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ELEMENTS OF CHILD-PROTECTION
THE ELEMENTS OF
CHILD-PROTECTION
BY
SIGMUND ENGEL
DOCTOR OF LAWS AND OF POLITICS; OFFICIAL GUARDIAN AND ADVOCATE
IN BUDA-PESTH
TRANSLATED FROM THE GERMAN BY
DR. EDEN PAUL
NEW YORK
THE MACMILLAN COMPANY
1912
Printed by BALLANTYNE, HANSON & CO.
At the Ballantyne Press, Edinburgh
PREFACE
During the latter half of the nineteenth century, the importance of
child-protection gained a far wider recognition.
The nineteenth century has been well named “The Century of the
Child.” But there are reasons no less cogent for describing this
century as “The Century of Socialism,” or “The Century of Darwinism.”
The intimate interdependence of child-protection with Socialism
and with Darwinism must on no account be overlooked. It was my own
assurance of this twofold interdependence which led me to undertake
the study of the whole system of child-protection from the joint
outlook of Socialism and of Darwinism. This book is an investigation
of all the problems involved by child-protection from the standpoints
of the modern socialist movement and of modern social science.
My work makes no attempt to be either a “Philosophy of
Child-Protection” or a “Handbook of Child-Protection.” For
this reason it contains no definitions, it gives no history of
child-protection, and attempts no detailed description of the
institutions which exist for the purpose of child-protection in the
various countries of the civilised world.
In view of the almost incalculable bulk of the materials available
in this field of study, I have been forced to content myself with a
brief indication of my opinions in the various departments, without
endeavouring to go into details. Obviously, therefore, those in need
of detailed information will not find it in this book. My aim has
rather been to effect a lucid presentation of all the problems of
child-protection, than to attempt myself to supply the solution of
all these problems.
If I have been successful in formulating the main problems of my
subject, and if at the same time my discussions and the data I have
supplied, enable the reader to draw his own conclusions in each case,
my aim has been adequately fulfilled.
CONTENTS
PAGE
PREFACE v
GENERAL PART
CHAPTER I
CERTAIN POPULATION PROBLEMS
Child-Protection and the Population Question--Fertility of the
Lower Classes--The Tendency of Evolution 1
CHAPTER II
STATISTICAL PROBLEMS OF POPULATION
Miscarriages, Premature Births, and Still-Births--Mortality--The
Productive Age and the Unproductive Age--Classification of the
Population according to Age--The Excess of Women--Marriage--
Illegitimate Sexual Relations 11
CHAPTER III
CHILD MORTALITY
Statistical Data--Certain Contributory Causes--The Chief Causes
of Infant Mortality--The Great Number of Children--Child
Mortality in the Towns--The Effect of Housing Conditions--The
Effect of Age--Time of Birth, Seasons, and Meteorological
Conditions 17
CHAPTER IV
THE QUALITY OF THE POPULATION; ARTIFICIAL SELECTION
(EUGENICS) AND EDUCATION
Natural Selection and Artificial Selection--The Interests of
the Future Generation--Inheritance and Education--Nature of
Education--Character of the Child--Limits of Educability--The
Aim of Education--Good Example--Confidence and Love--Reward
and Punishment--Education by the Parents--Education
in different Social Classes--Parents, School, Environment--The
Tendency of Evolution 25
CHAPTER V
PROS AND CONS OF CHILD-PROTECTION
Introductory--Objections to Child-Protection--Objections to the
Care of Foundlings--Darwinism _versus_ Poor-Relief--Darwinism
_versus_ Child-Protection--The Right View--Socialism _versus_
Poor-Relief--Socialism _versus_ Child-Protection--The Right View 42
CHAPTER VI
THE EXECUTIVE INSTRUMENTS OF CHILD-PROTECTION
Introductory--Local Governing Bodies--The Community at large--
The Central Government--A Unified System of Laws for
Child-Protection--A Centralised Authority for Child-Protection--
Private and Official Activities--The Medical Profession--Women 58
SPECIAL PART
_A._--Department of Civil Law and Individual Rights
CHAPTER I
MARRIAGE AND PARENTAL AUTHORITY
Introductory--Parental Authority and Marriage--History of
Marriage--Child-Protection and the Family--Maternal Authority--
Fiduciary Character of Parental Authority--The Elementary
Principles of State Interference with Parental Authority (the
State as “Over-Parent”) 71
CHAPTER II
MARRIAGE AND HEREDITY
Heredity in General--Inheritance of Diseases--Individual
Diseases--The Age of the Parents--The Marriage of Near Kin--
Disease in the Parents from the Legal Standpoint--Divorce--
Marriage-Prohibitions in Past Times--Proposed Reforms--
Objections--The Right View--How to Effect Reforms--The Tendency
of Evolution 77
CHAPTER III
THE PROTECTION OF ILLEGITIMATE CHILDREN
The Legal Position of the Illegitimate Child--Reasons for these
Legal Disabilities--Advantages and Disadvantages of Illegitimate
Birth--Abortion, Premature Birth, Still-Birth--Childbirth in
Unmarried Mothers--Causes of the Great Mortality of Illegitimate
Children--Criminality in the Illegitimate--Illegitimacy and
Prostitution--Occupation in Relation to Illegitimacy--The
Different Classes of the Illegitimate--Illegitimacy and
Child-Protection--The Tendency of Evolution--A Radical Reform 90
CHAPTER IV
LIMITED POWERS OF MINORS, AND GUARDIANSHIP
Limited Powers of Minors--The Tendency of Evolution--Nature of
Guardianship--Guardianship of Poor Children--Guardianship of
Illegitimate Children--The Defects of Individual Guardianship--
Nature of Official and Institutional Guardianship--Advantages
of Official and Institutional Guardianship--Objections to
Collective and Institutional Guardianship--These Objections
Answered--The Tendency of Evolution--Certain Civil Laws which
are of Importance in Relation to Child-Protection 106
_B._--Department of Local Administrative Activity
CHAPTER I
CHILD-PROTECTION BEFORE, DURING, AND IMMEDIATELY AFTER
BIRTH
Introductory--Before Birth--During Birth--After Birth--The
Insurance of Motherhood--The Tendency of Evolution 118
CHAPTER II
INFANT-LIFE PROTECTION
Introductory--Advantages of the Natural Feeding of Infants--
History of Artificial Feeding--Causes of the Failure to
Suckle--Wet-Nurses--Cow’s Milk--Other Methods of Artificial
Feeding--Institutional Care of Infants--The Crèche--Proposed
Reforms--Radical Solution of the Problem 125
CHAPTER III
THE CARE OF FOUNDLINGS, WET-NURSING, AND BABY-FARMING
Terminology--History of the Care of Foundlings--The Latin System
and the Germanic System--Some Modern Methods for the Care of
Foundlings--Foundling Hospitals, Wet-Nursing, and Baby Farms--
Institutional Care versus Family Care--Supervision of Family
Care--Subsidiary Aims of the Care of Foundlings--The Tendency
of Evolution 141
CHAPTER IV
WOMEN’S LABOUR AND CHILD-LABOUR
History of Child Labour--Diffusion of Child Labour--The Causes
of Child Labour--Women’s Labour--The Consequences of Child
Labour--The Consequences of Women’s Labour--Regulation of Child
Labour--Regulation of Women’s Labour--Reform of Apprenticeship--
Enforcement of such Regulations--Objections to the Protective
Regulation of the Labour of Women and Children--These Objections
Answered--Radical Solution of the Problem--The Tendency of
Evolution 155
CHAPTER V
THE PROTECTION OF CHILDREN AGAINST DISEASE
Introductory--The Health of Proletarian Children--Causes of
the Movement for the Protection of Proletarian Children--
Institutions--Country Holiday Funds and Open-air Schools--
Proposed Reforms--Need for Enlightenment--The Tendency of
Evolution 178
CHAPTER VI
THE PUBLIC ELEMENTARY SCHOOL
Importance of the Public Elementary School--Methods of
Instruction--The General Obligation of School Attendance--The
Purpose of the Elementary School--Instruction versus
Education--Moral Instruction--General Culture--Individuality--
Beauty--Knowledge--Science--Home-Work--The Exclusion of certain
Children--Rewards and Punishments--The Constitutional Element--
Parents and the School--Sexual Education--Religious and Moral
Instruction--Physical Education--Manual Training--Preparatory
Schools--Supervised Playgrounds for Children (_Kinderhorte_)--
Increasing Importance of the Public Elementary School--Feeding
of School Children--Care of Young Persons after they Leave
School--The Tendency of Evolution 185
_C._--Department of Criminal Law
CHAPTER I
CRIMINALITY IN YOUTH
Introductory--The Causes of Criminality in Youth--The Classical
Criminal Law--Gradual Transformation of the Classical Criminal
Law--Special Legislation dealing with Youthful Criminals--
Proposals bearing on the Question of Criminal Responsibility at
Different Ages--The Defects of our Present Penal Methods--The
Question of the Capacity for Understanding the Punishable
Character of Criminal Offences--The School--The Reprimand--
Flogging--The Conditional Sentence--The Indeterminate Sentence--
Should Punishment be rendered more Severe?--The Coercive
Reformatory Education of Youthful Criminals--Institutional
Education _versus_ Family Education--Testing Reform--The
Radical Solution of the Problem 217
CHAPTER II
PENAL METHODS
Conditions of To-day--Proposed Reforms--Penal Methods in the
United States of America 243
CHAPTER III
PROSTITUTION
The Causes of Prostitution--Prostitution and Child-Protection 249
CHAPTER IV
PUNISHABLE OFFENCES AGAINST CHILDREN
The Two Groups--Infanticide--Abortion--The Protection of
Feminine Chastity--Maltreatment of Children--Suggested Reforms 254
INDEX 271
ERRATUM
Page 65, line 6, _for_ “wet-nurses” _read_ “midwives.”
GENERAL PART
CHAPTER I
CERTAIN POPULATION PROBLEMS
_Child-Protection and the Population Question._--In the struggle for
existence among the nations, that nation is the victor which consists
of the greatest number of individuals best endowed with bodily,
mental, and moral health.
No national entity can resist the attacks of others if its numerical
strength is comparatively small. If a contest takes place between
two nations whose numerical strength is approximately equal, the
healthier of the two will gain the victory.
Even in prehistoric times a minimal degree of Child-Protection was
indispensable to tribal existence. To rear children diminished,
indeed, the quantity of wealth available to maintain the life of the
parents, and consequently rendered even more difficult than before
the struggle with the hostile forces of nature. None the less, it
was absolutely essential to rear a minimal number of children. A
sufficient number of boys must be reared to maintain the ranks of the
warriors needed for the protection of the tribe against the attacks
of its neighbours; and since tribal wars were unceasing, the number
requisite to replace those who fell in battle was considerable; girls
also must be reared in numbers sufficient to be the mothers of the
required number of warriors. But it was against the tribal interest
that more children than these should come into the world; and it was
desirable that superfluous infants should perish.
The most important factors in human evolution are the quantity and
the quality of individual human beings. Until quite recently it is
only upon quantity of population that any stress has been laid:
the quality of the population has been ignored; being either taken
for granted, or regarded as dependent upon chance conditions. The
problems of population were not recognised as quantitative and
qualitative, but were believed to be quantitative merely. Both
Socialism and Child-Protection have intimate associations alike with
the quantitative and with the qualitative problems of population.
