The foregoing proposals relate only to the conditions surrounding the
child at birth, but it is equally the duty of society to safeguard the
whole period of childhood. In its own interest, no less than in the
interest of the child, the state should protect every child from all
that menaces its life and well-being. Before the British
Interdepartmental Committee many witnesses, some of them factory
surgeons of long experience, testified to the harm resulting from the
employment of mothers and the leaving of infants in the care of children
or old persons utterly incompetent to care for them. It was proposed
that the employment of married women in factories should be forbidden,
except in cases where there are children “absolutely dependent on their
wages.” In all such cases “the municipality must make provision for the
care of the child while the mother is at work.”[159] As a minimum, this
is a good and practicable proposal, though it falls far short of the
ideal. Much more commendable for its humane good sense is the method
adopted in some of the Socialist municipalities of France. In the case
of widows and others with children absolutely dependent upon their
earnings, these municipalities pay the mothers a weekly or monthly
pension, thus enabling them to stay at home with their children.[160]
With characteristic good sense and courage, Mr. Homer Folks has proposed
a similar system of pensions to widows and others dependent upon the
wages of children, on the principle that the poverty of its parents
ought not to be allowed to despoil a child’s life and rob it of
opportunities of healthful physical and mental development.[161] That is
a perfectly sound principle, it seems to me, which applies with equal
force to the working mother; for it is surely just as important to
insist that poverty shall not be allowed to rob the child of its
mother’s care.
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