The human race has risen
By the love its children know,
By the length of human childhood,
Fed and bred and sheltered so

Time of freedom, time of playing,
Time to grow in all that's true;
Time to reach a nobler manhood
Than their parents ever knew

Care and labor laid on children
Robs our childhood of its place;
And the injury of childhood
Is the ruin of the race.

Weakened, aged prematurely
Low in virtue, less in size,
The race that works its children
Eats itself, and surely dies