WHY THE CHILDREN ARE IN THE FACTORY BY MISS JEAN M. GORDON, It seems incredible that, in this age, it should be necessary for men and women to leave their homes and private businesses, to come together to devise ways and means to awaken the consciences of other men and women, and make them feel their responsibility towards little children. George Eliot conveys the idea somewhere in her writings, if one is sitting in a room and sees a piece of bric-a-brac about to fall, instinctively the hand is put forth to try to catch it. And it does seem that every one would put forth a hand to save the little ones; but that this is not done is evidenced by the gathering of these men and women in Atlanta to-day to try to solve this vexing, disheartening problem. The most potent reason, in my opinion, why the children are in the factory is our school system. Our present method of instruction, particularly for the boys between eight and twelve, does not interest the children. This is due to two causes: the overcrowded condition of the school rooms, especially in the middle grades, which makes it impossible for the teacher to give personal attention to the less intelligent children, and the alarming number of our children who are defective in sight, hearing, or what is even more prevalent and distressing, the debilitating effects of the adenoid growth, which saps the vitality and acquiring power to an incredible degree. These defective children soon fall behind in their studies-the teacher has not the time to give them any personal attention or encouragement. They become discouraged and wish to leave school. The teacher sees the standard of her year's work greatly lowered through these so-called stupid children, and she encourages the little ones to leave. You must not blame the teacher, rather blame the niggardly appropriations and the lack of a true appreciation of the great value of education as demonstrated by our Southern lawmakers on this question of education. untutored child are on the heads, not only of the parent, but of every citizen who permits this shameful treatment of a ward of society. Society's interest demands that the youth of the land shall be trained to become as adults integral parts of the great machinery of production, and healthy and intelligent American citizens. If by any neglect society permits them to become criminals and dependents, society alone is to blame. Progress, I am glad to say, is being made in this movement. At a great conference attended by representatives of the factories and their employees at Nashville last year, resolutions were unanimously adopted favoring compulsory school attendance. Capital and labor here agree. I have cited the conditions. I am a Southern man and I have pride in what has been done by my section, but I would not, out of pride, endeavor to deny that we need tenfold more zeal in application to these problems. As I have said, I do not know that compulsory education is immediately practicable, but I firmly believe that it ought to be the end toward which during the next few years, we shall work; and when some Horace Mann or Thomas Jefferson arouses the people of the Southern states to their duty, there need be no longer any doubt of the splendid future of the South. WHY THE CHILDREN ARE IN THE FACTORY BY MISS JEAN M. GORDON, It seems incredible that, in this age, it should be necessary for men and women to leave their homes and private businesses, to come together to devise ways and means to awaken the consciences of other men and women, and make them feel their responsibility towards little children. George Eliot conveys the idea somewhere in her writings, if one is sitting in a room and sees a piece of bric-a-brac about to fall, instinctively the hand is put forth to try to catch it. And it does seem that every one would put forth a hand to save the little ones; but that this is not done is evidenced by the gathering of these men and women in Atlanta to-day to try to solve this vexing, disheartening problem. The most potent reason, in my opinion, why the children are in the factory is our school system. Our present method of instruction, particularly for the boys between eight and twelve, does not interest the children. This is due to two causes: the overcrowded condition of the school rooms, especially in the middle grades, which makes it impossible for the teacher to give personal attention to the less intelligent children, and the alarming number of our children who are defective in sight, hearing, or what is even more prevalent and distressing, the debilitating effects of the adenoid growth, which saps the vitality and acquiring power to an incredible degree. These defective children soon fall behind in their studies-the teacher has not the time to give them any personal attention or encouragement. They become discouraged and wish to leave school. The teacher sees the standard of her year's work greatly lowered through these so-called stupid children, and she encourages the little ones to leave. You must not blame the teacher, rather blame the niggardly appropriations and the lack of a true appreciation of the great value of education as demonstrated by our Southern lawmakers on this question of education. Demand for Education Tell me the South is too poor to educate her children and I tell you we are too poor not to educate them. If we are poor, it is because we have been ignorant-ignorant of the value of our great forests and streams, our mines and franchises which we sold to Northern capital. The South must have compulsory industrial education and have it now,-not ten years hence when the boy and girl of to-day have gotten away from us. If need be, stop every other improvement, such as paving and building magnificent court and jail houses. You do not need fine school buildings. Some of the finest men and women this country has ever known were educated in log-cabins. Above all, you want the teacher who has been taught how to teach, who feels her responsibility towards the piece of putty placed in her hands. It is the teacher who will make this America of ours what it should be, not the business man nor the politician. In Wyoming, one of the states where women are just as good as men on election day, the state has said there shall be no such thing as ignorance-it is too costly; therefore, if there is one child on a mountain top too far from the district school to attend regularly, a teacher is sent to live in the home of that child for ten months, and is paid for the entire twelve months. The state recognizes the right of the child to an education, and of the teacher to a living wage. In the South, we expect a woman to go into a state of coma two or three months of each year, as we pay only for the months she actually works. And here let me sound my note of warning to those of us who fear that under compulsory education laws the negro child will be educated. As far as my experience goes, I have yet to find a Jew or a negro child in a mill, factory or department store. They are at school, well nourished, playing out in our glorious Southern sunlight, waxing strong and fat; it is only your white-faced, sunken-chested, curved-backed little Christians who are in the mills and department stores. The public school system must become an adjunct to the home-it must help the busy housewife, who no longer has a yard for her children to play in, but must turn them into the streets while she fulfils the many duties of the position she holds as wife, This busy mother, housemaid, cook, laundress, seamstress, nurse. woman has a hard time keeping up with the boy or girl of ten or twelve, who, filled with the spirit natural to childhood, wants to be "doing something." The average mother fears the influences of the street and so consents to the child's entering the factory, thinking he is safer within its four walls. Never was there a greater mistake, for all the objections which can be urged against the street, -bad companionship, dust, bad language and disease-prevail in the factory, with the added nervous strain of the work and the constant standing from ten to twelve hours each day. Therefore, our schools must arrange for the defective child, the backward child and the saddest of all children, the child of parents who have not yet learned the value of education! By diversified work, directed play and proper supervision, the school must help the mother raise her child. If the churches of this country really wish to be a vivifying, dynamic force in our daily life, they must awaken to the fact that they have not taken their share in the great humanitarian movements of the day. These have grown up outside the church. The ministers and church men and women must make their religion workthey cannot afford to keep it as they do their best clothes, only to be used on Sunday. The mill woman who knows she is overworked and underpaid is not apt to feel kindly towards a religion which preaches justice and equality for all, when she sees the men and women who fatten off her day's labors exalted to the high places. Parental Responsibility Another reason why the children are at work is the independence which comes, especially to the boy, from the possession of what seems to them a great deal of money, and also the freedom from home surveillance. I put one boy of nine years out of a department store, whose mother told me he left home at 6.30 a. m., on a breakfast of coffee and bread, taking with him a half loaf of bread for his lunch and a nickel with which he bought a cup of coffee at a bar-room. As he lived too far from the night-school to return home for dinner, he played with other boys similarly situated, until eight o'clock, when they went to school, reaching home at ten o'clock. Think of a child away from home nearly sixteen hours a day-away from all home influence, all parental control! We do much talking about home influence but we do very little work towards securing it. |