[Illustration] CHAPTER VII CHILDREN WHO WORK Bessie has had eight “jobs” in six months. Obviously under sixteen, she has had to produce her “working papers” before she could be taken on. The fact that she has met the requirements necessary to obtain the papers, and that her employer has demanded them, is evidence of the advance made in New York State since we first became acquainted with the children of the poor. Bessie has had to prove by birth certificate or other documentary evidence that she is really fourteen, has had to submit to a simple test in English and arithmetic, present proof of at least 130 days’ school attendance in the year before leaving, and, after examination by a medical officer, has had to be declared physically fit to enter shop or factory. No longer could Annie, the cobbler’s daughter, by unchallenged perjury obtain the state sanction to her premature employment. Gone are the easy days when Francesca’s father, defying school mandates, openly offered his little ones in the labor market. Yet we are far from satisfied. Bessie, though she meets the requirements of the law, goes out wholly unprepared for self-support; she is of no industrial value, and is easily demoralized by the conviction of her unimportance to her “boss,” certain that her casual employment and dismissal have hardly been noted, save as she herself has been affected by the pay envelope. Her industrial experience is no surprise to her settlement friends, for she is a type of the boys and girls who, twice a year, swarm out of the school and find their way to the Department of Health to obtain working papers. Bessie’s father is a phthisis case; her mother, the chief wage-earner, an example of devotion and industry. The girl has been a fairly good student and dutiful in the home, where for several years she has scrubbed the floors and “looked after” the children in her mother’s absence. Tommy also appeared at the office with his credentials and successfully passed all the tests, until the scale showed him suspiciously weighty for his appearance. Inquiry as to what bulged one of his pockets disclosed the fact that he had a piece of lead there. He had been told that he probably would not weigh enough to pass the doctor. Talking the matter over with Mrs. Sanderson, I learned that the immediate reason for taking Tommy out of school was his need of a pair of shoes. The mother was not insensitive to his pinched appearance. A few days later Tommy was taken to visit our children at the farm, and it was pleasant to see that the natural boy had not been crushed. He devoured the most juvenile story-books and was “crazy” about the sledding. The self-respecting mother was not injured in her pride of independence by a little necessary aid carefully given; and though I have not seen Tommy recently, I am sure that neither he nor his employer lost anything because of the better physical condition in which he entered work after his happy winter at the farm.