that, in the words of one inspector, "We can't find them. All we do is to jolly them along." Penalties are seldom imposed on the employer, but the average dismissed child is severely penalized by the dismissal. Thus the attempt to penalize the employer in favor of the child, results in an immediate penalizing of the child.
It is not for a moment contended that there are no working children who, when dismissed by the factory inspector, return to school. Such instances abound in any large industrial center. But in the great majority of instances, the child who is dismissed does not go back to school, but does suffer grievously from the effects of street life, or malnutrition, or else seeks and finds other employment.
The reasons for this shifting of the burdens of the penalty from the employer to the child may be discovered by examining the laws of the various states. The child labor law in most states is a purely negative, coercive instrument. It says, "Thou shalt not," without following this destructive command by a con-
