, our citizens must see where the root of all their troubles lies.
The demagogues of this city would never have won their amazing power but
for those sixty thousand persons who never read or write. It is this
class and their associates who made these politicians what they were.

We need, in the interests of public order, of liberty, of property, for
the sake of our own safety and the endurance of free institutions here,
a strict and careful law, which shall compel every minor to learn to
read and write, under severe penalties in case of disobedience.

CHAPTER XXIX.

FACTORY CHILDREN.

In our educational movements, we early opened Night-schools for the poor
children. During the winter of 1870-71, we had some eleven in operation,
reaching a most interesting class of children--those working hard from
eight to ten hours a day, and then coming with passionate eagerness for
schooling in the evening.

The experience gained in these schools still further developed the fact,
already known to us, of the great numbers of children of tender years in
New York employed in factories, shops, trades, and other regular
occupations. A child put at hard work in this way, is, as is well known,
stunted in growth or enfeebled in health. He fails also to get what is
considered as indispensable in this country for the safety of the State,
a common-school education. He grows up weak in body and ignorant or
untrained in mind. The parent or relative wants his wages, and insists
on his laboring in a factory when he ought to be in an infant-school.
The employer is in the habit of getting labor where he can find it, and
does not much consider whether he is allowing his little _employes_ the
time and leisure sufficient for preparing themselves for life. He
excuses himself, too, by the plea that the child would be half-starved
or thrown on the Poor-house but for this employment.

The universal experience is, that neither the benevolence of the
manufacturer nor the conscience of the parent will prevent the steady
employment of children of tender years in factory work, provided
sufficient wages be offered. Probably, if the employer were approached
by a reasonable person, and it was represented what a wrong he was doing
to so young a laborer, or the parent were warned of his responsibility
to educate a child he had brought into the world, they would both agree
to the reasonableness of the po