labour legislation enacted by the various states there are many differences. The tendency is, however, for each state to require: (i) that a child must reach a specified age and an educational and physical standard before he can be industrially employed; (2) that an official work permit must certify his ability to meet the standards established by the statute; (3) that the age at which children or young persons may be employed at night or in hazardous or un- healthy occupations must be higher than the age at which they may be employed in general occupations. Of these standards the mini- mum age was the first to be generally adopted. With some excep- tions, for vacation periods and certain occupations, every state except three (Mississippi, New Mexico, and Wyoming) has pro- hibited the employment in industry of children under 14 years of age. That the present tendency is toward the establishment of a higher age is indicated by the fact that seven states (California, Maine, Michigan, Montana, Ohio, South Dakota and Texas), representing all parts of the country, have raised the age for enter- ing industry above 14 years. In 1920 seven states required com- pletion of the eighth grade and nine of the sixth grade in school before a work permit could be issued to children between 14 and 16 years of age.
It is only recently that adequate recognition of the facts that the physical effects of premature employment are as serious as the educational, and that the age of a child is not a guaranty of his corresponding physical development, has become general in the United States. Eighteen states provide that although a child may be of the minimum age and have passed the educational test, he cannot go to work until he has had a physical examination by a public health or public school physician and has been found to be of normal development for a child of his age and physically fit for the work at which he is to be employed. In most states, if he fails to pass this test he must return to school pending correction of defects or improvement in his general condition. In 10 other states and the District of Columbia an examination may be required in all doubt- ful cases or at the discretion of the officer issuing work permits, and a permit may be refused if the child does not measure up to standard. The increased expenditures necessary for the effective administra- tion of these laws indicate that the public has become converted to the need of a physical standard.
In all except six states child labour laws prohibit the employ- ment of children at night in an enumerated list of occupations. The hours vary. For example, New York prohibits the employment of children under 16 years after 5 P.M. or before 8 A.M. ; California after 10 P.M. or before 5 A.M. The Federal tax virtually establishes a minimum so that employment is in effect prohibited after 7 P.M. or before 6 A.M. in California and other states in which state laws are below the Federal standard in this respect.
In 27 states, including those of most importance industrially, laws prohibit the employment in certain unhealthy processes of children, the minimum age being usually 16 years, sometimes 18 years of age. While the lists of prohibited occupations are not identical, the recently enacted laws follow closely the so-called
uniform child labour law. It prohibits children under 16 years of age operating or assisting in operating sandpaper or wood-polishing machinery; picker machines, or machines used in picking wool, cotton, hair, or any other material; carding machines; leather- burnishing machines; and prohibits their employment in any capac- ity in, about, or in connexion with any processes in which dangerous or poisonous acids are used ; in the manufacture or packing of paints, colours, white or red lead ; in soldering, in occupations causing dust in injurious quantities; in the manufacture or use of dangerous or poisonous dyes; in the manufacture or preparation of compositions with dangerous or poisonous gases; in the manufacture or use of compositions of dye injurious to health; and in assorting, manu- facturing, or packing tobacco.
During the decade there was a great development of the earlier movement for manual training in the schools. The Smith-Hughes Act of 1917 offers to the states Federal reimbursement, up to a fixed maximum, of one-half of the money spent by the local boards for training teachers and providing vocational education in the public schools. Interest in vocational education has also greatly stimulated the establishment of compulsory part-time continuation schools in which vocational education is offered. A movement toward juvenile employment agencies also developed. It began with efforts by pri- vate organizations to place children in skilled trades and with advice in school as to employment opportunities. The development of vocational classes in the schools increased the appreciation on the part of school authorities of the value of this work. During the war a beginning was made in coordinating all the placement work for minors under the Junior Department of the U.S. Employment Service in the Department of Labour. At the end of the war the appropriation of the Employment Service was so reduced by Con- gress that there has been little development of this plan, but many of the bureaux established in connexion with the schools have increased in importance.
REFERENCES. For further information see Nettie P. McGill, "Trend of Child Labor in the United States, 1913 to 1919," Monthly Labor Review (Bureau of Labor Statistics vol. xii., No. 4, April 1921); The States and Child Labor (Children's Year Leaflet No. 13, U.S. Children's Bureau Publication No. 58, 1919); The Administration of the First Federal Child Labor Law (U.S. Children's Bureau, Industrial Series No. 5, 1921).
Federal Board for Vocational Education, Annual Reports, 1917, 1918, 1919; Bulletins Nos. 13, Agricultural Education; 17, Trade and Industrial Education; 18, Evening Industrial Schools; 19, Part-time Trade and Industrial Education; 22, Retail Selling; 28, Home Economics Education; 34, Commercial Education; 37, Survey of the Needs in the Field of Vocational Home Economics Education; 54, Survey of Junior Commercial Occupations; 55, Compulsory Part-time School Attendance Laws; 58, Trade and Industrial Education for Girls and Women.
U.S. Bureau of Education, Bulletin Nos. 36 and 37, 1914 (Education for the Home) ; No. 85, 1919 (Development of Agricultural Instruction in Secondary Schools). (G. An.)
