The Bridgeport evening farmer., 1913-07-02
THE FACTORY
 VERSUS YOUTH
CBy Ru,th)

we are growing up too quickly In this great nation or the Western boys and girls scarcely reach the pe- riod of youth before they are sent out into the world to cope with the prob lem of earning their daily bread.
 Here they are constantly brought into contact with the older men and women whose lives, begun as their own is beginning, have been one con tinual drudge. Is it, then, any won der that these children too, should take a pesslmistic view of life-that they too, should look upon their em- ployers as tyrants. with power almost to crush out their lives?
 Unconsciously they assume the ap- guage of their older shopmates. O, what a pity it is to see a young girl of sixteen decked oue with powder and paint and considering herself beauti- full! Or to hear young man using vile language and showing by his con duct that he hasn't the slightest idea in the world that such things as man ners or good breeding exist.
 do not mean to insinuate that all girls and boys who go into the factory lose their individuality and become mere replicas of certain mod els which they see; nor, on the other hand, do I wish to imply that such
 
 found only in the factory.
 What do want to show is that the boy or girl who has to go to work at an early age can hardly help becom- ing a mere machine whose only con- ception of the authority over him is of some indef1nable thing which stands waiting for the slightest mis- take, ready to cast him without ref erence upon the cruel world. ana that if these children had had their youths developed properly, If they had been able to get away from the hard con ditions of the city and to have gone out into the country, if they could have been taught what was right and what was honorable instead of mere ly plodding, along-guessing what to dos they would have had an entirely different view of life, their employer would not have seemed to the a. ty- rant and there would, have been bet ter co-op< ~atfon between themselves and him.
 Most of thes~ children are of good. honest parents bo, 2 large family. the small wage of the h>her, and the ex- ceedingIy high cost of living has ne- cessitated their leaving school at the earliest possible age and entering the factory with the great army of work CTS.
 If the boy can learn a trade he is
 
 only looks forward for some one to take mo out of the shop She is not always particular about this per- son who will take her out of the shop" just so long as she can get married and very often Q. few months place in the factory, not looking for ward now for "some one to take her out of the shop but. her ideals bro ken. working-working all the while. she sees nothing before her but an endless chain of to-morrows.
 Could not this girls condition have been prevented had she been taught by the beauties of nature to seek beauty in everything, to have found contentmenf with her lot and not to have taken the first man who came along and consequently gotten a worthless husband
 This does not by any means apply to all girls who are in the factory. Some girls, as we'll as some boys are ann lift themselves above their common lot. Many of our greatest men were very poor boys who struggled on and upward until they reached the top. But opportunities such as these men had are becoming more rare all the time because now people who can af- ford it at all are educating their children as much as possible. Where formerly the poor uneducated boy could make 8 place for himself, he now finds there is no room beside the young men who,. trained for every emergency, fill such places to-day. And so he must fall back-stay below with the others.
 To counteract this to a great de- gree, to give to the boy or girl a chance to Ego back to nature just a little way, to teach them the value of knowledge. to train them to be honorable, in fact, to prolong their chdldhoods much as possible. two great organizations have now .been es- tablshed-e-The Boy Scouts and s@The Camp Fire GirlsIs'
 While still but a few years old, their value is already inestimable. It is to be hoped that more such organ factions will be founded to keep Americas children young for the fate of a nation depends upon it's young people.