Page:Solution of the Child Labor Problem.djvu/12

5 week. The eighteen-year statutes, however, represent the exception. The fourteen-sixteen-year standard is the one generally adopted. Even the laws providing eighteen as a maximum limit of protection, set fourteen as the minimum. "Could the fourteen-year limit be enforced, the child labor problem would be solved," thinks the man on the street. Should this attitude become general, a point will eventually be reached at which fourteen will be regarded as the "right age."? The public will believe implicitly that child labor under the standard age limit of fourteen is "wrong"; while child labor over that age is "right." The basis for the popular impression has already been established by making compulsory education laws, and laws prohibiting child labor, revolve about fourteen as planets revolve about the sun. Already the age is generally accepted; a continuation of the present policy will lead to its being reverenced; and any attempt to break away from this fetish will meet with