Page:American Journal of Sociology Volume 10.djvu/417

 EDUCATION IN THE SOUTH

401

2. That no child under fourteen years of age who cannot read and write shall be employed or allowed to work in any cotton-mill or factory of any sort.

3. That no child under fourteen years of age shall be employed or allowed to work at night in any cotton-mill or factory of any sort.

To make fully effective such a law, some legislation looking to compelling these children to attend the schools while in session ought to be enacted.

Far be it from me to recommend aught that would needlessly retard the splendid industrial development of this state, but industrial development bought with the blood of children is too dear. Dwarfed minds, shriveled bodies, and impoverished souls are too great a price to pay for anything on earth."

Professor P. P. Claxton, chief of the Bureau of Investigation and Information of the Southern Education Board, makes this statement :

I know a mill town with a school population of more than nine hundred and an average daily attendance of less than one hundred and fifty at its eight months of public school. There is no other school in the town. In the middle of this town I have seen boys and girls not yet nine years old working at midnight

In reference to Columbus, Ga., Carleton B. Gibson, super- intendent of schools, says :

In this town of Columbus, which is a manufacturing town, we have i factory population of several thousand. Of these people who work in the mills there are perhaps one thousand children whom we have not yet been able to bring into our public schools in the absence of any compulsory- education law.

The following table shows the age at which the labor of chil- dren is prohibited in factories and the age for compulsory school attendance in ten of the southern states, wherever such laws exist :

Age at which Labor in Factories is Prohibited

Age of Compulsory School Attendance

Virginia

No law

No law

West Virginia

12 years

814 years

Tennessee

Id vears

No law

South Carolina

No law

No law

Georgia

No law

No law

Alabama

No law

No law

Florida. ..

No law

No law

Louisiana

14, Rirls, 12, boys

No law

Kentucky

No legislation on the subject

714 years

North Carolina

No legislation on the subject

No law

Report of Superintendent of Public Instruction, North Carolina, 1901.