Page:Solution of the Child Labor Problem.djvu/57

50 unvaryingly wearisome conditions; the loss of play time; the loss of adequate schooling; the lack of any character-building influence, such as is supplied in the home or school,—these things are involved in child labor. They prove for the child worker a handicap which in the majority of cases is never overcome.

A wealthy nation, provided with an income sufficient to give to every citizen a comfortable living, cannot honestly believe in a social ideal and permit the existence of child labor. Each generation should hand down to the next generation a higher type of social structure if progress is to be insured. A social structure honeycombed and weakened by child labor can scarce be considered worthy of transmission to the future.

So much may be said in general terms of the undesirability of transmitting to the future children stunted and worn by premature toil. There are two very concrete ways in which child labor injures the society of the present and thus indirectly that of the future. In the first place it helps to destroy family