the certificate office a large number of children who had been working without certificates — hence the very large number of certificates for that year, 4,218, which is almost a thousand more than in any other year. The very small number issued in 1907-8, 2,053, is thought to be the effect of the panic, which closed so many industries, thus lessening the chances of employment. From 1907-8 to 1909-10, the numbers increased again, an increase due to the two factors of greater business prosperity and better factory inspection. From the year 1909-10, down to the present time, one can be sure that the numbers cor- respond closely to the number of children actually at work. The drop from 3,348 in 1909-10, to 2,800 in 1910-n, is the effect of the Child Labor law which went into effect in July, 1910. This law reduced the number of eligible children by establishing a higher educational requirement (i.e., the completion of the fifth grade in school). It also limited the number of children to the number of available positions, since it required every child to present a written promise of work before he was allowed to take out a certificate. At the same time, it served to decrease the number of positions open to children. Many employers preferred to dispense with juvenile labor, rather than to bother with signing cards, returning certificates, and making reports about the children. 62 THE ELEMENTARY SCHOOL TEACHER The establishment of the compulsory continuation schools in September, 1911, reduced the number of working children still further — to 2,366 in 1911-12. The continuation school acted in two ways. It reduced yet more the number of positions open to children, since some employers are unwilling to excuse the children from work for the required four hours a week of school. The regu- lation which exempts children who have completed the eighth grade from attendance on continuation schools, gives a practical value to the completion of the grammar-school course which serves to hold many children in school for that purpose. An increase in the proportion of children who had completed the eighth grade from 13 per cent in 1910-11 to 19 per cent in 1911-12, demonstrates this tendency. Doubtless the greater number of fifteen-year-old children (22 per cent in 1911-n and 27 per cent in 1911-12) is another expression of the same fact. It is probable that when the readjustment to the new requirements is complete, the total num- ber of certificates issued will increase again. The first few months of the year beginning September, 1912, show an increase in numbers over the corresponding months of the previous year. It will be interesting to see whether the totals under the new system will, within a few years, equal the totals under the old. STATISTICS FOR THE YEAR 1911-12 (Table I; Charts I, II, III, and IV) The statistics for the year 1911-12 have been tabulated more in detail, and more accurately, than those for any previous year. Cross-classifications were made which served as checks on one another, and insured absolute correctness. The important facts are as follows: The type and location of the schools from which the Working Children came, and the sex and age of the children (Table I; Charts I, II, III, and IV). Of the 2,366 working certificates issued during the year, 1,996, or 84.4 per cent, were to children from the schools of the city of Cincinnati, and 370, or 15.6 per cent, to those from schools outside of the city (Chart I). There is but a slight difference in sex, 52.8 per cent boys and TABLE I THE WORKING CHILDREN OF CINCINNATI 63 < U fc w « Q B u o 3 S o £ a £ • w M H 3 M O g I o P 4 &4 to O o W o CO H W H 2 o OH O l fO'O VO O' to H 04 N N rj- O Cv VOOO Ov-rj-'JOTj-rtrl-Ov'NOO to N H MMMMM0404M N'tOHOtOOtOOHMO tJ- r^cO toiow 10 ro^O N~ tJ-oO 'OHNOOHOttlfOtO't CO VO to Tj- Ol 04 04 vO 04 to to tN O' 04 VO VO M 04 CO O CO CO CO 04 (^•^•00 00 00 ^04 00 00) rj- 10 CO to 04 CON H T}-H VO 04 rj- 10 CO to H IOH 04 ION N-vO tJ- O CO 04 10 O' VO rt 10 t^vo 00 t^oo H 04 NN N | S 3 -f-g bfe -■ !■§ 1 8 g 2 ^ ^ c£o£Q vO vO OO 64 THE ELEMENTARY SCHOOL TEACHER 47 . 2 per cent girls (Chart II). In the previous year, the girls were slightly in excess of the boys — 50 . 7 per cent girls and 49 . 3 per cent boys. The public schools furnished 1,363, or 57 . 