The Dangerous Classes of New York Part 27

CONNECTICUT LEGISLATION.

In matters of educational reform Connecticut is always the leading State of the Union. On this subject of children's overwork, and consequent want of education, she has legislated since 1842.

The original act, however, was strengthened and, in part, repealed by another law pa.s.sed in July, 1869 (chapter 115), which is the most stringent act on this subject in the American code. In all the other legislation the law is made to apply solely to manufacturers and mechanics; in this it includes all employment of children, the State rightly concluding that it is as much against the public weal to have a child grow up ignorant and overworked with a farmer as with a manufacturer. The Connecticut act, too, leaves out the word "knowingly,"

with regard to the employer's action in working the child at too tender years, or beyond the legal time. It throws on the employer the responsibility of ascertaining whether the children employed have attended school the required time, or whether they are too young for his labor. Nor is it enough that the child should have been a member of a school for three months; his name must appear on the register for sixty days of actual attendance.

The age under which three months' school-time is required is fourteen.

The penalty for each offense is made one hundred dollars to the Treasurer of the State. Four different cla.s.ses of officers are instructed and authorized to co-operate with the State in securing every child under fourteen three months of education, and in protecting him from overwork, namely, School-Visitors, the Board of Education, State Attorneys, and Grand Jurors. The State Board of Education is "authorized to take such action as may be deemed necessary to secure the enforcement of this act, and may appoint an agent for that purpose."

The defects of the law seem to be that it provides for no minimum of age in which a child may be employed in a factory, and does not limit the number of hours of labor per week for children in manufacturing establishments. Neither of these limitations is necessary in regard to farm-labor.

The agent for executing the law in Connecticut, Mr. H. M. Cleaveland, seems to have acted with great wisdom, and to have secured the hearty co-operation of the manufacturers. "Three-fourths of the manufacturers of the State," he says, "of almost everything, from a needle up to a locomotive, were visited, and pledged themselves to a written agreement," that they would employ no children under fourteen years of age, except those with certificates from the local school-officers of actual school attendance for at least three months.

This fact alone reflects the greatest credit on this intelligent cla.s.s.

And we are not surprised that they are quoted as saying, "We do not dare to permit the children within and around our mills to grow up without some education. Better for us to pay the school expenses ourselves than have the children in ignorance."

Many of the Connecticut manufacturers have already, at their own expense, provided means of education for the children they are employing; and large numbers have agreed to a division of the children in their employ into alternate gangs--of whom one is in school while the other is in the factory.

The following act was drawn up by Mr. C. E. Whitehead, counsel and trustee of the Children's Aid Society, and presented to the New York Legislature of 1872. It has not yet pa.s.sed:--

AN ACT FOR THE PROTECTION OF FACTORY CHILDREN.

SECTION 1.--No child under the age of ten years shall be employed for hire in any manufactory or mechanical shop, or at any manufacturing work within this State; and no child under the age of twelve years shall be so employed unless such child can intelligibly read, under a penalty of five dollars for every day during any part of which any such child shall be so employed, to be paid by the employer. Any parent, guardian, or other person authorizing such employment, or making a false return of the age of a child, with a view to such employment, shall be liable to a penalty of twenty dollars.

SEC. 2.--No child under the age of sixteen years shall be employed in any manufactory, or in any mechanical or manufacturing shop, or at any manufacturing work within the State, for more than sixty hours in one week, or after four o'clock on Sat.u.r.day afternoon, or on New-year's-day, or on Christmas-day, or on the Fourth of July, or on the Twenty-second of February, or on Thanksgiving-day, under a penalty of ten dollars for each offense.

