Employers secure these but they are not reliable. The employer is protected, the child sacrificed, and a premium is put on perjury. No industry in the State is so demoralizing and injurious to boys as the anthracite coal industry. For the last half a century these breakers have been filled with boys who should have been in the public schools. If society in anthracite communities is to be safeguarded against injuries which can be avoided only by increased intelligence, greater attention must be given to the public education of the children.
Necessity often accounts for the presence of boys in the breakers or mines.
Many of the advocates of reform lose sight of this. There are many widows and poor families in these coal fields that need the wages earned by these children, and it would be well for kind-hearted people, who consider only the general desirability of fuller education of these boys, to remember this. On the other hand there are many parents who exploit their children. Of the nationalities represented the Sclavs were in the lead, but the English, Irish and Welsh followed closely, while 12 of the parents were native born. These parents do not see that a liberal education to the boys is a better investment than to build a house.