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particular calling which, but for adverse circumstances, he, or
those responsible for him, would select as the work-ground of
his life. But when we come to consider the application of this
problem to the enormous population of boys who spring from
the lower sections of society—from the class in which parents
and guardians take little heed of those whose steps they should
guide, except to get rid of the responsibility of keeping and
feeding them as speedily as possible we are faced with conditions
inimical to the health, strength, and stability of a
considerable portion of our national manhood. Much has been
done by legislation, by municipal enterprise, by educational
facilities, and by individual munificence to mitigate the evils
and dangers by which boys are surrounded when they are freed
from the trammels of the elementary school, and too often
thrown loose on the world to do what they please, and as they
please, so long as they earn a living somehow. But all that
has been accomplished is a mere shadow of what still requires
to be done. (1) The time is ripe for educational reform.
(2) Street trading by children should be prohibited by
statute; and (3) The supervision of juvenile employment
should be committed to the care of central advisory committees
acting in conjunction with the Board of Education and in cooperation
with the labour exchanges of the Board of Trade.
It is contended that the remedy for the evils of " blind alley "
occupations is to be found in " the national organization of
juvenile labour, as a whole, from the moment of leaving school,
with the elementary school as the centre, and under the direction of the local education authorities, empowered, and in
principle controlled, by the central authority of the State." In
justification of such a recommendation it is argued that a period
of school supervision beyond the age of school exemption
would involve no principle of State interference, but would be
the legitimate corollary of the action it has already taken. It is
argued that " if the State has the right to educate on a compulsory system, it has further clearly the right and the duty to
guard from waste the fruits of the education it has given."