w on its buttons, to set its type,
to carry its checks to the bank. The officer at the door of the room
where the children were being examined, greeted her as follows: "You
must bring your child with you; bring his birth certificate or swear
that he is fourteen years old, and bring a signed statement from his
teacher that he has been in school for one hundred and thirty
consecutive days within twelve months." "Is there no physical
examination or test?" she asked. "No, no," he answered impatiently. Yet
the board of health certifies that "said child has in our opinion
reached the normal development of a child of its age, and is in sound
health and is physically able to perform the work which it intends to
do." In addition the blank calls for place and date of birth, color of
hair and of eyes, height, weight, and facial marks. Volunteer societies
in practically every state in the Union have been working for years to
have it made a criminal offense to employ a child who has not been in
school a minimum of days after a stated age (12, 13, 14, 15). Even in
New York, however, the center of this agitation, no strong demand was
made upon the board of health to apply a physical-fitness test as well
as an age test until 1908 when examination for working papers was added
to the programme for child hygiene. Yet who does not know girls and
boys of sixteen less fit for factory or shop work than other boys and
girls of twelve? It is the fetich of age which has made possible the
"democracy" that permits a child of fourteen to work all day on
condition that he go to school at night!

[Illustration: CHILDREN ENLISTING IN THE INDUSTRIAL ARMY]

[Illustration: WAITING TO BE EXAMINED FOR WORKING PAPERS
An excellent opportunity for physical-fitness tests]

So great is the risk of defective, sickly, or intemperate employees,
that in some trades employers take every precaution to exclude them.
One man with defective eyesight or unsteady nerves may cost a railroad
thousands of dollars. As insurance companies rank trades as first-,
second-, or third-class risks, so many factories, from long experience,
debar men with certain characteristics which have been found
detrimental to business. The Interborough Rapid Transit Company of New
York City examines all applicants for employment, as to age, weight,
height, keenness of vision, hearing, color perception, lungs, hearts,
arteries, alcoholism, and nicotinism. Those who fall below the sta