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humanity of the law, however much its justice might be admitted. The cases of hardship do not frequently come to light, and when they are found are easily remediable without resorting to child labor.' It must be borne in mind that the law applies to children of tender years, whose right it is to have schooling. If the misfortune or shiftlessness of parents has resulted in poverty, shall the burden of this fall upon young children?"i

Objections to compulsory education answered.-In 1872 Hon. B. G. Northrop, then secretary of the State board, replied as follows to certain arguments that had been adduced against the compulsory law:2

"1. Such a law would create a new crime. I reply, it ought to. To bring up children in ignorance is a crime and should be treated as such. As the most prolific source of criminality, it should be under the ban of legal condemnation and the restraint of legal punishment. All modern civilization and legislation has made new crimes. Barbarism recognizes but few. To employ children in factories who are under 10 years of age, or who have not attended school, or to employ minors under 18 years of age more than 12 hours a day, is each a new crime.

"2. It interferes with the liberty of parents. I reply again, it ought to, when they are incapacitated by vice or other causes for the performance of essential duties as parents. Many other laws limit personal liberty. The requisition to serve on juries, or to aid the sheriff in arresting criminals, or the exactions of military service in the hour of the country's need, these and many other laws do this. If the law may prohibit the owner from practicing cruelty upon his horse or ox it may restrain the parent from dwarfing the mind and debasing the character of his child. If the state may imprison and punish juvenile criminals it may remove the causes of their crime and its consequences of loss, injury, and shame. The child has rights which not even a parent may violate. He may not rob his child of the sacred right of a good education. The law would justly punish a parent for starving his child, and more mischief is done by starving the mind than by famishing the body. The right of a parent to his children is founded on his ability and disposition to supply their wants of body and mind. When a parent is disqualified by intemperance, cruelty, or insanity, society justly assumes the control of the children. In ancient Greece the law gave almost unlimited authority to the father over his offspring. The same is true in some semibarbarous nations now. In all Christian lands the rights of the parents are held to imply certain correlative duties, and the duty to educate is as positive as to feed and clothe. Neglected children, when not orphans in fact, are virtually such, their parents ignoring their duties and thus forfeiting their rights as parents. The state should protect the helpless, and especially these, its defenseless wards, who otherwise will be vicious as well as weak.

"3. It arrogates new power to the government. So do all quarantine and hygienic regulations and laws for the abatement of nuisances. Now ignorance is noxious as the most offensive nuisance and more destructive than bodily contagions. Self-protection is a fundamental law of society.

"4. It is un-American and unadapted to our free institutions. To put the question in the most offensive form, it may be asked, 'Would you have policemen drag your children to school?' I answer, 'Yes, if it will prevent his dragging them to jail a few years hence.' But this law in our land would invoke no 'dragging,' and no police espionage, or inquisitorial searches. With the annual enumerations and the school registers in hand and the aid of the teachers and others most conversant with each district, school officers could easily learn who are the absentees."

NEW YORK.

In 1866 the assembly of New York adopted a resolution calling upon the State superintendent of public instruction for information respecting the compulsory-attendance laws of other States and of foreign countries. In obedience thereto, State Superintendent Victor M. Rice submitted a carefully prepared report in which his opinion as to compulsory school attendance was summed up in the following language: "I doubt the expediency of laws compelling parents and guardians to send their children and wards of a proper school age to the public schools, or to provide education for them at home or at private schools, until the persuasive power of good teachers, commodious and comfortable schoolhouses, and free schools shall have been tried, and tried in vain."

No further action was taken with regard to compulsory education until 1871, when a bill for that purpose was introduced into the assembly. State Superintendent Abram B. Weaver, in his report of that year, discussed the whole subject with much care, and strongly opposed the proposition to make education compulsory, principally on the ground that it was at variance with the principles of free institutions. "The citizens

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of a free state," he remarked, "must learn to take care of themselves in the matter of education as in other respects if they would remain their own masters." The bill failed to become a law.

The question continued to be extensively discussed, however, and an act was finally passed, May 11, 1874, which, with the amendments of 1876, is the law in force at the present day. The following is the text of the law:

NEW YORK COMPULSORY EDUCATION LAW,
[Passed May 11, 1874.]

