34 TWENTY-FIRST REPORT. 



We may, however, say that the length of industrial service must be much 

 shorter than under the old regime, possibly approximating curve B. We shall 

 therefore have to solve the problem of occupation for able-bodied vporkers v7ho 

 have become too old for industrial production. 



Labor Turnover. The turnover of labor in modern specialized industry 

 has finally attracted very wide attention and many schemes are being sug- 

 gested for abating its undoubtedly evil effects. None of these schemes seems 

 to have taken note of the fundamental bases of the condition. Chief among 

 these is the excessive monotony of the muscular effort required in automatic 

 tool production. Lesser but still important causes are to be found in the 

 impersonal character of the relation of the worker to his work and in the 

 ease with which temporary relief from the monotony can be found through 

 work of a different character which, as I have before indicated, may be 

 readily undertaken. 



So much for what may be termed direct consequences. I come now to a 

 set of effects which do not have so close a connection with the tool process as 

 those which we have heretofore discussed. I shall note only a few of them. 



The Decrease in Parental Control. I have endeavored to show that 

 through the automatic tool industry can make use of wholly ignorant laborers. 

 This is commonly recognized in the great number of foreigners so employed. 

 But also in the production of many commodities there is much work of a 

 light character wherein nimbleness or quickness or deftness is of more impor- 

 tance -than strength and in which the young are more productive than the 

 adult. Industry therefore can absorb children literally as fast as the law 

 allows. This is, generally speaking, by the age of sixteen. Now, as we have 

 seen, these children do not have to follow an apprenticeship with its long and 

 tedious processes and nominal wage. They can at once go into fully efficient 

 production. They are as economically valuable, that is, they can produce as 

 much, as at any later time in their lives. They are also, as a rule, more 

 profitable to the employer, simply because their experience as well as their 

 cohesion or trade solidarity is less by reason of their immaturity. They are 

 therefore not capable of making and sustaining the demands of adults. Nor 

 does the social consciousness demand that they be paid as highly. Conse- 

 •quently, certain classes of employers seek them. We have here two results : 

 First, the exploitation of child labor, which is, of course, not a new thing, but 

 which is taking on a new and more extended form, and secondly, we have a 

 self-sustaining wage rate paid to these children, with the consequence that 

 they become economically independent of the family tie. It is a short step 

 from this economic independence to social independence. The child can leave 

 home without fear for his support. As a consequence, in all classes of society 

 we have the phenomenon of the breakdown of family discipline or the lack of 

 parental control, after about the child's sixteenth year. 



