CHAPTER VI_Child Labor in City Streets

EFFECTS OF STREET WORK UPON CHILDREN

All the evil effects of street work upon children observed by students

of the problem have been here divided into three groups, under the

headings of physical, moral, and material deterioration. It must be

understood that this is a summary of such effects and that while the

influences of the street are unquestionably bad, any one child exposed

to them is not likely to suffer to the full extent suggested below.

However, deterioration in one form or another is invariably noted in

children who have been engaged in street work for any length of time,

and this is sufficient proof of the undesirability of such employment

for our boys and girls.

EFFECTS OF STREET WORK ON CHILDREN

Material { Form distaste for regular employment.

Deterioration { Small chance of acquiring a trade.

{ Drift into large class of casual workers.

{ Night work.

{ Excessive fatigue.

{ Exposure to bad weather.

Physical { Irregularity of sleep and meals.

Deterioration { Use of stimulants--cigarettes, coffee, liquor.

{ Disease through contact with vices.

{ Encouragement to truancy.

{ Independence and defiance of parental control.

Moral { Weakness cultivated by formation of bad habits.

Deterioration { Form liking for petty excitements of street.

{ Opportunities to become delinquent.

{ Large percentage of recruits to criminal population.

These are the insidious influences permeating street work and rampant

in all our cities. They are minimized and even denied by certain

ignorant or interested parties who base their assertions upon the fact

that prominent men of to-day were once newsboys or bootblacks, and

therefore jump to the conclusion that their success is due to the

training received in this way when young. The truth is more likely to

be that such individuals have succeeded, not because of this early

training, but in spite of it. Boys of exceptionally strong character

will force themselves out of such an environment unscathed, but the

great majority of children have not sufficient mental and moral

stamina to withstand these influences. The minority will take care of

itself under any circumstances,--it is with the weaker majority that

we must deal. The problem is an urgent one, but generally ignored,

for, as Myron E. Adams says, the public sees the street worker at his

best and neglects him at his worst.

The charge that in street work a child has small chance of acquiring a

suitable trade is one of the worst counts in the indictment. Street

work leads to nothing else; the various occupations are so many

industrial pitfalls, and the children who get into them must sooner or

later struggle out and begin over again at some other line of work, if

they would succeed.

"These children (street traders) furnish a very large proportion of

recruits to the criminal population. Those who do not graduate into

crime form a liking for the petty excitements of the street and a

distaste for regular employment. They lack skill and perseverance,

shun the monotony of a permanent job, and as they grow older either

follow itinerant and questionable trades or become ill-paid and

inefficient casual laborers. Therefore these young people are a source

of waste to society rather than of profit."[81]

The large percentage of former newsboys among the inmates of boys'

reformatories recently induced an active social worker to send an

inquiry to the superintendents of such institutions and to juvenile

court judges in different parts of the country relative to the effect

of newspaper selling on schoolboys. The statements received in reply

are set forth in a leaflet which was published in 1910.[82]

These officials are practically unanimous in condemning street trading

by boys, declaring that newsboys are generally stupid and almost

always morally defiled; that the pittance they earn is bought at great

sacrifice; that the spending of their earnings without supervision is

the worst thing that can befall them; that the life leads to gambling,

dishonesty and spendthrift habits; that it is a dead-end occupation

leading to nothing; that it abounds in evil temptations; that the boys

are comparatively idle and see and hear the worst that is to be seen

and heard on the street; that the work subjects boys to bad influences

before they are strong enough to resist them; that delinquency results

from their enforced association with all classes of boys; and

concluding that every possible protection should be thrown about the

young boy. Some of these officers gave due consideration to the

advantages of street trading, and one made the naïve statement that

newspaper selling was not a bad business for a boy who could withstand

its temptations.

