14 
LAND & WATER 
July 26, 1917 
were, on week-days at any rate, under no educational care. 
In the old days, apprenticeship provided technical and 
industrial training for a number of boys at this age, though 
of course it did nothing for their physical development. 
But modern apprenticeship does not fulfil these conditions. 
It generally begins at sixteen, two years after the boy has left 
school. As processes are more and more specialised, the 
knowledge that a boy acquires becomes more and more limited 
in its scope and less and less likely to turn a boy into an all- 
round workman. As for the large class of boys who are not 
apprentices their occupations are purely blind-alley occupa- 
tions. They learn nothing, and when they come to manhood 
they are turned adrift to make way for another generation of 
victims. We have only to glance at the street corners of our 
towns to see the consequences of this inhuman system^ 
The bodies of the boys and girls who grow up without any 
provision for mental training are treated with a neglect that 
is nothing short of criminal. 
No Recreation 
'In 1903 there was a scare about the physical condition of 
the nation prompted by the large numbeV of rejections for 
military service. The Director-General of the .\rmy Medical 
Service reported in a memorandum that from forty to sixty 
per cent, of candidates for the army were physically unfit. 
This panic led to the setting up of a committee which took 
evidence from a number of witnesses who could speak with 
experience and authority. One of those witnesses reported 
that there were not more than five per cent, of the youth of the 
industrial population who were materially touched or assisted 
by anything in the shape of a well-organised recreation 
agency out of school or working hours. The consequence of 
our neglect of the bodies of the children of the working 
classes was indicated clearly and dramatically in the results 
of certain researches submitted to the committee which 
showed that it takes three Roclidale boys to make two Rugby 
boys of the same age in weight and build. A comparison of 
boys in the textile towns and boys from the countryside tells 
the sanfe tale. 
For at this stage growth is an important index. The age 
of i^dolescence is the most resilient period of life, and if we 
want to estimate the ravages of overwork and neglect we shall 
not be able to trace the results in health during these years. 
They show themselves, so far as health goes, when these 
boys and girls are men and women of forty, ip premature 
decay and old age. But they show themselves at the time 
in growth, for the cells demand food for two purposes : for 
repairing waste and for building up the body. If then food, 
which of course, in this connection includes rest and stimulus, 
is insufficient for the needs of the cells, all the nourishment 
received will go entirely to the repairing of waste, the more 
immediate need, and the building up of the body has to suft'er. 
Now if we think of these boys and girls as human beings, 
the first thing that strikes one is that the age during which 
they are neglected is the most important age in their lives. 
Modem |:)sychology and modern medicine lay the greatest 
stress on the period of adolescence, as the period which more 
than any other determines the whole future of life. It is 
described as a new birth ; the dawn of powers at once 
infinitely more important, infinitely more delicate than the 
powers developed in childhood. It is true to say that child- 
hood is less liable to injury from its surroundings and con- 
ditions than adolescence. 
It is arguable indeed that it would be better to begin educa- 
tion where at present it ceases for three children out of four, 
than to educate up to thirteen or fourteen and then turn 
children adrift at the most critical moment in their lives. 
This is the stage at which the imagination is buoyant and 
expansive, and impressions leave a lasting inriuence for good 
or for evil. Motor functions pass through momentous 
changes, and the smaller muscles that are used in the finer 
movoments, closely associated with the activity of the mind, 
are at this stage specially liable to disorder. Growth is more 
rapid and more spasmodic than at any other age. For all 
these needs of adolescent nature we supply only an industrial 
life vvhicli is positively harmful, for modem industry from 
its very nature increases nerve s);rain and discourages the 
equable development of the larger and the smaller muscles. 
What education is given is given in continuation schools to 
which children come tired, and physical training and open- 
a'r games are almost entirely left to chance. 
