holds for them? And of all children, should not the sons and daughters of the soldiers and sailors be given the benefit of the best preparation available?
It is infinitely harder for children to develop properly in a time of war than it is in a time of peace. In Great Britain, for example, there has been a great increase in juvenile delinquency. The number of children arrested and brought before the courts for breaking the law is larger by forty per cent. than before the war. This is partly because of the absence of the fathers from home, partly because in the first throes of mobilization many of the schools were closed, the buildings being used by the military, and partly because boys and girls by the thousands went to work in munitions factories and other war enterprises at an age when they ought still to have been living a sheltered life.
The lesson which this should teach the people of the United States is that children must continue in school as long as possible. Moreover, according to a study made by the Massachusetts Commission on Industrial and Technical Education, ninety-eight per cent. of the boys and girls in that state who go to work between the ages of fourteen and fifteen engage in unskilled or low grade industries. Thus they have little opportunity for training or advancement. This is corroborated by a report issued by the United States Bureau of Education which shows that a high school graduate earns on the average $1,000 a year as against $500 earned by a poorly educated workman. The National Child Labor Committee has published statistics indicating that a trained worker, eighteen years of age, earns ten dollars a week as compared with seven dollars a week received by an
