"One of our visitors went for two years to visit a widow and her children without feeling that she accomplished anything, though the intercourse was pleasant enough in itself. Then she heard that the girl of thirteen was having trouble in school and was in danger of being expelled. She went to see the teacher. {80} The girl was always well dressed, and the teacher had no idea she was a poor girl. After seeing the visitor the teacher touched the girl at last by talking with her of the sacrifices her mother had made for her education, and urging her to do her part, that her mother's hard work might not be in vain. In this way she persuaded the girl to good behavior and kept her in school--all because some one had visited the family for a year or two and could speak confidently of their condition and character." [2] No one can work among the poor in their homes without realizing the need of compulsory education laws. There are still people here and there who talk about the danger of educating the poor "above their station," but those who know the poor in our large cities from actual contact feel that over-education is the very least of the dangers that beset them. The lack of adequate school accommodations, making it impossible to punish truancy, is a much greater danger, and, in some States, the absence of any compulsory education law {81} makes the child the easy victim of trade conditions and of parental greed. The visitor should never permit the desire to increase the family income to blind him to the fact that the physical, mental, and moral welfare of the child is seriously endangered by wage-earning. Where there is a compulsory education law, he should cooperate with the truant officers in securing its enforcement; where there is no such law, every influence should be brought to bear upon parents to keep children in school. The Hebrew Benevolent Society of Detroit refuses aid to families in which the children are kept from school, and all our relief agencies, churches included, would do well to adopt this rule.