1 68 UNIVERSITY OF COLORADO STUDIES 



and money. Harmonious furnishings, color schemes in decoration, 

 and all the other things which add so much to the lives we are anxious 

 to live cost time and effort to secure. Young men taught to appreciate 

 such surroundings are not anxious to set up in inferior homes of their 

 own. The same is true of young women likewise trained by our system 

 of democratic education. Hence, both men and women prefer to post- 

 pone their marriage in the hope that at a later day they will possibly be 

 better equipped with the means to provide a home suited to their culti- 

 vated tastes. The same ideal tends to restrict the size of the family 

 among those already married. The desire for beautiful homes and ease 

 in living competes with the desire for children. 



In proportion then as society heeds the behest of the time to rise, 

 develop, expand, progress — in short, to realize itself — in that proportion 

 is it tempted to pause and consider before assuming burdens that stand 

 in the way of these ambitions. 



The increase in the appreciation of the needs of childhood, and of 

 the opportunities needed to produce efficient citizens has manifested 

 itself in the great attention that has recently been given to the question 

 of child labor. A very vigorous movement is now on in the United 

 States to prohibit all employment of children under 14 years of age, 

 and to children under 16 who cannot pass a certain educational and 

 physical test. New York and Illinois have recently enacted laws embody- 

 ing in some degree the above principles. There is also a good deal of 

 agitation to prohibit the employment of children as messengers, news- 

 boys, bootblacks, etc. What is denned as the right to childhood is com- 

 ing to be recognized. It is proper that society should recognize the right 

 of the child to a healthy development, and an education. But the recog- 

 nition of this right involves restriction of child labor, and increased taxes 

 for more schoolhouses. When child labor was forbidden in the glass 

 factories at Alton, 111., in 1893, and the compulsory-education law 

 enforced, a new school house had to be built to accommodate the children 

 that had been previously employed in the factories. 1 



This increased attention to the needs of children, the requirement 

 that they shall be kept in school till they are 14 and can read and write 



1 Kelley, Some Ethical Gains through Legislation, p. 64, 1905. 



