Compulsory school attendance and child labor

Contents

Page INTRODUCTION X

Chapter I

Principles common to American state school systems— Compulsion almost universal— Fundamental conceptions of child control extend to early English customs and laws — Significance of laws of Edward HI — Connection between freedom and pauperism — Statute of Labourers— Beginning of compulsory employment— Movement from country to town— All children of poor to engage in labor— Attendance at school an alternative— Gradual development of taxation for care of poor— Industrial training of poor children compulsory- Machinery of Church employed in providing funds— Poor laws of Henry VIII— Development under Elizabeth— Final steps— Enforcement of compulsory employment and industrial training — Literary education in time of Henry VIII and Elizabeth— Principles established by 1600 7

Chapter II

Expansion of English educational traditions in America— Settlers around Massachusetts Bay— Granted all rights of other English subjects— A select group— Not free from poverty and crime— English ^customs ianjia ws contro lling — Desire to utilize labor of children— Compulsory employment in 1641— The law of 1642, compulsory employment and compulsory education— English poor-laws duplicated— The law of 1647, compulsory schools— Support of early schools — Falling standards — Education in Connecticut — Connecticut code of 1700— Revision of 1701— Economic prosperity— Educational provisions not enforced ■*■'

Chapter III

EARLY NATIONAL PERIOD Close of first and opening of second period in history of employment and education of children — Compulsory education not stressed in early state constitutions— Educational systems resting on early laws for control of poor — New use for children in England — Industrial conditions in America — Hamilton's ideals for employment ri CONTENTS

Page of children — Care of mill children — Samuel Slater's Sunday school — Development of factories — New industrial opportunities for children — David Humphreys and the education of mill children — The Connecticut law of 1813 — Organized labor begins to be felt — Industrial-educational problems in Massachusetts — Legislative investigation of 1825 — Antagonism of employer and laborer — Investigation by New England Association of farmers, mechanics and other working men — James G. Carter and legislative investigating committee — The child labor law of 1836 — Charity idea in education — Organized labor and education in Pennsylvania — Place of pauper school in Pennsylvania — Organized labor and education in New York — New forces . 30

Chapter IV

MASSACHUSETTS The State Board of Education — Horace Mann its first secretary — Educational conditions met by Mann — Mann not especially interested in factory children — Operation of law of 1836 — Mann not an advocate of compulsory school attendance — Inadequacy of means of education — Local school committees directed to enforce attendance requirements, 1842 — Inadequacy of educational statistics — Enactment of truancy law, 1850 — First general compulsory attendance law, 1852 — Failure to enforce law of 1852 — Mann's successor in office — Towns required to provide for care of truants and delinquents, 1862 — Towns fail to meet responsibility — State funds withheld — Legislative investigation, 1866 — Law of 1866 — Eevision of 1867 — Henry K. Oliver special enforcing officer — Difficulties of enforcement — Creation of bureau of statistics and labor — Movement for a ten-hour day — Compulsory attendance requirements met in evening schools — Further legislation for control of truancy — Lack of harmony between labor and attendance laws — Carrol D. Wright becomes chief of bureau of labor statistics, 1874 — His attitude towards law enforcement — Larger state powers in law enforcement — Child labor act of 1878 — More adequate employment certificate, 1888 — Additional restrictions on employment of children — Poverty no longer grounds for exemption from school attendance — Employment and school attendance investigated by state board of education — Legislation following board's investigation — A period of consolidation of legislative gains — Compulsory medical inspection of schools, first in United States — Interest in industrial education — Inquiry of 1906 — Eecommendations of the commission, and legislation following — Beorganization of state board of education — Part-time classes and continuation schools — Compulsory attendance optional with local school committees — State board of labor and industries created, 1912 — Echoes of early approval of child labor — Eecent changes in regulations — Contribution of Massachusetts .... 48