SEC. 3.--No child between the ages of ten and sixteen years shall be employed in any manufactory or workshop, or at any manufacturing work within this State, during more than nine months in any one year, unless during such year he shall have attended school as in this section hereinafter provided, nor shall such child be employed at all unless such child shall have attended a public day-school during three full months of the twelve months next preceding such employment, and shall deliver to its employer a written certificate of such attendance, signed by the teacher; the certificate to be kept by the employer as hereinafter provided, under a penalty of fifty dollars. _Provided_ that regular tuition of three hours per day in a private day-school or public night-school, during a term of six months, shall be deemed equivalent to three months' attendance at a public day-school, kept in accordance with the customary hours of tuition. And provided that the child shall have lived within the State during the preceding six months. And provided that where there are more than one child between the ages of twelve and sixteen years in one family, and the commissioners or overseers of the poor shall certify in writing that the labor of such children is essential to the maintenance of the family, such schooling may be subst.i.tuted during the first year of their employment by having the children attend the public schools during alternate months of such current year, until the full three months' schooling for each child shall have been had, or by having the children attend continuously a private day-school or public night-school three hours a day until the full six months' schooling for each child shall have been had.

SEC. 4--Every manufacturer, owner of mills, agent, overseer, contractor, or other person, who shall employ operatives under sixteen years of age, or on whose promises such operatives shall be employed, shall cause to be kept on the premises a register, which shall contain, in consecutive columns: (1st), the date when each operative commenced his or her engagement; (2d), the name and surname of the operative; (3d), his or her place of nativity; (4th), his or her residence by street and number; (5th), his or her age; (6th), the name of his or her father, if living; if not, that of the mother, if living; (7th), the number of his or her school certificate, or the reason of its absence; and (8th), the date of his or her leaving the factory. Such register shall be kept open to the inspection of all public authorities, and extracts therefrom shall be furnished on the requisition of the Inspector, the School Commissioners, or other public authority. Any violation of this section shall subject the offender to a penalty of one hundred dollars.

SEC. 5.--Every such employer mentioned in the last section shall keep a register, in which shall be entered the certificates of schooling produced by children in his employ; such certificate shall be signed by the teacher, and shall be dated, and shall certify the dates between which such scholar has attended school, and shall mention any absences made therefrom during such term, and such certificates shall be numbered in consecutive order, and such register shall also be kept open to inspection of all public authorities, as provided in the last section; and all violations of this section shall subject the offender to a penalty of one hundred dollars.

SEC. 6.--Any teacher or other person giving a false certificate, for the purpose of being used under the provisions of this act, shall be liable to a penalty of one hundred dollars, and be deemed guilty of misdemeanor.

SEC. 7.--The parent or guardian of every child released from work under the provisions of this act shall cause the said child to attend school when so released, for three months, in accordance with the provisions of section three of this act, under a penalty of five dollars for each week of non-attendance.

SEC. 8.--All public officers and persons charged with the enforcement of this law can, at all working-hours, enter upon any factory premises, and any person refusing them admittance or hindering them shall be liable to a penalty of one hundred dollars.

SEC. 9.--Every room in any factory in which operatives are employed shall be thoroughly painted or whitewashed or cleaned at least once a year, and shall be kept as well ventilated, lighted, and cleaned as the character of the business will permit, under a penalty of ten dollars for each week of neglect.

SEC. 10.--All trap-doors or elevators, and all shafting, belting, wheels, and machinery running by steam, water, or other motive power, in rooms or places in a factory in which operatives are employed, or through which they have to pa.s.s, shall be protected by iron screens, or by suitable part.i.tions during all the time when such doors are open, and while such machinery is in motion, under a penalty of fifty dollars, to be paid by the owner of such machinery, or the employer of such operatives, for each day during which the same shall be so unprotected.

SEC. 11.--This act shall be printed and kept hung in a conspicuous place in every factory, by the owner, agent, overseer, or person occupying such factory, under a penalty of ten dollars for each day's neglect.

SEC 12.--All suits for penalties under this act shall be brought within ninety days after commission of the offense, and may be brought by the Inspector of Factory Children, by the District-Attorney of the county, by the School Commissioners, by the Trustees of Public Schools, or the Commissioners of Charities, before any Justice of the Peace, or in any Justice's Court, or any Court of Record; and one-half of all penalties recovered shall be paid to the school fund of the county, and one-half to the informer.