Although the law of New York State provides a modicum of regulation

for street trading, nevertheless it has not been effective because of

extremely indifferent enforcement. Like almost all other

street-trading laws in the United States, it places the age limit at

the ridiculous age of ten years. A movement was started recently in

Buffalo to remedy the situation, and the following statement was

published:--

"During the past year we have sought to discover, not by theorizing,

but by uncovering the facts, what is the effect of street work on the

boy. School records of 230 Buffalo newsboys were secured. Eighteen per

cent were reported as truants; 23 per cent stood poor or very poor in

attendance and deportment. Twenty-eight per cent stood poor or very

poor in scholarship, while only 15 per cent of the other children in

the same schools failed in their work. An investigation at the truant

school showed that 46.6 per cent of the boys there had been engaged in

the street trades. On the basis of these facts and studies made in

connection with the schools, juvenile courts and reformatories

elsewhere, we hope to secure legislation raising the age below which

boys may not engage in the street trades to twelve years, and making

it illegal for boys under fourteen to sell after 8 P.M. We are also

striving to secure better enforcement of this law in Buffalo and other

cities."[83]

This folder also states that circular letters were sent to all Buffalo

school principals asking about the effect on scholarship of the early

morning delivery of newspapers by their pupils, and also to

physicians inquiring about the effect of such work on physical

development. The hours for such newspaper delivery were from 4.30 A.M.

to 7 A.M. Eight principals and six physicians denounced such work to

every one who favored it. Referring to the occupational history of

reformatory inmates, a recent report for New York City says: "The

parental school (school for truants) statistics show that 80 out of

its 230 inmates were newsboys, while 60 per cent of the entire number

have been street traders. The Catholic Protectorate, full of Italians

(noted as street traders), gives us a record of 469 or 80 per cent out

of their 590 boys interviewed, who have followed the street

profession, and 295 or 50 per cent had been newsboys selling over

three months. The New York Juvenile Asylum gives us 31 per cent of its

inmates as newsboys and 60 per cent as street traders. The House of

Refuge repeats the same story: 63 per cent of those committed to that

institution had been street traders, of whom 32 per cent were

newsboys. If 63 per cent of the House of Refuge inmates have been

street traders, and if the majority of such have begun their so-called

criminal careers, which end invariably in the state penitentiary, why

do we permit children to trade on our streets?"[84]

Another American writer says: "Whatever the cause, the effect on the

newsboy is always the same. He lives on the streets at night in an

atmosphere of crime and criminals, and he takes in vice and evil with

the air he breathes. If he grows into manhood and escapes the

tuberculosis which seizes so many of these boys of the street, the

things that he has learned as a professional newsboy lead in one

direction,--toward crime and things criminal. The professional newsboy

is the embryo criminal."[85]

The dangers to the morals of children are particularly emphasized by

those who have given this subject any attention. Mr. John Spargo says:

"Nor is it only in factories that these grosser forms of immorality

flourish. They are even more prevalent among the children of the

street trades,--newsboys, bootblacks, messengers and the like. The

proportion of newsboys who suffer from venereal diseases is alarmingly

great. The superintendent of the John Worthy School of Chicago, Mr.

Sloan, asserts that 'one third of all the newsboys who come to the

John Worthy School have venereal diseases and that 10 per cent of the

remaining newsboys at present in the Bridewell are, according to the

physician's diagnosis, suffering from similar diseases.' The newsboys

who come to the school are, according to Mr. Sloan, on an average of

one third below the ordinary standard of physical development, a

condition which will be readily understood by those who know the ways

of the newsboys of our great cities--their irregular habits, scant

feeding, sexual excesses, secret vices, sleeping in hallways,

basements, stables and quiet corners. With such a low physical

standard the ravages of venereal diseases are tremendously

increased."[86]

The economic aspect of this work is magnified by most people beyond

its true proportion; the earnings of street-working children are not

needed by their families in most cases, and even in those instances

where their poverty demands such relief it is wrong to purchase it at

the price paid in evil training and bad effects of every kind.

Commenting on this point the chief truant officer for Indianapolis

says: "A large number of truants are recruited from that large

unrestricted class whose members are to be found competing with one

another on our street corners from early until late. The pennies which

many of them earn are a material aid in replenishing the depleted

resources of some of our homes. Yet, it is a question whether such

child laborers will not in the future bequeath to society an abundant

reward of human wreckage which may be traced to such traffic and its

many temptations."[87]

As to the bad judgment of parents in seeking the premature earnings of

their children, a Chicago physician says: "The average newsboy, if he

works 365 days a year, does not earn over a hundred dollars; if he

becomes delinquent it costs the state at least two hundred dollars a

year to care for him. When we remember that twelve out of every one

hundred boys between ten and sixteen become delinquent, and that over

60 per cent of these boys come from street trades, it does not take

long for a business man to figure out that it is rather poor economy

to let a ten-year-old boy go into at least this field of labor....