AN ACT to secure to children the benfits of elementary education,

SECTION 1. All parents and those who have the care of children shall instruct them, or cause them to be instructed, in spelling; reading, writing, English grammar, geography, and arithmetic. And every parent, guardian, or other person having control and charge of any child between the ages of eight and fourteen years shall cause such child to attend some pubiic or private day school at least fourteen weeks in each year, eight weeks at least of which attendance shall be consecutive, or to be instructed regularly at home at least fourteen weeks in each year in spelling, reading. writing, English grammar, geography, and arithmetic, unless. the physical or mental condition of the child is such as to render such attendance or instruction inexpedient or impracticable. SEC. 2. No child under the age of fourteen years shall be employed by any person to labor in any business whatever during the school hours of any school day of the school term of the public school in the school district or the city where such child is, unless such child shall have attended some public or private day school where instruction was given by a teacher qualified to instruct in spelling, reading, writing, geography, English grammar, and arithmetic, or shall have been reg ularly instructed at home in said branches by some person qualified to instruct in the same, at least fourteen weeks of the fifty-two weeks next preceding any and every year in which such child shall be employed, and shall, at the time of such employment, deliver to the employer a certificate in writing, signed by the teacher or a school trustee of the district or of a school, and countersigned by such officer as the board of education or public instruction, by whatever name it may be known in any city, incorporated village or town, shall designate, certifying to such attendance or instruction; and any person who shall employ any child contrary to the provisions of this section sha'l, for each offense, forfeit and pay a penalty of fifty dollars to the treasurer or chief fiscal officer of the city, or supervisor of the town in which such offense shall occur; the said sum or penalty, when so paid to be added to the public school money of the school district in which the offense occurred.

SEC. 3. It shall be the duty of the trustee or trustees of every school district, or public school, or union school, or of officers appointed for that purpose by the board of education or public instruction, by whatever name it may be known, in every town and city, in the month of September and of February in each year, and at such other times as may be deemed necessary, to examine into the situation of the children employed in all manufacturing and other establishments in such school district where children are employed; and in case any town or city is not divided into school districts, it shall for the purposes of the examination provided for in this section be divided by the school authorities thereof into districts, and the said trustees or other officers as aforesaid notified of their respective districts on or before the first day of January of each year; and the said trustee or trustees, or other officers as aforesaid, shall ascertain whether all the provisions of this act are duly observed, and report all violations thereof to the treasurer or chief fiscal officer of said city, or supervisor of said town. On such examination the proprietor, superintendent, or manager of said establishment shall, on demand, exhibit to said examining trustee, or other officer as afore said, a correct list of all children between the ages of eight and fourteen years employed in said establishment, with the said certificates of attendance on school or of instruction.

SEC. 4. Every parent, guardian, or other person having control and charge of any child between the ages of eight and fourteen years, who has been temporarily discharged from employment in any business, in order to be afforded an opportunity to receive instruction or schooling, shall send such child to some public or private school, or shall cause such child to be regularly instructed as aforesaid at home for the period for which such child may have been so discharged, to the extent of at least fourteen weeks in all in each year, unless the physical or mental condition of the child is such as to render such an attendance or instruction inexpedient or impracticable.

SEC. 5. The trustee or trustees of any school district or public school, or the president of any union school, or such officer as the board of education of said city, incorporated village, or town may designate, is hereby authorized and empowered to see that sections one, two, three, four, and five of this act are enforced, and to report in writing all violations thereof to the treasurer or chief fiscal officer of his city, or to the supervisor of his town; any person who shall violate any provision of sections one, three, and four of this act shall, on written notice of such violation from one of the school officers above named, forfeit, for the first offense, and pay to the treasurer or chief fiscal officer of the city, or to the supervisor of the town in which he resides, or such offense has occurred, the sum of one dollar, and, after such first offense, shall, for each succeeding offense in the same year, forfeit and pay to the treasurer of said city or supervisor of said town, the sum of five dollars for each and every week, not exceeding thirteen weeks in one year, during which he, after written notice from said school officer, shall have failed to comply with any of said provisions: the said penalties, when paid, to be added to the public school money of said school district in which the offense occurred.

[Section 6 provides for text-books for poor children.]

