COtfGKESS, UNITED STATES. 



173 



Mr. Thai-man : "I move to strike out the 

 whole of section 25. I have read the provi- 

 sion for compulsory education. Then cornea 

 the provision to punish, not the person who 

 fails to send the child to school, but to punish 

 the child by prohibiting any person from em- 

 p'oying any such uneducated child within this 

 District, making it an offense to employ the 

 child. I think it is bad enough for the child 

 to have no education, to be ignorant, but \o 

 deprive it of employment strikes me as being 

 inhuman. I move to strike out the whole 

 section. I wish the Senate to understand this 

 matter ; the twenty-fifth section of this bill 

 requires compulsory education of all children, 

 of either sex, from the age of six to the age 

 of eighteen, and then provides not for pun- 

 ishing the parent or guardian who shall fail 

 to send the child to school, but for punish- 

 ing the child by making it unlawful for any 

 person in this District to employ a child who 

 is not certified by this Board of Education or 

 some member thereof to have attended school, 

 and in one instance to have made the proper 

 progress as required by this law. Why, sir, it 

 is monstrous enough that the child should be 

 in ignorance ; but to deprive the child of even 

 employment that may give it its daily bread on 

 account of the fault of the parent or guardian 

 does strike me as one of the most disgraceful 

 provisions I have ever seen in a law ; but I am 

 opposed to the whole section from beginning 

 to end." 



Mr. Sherman, of Ohio, said : "I submit a 

 motion to strike out the latter clause. I think 

 as the section is worded it would punish the tem- 

 porary employment of a child. For instance, 

 I employ a vagrant boy on the street for a day 

 or a week as a matter of charity. Is he to be 

 punished ? The first clause I think could be 

 enforced by regulations of the commissioners 

 which they have ample power to make under 

 the first section. I move to strike out the lat- 

 ter part." 



Mr. Howe, of Wisconsin, said : " I will say 

 that I shall not vote for the amendment to the 

 amendment. I think then you would vote for 

 the most anomalous piece of legislation that I 

 ever heard of. The section as it stands says 

 two things : First, that it is the duty of a child 

 of a certain age to attend school; and, sec- 

 ondly, that employers shall not hire a child not 

 to go to school. The Senator from Ohio (Mr. 

 Sherman) shakes his head. That is the way it 

 strikes me." 



Mr. Sherman : " The part I propose to strike 

 out simply punishes the employer of a vagrant 

 child that is all it does without any relation 

 to its going to school." 



Mr. Howe : " It can scarcely be called a pun- 

 ishment of the Senator from Ohio for hiring a 

 vagrant child when the law simply says he 

 shall not pay the child. The peculiarity of the 

 section as it stands is that it does not say you 

 shall not hire the child, but if you hire him you 

 shall not pay him." 



Mr. Sherman : " No ; it says no such child 

 Shall be employed, or furnished with employment, 

 or be paid wages by any person in said District for 

 work done by any such child during any portion of 

 the day, when, according to the regulations of said 

 board, the public schools are open. 



Mr. Thurman : "It says he shall not be em- 

 ployed or furnished with employment or be 

 paid wages. He cannot be lawfully furnished 

 with employment." 



Mr. Howe: "Suppose you do employ him 

 or furnish him with employment, what be- 

 comes of you ?" 



Mr. Sherman : " You are prosecuted for a 

 violation of the ordinance. The law goes on 

 to provide 



But it. shall be a good defense to any prosecution 

 under this clause. 



Because there is a general provision in the 

 bill to authorize prosecutions." 



Mr. Howe : "Is there any prosecution pro- 

 vided for in this section ? " 



Mr. Sherman: "Yes; because a section of 

 the bill authorizes a prosecution for any viola- 

 tion of any clause of this bill, and the Board of 

 Regents has power to fix a penalty. Then this 

 goes on to provide in case of such prosecution 

 what the evidence shall be." 



Mr. Washburn, of Massachusetts, said : "I 

 hope this section will not be stricken out. I 

 do not think if Senators understood the exact 

 condition of it they would see any thing peculiar 

 in this section. It applies, as I understand, to 

 only the period of fourteen weeks during the 

 year. Very many of our States have this pro- 

 vision and have had it for years. Very many 

 States that have not a provision similar to this 

 are taking steps to require education at least 

 for a certain portion of time. Is it too much 

 to require that every child during a given age 

 shall receive at least fourteen weeks' education 

 during the year ? If it is not too much, then 

 is it improper to say that the individual who 

 endeavors to prevent that child from securing 

 fourteen weeks' education in a year shall be 

 prevented from so doing ? In my own State 

 the great difficulty is that our manufacturers 

 those persons who employ children have been 

 unwilling that those children shall go to school 

 during the number of weeks required by the 

 law ; and if you go into many factories you 

 will find children, that ought to be at school 

 undergoing training and preparation to assume 

 the duties and responsibilities of men and wom- 

 en in supporting the government, are em- 

 ployed in the factories and growing up in ig- 

 norance. This being the case, it has been 

 found absolutely necessary to provide by law 

 that manufacturers for a certain number of 

 weeks in the year shall not employ these chil- 

 dren. 



" This section provides that if these children 

 do not attend during the day, they may as an 

 equivalent attend an evening school. It does 

 not seein to me that this Senate wants to say 

 that no provision shall be made for educating 



