National Child Labor Conference
By Editor
The National Child Labor Committee is holding its eighth annual conference in Louisville, Kentucky, January 25 to 28. This committee, of which Mr. Owen R. Lovejoy, 105 E. 22d St., New York, is the general secretary, has helped to get better child labor laws in thirty States this year, and will bring together in this conference twenty-seven affiliated State committees. The conference will be devoted to practical measures for reducing the basis of child labor, and for keeping children in school until they are equipped for efficient citizenship. Mr. Lovejoy says that "the employer is usually blamed for child labor, but there are other reasons, and one of the most perplexing elements is the fact that the children themselves are against us. They want to get out of school at the earliest possible moment and enter wage-earning industries. The live school men are helping change all this." And yet there are many cases in which children would be much better employed under proper restrictions, than to run wild in the street, even tho a few hours of the day are spent in school. Sometimes the education received in labor is worth more than the education which the boy receives at school. These things ought to be considered by the national convention.