It  is  significant  in  this  connection  that  of  the  281  boys  from
whom  school  statements  were  obtained,  140  were  under  fourteen
years  of  age  and  1 1 1  others  were  under  sixteen  when  brought  to
court,  so  that  251,  or  nearly  nine-tenths  of  them,  came  under  the


*  See  Illinois  Revised  Statutes,  chap.  48,  sec.  20,  for  the  law,  and  the  Fiftieth
Annual  Report  of  the  Chicago  Board  of  Education  (1904),  pp.  43-47,  for  a  state-
ment by  the  superintendent  of  schools  as  to  the  methods  of  enforcing  this  law.
t  It  is  of  interest  that  the  most  recent  report  of  State  Factory  Inspector
Davies  says,  in  discussing  the  subject  of  Prosecutions  Under  the  Child  Labor  Act,
"if  certain  other  restrictions  were  placed  in  the  law,  it  would  greatly  add  to  the
efficacy  of  the  measure;  for  instance,  as  the  law  now  stands  it  permits  the  employ-
ment of  children  who  may  merely  be  able  to  read  and  write  legibly  simple  sentences
in  any  language,  and  I  believe  that  it  should  be  amended  so  that  children  under  the
age  of  sixteen,  who  are  unable  to  read  and  write  English  and  pass  an  otherwise
simple  educational  test,  should  not  be  permitted  to  work."  Sixteenth  Annual  Re-
port of  the  Factory  Inspector  of  Illinois,  1908,  p.  XVI.
I38


THE    IGNORANT  CHILD

provisions  of  this  law*  and  were  not  legally  entitled  to  their  "work-
ing papers"  unless  they  were  able  to  "  read  and  write  legibly  simple
sentences."  Yet  of  all  the  school  statements  handed  in,  only  one,
that  of  a  boy  who  left  school  at  twelve  and  who  says  "  I  go  to  night
school  every  night"  contains  any  record  of  the  attendance  at
evening  school  prescribed  for  illiterate  children  before  the  issuing
of  the  school  certificate.
