employment in factories, mines, mills, or occupation dangerous to health where the child is under fourteen years of age, and not over eight hours under sixteen years of age, or at all if the employment be dangerous to health. Between the ages of fourteen and sixteen, if the school law has been complied with, the child may be employed for over eight hours in an occupation that is not dangerous to health. This question must first be determined by the juvenile courts, which correspond to the county courts and exist in each county in the state. Proper application may be made to the court when the case is heard and permission granted upon conditions satisfactory to the court and in the interest of the child. This provision has tended to make the law, we think, more practical and satisfactory than it might be were no exceptions permitted. Especially is this true where the age limit is sixteen as with us. I would not recommend it if the age limit was either twelve or fourteen. All the children's laws of Colorado are enforced in one court. These laws comprise generally those relating to compulsory education, child labor, juvenile dependency, juvenile delinquency and the laws holding parents and others responsible for the dependency and delinquency of children. We believe that this method offers a system of effectiveness in law enforcement which could not otherwise be well obtained. The Woman's Club of Denver, always keen, alert, interested and active in behalf of the children of our city, under the leadership of our distinguished citizen and member of the National Child Labor Committee, Mrs. Sarah Platt Decker, instituted an elaborate investigation during the past year with reference to child labor in Denver especially, and reported it most satisfactory from every standpoint. Their report in full was sent to Miss Addams, of Hull House, and by her, I am told, pronounced most satisfactory. I think Miss Addams has pointed out on several occasions the fallacy and weakness of many of the old stock arguments we hear from some of our conservative business men in favor of child labor. With swelling pride they often tell us of

their labor at the age of twelve and thirteen, and pointing to their own example of success in life, they feel they have demolished the whole argument against even child slavery. The conditions under which they labored and lived are so different from those which the average city child is compelled to endure that we really find very few such cases of any value to the arguments for child labor. Their conditions were so favorable they rather strengthen our plea for more industrial education. The success of an exceptional case under hard conditions has been, not because of such conditions, but in spite of them. I firmly believe in work even in childhood. By this, I mean the right kind of work. It is not so much a question of work as the amount of work, the kind of work and the conditions under which that work is performed. This need not lessen our belief in happiness in childhood. I want to say very candidly, that there are a great number of children in this country from fourteen years of age upward about whom I feel more alarmed at their failure to do or to know how to do any kind of useful work than of any possibility of their being overworked.

In our zeal for the protection of children subjected to extreme or unnatural conditions, we must not lose sight of the dangers and difficulties of idleness. There are thousands of boys in the cities of this country who, if not employed at some useful thing, are generally on the streets or in the alleys, in the downtown public pool rooms and bowling alleys, engaged not always in wholesome play, but too often in idling, cigarette smoking and dirty story telling, with absolutely no thought of work or the serious side of life. They are too constantly occupied with thoughts of “having a good time," and some rather perverted notions of what a good time is. Too many of our boys epecially reach the age of moral and legal responsibility without the slightest conception of work. They are too often more concerned as to how much they earn than how well they do their work. In dealing with a certain class of youth in the juvenile court, I say without hesitation that the most

hopeless fellow in the world is the boy who will not work-the boy who has not learned how to work, or the value and importance of work. There is always hope for the boy who works, especially the boy who likes to work. I believe in the "strenuous life," and I think its importance should be taught our boys and girls at an early age. There are too many young people in this country looking for "the life of ignoble ease." I can say all of this to persons sincerely interested in the protection of the children from degradation or unnatural labor,

work if given any kind of an encouraging opportunity. The lack of a chance is often responsible for idleness. Ninetysix per cent. of our boys and girls are forced out of the grammar school to fight the battles of life. They must have a chance to earn a living under such reasonably favorable conditions as not to destroy all chance of happiness or else they must become idlers and loafers. My own experience is that our common school education too often fails to equip them for earning more than the most scanty wages. An opportunity between

and yet not be understood as depreciating the importance of wise child labor laws and their rigid enforcement for the protection of the children of the Union. But we must be careful in doing this never to underestimate the importance of work, the right kind of work, a certain amount of work,-in the life of every child, and especially that teaching which inculcates good impressions in the life of every child as to the necessity and importance of labor. On the other hand, my experience is that most boys will

