Since 1900, the school, more than any other social agency, is conceived first as supplementing, then as replacing, the home, and as exercising its function. The school authority is established in a practically complete jurisdiction over the child. Its field expands from indoctrination in the three R’s and patriotism to teaching personal hygiene; from teaching personal hygiene to official supervision over the details of health--the care of the teeth, ears and eyes, the adequacy of diet; and finally to keeping an eye on the personal relations of children with their parents themselves. In a word, the school invades the home and takes over more and more of its functions. By its means the control of the child is “socialized.” Now on the face of it, this socialization appears unconnected with the drive and intent of industry as such. It looks rather like a defense against industry. Its animus is humanitarian, not economic; its effect is to delay the functional installation of the child in the economic system. Child labor is quite properly frowned on and hemmed in with rules and restrictions. Schooling is imposed and prolonged to later and later years; where it cannot be made exclusive it is made concurrent with the work-life by means of the continuation schools. And high schools and state universities extend the possibility of schooling as a free public function right up to the voting age and beyond. The immense national wealth makes this possible and easy; it enables the upkeep and expansion of an educational system whose per capita cost is greater than that of any other country in the world. Whether any connection obtains between these superiorities and the fact that Americans also enjoy a corresponding superiority in juvenile delinquency and crime I cannot say. The paradox is the more interesting because, as schoolmen are likely to boast, the school is often used by the child as a refuge from home and the street, as a place of sanctuary and safety. Explanation is not easy. On the face of it, the socialization of child-control tends to defeat its own ends. And it tends to defeat its own ends because its instrument is an unnatural environment which offers no field for the assumption and discharge of natural responsibilities such as develop in the circle of an adequate family life. It keeps the young in a state that is tantamount to an artificial prolongation of infancy. III