From an economic standpoint the family that sends out a ten-year-old

boy to sell papers loses a great deal more in actual money from the

boy's lack of future earning capacity than the boy can possibly earn

by his youthful efforts. In other words, this sort of labor from an

economic standpoint is an absurdity."[88]

In its splendid report on street trading, the British departmental

committee of 1910 stated: "We learnt that much of this money, so

readily made, is spent with equal dispatch. The children spend it on

sweets and cigarettes, and in attending music halls, and in very many

cases only a portion, if any, of the daily earnings is taken home....

In many towns the traders are drawn from the poorest of homes, but

numerous witnesses have emphatically stated that their experience

leads them to think that cases where real benefits accrue to the home

are rare."[89]

The lack of proper training during childhood almost invariably brings

about a tragedy in the lives of working people. The premature

employment of children at any kind of labor which interferes with

their education and their training in work for which they are fitted

is most disastrous in its effects and far outweighs in future misery

the little income thus secured in childhood. A careful student of the

working class declares: "Many bright and capable men and women in this

neighborhood [Greenwich Village, New York City] would undoubtedly have

been able to occupy high positions in the industrial world if they had

not been _forced into unskilled work when young_."[90]

With reference to the effects of street trading an English writer

says: "It is difficult to imagine a life which could be worse for a

young boy. Apart from the moral dangers, it is a means of earning a

livelihood which perhaps more than any other is subject to the most

violent fluctuations. But the uncertainty of the income is a trifling

evil by comparison with the certainty of the bad moral effects of

street trading on boys and youths. The life of the street trader is a

continual gamble, unredeemed by any steady work; it is undisciplined

and casual, and exposed to all the temptations of the street at its

worst. The great majority of the boys who sell papers drift away into

crime or idleness or some form of living by their wits."[91] The same

writer also declares: "Few things could have a worse effect than this

street trading on those engaged in it. It initiates them into the

mysteries of the beggar's whine and breeds in them the craving for an

irregular, undisciplined method of life."[92] And the editor of these

English studies adds: "It is part of the street-bred child's precocity

that he acquires a too early acquaintance with matters which as a

child he ought not to know at all. His language and conversation often

reveal a familiarity with vice which would be terrible were it not so

superficial."[93]

Speaking of immorality in the narrow sense of the word, the same

writer says: "We do not believe that immorality of this kind is

universal among the boys and girls of the labouring classes, nor do we

believe that the town youth is any worse than his brother and sister

of the country. Coarseness and impurity are not the distinguishing

mark of any one class or any one place. We question whether comparison

of sins and self-indulgence would work out at all to the disadvantage

of the town labouring class as a whole. It must be remembered that one

commonplace factor, the glaring publicity of the street, is all on the

side of the town youth's virtue. The street has its safeguards as well

as its dangers."[94]

With reference to the blind alley character of street work, another

English writer avers: "As in London, the labours of the school

children [in Manchester] are in no wise apprenticeship or preparation

for their future lives. The grocer's little errand boy will be

discharged when he grows bigger and needs higher wages; the chemist's

runner is not in training to become a chemist. The three farthings an

hour on the one hand, and the physical, moral and intellectual

degeneration on the other, are all that the little ones here, as

elsewhere, get out of toil from which many a grown man would

shrink."[95]

Another English student of labor conditions declares:

"Teachers--together with magistrates, police authorities, ministers of

religion and social workers--are practically unanimous in condemning

street trading as an employment of children of school age. In this

occupation children deteriorate rapidly from the physical, mental and

moral point of view."[96]

Still another writer says: "One great evil which results from this

life of street trading in childhood is the fact that it is fatal to

industrial efficiency in after life."[97]