We have at this moment a rare opportunity for putting an 
end to this scandal. Large readj ustmments will be necessary 
in industry after the war, and at such a time it is a relatively 
simple matter to introduce a half-time system up to eighteen 
If it is the law that everj'body up to the ag^ of eighteen shall 
spend half of his or her time in education, including in that 
term physical training, games, and a period of life in camp, 
industry will adapt itself to this change as it will adapt itself. 
to the other changes necessary on returning to peace con- 
ditions. The recent report of the Inter-Departmental Com- 
mittee on this subject after pleading in eloquent language for 
a complete change of outlook contents itself finally with a 
modest demand for eight hours a week. What is the value 
of eight hours a week, divided between general education, 
vocational education, physical training and games ? Why, 
a boy in the public schools has more than eight hours a week 
for games alone. As for the disturbance to industry, certain 
leading employers have expressed the opinion that it is less 
disturbing to industry to have a half time arrangement than 
to withdraw juvenile workers for eight hours in the week. 
A great deal is made of the hardships to the poor parent. 
It is the curse of the industrial system that it has made child 
labour an integral part of the working class income, and men 
and women brought up in that bad atmosphere are only too 
ready to accept the view that their children must be sacrificed 
i ust as they themselves were sacrificed in the past. The Trade 
Union leaders take a larger view and they are right. If we 
look solely to the economic consequence^ to the working 
classes, the reduction by one-half of the available juvenile 
labour will have two effects. It will raise the wages of 
juvenile labour, and it will raise the wages of adult labour. 
The supply of chikl labour has been an incubus on the working 
classes for a century. Industrial life is caught in a vicious 
circle. Children elbow out their parents, and*in their turn 
grow prematurely old from spending the years of growth in the 
atmosphere and labour of the mill. 
Cheap juvenile labour means unemployment for adults 
and lower wages for adults. The restriction of juvenile 
labour is therefore a cardinal condition of success in the 
struggle for the woiiving class standard of life. There will no 
doubt be special cases of hardships for which provision must 
be made, but speaking generally, the gain to the working 
classes will be substantial and immediate. 
What of Industry ? 
And what of industry ? Let us dismiss at once the objection 
that industry cannot aft'ord this reduction of the labour at its 
service. We have withdrawn five millions of men from 
productive industry during the war, and we have been able 
to carry on because we have found all kinds of alternative 
resources. If half the children now working are withdrawn, 
is industry, which could perform the wonders we have wit-- 
nessed, after losing miUions of workmen, going to collapse 
on that account ? Of course not. There is no danger of a 
labour famine. .\t present too much of th^ work of industry 
goes to boys and girls, and too little to adults. In this con- 
nection we have to remember that much of the work now 
done by youths can be done by disabled soldiers. 
For the future industry stands to gain. This reform will 
do more than anything else to raise the standard of health, 
physique and intelligence of the mass of workers, and the 
reaction of this improvement on our industrial power can only 
be realised by those who know how much poor health and 
physique cost in the mill and workshop. Mr. C. E. B. 
Russell, the well-known writer on industrial life in Lanca- 
shire, who died last month, mentioned in his book on Social 
Problemfof the North, t.h3.totthG 11,000 young men who tried 
to enlist in Manchester in the year 1899, only 1,000 were 
found to be fit for the line. Tliat fact gives us some clue to 
the kind of material which our present system turns out. 
For the nation the issue is simple. The children born every 
year number nearly a million. The doctors who gave 
evidence before the Committee on Physical Daterioration, 
affirmed that 85 per cent, of those children are born strong 
and healthy. It rests with the nation whether those 85 per 
cent, shall grow up into strong and healthy men and women 
or not. If we put our heart into it, resolving that no child 
shall be employed more than half time, and that the utmost 
care shall be taken to provide all these children with decent 
education, healthy games, physical training, swimming, and 
a spell of camp life every year, we can make the people of 
these islands a race as vigorous and strong as the Australian 
soldiers whom we distinguish so easily in our streets. If we 
say, on the other hand, that industry forbids this, or that 
public opinion is not ready, for a generous scheme, or that 
the idea of children as merely wage-earners has got such a 
hold on the mind of all classes that we cannot shake it, then 
we may continue as before, bringing up thousands of children 
for the prisons, the hospitals, the workhouses, the streets, for 
a life in which the happiness and vigour of purpose and 
self-respect is unknown. Can any patriot doubt whether it is 
worth while to spend money, t'ime, trouble on "turning 
healthy children into healthy men and women ? 
, Nobody who has seen wounded and dying lads who have 
given life or limb for their country, can be satisfied with any 
ideal short of this or forgive 'a Government or Parliament 
that falters in so urgent a task. 
