V. Ignorance and Indifference as Causes of Child Labor
The average child likes to "earn money." There is a fascination about it, and an excitement accompanying it that is well nigh irresistible to the healthy American boy.
"How do you like the mines, Tom?" I asked a fourteen-year-old boy who had been working for some time in a soft-coal mine. "I don't like 'em. Just at first it was all to the good. We was dirty and nobody said nothin' to us. We used to carry dinner-pails and the school kids wished they was us. It went good for a month or so, and then I begins to get tired, and wants to lay off, but 'No sir,' says the old man, 'you started in and you got to stick at it.' It ain't no fun after the first month, I can tell ye."
This case is typical of a large number. It is no uncommon thing to find children going to work with all the enthusiasm of childhood, taking up a "job," and soon tiring of it. By that time, however, the parents have felt the added value of the wages of the child to
