The daily worker. [volume] (Chicago, Ill.) 1924-1958, 1930-03-08
By MYRA PAGE.

out the country by capitalist agencies that
there is free and equal opportunity for all
children to get an education But what is the
actual situation? True, the public schools
exist, yet there are 100000 children between
the ages of seven and fourteen years OF age
who are not in school at all. These children
form part of the army of child laborers In the
United States. Numerous studies reveal that
thousands of other children are absent from
schools months at time, laboring on cotton,
tobacco, cranberry and fruit farms, in canning
factories and other seasonal industries; while
thousands more are working before and after
school hours, as newsboys, messengers, clerks
or doing factory work in their homes, and
being paid at the munificent rate of three to
ten cents an hour. AS result, these chill
dren's health becomes impaired and they fall
behind in their studies
This is the "free" education in America
where the majority of labor's children cannot
hope to get beyond the grammar grades, for
in spite of all the sacrifices and skrimping
which working class parents make in order to
keep them in school, they must leave at four
teen or earlier, in order to go to work. Only
those of the most skilled and best paid work
ers can remain in high school, and only few
of these can afford to stay until graduation
The last census showed that:
reaches the fifth grade.
One out of every four children never reaches
the sixth grade.
One out of every three never reaches the
seventh grade.
Almost one-half never reach the eighth
grade.
Less than one-third of the school age popu-
lation enter high school and but one in eight
graduates.
These facts reveal the class basis of Gree
education in the United States. In many
working class areas, where wages are poorest
and school facilities the worst, in the south
ern textile districts and in mining areas the
average amount of schooling runs from three
to four years, and illiteracy is very common
One-fifth of the children of the highly ex-
plotted Negro workers and poor farmers re-
ceive no schooling at all, while the majority
are able to get one, two, or three terms of
six or seven months each.
Illiteracy among the industrial and agricul-
tural masses in this country is so great that
United States stands tenth on the list of ma
lions in percentage of illiteracy. Government
figures place the number of illiterates within
!, the country at five Million but other estimates
place the actual total at twelve millions. One
grave result of American imperialism's rule
over its colonies of Haiti, Porto Rico Alaska,
the Philippines and other territories has been
the continued, enforced, ignorance of the toll
ing populations. From one-fourth to more
than one-half Of the total populations are
illiterate while child labor is excessively high,
and general impoverishment has reached
drastic proportions.
So much for the boast of s'free and equal
opportunity for education in America" Edu-
cation will never be really Free. so long as
capitalism places upon working class children,
who form the vast majority of the school age
population, the severe handicaps of poverty,
child labor, malnutrition and resulting disease.
Class Discrimination in the Public Schools.
Discrimination against labor's youth in the
public schools is widespread. The facilities in
schools attended primarily by working class
children, as in textile, mining, oil and agricul-
tural regions, and those in proletarian dis
tricts in the big cities, are VIGOROUSLY poor
Glasses are often over-crowded, buildings in
need Of repair; there are insufficient books and
other supplies, and teachers5 are so over
burdened and usually so poorly paid that they
cannot give the children the aid they require
There are exceptions to this statement but
this is the general rule. In middle class
neighborhoods, the schools offer a sharp con-
trast. They are big, model structures, with
every modern convenience, including gymnas-
iums swimming pools, auditoriums, we'll
| equipped libraries, and large airy class rooms
with twenty-five pupils per teacher. In work
| ing class districts, the number of pupils per
teacher ranges from forty to forty five up to
| fifty-five and sixty pupils.
| The most glaring instance of this class dis
elimination is furnished by the slim Grow"
| system of schools, into which colored children
are segregated throughout the southern states
| These colored schools are small, ramshacke
| buildings. often without desks or books or even
window panes. Most of these are grammar
| schools, for few high schools for colored chill
dren exist, State appropriations for schools
vary from five to ten times as much per head
for each white child as for each colored child
Teachers in colored schools are generally poor
| ly trained, yet they must teach to different
| grades.
Education For Workers Children in Soviet
t. Union.
The o9ly country that has faced the issue
of adequate, education of workers children is
the Soviet Union. One of the first acts of the
| workers government was decree establish
ing free public school system, for none exist
ed under the old regime But the Soviet Gov
eminent did not stop there 1t recognizes as
part of it's responsibility the freeing of the
| workers children from the many handicaps
| which the &old social environment had placed
on them. The Communist Party, the Soviet
| Government, and the unions and cooperatives
are all working together, in order to see to
| it that every child has adequate food clothing.
shelter and healthy surroundings and tnas no
child labor exists, so that the masses children