genuine and complete, the full characteristics and qualities that go to make a useful man or woman. When we contemplate the work in the protection of children, we must realize that for that work to reach its proper place, public sentiment must be applied and people must understand what is necessary for the mental development; what is necessary for the physical protection; what is necessary for the moral growth, as well as what should be taught for the spiritual future of the child.

We have in our country a great organization of men called "The Laymen's Foreign Mission Brotherhood." Against it I utter no criticism. About it I have nothing to say but praise. But I cannot help feeling that the boys and girls of our own country need something, too. I cannot feel that it is necessary to cross the great Pacific and mingle with the yellow and brown skins and the black skins in Africa, to have something so far off that it has to arouse the imagination, before we can bring to our heart real joy and serve our Maker as faithful children, while right here at our homes, by our firesides almost, there are flaxen-haired boys and girls growing up starved mentally, starved physically, starved morally and spiritually.

If we expect to do for these children all to which they are entitled, if we expect to render them full service, then we must teach the people, we must let them understand. I do not believe the men and women of this city or state or nation are careless about the welfare of their fellows. I do not believe they really are more interested in a little Korean or a little Chinaman than they are in the Caucasian right in our own town. It is because the one has · been taught them and talked to them in season and out of season, and the other has been neglected; not often referred to in the pulpit, not often referred to by laymen's organizations. They are simply forgetful and unconscious of the opportunities right at the very gates of Jerusalem. The time has passed when any man can raise the objection, when legislation, state or national, is proposed to help the child, that paternalism is threatened. It is not paternalism that he is so much afraid of, it is too much patriotism. The states will readily respond, if the people only understand.

You have made great progress. The work of protecting the children from the workshop and factory has grown all over our land. It took England over a hundred years to arouse the people

of that country to the fear that they were, from an economic standpoint, destroying the power of their country by consuming the useful hours of the children's life at brutal and destructive labor. Our people are realizing it rapidly. The difficulty that really confronts us is that a small organization with a purpose is dangerous as an antagonist against the great body of people who lack organization. For this very reason it is necessary to get the people to really think. Children must be trained for the great civic responsibility that rests upon them, that they may learn to watch and know what takes place in legislative halls, and then they will be ready if a law comes. before a deliberative body, to know who represent them, for the protection of their own mental and physical well being. They will be watchful and call to speedy account the legislator who is faithless to the great trust which we all carry and owe to the children of our land.

Investigation

And beyond our duty to create a wholesome sentiment, to produce an organization back of the protection of children in legislative halls, there is another great duty that rests upon us that the state cannot reach. It is the responsibility of individual inquiry; of individual investigation. Suppose it were possible to arouse the women of any city in our country to a consciousness that there are little boys and girls in homes without food, where they are growing up starved mentally while they are starving physically. Do you suppose they would wear themselves out trying to find. something to amuse themselves? Oh, they would not. It is because they do not know; it is because they do not understand; it is because they have not been turned to this great work. In this city of ours, if we had the women here and they could be told the story, if we produced the machinery to furnish them the instances where the opportunity was given to go to a family in want, to a widow with her two or three little boys out on the streets at eight and ten years of age, subjected to all kinds of temptations as they help to make a living selling a paper for two pennies, and the girl in want and in danger of worse, they would go to that family with hearts full of love, to carry a charity that would help put these children in a position to prepare themselves to be independent when manhood and womanhood come.

We have no great organization of laymen in the United States with able representatives traveling throughout the country, talking in the churches and pointing the way. This is one of the people's duties, to prepare to protect all of our boys and girls against want, by fitting them mentally, morally, physically and spiritually for the responsibilities of life. I would have the pulpits used to teach these truths to the children; to teach, as I said before, something more than mere modern evangelization; to teach the doctrine of practical service, the responsibility of man for man; for we are our brothers' keepers and we cannot escape the responsibility that attaches to that fact, and we will not let our zeal flag. You will move on in your glorious work; you will gain recruits as you move; you will never weary of the task, for as well might the angel standing at heaven's gate weary of his task, when each time he swings the gate ajar, another soul is ushered into Paradise.

ESSENTIALS IN FACTORY INSPECTION

BY HON. JOHN H. MORGAN,

Chief Inspector of Workshops and Factories, Ohio.

Factory inspection and factory laws generally, if not invariably, include the child labor laws. In fact, I know of no state having a bureau organized for the express purpose of enforcing child labor legislation.

In successful factory inspection there are at least three essentials: laws, means of enforcement, and the moral support of the people. The laws should be reasonable, definite, practical, and of as high a standard as can be rigidly enforced without antagonizing public sentiment. The laws of several states composing a group geographically or industrially should be uniform; in fact, we should have uniform laws throughout the nation, not only that they may be enforced more easily, but in justice to the manufacturers carrying on the same class of industries. I would not be understood, however, as favoring a lowering of the standard of the laws of any state in order to secure this much-desired uniformity. That is not my idea of successful factory legislation. For instance, in the Ohio Valley states Illinois is the only one having an eight-hour work-day for minors under the age of sixteen years, and this law is enforced successfully. We have not tried to induce Illinois to increase the number of work hours, but have followed her example. Ohio has enacted during this session of the legislature a similar law, which will go into effect on the first day of July, this year. In fact, it is a little in advance of the Illinois law, in that it provides that no girl under the age of eighteen shall be employed more than eight hours a day or forty-eight hours a week. We hope the rest of this group of states will soon enact similar legislation.

I will not attempt to go into the defects of the laws of any state in particular. We who work in this field know the imperfections only too well. Even in the best of factory laws there is much room for improvement.

Factory inspection is a practical question, which must be

settled by experience. It need not be, however, by experience born of selfishness, and greed, and indifference. We are appalled by some public calamity, such as an Iroquois Theater fire, the burning of the Slocum, or the sacrifice of 175 children as in the fire in the Collinwood school building. These horrify and terrify us, and cause us to smart with indignation; and rightly so, generally, because these catastrophes can usually be traced to the mad rush for wealth, or a penurious false economy in construction of public buildings, or wilful negligence and indifference. But, if we would only realize it, these public calamities are a small factor compared with the vast slaughter that is going on, day in and day out among the employees in the shops, factories and mines, and on our railroads. The sorry part of it is a large part of it could be avoided by the strict enforcement of adequate laws.

In the wake of the prosperity we have of recent years been experiencing has come bane as well as blessing. Industry and prosperity have come to us by leaps and bounds; we have come to be the workshop of the world. It has been one continuous march of progress from the time the master and workman were one and the same, working to supply the needs of himself and his neighbors, on through the various stages of the small shop and factory employing a few helpers to the large establishment employing hundreds, and finally to a concentration of industries whereby thousands and thousands of employees are under the control of a corporation

or trust.

Public Awakening

I have said it was one continuous march of progress, but is this true in the highest sense? Is it not possible that as a nation. we have had our vision so centered on material things that we have forgotten, or are forgetting, the better things of life? Employer and employee have been so busy making money that they have had little time, and less inclination in too many instances, to give any thought to the real welfare of mankind. Neither is without fault in this connection, for I have seen as much greed manifested among workmen as among employers. Human nature. seems to be about the same in all walks of life, when given full swing. The piecework system and the sub-contract have developed to such an extent that we are grinding out the very lives of our