The testimony of Sir Lauder Brunton, M.D., given in 1904, on the

occasion of the inquiry into physical deterioration in Great Britain,

is to the point, in spite of the fact that the committee directing the

inquiry stated that "The impressions gathered from the great majority

of the witnesses examined do not support the belief that there is any

general progressive deterioration."[98] Sir Lauder Brunton's testimony

was as follows: "The causes of deficient physique are very numerous

... it is very likely that in order to eke out the scanty earnings of

the father and mother the child is sent, out of school hours, to earn

a penny or two, and so it comes to school wearied out in body by

having had to work early in the morning, exhausted by not having had

food, and then is sent to learn. Well, it cannot learn."[99] Later the

same witness testified, "One of the very worst causes [of physical

deterioration] is that children in actual attendance at school, work

before and after schooltime."[100]

In a special inquiry into the physical effects of work upon 600 boys

of school age made in 1905 by Dr. Charles J. Thomas, assistant health

officer to the London County Council's education department, it was

found that many of the children suffered from nervous strain, heart

disease and deformities as a result of prolonged labor. Of the 600

boys, 134 were shop boys, 63 were milk boys, 87 were newsboys and the

others were scattered among various employments. It was found that

work during the dinner hour and also the long work-day on Saturday

were particularly harmful. As to fatigue among the newsboys, of those

working 20 hours or less, 60 per cent were affected; of those working

between 20 and 30 hours, 70 per cent; while of those working more than

30 hours per week, 91 per cent showed fatigue. As to anæmia, among the

newsboys, of those working 20 hours or less it appeared among only 19

per cent; but of those working 20 to 30 hours, 30 per cent showed it;

while of those working over 30 hours per week, 73 per cent were

afflicted in this way. As to nerve strain, of those working 20 hours

or less 16 per cent were suffering from it; of those working 20 to 30

hours, 35 per cent; while of those working over 30 hours, 37 per cent

showed nerve strain. As to deformities, none were noted among boys

working less than 20 hours a week, but 10 per cent of those working 20

to 30 hours or more were found to be afflicted. All elementary

schoolboys showed deformities to the extent of 8 per cent, but of

those engaged in different kinds of work from 20 to 30 hours a week,

21 per cent showed deformities. Flatfoot was found to be the chief

deformity produced by newspaper selling, this being caused by the

boys' having to be on their feet too much.[101]

One of the most decisive blows delivered against street work by

children in Great Britain was the statement of Thomas Burke of the

Liverpool City Council, a son of working people, who had lived in a

crowded city street for twenty years, had attended a public elementary

school until fourteen years of age, where the number of child street

traders was very large, and had become convinced that "work after

school hours was decidedly injurious to health and character."

Referring to the material condition of his street-trading

acquaintances, he said: "Almost all the boys sent out to work after

school hours from the school referred to have failed in the battle of

life. Not one is a member of any of the regular trades, while all who

were sent to trade in the streets have gone down to the depths of

social misery if not degradation ... a great proportion of those who

did not work after school hours, or frequent the streets as newspaper

sellers, occupy respectable positions in the city."[102]

Miss Ina Tyler of the St. Louis School of Social Economy in a study of

St. Louis newsboys made in 1910, found that of 50 newsboys under 11

years of age, 43 gambled, 42 went to cheap shows and 23 used tobacco;

while of 100 newsboys 11 to 16 years of age, 86 gambled, 92 went to

cheap shows and 76 used tobacco.[103]

Among the conclusions of the British interdepartmental committee of

1901 is the following: "Street hawking is not injurious to the health

if the hours are not long, and the work is not done late at night; but

its moral effects are far worse than the physical, and this employment

in the center of many large towns makes the streets hotbeds for the

corruption of children who learn to drink, to gamble and to use vile

language, while girls are exposed to even worse things."[104]

The British departmental committee of 1910 declared: "In the case of

both boys and girls the effect of this occupation on future prospects

cannot be anything but thoroughly bad, except, possibly, in casual and

exceptional cases. We learn that many boys who sell while at school

manage to obtain other work upon becoming fourteen, but for those who

remain in the street the tendency is to develop into loafers and

'corner boys.' The period between fourteen and sixteen is a critical

time in a boy's life. Street trading provides him with no training; he

gets no discipline, he is not occupied the whole of his time; for a

few years he makes more money and makes it more easily than in an

office or a workshop, and he is exposed to a variety of actively evil

influences."[105]

