Page:Solution of the Child Labor Problem.djvu/140

133 The school training which should count for so much in the development of an efficient citizenship fails to fulfill its function, and its failure is manifest in the hundreds of thousands of children who gladly leave school before reaching the eighth year, and in the millions of ineffective and ruined lives which might have been strong and virile had the proper training been provided in the schools. This school problem can be solved by increased public interest and increased appropriations. Several American cities have extensive elementary courses in manual training designed to interest and instruct the child in hand work. Germany is a generation in advance of the United States in the provision of applied education. The way is plain: the will alone is lacking.

Is the problem equally simple when one faces the family kept above the line of malnutrition by the earnings of child workers? What steps can be taken to maintain the family at an adequate standard of living, and yet place before the children an opportunity for education?