6 per cent of the whole number, and the church schools 1,003, or 42 .4 per cent (Chart III). SCHOOLS OUTSIDE CITY CHART I CITY SCHOOLS CHART II ■■ BOYS GIRLS ■■■■■■ PUBLIC SCHOOLS I CHURCH SCHOOLS CHART III ■ 15 PUBLIC SCHOOLS CHURCH SCHOOLS CHART IV— AGE Since the total enrolment of the church schools is not made public, it is impossible to compare exactly the proportion of those leaving, to the total enrolment in the two cases. The usual esti- mate is that the public schools have at least twice and perhaps more than twice as many children as the church schools. Since the total number from the church schools is only 15 per cent less than the number from the public schools, the proportion of those leaving the church schools must be from one and one-half to two times as great as the proportion leaving the public schools. For the sake of comparisons with other cities, it may be of interest to THE WORKING CHILDREN OF CINCINNATI 65 state that the proportion of children who left the public schools of the city to go to work was 3 per cent of the total enrolment of the grades below the high school. Certificates may be taken out at any time between the four- teenth and the sixteenth birthdays. In making the classification of age, any child who took out his certificate before the fifteenth birthday is classified as fourteen, a,nd any who took it out on or after the fifteenth birthday, as fifteen. Of the total number, 1,721, or 72.7 per cent, were fourteen years of age, and 645, or 27.3 per cent, were fifteen. This proportion figured separately for boys and girls remains the same to a tenth of 1 per cent. A decided differ- ence in proportion appears, however, when it is figured separately for the two types of school. There were 1,363 public-school chil- dren, of whom 901, or 66.1 per cent, were fourteen years, and 462, or 33.9 per cent, fifteen. Of the 1,003 church-school children, 820, or 81.7 per cent, were fourteen years of age, and 183, or 18.3 per cent, fifteen (Chart III) . Reference has already been made to the increase in the proportion of fifteen-year-old children from 22 per cent in 1910-n to 27 per cent in 1911-12, but since the record has never before been made out separately for the two types of school, we have no way of knowing how this increase is apportioned between them. THE SCHOOL GRADE COMPLETED BY WORKING CHILDREN (Tables II, III, and IV; Chart V) The facts with regard to the grade completed by these children can be seen in detail in Table II for the public-school children, and Table III for the church-school children. They are summed up in Table IV. If one considers only the totals including both types of school (Table IV, last two columns), it appears that approxi- mately equal numbers came from the fifth, sixth, and seventh grades. The same relationship holds for the year 1910-11. Pre- vious to that year, statistics are based, not upon the grade com- pleted, but upon the grade in which the child was registered when he left school, and are, therefore, not comparable. The analysis of grade carried a step farther to the two types of school, shows an interesting difference between them. In the case THE ELEMENTARY SCHOOL TEACHER M & Ph w B O fc § « VH H Q M fc § W 9 u J S w m 9 u S w 3 H 0 g ►* p-i m Q B w O 00 -t fONO rt-Ni-H O' >0 t^fOO >ON t^OO 00 00 ON CO O N H H H H M CNO n .o _Q ►>, EV l-g g § 3 2 g m O Q i — ^ THE WORKING CHILDREN OF CINCINNATI 67 w H 3 O H R B W < w £ 3 g H w £> g W 9 ° w o P* ffl Q W H 9 Total cooO W vO H 100O O fO co m co 'O H 00 'tNN 10^0 'O 0 00 CO H M M CO 8 0 T3 a c3 O' Girls tO M OOOMOOOOOOHO w M nOOOhOOOOOmm VO Boys IO H wOOhOhOOhhOO VO OOOOOOOOOfOOM 00 Girls IO CO CO N M H 10 H CO CO N CO 'ct co Tf 1-0 t^vo Cl l>- coo ^ lOOO M 00 M W co 00 Boys hi 'OHCOMHOH«COCO<0't ON Cl Tf H rfrvO CO vO VO COO NH O ^ M M M M OV Girls IO 'O'OClONCOCONhCO'tH 33 *• M M O 00 Boys to tOCSOOWTj-COMOCOMM Cl COM lO N CO 10 CO H M OviOOv MM M M 93 Grade September October November December January February March April May June July August Total 68 THE ELEMENTARY SCHOOL TEACHER of the public school, the largest number of children — 31 . 2 per cent — left from the fifth grade, and the numbers decreased steadily to the eighth grade. In the case of the church school, the smallest number ' TABLE IV A Summary of the Grade Completed by Children Leaving School to Go to Work Grade Public Schools Church Schools All Schools Boys Girls Total Percent- age Boys Girls Total Percent- age Total Percent- age 14 IS 14 is 14 15 14 IS 5 16* 91 114 58 425 3 1 • 2 93 21 80 14 208 20.8 633 26.7 6 147 63 135 42 387 28.4 106 17 1 13 II 247 24.6 634 26.8 7 112 52 79 53 296 21.7 hi 19 133 33 296 29-5 592 25.1 8 73 31 66 46 216 15-8 9 i 29 83 3 i 234 23-3 450 19.0 9 and 10 10 II 3 15 39 2.9 4 6 6 2 18 1.8 57 2.4 Total 504 248 397 214 1,363 100.0 405 92 4 i 5 9 i 1,003 100.0 2,366 100.0 left from the fifth grade (20.8 per cent), the numbers increased to the seventh grade, and then dropped a bit to the eighth (Table IV ; Chart V). In spite, then, of the fact that the children from the 9 and 10 PUBLIC SCHOOLS CHURCH SCHOOLS CHART V— GRADE church schools were younger than those from the public schools, there were many more of them in the higher grades. The differ- ence is not easy to interpret. Doubtless one element in it is the THE WORKING CHILDREN OF CINCINNATI 69 fact that a larger proportion of the total enrolment