An important division of the study of street-working children concerns

their standing in the schools. In New York City a few figures are

available through a study recently made there. The distribution of 200

newsboys under fourteen years of age among the school grades is shown

in the following table:[106]--

========================================================

| GRADES | |

AGES +---+---+---+---+---+---+---+---+ SPECIAL |TOTALS

| 1 | 2 | 3 | 4 | 5 | 6 | 7 | 8 | |

------+---+---+---+---+---+---+---+---+---------+-------

7 | 2 | | | | | | | | | 2

8 | | 3 | 2 | | | | | | | 5

9 | | 1 | 6 | 1 | | | | | | 8

10 | | | 6 | 3 | 3 | | | | | 12

11 | | 5 | 7 |10 | 7 | 4 | 1 | | 2 | 36

12 | | 1 | 1 |19 |21 | 9 | 7 | 1 | 3 | 62

13 | | | |15 |10 |23 |17 | 7 | 3 | 75

+---+---+---+---+---+---+---+---+---------+-------

Totals| 2 |10 |22 |48 |41 |36 |25 | 8 | 8 | 200

========================================================

Applying the rule that in order to be normal a child must enter the

first grade at the age of either six or seven years and progress with

enough regularity to enable him to attend the eighth grade at the age

of either thirteen or fourteen, it is found that of the 177 newsboys

ten to thirteen years of age inclusive, 118 are backward, 57 are

normal and 2 are beyond their grades. This is shown in the following

table:--

==============================================

AGES |BACKWARD | NORMAL | AHEAD | TOTAL

-----------+---------+--------+-------+-------

10 | 6 | 6 | 0 | 12

11 | 22 | 11 | 1 | 34

12 | 42 | 16 | 1 | 59

13 | 48 | 24 | 0 | 72

+---------+--------+-------+-------

Totals | 118 | 57 | 2 | 177

Percentages| 67% | 32% | 1% | 100%

===============================================

This table shows that of the 177 newsboys ten to thirteen years of

age, 67 per cent are backward and 32 per cent are normal, while only 1

per cent are ahead of their grades. Boys of these ages are subject to

the restrictions prescribed by the state law as to hours, and it is

probable that the percentage of retardation would have been even

greater if work at night had not been to some extent prevented.

A report of New York City conditions made in 1907, before the newsboy

law was enforced, says: "The shrewd, bright-eyed, sharp-witted lad is

stupid and sleepy in the schoolroom; 295 newsboys compared with

non-working boys in the same class were found to fall below the

average in proficiency. They were also usually older than their

classmates, that is, backward in their grades."[107]

Referring to Manchester newsboys above the age of fourteen years, an

English report[108] says: "They are not stupid, or even markedly

backward, judged by school standards.... As they grow older they sink

to a lower level, both morally and economically--in fact, little

better than loafers, without aspiration, and content with the squalor

of the common lodging-houses in which they live, if only they have

enough money for their drink and their gambling." Concerning the

younger newsboys the same report continues: "Those who are the

children of extremely poor, and often worthless parents, are often

upon the streets selling their papers during school hours, and their

attendance at the schools, in spite of prosecution of their parents,

is so irregular that they make very little progress. These boys take

to the streets permanently for their livelihood; a few of them

continue, after the age of fourteen, to earn their living by selling

newspapers, but most of them sink into less satisfactory kinds of

occupation." In connection with these statements it should be

remembered that they portray conditions existing prior to the adoption

in 1902 of local rules on street trading. With reference to the

alleged cleverness of street Arabs, a British observer draws this

distinction: "Street-trading children are more cunning than other

children, but not more intelligent."[109]

In St. Louis there was no regulation until the Missouri law of 1911

was passed; and in 1910 Miss Ina Tyler, in a study of 106 newsboys of

that city, found the following conditions:--

NUMBER BELOW NORMAL

YEARS SCHOOL GRADE

10 10 out of 16 62%

11 12 out of 16 75%

12 16 out of 28 57%

13 25 out of 33 75%

14 11 out of 13 84%

-- --- ---

74 106 70%

These figures were copied by the writer from charts displayed at the

child labor exhibit of the National Conference of Charities and

Correction in St. Louis in 1910, but efforts to ascertain the method

of determining these percentages were unavailing. Therefore they

cannot be compared with the figures in the preceding tables, because

it is by no means certain that the standard ages for normal school

standing were adopted in the compilation of this table.

