Page:American Journal of Sociology Volume 10.djvu/320

308 strengthen the age restriction of the child-labor law very effectively. Of what use is it for a parent to swear falsely that a lad is fourteen years of age when he is eleven, if he must continue in school until he has finished the work of the first five years, or the first eight years? The temptation to perjury on the part of parents is thus reduced, to say nothing of the borrowing of passports and other records.

New York state, however, reinforces the age requirement of the child-labor law still further by having every child examined by a physician of the local board of health, who signs and files in the office of the board a statement that the child is, in his opinion, of the normal stature of a child of fourteen years, and is in good health. This is an excellent safeguard for the undersized, anemic children who are clever and faithful enough to finish the work of the first five years of the curriculum in five or in six years, and whose greedy parents would gladly turn the achievement to account, not by giving the child the due reward of its faithfulness in the shape of more opportunity for school life, but by crowding it into a sweatshop or the messenger service.

While two states, Colorado and New York, thus excel Illinois in requiring a stipulated amount of school work of the children before letting them leave school, twenty states excel Illinois in the length of the term of required school attendance. Twelve states require the children to attend school to the age of sixteen years (unless the children are at work under restrictions which, in several states, are rigidly guarded). These twelve states are Colorado, Connecticut, Maryland, Massachusetts, Minnesota, Montana, New Mexico, New York, Ohio, Pennsylvania, Wisconsin, and Wyoming. Besides these, eight other states require children to attend school to the age of fifteen years. These are Kansas, Maine, Michigan, Nebraska, Oregon, Rhode Island, Vermont, and Washington. It is an interesting item that of these twenty states, which require more years of school attendance than does Illinois, eleven are included in the list of fourteen states which in 1900 had reduced their child illiteracy more nearly to zero than Illinois had succeeded in doing. Thus, although a larger percentage of the children were able to read and write at