Here, as in other instances, the matter of prime impor tance is to determine upon a standard 1 and then unflinch ingly to apply it, by act of legislature, by charitable assistance when the law results in undue hardship, and I See Florence Kelley, "An Effective Child Labor Law," Annals of the American Academy of Political and Social Science, May, 1903.
by the creation of a public sentiment which will severely condemn any deviation from it. Such a standard should prohibit the employment of children under the age of four teen, should require attendance at school throughout the full term during which the schools are in session, to the age of fourteen, and to sixteen years if they are not at work between fourteen and sixteen, and should further require that children between the ages of fourteen and sixteen shall be able to read and write the English language before they can be legally The principal argument which advocates of advanced legislation for the protection of children have been obliged to meet is that their labor is often essential to the sup port of a widowed mother, or of a mother who has been deserted by the natural breadwinner of the family, or of one whose husband is in prison or is incapacitated by illness from the support of his family. The most su perficial consideration of this argument will show that it is one of comparatively little weight. Widows who are dependent upon the earnings of children from ten to fourteen or sixteen years of age are by no means so large an element in the population of any community as the constant reiteration of the dependent widows argu ment would suggest; in fact, the total number of widows in the working population is commonly overestimated. Some widows are provided for by insurance, or by the helping hand of relatives and immediate friends ; others have older children, beyond the age in which legal protec tion is needed; others are left unencumbered by offspring, or with a family of such moderate size as can be sup ported by the unaided efforts of the mother. The com paratively small number who remain may, indeed, be without a sufficient income from their own wages and from other natural sources ; but surely these are not so numerous, nor is the amount required to supplement their incomes so great, that it will not be cheerfully borne by their charitably disposed neighbors or by philanthropic agencies.
In Massachusetts the law at present extends this requirement to the age of twenty-one, with a proviso that if they are regularly attending a night school, and over fourteen years of age, they may be employed.
Temporary charitable support, if the alternative becomes necessary, is better than premature employment. Regu lar pensions, given, if this be preferred, in the form of scholarships as a distinct reward for keeping children in school, are not demoralizing if wisely administered and if accompanied by uplifting personal influences. It is neither natural nor possible for a widowed mother to carry the double burden of earning an income and making a home for herself and her children ; and under a social regimen in which the male head of the family is univer sally the normal wage-earner, it can scarcely be pauperiz ing to substitute for his earnings, when he is removed by death, a regular income from some suitable charitable source. For the children to be set at heavy tasks before the mind or body is ready for them, is very likely to sow the seed of disease and physical weakness, from which dependency and eventual pauperism may result. Even the mother herself may be injured by undertaking physi cal burdens beyond her capacity more readily than by finding her load lightened by the kindly consideration of neighbors and friends, or even, if the former is not suffi cient, by an allowance from some suitable relief fund.
The advocate of legislation for the protection of chil dren must, therefore, be prepared to advocate for the lim ited number of families that are necessarily dependent upon the earnings of children a pension or scholarship system either from public or from private sources. Let the responsibility be frankly accepted, and let not the maintenance of a high standard of protection for child life be discouraged by exaggerated fears of the effect of charitable assistance as a substitute for juvenile earnings.