The wages of these workers vary according to their locality, and the kind of season they find. The work on the shrimp is better paid than oyster shucking, but it is much more irregular. On the latter families frequently earn ten and fifteen or twenty dollars a week so when there are several children, and the work is steady, there is a great temptation to make them all help. Children of seven years earn about twenty-five cents a day, and at eight and ten years of age often fifty cents a day or more. At twelve and fourteen years they frequently earn as high as a dollar a day and this is adult pay. The fastest adult shucker seldom earns much more than a dollar a day after years of experience. What then is the outlook for children beginning this industry? “What is your name, little girl?” “Dunno.” “How old are you?” “Dunno.” “How many pots do you shuck in a day?” “Dunno.” And the pity of it is that _they do not know_. What then do they know? Enough to stand patiently with the rest picking up one hard, dirty cluster of shells, deftly prying them open, dropping the meat into the pot; and then go through this process with another and another and another, until after many minutes the pot is full—a relief, for they carry it over to the weigher and rest doing nothing a minute, and walk back,—such a change from the dreary standing, reaching, prying and dropping—minute upon minute, hour upon hour, day upon day, month after month. Or perchance, for variety, the catch may have been shrimp, and then the hours of work are shorter, but the shrimp are icy cold, and the blood in one’s fingers congeals, and the fingers become so sore that she welcomes the oysters again. Are you surprised then to find that many children seem dumb and can not understand our language? “But we educate them” some canners tell us. This is the way they do it. In the few places where I found any pretense to education the children shucked oysters for four hours before school. Then they went to school for half a day, returning at one o’clock for a hurried lunch. They worked for four hours more, five days in the week. On Saturday they put in an alleged half day consisting of eight or nine hours work. Is it any marvel that the school principal told me “It isn’t satisfactory, but at least we are giving them some help in learning the language.” They need the help. At another place, with two canneries, but two children were going to school, and the illiteracy of both adults and children was appalling. “There is no compulsion about schooling here,” the principal said. The “vocational guidance” which most of them receive, year in and year out, is seen in the sheds where under the eagle eye of the boss, who watches to see that they do not shirk, and under the pressure of parental authority, they put in their time where it will bring tangible returns. One padrone told me: