Now let us ask what are a child's rights, and what are the rights of
society over the child. Its rights, being clearly those of any other
human being, are summed up in the right to live: that is, to have all
the conclusive arguments that prove that it would be better dead, that
it is a child of wrath, that the population is already excessive, that
the pains of life are greater than its pleasures, that its sacrifice in
a hospital or laboratory experiment might save millions of lives,
etc. etc. etc., put out of the question, and its existence accepted
as necessary and sacred, all theories to the contrary notwithstanding,
whether by Calvin or Schopenhauer or Pasteur or the nearest person with
a taste for infanticide. And this right to live includes, and in fact
is, the right to be what the child likes and can, to do what it likes
and can, to make what it likes and can, to think what it likes and
can, to smash what it dislikes and can, and generally to behave in an
altogether unaccountable manner within the limits imposed by the similar
rights of its neighbors. And the rights of society over it clearly
extend to requiring it to qualify itself to live in society without
wasting other peoples time: that is, it must know the rules of the road,
be able to read placards and proclamations, fill voting papers, compose
and send letters and telegrams, purchase food and clothing and
railway tickets for itself, count money and give and take change, and,
generally, know how many beans made five. It must know some law, were it
only a simple set of commandments, some political economy, agriculture
enough to shut the gates of fields with cattle in them and not to
trample on growing crops, sanitation enough not to defile its haunts,
and religion enough to have some idea of why it is allowed its rights
and why it must respect the rights of others. And the rest of its
education must consist of anything else it can pick up; for beyond this
society cannot go with any certainty, and indeed can only go this far
rather apologetically and provisionally, as doing the best it can on
very uncertain ground.
Should Children Earn their Living?
Now comes the question how far children should be asked to contribute
to the support of the community. In approaching it we must put aside
the considerations that now induce all humane and thoughtful political
students to agitate for the uncompromising abolition of child labor
under our capitalist system. It is not the least of the curses of that
system that it will bequeath to future generations a mass of legislation
to prevent capitalists from "using up nine generations of men in one
generation," as they began by doing until they were restrained by law at
the suggestion of Robert Owen, the founder of English Socialism. Most of
this legislation will become an insufferable restraint upon freedom
and variety of action when Capitalism goes the way of Druidic human
sacrifice (a much less slaughterous institution). There is every reason
why a child should not be allowed to work for commercial profit or for
the support of its parents at the expense of its own future; but there
is no reason whatever why a child should not do some work for its own
sake and that of the community if it can be shewn that both it and the
community will be the better for it.