CONTENTS vii

Chapter V

Page Leads in state enforcement of attendance and labor laws — Earlier periods not unlike Massachusetts — Organized labor not so important a factor in later development — Henry Barnard's educational leadership — Law of 1842 — Period of weak state organization — Legislative investigation of 1844 — Advance toward state control, 1845 — Eeturn of Henry Barnard — His attitude toward child labor — Restrictions on employment, 1 855— Civil War checks educational progress — State Board of Education created, 1865 — Truant law, 1865 — Significance of law of 1869 — Henry M. Cleveland state enforcing agent — Agitation for general compulsory attendance law — Enactment of compulsory law, 1872 — Giles Potter becomes state agent — Methods of enforcement — More adequate laws — Act of 1886 — Larger manufacturers cooperating — Inadequate schooling certificate — Unsatisfactory attendance — Laws of 1893 and 1895 — Relatively high rank of state in educational requirements — Cooperation of teachers in law enforcement — System rounded out in acts of 1911 and 1913 — Interpretation of the state board — Attendance — School census — Employment certificate — Present enforcement — The unemployed child — Recognition of relationship between child employment and school attendance 87

Chapter VI

NEW YORK Compulsory education in poor-houses, 1831 — Delay in development of public school system — Early attitude toward employment of children — Legislative investigation of 1830 — Attempts to secure legislation — Truancy law of 1853 — Compulsory attendance act of 1874 — Failure to enforce — Increase of child labor and investigation of 1884 — Elbridge T Gerry and influence of philanthropic forces — Child labor act of 1886— Weakness of law of 1886— Granting of working papers entrusted to local boards of health — Report of the Reinhardt commission — Mercantile law, 1896 — Enforcement by local boards of health — Compulsory attendance act, 1894 — Administration of attendance law — Closer union of forces opposed to labor of children — Organization and early activity of New York Child Labor Committee — Legislation of 1903 — Advanced position of New York state — Difficulties in law enforcement — Political aspects — Advances of ]907, 1908 — Enforcement — Failure of school officials to cooperate — Failure of school and employment officials to cooperate — A period of consolidation — Permanent census — Factory investigating commission — Reorganization of department of labor — More efficient child labor regulations — The Industrial Commission — viii CONTENTS

Page General permanent census law — Compulsory military and physical education — Compulsory evening arid continuation schools — Summary of regulations concerning education and employment of children — Enforcement in New York City — The attendance bureau — Enforcement in state as a whole — Progress towards state supervision of attendance 115

Chapter VII

PENNSYLVANIA Among last of northern states to provide for compulsory education and to restrict employment — Fight for free schools — The pauper school law — Opposition to free schools by German element — Early discussion of non-attendance — Legislative investigation of child labor, 1837 — Child labor law of 1848 — Failure to enforce — Superintendent Wiekersham slow to favor compulsory attendance — Great number of children out of school — Child labor law of 1887 — Agitation for compulsory school attendance — Attendance law of 1895 — Further restrictions of child labor — Compulsory attendance law of 1901 — Inadequacy of restrictions on child labor — National and State Child Labor Committees enter field in 1904 — Law of 1905 — Law declared unconstitutional — Eeturn to old conditions — Legislation of 1909, result of union of all forces opposed to child labor — Interests of labor and education served in new legislation — Kevised code — Creation of state board of education — Provision made for vocational education — Department of labor and industry created — Measures of 1915 rounding out system of industrial education — Adequate child labor legislation — Compulsory continuation schools established — Success of continuation education — Operation of system in city of Pittsburgh — Beginning of state enforcement of attendance — New system growing in favor throughout the state 170

Chapter VIII

WISCONSIN Wisconsin most successful in adapting education to changing industrial conditions — Establishment of education under constitution — School officials disturbed by poor attendance — Compulsory attendance laws feared — Attempt to secure compulsory law — Investigation authorized — Argument against compulsory measures — Law enacted, 1879 — Child labor legislation, 1877 — Creation of bureau of labor statistics — Factory inspection undertaken, 1885 — Bennet compulsory school and attendance law — Opponents of Bennet law enter politics — Eepeal of law, 1891 — Decade of inactivity — Investigation of child labor situation — More adequate attendance legislation — Further restriction of employment — Movement toward industrial c

