d at
will to dispose of unwelcome children, and these practices persisted
among the backward peoples of Asia and Africa, until they were
compelled to recognize the law of the white master when he extended
his dominion over them. In the patriarchal household of classic lands,
the child was under the absolute control of his father. Religious
regulations might demand that he be instructed in the history and
obligations of the race, as in the case of the Hebrew child, or the
interests of the state might require physical training for its own
defense, as in the case of Sparta, but there was no consideration of
child rights in the home. Until the eighteenth century European
children shared the hardships of poverty and discomfort common to the
age, and often the cruelty of brutal and degraded parents; they were
often condemned to long hours of industry in factories after the new
industrial order caught them in its toils. In the mine and the mill
and on the farm children have been bound down to labor for long and
weary hours, until modern legislation has interfered.

There are a number of reasons why child labor has been common.
Hereditary custom has decreed it. Children have been looked upon by
many races as a care and a burden rather than a responsibility and a
blessing. Their economic value was their one claim to be regarded as a
family asset. Even the religious teaching of Jews and Christians about
the value and responsibility of children has not been influential
enough to compel a recognition of their worth, though their innocence
and purity, their faith and optimism are qualities indispensable to
the race of mankind if social relations are to approach the ideal.

54. =The Value of Work.=--Labor is a social blessing rather than a
curse. There can be no doubt that habits of industry are desirable for
the child as well as for the adult. Idleness is the forerunner of
ignorance, laziness, and general incapacity. It is no kindness to a
child to permit him to spend all his time out of school in play. It
gives him skill, a new respect for labor, and a new conception of the
value of money, if he has a paper route, mows a lawn, shovels snow, or
hoes potatoes. Especially is it desirable that a boy should have some
sort of an occupation for a few hours a day during the long summer
vacation. The child on the farm has no lack of opportunity, but for
the boy of the city streets there is little that is practicable,
outside of selling pa