He has learned how to read a book or a newspaper intelligently,
and how to express himself in writing. If he is an average child he
has acquired a good deal of useful information. He will remember much
of what he has learned, and can turn what knowledge he has to some
account. But the child who leaves school in the fifth or sixth grade,
or, perhaps, even earlier, is apt to have no hold on what he has been
taught, and it all too soon passes from his memory, especially if he
has in his home surroundings no stimulus to mental activity. Poor
little thing! What a mockery to call this education, so little as
it has fitted him to understand life and its problems! What he has
learned out of school, meanwhile, as often as not, is harmful rather
than beneficial.
The school door closes and the factory gate stands open wide. The
children get their working papers, and slip out of the one, and
through the other. At once, as we arrange matters, begins the fatal
effect of handing over children, body and soul, into the control of
industry.
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