Ellsworth American. [volume] (Ellsworth, Me.) 1855-current, 1909-06-23
sALUTAToRY.

sALUTAToRY.
Parents, friends and citizens of Els
worth, with pleasure and gratitude we
/ the class of 1903, extend to you hearty
welcome TO these our commencement ex-
ercises.
To you, Mr.. Superintendent and mem
bers OF the school board, gentlemen who
have spent much time and labor in pre-
paring our course OF study, and in obtain
ing for US the best instruction possible,
we wish to extend hearty welcome.
| And you, teachers, who have had the
care OF our education during the past
Tour years, some of whom are not present
to-day, you also we welcome. And to all
we extend our most cordial greeting, and
in the name of the class of 1909 salute
| you.
1 CHILD LABOR AND PHILANTHROPY.
"Ahl what would the world be to us
III the children were no more?
We would dread the desert behind us
worse than the dark before.
What the leaves are TO the forest,
With light and air for food,
Ere their sweet and tender juices
Have been hardened into wood,
That to the world are children;
through them 1t feels the glow
OF brighter and SUMMER climate
Than reaches the trunks below.
They are better than all the ballads
That ever were sung or said
For they are living poems,
And all the rest are dead"
The chief product of a country is its
children; they are the human timber OF
the future; many of them are like the
young trees which have no natural pro-
lection and are deprived OF normal soil in
which to grow and flourish.
In olden times every man reared his
children according to his own ideas, and
| the fatherless child was an object OF un-
systematic charity. In the nineteenth
century, half scientific, half humanita-
| rian, society learned to regard itself az the
| universal parent OF the next generation,
| diyidual child; but the philanthropists OF
| the pres century devote too little at
tention to the needs of the neglected chill
dren and spend their time and money in
| more ostentatious ways.
No Christian and civilized nation can
| youth OF to-day; for il it does the COM
munity will have to pay terrible penalty
| OF financial burden and social degradation
| in the Tomorrow.
At the present time it is difficult for the
bureau OF education to obtain sufficient
| money from Congress for even the most
necessary additions to its ordinary work,
and appropriations are not available for
| supplying national educational needs
| therefore, there has been recently in ses-
sion conference on behalf of neglected
and destitute children, to discuss the
awakening situation OF a majority of our
young people and to procure from Con-
| gress some effective means whereby the
| burdened children may be lifted from
| drudgery into this our enlightened world.
| Nearly one hundred years have elapsed
since the first act was passed by the Eng
lish parliament to reduce the evils of child
labor, and England, industrially, is the
most advanced country in the world.
The pauper children in the warehouses
were being fed to the machine almost as
the children in ancient idolatry were fed
to Molock. These chilcren, some of them
not over seven years of age, were sent by
the thousands to supply the demands
for cheap labor in the numerous factories.
They were lodged in rough barracks,
where their food was of the worst descrip-
ton, and they were cruelty driven by their
task master while working fourteen hours
day, and sometimes even more. Under
these harsh conditions countless num-
Der of these little children soon wore
pallid cheek and the slightest disease took
them from this world Of t,il to haven Of
res.,
A similar picture rests over great
number of our American children too day
II has beep estimated that there are over
million children, all under the age of
Ii
factories, and ali in the United States of
America. Who would have believed it?
Who would have imagined that there is
such a multitude of children in such a
small area, entirely shut out from the edu-
cational world and higher aspirations for
their future welfare?
Every problem of child life is school
problem. The boys and girls just enter
ing their teens leave school because they
wish to get into active life, be in the ex-
citing throngs of the daily working class,
and near the ever changing machinery, re-
ceiving some tangible returns for their
efforts.
What pathetic thing 1t is to think that
we are living in a golden age, and that we
have over two million small children now
employed in our field OF manual labor,
cropping about in the shadows OF sin, ex-
posed to all the evils, which so quickly
fasten themselves upon the unprotected
and unguarded child.
One single effort properly spent in fash
Joining an upright character in the child is
worth Thousand efforts spent in reform
ing the bad character in the adult.
Immature labor makes impossible the
cultivation of true artistic sense, which
forms the vital part OF the intellectual
life and economic evolution OF any IN
dividual.
From any point OF view, the wide ex-
tent of child labor in the United States
OF America is a veritable menace; it IS
needless sacrifice upon the altar OF mann
mon. For these children are not needed
in the industrial world, and there are but
few cases where the condition OF the
family is so unfortunate that the parents
cannot support their children.
Laying too heavy burdens on the
shoulders of our undeyeloped children
produces an exhaustion sure to manifest
itself later in some OF those forms OF
physical or moral break down from which
society so universally suffers.
Why should workers for the well being
of communities turn their faces against
the kind OF charity work which moves in
circle, removing present danger at the
cost of future good? And why should
the community, that larger social unit,
SET its face against this method? Because
we are convinced, not only by the research
and experience in other industrial coun-
tries, but by such Investigations as have
been conducted through private agencies
in this country, that child labor is feat
ure Of industry that violates practically
every canon of the new philanthropy.
The most costly labor Of all is child la
Dor. Humanity and the state will pay for
it long after the child has passed out OF
,.-LcvlLooI and ia COvnpofin0 wifi his