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CHILD LABOUR PROBLEM.

ing child is developed most surely and most completely. The originalities of a child "arise through his action, struggle, trial of things for himself, and in an imitative way."[1]

The child of twelve or fourteen who stands at a machine, tying threads for eleven hours a day, is not growing through expression, but is being narrowed by an unvarying, monotonous impression. Slowly but surely he takes the shape into which this impression is forcing him, until he has become "A spinner at $6 a week." As the machine before him is a machine at $500, so he is a "mill-hand at $6." If the expert workman is to have a quick eye, a firm step, and a steady hand to do the work of the world, he must play in youth.

"As play is the most expressive form of action, so it gives a growth, both in power to do and power to appreciate, that does not come in equal measure from work."[2] An ef-

  1. Social and Ethical Interpretations. By J. M. Baldwin. New York: Macmillan Co., 1897. P. 99.
  2. Moral Education. By E. H. Griggs. New York: B. W. Huebsch, 1904. P. 76.