of the church schools left to go to work than in the case of the public schools. While the public schools sent us chiefly retarded children, the church schools sent us more of the children who were up to grade. It is possible that differences in the method of grading children are also a factor in the result. THE RETARDATION OF WORKING CHILDREN (Table V; Chart VI) The facts about the school grade of working children have been figured out more accurately in terms of retardation (Table V). The basis of computing retardation allows a leeway of more than a year. Only those children are called retarded who have completed the sixth grade or less at fourteen years. It is to be borne in mind TABLE V Showing Amount of Retardation among Children Leaving School to Go to Work Public Schools Church Schools Grand Total Normal Retarded Ahead Total Normal Retarded Ahead Total No. Percent- age No. Percent- age No. Percent- age No. Percent- age No. Percent- age No. Percent- age Boys Girls Totals 226^30. 1 20433.4 515 402 68.5 65-8 11 5 1.4 0.8 752 611 237 249 47-7 49.2 256 251 5 i -5 49.6 4 6 0.8 1 . 2 497 506 1,249 I » II 7 43 °| 3 I -5 917 67-3 16 1 . 2 L 363 486 48.5 507 50-5 10 1 .0 1,003 2,366 that in this case, fourteen may indicate any point between the fourteenth and fifteenth birthdays. In the same way, a child who has completed not more than the seventh grade at fifteen is retarded. A child who has completed the seventh or eighth grades at fourteen is considered normal; likewise a child who has completed a grade above the eighth at fourteen is called ahead of grade. On this basis, 67 per cent of the public-school children, and 50 per cent of the church-school children who left school to go to work were retarded. We do not know the retardation within the church schools, but within the public school during the same year, the 70 THE ELEMENTARY SCHOOL TEACHER retardation for the group of children under sixteen years, and in the ninth grade and below, was 28 . 7 per cent. 1 Of this same group 67 . 1 per cent were normal, and 4.2 per cent ahead of grade. The AHEAD OF GRADE RETARDED IN SCHOOL NORMAL ■ AHEAD OF GRADE NORMAL AT WORK CHART VI— RETARDATION RETARDED percentage of retardation among those who leave the public school to go to work, is, then, more than twice as great as that among the children who are in school. OCCUPATIONS ENTERED BY THE WORKING CHILDREN OF 1911-12 Let us consider for a moment what these children receive in exchange for school. Table VI shows the occupations which they entered. In Cincinnati, the shoe factories employ more children than any other one industry. Of the 2,366 children who began work during the year, 19 per cent entered shoe factories; 17.2 per cent became errand boys and girls for a large variety of business firms ; 15.5 per cent went into department stores as cash or stock boys and girls, wrappers, or inside messengers; 8.7 per cent entered the tailoring and sewing trades; 6.8 per cent worked at home helping their parents; 5.2 per cent became telegraph mes- sengers; 3.9 per cent entered paper-box factories; between 1 and 2 per cent were employed in each of the following: candy factories, office work, and private families; and the remaining 20 per cent were scattered over a wide range of occupations, no 1 Calculated from the advance sheets of the “Age Report of Pupils for Year Ending June, 1912,” from the Report of the Superintendent of Schools of Cincinnati , for the year 1911-12. THE WORKING CHILDREN OF CINCINNATI 71 one of which comprised as many as 1 per cent of the children. Almost half of these miscellaneous occupations were in factories of various kinds. Eighty-seven per cent of the working children can, then, be ranged in five groups; working in factories, 33 per cent; running errands, 22.5 per cent; working in department stores, 15.5 per cent; sewing trades, 8.7 per cent, and assisting at home, 6 . 8 per cent. TABLE VI Occupations Entered by Children Beginning to Work Occupations Boys Girls Totals Percentage 14 is 14 IS Department stores hi 37 160 58 366 15-5 Errands 287 87 26 7 407 17.2 Tailoring and sewing 7 4 153 43 207 8-7 Shoe factories 167 74 149 59 449 19.0 Telegraph messenger 85 38 0 0 123 5-2 Office work 21 16 9 1 47 1.9 Paper box and paper goods 6 3 67 16 92 3-9 Candy factories 3 1 23 9 36 i -5 W orking for parents 24 9 84 42 159 6.8 Private families 0 0 14 11 25 1 . 