Pres. Eliot's Views on Child Labor

President Eliot spoke last Saturday before the Massachusetts State Child Labor Committee on the education of boys and girls as skilled laborers. He emphasized the fact that the rules of labor unions in this country limit the number of apprentices to far below the natural demand for skilled labor, and are consequently harmful, as they allow only a certain limited number of boys and girls to become skilled laborers. President Eliot discussed the perfection to which the German system of trade schools has been carried. In these schools compulsory education lasts until the age of sixteen, while in the American schools it is stopped at fourteen. There is in Germany a co-operative arrangement between the educational department and the manufacturing and business interests, by virtue of which the education of boys and girls is continued along industrial lines after they leave the schools. The rules of labor unions in this country make any such arrangement impossible. The remedy for this evil may lie in the development of public sentiment. A new interest has recently been shown in vocational education, so called. This interest should be devoted entirely to the prevention of too early use of child labor.

Governor Curtis Guild, Jr., '81 supplemented President Eliot's talk with an account of the progress made in the desired direction in Massachusetts.