WAGE-EARNING SCHOOL CHILDREN IN ENGLAND.

WHILST dreams of world-wide empire and visions of the subjection of the entire universe to the domination of the occupants of No. 10 Downing Street, Whitehall, are disturbing the rest of the average Briton, and turning even the late followers of Gladstone into rampant jingoes, thinking men are reminded, by the publication of Blue Books such as the report just issued by the Home Office on the employment of school children, of some of the evils which are eating away the heart of the English nation. Child labor in England has been the subject of repeated legislation for nearly a century. Children eight years of age are no longer allowed to work in factories, nor are the hours of labor for older child-workers so long as heretofore. For the latter class a system of half work, half school, has been devised; while a series of acts of Parliament have been passed forbidding the employment of young children in chimney-sweeping, acrobatic performances, etc., and severely regulating their hours of labor in other and, in my opinion, equally objectionable occupations. It was fondly imagined that these enactments had finally exorcised the evil spirit of child labor; but the terrible disease of poverty is too deeply rooted in Great Britain to be eradicated by such measures; and though now and again a sore may be healed, it surely reappears in some other part of the body politic.

Its latest development is to be seen in the spectacle of children of tender years trading in the streets, or working in shops, or engaged in some form of agricultural labor which has not been forbidden by any existing legislation. The first symptom was noticed by the Education Department through its school inspectors; and six years ago an investigation was held by that body in order to see whether the disease was quite so dangerous as represented. Inquiries were made from the various school managers throughout the country, with the result that it was reported that no less than 144,000 children attending school were employed either before or after school hours, or both, for a very small remuneration, at some form of work for periods ranging from twenty to forty, fifty, and even eighty hours a week. These figures rather under

estimated the total number, as the compilers did not include those children who had a regular occupation after school, or those whose work was not, in their judgment, prejudicial to health.

Owing to fear of certain expected consequences parents were not anxious to divulge all the facts; and employers, taking advantage of this form of cheap labor, were equally desirous of keeping back information. As a proof I may mention that, being favored with an invitation to give evidence before the recent inquiry, by reason of my close connection with the Liverpool experiment, of which I shall speak later, and of an article on the subject in the "Contemporary Review," I took a personal census at a large school in Liverpool, the result of which rather startled a certain member of the Commission who had failed to obtain the real facts on his own visit for the same purpose. The explanation was that I was well known to teachers and children, while the Commissioner, despite his reputation, was simply regarded as an inquisitor.

In the Parliamentary return furnished by the Education Department the ages of the children were reported to be as follows: Under seven years of age, 131; seven years, 1,120; eight years, 4,211; nine years, 11,027; ten years, 22,131-making a total of 38,489 children between six and ten years of age who were employed in some form after the school was ended for the day, instead of being permitted the recreation so much needed for such tiny scholars. The following are the figures for ages above ten: Eleven years, 36,775; twelve years, 47,471; thirteen years, 18,556; fourteen years, 1,787; ages not stated, 817-making a total of 104,589 employed in a similar way to the above-mentioned. The rate of pay for the child-worker is very interesting reading and tells its own tale. A total of 17,084 children earned sixpence per week each; 47,273 sixpence to a shilling; 40,240 thirteen pence to two shillings; 19,757 two to three shillings; 4,927 three to four shillings; 1,813 four to five shillings; and 805 five to six shillings. Sometimes a meal would be added. It will be seen that nearly three-fourths of these children earned less than half a dollar per week. The hours of labor as ascertained by this inquiry, though open to grave doubt as to their accuracy, are as follows: 39,355 children were said to be employed under 10 hours per week; 60,268 from 10 to 20 hours; 27,008 from 21 to 30 hours; 9,778 from 31 to 40 hours; 2,390 from 41 to 50 hours; and the remainder from 50 to 80 hours.

This state of things is not confined to any one portion of the country; for in the report I am now quoting it appeared that, in the area governed by the London County Council, there were 21,975 boys and

9,052 girls so employed. At the other end of England, in the great manufacturing counties of Lancashire and Yorkshire, 23,738 boys and 5,842 girls were working out of school time; and even in the agricultural centres of Gloucester and Hants, 5,556 children were found to be no better off. Again, in the industrial counties of Warwick and Staffordshire, we find 15,102 child workers surrendering hours needed for recreation to the grim necessity of working long periods for small wages.

That these figures did not represent the full extent of the evil is admitted by the report dated November 25, 1901. This report says:

Two of our witnesses had made, independently of the Parliamentary return, careful inquiries of the number of children in full-time attendance who were employed out of school, and in both cases the figures are higher than those given previously. For instance, the statement that only 1,552 children sold papers in the streets of the county of Lancashire is disproved by my having heard, as a member of the Liverpool Street Trading Committee of the City Council, over 1,600 applications for licenses to sell papers in the streets of that city alone, to say nothing of the thirty other towns in the same county, including Manchester, Blackburn, Preston, etc.

