Page:Solution of the Child Labor Problem.djvu/24

17 of children on the farm, in the home, and in the factory, mill, and mine. Three-fifths of all of the child laborers are engaged in agriculture, particularly in cotton-picking in the Southern States. As yet no attempt has been made to legislate against agricultural child labor. There has been considerable agitation regarding the child berry-pickers in the trucking states; and in some states, work in the canneries has been prohibited. Agricultural labor as such has not, however, been touched, first, because of the assumed educative value of the work; second, because the farmers hold the balance of power in many if not most legislatures; and third, because domestic service and agricultural labor are generally regarded as of private concern and not subject to legislation.

What are the relative merits of these arguments? A child on the farm with his father or in the house with her mother will in a majority of cases receive an elementary training infinitely superior to the training afforded by any school. As the majority of children