Page:Solution of the Child Labor Problem.djvu/71

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64
CHILD LABOUR PROBLEM.

of one hundred boys, sixty-five were past fourteen, one had finished the eighth grade, eleven had finished the sixth grade, ninety were born in the United States. And, most important of all, for this study, "only thirteen of the one hundred claimed to have never worked. Of this thirteen six were past fourteen years of age. Not a single boy had ever been apprenticed in any trade." "At this present rate, 8 per cent, of all the children and 12 per cent, of all the boys born in Chicago, who live to be ten years of age, will be brought into the Juvenile Court as delinquents before they are sixteen. The City of Chicago pays for its delinquent children committed to reformatories $168,600 per year."[1]

The child, particularly the boy, who is thrown out upon the world too early in life, and made to face its responsibilities, is overwhelmed with its bigness and wearied by its never changing monotony. He seeks relief

  1. "Child Labor and the Juvenile Court." By James M. Britton, M.D. Proceedings of the Fifth Conference, National Child Labor Committee, 1909. Pp. 112-114.