II. Petition Filed by a Local Pastor and School Inspector in Greiz (1878)
Petition by the pastor in Reinsdorf for leniency for a poor local schoolboy regarding the incomplete fulfillment of § 2 of the Royal Decree of May 24, 1855, on using school-aged children for work, etc.
The Hammermühle (a wool mill), located on Saxon territory within the parish, was set up by the previous owner as a so-called spinning mill; he likes to employ school children from this side of the river there as well.
As soon as I learned about this from our teacher, I got in touch with the owner and had to demand the dismissal of one of the employed boys, Franz Paul from Schönfeld, because he did not meet the requirements specified in § 2 of the above decree. Even though the boy has attended school for three years and has already turned nine, he has not, whether by his own wrongdoing or not, learned to read properly, as § 2 stipulates.
The boy’s parents, poor weavers who live from hand to mouth, are blessed with six children; the eldest is an eleven-year-old boy. Despite low prices, they need six marks worth of bread per week, and they sorely need the two marks per week that the boy brings home as weekly pay from the mill. The father is not able to earn more than nine marks a week on average at the mechanized weaving mill and the mother, tied to the home for the sake of the small children, can earn little or nothing at all.
In order to lend a helping hand to this hard-pressed family in their predicament and to loosen their ties to Social Democracy – I would like to propose a solution to the high authorities concerning this affair, one with which I have already achieved a number of welcome successes. Namely, I would give the boy several private lessons per week in reading, writing, and math until St. Michael’s Day, at which time he would then, with God’s help, be able to fulfill the requirements of § 2.
Would you therefore, in gracious consideration, permit as a last resort that I issue the boy’s school report in advance for the purpose of his speedy resumption of work at the spinning mill, on the express condition that he continue regular attendance of school?
Source: Rudolf Schramm, “Kinderarbeit – ein dunkles Kapitel aus der Geschichte der Greizer Textilindustrie” [“Child Labor – A Dark Chapter in the History of the Greiz Textile Industry”], in Jahrbuch des Kreismuseums Hohenleuben-Reichenfels [Yearbook of the Kreis Museum Hohenleuben-Reichenfels], no. 5, 1956, pp. 103-4.
Original German text reprinted in Klaus Saul, Jens Flemming, Dirk Stegmann, and Peter-Christian Witt, Hg., Arbeiterfamilien im Kaiserreich. Materialien zur Sozialgeschichte in Deutschland 1871-1914 [Worker Families in the Kaiserreich: Materials on the Social History of Germany 1871-1914]. Düsseldorf, 1982, pp. 224-25.
Translation: Erwin Fink
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