Sec. 7. In case any person having the control of any child between the ages of eight and fourteen years is unable to induce said child to attend school for the said fourteen weeks in each year, and shall so state in writing to said trustee, or said other officers appointed by the board of education or public instruction by whatever name it may be known, the said child shall, from and after the date and delivery to said trustee, or other officer as aforesaid, of said statement in writing, be deemed and dealt with as an habitual truant, and said person shall be relieved of all penalties incurred for said year after said date, under sections one, four, and five of this act, as to such child. SEC. 8. The board of education or public instruction, by whatever name it may be called, in such city and incorporated village, and the trustees of the school districts and union school in each town, by an affirmative vote of a majority of said trustees, at a meeting or meetings to be called for this purpose, on ten days' notice in writing to each trustee, said notice to be given by the town clerk, are for each of their respective cities and towns hereby authorized and empowered and directed, on or before the first day of January, eighteen hundred and seventy-seven, to make all needful

provisions, arrangements, rules and regulations concerning habitual truants and children between said ages of eight and fourteen years of age, who may be found wandering about the streets or public places of such city or town during the school hours of the school day of the term of the public school of said city or town, having no lawful occupation or business, and growing up in ignorance; and said provisions, arrangements, rules and regulations shall be such as shall, in their judg ment, be most conducive to the welfare of such children, and to the good order of such city or town; and shall provide suitable places for the discipline and instruction and confinement, when necessary, of such children, and may require the aid of the police of cities or incorporated villages, and constables of towns, to enforce their said rules and regulations; provided, however, that such provisions, arrangements, rules and regulations shall not go into effect, as laws for said several cities and towns, until they shall have been approved, in writing, by a justice of the supreme court for the judicial district in which said city, incorporated village, or town is situated; and, when so approved, he shall file the same with the clerk of the said city, incorporated village, or town, who shall print the same, and furnish ten copies thereof to each trustee of each school district, or public or union school of said city, incorporated village, or town. The said trustee shall keep one copy thereof posted in a conspicuous place in or upon each school-house in his charge during the school terms each year. In like manner the same in each city, incorporated village, or town may be amended or revised within six months after the passage of this act, and thereafter annually as the trustee or trustees of any school district or public school, or the president of any union school, or the board of education or public instruction, or by whatever name it may be known, in any city, incorporated village, or town, may determine.

SEC. 9. Justices of the peace, civil justices, and police justices shall have jurisdiction, within their respective towns and cities, of all offenses and all actions for penalties or fines described in this act, or that may be described in said provisions, arrangements, rules and regulations authorized by section eight of this act. All actions for tines and penalties under this act shall be brought in the name of the treasurer or chief fiscal officer of the city or supervisor of the town to whom the same is payable, but shall be brought by and under the direction of the said trustee or trustees, or said officer designated by the board of education.

SEC. 10. Two weeks' attendance at a half-time or evening school shall, for all purposes of this act, be counted as one week at a day school.

SEC. 11. This act shall take effect on the first day of January, eighteen hundred and seventy-five.

The position of Superintendent Gilmour.-Hon. Neil Gilmour, the then State superintendent, while not considering the act unconstitutional, expressed his conviction that the system should not have been introduced into New York until after some years of careful preparation; in his view ample school accommodations should have been provided, the quality of the instruction improved, and provision made for the care of truants and vagrants, before having had recourse to any compulsory measures. "I am also decidedly of the opinion," he went on to say, that if we can, under a voluntary system, closely approximate the results which we aim to reach by the enactment of a compulsory law, it will be better not to have such a law upon our statute books." He expressed his determination, however, to render all possible assistance in enforcing the law, notwithstanding a number of defects which were pointed out.

The law after four years' trial.—In 1878 Superintendent Gilmour called upon the city superintendents of schools for special reports, showing what had been accomplished under the compulsory law. "These reports," he says, "show that no practical results have been secured. With the exception of two or three cities no steps have been taken to the carrying out of the provisions of this law; and where steps have been taken hardly any satisfactory results have been secured. The manner in which this law has been received by the public is in marked contrast with the law in reference to industrial drawing. The act in reference to compulsory education is practically a dead letter, and it must be materially amended before it can be enforced. "Statistics in reference to this law have also been required * from local officers in the rural districts. * The reports generally indicate that the law in its present form is not and can not be enforced."

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Why not enforced in cities; what the reports say.-Albany: No direct steps taken; no compulsion necessary; educational advantages are appreciated so highly that the board is embarrassed only in providing sufficient school-room to supply the demand.

