to judges and probation officers thruout the country. A brief report on Juvenile Delinquency in the European Countries at War has also been prepared. One of the especially important aspects of child conservation has to do with the problem of child labor. In the legal significance of the word a child is an infant until he is twenty-one years old, and until our children have reacht manhood and womanhood, during all the years of physical and mental change and development, they are entitled to the special protection of the state. With the idea of fixing a certain minimum standard of child protection for the entire country, below which no state should be allowed to fall, the Congress of the United States in 1916 passed the United States Child Labor Act, effective September 1, 1917. In April, 1917, an appropriation was made for the necessary preliminary work and for the enforcement of the act, and a new division, the Child Labor Division, with the duty of enforcing it, was added to the Children's Bureau. A good child-labor law should fix for all children permitted to work three minimum standards-a standard of age, a standard of health, and a standard of education-and it should determine hours and conditions of work. The United States Child Labor Law did two of these things for a certain group of children. It prohibited the shipment in interstate or foreign commerce of the products of factories, mills, workshops, manufacturing establishments, canneries, mines, and quarries, if within thirty days prior to their removal the age and hour standards fixed by the law had been violated. These standards were not so high as those of a number of states. Moreover, many large child-employing occupations, such as store, messenger, and office work, usually regulated by state laws, were entirely unaffected by the act. On the other hand, they were higher in certain respects than the standards of the laws in many states. In the summer of 1917 a test case was brought in the Western Judicial District of North Carolina, and the United States judge of that district enjoined the district attorney from enforcing the law on the ground that it was unconstitutional. This decision applied only to the Western Judicial District of North Carolina. An appeal was carried to the United States Supreme Court, and during the nine months while a decision was pending the act was enforst in the other parts of the country. The experience of these nine months showed that the act was enforceable, that it protected many children unprotected by state laws, that it was possible to obtain the cooperation of state and local officials, and that the federal act was a lever by which state standards could be raised. On June 3, 1918, the act was declared unconstitutional by the Supreme Court by a vote of five to four. Various methods of meeting the emergency caused by this decision of the Supreme Court have been suggested, and a new measure will no doubt be framed in the near future. The United States Child Labor Law, however, toucht only one of the many legislative aspects of the problem of child conservation, all of which, with this exception-and this for the present-are in the hands of the individual states. Each state has so large and complicated a body of laws affecting children that it is difficult for even a person very much interested in the subject to know exactly what are the laws which are helping to conserve or to destroy-child life in his own state. In order to make this knowledge available the Children's Bureau is preparing a complete reference index of all the laws in each state relating to child welfare. For about half the states this index has been completed. A copy of the index for any state will be sent, upon application, to anyone to whom it will be of use. It is especially valuable to persons working for the revision and codification of their state laws relating to children. This index covers laws relating to parent and child, offenses against the child, health and sanitation, recreation, child labor and school attendance, and laws relating to defective, delinquent, and dependent children. DEPARTMENT OF ELEMENTARY EDUCATION SECRETARY'S MINUTES OFFICERS President-ALICE L. HARRIS, assistant superintendent of schools... Worcester, Mass. . Portland, Ore. FIRST SESSION-TUESDAY FORENOON, JULY 2, 1918 The meeting was called to order by President Alice L. Harris at nine o'clock in Music Hall, Carnegie Institute. After patriotic singing led by Frederick L. Davies, Westinghouse High School, Pittsburgh, Pa., the following papers under the topic "A New Curriculum for a New Democracy" were given: "The Body a Fit and Perfect Tool"-Katherine D. Blake, principal, Public School No. 6, New York, N.Y. "Manual Arts for Social Needs and Daily Living"-John G. Thompson, principal, Fitchburg Normal School, Fitchburg, Mass. "The Demands for a More Vital Academic Contest"-Lotus D. Hoffman, dean, College of Education, University of Minnesota, Minneapolis, Minn. Discussion-William M. Davidson, superintendent of schools, Pittsburgh, Pa.; W. T. Bawden, specialist in industrial education, Bureau of Education; Otis W. Caldwell, director, Lincoln School, Teachers College, Columbia University, New York, N.Y. SECOND SESSION-WEDNESDAY FORENOON, JULY 3, 1918 The following program was presented: "Training for Social Adjustment—the Citizens of the Future"-John W. Withers, superintendent of schools, St. Louis, Mo.; Mary D. Bradford, superintendent of schools, Kenosha, Wis., took the place of John W. Withers on the program. "A Better Appreciation of Cultural Values"-Nathan C. Schaeffer, state superintendent of public instruction, Harrisburg, Pa. Discussion: "A Better Appreciation of Ethical Values"-A. R. Brubacher, president, State College for Teachers, Albany, N.Y.; Mary D. Bradford, superintendent of schools, Kenosha, Wis.; N. H. Chaney, superintendent of schools, Youngstown, Ohio; Iva Lowther Peters, fellow in sociology, Clark University, Worce ter, Mass. THIRD SESSION-THURSDAY AFTERNOON, JULY 4, 1918 Joint session with the Kindergarten Department and the School Garden Association. The following papers were given under the topic, "Americanization": "The Kindergarten as a Factor in Americanization”—Caroline Hedger, National Kindergarten Association, New York, N.Y. "Spoken English as a Factor in Americanization"-Earl Barnes, lecturer, Philadelphia, Pa. "Americanization thru School Gardens"-Van Everie Kilpatrick, president, School Garden Association, New York, N.Y. Discussion-David B. Johnson, president, Winthrop College, Rock Hill, S.C. Discussion of Entire Program-G. Stanley Hall, president, Clark University, Worcester, Mass. PAPERS AND DISCUSSIONS MANUAL ARTS FOR SOCIAL NEEDS AND FOR DAILY LIVING FITCHBURG, JOHN G. THOMPSON, PRINCIPAL, FITCHBURG NORMAL SCHOOL, MASS. The war has taught us already that no future program in any line of work can be arranged without considering the changes which the war has caused and is likely to cause. The titanic struggle has already created a new order in government, a new order in business, and a new order in the home and in the life of the individual. It must bring about in the coming years a new order in the school. The new program of school work will recognize the following facts that have been made clear as never before by conditions due to this great world-crisis: 1. The primary importance of constructive ability, and the secondary importance of books and book knowledge. 2. Freedom in a democracy means freedom to serve, and each individual must serve and conserve for the benefit of all. We learn to serve only by serving, and not by talking or reading about it. 3. Every human being demands instinctively and persistently an opportunity for self-expression. The schools must guide the pupil to the field where he can find himself. This must often be learned by trial and error, a plan that has been too much derided. The most efficient military people the world has ever known are learning through trial and error that they cannot rule the world. 4. A terrible world-catastrophe has been possible chiefly because peoples do not know one another and one another's aims and work. Sympathy and brotherly love based upon understanding are necessary for the peace and safety of the world. Let the pupil work in many fields of world-work, and he will, in finding himself, find sympathy with all workers. More of constructive work must be introduced into the elementary public schools to make the schools miniature reproductions of the world-life. School work should be proportioned as work is proportioned in real life, until such a time as the pupil can intelligently determine what special line of activity he intends to follow. If a child is to serve when older, he should begin to serve as young as possible, helping of course only in such lines of work as will be pleasant and profitable to him. This is no argument or suggestion of argument for child labor, as the term child labor is usually employed; but the child must be allowed to try many lines of constructive work in order that he may express himself thru doing, making, creating something in the creation of which he takes pride and pleasure. |