Page:Solution of the Child Labor Problem.djvu/119

112 The fact that 186,000 children, between ten and thirteen, are employed in the United States in gainful occupations other than agriculture, is a proof conclusive that the community has failed to insist upon school attendance. Even when the children are kept out of the factories they are not in the schools, and it is in that fact that the leading cause of child labor may be read.

"The most potent reason, in my opinion, why the children are in the factory, is our school system," says Jean M. Gordon, a Louisiana factory inspector. A careful canvass of any group of child laborers will reveal the fact that this statement is absolutely true. The average working child would far rather work in the factory than return to school.

The preceding analysis of industrial evolution, greed, necessity, and ignorance and indifference, narrows the field of causes to two. The average child laborer goes to work because his family needs the income, or