are its headings: Arbor Day; Origin and History; Methods of its Observance; Benefits derived from its Observance; Tree Worship; Trees; Age and Size of Trees; Uses of Trees; Historic Trees; Forests of New Jersey; Shade Tree Commissions.

SCHOOL SAVINGS BANKS.-The teaching of thrift, or the conservation of money resources, has not received the attention in America that is accorded it in several European countries. Although some believe it to be outside the province of the school for it to serve as the depository of children's savings, some form of practical lessons which will tend toward habits of thrift is badly needed in America. School savings banks can be made to furnish these lessons in an effective way. The idea of such banks originated in France, the paradise of small savings, and from there spread rapidly into such thrifty countries as Germany, Holland, and Belgium. Mr. John Thiry, a native of Belgium, in 1885, while he was a school commissioner of Long Island City, New York, introduced the plan in America. Through his instrumentality this system of teaching thrift was soon established in all the public schools of that city and gradually spread all over the country. Although such savings banks are not in the general use which they deserve, there are now 1149 public schools recorded as using the plan, with a total amount of savings registered of nearly $3,500,000. As a large proportion of this amount would ordinarily have been spent for cheap candy and in some cases for cigarettes, these banks have been a means of conserving the welfare of their depositors.

But, more than this, they have taught something of the meaning and value of thrift. They have also enabled many persons to pay their way through academies and colleges, and while attending trade and technical schools. They have made it possible for boys to start small business enterprises of their own and for girls to buy their own clothing. In some instances they have given children the satisfaction of rendering financial assistance to their parents at critical times. But, possibly more than anything else, they have taught the lessons of self-denial for the sake of a greater future good which are so hard for young people to understand. The thrifty Franklin had as a favorite expression

"Deny self for self's sake," and these young depositors have had a better opportunity to do so than have the pupils in the schools where these banks have not been established.

Mr. Thiry died in 1911, leaving the leadership and the accumulated literature and records of the system to his associate, Mrs. Sara L. Oberholtzer, of Philadelphia. It is largely due to her efforts during the last 20 years that 265 schools in Pennsylvania have adopted the plan. This State, Massachusetts, Connecticut, and New York have the most of these banks, although recently San Francisco, Oakland, and Berkeley, California, have introduced the plan in a number of their schools.

Child Labor.

THE NEW CHILDREN'S BUREAU.-By far the most important general legislation affecting the welfare of young people during the past year was the creation of a Children's Bureau as a branch of the Department of Commerce and Labor. Miss Julia C. Lathrop has been placed at the head of the Bureau with a salary of $5000 per year. The purpose of this bureau is not to exercise authority over the children of the country or to bring legal pressure to bear upon their parents. It is rather to serve as a great national intelligence office, or bureau of information, continually engaged in the kind of investigation and research work that will make clear the position and needs of the great number of children who are now practically without intelligent and sympathetic interest and care. The Bureau will pay little attention to well-fed, well-housed children except to include them in its general statistics. But it will concern itself specially with the less fortunate who are surrounded by conditions which retard physical development and which prevent them from getting an effective education.

There are four classes of children upon whose condition the Bureau is to turn its attention. These are (a) afflicted children; (b) dependent children; (c) delinquents; and (d) children at work. The child labor problem has already received a great deal of effective attention throughout the country. But this Federal bureau will undoubtedly make it possible to secure information that hitherto it

has been impossible to get; and it will undoubtedly be the means of securing more effective and uniform legislation for the protection of children from the ignorance and greed of parents and from the merciless actions of the employers of cheap and hope-destroying labor.

CHILD LABOR AND EDUCATION.-The National Child Labor Committee, which held its annual conference in Louisville, Ky., early in 1912, grouped its considerations this year around the above topic. As the Committee has been accused of doing only negative work, a great deal of emphasis was laid by its leaders upon the necessity of doing constructive work for children in the way of opening doors of real opportunity for them. Especially is the Committee anxious to coöperate in securing the industrial training and vocational guidance that will save children from being drawn into the "blind-alley" occupations which so effectively shut them out of the possibility of developing industrial efficiency. To show the immense number of youths who enter these blind-alley careers, it was affirmed that in New York city alone, of the 42,000 children between the ages of 14 and 16 who each year secure employment certificates, only a small percentage enter upon occupations with a hopeful outlook; the remainder take up forms of labor that after years of work leave the victim impoverished in money, health, and efficiency.