In Toledo, Ohio, there is no regulation governing street work by

children, although a local association makes an effort to look after

the welfare of newsboys. In October, 1911, the writer visited the four

public common school buildings nearest the business district of this

city and found 287 children in attendance who were regularly engaged

in some form of street work out of school hours. The great majority of

them were newsboys. The distribution of these children according to

age and grade is given below:--

AGES

=====================================================================

Grade | 5 | 6 | 7 | 8 | 9 | 10 | 11 | 12 | 13 | 14 | 15 | 16 | Totals

------+---+---+---+---+---+----+----+----+----+----+----+----+-------

1 | 1 | 8 | 5 | 4 | 4 | 1 | | | | | | | 23

2 | | | 7 |12 | 8 | 2 | 3 | | 2 | | | | 34

3 | | | 1 | 5 | 8 | 22 | 4 | 7 | 3 | 1 | | | 51

4 | | | | 3 | 7 | 17 | 9 | 11 | 6 | 2 | 1 | 2 | 58

5 | | | | | | 8 | 10 | 10 | 7 | 5 | 4 | | 44

6 | | | | | | | 7 | 7 | 16 | 3 | 4 | | 37

7 | | | | | | | 1 | 5 | 6 | 9 | 3 | 1 | 25

8 | | | | | | | | | 5 | 7 | 3 | | 15

------+---+---+---+---+---+----+----+----+----+----+----+----+-------

Totals| 1 | 8 | 13| 24| 27| 50 | 34 | 40 | 45 | 27 | 15 | 3 | 287

=====================================================================

Adopting the same method for determining retardation as in the case of

the New York figures, we find that of these 287 street-working school

children of Toledo, 55 per cent are backward, 43 per cent are normal

and 2 per cent are ahead of their grades. Or, selecting the children

ten to thirteen years of age, as was done with the New York figures,

we have the following results:--

=========================================================

AGES | BACKWARD | NORMAL | AHEAD | TOTAL

-----------+-------------+----------+----------+---------

10 | 25 | 25 | | 50

11 | 16 | 17 | 1 | 34

12 | 28 | 12 | | 40

13 | 34 | 11 | | 45

Totals | 103 | 65 | 1 | 169

-----------+-------------+----------+----------+---------

Percentages| 61% | 38% | 1% | 100%

=========================================================

These percentages show that conditions in Toledo are only slightly

better than in New York City. This is surprising because of the great

difference in the working conditions of the two cities, the

metropolitan street children being subjected to far greater nervous

strain because of the more congested population and heavier street

traffic.

