But worse than this picture is that of childhood in the sweat-shop, the factory, the mine, and other places of employment. Mr. Hunter has written a chapter on "The Child"[78] that should be studied by every lover of humanity. Its facts ring out a clarion call for reform. This touches our subject most closely because, as he says, "These evils of child life are doubly dangerous and serious because the mass of people in poverty in our cities are immigrants. The children of immigrants are a remarkable race of little ones." [Sidenote: Happy Childhood] Indeed they are, and they give you the bright side of the picture, in spite of all the evil conditions in which they live. The present writer stood recently opposite the entrance to a public school in the congested East Side, where not one of all the thousand or more of scholars was of native stock. As the crowds of little girls poured out at noontime their faces made a fascinating study. The conspicuous thing about them was the smile and fun and brightness. The dress was of every description, and one of the merriest-faced of all had on one shoe and one rubber in place of the second shoe; but from the faces you would never suspect into what kind of places these children were about to go for all they know of home. The hope lies in the children, and the schools are their great blessing and outlet, even if as Mrs. Betts says, many of them of certain classes do not think so. Mr. Hunter says: [Sidenote: What Kind of Americans?] "They are to become Americans, and through them, more than through any other agency, their own parents are being led into a knowledge of American ways and customs. All the statistics available prove that vice and crime are far more common among the children of immigrants than among the children of native parentage, and this is due no less to the yardless tenement and street playground than to widespread poverty. In a mass of cases the father and mother both work in that feverish, restless way of the new arrival, ambitious to get ahead. To overcome poverty they must neglect their children. Turned out of the small tenement into the street, the child learns the street. Nothing escapes his sharp eyes, and almost in the briefest conceivable time, he is an American ready to make his way by every known means, good and bad. To the child everything American is good and right. There comes a time when the parents cannot guide him or instruct him; he knows more than they; he looks upon their advice as of no value. If ever there was a self-made man, that man is the son of the immigrant. But the street and the street gang have a great responsibility; they are making the children of a hundred various languages from every part of the world into American citizens." [Sidenote: A Plain Duty]