Elmira: The school board has done all it can, but the city authorities refuse to make necessary appropriation. Lawyers think the law a cumbrous, awkward thing to execute. A reform school or ungraded school for irregular attendants greatly needed. Poughkeepsie: Substantially nothing done. Only a small number of the children coming under the provisions of the law are not in school.

Brooklyn: In 1876 five attendance agents and a superintendent of attendance of high character were appointed under rules of the city board of education. These agents notified the proprietors of all the large manufactories of the terms of the law with the following results: (1) Large numbers of juvenile employés were thereupon discharged, and the streets were filled with children "whose precocious sagacity was constantly exercised to elude the vigilance of the agents." (2) Many of the children were members of families in which the rigid exclusion from work “of every member below the age of fourteen was a verdict of death by starvation or subsistence by charity." (3) "A third result of enforced attendance of unwilling pupils upon our public schools was more important in its effect on the discipline, morals, and efficiency of instruction in them than had been anticipated, and unhappily that result was the reverse of beneficial. * ** The effect of their forced obtrusion upon many of the classes was not less disastrous to

the discipline and morals of the pupils in them than to the equanimity and efficiency of the instructor. In consequence of their long neglect of the subjects of study it was found necessary to place these unfortunate youths in the same classes with pupils scarcely more than one-half their age to whom the contagion of their vices was doubly infectious from the influence of their superior strength and greater years," etc.

"It was such evils as these which affected the judgments of the members of this board in establishing some mode of accomplishing the designs of the law without the attendant evils of its late enforcement,"

From September, 1876, to July, 1878, the attendance agents were employed entirely as truant officers, the same as had been the case for 12 years prior to the passage of the compulsory law.

In October, 1878, two attendance schools were established for the instruction of children of confirmed truant habits. These were designed to relieve the public schools from the burden of the discipline of such children and materially increase the efficiency of tuition for the more regular attendants upon them.

The city superintendent, in closing his report, says in general terms with regard to the compulsory law:

"Its extent of utility, however, ought not to be measured by the number of delinquents whose tendency has subjected them to arrest by the attendance agents, as the wholesome fear of such discipline has doubtless deterred many others from committing the same offense.

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The modified system adopted by this board during the last year (1878) effected nearly all that could be judiciously performed for arresting truancy, and when supplemented by the establishment of special truant schools I believe the act will accomplish all that is practicable in compulsory attendance upon the public schools." New York: "The compulsory education clauses of the law have been only partially enforced. The superintendent of truancy reports that he has found only 303 children between the ages of 8 and 14 who are employed in stores, factories, etc., of whom fully one-half are entitled to certificates of attendance. He, however, says: 'I desire to know what course I shall pursue in regard to those who are the children of very poor parents, whose wages are of the greatest importance to assist in the support of their parents and other members of the family during the rigors of winter. A notice to their employers will discharge the whole of them into the street, making a fresh supply of recruits for the beggar and pauper class.' In other words, he reports that the law can not be enforced without such distressing consequences to parents as he shrinks from being the means of producing, even though the duties of his office would seem imperatively to require this to be done.

From all the facts presented it would appear that very little has been accomplished this year in the effort to carry into effect the provisions of the law. But I do not think the community, or the school system, has suffered therefrom, as I deem the law in its general scope unnecessary and in many respects impracticable."

Lockport: No effort made to enforce the provisions of the law, the prospects of success being insufficient to warrant the labor and expense involved.

Syracuse: A census was taken; only a few children, eight to fourteen, were found to be non-attendants, so action was deemed unnecessary. The superintendent fears the act may have the effect of limiting to fourteen weeks the attendance of many poor children who would have attended longer, and does not feel certain "that any good can be secured to the cause of education by legislation compelling attendance at the public schools."

Newburg: Nothing done.

Oswego: Nothing done except to publish the act.

Long Island City: Nothing done.

Ogdensburg: Nothing done. "The law is not adapted to the condition of the citizen and his rights in a free country like ours. School men should have a voice in making school law in order to make it practicable."

Schenectady: Nothing accomplished.