RETARDED CHILDREN IN ELEMENTARY SCHOOLS (TOLEDO), 1910-1911

_Grades_

| FIRST

+-+--------------

| |NORMAL AGE 6-7

| | SECOND

| +-+--------------

| | |NORMAL AGE 7-8

| |

| | | THIRD

| | +-+--------------

| | | |NORMAL AGE 8-9

| | |

| | | | FOURTH

| | | +-+--------------

| | | |

| | | | +-+----------------

| | | | |

| | | | | +-+----------------

| | | | | |

| | | | | | +-+----------------

| | | | | | |

| | | | | | | +-+----------------

| | | | | | | |

| | | | | | | | +-----+----------

V V V V V V V V V

==========+====+====+====+====+====+====+====+====+======+======

----------+----+----+----+----+----+----+----+----+------+------

1 year | 325| 449| 500| 483| 528| 507| 366| 209| 3,367| 53.5

| | | | | | | | | |

2 years | 91| 170| 215| 346| 384| 324| 194| 72| 1,796| 28.5

| | | | | | | | | |

3 years | 33| 53| 101| 152| 219| 119| 33| 17| 727| 11.5

| | | | | | | | | |

4 or more | 16| 42| 74| 131| 105| 19| 3| 5| 395| 6.2

| | | | | | | | | |

retarded | 465| 714| 890|1112|1236| 969| 596| 303| 6,285|

| | | | | | | | | |

each grade|3114|2680|2548|2400|2209|1856|1284| 901|16,992|

| | | | | | | | | |

each grade|14.9|26.6|34.8|46.3|55.9|52.2|46.4|33.6| 36.9|

==========+====+====+====+====+====+====+====+====+======+=======

RETARDED STREET WORKERS IN FOUR TOLEDO COMMON SCHOOLS, OCTOBER, 1911

_Grades_

| FIRST

+-+--------------

| |NORMAL AGE 6-7

| | SECOND

| +-+--------------

| | |NORMAL AGE 7-8

| |

| | | THIRD

| | +-+--------------

| | | |NORMAL AGE 8-9

| | |

| | | | FOURTH

| | | +-+--------------

| | | |

| | | | +-+----------------

| | | | |

| | | | | +-+----------------

| | | | | |

| | | | | | +-+----------------

| | | | | | |

| | | | | | | +-+----------------

| | | | | | | |

| | | | | | | | +-----+----------

V V V V V V V V V

==========+====+====+====+====+====+====+====+====+======+======

----------+----+----+----+----+----+----+----+----+------+------

1 year | 4| 8| 22| 9| 10| 16| 9| 3| 81| 51.6

| | | | | | | | | |

2 years | 4| 2| 4| 11| 7| 3| 3| | 34| 21.7

| | | | | | | | | |

3 years | 1| 3| 7| 6| 5| 4| 1| | 27| 17.2

| | | | | | | | | |

4 or more | | 2| 4| 5| 4| | | | 15| 9.5

| | | | | | | | | |

retarded | 9| 15| 37| 31| 26| 23| 13| 3| 157|

| | | | | | | | | |

Enrollment| 23| 34| 51| 58| 44| 37| 25| 15| 287|

| | | | | | | | | |

Per cent |39.1|44.1|72.5|53.4| 59|62.1| 52| 20| 54.7|

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A comparison between the table given in the report of the Toledo Board

of Education for 1911 showing the total number of retarded children in

the elementary schools, and a similar table compiled from the figures

for the street-trading children in four Toledo schools given on pages

154 and 155, is most significant. The retardation among the total

number of pupils enrolled is to be found on page 154.[110]

The corresponding figures for the 287 street-trading children in the

four schools are to be found on page 155.

It is especially noteworthy that the percentage of retardation among

the street workers is very much greater than among the total number of

pupils, in every grade except the eighth, while for all the grades it

is 17.8 per cent greater. This becomes all the more significant when

it is remembered that the figures for the total enrollment include the

street workers; hence the excess of retardation among the latter makes

the showing of the former worse than if they were excluded, and

consequently the comparison on page 155 does not appear to be as

unfavorable to the street workers as it is in reality.

On consideration of the figures in the tables on pages 154 and 155,

the conclusion is inevitable that street work greatly promotes the

retardation of school children. There are, of course, other factors

which contribute to bring about this condition of backwardness, such

as poverty, malnutrition and mental deficiency, but there can be no

doubt that the evil effects of street work are in large measure

responsible for the poor showing made in the schools by the children

who follow such occupations.

The many quotations in this chapter from authoritative sources with

reference to the harmful effects of street work upon children

constitute a most severe indictment. Students of labor conditions,

specialists and official committees bitterly denounce the practice of

permitting children to trade in city streets, and cite the

consequences of such neglect. Material, physical and moral

deterioration are strikingly apparent in most children who have

followed street careers and been exposed to their bad environment for

any length of time. We have provided splendid facilities for the

correction of our delinquent children through the medium of juvenile

courts, state reformatories and the probation system, but surely it

would be wise to provide at the same time an ounce of prevention in

addition to this pound of cure. Social workers have returned a true

bill against street work by children. What will the verdict of the

people be?