CONTENTS ix

Page education — Special commission to study needs — System of industrial education established — Organization — The continuation schools — Apprenticeship system — Work of Industrial Commission — Present provisions of child labor laws — Enforcement — Operation in Milwaukee — Attempt at state supervision of attendance — Service performed by Wisconsin 203

Chapter IX

SUMMAEY AND CONCLUSION Legislative investigations as basis of compulsory measures — Changes in attitude toward child — Prime movers for protection of children — Some of the retarding influences — Exemption from requirements of attendance laws — Compulsory health provisions — Working papers — Direct state enforcement — Federal cooperation — Penalties — Decrease in illiteracy — Part-time schools — Outlook — Advance from early English foundations 231

BIBLIOGEAPHY 256

Introduction

Our national experiences during the years 1917-20 have served to emphasize the importance of education. It was found that in the emergencies of war the man with developed mind and skilled hand, the man whom the schools had trained, could adjust himself readily to new requirements. In factory and laboratory, in camp and on the battlefield, he demonstrated his superiority over those whose opportunity for systematic training had been narrowly restricted or altogether lacking. It was also found that a dangerously large proportion of our young men had arrived at maturity with so little learning as to make it necessary to classify them, for army purposes, as illiterate.

The federal census, loosely taken and inaccurate as it is admitted to be, shows that seven of every one hundred of the population above ten years of age are absolutely illiterate, unable to write their names or read the simplest print. 1 The report of the Surgeon-General of the United States Army, based upon an examination of the selected body of men constituting the draft army, is still more disquieting, showing as it does that one man out of every four is unable to read and write in English. 2 Some comfort can be derived from the fact that of those classified as illiterates, 14.2 per cent are negroes and a considerable proportion of the remainder foreign born. But at the best, the conditions revealed are serious,

1.. United States Census, 1910. For comparative table see Monroe, Cyclopedia of Education, " Illiteracy. ' '

2. Education of Illiterates ; Hearing before the Committee on Education, House of Bepresentatives, Feb. 14-15, 1919; pp. 25-26. The report covers the examination of more than one and one-half million men, in twenty-eight training stations widely distributed throughout the country. All men not able to "read and understand newspapers and write letters home, ,, a total of 24.9 per cent, were classed as illiterate. The War Department, commenting upon the results of the examinations, says: ''The extent of illiteracy among the drafted men is a striking fact. The figures, however, are not an exact measure of the fact. It is obvious that without a more definite measure of illiteracy .... any detailed statements are impossible; it is equally obvious that these measures, though rough and varied, do indicate general conditions of serious public concern.' '

and have brought deserved criticism upon systems of education which, in the final analysis, must be held responsible.

Every state in the Union has established a more or less elaborate system of free public education. Nearly all have enacted laws requiring children to attend school for various periods, but it is commonly recognized that in by far the larger proportion of states the so-called compulsory education laws, usually administered by local officials, are at best only partially enforced. Yet the revelations of the draft came as a distinct shock to the people at large who cherished the belief that nowhere else in the world could be found a citizenship with a higher level of intelligence and enlightenment. It may be assumed, then, that against illiteracy there will be waged systematic warfare, a warfare in the interests of democratic government, waged by a people conscious of the necessity to win, aware that only through compulsory measures can the masses be saved from ignorance.

Since the war has revealed, also, a serious lack of skilled workmen, of those prepared to undertake the specific tasks, mechanical and scientific, which the occasion demanded, it may be assumed that all phases of vocational education will receive attention, that continuation schools for workers will be established, that the labor of youth will be more severely restricted and that attendance upon the means of education will be enforced under state or even national authority. But old customs and old machinery of administration cannot be swept away and a new order created. That which the future is to accomplish must be built upon the foundations already laid in the experiences of the past.