Both Socialism and Child-Protection exert a powerful influence upon
the quantity and the quality of human beings; and conversely these
latter react no less powerfully upon Socialism and Child-Protection.
The leading aim of Child-Protection is to prevent the death of
children before they attain an age at which they become competent
to contribute directly to the welfare of society. The next most
important aim of Child-Protection is to ensure that the individual
whose life has been preserved shall not become useless or dangerous
to society. These leading aims may be pithily summarised in the
following terms: “the prevention of a high mortality-rate,” and
“the prevention of a high criminality-rate.” The main factor of a
high mortality-rate is excessive mortality in childhood; and the
main factor of a high criminality-rate is excessive criminality in
childhood. (The rate of mortality affects the quantitative element,
and the rate of criminality affects the qualitative element, of the
race.)
In the course of human racial history certain sentiments make
their appearance (parental love, altruism, and humanism), in
consequence of which, even among nations to which the fear of a
declining population is no longer known, actions endangering the
health or the life of children come to be regarded as immoral and
punishable; these sentiments subsequently constitute the main
foundations of Child-Protection. But a recognition of the expediency
of Child-Protection, and a desire to increase the population, have
also at all times exercised a very great influence upon the degree
to which methods of Child-Protection have been adopted and enforced.
In any community in which an increase in numbers would involve
over-population, an individual has, _ceteris paribus_, less value
than in a community in which no such risk has to be considered; for
this reason, in the latter community, more stress will be laid upon
Child-Protection than in the former community.
The following examples will show that this reasoning is sound. As a
result of the wide acceptance of the “mercantile theory” of political
economy, inasmuch as this theory laid much stress upon the importance
of an increase in population, the care of foundlings came to receive
much more attention, even in Protestant countries. Moreover, though
it is an indisputable fact that the fierce attack made by Malthus,
in his widely celebrated work on _The Principles of Population_,
upon the Foundling Hospitals of his day, was directed especially
against the fact that these institutions received children quite
unconditionally, yet it is also perfectly true that Malthus’s views
regarding Foundling Hospitals harmonise perfectly with his ideas as
to the possibilities and dangers of over-population. Although some
authors maintain that the connection we have pointed out obtains only
among comparatively uncivilised peoples, and that as civilisation
progresses, sentiment alone is decisive in forming our views in the
matter of Child-Protection, those who advance such a contention may
be referred to the example of modern France.
The following conception is dominant in France. It is sad but true
that the number of births hardly shows any excess over the number
of deaths--nay, that in certain years the births are fewer than the
deaths; hence it happens that the population of the other states of
Europe increases much more rapidly than the population of France.
It is essential that something should be done to counteract this
difference, by which the position of France as one of the great
Powers of Europe may ultimately be endangered. Since all the laws and
regulations which have been instituted with a view to increasing the
birth-rate have remained fruitless, some new method must be found
of bringing about a more marked excess of births over deaths. Since
excessive mortality among children is the principal cause of a high
death-rate, the State and the community must take all the steps in
their power to reduce child mortality to a minimum.
_Fertility of the Lower Classes._--In the civilised countries of
twentieth-century Europe, the mean birth-rate is about thirty; that
is, for every thousand inhabitants, there are thirty births each
year; France is far below this mean, with a birth-rate of twenty-one,
and Russia far above, with a birth-rate of about forty-nine. In the
country districts, fertility and the birth-rate are greater than in
the towns. Transient variations in the birth-rate depend upon various
disturbing factors, such as war, civil disorders, and rise in the
prices of the necessaries of life.
The lower the type of life, the greater is the insecurity of
existence; and it is necessary that this should be counterbalanced
by greater vigour of the forces of reproduction, and a consequent
increase in the number of the offspring. Thus differences between the
different species have a great influence upon the procreativeness of
these species, so that there is a direct causal connection between
the quality of a species and the number of the individuals of which
it is made up. But it remains in dispute whether the rise (or fall)
in the quantity, directly gives rise to a decline (or increase) in
the quality; whether, within the limits of an individual species,
the quantitative differences between the individuals making up that
species are of importance; whether, within the limits of a single
species, the individual members are more fertile in proportion as
they stand at a lower level in development; and, finally, whether the
fertility of the individuals of any species diminishes as the species
advances in its evolution.
As regards the fertility of the human species, the decisive
influences are not physiological, but social. The view that higher
brain development or prolonged intellectual activity restricts
fertility has been rightly contested. Undoubtedly, powerful
intellectual activity tends to inhibit the sexual impulse, but this
is no less true of great physical exertions. The causes of the
high birth-rate among the lower classes of the population are the
following:--
(_a_) Members of the proletariat have to marry earlier in life than
those belonging to the middle and the upper classes.
(_b_) A smaller proportion of the proletariat suffers from venereal
infection.
(_c_) Owing to the overcrowded condition of their dwellings, those
belonging to the poorer classes find it far more difficult to observe
“prudential restraint.”
(_d_) The poor make less use than the well-to-do of positive methods
for the prevention of conception.
(_e_) To those belonging to the poorer classes, to have children is
often economically advantageous. A child can help in the work of the
household, and can early engage in some occupation enabling it to
contribute towards the expenses. On the other hand, in the case of
the comparatively well-to-do, a large family involves the risk of a
depression in the standard of life.
(_f_) Women of the middle and upper classes are far more afraid
than working-class women of pregnancy and childbirth. They actually
suffer more from these eventualities, because their sheltered life
makes them weaker and more susceptible; in many cases also they shirk
motherhood because they think that pregnancy will interfere with
their “social duties.”
An excessive number of conceptions, pregnancies, and deliveries is
harmful, not merely from the outlook of the domestic economist, but
also from that of the political economist. If the aim of the State
is to secure a population which is not merely numerous, but also of
good quality, care must be taken that the number of conceptions,
pregnancies, and deliveries shall not be unduly great; for when the
number of births is exceedingly large, it is very likely that the
number of those to attain maturity will actually be less than if the
birth-rate had been lower.
We have to take into consideration, not only the difference between
the birth-rate and the death-rate, but also the important matter of
the actual number of births and deaths. Although in any two cases the
terminal results may be identical, it is a matter of grave economic
moment how the figures are comprised by which these identical results
are attained. If, to effect a certain increase in population, a
comparatively large number of births and deaths has been requisite,
there has been an enormous waste of time, energy, and wealth.
The large families of the proletariat provide a greater supply
of labour, and this leads to a fall in wages. Because wages are
lower, there results, in turn, an increase in the birth-rate. The
great number of conceptions among the proletariat interferes with
the effective working of selective forces--an evil which every
unprejudiced thinker must deplore, and must endeavour to remedy
to the utmost of his ability. The most important means available
for this purpose are: first, a rise in wages, and, secondly, the
use by the proletariat of positive methods to restrict or prevent
procreation.
Parents should procreate so many children only as they are in a
position to maintain and educate in a suitable manner; it is obvious,
therefore, that working-class families should be comparatively small.
Yet to-day we see the exact opposite. Only among the well-to-do and
the more intelligent sections of the population do we find that these
principles are carried into effect. The tragic consequence is that
the more prosperous and the comparatively intelligent procreate very
few children, the very reverse of what is desirable. Rich people are
in a position to have many children, and have but few; working-class
parents, on the other hand, ought to have but few children, and they
have a great many. If the weekly wage-earners were more prosperous
and more intelligent, they would be in a position to have more
children, but they would, in fact, have fewer in that case.
_The Tendency of Evolution._--During the last quarter of the
nineteenth century, a decline in the birth-rate set in in every
civilised country in Europe, notwithstanding the fact that in all
these countries the proletariat constitutes an ever-increasing
proportion of the total population. The probable causes of this
decline are: first, women’s dread of pregnancy, of childbirth, and of
rearing children, and, secondly, pelvic contraction(?).
The death-rate is harder to control than the birth-rate. For the
birth-rate is influenced to a far greater extent by factors which are
under individual control; whereas, in the case of the death-rate,
great natural forces are the chief determinants. Death comes to every
one, whether his parents and other relatives desire it or not, but
those only are born whose parents desire it. In this matter of the
population problem, well-considered action will be directed where
a result may be obtained with comparative ease. By this it is not
meant to imply that the campaign against excessive mortality is
to be altogether neglected; but rather that the campaign against
an excessively high birth-rate demands more attention than it has
hitherto received.
The tendency of evolution to-day is to effect a decline in the
birth-rate. In the future far more attention will be paid, than has
been paid in the past, to the demand of social hygiene that potential
parents shall be careful to procreate healthy children only. On
the other hand, the knowledge that will enable parents to prevent
undesired conceptions will become more and more widely diffused. In
times to come, an ever-increasing proportion of pregnancies will be
deliberately willed.
The decline in the birth-rate will necessarily result in a decline in
the death-rate, and more especially in a decline in the death-rate of
infants and children. Ultimately, we shall see a decline, not merely
in the birth-rate and the death-rate, but also in the difference
between the total number of the births and of the deaths. It is
beyond dispute that these figures are tending to become less variable
and more constant than they were in former times.
CHAPTER II
STATISTICAL PROBLEMS OF POPULATION
_Miscarriages, Premature Births, and Still-Births._--The statistical
data regarding miscarriages, premature births, and still-births
are somewhat untrustworthy. There is no general agreement as
to the precise signification of these terms among the medical
practitioners, coroners, and registrars of any one country--not to
speak of differences in these matters in different countries; and
this difficulty applies above all to the matter of still-births. In
some countries, children dying during the act of birth or within a
few hours after birth are regarded as born alive, but in others as
still-born. When we are comparing the birth-rate and the death-rate
in different countries, these causes of error must not be forgotten.
In the twentieth century, in the civilised countries of Europe, the
premature births vary between 5 and 9 per cent., and the still-births
between 3 and 4 per cent., of all births. For every 100 still-born
girls there are approximately 130 still-born boys. Among the lower
classes of the population, still-births are more frequent than among
the upper classes. Within the same class, such births are more
frequent among those living in unfavourable conditions than among
those more favourably situated; and in manufacturing towns they are
more frequent than in agricultural districts. The proportion is
affected by the age of the mother, and still-births are at a minimum
among mothers at ages from 20 to 25 years. In the course of time,
notwithstanding the gigantic development of manufacturing industry,
and in spite of the more accurate registration of still-births, the
proportion of such births has diminished; the principal reason for
this is the advance in medical science.
_Mortality._--In the civilised countries of Europe the death-rate
in the twentieth century varies between 15 and 32 per mille. Among
the chief causes of transient variations in the death-rate are:
war, civil disorders, and rise in prices. A rise in the price of
the necessaries of life affects the lower classes of the population
more especially, but its influence upon the general death-rate
is trifling. Death-rate varies in accordance with occupation.
The lower classes have a higher death-rate than the upper; the
weekly wage-earners have a higher death-rate than the rest of the
population; and mortality is greater in the towns than it is in the
country. Of late years, there has been a gradual decline in the
death-rate, the decline in the towns being proportionately greater
than the decline in the country districts; in this case also the
decline must be attributed mainly to the advance in medical science.
_The Productive Age and the Unproductive Age._--The distinction of
the productive age from the unproductive age is a matter of great
importance. The former extends from the age of 15 to the age of 65;
the latter, the unproductive age, comprises the years before the age
of 15 and those after the age of 65. Certain other classifications
of the population, such as the distinction of those of an age for
school-attendance from those at other ages (those of the former age
comprising about one-sixth of the population), and the distinction
between youthful and adult criminals, are of no interest in relation
to our special inquiry.
