but of children. So long as children are wrongfully at work, there will be need for child labor reform.
The reformer is often extreme; some of his statements are unwarrantable; and his figures are at times ridiculous. But one thing the reformer has done, and that one thing not only justifies his existence and activity, but makes of it a boon to his country,—the reformer has awakened the public conscience to a realization of the fact that the child is a national asset.
The child is a national asset, an asset of the first magnitude. Slowly the public mind is being awakened to the fact that whether the national ideal be the building of battleships, the painting of pictures, or the manufacturing of undershirts, the one really essential thing to the attainment of the ideal is a high type of citizenship. A condition precedent to high type citizenship is protected childhood.
Many problems have been discussed in recent years. There has been talk of temperance, of labor unions, of wages, of religion;
