THE JUKES 13 



even at unskilled labor are generally honest men 

 and provide for the family. A habit of irregular 

 work is a species of mental or moral weakness, or 

 both. A man or woman who will not stick to a 

 job is morally certain to be a pauper or a criminal. 



One great benefit of going to school, especially 

 of attending regularly for eight or ten months each 

 year for nine years or more, is that it establishes 

 a habit of regularity and persistency in effort. 

 The boy who leaves school to go to work does not 

 necessarily learn to work steadily, but often quite 

 the reverse. Few who graduate from a grammar 

 school, or who take the equivalent course in a rural 

 school, fail to be regular in their habits of effort. 

 This accounts in part for the fact that few unskilled 

 workmen ever graduated from a grammar school. 

 Scarcely any of the Jukes were ever at school any 

 considerable time. Probably no one of them ever 

 had so much as a completed rural school education. 



It is very difficult to find anyone who is honest 

 and industrious, pure and prosperous, who has not 

 had a fair education, if he ever had the oppor- 

 tunity, as all children in the United States now 

 have. It is an interesting fact developed from a 

 study of the Jukes that it is much easier to reform a 

 criminal than a pauper. 



Here are a few facts by way of conclusion. On 

 the basis of the facts gathered by Mr. Dugdale, 

 310 of the 1,200 were professional paupers, or more 

 than one in four. These were in poorhouses or its 

 equivalent for 2,300 years. 