_Classification of the Population according to Age._--In the
civilised countries of modern Europe, persons at ages of 0 to 10
comprise about 24 per cent. of the population; those at ages 10 to
20 comprise about 20 per cent.; and those at ages 20 to 30 comprise
about 16 per cent. of the population. Those under the age of 15 years
comprise about 30 per cent. of the population, each year of life
corresponding to from 2 to 3 per cent.; infants (those under 1 year)
making up 3 per cent., and each year of life after that only a little
more than 2 per cent. At all ages under 15 the boys are more numerous
than the girls.
The age-pyramid of the population has a form which depends upon the
birth-rate. When the birth-rate is higher, or the excess of births
over deaths greater, the base of the pyramid is comparatively wide.
Thus, in the majority of the civilised states of Europe, about 30 per
cent. of the population consists of those under 15 years of age; but
in France, where the birth-rate is exceptionally low, those under
15 years of age comprise a much smaller proportion of the total
population.
In the country districts, the age-class of the children and the
age-class of the old both contain proportionately larger numbers
than the same age-classes in the towns. In the large towns and the
manufacturing districts, there is an especially large proportion of
persons of about 20 years of age. There are three reasons for this:
first, the birth-rate is higher in the country districts; secondly,
there is a drift from the country to the towns of persons of an age
to earn a living; and, thirdly, a proportion of those who have grown
old in the towns find their way back to the country.
_The Excess of Women._--All the civilised countries of
twentieth-century Europe contain more women than men. For every
1000 males there are invariably more than 1000 females. The excess
of females is not usually greater than 5 per cent. Only in certain
uncivilised countries of Europe do we find no excess of females.
Whether we compare the total female population with the total male
population, or compare only males and females of a marriageable age,
the result is the same; the females are always in excess. Even in
those countries in which women are comparatively less numerous, we
still find an excess of women of a marriageable age.
This excess of women depends upon the following causes:--In civilised
countries more boys are born than girls. The average excess of
male births over females is 106:100. (In the case of illegitimate
children, the excess of male births is not so great as in the case
of legitimate children.) But in males the death-rate is much higher
than it is in females. Especially high is the death-rate among male
infants (in the first year of life), and among males during the
ages at which they are competent to earn a livelihood. The reason
given for the higher mortality of male infants is that their powers
of resistance are inferior to those of female infants; during the
productive years of life the death-rate of males is higher because,
on the one hand, they have a far greater mortality than women from
diseases of occupation, and, on the other hand, during this period
of life males suffer far more than females from the effects of
alcoholism, of criminality, and of various other factors exercising
an unfavourable influence upon their death-rate.
Thus the excess of women is closely associated with that peculiarity
of the modern system of production in virtue of which far more men
than women are engaged in the work of production. This is obvious
from the consideration that the death-rate of wage-earning women is
higher than that of other women, and from the consideration that
in great towns the ratio between the death-rates of the respective
sexes is very different from what it is in the country districts. The
excess of women is one of the causes of the failure of so many women
to marry, of the birth of so many illegitimate children, of the wide
diffusion of prostitution, &c. But it would be quite erroneous to
attribute these various phenomena of our sexual life exclusively to
the prevalent excess of women.
If in any country we desire to diminish the excess of women, it is
necessary not merely to lessen the emigration of males, but also
to diminish the death-rate of male children. This may be effected
by reducing infant and child mortality in general, for measures
that accomplish this reduction will lower the death-rate of boys
to a greater extent than the death-rate of girls; for the higher
the death-rate the greater the effect we can produce by measures
effecting its diminution. Hence child-protection, the principal
means for the diminution of infant and child mortality, is not only
an important part of our campaign against the excessive mortality
of male children, but will tend to redress the existing numerical
inequality between the sexes, and thus to ameliorate the conditions
of our social life.
The regulation of the birth of boys and girls (the determination of
sex) would be an important means for the restoration of a proper
numerical balance between the sexes, and would therefore be of value,
not merely to interested individuals, but also to society at large.
Unfortunately, contemporary science is not even in a position to
ascertain the sex of the infant before birth; and still less are we
in possession of such a knowledge of the determinants of sex as might
enable us to procreate boys or girls at will. Should the astounding
advance in medical science eventuate in the solution of this problem,
it will then be in our power to restore the proper numerical balance
of the sexes.
_Marriage._--In the civilised countries of modern Europe the number
of marriages per 1000 inhabitants of all ages is from 6 to 8; whilst
for every 1000 inhabitants of a marriageable age the annual marriage
rate is 50. Of 1000 men over 15 years of age from 400 to 700 are
married, whilst of 1000 women over 15 years of age from 440 to 640
are married. A high marriage-rate is not _per se_ either a favourable
or an unfavourable manifestation; it is dependent upon economic
conditions, and transient variations in the marriage-rate arise from
the favourable or unfavourable economic conditions of the year in
which these variations occur.
In consequence of the enormous development of the manufacturing
industries, there has been a great increase in the numbers of those
engaged in these industries; a large proportion of farm servants has
been transformed into wage-earners of the towns. Since men of this
latter class commonly marry young, whereas a comparatively small
proportion of farm-servants marries, an increase in the marriage-rate
has been noticeable during the latter half of the nineteenth century.
But since the beginning of the present century a decline in the
marriage-rate has become perceptible, and the causes of this decline
are more difficult to ascertain. During the nineteenth century the
divorce-rate underwent a continuous increase. The divorce-rate is
higher in towns than in the country, and higher in thickly populated
than in thinly populated countries.
_Illegitimate Sexual Relations._--Except as regards the birth of
illegitimate children, the only statistical data available regarding
illegitimate sexual relations are those which have been obtained by
private inquiries. The following are the most important statistics
bearing on this question. The annual number of illegitimate births in
Europe exceeds 600,000. In most European countries the illegitimate
births constitute from 8 to 9 per cent. of the total births, and
in every large country in Europe the illegitimate number several
millions. From privately collected statistics we learn that in all
civilised countries the great majority of unmarried mothers belong to
the working classes and to the class of domestic servants; in many
countries more than 80 per cent. of unmarried mothers may be thus
classified. If from the number of illegitimate children we wish to
deduce the probable number of unmarried mothers, we have always to
bear in mind the fact that an unmarried mother commonly has one child
only, whilst married women have on the average from three to four
children. We learn from private statistics that of the fathers of
illegitimate children not more than about 45 per cent. belong to the
proletariat.
The relationship between the number of illegitimate births, on
the one hand, and the number of legitimate births and the number
of marriages, on the other, is, on one view, the following. The
greater the number of marriages, the smaller will be the number
of illegitimate births; the greater the average age at marriage,
the greater also will be the number of illegitimate births. It is,
indeed, extremely probable that a high marriage-rate leads to a low
illegitimate birth-rate, and conversely; but we are not justified in
regarding such a causal sequence as unquestionable. Variations in the
marriage-rate and in the illegitimate birth-rate may be the joint
consequences of other common factors.
CHAPTER III
CHILD MORTALITY
_Statistical Data._--The statistics relating to child mortality are
in an exceptionally well-developed state, and no unprejudiced student
of sociology can afford to ignore them. The literature of child
mortality contains a number of extremely important and thoroughly
trustworthy works; the reason for this may be that, in comparison
with other difficult problems of population, the study of questions
of child mortality is easier, because various disturbing influences
which complicate adult death-rates have no bearing upon child
mortality.
Even simpler is the question of infant mortality.[1] In computations
dealing with this matter it is not necessary to make use of the
figures of the general census, for the calculations are based simply
upon the recorded births and deaths. The calendar year in which the
birth took place does not come directly into the question at all.
What we record is the rate per thousand at which, in or during a
particular year, say 1909, infants have died before attaining the end
of the first year of their life; some of these will have been born in
the year 1909, others, of course, in the year 1908.
Nearly 30 per cent. of all deaths are infant deaths; about 10 per
cent. of all deaths are those of children of ages one to five years;
about 50 per cent. of all deaths are those of children from birth to
fifteen years. The least dangerous section of human life is between
the ages of ten and fifteen years. Child mortality, extremely heavy
during the year of infancy, diminishes greatly after the completion
of the first year, and diminishes enormously after the completion
of the fifth year. In the civilised countries of Europe, at the
end of the nineteenth and the beginning of the twentieth century,
of every 1000 infants, from 100 to 300 die, on the average, every
year. The attainable minimum of infant mortality, under conditions
practically realisable to-day, may be regarded as about 70 per 1000.
In families in which exceptionally favourable conditions prevail,
the infant mortality rate is even lower than the figure just stated;
in the families of the higher aristocracy and among the royal houses
it is as low as one-half, and even as low as one-third, of this
“practicable minimum” of 70 per 1000.
Since the middle of the eighteenth century there has, in nearly
all the countries of Europe, been a decline in infant mortality,
in the case alike of boys and of girls; this fall in the infantile
death-rate is greater than the fall in the general death-rate.
Although the data available justify this general statement, it is
necessary to point out that authentic statistical data bearing on the
question exist only in the case of small and isolated areas, such as
individual towns; national registration of such particulars is of
much more recent date than the middle of the eighteenth century.
_Certain Contributory Causes._--The influence upon infant mortality
of certain causes commonly regarded as important is in fact small.
Statistical data prove beyond dispute that local and climatic factors
exercise no direct influence at all upon the infantile death-rate;
such influence as these factors do exercise is an indirect one,
operating through the effect which climate and locality may have upon
social conditions. The same qualification applies to the influence
of race and of religion upon infant mortality. There are differences
in the infantile death-rates as between Teutons and Slavs, and as
between Christians and Jews; but these differences are in no way
directly dependent upon the differences in race or in religion,
and they must be ascribed to the differences in social conditions.
Fertility is well known to exert a decisive influence upon infant
mortality; but variations in fertility are not the direct effect
of any differences in race or creed; they are a consequence of the
varying social conditions in which those of the respective races or
creeds actually live. Thus it is only in certain social conditions
that Slavs are more fertile than Teutons, and Jews more fertile than
Christians. The constitution of the parents exercises a considerable
influence upon infant mortality; but the parental constitution must
be regarded as largely dependent upon the social environment in which
the parents themselves have grown to maturity.
_The Chief Causes of Infant Mortality._--Among the commonly
enumerated conditions affecting infant mortality the following are
conspicuous: the proportion of infants reared by artificial feeding
instead of being suckled; work for wages by the mothers of infants;
the general intelligence of the lower classes of the population, and
their knowledge of the care and management of infants; the general
state of the public health, including such conditions as the degree
to which the general population is enabled to avail itself of the
medical knowledge of our time (in all the countries claiming to be
“civilised,” bald official statistics prove beyond dispute that a
large proportion of the children dying before attaining the age of
one year die without having ever received any medical treatment
whatever); the number of illegitimate births, &c. But all these
conditions are in essence nothing more than social conditions. Thus
we are practically justified in saying that the determining factors
of infant mortality are social conditions and nothing else. With
striking unanimity, those who have made a special study of this
question formulate the conclusions summarised in the following
paragraph.
