This is the soil in which all sorts of serious evils strike root. It is
a truism that children are the chief asset of a nation. Yet while the
United States government allotted 92.8 per cent. of its appropriations
for 1920 toward war expenses, three per cent. to public works, 3.2 per
cent. to "primary governmental functions," no more than one per cent.
is appropriated to education, research and development. Of this one
per cent., only a small proportion is devoted to public health. The
conservation of childhood is a minor consideration. While three cents
is spent for the more or less doubtful protection of women and
children, fifty cents is given to the Bureau of Animal Industry, for
the protection of domestic animals. In 1919, the State of Kansas
appropriated $25,000 to protect the health of pigs, and $4,000 to
protect the health of children. In four years our Federal Government
appropriated--roughly speaking--$81,000,000 for the improvement
of rivers; $13,000,000 for forest conservation; $8,000,000 for the
experimental plant industry; $7,000,000 for the experimental animal
industry; $4,000,000 to combat the foot and mouth disease; and less than
half a million for the protection of child life.
Competent authorities tell us that no less than 75 per cent. of American
children leave school between the ages of fourteen and sixteen to go
to work. This number is increasing. According to the recently published
report on "The Administration of the First Child Labor Law," in five
states in which it was necessary for the Children's Bureau to handle
directly the working certificates of children, one-fifth of the 25,000
children who applied for certificates left school when they were in the
fourth grade; nearly a tenth of them had never attended school at all or
had not gone beyond the first grade; and only one-twenty-fifth had gone
as far as the eighth grade.
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