the sixth and eighth grades in our city schools for children of the toiling masses to learn some kind of useful trade or valuable work with the hands-to learn to do what their fathers do-is a reform in our educational system which the champions of child labor must, in my opinion, espouse if they would round out a systematic and consistent plan of battle in this fight for the salvation of the children. I want to see the time come in this country when a boy of fourteen years of age up may be a valuable

talize this sentiment into law, to enact a system of corrective legislation supplemented by adequate machinery of enforcement, is a proposition fraught with no little difficulty. It has always been easy to convince, but hard to persuade.

The gradual growth of this class of legislation in the Northwest from the earliest efforts down to the present time can best be observed by tracing the development in one particular state and comparing the problems and the at

law was a failure, so far as results were concerned, because of its indefinite application, low age limit, and its failure to provide any effective means for enforcement. It only provided that district attorneys should prosecute violations on complaint, but there being no one charged by law with the duty of investigating the places of employment, few complaints were made, and the law was very generally disregarded. Amendments in the following year made the law more definite and certain, but still

provided no means for enforcement. The legislature failed to realize that men who see a pecuniary profit in violating a law will not desist simply to satisfy their conscience as to the commission of an act merely prohibited and made illegal.

In 1883 the bureau of labor was created, and charged with the duty of enforcing the law, but was given no facilities for doing so. This act was an important step, not so much for its own provisions, but in that it provided a framework about which to erect the machinery for enforcement which it was seen would have to be adopted in the near future if the child labor law was ever to become more than a mere threat to the violators. In 1885 a factory inspector was provided for, but as his duties went no further than to post the law in the places of employment inspected by him, his influence was really small.

The

In 1889 the legislature made a general revision of the child labor laws. age limit was raised to thirteen years, and the law extended not only to factories, workshops and mines, but also to stores, places of business and places of amusements. This measure, by its increase in the minimum age limit, and extended scope, represented a considerable advance in the accepted views as to restrictive legislation, but the one positive essential to a successful and adequate means for enforcement, was still lacking.

Another weakness of the law of 1889 was the introduction of the permit system. While it made unlawful the employment of children under thirteen years of age, it authorized the county judges to grant permits at their discretion, excepting from the operation of the law children over ten years who could read and write English. It was the intention of the permit provision so to modify the law as to enable persons really in need of the earnings of their children to get early assistance from this source. This system presupposes that the officer granting the permit will make an investigation of each particular case. Since in practice, the only source of in

formation to the judge is the applicant himself, it was not surprising that the prospect of exemption from the law should awaken a disregard for the truth, and the officers be overwhelmed with tales of misfortunes. The judges, whose regular duties already more than occupied their time, found it impossible to investigate each case, and giving the applicant the benefit of the doubt, generally granted the permit. Under this practice the restrictive age was really lowered to ten years, making it a regressive, rather than a progressive pro

vision.

In 1891 the legal age was again increased from thirteen to fourteen years, and the minimum age at which county judges could grant permits was raised from ten to twelve years. This law also made it the duty of the labor commissioner and factory inspectors to prosecute violations of the law. But the entire factory inspection force at this time consisted of only two persons. Το inspect the factories of the state and to enforce laws relating to dangerous and unsanitary conditions of employment, fire-escapes and other safeguards of the public health in accordance with those laws which were capable of enforcement, and violations of which were more readily detectable was a much larger task than would occupy the time of the most diligent inspectors. Moreover, their time could be devoted to this work with far greater profit to the state than could possibly result from the thankless and disagreeable task of attempting to enforce child labor laws which were entirely inadequate and destined to prove a failure from the start. So that, while on the one hand the lack of provision for enforcement of the law operated to divert the attention of the factory inspectors to other more fruitful laws, the permit system, on the other hand, operated to virtually legalize the employment of child labor down to the limit of ten or twelve years of age, and in many instances to vitiate whatever enforcement was attempted.

The situation in Wisconsin under this law is aptly summarized by the Commissioner of Labor in his report for 1897