less they are large enough to be forced into the labor market and made to contribute toward the family income. In charity meetings, whe

ldren of the poor quite apart from and without any relation to their home life. "We constantly hear it said," writes Mrs. James Putnam, "that we cannot help the older ones, but

known as day nurseries. If care is not taken to exclude all except the children of widows, or of women whose husbands are disabled, these will only

table." {78} For the children's sake, the visitor should be very observant. It is difficult, at first, to find out how they are fed, bathed, and clothed, and whether they go to bed early, in clean beds and ventilated rooms; but one can learn more by observation than by direct questions. Ask to see the baby bathed, and notice the condition of its scalp

ll be possible to procure a country holiday through the fresh air society or the children's country homes that are provided within easy {79} distance of all our large cities. Or, better still, the visitor may know some one in the country, or may have a summer home there

there is no kindergarten near enough, the visitor should learn some of the kindergarten games and occupations, and te

xpelled. She went to see the teacher. {80} The girl was always well dressed, and the teacher had no idea she was a poor girl. After seeing the visitor the teacher touched the girl at last by talking with her of the sacrifices her mother had made for her education, and urgin

impossible to punish truancy, is a much greater danger, and, in some States, the absence of any compulsory education law {81} makes the child the easy victim of trade conditions and of parental greed. The visitor should never permit the desire to increase the family income to blind him to the fact that the physical, mental, and moral welfare of the child is seriously endangered by wage-earning. Where the

ents, between which the life of the child is often ground to powder." [3] And Mrs. Florence Kelley, writing from her experience as a factory inspector in Illinois, says: "I do not mean that every boy is usually ruined by his work, but I do mean that, the earlier the child goes to work, the greater the probability of ruin. I mean, too, that there is to be gained, from a scientific study of the working child, an irradiating side-light upon the tr

8

em from school to run errands, to carry their fathers' dinners, or to help with the

ull children, the visitor should bear this fact in mind, and, either by observation or by the help of a physician, discover wherein the child is defective. The so

hat there was probably some physical defect clogging the pathway to her active little brain; and I requested an opportunity to talk to the child at recess, when I found that she could not hear my stop-watch tick until it was within nine inches of her right ear, and eleven inches of her left ear. The average child, under the same local conditions, can hear the same watch tick at a distance of twenty-one feet. How could the poor child answer correctly when she

s Aid Society for 1896,[6] cites two cases of truancy due to physical defects. One was a girl of ten years, whose eyes were found to be defective. After fitting her with proper glasses, the Society's agent had her returned to school. A

pparently doing fairly well, was suddenly brought into court, charged with breaking and entering his employer's shop at night. On {86} account of his past good character, he was put on probation by the court under our agent's care. He told Mr. Lawrence that he got into t

iding a child's reading. It is not enough to teach the children to use the Public Library; we should know what they are reading and teach them to enjoy the right books. An admirable system of lending libraries having this object in view has been established by the Boston Children's Aid Society. These little Home Libraries in small {87} hanging book cases are placed in certain homes in po

es a Young Citizens' Catechism and a monthly journal, "Our Country." The Sunday-school is another help to the visitor, and it is well to know not only the public-school teacher, but the Sunday-school teacher, whose co?peration should be sought in a

he children forward to excite sympathy, of sending them to ask help of teachers, clergymen, and charity agents, is so obviously bad for the children that one wonders how the chari

tep is petty thieving, the next burglary, and then follow commitment to a {89} reformatory, which often fails to reform, and, later, a criminal career. I have seen children travel this road so often that it is difficult to speak without bitterness of the unthinking alms that led them into temptation.

ell what they know in court. Sometimes this is due to timidity, and sometimes to a fear of losing influence in the neighborhood. Clergymen have been known to refuse their testimony for this latter reason. The friendly visitor, {90} whose interest is centred in only one family in the neighborhood, need not be so cautious, and his continuous vis

ut, boarding-out may be the best way of caring for dependent children; ill carried out, it may be the worst." There is a very foolish saying that the worst home is better than the best institution, but no one who knows how bad a home can be {91} or how good an institution can be will venture beyond the statement that, other things being equal, a home is certainly better than an i

and tobacco to minors; against the employment of children as pedlers, public singers, dancers, etc.; against the employment of children under a certain age for

e girls to become homemakers. The training given in our public schools will often seem very inadequate, and some of us look forward to the day when every boy and girl between the ages of six and sixteen shall be trained to use hand and brain, when manual training shall be part of the dai

ren, if we can {93} attach them to us and give them a new and better outlook upon life. The time when we can be of the greatest help to them is during the disorganized period that comes between the school days and the settling down in life. Many a young life has gone to wreck for lack of a g

care of infants see le

Child," Florence Ke

Conference of Charit

in "American Journal of

F. Willoughby and C

an Economic Associatio

," Felix Adler in Pro

of Charities, pp. 27

"Atlantic," January,

Children," Homer Fol

gs of International Co

tory of "The Child's

Chester Tales." "The

or difficulties in recl

he Gospel"). Reports of

Boston, 1894, and Ph

vings Banks apply to J

y,

nth National Conference o

s Z. D.

ngress of Charities, Chicago, 1893.

third National Conference

Review," Vol.

pp.

9