This attempt to cheat the law by the very children for whose protection it was designed, and the occasional disregard of the purposes of the enactments by enforcing officials, suggest Alice’s perplexity when she encountered the topsy-turvy Wonderland. It was about twelve years ago that a group of settlement people in New York gathered to consider the advisability of organizing public sentiment against the exploitation of child workers. The New York Child Labor Committee thereupon came into existence, under the chairmanship of the then head of the University Settlement, and that committee has since been steadily engaged in advancing standards of conditions under which children may work. Through legislative enactment and publicity it has endeavored to form public opinion on those socially constructive principles inherent in the conservation of children. Of necessity child labor laws approach the problem from the negative side of prohibition. To meet the problem positively, the Henry Street Settlement established in 1908 a definite system of “scholarships” for children from fourteen to sixteen, to give training during what have been termed the “two wasted years” to as many as its funds permitted. A committee of administration receives the applications which come from all parts of the boroughs of Manhattan and the Bronx, and preference is given to those children of widows or disabled fathers whose need seems greatest. Careful inquiry is made by the capable secretary to discover natural inclinations or aptitudes, and these are used as guides in determining the character of the instruction to be given. Three dollars a week—somewhat less than the sum the children might have been earning—is given weekly for two years, during which time they are under continual supervision at home, at school, and through regular visits to the settlement. They are looked after physically, provided with occasional recreation, and, in the summer time, whenever possible, a vacation in the country. The committee keeps in close touch with the educational agencies throughout the city, gathers knowledge of the trades that give opportunity for advancement, and, to aid teachers, settlement workers, parents, and children, publishes from time to time a directory of vocational resources in the city.[5] Approval of this endowment for future efficiency comes from many sources, but no encouragement has been greater than the fact that, while the plan was still in its experimental stage, my own first boys’ club, the members of which had now grown to manhood, celebrated their fifteenth anniversary by contributing three scholarships; and that the Women’s Club, whose members feel most painfully the disadvantage of the small wage of the unskilled, have given from their club treasury or by voluntary assessment for this help to the boys and girls.