The history of the compulsory education of children and the regulation of their employment in the United States may be divided roughly into three periods. Through the first period there extended the colonial conception of education. The children of the poor were conceded the rudiments of learning, but labor was regarded as altogether desirable and both its moral and economic values were stressed. During the latter part of the period, in the second and third decades of the nineteenth century, while the value and necessity of child labor remained unquestioned, save by the relatively feeble organiza-

INTRODUCTION 3

tions of working men, there was a growing agitation for such a limitation of employment as would enable children to acquire the elementary education to which all, theoretically, believed them entitled. The second period begins toward the middle of the nineteenth century, when various forces began to recognize their common interest in the child and to unite in seeking to secure for him certain rights through legislation. There followed half-hearted measures, emasculated by those who regarded any interference with parental control over children as undemocratic, or jockeyed out of the possibility of effective enforcement by designing men who were profiting by the unrestricted labor of children. Gradually, in the latter part of the century, laws in the interests of childhood pass into a third stage. The state began to discover its own power and to be more keenly aware of its responsibility. Individuals and organizations learned how to cooperate. Practical students of social conditions devised methods of securing measures that could be enforced. Labor oriented itself and its voice was heard with increasing respect. Employers found that the labor of young children was not profitable after all, and finally a beginning was made towards the establishment of systems of education that recognized the industrial and social needs of children.

It is the purpose of this study to trace in some detail the development of legislation for the control and compulsory education of children from its inception in the English statutes for the restraint and industrial training of the children of the poor to its expression in the elaborate systems of universal, obligatory education with the accompanying elimination of child labor in the most progressive American states.

From the time of Plato to the present, discriminating statesmen have recognized the importance of education both as a stabilizing and as a selective agency. Though compulsory attendance upon the means of education was most perfectly developed in the most autocratic state of the modern world, those whose political ideal is "liberty under law" believe that there can be no real liberty, no true democracy without education, free, universal, compulsory for every citizen. The most hopeful symptom in the present industrial and social crisis is the supreme faith which all factions rest in education. Beyond doubt, extensive educational programs, both state and national, are imminent. Since these programs, determining the educational and industrial policies of the future, must rest upon the educational and industrial practices of the past, an historical survey of the process by which the state gradually assumed control and direction of children's lives must have both interest and value.

The limits and purposes of this study forbid the examination of the laws relative to compulsory education and the restriction of the labor of children in all the states. It seems impracticable even to take a sampling of such laws and administrative policies characterizing the principal geographic regions of the Union. The section dealing with the colonial period is limited to a few of the more populous colonies of the North, colonies in which the education of the children of common folk was especially stressed. Industrial conditions of great interest prevailed in the South, and the lives of working children were directed by laws of much the same character as those prevailing at the time in England. 3 Here, however, the Puritan zeal for literary education among the poor had no counterpart. Industrial life began to be modified by negro slavery before distinctively provincial ideals could develop. State educational systems did not thrive as in the North, and the education of the masses did not become a vital problem until after the Civil War.

Again, in the early national period, the study has been narrowly restricted to a small group of states that developed relatively large manufacturing interests and thus came early to face the serious problems of child labor. In the more detailed discussion of particular states, an arbitrary selection -was made of a small group of states, each one of which has made some peculiar and significant advance in some phase of its regulation of school attendance and employment. The states chosen are Massachusetts, Connecticut, New York, Pennsylvania, and Wisconsin. Massachusetts and Connecticut are included partly because they best illustrate the develop-

3. See Jernegan, "Compulsory Education in the Southern Colonies," School Beview, June, 1919, pp. 405-425.

INTRODUCTION 5

ment in America of the old English customs as modified by- Puritan ideals. In these two states manufacturing was early under way and the conflict between education and industry was first recognized. Massachusetts, as a colony, not only enacted the first compulsory education and compulsory school laws in America and sought first to control the labor of children, but throughout the national period she has usually been a leader in the several stages of advancement in legislation and administration. Connecticut was the first state to accept definitely the policy of state rather than local administration of school attendance laws; more clearly, too, than any other state, she has recognized the intimate relations of child labor and school attendance. New York, for obvious reasons, must be considered in such a study as this. Here the fight for and against the child has been waged on a large scale. The problems of child labor have been included within a relatively brief space, and in recent years the legislation in behalf of Avorking children has been especially significant. Finally, Wisconsin and Pennsylvania were chosen because first to establish state systems of compulsory continuation schools for children employed in certain types of industry. These states are not unique among the sisterhood of states except that they have advanced one step further than the rest in the development of universal compulsory education. The same forces which made possible their advanced educational programs are working everywhere and are clearly manifested in a score of other states.

