than the first grade even when they had gone to school at all; 3,379 could not even sign their own names legibly, and nearly 2,000 of them could not write at all.  The report brings automatically into view the vicious circle of child-labor, illiteracy, bodily and mental defect, poverty and delinquency.  And like all reports on child labor, the large family and reckless breeding looms large in the background as one of the chief factors in the problem.

Despite all our boasting of the American public school, of the equal opportunity afforded to every child in America, we have the shortest school-term, and the shortest school-day of any of the civilized countries.  In the United States of America, there are 106 illiterates to every thousand people.  In England there are 58 per thousand, Sweden and Norway have one per thousand.

The United States is the most illiterate country in the world—­that is, of the so-called civilized countries.  Of the 5,000,000 illiterates in the United States, 58 per cent. are white and 28 per cent. native whites.  Illiteracy not only is the index of inequality of opportunity.  It speaks as well a lack of consideration for the children.  It means either that children have been forced out of school to go to work, or that they are mentally and physically defective.(1)

One is tempted to ask why a society, which has failed so lamentably to protect the already existing child life upon which its very perpetuation depends, takes upon itself the reckless encouragement of indiscriminate procreation.  The United States Government has recently inaugurated a policy of restricting immigration from foreign countries.  Until it is able to protect childhood from criminal exploitation, until it has made possible a reasonable hope of life, liberty and growth for American children, it should likewise recognize the wisdom of voluntary restriction in the production of children.

Reports on child labor published by the National Child Labor Committee only incidentally reveal the correlation of this evil with that of large families.  Yet this is evident throughout.  The investigators are more bent upon regarding child labor as a cause of illiteracy.

But it is no less a consequence of irresponsibility in breeding.  A sinister aspect of this is revealed by Theresa Wolfson’s study of child-labor in the beet-fields of Michigan.(2) As one weeder put it:  “Poor man make no money, make plenty children—­plenty children good for sugar-beet business.”  Further illuminating details are given by Miss Wolfson: 

“Why did they come to the beet-fields?  Most frequently families with large numbers of children said that they felt that the city was no place to raise children—­things too expensive and children ran wild—­in the country all the children could work.”  Living conditions are abominable and unspeakably wretched.  An old woodshed, a long-abandoned barn, and occasionally a tottering, ramshackle farmer’s house are the common types.  “One family of eleven, the youngest child two years, the oldest sixteen years, lived in an old country store which had but one window; the wind and rain came through the holes in the walls, the ceiling was very low and the smoke from the stove filled the room.  Here the family ate, slept, cooked and washed.”