SEC. 13.--The Governor of this State shall hereafter appoint a State officer, to be known as the Inspector of Factory Children, to hold office for four years, unless sooner removed for neglect of duty, who shall receive a salary of two thousand dollars a year and traveling expenses, not exceeding one thousand dollars, whose duty it shall be to examine the different factories in this State, and to aid in the enforcement of this law, and to report annually to the Legislature the number, the ages, character of occupation, and educational privileges of children engaged in manufacturing labor in the different counties of the State, with suggestions as to the Improvement of their condition.

CHAPTER x.x.x.

THE ORGANIZATION OF CHARITIES.

The power of every charity and effort at moral reform is in the spirit of the man directing or founding it. If he enter it mechanically, as he would take a trade or profession, simply because it falls in his way, or because of its salary or position, he cannot possibly succeed in it.

There are some things which the laws of trade do not touch. There are services of love which seek no pecuniary reward, and whose virtue, when first entered upon, is that the soul is poured out in them without reference to money-return.

In the initiation of all great and good causes there is a time of pure enthusiasm, when life and thought and labor are given freely, and hardly a care enters the mind as to the prizes of honor or wealth which are struggled for so keenly in the world. No reformer or friend of humanity, worthy of the name, has not some time in his life felt this high enthusiasm. If it has been his duty to struggle with such an evil as Slavery, the wrongs of the slave have been burned into his soul until he has felt them more even than if they were his own, and no reward of riches or fame that life could offer him would be half so sweet as the consciousness that he had broken these fetters of injustice.

If he has been inspired by Christ with a love of humanity, there have been times when the evils that afflict it clouded his daily happiness; when the thought of the tears shed that no one could wipe away; of the nameless wrongs suffered; of the ignorance which imbruted the young, and the sins that stained the conscience; of the loneliness, privation, and pain of vast ma.s.ses of human beings; of the necessary degradation of great mult.i.tudes;--when the picture of all these, and other wounds and woes of mankind, rose like a dark cloud between him and the light, and even the face of G.o.d was obscured.

At such times it has seemed sweeter to bring smiles back to sad faces, and to raise up the neglected and forgotten, than to win the highest prize of earth; and the thought of HIM who hath enn.o.bled man, and whose life was especially given for the poor and outcast, made all labors and sacrifices seem as nothing compared with the Joy of following in His footsteps.

At such rare moments the ordinary prizes of life are forgotten or not valued. The man is inspired with "the enthusiasm of humanity." He maps out a city with his plans and aspirations for the removal of the various evils which he sees. His life flows out for those who can never reward him, and who hardly know of his labors.

But, in process of time, the first fervor of this ardent enthusiasm must cool away. The worker himself is forced to think of his own interests and those of his family. His plan, whatever it may be,--for removing the evils which have pained him, demands practical means,--men, money, and "machinery." Hence arises the great subject of _"Organization."_ The strong under-running current which carries his enterprise along is still the old faith or enthusiasm; but the question of means demands new thought and the exercise of different faculties.

There are many radical difficulties, in organizing practical charities, which are exceedingly hard to overcome.

Charities, to be permanent and efficient, must be organized with as much exactness and order as business a.s.sociations, and carry with them something of the same energy and motives of action. But the tendency, as is well known from European experience, of all old charities, is to sluggishness, want of enterprise, and careless business arrangement, as well as to mechanical routine in the treatment of their subjects. The reason of this is to be found in the somewhat exceptional abnormal position--economically considered--of the worker in fields of benevolence. All laborers in the intellectual and moral field are exposed to the dangers of routine. But in education, for instance, and the offices of the Church, there is a constant and healthy compet.i.tion going on, and certain prizes are held out to the successful worker, which tend continually to arouse his faculties, and lead him to invent new methods of attaining his ends. The relative want of this among the Catholic clergy may be the cause of their lack of intellectual activity, as compared with the Protestant.