In gathering materials for this monograph, recourse was had to original sources so far as they were available, but other sources were drawn upon freely. In the section dealing with conditions in England, Sir George Nieholls' interpretation of the English Poor Law was extremely suggestive. The chief sources consulted in preparing the section on early colonial laws and procedure were the colonial and town records, collections of various historical societies, and recognized authorities on American colonial history. Laws, committee reports, reports of state officials, reports and discussions of philanthropic and educational organizations, have been widely consulted in gathering data for the later portions of the study.

While certain laws enacted subsequent to the year 1917 have been used to indicate the direction of modern thought relative to the labor and education of children, no attempt has been made to include in the study the mass of legislation, much of it necessarily temporary in character, called forth by the war or by conditions immediately following it. In order that he might gain some first hand knowledge of the questions discussed, and that he might verify or correct some of the impressions gained from other sources, the writer visited each of the five states used to illustrate the development of modern methods of controlling the education and labor of children.

The writer regrets that it has not been possible to present in the form of definite statistics more adequate evidence as to the operation of the various laws regulating the attendance .at school and the employment of children. Unfortunately the earlier reports of state departments of education, bureaus of labor, legislative committees and other bodies that might be expected to furnish statistical materials, were not presented in such a way as to enable the student to secure reliable data. Indeed, in many states educational statistics are so treated at the present time as to obscure the data essential to a proper study of attendance and employment.

It is not possible for the writer to acknowledge except in a general way his indebtedness to the great number of educational and labor officials through whose courtesy much valuable information was made available. He is under special obligations, however, to Dean William F. Russell, of the State University of Iowa, who read the manuscript and made valuable suggestions ; to Professor Samuel McCune Lindsay for directions and advice in the treatment of the problem of child labor; to Professor George D. Strayer, in whose seminar the original outline was criticised and discussed, and to Professor Paul Monroe, for guidance in research and organization.

Chapter I

Through the heterogeneous systems of education to be found in the various states of the Union run certain common principles. Most nearly universal is the conception that the state must offer to every child such educational opportunities as will enable him to become an intelligent citizen, prepared to maintain himself and those who may be dependent upon him. Scarcely less universal is the principle that it is the duty of the state to compel the child to accept such educational opportunity.

It must be granted that in certain extensive sections of the country enforcement of laws providing for the education of children and the restriction of their labor is not seriously undertaken. Even in the most progressive states, adequate legislation and effective administration are of comparatively recent origin. But the fundamental conceptions of government forming the basis of our modern laws of child control are very old, reaching back, by way of the early English settlements in Massachusetts and Connecticut, to customs and laws prevailing in England in the period of Elizabeth and before.

It is customary to think of modern compulsory education as having its origin in Germany in the period of the Protestant Reformation. Certainly the principle of universal learning in the interests of the individual as well as the state is announced definitely by Luther. Calvin accepted this principle, applying it particularly to the individual, who, in the process of saving his soul, must come into relationship with God largely through the printed word. The Puritans who settled around Massachusetts Bay in the decade following the year 1628 were staunch Calvinists. They brought with them the austere convictions of their leader, an exalted conception of the value of the Bible, and the determination that every child, as a part of his religious training, must be taught to read. But before they were Puritans, these men were Englishmen. Long before the religious conception arose which demanded for each child an elementary literary education for his soul's sake, there had arisen an economic necessity which demanded for him an industrial education for his body's sake. It will be the main purpose of this chapter to demonstrate the following theses :

1. That before the close of the sixteenth century England had developed a well defined policy of providing industrial training or education for the children of the working classes.