After fourteen years of trial.-State Superintendent A. S. Draper, in his second report, dated January 17, 1888, stated that the attendance on the schools did not keep pace with the growth of the population, and attributed this result to the circumstance that nothing practical had ever been done in the State by way of compelling attendance upon the schools. "To be sure," he says, "we have a compulsory education law upon our statute books, but it is a compulsory law which does not compel. It has never been acted under to any considerable extent, and this being so after fourteen years of trial, it is fair to presume that it never will be.' In my opinion there are good reasons why

In writing to the Bureau under date of January 27, 1890, Superintendent Draper says of the statute of 1874: "It has never been operated effectually, unless in two or three large cities, where the circumstances were extreme, and where they have facilities through other legislation for utilizing some of its provisions."

it has never accomplished what was desired of it. In the first place it requires members of boards of education to look after and apprehend delinquent children, and it is unreasonable to expect that officials elected only to manage the schools and who serve without pay will devote the necessary time or that they will engage in work which should devolve upon a policeman or constable or some other officer specially charged with and paid for such service. Again, the penalties provided in the act run mainly against children, and no people will be swift to enforce penalties against children for delinquency not amounting to crime, for which they are not so properly answerable as are their parents or guardians. The penalties in the act which go against parents are mere fines, so inconsiderable as to be ridiculous, and the machinery provided for collecting them is too cumbersome and expensive to be commonly made use of. Moreover the act requires that children under fourteen years of age should attend for at least fourteen weeks in the year. Attendance for so small a part of the year is hardly of enough importance to justify any serious effort to insure it. Again, the law does not require communities to act in the matter, nor does it provide any adequate school facilities for the accommodation of delinquents if brought in."

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The present law insufficient.-In another connection Superintendent Draper says of the statute of 1874: "This measure, now known as chapter 421 of the laws of 1874, was materially amended in 1876, and constitutes the present compulsory-education law of this State. It has never availed much. In the light of experience we are able to see that its theories were not altogether sound, that its processes were ill-conceived, that its remedies were inadequate, and that, above all, it made no suitable provision for its own enforcement. *Only in two or three larger cities where circumstances have been extreme, where local officers have been interested and possessed of back-bone, and where, in consequence of other legislation, they have had authority and means to enforce some of the provisions of this statute, have any results worth mentioning flowed from it. Yet these two or three large cities serve an excellent purpose in pointing out the course necessary to be pursued in order to be successful in gathering the children of indifferent and dissolute parents into the schools."

Principles to be embodied in any effective statute.-"There is no longer any necessity for moving blindly in the matter. The State can now act more intelligently than it did in 1874, and effectually meet the difficulty if it undertakes to do so. Public experience, at home and abroad, since that time, has been such as to point out clearly the particular steps which need to be taken to make certain of general success in the undertaking. * * I think that experience has shown that any statute which will be effective must at least embody the following principles:

"1. The law must specify the ages between which and months of the year within which all children must be in some school, either public or private, of suitable character, unless excused therefrom for sufficient reasons by official authority.

"2. Parents and guardians must be made responsible for sending children to school, and must be punished sufficiently to insure compliance with the requirements of the statute.

"3. Special institutions must be provided for thoroughly vicious and incorrigible cases which can not safely be received into the ordinary schools.

"4. The law must set up the machinery for securing and keeping continuously a perfect census of children of school age in each city or district, and it must provide and pay officers to look up and account for each child, and to execute all the provisions of the statute.

"While the friends of popular education will be justified in vigorously seeking the enactment of a measure which does something more than toy with this important subject, and in refusing to accept any measure which does not give promise of operating effectually, it is to be hoped that no controversy will be permitted over nonessential details. There is no room for any serious differences as to details among people who admit the principle that the State should see to it that children within specified ages should be sent to a suitable school, and who are either experienced themselves or are familiar with the experience of others in trying to enforce this principle. It seems to me that, at this late day, the opinions of people who deny this principle are entitled to but little consideration, and that a principle so important, both to individual and public interests, should not be jeopardized through the lack of aquaintance with what may be necessary to enforce it."

Action of the council of superintendents.-Certain occurrences in 1887 had aroused public attention in the matter of school attendance, and the State council of city and village superintendents, which met in November of that year, adopted the following resolu

tions:

"Resolved, That it is the sense of the council that the existing laws of a compulsory nature are in a general way sufficient for the accomplishment of the purposes intended. ED 89-32

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