condition is not such as to render its instruction inexpedient or impracticable, shall cause such child to attend a public day school regularly and constantly while the public schools of the district in which the child resides are in session, or to receive elsewhere thorough instruction in the studies taught in the public schools during the hours and terms when the public schools are in session.

SEC. 2. Children under fourteen years of age who have attended school twelve weeks of the preceding twelve months, according to the requirements of Chapter eighty (page 162) of the public acts of 1882, and children over fourteen years of age shall not be subject to the requirements of the preceding section while properly employed to labor at home or elsewhere, but this section shall not be construed to exempt any child who is enrolled as a member of a school from any rule concerning irregularity of attendance which has been enacted or may be enacted by the board of school visitors or the board of education having control of the school.

SEC. 3. Each week's failure on the part of any person to comply with the provisions of the preceding sections shall be a distinct offence, punishable with a fine not exceeding five dollars, but such fines shall not be imposed exceeding in the aggregate sixty dollars in any one year. Said penalty shall not be incurred when it appears that the child is destitute of clothing suitable for attending school and the parent or person having control of such child is unable to provide such clothing. Prosecutions under this act shall be conducted and judgment may be suspended, as provided in section two of chapter eighty (page 162), of the public acts of 1882.

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As was said in the report of last year:

The law requires consecutive attendance for no more than six weeks. The remainder of the twelve weeks or sixty days may be made up by occasional visits. Such spasms of study extended over six years cannot be compared in value with two or three years of continuous and regular work in school. Even one year of 180 school days makes a more lasting impression than the same time in three distinct and perhaps widely separated sections. It would be well if steady attendance for the year from 12 to 13 could by law be made an equivalent for the two distinct periods of sixty days from 12 to 14."

A still more beneficial and progressive course would compel children to attend school regularly and constantly until they are 10 years of age and forbid their employment until that age is reached.

The labor of children under 10 is not largely remunerative and not often essential to the support of families. If families are dependent upon the labor of such children, towns can well afford to render assistance until the rudiments of an

education have been acquired. The number of children between the years of 8 and 10 now employed is not so large that their exclusion from factories would derange any industry, nor could the education of the school for those years and the intermission of labor materially interfere with the acquirement of ultimate skill in any trade or calling. Indeed, it cannot be controverted that to the greatest skill in any trade or industry or to proficiency in any calling, the early years of strong children are most profitably spent in attaining such education as will be useful in any course of life. It is not too much to insist that the years until 10 shall be thus occupied. It is both humane and just to the children who are helpless.

The State, too, has not completed its duty until it insists that none of school age who cannot read and write shall be employed to labor.

Below will be found the Report of the Agent of the Board which contains an account of his work and an historical sketch of compulsory legislation.

REPORT OF THE AGENT OF THE BOARD.

To MR. CHARLES D. HINE,

Secretary of State Board of Education:

In the performance of my duties as Agent of the Board during the twelve months ending August 31st, 1885, I have visited the following towns:

Ashford, Barkhamsted, Beacon Falls, Bethel, Berlin, Branford, Bridgeport, Bristol, Brooklyn, Canton, Colebrook, Colchester, Danbury, Derby, Durham, Eastford, East Haddam, East Lyme, Easton, Essex, Fairfield, Farmington, Greenwich, Griswold, Groton, Guilford, Haddam, Hebron, Huntington, Killingly, Ledyard, Lyme, Meriden, Middlefield, Middletown, Milford, Montville, New Britain, New Fairfield, New Hartford, New Haven, Newington, New London, Norwalk, Norwich, Old Saybrook, Orange, Plainfield, Plainville, Plymouth, Pomfret, Portland, Preston, Putnam, Saybrook, Seymour, South Windsor, Sprague, Stafford, Stonington, Thomaston, Thompson, Union, Vernon, Voluntown, Wallingford, Waterbury, Westport, Winchester, Windham, Windsor, Windsor Locks, Woodstock.

Towns visited,

73

Cases of apparent unlawful absence from school investigated, 877
Visits to school (departments 309), -

199

Visits to factories and other establishments where children are
employed,

104

Certificates of school attendance inspected in places of em

ployment,

355

Visits to homes of children who appeared to be unlawfully ab-
sent from school, - - -

672

Children found to be unlawfully absent from school,

470

Children found to be employed in violation of law,

215

Prosecutions of parents for failing to cause their children to
attend school, -

8

Children neglecting or refusing to attend school sent to the
Reform School and the Industrial School, -
Neglected children sent to County Homes,-.