2. That the training or industrial education of such children was provided for by statute and was compulsory.

3. That the expense of such training or education might be met by public taxation.

It is useless to attempt to trace compulsory education to the laws of Alfred the Great. Scholar and devoted servant of his people though he was, his wish that the youth of England might all be set to learning was apparently never expressed in statute, 1 though prominent historians are fond of attributing to him a law or "doom" enjoining all freemen to send their sons to school. 2 Probably what Alfred did for education had permanent value. It is certain that by the end of the thirteenth century schools were abundant in England, but they were attended by a very highly selected group, with only an occasional exceptional lad from the lower orders of society. 3 Apparently the masses remained practically unschooled until the philanthropic movement of the eighteenth century, yet it is precisely to this class that we must look to discover in its slow advance toward economic freedom that principle of state control which made universal education possible.

The reign of Edward III, 1327-1377, roughly marks a turning point in industrial and social England. The lif§;of the common man in the thirteenth century was har$ and uncertain. The feudal system was breaking down. Men were securing a larger degree of personal freedom. Many of the more aggressive and turbulent, released from old restraints, had become outlaws, a constant menace to property and life. 4 Serfs freed

1. Leach, The Schools of Medieval England, p. 24 f.

2. For example, Hume, History of England, Vol. VI, p. 107 f .

3. Leach, op. cit., p. 206.

4. Nicholls, History of the English Poor Laws, 1860, I, 23.

from vassalage could no longer turn to kindly authority in case of need. Pauperism arose, vagabondage became common, the lanes and highways of England were filled with an unemployed and dangerous rabble. Laws of terrible severity 5 had failed to control the growing evils arising from changing conditions. "It is a great law of social development," says Arnold Toynbee, "that the movement from slavery to freedom is also a movement from security to insecurity of maintenance. There is a clear connection between the growth of freedom and the growth of pauperism; it is scarcely too much to say that the latter is the price we pay for the former." 8

In an attempt to protect society and to control the ever increasing floating population there was enacted the famous "Statute of Labourers," 7 which, besides providing for the rigorous control of vagrants, both "lusty" and "impotent," fixed wages, regulated prices of commodities, and ordered that all men and women under sixty years of age, not craftsmen, landholders, tradesmen, or regularly employed, should "serve him which so shall require, and take only the wages, livery, meed, or salary accustomed to be given in the places where he oweth to serve."

The authors of this measure evidently proceeded on the assumption that there was sufficient employment at hand for every able-bodied man who was willing to work; that those unwilling to work but able to do so, might be forced to become self-supporting by restraining them from travel and making it illegal for anyone to give them alms; and that the helpless or "impotent" poor should be maintained by the church or by individual charity. Here is found compulsory employment, but with no specific mention of children.

Under Edward's successor, state control of industry was advanced still further. In the fourteenth century as now, labor was being drawn from the country to the town, tempted by the higher wages commanded by the skilled craftsmen. The ranks of labor were greatly depleted at this time by the plague which swept away a considerable portion of the working

5. IS Edw. I; 2 Edw. Ill; 5 Edw. III.

6. The Industrial Bevolution in England, p. 95.

population. As a check to the movement cityward, the landed gentry secured the passage of a law designed to control young children, requiring:

' ' That he or she, which use to labour at the Plough and Cart or other Labour or Service of Husbandry till they be of the Age of twelve years, that from thenceforth they shall abide at the same Labour, without being put to any Mystery or Handicraft. ' *

It appears that about this time the schools, now abundant throughout England, 9 were drawing an appreciable number of boys of the working classes away from the farms. The landholders were deeply concerned at this further depletion of the ranks of their toilers, and the Commons, in 1391, petitioned the king to require that "for the safety and honor of the freemen of this realm," no child of the villein class should be permitted to attend school. 10 King Richard, happily, did not grant this request. The grievance persisted, however, and the matter came before his successor, Henry IV. Henry was unwilling to exclude children of humble parentage from school, yet he recognized the claims of the landholders and evidently shared the apprehensions of the Commons as to the movement to the towns. He therefore confirmed the legislation in control of children, requiring further that no parent not possessed of land or rent to the value of twenty shillings should apprentice his child to any craft or other labor within any city or borough in the realm, but should set him at some other employment. But to this severe regulation the far-sighted king or his advisers added a most significant alternative :