The selective draft of 1917—­which was designed to choose for military service only those fulfiling definite requirements of physical and mental fitness—­showed some of the results of child labor.  It established the fact that the majority of American children never got beyond the sixth grade, because they were forced to leave school at that time.  Our over-advertised compulsory education does not compel—­and does not educate.  The selective-draft, it is our duty to emphasize this fact, revealed that 38 per cent. of the young men (more than a million) were rejected because of physical ill-health and defects.  And 25 per cent. were illiterate.

These young men were the children of yesterday.  Authorities tell us that 75 per cent. of the school-children are defective.  This means that no less than fifteen million schoolchildren, out of 22,000,000 in the United States, are physically or mentally below par.

This is the soil in which all sorts of serious evils strike root.  It is a truism that children are the chief asset of a nation.  Yet while the United States government allotted 92.8 per cent. of its appropriations for 1920 toward war expenses, three per cent. to public works, 3.2 per cent. to “primary governmental functions,” no more than one per cent. is appropriated to education, research and development.  Of this one per cent., only a small proportion is devoted to public health.  The conservation of childhood is a minor consideration.  While three cents is spent for the more or less doubtful protection of women and children, fifty cents is given to the Bureau of Animal Industry, for the protection of domestic animals.  In 1919, the State of Kansas appropriated $25,000 to protect the health of pigs, and $4,000 to protect the health of children.  In four years our Federal Government appropriated—­roughly speaking—­$81,000,000 for the improvement of rivers; $13,000,000 for forest conservation; $8,000,000 for the experimental plant industry; $7,000,000 for the experimental animal industry; $4,000,000 to combat the foot and mouth disease; and less than half a million for the protection of child life.

Competent authorities tell us that no less than 75 per cent. of American children leave school between the ages of fourteen and sixteen to go to work.  This number is increasing.  According to the recently published report on “The Administration of the First Child Labor Law,” in five states in which it was necessary for the Children’s Bureau to handle directly the working certificates of children, one-fifth of the 25,000 children who applied for certificates left school when they were in the fourth grade; nearly a tenth of them had never attended school at all or had not gone beyond the first grade; and only one-twenty-fifth had gone as far as the eighth grade.  But their educational equipment was even more limited than the grade they attended would indicate.  Of the children applying to go to work 1,803 had not advanced further