Page:Solution of the Child Labor Problem.djvu/19

12 of a person, there is no general conclusion. Irrespective of the method of applying it, the true ultimate test of fitness to work will be maturity, and all immature children will be excluded from the factory, not because their birthday record does not show high enough, but because either in mind, in body, or in both, they are immature.

The standard previously suggested of an eighteen-year minimum with protection to twenty-one would be prima facie evidence of maturity, but it would be by no means final. The ultimate test must inevitably be physical and mental capacity to withstand the deaden- ing influence of monotonous factory toil.

There is a child labor problem and it is not, as generally supposed, merely a problem of the child. It is a problem of many aspects, phases, and viewpoints, which can best be emphasized by a few illustrations picked up in the world of working children.

One bitter morning in March the snow