The farmer and mechanic. [volume] (Raleigh, N.C.) 18??-19??, 1914-01-06
COTTON MILL RANKS WITH THE
| SCHOOL HOUSE AS AN EDUCATOR
3ion Butler Sees No Need of Worrying About It-Dis-
misses the Alarm About Child Labor-Mill Factor
for Progress.

keeping youth up from "a farm to
the town and surroundslr :+h
bigger field of vision
OF the best places on eartn AIe,
boy If he has any chances
DIT on a great many of our baca
country farms the boy and the girl
have been shut in from contact with
ton mill has brought lot of country
people to the mill settlements and
rubbed them against other people.
Some Of these people have stayed in
town and taken on more modern
ways Some Of them have gone back
to the country and carried with them
new ideas which were picked up in
town. Some have stayed in town and
exerted the leavening influences by
contact with people who come to
town to see them
In one way or another that infiu-
ence has spread. The cotton mill has
brought North Carolina out of the
woods. 1t has encouraged the school
house, the church, the store. the tele-
phone, the automobile, the parlor or
| gan. the fashion magazine, the circu-
lating library, the social gathering
and all the things that bring people
! farther forward as contrasted with
| the isolation of rural life and the
| homely wit Of the youth who is not
brushed up by absorption of ideas
| from his fellows who are moving
with the swifter current of human
| progress
| Yes. children are working in the
| cotton mills who ought to be i'll school
or on the play grounds. And unless
children are different now than they
were forty OF fifty years ago there
| are children in school who would
like to be in the cotton mill. Let us
| concede that they are better off in
school. whether they are or not Let
| us also cOncede that they are better
| Off in school than if they were work
ing on the farm. Maybe chopping
cotton is q better occupation for a
child than working in cotton mill
l imagine it is, for it goes with out
| of doors and sunshine, and buryine
| your toes in the loose sand of the
| row to keep them cool.
But chOpping cotton is also work il
you keep it up longer than half ar
hour or 80. and it does not have the
| advantage OF an abundance of human
society in the evening after the worf
is done.
Work is Work.
Still that is matter for wiser mer
| than I to cipher out Work is work
and the whole troublesome business
of working is persona non grata t.
any active boy or girl if it is pilet
on too thick. And at that I reckon
more children have been hurt by to,
little work than by an overdose. Thi
may be treason, but I always though
| a fellow like Patrick Henry or MI
Washington or some Of the rest o
them who started things. were NOR
interesting than the good boys VIII
just sat around home and learne,
verses and got blue tickets and ha'
no fun.
The State is solving the child Ia
Dor question, so it really cuts littl
figure any more in the cotton mil
question. And the cotton mill
pounding ahead steadily, adding ne1
looms and new spindles taking NOR
cotton on every day, making NOR
clothes to cover naked humanity, an
affOrding a chance for the people Q
the country to pass through the re
finements Of town life and to get i
touch with the things that are in tn
? line OF advancement.
: Town Life and Cooperation.
81 am not one Of the kind to con,
pare town people moro favorabl
than country people, for I was neve
! wholly in sympathy with town Lift
/ ! and always got away from town whe
! I could. But what see in town LII
is that more people have a bette
Z chance to establish for themselve
\ those things that cooperation bring
J, to popul0us communities. The ma
Q In town has the benefit Of all thos
modern convenieaces that density {
e population brings. The cotton mi
!. gives to it's employees many convt
= niences that they could not hav
= while by themselves in the countr.
: It enables them to pick up broade
4 ideas Of life. It brings to the en-
1>io
more comfort. It puts anoth.r sOure
/. OF income in the community, and
: makes a Ftws legged community OF