導讀（依據羅恩.賀伯特著作編譯，附英文原文）全面禁止兒童工作一度被看成是一種合乎人道的做法，但卻是造成青少年犯罪的一個基本原因。的確曾有虐待童工發生，事實不容置....

（依據羅恩.賀伯特著作編譯，附英文原文）

全面禁止兒童工作一度被看成是一種合乎人道的做法，但卻是造成青少年犯罪的一個基本原因。

的確曾有虐待童工發生，事實不容置疑，有些童工工作過量以至于影響了他們的正常發育，總的來說，雇主只是在利用他們。不過令人懷疑的是臭名昭彰的馬克思先生是否真的曾經看見年幼的美國男孩死于工作，然后被人從機器上拖下去，丟到垃圾堆里呢?

只要有童工受虐的情形，就有反對的聲浪，政府就立法禁止孩童工作。這些法令本是善意的保護，卻促成了青少年的犯罪。

禁止孩童工作，尤其是禁止十幾歲的青少年在這個社會里有所成就，賺取應屬于自己的錢，其實會加重家庭的經濟負擔，維持家庭生計就好生艱難。同時也會讓十幾歲的青少年覺得這個世界並不需要他們。他在這場人生的競賽里，還沒起跑就已經掉了一局。接下來的一些事情像是團體的軍訓，讓他們不敢找工作，因此對自謀生路毫無興致。直到最后不得不找份工作時，他變得很冷漠，而且么事都不愿意去做。

The basic difficulty with all juvenile delinquency is the one-time apparently humane program of forbidding children to labor in any way.

Doubtless it was once a fact that child labor was abused, that children were worked too hard, that their growths were stunted and that they were, in general, used. It is highly doubtful if the infamous Mr. Marx ever saw in America young boys being pulled off machines dead from work and thrown onto dump heaps.

Where there was an abuse of this matter, there was a public outcry against it, and legislation was enacted to prevent children from working. This legislation with all the good intention of the world is,however,directly responsible for juvenile delinquency.

Forbidding children to work, and particularly forbidding teenagers to make their own way in the world and earn their own money, creates a family difficulty so that it becomes almost impossible to raise a family, and creates as well, and particularly,a state of mind in the teenager that the world does not want him, and he has already lost his game before he has begun it. Then with something like universal military training staring him in the race so that he dare not start a career, he is of course thrust into a deep subapathy (state of disinterest below apathy) on the subject of work, and when he at length is faced with the necessity of making his own way in the world,he rises into an apathy and does nothing about it at all.

支持這一觀點的事實證明，我們國家真正優秀的人才，從少年時期就開始工作了。在英美文化中，能盡到最大的努力的，總是從十二歲開始就在田里工作的男孩子們，他們負有職責，並且在世界中擁有一片屬于自己的天地。

It is highly supportive of this fact that our greatest citizens worked, usually when they were quite young. In the Anglo-American civilization the

highest level of endeavor was achieved by boys who,from the age of twelve, on farms, had their own duties and had a definite place in the world.

絕大多數孩子是愿意工作的。常發現一個兩、三歲或四歲的孩子常纏著父母，希望可以用他的玩具或臟兮兮的布塊替父母做點事。愛心父母則會表現出理性且常態化、耐心地讓孩子出手幫上忙。被允許幫忙的孩子漸漸地覺得他以及他所做的事是重要的，因而他能很沉穩地開始工作並確實做好它。

小時候不被允許去幫忙，長大被迫要從事某些職業工作的人，會認為其實沒有人需要他，而他也不屬于這個世界。然后他覺得工作困難重重。不過，一個三、四歲的孩子想在現代的社會做點工作不受鼓勵，通常也是被禁止的。當他變得懶惰躺平，等到他七、八歲時，他卻發現一些他不喜歡做的工作卻不得不去做。

但事實上是我們先教導孩子不要去工作，所以他才認為「工作的問題事不關己」。因此當需要他去做事時，他總是感到渾身不自在。

等到他長成到青少年，他卻找不到一份工作可以支付他買衣服或款待他的朋友，這對他而言是很重要的。因此他開始覺得他不是這個社會的一份子。既然他不屬于這個社會，他便傾向于反對這個社會，更有甚之～做出破壞性的行為。

Children, in the main,are quite willing to work. A two-，three,four-year- old child is usually found haunting his father or her mother trying to help out either with tools or dust rags; and the kind parent who is really fond of the children responds in the reasonable and long-ago-normal manner of being patient enough to let the child actually assist. A child so permitted then develops the idea that his presence and activity is desired and he quite calmly sets about a career of accomplishment.

The child who is warped or pressed into some career, but is not permitted to assist in those early years, is convinced that he is not wanted, that the world has no part of him. And later on he will come into very definite difficulties regarding work. However,the child who at three or four wants to work in this modern society is discouraged and is actually prevented from working,and after he is made to be idle until seven, eight or nine is suddenly saddled with certain chores.

Now,this child is already educated into the fact that he must not work and so the idea of work is a sphere where he “knows he does not belong,”and so he always feels uncomfortable in performing various activities.

Later on in his teens, he is actively prevented from getting the sort of a job which will permit him to buy the clothes and treats for his friends which he feels are demanded of him, and so he begins to feel he is not a part of the society. Not being part of the society,he is then against the society and desires nothing but destructive activities.