foul alleys and over broken sidewalks, flow ever renewed
streams of playing children. Under the feet of passing horses, under the
wheels of passing street-cars, jostled about by the pedestrian, driven
on by the policeman, they annoy everyone. They crowd about the music or
drunken brawls in the saloons, they play hide-and-seek about the garbage
boxes, they shoot 'craps' in the alleys, they seek always and everywhere
activity, movement, life."[77]

[Sidenote: Imprisoned Childhood]

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 fev