1 Miscellaneous 198 7 i 127 59 455 19.2 909 340 812 305 2,366 100 A few of the occupations on this list include skilled work — for instance the shoe factories, the sewing trades, and the depart- ment stores. In many of the factories represented, in the messenger service, and in most that is included under the head of helping at home, there is no skilled work. But even in those industries which include skilled work, the first two years of employment for those who begin at fourteen are not made periods of training for skilled work, or apprenticeships in which the industry as a whole is learned. A child in a shoe factory, for instance, is taught but one or two of the one hundred and fifty or more processes involved in making a shoe. The children in the sewing trades pull bastings, or baste one kind of a seam. Apprenticeships in the dressmaking and millinery trades are rarely open to children under sixteen. In the department stores, the children run errands inside the store, or wrap packages. Many of the best department stores 72 THE ELEMENTARY SCHOOL TEACHER and most of the skilled trades are entirely closed to children under sixteen. There is, then, very little that counts as training in the occupa- tions for children under sixteen — a fact which the children them- selves realize. Many of them tell us that they hope to enter trades at sixteen and are meanwhile just earning a little money. It is a conservative statement to say that only a small proportion of these children find themselves any better fitted to earn a living at sixteen than they were when they began work at fourteen. Some of them, particularly those in the messenger service, are of less value in the industrial world as a result of these two years of work. [To be continued ] FACTS ABOUT THE WORKING CHILDREN OF CINCIN- NATI, AND THEIR BEARING UPON EDUCATIONAL PROBLEMS — Concluded HELEN T. WOOLLEY Cincinnati, Ohio WAGES (Table VII; Chart VII) The educational return to the children is, then, a small factor. How about the financial return ? Table VII gives the wage statis- tics for a series of 2,067 children. At the time these statistics were tabulated, half of these children had held but one position, 32.3 per cent had held two, 1 1 per cent had held three, 2 . 6 per cent had held four, and 4 per cent had held five or more positions. No account is taken in this table of the length of time the positions had been held. Almost 40 per cent of the children had taken the first position without even asking what they were to be paid. The wages stated in the table are those promised the children when their contracts were signed. In most cases the office has no assurance about wages except the word of the child, but a long experience has taught us that their statements are surprisingly accurate. There is a decided sex discrimination from the start. More than eight- tenths of the girls receive less than four dollars a week, while only one-half of the boys are paid less than four dollars. Three dollars is a medium weekly wage for the girls, although more than half of them receive less than that in their first positions. The medium weekly wage for boys is three dollars and seventy-five cents. These sums do not represent average weekly earnings for the year, but merely wages paid at the start in each position. For a limited series of children — 474 at the present time — we have a complete industrial history for one year, stating all the rates of pay received, and the time employed. From these facts, an average weekly wage for the year has been figured out for each of 132 Wages of Children under Sixteen in Cincinnati THE WORKING CHILDREN OF CINCINNATI 133 0 O 10 VO 38b 43 -;U3DJ3,J H On M 00 co -3- m 6 ' 0 : •ts > 0 6 M X>* CO to Tf O' S5 £ M M CO CO H C/3 38b M O W'O O • 0 Oh >> -}U3dj3. H c/3 33 B to to 0 O O • O 0 Ph 1 -JU33J3J 0 N- 0 - & t^NO M to co 00 H M 3Sb O NO H CO O • 43 -?U3DJ3J H O • H • .*3 1— 1 O 1 — t d O 't ONNt H J>- co O O H W CO H to M s3b Q\ v -}U3DJ9(J V • H O PQ to CO 0 a* M c3 0 H 0 CO 4 to m w 134 THE ELEMENTARY SCHOOL TEACHER these children. It is an interesting fact that the medium wage on this basis is also three dollars for girls, and three dollars and seventy-five cents for boys. Apparently the increases in pay balance the time unemployed, and leave the average yearly earning about equal to the initial wage. Another interesting fact revealed by the table of wage statistics is that the rate of pay increases with mere change of position (Chart VII). The proportion of children in the lower rates of pay decreases with successive changes, and the proportion of those in the higher rates increases. The children have, then, some justi- fication for changing positions. They better themselves financially by doing so. It may still be true that the occupations which hold out the best permanent future are most poorly paid in the early years. The children may be short-sighted in their policy, but one judges their apparent instability less harshly when he knows the immediate profit which it brings them. ECONOMIC NECESSITY AS A FACTOR IN CHILD LABOR We have seen that the educational value of the work open to children under sixteen is very small. A child does not profit much intellectually, or in manual skill in general, by running errands, basting sleeve seams, or lacing