The infantile death-rate is higher among the lower classes than it is
among the upper. Within the limits of those making up what are termed
“the lower classes,” the infantile death-rate is higher in proportion
as the social conditions are unfavourable. The figure attained by the
infantile death-rate depends above all upon the social circumstances
and the earning capacity of the parents. Inasmuch as an infant does
not possess the faculty of spontaneous change of place or of other
spontaneous activity, since it is unable even to express its needs
in an intelligible manner, its fate depends upon the soil in which
it grows--its very life depends upon its environment. Such, from the
social standpoint, is the essential characteristic of the age of
infancy. The infant born of well-to-do parents has better chances of
life than the infant born of poor parents, for the former lives in
more favourable circumstances, and receives in every respect a better
upbringing. It is a demonstrable fact that most children that die
succumb, not from inherited weakness, but owing to the errors and
defects of their upbringing.
The materials available in proof of this proposition are ample
and incontrovertible. Whatever the place, the time, and the other
conditions submitted to investigation, and whether the investigated
materials be large or small, we are led invariably to the same
conclusions. In the bourgeois (middle and upper) classes, only 8 per
cent. of the children die during the first year of life, but among
the proletariat the infantile death-rate is 30 per cent. Even more
significant, if possible, are the following facts. The infantile
death-rate is higher among illiterate wage-earners than it is among
literate wage-earners; it is higher among casual labourers than it
is amongst wage-earners permanently occupied. In the strata of the
population above the manual workers, we find that the infantile
death-rate is lower as we pass from strata in which social conditions
are comparatively bad to strata in which they are comparatively
good. The infantile death-rate and the income of the parents vary in
inverse ratio. The differences in the infantile death-rate as we pass
from the poorer quarters of our towns to the richer quarters tell
always the same tale.
_The Great Number of Children._--The chief cause of high infant
mortality and of high child mortality among the lower strata of
the population is the great size of their families. The number of
conceptions, pregnancies, and births varies directly as the infantile
death-rate. If out of a certain limited income more children have
to be maintained, the share of each in the commodities purchasable
out of that income necessarily diminishes. The income of the manual
worker is so small that, even if his family is quite a small one, it
is exceedingly difficult for him to provide out of that income what
he and his wife and children need for the satisfaction of elementary
vital needs. With every additional child comes a further limitation
of supplies for each individual member of the family. Not only does
this have a directly unfavourable influence upon health, inasmuch
as each child receives a smaller share of dwelling-room, food, &c.
In addition, as more and more children are born, the worth of the
individual child in the eyes of the parents diminishes.
The mother’s health is apt to suffer from the rapid succession of
conceptions, pregnancies, and deliveries. For various reasons this
is disadvantageous to the children. A woman thus affected will
subsequently bring more weakly children into the world; the mother
whose health is poor is unable to give as much time and pains to
the rearing of her children as she would if she were well and
strong; many women whose health has been broken by unduly frequent
pregnancies die during a subsequent pregnancy or delivery.
But may it not be that the relationship between a large number of
births and a high infantile death-rate is the reverse of that which
we have suggested? Is it not possible that the great mortality
among children may be the cause of an increase in the number of
conceptions, pregnancies, and births? It is true that certain purely
psychological factors may contribute to such a causal sequence. To a
certain degree a high infantile death-rate has such an effect. For if
a woman gives birth to a diseased or a still-born child, or if one of
her children dies, the parents are more likely than would otherwise
be the case to desire to have another child, and the wife will be
more ready to undertake the troubles of another pregnancy and the
risks of another delivery.
The most important means for the diminution of child mortality is
to improve the conditions of working-class life. It is indisputable
that the more prosperous members of the working class have fewer
children on the average than those who are not so well off; that in
any region in which an improvement has taken place in the conditions
of working-class life a fall in the birth-rate has ensued; that the
poorer the condition of any stratum of the proletariat, the larger is
the average family. An increase in the average working-class income
will lead to a proportionately greater decline in the death-rate of
infants and young children. For this increase in income will operate
in two ways: in the first place, if the number of children remain the
same, the rise in income will ensure for each child a larger share of
the necessaries of life; and, in the second place, with the rise in
income the size of the average family will diminish, and this will
reduce the child mortality. Inasmuch as the height of the infantile
death-rate depends mainly upon the great infant mortality among
the lower strata of the population, every effort at reform in this
direction must begin at the lower end of the social scale.
_Child Mortality in the Towns._--A connection appears to exist
between density of population and the death-rate: if the other
conditions remain unchanged, the death-rate increases _pari passu_
with increasing density of population. The question whether in the
towns child mortality is higher than in the country districts has not
yet been decisively answered; and it is equally uncertain whether
from the hygienic standpoint the existing rural conditions are better
than the urban. It appears probable that child mortality is higher
in the towns than in the country districts; it is more doubtful,
however, if the same can be said of infant mortality. The statistical
data available on this question must be subjected to a stringent
critical examination. The infant mortality which truly belongs to
the towns appears smaller than it really is, for the reason that a
proportion of the infants born in the towns are placed in the care of
foster-parents living in the country, and some of these die in the
country. It is equally true that many people from the country die in
hospitals and other institutions in the towns; but this applies much
more to adults than to children.
The proletariat constitutes a large majority of the inhabitants of
the urban districts; the proportion of artificially reared children
is greater than in the country, the housing conditions are less
favourable, there is less opportunity for open-air life, venereal
diseases are more prevalent, and fertility is lower. But against
these considerations we must set the fact that the urban population
is more intelligent, and for this reason better understands the
various methods of artificial feeding of infants; the fact that
charitable institutions are more effective in the towns, and the
fact that in the towns better hygienic conditions prevail. The
sanitary improvement of the towns by better cleansing of the streets,
an improved water supply, better methods of disposing of sewage and
refuse, &c., has led to a reduction not merely of the general urban
death-rate, but also of the infantile urban death-rate; whereas in
the country districts these rates have remained stationary, or have
even undergone an increase. In wealthy towns the death-rate is lower
than in poor towns; like differences are observed as between the rich
and the poor quarters of one and the same town. Wealth has so marked
an influence in lowering infant mortality that in the wealthy villa
quarters of large towns the infantile death-rate may be as low as
from 10 to 20 per mille.
_The Effect of Housing Conditions._--The infantile death-rate is very
closely connected with the character of the housing conditions. The
rate of infant mortality in any particular dwelling varies directly
with the number of inhabitants, and varies inversely with the number
of rooms available per family. Those living in the upper stories of
tenement houses have a higher death-rate than infants living in lower
stories and basements. This influence of bad housing conditions in
producing a rise in the infantile death-rate is only to be expected.
The habitation exercises its influence upon the infant by day and by
night, and through every detail of the infant’s life. To give one
instance, there is an intimate connection between the quality of the
dwelling and the quality of the infant’s food; in a suitable dwelling
milk may be more readily kept cool, preserved from contamination,
sterilised, &c.
_The Effect of Age._--The degree to which bad conditions of life
endanger health varies inversely with the age. The maximum danger to
health from such conditions is incurred by infants. The younger the
infant the greater the danger that bad conditions will prove fatal;
and most of the environmental factors unfavourable to the maintenance
of infant life come into operation immediately after birth. The
younger the infant, the less resistant it is to external influences.
Therefore the younger the infant, the more carefully does it need to
be watched and safeguarded. Physicians and statisticians lay great
stress upon the degree to which the infant’s chances of life depend
upon its age in days and months.
_Time of Birth, Seasons, and Meteorological Conditions._--Is it
possible to demonstrate the existence of any connection between
the time of birth and the temporal variations in the infantile
death-rate? In the months in which the number of births is high, the
infantile death-rate is probably also higher than at other times.
This is true more especially of the very cold months, when infants
cannot be taken freely into the open air; it is true also of the very
hot months. It is well known that the annual curve of births exhibits
two notable elevations--one in February and March, and the other in
September; this depends on the fact that most conceptions take place,
on the one hand, in the spring-time--that is, at the time of the
general awakening of nature; and, on the other hand, in December,
when nature reposes, and agricultural labours are at a standstill.
But owing to the fact that the factors influencing infant mortality
are so numerous and variable, it is not possible to demonstrate any
definite relationship between the times of maximum births and the
times of maximal infantile death-rate.
The seasons and the meteorological conditions exert an influence upon
infant mortality through the intermediation of their effect upon
various social conditions. The infantile death-rate is highest during
the summer, the rate in the months of July, August, and September
greatly exceeding that in the other months of the year. During the
hot season, contaminated and decomposing milk gives rise to fatal
illness on all sides. When we compare different years, we find that
the height of the infantile death-rate varies directly with the heat
of the summer. This influence of the hot season is exerted almost
exclusively upon artificially reared infants, and especially on those
in whom the technique of artificial feeding is improper. It is an
established fact that the children of the well-to-do largely escape
a similar fate, simply because that in their case it is possible to
keep the milk artificially cool, and to prepare it more carefully in
other ways.
CHAPTER IV
THE QUALITY OF THE POPULATION; ARTIFICIAL SELECTION (EUGENICS) AND
EDUCATION
_Natural Selection and Artificial Selection._--The selective method
practised by Nature works by means of the procreation of millions of
individuals, and by the subsequent elimination of those individuals
which are imperfectly or not at all adapted to their environing
conditions; that is to say, natural selection operates repressively
or destructively. Artificial selection, on the other hand, aims at
preventing the procreation of individuals inadequately adapted to
their environment; it deliberately eliminates those elements which
are useless to society, or which can be utilised by society only at
excessive cost: thus artificial selection is a preventive method.
Natural selection is cruel and uneconomic. As far as the human
species is concerned, natural selection is not essential to our
advance towards perfection; it is even to a considerable extent
superfluous. In the case of humanity, racial improvement remains
possible even in the absence of a relationship between the numbers of
the species and the available means of subsistence so unfavourable
as to necessitate a fierce struggle for existence. In the earlier
stages of human evolution, such an unfavourable relationship between
the numerical strength of the species and the supply of the means of
subsistence was perhaps a cause of racial advance; but to-day such
a relationship would be nothing but a hindrance to progress. For
the human species to-day, the significance of natural selection is
historical merely; the future belongs to artificial selection. The
device for humanity must be, “Not Natural Selection, but Artificial
Selection--Eugenics!”
_The Interests of the Future Generation._--The attitude of our
present legal system towards actions likely to be injurious to the
interests of future generations is a quite erroneous one. We concern
ourselves solely with the interests of the contemporary generation;
the interests of future generations are left entirely to chance; it
is perfectly obvious that whenever a conflict of interests arises,
the well-being of our descendants is unhesitatingly sacrificed. In
our present laws it is difficult to point to a single provision
for the protection of subsequent generations against the result of
the sexual irrationality and the excessive sexual egoism of our
contemporaries.
Bodily injury of one human being by another is a punishable offence.
But the man affected with alcoholism or syphilis who procreates a
child incurs no punishment whatever, although the consequences of the
latter’s action are far more serious. To-day hardly any attention is
paid to the question of what qualities are desirable in the parents
in order to ensure the procreation of offspring well equipped for
a happy and useful life. In the breeding of plants and animals,
definite rules are followed, in order to secure the progressive
improvement of the species concerned. But who trouble themselves
about conscious selection for the improvement of the human species?
The view will ultimately prevail that the strong only are of value
to society, and that every weak member of the community involves a
definite social loss. It will be generally understood that large
families are not advantageous, inasmuch as it is not quantity but
quality that really matters. The day will come in which fatherhood
and motherhood will be permitted only to the strong, and in which
every endeavour will be made to prevent the birth of diseased and
weakly individuals. As far as the “protection” of a great many
children is concerned, the method that will be adopted will be to
prevent their ever coming into the world. In the future, we shall
know better than we know to-day which children are competent to grow
up into useful members of society; and those buds which fail to
attain this standard will be pruned away.
Beyond question, it will not be long before it will be generally
understood that the proper application of eugenist principles to
the human species will be secured, not so much by coercion, as by
enlightenment. But for this very reason it will become of enormous
importance to popularise the elements of educational science and
of the hygiene of childhood, to effect the sexual enlightenment of
children and of adults, and to secure the diffusion of sound ethical
ideas. It will be taught that actions injurious to the interests of
future generations are immoral, and some of them will even be made
punishable offences. Steps will also be taken to ensure as far as
possible that only those individuals shall marry whose offspring may
be expected to be healthy.
In regard to all these problems, the acquirements of medical science
are of enormous importance; for it is upon the acquirements of
positive science that legislation dealing with such matters must
be based. Unfortunately, however, the medical science of our own
day is not always in a position to give a decisive and satisfactory
answer in respect of the various problems just stated; and suitable
legislation on these matters must be deferred to the future, when
guidance may be anticipated from the inevitable progress of medical
science.
_Inheritance and Education._--In human beings, as in other animals,
an improvement in the inborn capacities is possible. At the present
time we are content to take children as we find them, and we simply
endeavour by education to make every child into a useful member of
society. But only through influences affecting hereditary qualities
can the material of future generations be improved, and a humanity
be brought into being better equipped than we are for the tasks of
civilisation. Enduring human progress can be effected only by the
simultaneous study and application of the laws both of education and
of heredity. As by selection the hereditary equipment is improved,
the limits of what is attainable by means of education will also be
extended.
Even to-day, heredity and education commonly co-operate in the same
direction, for in most cases the two influences are exercised by
the same personalities. Parents of fine quality tend to procreate
children of like quality, and also to give these same children an
exceptionally good upbringing; contrariwise, degenerate parents tend
to procreate degenerate children, and to bring them up badly.
_Nature of Education._--The inherited character of human beings
is not a unitary whole, but consists of different parts. Unless
this were so, man would speedily succumb in the struggle for
existence; for it depends upon the circumstances in which he finds
himself, which parts of his inherited character undergo a necessary
development. Just as nature brings into existence an enormous number
of living beings, and then, by the mechanism of the struggle for
existence, selects for survival those individuals which are best
adapted to the environmental conditions, so in the inherited human
character there exist available for the influences of education
thousands of rudimentary capacities, and it is the particular
environmental conditions which determine which of these capacities
are cultivated and developed, and which are allowed to undergo
atrophy.
Among these environmental conditions are the deliberate processes
of education, which also select certain capacities for special
cultivation, and allow others to atrophy or disappear. The latter
part of this process takes place in accordance with the natural law,
that every organ which is left unused undergoes atrophy, and may even
altogether disappear. The task of education does not presuppose any
alteration in the inherited character. On the contrary, the educator
utilises the existence of the various inherited characteristics in
such a way that he makes those qualities he wishes to develop take
the field against those he wishes to suppress.
The inherited character contains certain possibilities of
development. If it were fixed and unalterable, education would be
entirely unthinkable. In the practical work of education we have
to reckon with the fact that there are present in every child
certain developmental factors, constituting the pre-conditions of
the development which that child will subsequently undergo; that in
the course of growth the character undergoes extensive alterations;
finally, also, that the child’s character is something very different
from that of the adult. Education is thus seen to consist of the
influences exerted upon the character by the application of certain
external factors; it is a selection from the entire complex of inborn
capacities and inborn tendencies.
_Character of the Child._--The view that the child possesses all
the vices and all the peculiarities of the criminal is as erroneous
as the opinion that the criminal, owing to the arrest of mental
development, remains for ever a child, and that he is one in nature
with the savage who, unaffected by conditions of time or place,
preserves unchanged the type of humanity in the childhood of our
race. As yet no proof has ever been supplied of the hypothesis, that
concealed within the child’s nature lies the tendency to do evil.
But it is an incontestible fact that the child entirely lacks power
to withdraw itself from harmful influences, and that if criminal
inclinations are artificially implanted in the child, they will
infallibly develop if no counteracting influences come into play.
The child is a virgin soil, which will in due course bring forth
good fruit or bad fruit according to the nature of the tillage; at
birth the child is qualitatively and quantitatively incomplete; but
all the faculties are there in embryo, and ready for their further
development. The smaller the circle of ideas, the stronger will be
the influence, the greater will be the effect, of any new idea that
enters this circle. In the child, above all, the circle of ideas is
so small, that every new idea will constitute a quite appreciable
fraction of all the ideas that already exist.
_Limits of Educability._--Education is able to develop the useful
capacities and qualities of human beings, and to repress those
capacities and qualities that are useless and harmful; but it is
beyond the power of education to develop qualities and capacities of
which the germs do not previously exist in the child. Even the best
education is incompetent to improve a character which is congenitally
altogether bad, or to do anything for a child whose character, though
congenitally good, has been completely corrupted by evil influences.
Unfortunately, science is not yet sufficiently advanced to enable us
to determine with absolute certainty which children are educable. As
long as our knowledge of this matter remains defective, society must
undertake the fruitless education of such children.
Educability depends, first of all, upon the inherited dispositions of
the brain; when the deviations from the average in this respect are
considerable, we have to do with a diseased brain. According to the
kind and the degree of the deviation, we distinguish several groups
of mental abnormality occurring in childhood, namely:
(_a_) Morbid psychical (psychopathic) constitutions.
(_b_) Congenital feeble-mindedness (debility).
(_c_) Fully developed and well-marked mental disorders.
In the first group we find a number of morbid changes far less severe
in character than those comprising groups (_b_) and (_c_); these
are commonly curable, provided only treatment is begun in early
childhood. It is absolutely essential that such cases should be
cured if possible: for unless this is effected, in most cases (and
especially when they belong to the poorer classes of society) the
males become habitual vagrants, whilst the females adopt a life of
prostitution. Numerous inquiries have established the fact that a
strikingly large proportion of tramps and other vagabonds were from
childhood upwards of a psychopathic constitution.
The number of those exhibiting mental abnormality has notably
increased in recent times, but this increase does not affect those
suffering from true insanity. Many of those who in adult life exhibit
symptoms of mental abnormality do so as a result of the psychopathic
constitution, and in many such cases the troubles of adult life
might have been prevented by judicious measures during childhood. In
cases belonging to group (_b_), comprising persons suffering from
congenital feeble-mindedness, the possibility of education depends
entirely upon the degree of mental debility. In cases belonging to
group (_c_) education is impossible. The question of ineducability
is of importance, above all, in relation to the possibilities of a
coercive reformatory education. The possibility that attempts at
education may prove altogether fruitless must never be lost sight
of; for although it is an established fact that mentally abnormal
children usually need a coercive reformatory education, in the case
of children whose mental abnormality exceeds certain limits, even
such an education is impracticable. In these cases also the rule
applies, that the prospects of success are greater the earlier the
matter is taken in hand.
_The Aim of Education._--What is the aim of education? Should we
seek to educate the child for society; or should it be our primary
aim to cultivate the inborn capacities of the child? The value of
the individual depends upon two factors, upon the capacities and
qualities he has inherited, and upon the capacities and qualities he
has acquired. Education must not attend exclusively to one group or
to the other, but must deal with both groups harmoniously. The child
must be taught to adapt itself to all possible circumstances and
conditions; at the same time it must receive an education suited to
its own capacities and endowments. In the character of every child
there exist the germs of individuality. Whether it is normal or
abnormal, whether it is a foundling or not, whether it is educated by
its parents or at school, in the family or at an institution, it must
be educated in accordance with the needs of its own individuality.
The educationalist’s device should be--individualisation.
The greatest delight of every individual, whether child or adult, is
to be occupied in accordance with its own inclinations, and to be
treated by others in a manner suited to its own peculiar tendencies.
This perhaps depends upon one of the primary laws of physics,
that motion takes place in the direction of least resistance.
Individualisation in education is an exceedingly difficult matter;
and yet it is less difficult than appears at first sight. Differences
in individual character are far less extensive than is generally
believed, and it is an error to suppose that the character of every
child differs in important respects from that of every other. It is
an impossible aim of education to make every child a being with a
well-marked individuality. If the differences were too great between
those whose education is completed--that is, between those grown
persons who play their parts in ordinary human intercourse, such
intercourse would be less extensive and more difficult than it now is.
The child must be educated in such a way that its actions are
not instinctive and uncontrolled, but consciously purposive and
self-controlled; but at the same time the educationalist must guard
against the danger of making the child into a will-less puppet. It
has frequently been observed that obedient children are unlikely to
grow up into men of any particular note, the reason being that they
are accustomed to do only what they are told, and have never learned
to act on their own initiative.
Knowledge is a mighty weapon, but it is one which can be used either
to good purpose or to ill, and it is _per se_ neither moral nor
immoral. Knowledge is Power, but it is not Virtue. It is not the
ability to read and to write which matters; the important question
is, what one reads and what one writes. Among those who can neither
read nor write, we find many who are extraordinarily rich in
practical experience. This is to be explained by the fact that those
who can read and write are able to gain impressions indirectly as
well as directly, whilst illiterate persons are entirely dependent
upon their own direct experience of life.
Among the causes of crime, illiteracy by no means plays so important
a part as is generally believed. For this reason, when we are
studying the condition of any particular country, we must avoid
laying too great a stress upon the percentage of illiterates among
its population. The number of illiterates depends in part also upon
the proportions of persons at various ages, inasmuch as, in reckoning
the percentage of illiterates to the general population, those under
school age are left out of the account.
By no means is it the aim of education to provide general culture.
The State cannot possibly insist that every individual should devote
himself to the acquirement of general culture, for the most talented
person is at times unable to earn his own living. In the struggle for
existence, general culture, taken by itself, is utterly useless.
_Good Example._--The phenomena which the child has opportunities
for observing exercise a great influence upon its development.
Although the view that the child imitates everything instinctively is
erroneous, it is unquestionable that education will prove successful
only in cases in which the personality of the child’s teacher is
one which puts a good example before the child’s eyes. It is not
enough merely to instruct a child verbally. It is essential that
the child should see that the teacher himself practises all which is
theoretically asserted to be right and admirable.
_Confidence and Love._--Authority and compulsion are important
factors of education; but those take the wrong path who attempt to
influence the child by means of authority and compulsion alone. For
individualisation in education the device should be, Confidence and
Love. These mean to the child what sunshine means to the plant:
without sunshine, the plant lags behind in its growth, and ultimately
perishes; but in the sunshine it flourishes abundantly.
_Reward and Punishment._--The view that neither reward nor punishment
should be employed as instruments of education is erroneous, for
unquestionably both have considerable influence upon human activities
and intercourse. The only matter really open for consideration is,
what should be the nature of the rewards and the punishments to be
employed, and what should be the method of their application? It
is wrong to punish or reward a child so often that either becomes
habitual. The teacher, who is in most cases the accuser and the
injured person (since a child’s wrong actions are apt to take the
form of offences against an instructor), should not also assume the
office of a judge against whose decision there is no appeal, and the
office of executioner. Above all, the time-honoured system whereby
every childish offence is expiated by deliberately inflicted physical
pain must be abandoned.