In the management of charities there is a prevailing impression that what may be called "interested motives" should be entirely excluded. The worker, having entered the work under the enthusiasm of humanity, should continue buoyed up by that enthusiasm. His salary may be seldom changed.

It will be ordinarily beneath that which is earned by corresponding ability outside. No rewards of rank or fame are held out to him. He is expected to find his pay in his labor.

Now there are certain individuals so filled with compa.s.sion for human sufferings, or so inspired by Religion, or who so much value the offering of respect returned by mankind for their sacrifices, that they do not need the impulse of ordinary motives to make their work as energetic and inventive and faithful as any labor under the motives of compet.i.tion and gain.

But the great majority of the instruments and agents of a charity are not of this kind. They must have something of the common inducements of mankind held out before them. If these be withdrawn, they become gradually sluggish, uninventive, inexact, and lacking in the necessary enterprise and ardor.

The agents of the old endowed charities of England are said often to become as lazy and mechanical as monks in monasteries.

To remedy such evils, the trustees of all charities should hold out a regular scale of salaries, which different agents could attain to if they were successful. The principle, too, which should govern the amounts paid to each agent, should be well considered. Of course, the governing law for all salaries are the demand and supply for such services. But an agent for a charity, even as a missionary, sometimes puts himself voluntarily outside of such a law. He throws himself into a great moral and religious cause, and consumes his best powers in it, and unfits himself (it may be) for other employments. His own field may be too narrow to occasion much demand for his peculiar experience and talent from other sources. There comes then a certain moral obligation on the managers of the charity, not to take him at the cheapest rate for which they can secure his services, but to proportion his payment somewhat to what he would have been worth in other fields, and thus to hold out to him some of the inducements of ordinary life. The salary should be large enough to allow the agent and his family to live somewhat as those of corresponding ability and education do, and still to save something for old age or a time of need. Some benevolent a.s.sociations have obtained this by a very wise arrangement--that of an "annuity insurance" of the life of their agents, which secured them a certain income at a given age.

With the consciousness thus of an appreciation of their labors, and a payment somewhat in proportion to their value, and a permanent connection with their humane enterprise, the ordinary _employes_ and officials come to have somewhat of the interest in it which men take in selfish pursuits, and will exercise the inventiveness, economy, and energy that are shown in business enterprises.

Every one knows how almost impossible it is for a charity to conduct, for instance, a branch of manufacture with profit. The explanation is that the lower motives are not applied to it. Selfishness is more alert and economical than benevolence.

On the other side, however, it will not be best to let a charity become too much of a business. There must always be a certain generosity and compa.s.sion, a degree of freedom in management, which are not allowed in business undertakings. The agents must have heart as well as head. The moisture of compa.s.sion must not be dried up by too much discipline.

Organization must not swallow up the soul. Routine may be carried so far as to make the aiding of misery the mere dry working of a machine.

The thought must ever be kept in mind that each human being, however low, who is a.s.sisted, is a "power of endless life," with capacities and possibilities which cannot be measured or limited. And that one whose nature CHRIST has shared and for whom He lived and died, cannot be despised or treated as an animal or a machine.

If the directors of a benevolent inst.i.tution or enterprise can arouse these great motives in their agents,--spiritual enthusiasm with a reasonable gratification of the love of honor and a hope of fair compensation,--they will undoubtedly create a body of workers capable of producing a profound impression on the evils they seek to remove.

It is always a misfortune for an agent of a charity if he be too constantly with the objects of his benevolent labors. He either becomes too much accustomed to their misfortunes, and falls into a spirit of routine with them; or, if of tender sympathies, the spring of his mind is bent by such a constant burden of misery, and he loses the best qualities for his work--elasticity and hope. Every efficient worker in the field of benevolence should have time and place for solitude, and for other pursuits or amus.e.m.e.nts.

DUTIES OF TRUSTEES.