shoes for two years. Small as the wages are, the first supposition is that these children must be going to work because of economic necessity. Before adopting any definite educational policy in the matter, it is essential to know how large a proportion of the families really need the earnings of the children under sixteen. In our own office, we have made the best estimate we could of the economic necessity in a series of over six hundred families. A visit had been made to the home in only half of the cases. Our estimates were based on all the facts we preserved about the family — such as the number of wage earners, their occupations, their earnings, if known, the number of children under fourteen, the rent paid, the number of rooms occupied by the family, the amount of spending money given the child, and the child’s own statement of a preference for work or school. The estimates were made separately by more than one person, and the judgments compared. Very doubtful cases were omitted. The THE WORKING CHILDREN OF CINCINNATI 135 point we tried to decide in each case was whether the family, with- out the child’s earnings, would need outside assistance. The final estimate was that 73 per cent of the families did not need the child’s earnings, while 27 per cent did. This estimate, of necessity, is very nearly the same as that made in the government investiga- tion (29 . 3 per cent), 1 but is a little more than that of Massachusetts towns (24 per cent), 2 or of New York (20 per cent). 3 The only estimate very much higher than this is the one made by Mr. Talbert 4 in the Stockyards district of Chicago (53 per cent), where the conditions are exceedingly bad. Economic necessity is not, then, a compelling force of child labor in the majority of cases. The real force which is sending the majority of these children out into the industrial field is their own desire to go to work, and behind this desire to go to work is frequently the dissatisfaction with school. The children who tell us that they would have pre- ferred to stay in school are a minority. Most of them are quite frank in saying that they are tired of school and anxious to leave it. The dissatisfaction with school is doubtless in part the restless- ness and desire for change, adventure, and independence character- istic of the age of puberty, but perhaps an even more potent factor is the large amount of retardation among working children. Two- thirds of the children leaving our public schools are the failures — and, like the rest of humanity, they are tired of the things in which they fail. APPLICATION TO EDUCATIONAL PROBLEMS Here are the facts — a large army of children leaving our public schools before they have completed even a grammar-school educa- 1 Woman and Child Wage Earners in the United States , Vol. VII, “ Conditions under Which Children Leave School to Go to Work,” Washington, 1910; Senate Document No. 645, p. 57. 2 Report of the Commission on Industrial and Technical Education (Massachusetts), Columbia University, Teachers College; Educational Reprints, No. I, New York, 1906, p. 92. 3 Barrows, Alice P., “Report of the Vocational Guidance Survey,” Bulletin No. 9 , Public Education Association, New York, 1912. 4 Talbert, Ernest L., Opportunities in School and Industry for Children of the Stockyards District (University of Chicago Press, 1912, p. 39). III! 136 THE ELEMENTARY SCHOOL TEACHER tion — leaving, not because they must, but because they wish to — entering occupations which do not aid in their development — receiving wages so small that they would not furnish the barest necessities of life. Shall we allow it to go on ? Suppose we agree, for a moment, that the state of affairs ought S3 ■■■■BBBHHB 5 LESS THAN $3.00 3 4 S $3 00-3 -99 X 2 3 4 S $4 .00-4. 99 1 2 mmmmmm s $S.oo AND UP Girls CHART VII— WAGES not to continue, and consider what ought to be done about it. It is hopeless at present to expect industry to modify the conditions of employment sufficiently to insure educational work to children. The problem must be attacked by the schools, if at all. Until recently, the public schools have felt that their responsibility ended when the children who were not capable of succeeding were simply THE WORKING CHILDREN OF CINCINNATI 137 dropped from the rolls, but they are beginning to feel that turning out every year an army of children who have merely failed, and have not been helped to find out in what direction, if at all, they might succeed, cannot be regarded as satisfactory educational work. The most obvious suggestion for a remedy is to raise the age require- ■■i 1 2 LESS THAN $3.00 5 $3.00-3.99 H i 1 3 4 3 4 $S.oo AND UP Boys CHART VII — WAGES — Continued ment to sixteen years, when the openings for children in industry are more advantageous. But to force children, who have already failed, to endure