For Sale by the Superintendent of Documents, U. S. Government Printing Office, Washington, D. C.-Price 30 cents FOREWORD THE SCHOOL CENSUS, compulsory education, and childlabor regulations are subject to State control. Each State of the Union has enacted legislation concerning them. These many regulations and practices relating to child welfare services vary significantly among the States. Because of this fact no detailed composite picture can be presented for the United States as a whole. To obtain an account of the various practices existing in any one of these services requires a State-by-State study. This is too large a task for most individuals who need the information to undertake. In recognition of this fact the U. S. Office of Education, in keeping with its legal authorization to collect and diffuse information to promote the cause of education throughout the country, has prepared this handbook setting forth practices followed in each State relative to the school census, compulsory school attendance, and child labor, and furnishing some illustrative examples of them. This handbook will be a convenient source of information for persons concerned with the improvement of practices, the enactment of new legislation, and the administration of laws in these phases of education and the protection of youth from exploitation in employment. BESS GOODYKOONTZ, Assistant U. S. Commissioner of Education. HISTORICAL DEVELOPMENT OF PROTECTIVE LEGISLATION FOR CHILDREN PUBLIC OPINION in the early decades of the last century brought about the establishment of free public schools. The idea that education was to be made compulsory came later. Public authorities had difficulty at first in taking care of those who wanted to go to school, without concerning themselves about those who did not want to go. For example, instead of taking a census of children of school age as a basis for determining needed school facilities, Louisiana in 1823 enacted a law requiring parents and guardians "to make known" to the commissioners of their respective townships "the number of pupils which such parents or guardians respectively wish to enter in school." However, the feeling grew that in a democracy all the citizenry should be educated in order to participate intelligently in the affairs of government. One evidence of this was the origin in many States of a State fund to be distributed to schools for aiding them in providing adequate educational opportunities for the purpose. In some States this fund was originally created to aid local schools in making provisions for those children who would not otherwise have any opportunity for education. With the growth of the State's interest in education to the point that it invested moneyby action of the legislature-to support the efforts of local schools there arose the questions as to how such funds were to be distributed and how the State might realize its aim for an educated citizenry by bringing all children into school. The latter question was later treated as a double one by (a) enacting laws to compel children of certain ages to attend school and (b) placing legal prohibitions upon the employment of children of specified ages. Early State regulations pertaining to these questions are partially, at least, indicated by the following statutory enactments: Georgia in 1823 passed an act appropriating $20,000 out of the poor school fund among the different counties "in proportion to the number of free white population in each county... for the purpose of educating such children who are destitute of the means of education." Delaware in 1829 enacted a law, with supplementary legislation of 1833, providing that the "fund for establishing schools in the State of Delaware... shall be apportioned |