14

4

It is not to be inferred that there was greater delinquency in school attendance in the towns named than in some others. But it is not possible for one person to canvass for neglected and delinquent children all the towns in the State in twelve months. The above summary, like similar statements in former reports, is not to be regarded as statistical, but merely a concise statement of the work of your agent during the period covered by this report.

While some of the towns have been thoroughly examined by means of the enumeration returns and the school registers with some help from School visitors and teachers, in others a village or school district only has been visited or attention has been directed to special cases of parental neglect or violation of law by employers.

The means made use of in causing due observance of the law where it had been violated were such as have been described at length in former reports, first making it clear to the parent and employer of a child who has been deprived of schooling, that the child is defrauded, and that the law of the State made for his protection has been violated. If appeals to honor, parental love and respect for law do not avail, then recourse is had to prosecutions and penalties.

No employer has been prosecuted during the year, not because no person was found employing children contrary to the law, but because the circumstances in each case seemed to be such, that the future observance of the law could be as well or better promoted by at least postponing legal measures. In some instances, persons

had for the first time employed young children, and were not aware that there was any restriction in their employment. In most cases however, where the law was violated by employers, they intended to comply with its requirements, in fact were "zealous of the law," but had consulted their own convenience too long, retaining the children from one to six months and in some instances longer beyond the time when they should have returned to school.

It has seemed reasonable and best sometimes to regard the convenience of parents concerning the time when their children are to be sent to school. But the convenience of employers is quite another matter. In all cases where employers have made this plea as an excuse of violation of law, they have been informed that their convenience can not be allowed to come in competition with the rights of the children, which it is the object of the law to protect. If hereafter, children shall continue for this reason to be unlawfully employed, I shall regard it as a duty to see that the penalty is strictly enforced.

There is manifestly an increasing tendency to discard very young help. Among the causes may be mentioned the improved condition of the stock used in some branches of industry, improvement in machinery and a system which takes the place of cash children in stores. Public opinion is plainly averse to the employment of children where they are subjected to confinement or exertion which tends to prevent their proper development and health. Employers have not only found it difficult to secure all the young help which formerly seemed to be required, but they have found it embarrassing to discharge children and employ others so that they may attend school as the law demands. It is not improbable that the enforcement of the law has had much to do in causing the improvements above mentioned, for it is a true adage that "necessity is the mother of invention."

It does not however follow that it is desirable to entirely prohibit by law the employment of children under fourteen years of age in factories and other places where they are at present employed. Sometimes the strongest motive we can urge on parents to send their children to school three months, is that they may be employed to labor the remaining nine months of the year. If the children could not be so employed, in many instances attendance at school could be secured only by enforcing on the parent the penalty for his neglect. The law has been so enforced in many

cases, but there are cases, especially in the manufacturing villages, where it seems practicably impossible to compel attendance at school in that way. The parents can not pay fine, and to imprison them would only increase the privations of the children. It may be well to increase the term of schooling required each year, to one hundred days and to prohibit the employment of children under ten years of age in factories, shops and stores. But if it is desirable to introduce instruction in manual labor into our schools, why not permit children to labor a part of their time for wages in those employments in which they will probably be engaged in after years?

It may be observed in the foregoing statement that less than half the number of children who were found to be unlawfully absent from school, were employed to labor. It may be added that very few of the employed children who had resided in the United States a year, had entirely failed to attend school. If they had not attended sixty days during the preceding twelve months, they may have attended a less number of days during that period or in former years.

Among those who were found to be unlawfully absent from school and idle, there were some of American parentage nearly fourteen years of age who had never seen the inside of a school house. In nearly every town visited, and probably in nine tenths of the towns in the State, there are children growing up in ignorance and idleness, who have failed to receive the minimum schooling which the law requires. Frequently School visitors, Selectmen and others admonish the parents of such children to send them to school. Many such cases have been reported to me. Other cases of this character seem never to have received any attention from local officers or others who might know of them. They are detected only on inspecting the enumeration returns and the school registers.

If employers strictly regard the law, as most of them are doing because they believe the children should have at least all the schooling the law requires, and others do, if from no higher motive from regard for the penalty of the law, the children employed will require much less attention than those who have no lawful occupation.

Children who have been received from alms-houses, orphan asylums and other institutions or from poor parents, are sometimes found in the care or employment of persons, who if