Nor is it safe to assume that the industrial training that may be given in the school before the end of the compulsory period, and the mere calling attention there to the various occupations with their remunerations, will prevent this great loss to human efficiency. Such an assumption is not borne out by the facts. Without careful vocational guidance and sympathetic interest, the great majority will still be attracted into the permanently unremunerative and hopeless callings. As one speaker said, probably the best effects of the vocational efforts of the school will be found in the way it enriches the curriculum and tends to retain the pupil in the school; because it so fills the school program with vital interest that we shall soon find the school holding the child to the last possible moment, instead of, as now, losing him at the first possible moment." If the school can retain its pupils for a year or two longer than

at present, "it will render the highest possible service towards the solution, not only of the child labor problem but of many other complicated industrial problems.

The kind of employment for young people that was particularly emphasized was employment that both permitted and encouraged a continuance of the education, or as it was tersely stated the opportunity "to work instead of being worked "-employment with a view to education and not for exploitation. The compulsory attendance law must be made general and more effective; but that is not more important than that practical educational opportunity shall be made available to all young people whether they are employed or not. These continued educational opportunities were regarded as more important just now than that the compulsory age limit be raised to 16 years.

As a recompense for the small weekly salaries that the young wage earners can add to the support of needy homes, Commissioner of Education Claxton made the valuable suggestion that the waste spots in villages and towns might well be placed at the disposal of the school for such instruction and use as would enable these youths to contribute, through their garden products, more toward the support of the home than would accrue from their small wages if employed.

CHILD LABOR IN CITY STREETS.-The mental alertness of newsboys, and boys who spend much time in the city streets, is often referred to as if it exceeds that of other boys. This idea is refuted by Doctor Edward N. Clopper in his new work on "Child Labor in City Streets" (Macmillan Co.). From investigations made in St. Louis, Cincinnati, New York, and Cleveland, he proves that children who are at work out of school hours are more backward than the average child. In Toledo, out of 287 school children engaged in street trades out of school hours and the great majority of whom were newsboys, 55 per cent were backward; and 26.7 per cent of the retarded street workers were 3 or more years behind the normal age for grade. Of the 169 of these boys who were from 10 to 13 years of age, 61 per cent were backward, 38 per cent normal, and only 1 per cent ahead of normal grade. A similar study in New York city revealed even a larger per cent of backward pupils among the newsboys. As Dr. Clopper says, there no doubt are

other factors which contribute to bring about this condition of backwardness, such as poverty, malnutrition, and mental deficiency, but there can be little doubt that the distractions and exhaustive efforts of street work are in large measure responsible. Street work should therefore be included in the list of prohibited employments, at least for boys and girls under 16, where health may be injured or morals depraved. And it would be even better to follow the practice of Great Britain, which has had so much experience in such matters, and where investigating bodies have emphatically declared that "street trading by boys under 17 and girls under 18 should be absolutely prohibited."

Peace.

DOCTOR ELIOT'S WORLD TOUR.-Doctor Eliot, president emeritus of Harvard University, has returned from his tour of the world in behalf of the peace movement financed by Mr. Carnegie, and, according to the World's Work for October, reports. that "international or national disarmament is not taken seriously by the leaders and thinking men of the more important peoples." Although he says there is a strong sentiment for it and that there is everywhere far less fighting and desire for war and a greater and more abiding respect for the institutions of peace, this is perhaps largely because of a natural growth toward a better civilization and a higher Christianity, and not so much due to any special peace propaganda.

This would seem to indicate, according to the comment of the editor, that "Universal peace, when it comes, will come as the result of a long and slow educational process, and by the increasing use of such peaceful machinery as the Hague tribunal. This is so far the one great definite contribution to the peace movement that makes a landmark in the long, slow rise from the barbarism of war.

Universal peace will come by the slow process of evolution -come by education and by the working of economic laws." As matters stand now, the men who have the responsibility of defending their countries and securing what they may regard as their countries' rights are evidently not yet ready to recommend a policy of disarmament.