The committee of the Home Office now give the total figures of childworkers as under'; adding that they are extremely rough owing to the difficulty of obtaining accurate returns, but placing on record the conviction that the estimate is not too high:

Factories and workshops-children employed as half-timers..
Home industrial work....

45,000

15,000

Shops...

100,000

Domestic work, allowing for deficiencies and half-timers

50,000

Though Parliament has from time to time made laws regulating the hours of labor of the first of these classes, and fixing the minimum age at which a child may be employed in it, no regulations or laws exist for the regulation of the other classes, except the general education law, which is practically a command to attend school until the age of fourteen is attained.

England is notoriously deficient from an educational point of view; and the frantic efforts now being made to atone for past neglect show that the nation has been aroused at length to the stern necessity of 1 This return does not include Scotland or Ireland.

remedying this defect. But if 300,000 children are annually employed in various occupations, it must follow, except in certain cases, that they cannot possibly receive the full benefit of the elementary education provided by the state. It is needless to add that such children cannot ever be expected to enter the technical and secondary schools, attendance at which is desirable if the nation is ever to become an educated one. It was this side of the difficulty which first aroused interest in the question, and not so much the damage to the health of the children or the economic questions involved.

The Commissioners report that the fact that "excessive employment is injurious alike to the education and to the health of the children is hardly in question. It was testified to by witness after witness, many of them in no way likely to be influenced by merely theoretical objections to child labor."

The average hours of labor stated above proved to be much more severe when examined more closely by the committee of inquiry. The clerk to the Liverpool School Board stated that out of the 2,312 working children in the schools under his board, 60 per cent were employed more than 20 hours, and 17 per cent more than 30 hours; while those who worked less than 20 were employed on Saturdaysa school holiday from 13 to 17 hours at one spell. In three schools not under this board and belonging to the Catholic body I found boys who worked longer hours; one notable case being a boy aged eleven who was occupied 40 hours per week, and as a consequence was absent from school on 83 occasions out of a possible 130.

A boy of eleven is reported as being occupied from seven in the morning until nine at night. Another, aged thirteen, "worked 52 hours per week, being employed by a moulding company, and attending a theatre for five evenings a week and half a day on Wednesday." A school girl is stated also to have been expected to work 60 hours per week at trouser finishing. Another worked 62 hours in a coal yard. Four sisters, from eight to twelve years of age, worked at home 44 to 50 hours wood-chopping. Two boys at a London school rose at four to clean lamps in a stable yard, to groom two ponies, and generally to take charge of the stable. In the report of 1899 there is recorded an instance of a boy who left his home at half-past four every morning to wake up twenty-five workingmen, who gave him a mere pittance for his services. He got back at half-past five, and at six set out again on a round of newspaper delivering which occupied him until nine o'clock, the hour at which school commences in England. Instances

are recorded of boys working on farms from five until eight in the morning before going to school, and every evening also:

During the osier peeling, about twenty children work in the yards from six until a quarter to nine, and from a quarter past four to five or half-past. Children rise at six, if not earlier, to pick stones, and, having to run to school, are in an unfit state for their school work.

In face of these cases no surprise will be felt at the declaration of a school board that work of this character "is a proper drawback to the education of the children, as they get so little recreation," or at the recorded experience of a master that "boys employed out of school hours exhibit signs of weariness in school and do not seem equal to sustained effort." In no case have I met the head of a school who did not bear testimony to the disastrous effect of such employment on the education of the child. In the case of strong, well-cared for children it is possible that no such drawback would occur; but those who are acquainted with the surroundings of working school children in English towns will know that the reverse is more likely to be the case, in spite of the somewhat half-hearted report on this point.

Large numbers of the poor of London flock to Kent in the summer for the annual ingathering of the hops for which that county is famous. Their children invariably accompany them. After nine months in the slums of a great city it cannot be said that the change is harmful from the point of view of health; but in many cases it is said they come back looking "brown and strong, but dirty, disinclined for regular school work, and morally deteriorated." Again:

The effect of agricultural work is good, except where they are, as in hop-picking, thrown in association with the lowest classes from large towns or tramps; but there are numerous and well-founded complaints of its being allowed to interfere with school work.

It may here be mentioned that regular attendance during the winter months is held out as an inducement for granting the certificate of exemption for the entire summer given under the Robson Act. This arrangement meets with the approval of the country correspondents of the Board of Trade; but even they admit that the hours of labor are too long. No change for the better may be expected while the members of the rural school boards and the employers of the children are the same persons.

Speaking of work done which comes under the Factories Acts, the report goes on to say:

Much more important from the point of view of the present inquiry is the employment of [school] children in industrial work at their own homes. Even when