THE FEDERAL CHILDREN'S BUREAU--A SYMPOSIUM. By Lillian D. Wald, Jane Addams, Leo Arnstein, Ben B. Lindsey, Henry B. Favill, Charles R. Henderson, Florence Kelley, and Samuel McCune Lindsay. SOME UNSETTLED QUESTIONS ABOUT CHILD LABOR.. Owen R. Lovejoy PRACTICAL RESTRICTIONS ON CHILD LABOR IN TEXTILE INDUSTRIES; HIGHER EDUCATIONAL AND PHYSICAL QUALIFICATIONS. Howell Cheney SCHOLARSHIPS FOR WORKING CHILDREN... Mrs. H. Gaylord Holt, Chairman. MINNESOTA CHILD LABOR COMMITTEE. Meta Jackson Barnard, Secretary. NEBRASKA CHILD LABOR COMMITTEE. NEW YORK CHILD LABOR COMMITTEE. CONSERVING CHILDHOOD BY ANDREW S. DRAPER, LL. B., LL. D. Commissioner of Education of the State of New York, Albany, N. Y. It is yet to be proved that a wide-open democracy like ours can do some of the things which a well-ordered political society needs to have done, as well as more centralized forms of government do them with apparent ease. Indeed, it is yet to appear that we can make good the fundamental principle of our political creed and assure equality of right and opportunity to every one. Of course, there are compensations for the fact, but it is a fact. The door of opportunity opens wider here than in any other nation in the world. The passion of the United States is that every one shall have his chance. We provide primary, secondary and higher instruction practically free of cost to all. The teaching is efficient and the equipment is ample, often sumptuous. The spirit that supports it all is delightful. The school budget is the one tax of which no good American has the hardihood to complain. The road to and through and between the schools is a broad highway. It has no breaks and no very heavy grades. No sect, no party, no social set, no commercial interest, is allowed to obstruct it. So much is settled and everywhere accepted. It is more than settled and accepted. Wealth, society, business, religion and political sagacity find their security and their pleasure in continually enlarging and strengthening the educational ideal. The road to accomplishment and to fame is as open and as free as that to the schools. Education is not only the universal American passion, but hope, cheer, courage are the words which the most beautiful and brilliant flag in the world whispers in the ears of all, native born or adopted, who live where it casts its shadow. A national temperament which is being warmed by the intermingling of the blood, the experiences and the ideals of all the peoples of the world; which has been ennobled by the constantly enlarging opportunities and continually increasing influence of women; which has been incited by innumerable individual successes, and which has been made very confident, if not very vain, by the always unfolding magnificence of the governmental plan, is stirred to its very depths by the opportunities and the inspirations of the American Republic. The millions who are mature enough to feel it, and who have not been borne down by conditions which are well nigh insuperable, are struggling, in season and out of season, to make the most of it. The spectacle is brilliant enough to stir the wonder, if not the jealousy, of the world. Nothing short of the Gloria in excelsis can express our heartfelt appreciation of it all. Would that there were no word of qualification nor ground for apprehension. But there is, and we are old enough and strong enough to look each other in the face and say it. Our general characterization expresses great and proud truths, and perhaps the larger part of the whole truth, but still it is only a part of the whole truth. The undisclosed part is that we count a mere opening for some as the equal chance for all. It is not so; one must be helped to a place where he may enter the door of opportunity, before he has any share in the equal chance for all. Leaving further applications of the principle to be made by others, it is my mission to this Conference to say that all American children must be given the implements with which to make their way in our busy civilization before it can be said that our political system is sufficiently efficient or that equality of chance is held out to every one. Fifty years ago we were discussing just such a question as this, and the great Lincoln, right here in the city of Chicago and the state of Illinois, was piercing the fallacy that political freedom covered the right to do wrong. Senator Douglas, a very great man, was saying that the territories should have free constitutions and be left to vote slavery up or down, according to their inclinations; but the greatest of all Illinoisans and the greatest of all Americans answered, "No, that is but temporizing with an inherent wrong." It would be logical, he said, if slavery were ever right, but for one man to claim the right to eat his bread in the sweat of another man's brow, save as the result of free contract or pursuant to bad laws already duly enacted, was essentially immoral. Slavery might be tolerated for a time where it was established by law, because even that might be better than a fratricidal war which might sever the union of the states and present an insuperable obstacle to a further democratic advance; but freedom was to be voted up and slavery must be voted down by the common action of a free nation, when |