Turning to Europe we find much more information on this subject. In Great Britain the House of Commons in 1898 ordered an inquiry to be made into the extent of child labor among public school pupils, and the education department sent schedules to the 20,022 public elementary schools in England and Wales for the purpose of determining the facts. A little more than half of the schools returned the schedules blank, stating that no children were employed; this introduced a large element of error into the return, as many of the schoolmasters misunderstood the meaning of the schedules, and consequently quite a number of children who should have been included were omitted from the total. The 9433 schedules which were filled and returned showed that 144,026 children (about three fourths boys and one fourth girls) were in attendance full time at the public elementary schools of England and Wales and known to be employed for profit outside of school hours. The ages of these children reported as employed were as follows:[27]-- Under 7 years 131 7 years 1,120 8 years 4,211 9 years 11,027 10 years 22,131 11 years 36,775 12 years 47,471 13 years 18,556 14 and over 1,787 Not given 817 ------- Total 144,026 The standards or school grades in which these working children were enrolled and the total enrollment for the year ended August 31, 1898, were as follows:[28]-- ==========================+============ | TOTAL WORKING CHILDREN | ENROLLMENT --------------------------+----------- No Standard 329 | 1st standard 3,890 | 2,875,088 2d standard 11,686 | 723,582 3d standard 24,624 | 679,096 4th standard 36,907 | 590,850 5th standard 37,315 | 421,728 6th standard 21,975 | 212,546 7th standard 6,382 | 66,442 Ex-7 standard 382 | 7,534 Not stated 536 | ------- | --------- Total 144,026 | 5,576,866 ==========================+============ The occupations followed by these children were divided into three main groups, and each of these groups was further divided into three classes. These divisions and the number of children in each were as follows:[29]--