The corporal punishment of children is certainly harmful. (_a_)
Corporal punishment is injurious to the child’s health. In former
times this objection had perhaps less weight, for the child’s
constitution, and especially the child’s nervous system, were then
less sensitive than they are to-day. (_b_) Corporal punishment
gradually makes the child quite indifferent to the handling and
making-use of its body. In many instances, either in the chastiser or
in the chastised, or in both, it gives rise to sexual excitement. It
is especially dangerous for girls, whom it is apt to prepare for a
life of prostitution. (_c_) Corporal punishment has a coarsening and
hardening influence both on teacher and on child. The teacher tends
ever more and more to give way to his impulses, and thereby becomes
a disastrous example for the child. (_d_) Corporal punishment breaks
the child’s will, and induces a sense of degradation which is greater
in proportion to the intensity of the child’s own self-respect. (_e_)
Corporal punishment makes a child hypocritical and deceitful, and
gives it a hint to be wilier the next time. For ultimately the idea
is formed in the child’s mind that it has been punished, not for
committing a fault, but because it has been found out.
Punishment should always be of such a nature as to strengthen as
much as possible those inner forces and impulses through whose
weakness the liability to the punishment has been incurred. On no
account whatever should the punishment be such as will encourage in
the child’s mind the belief that the act for which it is punished
was, after all, one it had a right to do. If, for example, a child
has injured a servant, it should be punished by making it relieve
the servant of some portion of the latter’s work. If the child has
injured any one, it is not a suitable punishment for the teacher to
inflict direct injury on the child, for this would merely encourage
the latter to believe that the strong are justified in inflicting
injury on the weak.
_Education by the Parents._--Throughout nature, wherever the young
of any animal have to live through a prolonged period of imperfectly
protected immaturity, it is the duty of the parent-animals to bring
up their offspring. Above a certain level in the animal scale, this
duty is universal. The lower in the scale any species of animal,
the more rapidly do the young of that species attain maturity;
conversely, the higher the stage of development of any species, the
longer is the period of immaturity, and the longer are the children
dependent upon their parents. This rule applies to human beings also,
and the relationships above described obtain among the different
varieties and races of mankind. Of all new-born animals, none is so
helpless as man; and of all animals, his period of immaturity is the
longest. The period of upbringing lasts longer in man than in other
animals, the human young are longer dependent on their parents, and
the parents themselves in the human species are more long-lived than
the parents of most other species of animals.
The younger the individual human being, the more dependent is it upon
others. An infant cannot continue to exist at all without external
help. Its only needs at first, indeed, are for food, drink, sleep,
and cleansing; but the older it is, the more complex is the care
it demands. As the age of the human individual increases, the more
do its needs continue to enlarge. The younger the human being, the
more dependent is it upon parental care, and more particularly upon
maternal care; and the more helpless the offspring, the more does the
educational influence of the mother exceed in importance that of the
father.
The view that the natural province of work of the father is to
provide the means of subsistence for himself and his family, while
the mother’s work, on the other hand, is to care for the children,
is erroneous. It is not merely unnecessary for the mother to spend
all her time with her child, but such a course of action imposes
an excessive strain upon her, and has a dulling effect. It is also
a false view that only those women properly fulfil their duties as
wives and mothers who devote their whole time to the upbringing of
their children and to the cares of their household.
The influence of the parents upon the child is a very powerful
one, because child and parents are, as it were, syntonised through
hereditary dispositions and tendencies. Oscillations of character
in the parents spontaneously initiate oscillations of character in
the child, but in this syntonic influence there may subsist a very
great danger. The healthier the parents, and the better suited they
are to one another, the better are the dispositions the children
inherit from them, and thereby the children are fitted to receive
a better education. Among the lower animals, parents educate their
offspring solely in accordance with the dictates of instinct. For
the upbringing of the human young, the guidance of human instinct is
inadequate; educational aptitudes and special educational knowledge
are also indispensable. Normal human parents may desire to give their
children the best possible education; but in many instances they do
not know themselves what the best education is; and even if they
do know this, they will be unable to provide such an education by
their own unaided efforts, and will be dependent upon others for the
upbringing of their own children. It is quite impossible for anyone
to follow a trade or profession, to supervise the management of a
household, and at the same time to be the instructor of his or her
own child. For this, parents lack the requisite time and energy. As
time goes on, the principle of the division of labour comes more
and more into application; it is in accordance with this principle
that the education of children should be entrusted to professional
educationalists.
_Education in Different Social Classes._--The education received
by an individual is determined mainly by the class to which that
individual belongs. In every industrial state, the degradation of
the working-class families becomes apparent. The wages of the manual
workers are very small; and owing to illness, strikes, lock-outs,
and commercial crises, even this small income diminishes from time
to time, or may entirely cease. Insecurity is the keynote of the
working man’s economic existence. The consequences of this insecurity
are ill-humour and embitterment, which find expression for the most
part in domestic life. The place of work is often far removed from
the dwelling-place. Husband, wife, and the elder children go to work;
they have to get up very early in the morning, when the children are
still asleep. Since the spells of rest for meals are very short, they
have no time to go home; or if they do hurry home, they have to gulp
down their food with lightning speed. Not until late in the evening,
when the children have gone to sleep again, do the parents return
home. Thousands of working men, owing to the distance of their homes
from their work-places, remain a whole week away, and return home to
their families only on Saturday. Even if the parents get home from
work in the evenings before their children are asleep, the former are
so worn out by long hours of exhausting toil that they can do nothing
for their children.
The housing conditions of the working classes are rarely
satisfactory. In consequence of this, the children are often driven
to live in the streets; and this, in turn, leads to immorality and
to crime. Often the children of working-class families do not remain
at home at all, but find their way to crèches, foundling hospitals,
poorhouses, and other institutions. Proletarian parents have less
knowledge and less capacity for the education of their children than
parents belonging to other classes of the population. These latter,
also, can more readily afford to entrust the education of their
children to other persons.
Nevertheless, the education of the children of the well-to-do
cannot be unconditionally regarded as better than the education
of the children of the poor. The chief defects as regards the
children of the well-to-do are, that they are apt to receive too
much attention; they are often spoiled, and their initiative is
continually suppressed. Rich parents keep servants, and entrust to
these in large part the upbringing of their children. In our day
it has come to be regarded as necessary and natural that children
should be cared for by servants; thus the influence exercised by
servants upon the children of the well-to-do is a very extensive and
by no means a happy one. For these servants commonly lack refinement
and intelligence, and the abilities of the trained educationalist
are altogether lacking to them. The domestic servant may bring up
suitably his or her own children, but not the children of another;
and the failure will be especially marked when the child’s social
position is much higher than the servant’s.
_Parents, School, Environment._--The three primary factors in
education are: parents, school, and environment. Strictly speaking,
indeed, parents and school are only parts of the environment. In
a sense, however, the whole of education is nothing more than
the influencing of the capacities and dispositions of the child
by external factors--that is, by the environment. The influence
exercised by the environment is very great. As social life develops
in complexity, the child is exposed ever more and more to the
influences of environment, and the educative influence exercised by
this latter becomes ever more extensive. But in our time the child is
less exposed than the adult to the influences of the environment.
In the first years of life the work of education is in the hands
of the parents, and above all in those of the mother. Subsequently
the schoolmaster and schoolmistress share with the parents in the
work of education, and the part played by the parents becomes ever
less important. In addition, however, to the influence exerted at
first by the parents, and subsequently by the teachers, the general
environment does its work from the very earliest days of life. It
is a natural postulate of a sound education, that all these three
factors, parents, school, and environment, should co-operate,
and that each should exercise its appropriate influence. If they
counteract instead of assisting one another, the general result will
be unsatisfactory and inadequate. In vain does the school attempt
to exercise a favourable influence if the work of the school is
undone by the influence of the parents. Again, the joint influence of
parents and of school is fruitless if the child, when away from home
and out of school hours, is under the influence of bad associates.
Unfortunately, with the development of capitalism such cases have
become ever more common.
_The Tendency of Evolution._--With the passage of the years, the
importance of education continually increases. The seductions and
the temptations encountered by young people to-day are at once far
more frequent and far more subtle than was the case in former times.
To enable them to withstand these allurements, the young require
a better and a more careful education. In the early stages of
evolution, alike in the struggle for existence between individuals
and in the struggle for existence between competing tribes, physical
strength was the decisive factor of success; but in the later stages
of human evolution it is upon intellectual and moral well-being
that victory in the struggle depends. Hence intellectual and moral
education become of ever greater importance. To-day, one whose
intellectual and moral education has been neglected is far less able
to meet with success the demands made by modern life than one living
some hundreds of years ago, whose education had been neglected,
would have been able to meet the demands made by the life of his own
time. In such a case, in our own day, the likelihood that one whose
education has been neglected will be useless and even dangerous to
society, is far greater than it would have been in former times;
and as time goes on the differences between those who have had an
appropriate education and those whose education has been neglected
will become more and more extensive.
It is well known that the majority of habitual criminals are persons
who began to commit punishable offences in the earlier years of their
life. It is only in the rarest instances that by legal punitive
methods we prevent a juvenile offender from developing into a
habitual criminal; the object of the punishment is seldom attained.
The question therefore presses itself upon our attention, whether the
prevention of crime cannot best be attained in another way than by
the use of penal methods, namely, by the proper education of children.
Education has no bearing upon the life of persons living in complete
isolation; it is a postulate of social life alone, and becomes
impregnated to a continually greater extent with social elements. The
modern tendency of social evolution is to relieve the family of the
cares of education, which becomes to an increasing extent a communal
duty; whilst the share of the parents in the education of their
children is limited, social institutions providing more generally
and more thoroughly for that education. England offers us a typical
example of the working of this modern tendency; for England is
commonly regarded as pre-eminently individualistic, and yet there is
no country in which more limitations have been imposed upon parental
authority, or in which compulsory and universal education is more
thoroughly enforced by the State.
The elements of educational science depend mainly upon the social
conditions that obtain in the country with which we have to do;
as time passes, the science undergoes a progressive alteration,
and leads us from individual education to social education. The
elements of the education of the future will depend upon the general
configuration of social life, upon the characteristics of domestic
life, and upon the regulation of parental authority. The individual
household of our own time has no regard at all for the special
needs of the child, and the various occupations carried on in such
a household constitute a hindrance to the proper upbringing of
children. The labours of the kitchen expose children to constant
accidents--from fire, boiling water, sharp instruments, &c. The
parents, and more especially the mother, will in times to come be
much less occupied than at present in domestic drudgery, and will
consequently have more time to devote to the upbringing of their
children. The parents will also themselves stand at a much higher
level of culture, and this cannot fail to lead to an effective demand
for the more suitable upbringing of children. The modern dwelling and
its furniture take no account at all of the needs of children; at
every turn there are sharp corners and hard objects, by contact with
which children may be, and often are, seriously injured. In former
times various occupations were carried on in the individual household
which hardly any one now dreams of doing at home: among these may
be mentioned, spinning, weaving, laundry-work, soap-boiling, the
slaughtering of animals and the preparation of their flesh, the
grinding of meal, &c. &c. In the United States of America even to-day
many families take all their principal meals at public restaurants;
in America also, to an increasing degree, heating, ventilation, and
lighting of the houses is provided from central establishments.
