A returning visitor from Russia tells us that the cause of Russia’s collapse is to be found in the ignorance of the people. Only one per cent. of the people are able to read and write. In the midst of this dense ignorance the peasant groups believe everything and nothing; are easily influenced by anything no matter how unsubstantial, passionate, cruel, brutish. No wonder that Russia presents one of the most pitiable spectacles of any nation in the world’s history. There is serious danger that in America we will produce a rural peasantry that is ignorant, and if such should be the case, there will grow up with this ignorance a narrow-minded prejudice against everything that we think is worth while in life. Education is the hope of this nation as well as that of every other nation. =What of Disposition and Character?= Child labor has a bad effect on the disposition. It crushes initiative from the group, and while it will develop a type of leadership in the future, the leadership is not that of free, broad-minded Americans, but is self-assertive cheap, tricky, and clannishly shrewd. For instance, I was told that the children attending school in an Arkansas city who came from the mill district were the leaders in all the sports. I asked some of the boys about this, and named to them several who I had been told were leaders. The reply was that these fellows were not leaders but were bullies. “No matter what we play, they want to run everything, and if we do not do what they want us to do, we have a fuss.” The struggle in the mill and the bearing of responsibilities had led the mill boys to rely upon themselves. They knew that they could never get anything unless they got it for themselves and by the most direct and brutal means. In an age when a new emphasis is being put upon cooperation any power that warps the disposition and creates wrong ideals is a real menace.