oy that adenoids or weak
lungs will keep him from getting a job, and you will make him a strong
advocate of operation and of fresh air. Show him that his employers
will not wish his services when his week is out if he is physically
below par, and he will gladly submit to a board of health examination
and ask to be told what his defects are and how to correct them.

[Illustration: CHILDREN AT WORK BELOW BOTH AGE LIMIT AND
VITALITY LIMIT
National Child Labor Committee]

Some there are who will object to this appeal to the child's economic
instinct. This objection does not remove the instinct. The normal child
is greedy for a job. His greed, as well as that of the manufacturer and
parent, is responsible for much of the child labor; his greed for
activity, for association, for money, and so for work. A little boy
came into my office and wanted to hire as an office boy. I looked at
him and said: "My little fellow, you ought to be in school. What do you
want to hire out here for?" He said, "I am tired of school; nothing
doing." He doesn't care about work for its own sake; he doesn't care
about wealth for its own sake; he wants to get into life; to be where
there is "something doing." In this lies one potent argument for
vocational training. To tell a boy of his physical needs just before he
has taken his first business step is to put him everlastingly in our
debt. Then he is responsive, and, fortunately for the extreme cases,
necessarily dependent, for he knows that his refusal would stand
between himself and his ambition.

When boys and girls go for work certificates to Dr. Goler, medical
officer of health at Rochester, he requires not merely evidence of age
and of schooling, but examines their eyes for defective vision and for
disease, their teeth for cavities and unhealthy gums, and their noses
and throats for adenoids and enlarged tonsils. If a boy has sixteen
decayed teeth, Dr. Goler explains to him that teeth are meant to be not
only ornaments and conveniences, but money getters as well. The boy
learns that decayed teeth breed disease, contaminate food, interfere
with digestion, make him a disagreeable companion and a less efficient
worker. If he will go and have them put into proper condition he will
enjoy life better and earn good wages sooner. After the teeth are
attended to the boy secures his work certificate. If the boy's mother
protests in tears or in anger that her boy does not work with his
teet