The household of to-day is inconvenient and uneconomical. Much
work is still done at home which could be done more cheaply, more
effectively, and more conveniently elsewhere. As time goes on, one
labour after another which is now done at home will be removed
altogether from the sphere of the domestic economy, and this will
necessarily lead ultimately to the disappearance of the individual
household. In the future, human beings will occupy separate
dwellings, but not separate households; or, to put the matter more
intelligibly, most of the work now carried on in the individual
household will be arranged for from centralised organisations. It is
obvious that these changes will lead to extensive modifications of
our present individual methods of domestic architecture.
The educational developments of the future will depend, not only
on the changes that have been foreshadowed in domestic life, but
also on the future development of the institution of the family.
Naturally, the characteristics of the family and the characteristics
of the household are intimately associated. But, whatever changes
may ensue in these respects, the fundamental principle that the
parents are responsible for the upbringing of their children is not
likely to be abandoned, for it is based upon an instinct deeply
rooted in the very nature of human beings. But the actual work of
education will probably be in the hands of educational specialists
almost exclusively, as soon as the days of infancy and very early
childhood are outgrown. When physically able to do so, mothers will,
of course, suckle their own children. The transformation of our
domestic economy and our domestic architecture will result in giving
enormously increased importance to institutions for the upbringing of
children; crèches, kindergartens, and elementary schools will play a
far greater part than at present in social life; such institutions
will probably care for children in every possible way, and will aim
at the satisfaction of all their elementary needs.
CHAPTER V
PROS AND CONS OF CHILD-PROTECTION
_Introductory._--The _lex minimi_ (“law of parsimony”) is not merely
a natural law, but is also the guiding principle both of legislative
and of executive activity. From this law we learn, among other
things: “When we wish to attain any end, we must arrange to do this
with the smallest possible expenditure of means; with the means
available we must secure the greatest possible result; the cost of
production must not exceed the value of the finished product. No
institution should be maintained if its utility is less than the
equivalent of the cost of its maintenance. However fine an aim may
be, it must never be forgotten that society and the State have other
aims in addition to this one, and that if for the attainment of this
particular aim an excessive expenditure of wealth is requisite, some
wealth will be used up which is needed for the attainment of other
aims.”
Prevention is better than cure. One whose actions are guided by
foresight will use preventive methods all the more readily because
prevention is a part of the natural order of things. It is applicable
not only in domestic life, but also in the general life of society;
and as evolution proceeds, the importance of repression continually
diminishes, whilst the importance of prevention continually increases.
Every social institution serves for the attainment of some particular
end--is, that is to say, a means to that end. If an end can be
obtained without consuming wealth--that is, without employing the
means involving such an expenditure of wealth, then the sacrifice of
this wealth and the employment of these means are superfluous, and
even harmful. The tendency of every social institution is, in fact,
to become superfluous, and to be superseded with the passage of the
years.
The wise physician who has to deal with the diseases affecting the
human body does not confine his efforts to the treatment and relief
of symptoms, but endeavours to ascertain and to remove the causes of
those symptoms. He is well aware that a method of treatment which is
confined to the relief of mere symptoms will effect no more than a
temporary improvement, and that as long as the cause of the symptoms
remains in active operation, the morbid phenomena will continue to
recur. Now these considerations apply with just as much force to the
social organism as they do to the individual human organism. When we
pass judgment upon a social institution, we must always endeavour to
ascertain whether any defect we may notice connected with its working
belongs to the social institution as such, and whether the fault is
inseparable from the institution, or whether we may reasonably expect
that in the further course of development, or as a result of better
organisation, this particular defect will disappear. In the work of
child-protection, these fundamental principles must always be kept in
mind.
_Objections to Child-Protection._--A number of objections have been
formulated against child-protection, of which the following may be
mentioned. In crèches and other institutions for the care of young
children, the spread of infectious diseases very readily occurs.
Most of the institutions aiming at child-protection are really
rewards of immorality, and thus tend to encourage immorality. It is
a natural law that a child should be cared for by its own parents,
and child-protection, in so far as it separates the child from its
parents, is unnatural.
Most of these objections are invalid. Many authors maintain that the
protection of juvenile criminals does more harm than good; but even
if this is true to-day, it does not follow that juvenile criminals
should not be protected, but simply that our methods of protection
should be better adapted to their purpose. The objections urged
against crèches and other institutions for the care of young children
should not lead to the inference that no such institutions ought to
exist, but should rather draw our attention to the necessity for
taking better measures to prevent the introduction and spread of
infectious diseases. No one can doubt to-day that the suppression of
these diseases is within our power.
_Objections to the Care of Foundlings._--In the literature of our
subject we find great diversity of opinion regarding the care of
foundlings, and it is therefore necessary that we should examine the
objections that have been made to institutions for this purpose. A
careful study of the matter will show that the criticisms apply not
to the general principle on which foundling hospitals are instituted,
but to a particular form of this institution. It is well known that
the foundling hospitals of former days received children by means of
a turn-table, through an aperture in the wall (so that the person
who brought the child might remain entirely unknown), that the
children grew to maturity in such institutions, that the infants
were artificially fed, that the most elementary hygienic precautions
were neglected in these buildings, &c. &c. It is natural that such
foundling hospitals as these should be attacked by many writers as
harmful in the highest degree. But these writers completely ignore
the fact that the defects were not characteristic of all foundling
hospitals, and that therefore they did not attach to the institutions
as such, but were the outcome simply of defective organisation; they
also fail to observe that the care of foundlings may be undertaken
without instituting foundling hospitals. The weightiest of all the
objections to foundling hospitals is that the cost of maintenance of
these institutions is disproportionate to any good they may effect,
inasmuch as the value to society of those foundlings who attain
maturity is no proper equivalent for the pains expended in attaining
this result. In view of the _lex minimi_, to which reference was made
at the beginning of this chapter, has such an institution any right
to exist?
The turn-table for the reception of children was instituted for two
reasons. In the first place, the whole act of “exposing” a child
was to be discreetly veiled from the public eye; and, in the second
place, no excuse was to be left open for the crime of infanticide.
It is true that in our own day there are many reasons to be alleged
against retaining the turn-table; it provides a means whereby the
parents of children born in lawful wedlock can evade their natural
obligations, and impose these upon society at large; it involves
a legal contradiction, inasmuch as it tacitly permits, and even
formally invites, parents to expose their children, although this
is a criminal offence; finally, it leads to the overcrowding of the
foundling hospitals. In short, all the objections to the institution
of the turn-table are perfectly sound; but it would be altogether
unwarrantable to infer from this that foundling hospitals themselves
are unnecessary and even harmful. Foundling hospitals can exist
without a turn-table (not a single modern foundling hospital contains
any such thing); the defects of foundling hospitals with turn-tables
are not defects of foundling hospitals as such, but defects attaching
to the institution of the turn-table.
If we are told that foundling hospitals fail to attain their ends
(the prevention of infanticide and the increase of the population),
if we are told that the foundling hospitals were themselves
murder-traps, and that all they could do was to preserve for society
a few individuals competent for harm rather than for good, we may
rejoin that in modern foundling hospitals the death-rate is much
lower than it was in those of former times, that children now receive
in these institutions a much better upbringing than was formerly
the case, and that the defects alleged do not attach to foundling
hospitals as such, but merely to this or that way of managing such
institutions. Finally, it is necessary to point out, that whereas
the foundling hospitals of former times, owing to their defective
administration, probably did not “pay,” the progress of medical
science has greatly reduced the death-rate in foundling hospitals,
the children in these institutions are now much better brought
up, and for these reasons the effective return made by foundling
hospitals to society is far greater than it used to be.
_Darwinism_ versus _Poor-Relief_.--Many Darwinians oppose
Poor-Relief. The interest of the community demands that its members
should be physically, intellectually, and morally sound. Social
evolution and social well-being depend upon the survival of the
fittest. It follows from this that the interest of the community
demands that we should prevent the birth of diseased and weakly
individuals; and that if such individuals should nevertheless
be born, the sooner they perish the better. If this were
unconditionally true, we should have to admit that the relief of
destitution is not merely useless to society, but is positively
harmful.
In many instances, by the application of medical skill and knowledge,
it is possible, at considerable expenditure of effort, to keep alive
sickly persons, those predisposed to crime, and those predisposed
to particular diseases--persons who, in default of such special
care, would inevitably have succumbed. Such defectives, attaining
maturity, procreate their kind, producing a new generation of sickly
individuals, with deficient powers of resistance. Such applications
of medical science are doubtless valuable from the point of view of
the individuals thus benefited, but they promote the deterioration
of the race. This anti-eugenist influence is exerted in a twofold
manner: not only are the defectives kept alive and enabled to
procreate their kind, but these defectives utilise goods and services
which would otherwise have been allotted to healthy persons, whereby
these latter become less well able to found and rear families.
The relief of destitution provides support for the weaker members
of the community. Whereas, in default of public assistance, such
persons would hesitate to marry, a generous public provision for the
destitute facilitates the light-hearted increase of the lower classes
of the population, since these latter feel justified in believing
that, should the worst come to the worst, their children will be
provided for by the community. In the relief of the destitute, the
commodities devoted to the maintenance of the weak are taken away
from the strong. In consequence of this deprivation, the strong find
it necessary to limit their families--an example which the weak
will not follow. Thus the relief of destitution favours a reversed
selection. The relief of destitution also impairs the efficiency
of the processes whereby the diseased and useless constituents are
eliminated from the social organism, and this interference with
eliminative processes is no less dangerous to the social than it is
to the individual organism.
_Darwinism_ versus _Child-Protection_.--The Darwinians maintain that
all these considerations apply with equal force to child-protection.
We must, they tell us, protect strong children only, and do nothing
for the weakly. Child-protection to-day, they insist, effects the
reverse of this. It counteracts excessive child mortality, which is
an effective factor in selection, through its destruction of weakly
children. For example, the existence of foundling hospitals induces
many parents to abandon the care of their own children, and to commit
these to the foundling hospitals. Many parents, being aware that the
State undertakes the coercive reformatory education of neglected
children, deliberately neglect the education of their own children,
in order to force the community to undertake it.
During the first years of life, continue these ultra-Darwinians,
more children die than in the later years of childhood, because,
owing to natural selection in the first years of life, a larger
proportion of the weak succumb, so that the level of health of those
in the later years of childhood is considerably higher. High infant
mortality is at once a symptom and a means of natural-selection.
Years characterised by high infant mortality necessarily follow
years in which the infantile death-rate has been low. In countries
with high infant mortality the population is stronger, because the
badly-equipped new-born infants die in greater proportion than the
well-equipped; in subsequent years the mortality is consequently
lower, the fitness for military service is greater, and tuberculosis
is less common. To diminish infant mortality would lead to a more
rapid increase of population; it would, in fact, give rise to
over-population to such an extent that the struggle for existence
would become even more cruel and abhorrent than it is to-day. Certain
departments of child-protection lead to the preservation of children
whose survival is altogether undesirable--children which would
otherwise have perished during the first years of life.
(If it is true that illegitimate children are of very little use to
the community, and if it is impossible to prevent the birth of such
children, it is at any rate desirable, continue the writers of this
school, that those which actually do come into the world should die
as soon as possible. Consider also born criminals. These inflict
grave injury on the community. If it is impossible to prevent their
birth, should not society at least take steps to secure that their
life should be as short as possible?)
_The Right View._--These views are only partially correct. It may be
true that a great proportion of illegitimate children are weakly, and
perhaps for this reason their mortality-rate and criminality-rate
are excessive; it is also probable that in the absence of
child-protection their death-rate would be considerably higher than
it is. Elsewhere in this work we shall consider whether, and to
what extent, it is possible to prevent the birth of illegitimate
children. It may also be true that the born criminal is physically,
intellectually, and morally degenerate, and that for these reasons in
the absence of child-protection he would probably succumb in early
life.
