When we come to deal with the child-labor problem, or, rather, with the problem of its repression by legislative enactment, we are at once confronted with a great difficulty that arises out of our political system rather than out of industrial conditions. The child-labor problem is a national one, but when we face the question of its solution, we are handicapped by the division of the country into forty odd states, a division which makes it almost impossible to deal with any of our great social and industrial problems nationally upon uniform principles. The same difficulty exists, of course, in connection with all our social and industrial problems. We have legislation in the various states of a conflicting character, adding to the complexity of the problem the legislators meant to solve. But because this is conspicuously so in the case of child-labor legislation,—every advance made in the Northern states serving as a premium upon reaction and delay in the Southern states,—I have chosen to deal with it in this connection. [Illustration: WEIGHING BABIES AT THE MUNICIPAL INFANTS’ MILK DEPOTS (_GOTA DE LECHE_), MADRID ] Up to the present time, the advocates of child-labor legislation have, apparently, shrunk from making any definite proposals upon this important question, while fully recognizing its tremendous importance. Sooner or later, if ever our greatest social problems are to be intelligently dealt with, the question of state rights will have to be fought out and the paramountcy of the nation in all such matters established, and I can imagine no better issue for raising that question than the legislative protection of children. Here, again, we must turn for guidance and suggestion to the Old World. In Germany they have had to face a similar problem, the difference being one of degree only, and they have found a solution which might well be adopted in the United States. Child labor in Germany is regulated partly by the ordinances of the federal council and partly by the legislation of the different states of the Empire. The federal enactments establish a minimum standard for the whole Empire, and it is specifically provided that each state may enact more stringent measures as it may desire.[182] It is difficult to see why this principle could not be applied to the problem here in the United States, giving us a uniform minimum standard of legislation throughout the whole country. Such a law should prohibit the employment of any child under fifteen years of age at any employment whatsoever, and the employment of any child or young person under eighteen years of age in all “dangerous occupations” specified by a federal commission. It would be well, also, to insist upon a certain educational test up to eighteen years, the test to be made in all cases by the school authorities.[183]