ABSTRACT
Child labor went well beyond the mines. Children had worked on farms since colonial times. However, with the Industrial Revolution they became a great business asset in many other ways, cheaper and easier to control, and less likely to go on strike. The children were only paid 10-20 percent of an adult's wage. It was not unusual for a child to work 16 hours a day. Children of all ages are deemed disposable. Big business models are inappropriate for the education of children. As the following discussion will show, the development of social skills at an early age is the key to success later in life, and that requires nurturing rather than profit-making. Most damaging for public education may be the cutbacks to preschool programs, which have been shown by numerous studies to provide the social and emotional foundations for lifelong skills, and for higher earnings, especially for disadvantaged children. Children aren't products to be bought and sold.
