Page:American Journal of Sociology Volume 3.djvu/513

 THE ILLINOIS CHILD-LABOR LA W 499

intelligence of the state entitle them. We must borrow from New York the prohibition of the work of minors at night and the prohibition of the employment of illiterate children under sixteen years of age. Especially must the street children, the peddlers and vendors, the newsboys and bootblacks, and all the hordes of nondescript occupations, be brought under systematic supervi- sion. This ought to be the easier for every step already taken.

Finally, we must have compulsory education of the children under sixteen years of age throughout the school year. No factory law can be so good for the children as a school law keep- ing them not only negatively out of factory and workshop, and the teeming, tempting, demoralizing streets, but positively at school, acquiring industrial efficiency and value until they reach an age past all need of child-labor legislation.

At last we are slowly developing a compulsory-education law in Illinois. It is still very rudimentary, and has only during the present year received a workable penalty clause. Children under ten years of age are required by it to enter school in September and continue in attendance throughout sixteen consecutive weeks. Children under fourteen years must enter school before New Year, and attend sixteen weeks. It is difficult to see why they should not all attend throughout the term during which the schools are open in the districts in which they live, since they cannot legally work.

The interlocking of the school law and factory law is the usual line of evolution where child-labor legislation develops successfully. In New York state children are required to read and write simple English before they can legally be employed under sixteen years of age ; in Michigan they must attend school half the year before beginning work under sixteen years ; and a similar provision has recently been enacted in Pennsylvania.

In Illinois, also, it may prove possible to work positively where it has been very difficult to work negatively. It may be that the positive command, "Thou shalt go to school," will meet readier compliance than the negative one, "Thou shalt not toil in early childhood." It is, however, clear that the two laws