So the children went into the mill and often stayed there.

If illiterate when they entered, they remained illiterate.

The number of young children, however, was always exaggerated by the muckrakers, though unquestionably several hundred children ten to twelve years old, and possibly a few younger, were employed years ago.

The nature of the work permits the employment of operatives under sixteen only in the spinning room; the girls, many of them older than sixteen, mend the broken ends of the yarn at the spinning frames, and the boys remove the full bobbins and fix empty ones in their stead.

The possible percentage of workers under sixteen in a spinning mill varies from thirty-five to forty-five.