Page:Solution of the Child Labor Problem.djvu/36

29 if he is prohibited from playing, he has lost a part of his life which he can never replace. During early youth, when the body is developing and plastic, there are two forces constantly at work, the one calling the child to higher ideals of life and growth, and the other tending to brutalize him for the sake of the few dollars which his unformed hands will earn. All of the future is conditioned on that struggle; if the forces of the ideal conquer, the child will develop through normal channels into a fully rounded man; if the forces of the dollar win, the child life is set and hardened into a money-making machine, grinding for a space and then giving place to another machine which has not yet been subject to the wear and tear of the life struggle.

Long youth means long life.

Slowly this truth is penetrating the public mind. After years of experiment and hesitating speculation, the nation is realizing that the child who goes into life without having learned to play, has taken the shortest road to the almshouse or the penitentiary; if