THE PROBLEMS OF BOY LIFE. *
ALTHOUGH the volume which Mr. Whitehouse has edited on the Problems of Bey Life contains many interesting chapters, there is always a certain amount of disappointment in a book made up of a series of essays by different writers. Of neces- sity there is much overlapping, while at the same time it is not easy to secure a coherent purpose throughout. Mr. White- Louse, however, has evidently done his best, for there is a general unity of idea running through the volume. The problem, of course, is not a new one, and though it is a very serious one the writers of these essays have taken pains not to exaggerate their case. They point out that the proportion of boy labour to adult labour declined appreciably between 1891 and 1901, and presumably the decline has since continued as a result of the extension of the school age and the multipli- cation of secondary schools. It is true that an immense number of boys enter blind-alley occupations which in no way fit them for earning a living in after life. At the same time it is shown that even in some of the occupations that appear to be least hopeful there is in practice considerable oppor- tunity of future employment. For example, the secretary of the Boy Messenger Company is quoted as stating that the company never dismisses a boy on account of age. "Our difficulty is always to keep them, having regard to the many inducements offered to them in the way of permanent employ- ment, and in many cases at a good rate of pay." The writer of this particular essay seems to think that perhaps the state- ment is a little too optimistic, but further on we find a very similar statement with regard to errand boys. The head of a large firm in Liverpool reports that care is taken to promote errand boys when opportunities offer, and that in practice nearly all the heads of departments began their career as errand boys. There is little doubt that a good many other firms could tell a similar tale, and we all remember the after life of the boy who "cleaned the windows, and swept the floor, and polished up the handle of the big front door."
The fact is that in modern industry, including in that term the whole organization of buying and selling as well as of manufacturing, there is room for the employment of vast numbers of men who have no special handicraft, but have sharpness, activity, and general ability, and these qualities are, perhaps, more likely to be acquired by the boy messengers and other errand boys than by a boy who at an early age is tied down to a rigid apprenticeship. It is, by the way, somewhat curious to note that one of these essayists speaks as if enter- ing the Army were in itself a disaster. We profoundly disagree. The Army under present conditions of pay and promotion is an extremely good profession, and though the problem of providing employment for the time-expired soldier has not yet been fully solved it is much nearer solution than it was twenty years ago. In this connexion it may strongly be urged that there should be a more definite co-operation between the Army and the Civil Services than now exists. The Post Office at present reserves half its vacancies for men who have served in the Army. There is no reason whatever why all the vacancies should not be so reserved, and the same rule might well be applied to other branches of the Civil Service and to the various police forces of the kingdom. In that event every soldier of good character would be certain of obtaining permanent civilian employment on quitting the ranks. We would carry the process a stage further, or rather begin it a stage earlier, by providing that every telegraph boy employed in the Post Office should have his attention definitely directed to the Army, and shoull be made to understand that if he joins the Army he can come back again to the Post Office, but that otherwise he must seek employment elsewhere. The same system might be extended with the co-operation of private employers to many other classes of boy labourers, and the seriousness of the boy problem would by this means be very considerably mitigated.
For further reform one must look to improved educational methods, and on this point great stress is laid by nearly all the essayists. They urge that in the elementary schools "each subject on the curriculum should be considered not so much as an end in itself as for its usefulness as a means of training. The movement in the direction of increased manual training —not as a preparation for any handicraft, but as a discipline
• Problems of Boy Life. Edited by d. IL Whitehouse, M.P. London : 1'. S. Sing and Son. Llos. 6& net.] of hand and eye and resourcefulness—is, in one respect, the embodiment of the reform for which we plead." There is a further point, only incidentally brought out in these essays, but which is undoubtedly of extreme importance. Writing upon the schools in Munich, Mr. Horsfall says that in Germany " Children have been saved from the worst kind of maltreatment which has befallen our children owing to the fact that in the greater part of the country children do not begin to go to school till they have completed their sixth year." He adds that children who are in weak health are kept out of school for another year, and it was found " that the delicate children in Halle thus kept at home for an extra year increased on an average during that year some 30 or 40 per cent. more in weight and height than the more robust children who spent their seventh year partly in school." This is a point to which English edu- cationists have as yet given practically no attention. It is not generally known that England is the only country in the world where children are compelled to come to school at so early an age as five. An appendix to this volume of essays gives particulars of the age of compulsion in different countries, and it will be found that in many of the best educated countries compulsion does not begin till seven and in some cases not till eight. One of the very best steps that could be taken to deal with the problem of boy labour would be to alter the ages of compulsory school attendance so that com- pulsion began and ended later.
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