two more years of a kind of training for which they have shown themselves unfitted, seems barbaric. The problem cannot be really met by the schools until they provide a different type of training— a type of training which would 138 THE ELEMENTARY SCHOOL TEACHER make possible an appeal to the children’s desire to work with their hands, and to their longing for economic independence. Those who feel most intensely the necessity for such a modification of the school curriculum are tempted to urge an immediate increase of the age requirement to sixteen years, because it would bring the schools at once face to face with the imperative necessity for pro- viding a more nearly adequate kind of education for those who are failing in the present academic regime. But the recognition of the need of the children for more voca- tional education is only the first step in the complex problem before us. For what occupations in particular shall the schools undertake to prepare children ? It is safe to say that not one of the trades or occupations on our list, as it is at present conducted, offers enough in educational and financial return to the children to warrant the public school in training them for it. It ought to be laid down as a basic principle in devising any system of industrial education, that the state will never take over the preparation of workers for a specific trade until that trade can show that it offers its employees a chance for physical and mental development, and a fair financial return for their labor. It seems the part of wisdom, then, for the public schools to go very slowly in the matter of establishing courses of training designed to prepare young children — even as young as sixteen — for specific industries. As industry itself becomes more socialized, and the welfare of the individual worker becomes a matter of much greater concern to it than at present, it may be safe for the schools to take over the preparation of workers for a larger number of industries. Indeed the schools may have a very powerful influence in hastening the development of this more social spirit in industry, provided they make the training of workers for any craft depend directly upon the conditions of employment, and the educational and financial returns of the craft itself. But even though specific trade training for the younger group of working children seems inadvisable at present, it does not follow that there is nothing the schools can do at once to assist them. We have seen that most of the children who are leaving the schools are those who do not succeed with work in which the stress falls — THE WORKING CHILDREN OF CINCINNATI 139 as it does in our present system of instruction — on the purely intel- lectual method of presentation. If they are to succeed at all, it must be in some calling where work with the hands is of paramount importance. If the schools could lay more stress from the start on training manual dexterity of various kinds, and through many media, children of the class who leave the schools early — and per- haps the others also — would be the gainers in many ways. Not only would the mere possession of greater manual dexterity be an asset in industrial work and indeed in most pursuits in life, but the process of trying various kinds of occupations would be the most effectual way of helping a child decide for what type of work he is best fitted. Then, too, many children who are now failing in the schools, fail not so much because they lack mental ability, as because the kind of instruction offered does not succeed in stimu- lating their intellectual processes. Experiment has shown that many of these same children can be held in school, and that they can do the theoretical part of the school work, when their interest is maintained by making some sort of constructive work with the hands, a central feature in instruction. In addition to general training in manual dexterity and the use of tools, the children who are to enter industry early would be much better equipped if they received elementary instruction in industrial history, social and industrial legislation, and simple business methods. There seems no good reason why a child should leave the public schools without knowing what the provisions of the child labor law are, or with so little idea of business method that he takes his first position — as 40 per cent of our children do — without even asking what he is to be paid. One is often asked what is the use of providing better training of any sort for children who enter industry early, so long as the jobs remain the same. Perhaps there would be little use in it, if the jobs were sure to remain the same, but it seems a reasonable hope that more skilful and more intelligent workers may improve, faster than any other agency, conditions of industry. 3 0112 072858902 .