The race is not always damaged by the survival of those who have
suffered from disease. The disease may be of such a kind that the
patient who survives may recover completely, and may procreate
perfectly healthy children. It is a very thorny question whether
it can ever be right to refrain from the cure of certain patients,
because to cure them would be injurious to the race. Here humanity
and race-interest seem to conflict. If, in the future, by the proper
application of preventive methods, we are able to ensure that very
few such sick persons shall exist, it will no longer be necessary to
attempt to cure such as do exist, for in that day the application of
the euthanasia in such cases will no longer be regarded as inhuman,
but rather as perfectly natural and right.
To the assertion that only the healthy and strong should be
protected, we may answer that the sickly and the weakly are far more
in need of such protection. It is perfectly true that those who are
not adapted to the conditions of their environment perish. But one of
the chief aims of child protection is to enable children to become
capable of adaptation to their environment; and in the majority of
children we are able to effect this. Even those in whom this is
unattainable ought not to be neglected, because, while they are
slowly succumbing, society suffers much injury from them. One who is
ill or weak from one point of view only may nevertheless be a useful
member of society, since perhaps in some other relationship he may
be strong or healthy. In the present state of our knowledge, we are
unable during a child’s early years, and still less immediately after
birth, to determine positively whether the child is intellectually
or morally defective, whether it is a born criminal, or whether it is
one capable of developing into a useful member of society. We must
certainly dispute the assertion that a child which is bodily weak
is of necessity also intellectually and morally defective, since
thousands of instances establish the fact that a child which is
bodily weak often proves to be a useful member of society. If there
were no child-protection, children would perish whose survival is
unquestionably desirable.
We consider, therefore, that child-protection is necessary, although,
notwithstanding great pains and great sacrifices, it often results
in the survival of individuals who are useless to society. The
view that only the children of the inferior and poorer classes of
the population are suitable for the application of the methods of
child-protection, is erroneous, if only for the reason that the
well-to-do to-day bring forth offspring utterly regardless whether
these are strong or weak; and also because capitalism interferes
in other ways with the effective operation of natural selection.
These various evils can be obviated to-day only by means of
child-protection.
In the case of infants, there is no question of the struggle for
existence. For their death-rate depends upon two factors--first, upon
their inborn capacity; secondly, upon the conditions in which they
are reared. The former factor is of far less importance in relation
to infant mortality than it is in relation to child mortality. Only
in an extremely limited sense is it possible, with regard to infants,
to speak of a struggle for existence, in virtue of which the fittest
survive. The infant is exposed to numerous dangers, in coping with
which its inborn capacity hardly counts at all. When certain external
influences come into play, the infant is quite incapable of making
an advantageous use of its inborn physiological capacities. Such
external influences destroy quite indifferently infants well-equipped
and ill-equipped at birth. There is no doubt of the fact that a
strong infant could better resist most of the diseases of infancy
than a weakly infant; but the differences in power of resistance
in infants are far less extensive than is generally believed.
It is certainly wrong to maintain that a strong infant is able
successfully to resist all diseases.
For the very reason that certain diseases--for example, certain
affections of the stomach and intestines--will destroy even the
strongest infant, the prevention of these diseases becomes a matter
of the first importance. It is unquestionable that such diseases can
be more effectively prevented in proportion as the circumstances are
favourable in which the infant is reared.
It is certainly through an error of observation that some writers
maintain that in the age-class of children who have survived their
first year we find no weaklings. Even the strongest infant will
not survive to enter this age-class if its environing conditions
are too unfavourable. It often happens that an infant survives an
illness, and yet survives in a damaged condition. A high death-rate
is a consequence of a high disease-rate; but of the infants affected
with disease, only a certain proportion succumbs, whilst the others
survive with damaged constitutions, and constitute a favourable
soil for fresh inroads of disease. In the twentieth century, in the
civilised countries of Europe, of one hundred children dying during
the first year of life, barely twenty die in consequence of inborn
defects or congenital diseases (such as congenital debility, atrophy,
congenital scrofula, tuberculosis, &c.).
If it were true that infant mortality exercised a selective function,
we should find a high infantile death-rate associated with a low
death-rate in the case of children past infancy, and conversely.
But everywhere we find that the infantile death-rate and the
death-rate amongst children at ages one to five vary directly,
and not inversely. Moreover, the variations in the death-rates in
children during different years of life are determined by the fact
that the younger the child, the less are its powers of resistance;
thus the danger to health resulting from unfavourable conditions
of life varies inversely as the child’s age; and even within the
limits of the first year of life, the infantile death-rate is higher
in proportion as the time which has elapsed since birth is less.
Among the lower classes of the population, the infantile death-rate
is higher than it is among the upper classes. If a high infantile
death-rate exercised a selective influence, we should find that
among the lower classes the death-rate among children more than one
year old would be less than the death-rate of upper-class children of
corresponding ages. But this is nowhere the case.
The mortality of children between the ages of one and five years
depends chiefly upon the incidence of the infectious diseases. It
is well known that these diseases are much milder in civilised than
in uncivilised countries. From this it follows that the death-rate
among children between the ages of one and five years depends chiefly
upon the level of civilisation; the death-rate being higher where
the level of civilisation is low, and conversely; but the infantile
death-rate is much less influenced by the standard of civilisation.
Moreover, recent investigations have shown that (especially in large
towns and in industrial regions) high infant mortality is closely
associated with a low level of fitness for military service, and
with a high death-rate from tuberculosis. It is true that the number
of those who succumb to tuberculosis and the number of those who
prove fit for military service are influenced by other causes in
addition to the infantile death-rate--causes which have nothing to
do with that death-rate. But the fact remains indisputable that the
causes leading to a great mortality among infants tend to injure the
constitution of those infants who succeed in surviving, and thus
weaken the general health of the population.
_Socialism_ versus _Poor-Relief_.--Many Socialists are opposed to
the relief of destitution. Poverty existed prior to the rise of
capitalism, and is found where the capitalist system has not as yet
struck root. But the chief cause of poverty to-day is unquestionably
capitalism. Capitalism is the creator of the proletariat, the type of
the poor class; poverty and proletariat, poor man and proletarian,
are almost equivalent terms. Capitalism is also the creator of
pauperism (_e.g._ of the industrial reserve army), which must be
regarded as an essential pre-condition of capitalist production. In
the manufacturing districts, poverty is more extensive than it is in
the agricultural districts. In the towns it is more extensive than in
the country. Capitalism cannot exist without poor-relief. Unless the
destitute are relieved out of the superfluity of capitalism, certain
very undesirable consequences will ensue. For poverty is a chief
cause at once of punishable offences and of all kinds of disease. The
two main purposes of the relief of the destitute are, in fact, the
protection of the rich against criminal outbreaks on the part of the
poor, and the prevention of the epidemic diseases which would breed
in the surroundings of neglected poverty, and spread thence to the
homes of the rich.
The chief aim of poor-relief is to give help in cases of poverty
arising from individual causes, to deal with poverty regarded as
an individual concern. Poor-relief makes no attempt whatever to
do away with the social causes of poverty--nor, indeed, could
the methods of poor-relief effect this, even if the attempt were
made. In a certain sense, socialism and poor-relief have a common
character, inasmuch as both are opposed to free competition. It is
the aim of poor-relief to relieve the disastrous consequences of
free competition; the aim of socialism is to do away with class
distinctions and existing contrasts between wealth and poverty--that
is, to equalise and to democratise. But socialism does not favour the
relief of destitution, and rather regards the need for such relief as
a proof of the unrighteousness of the capitalist system. Socialism
regards poor-relief as nothing more than a way of treating symptoms
of social disorder, and as a method necessary only during the age
of capitalism. Socialism is hostile to any social institution which
serves to safeguard capitalism.
_Socialism_ versus _Child-Protection_.--The considerations
put forward regarding poor-relief bear to some extent on the
relationships of child-protection to capitalism. Many departments
of child-protection--foundling hospitals, for instance--are merely
departments of poor-relief. Child-protection is chiefly concerned
with the children of the poor, since these are far more in need of
protection than the children of the rich.
Child-protection and socialism both existed, in a sense, prior to
the development of capitalism. But in the nineteenth and twentieth
centuries, child-protection has received much more attention than
in former times. This extensive development of child-protection
is one phase of that general development whose other phase is the
development of capitalism. Modern child-protection and modern
socialism are necessary consequences of capitalism, and the existence
of the last in the absence of child-protection and of socialism
is altogether unthinkable. Capitalism gives rise to numerous
diseases in the social organism, and then endeavours to cure them,
for the most part, by the methods of child-protection. The causal
relationship between capitalism and child-protection is not direct
or primary. Certain applications of child-protection are not the
direct consequences of capitalism itself, but only consequences of
the causes by which capitalism has been created and evolved. When we
come to examine concrete conditions, such as those of some particular
country, we invariably find that child-protection and capitalism are
intimately connected with the general development of the country with
which we are concerned. This fact may interpose modifying conditions
in the causal chain connecting capitalism and child-protection.
(The origin of the Children’s Courts in the United States of
America offers an instructive example of this. In this country,
as in England, special causes led early in the last century to
the establishment of reformatory schools. But whereas in England,
until quite recently, boarding institutions were preferred for this
purpose, from the first, in the United States the attempt was made
to arrange for the upbringing of neglected and criminal youths under
family auspices. The reasons for the adoption of this latter plan in
America were the enormous possibilities of territorial expansion and
the lively demand for new population. When juvenile offenders came
before the courts, responsible individuals would offer to undertake
the upbringing of these children, binding themselves over to report
at regular intervals upon the behaviour of the children, and
generally accepting all necessary responsibility. The judges ventured
upon such experiments, and as the successful results multiplied, this
method of procedure attained the force of a customary institution,
and subsequently was formally embodied in legislation.)
Certain departments of child-protection were in existence before the
days of capitalism, but these departments were greatly influenced
by the changes introduced by capitalism. For this reason the direct
causal relationship between capitalism and child-protection cannot
always be demonstrated. It may of course happen, in any particular
country, that child-protection stands at a higher or a lower level of
development than appears to correspond to the general state of social
evolution or to the development of capitalism in that particular
country. As an example of this, we may mention Hungary, which, in
the matter of child-protection, is in advance of countries where
the development of capitalism and of civilisation are in a far more
forward state; and in Hungary the development of child-protection
has proceeded in complete independence of the shackles of historical
evolution.
It is not an advantage, but a disadvantage, that child-protection is
necessary to-day. The country which has need of numerous institutions
for purposes of social betterment is in a bad way; and, indeed, the
more of such institutions it needs, the worse must its condition
be. These considerations apply to other institutions as well as to
child-protection. Just as it is desirable that no institutions for
social betterment should be necessary, so also we might wish that
child-protection were superfluous. To put the matter in other words,
it is desirable that in any country those conditions should not exist
which have made it necessary to establish institutions for social
betterment. The country which has no need for such institutions
stands at a higher level than the country to which they are still
indispensable. But of two countries which have equal need for such
institutions, the one which possesses them stands at a higher
level than the one in which they have not yet come into existence.
This last consideration must not be forgotten when we are making a
comparative study of child-protection in various countries.
Child-protection to-day is solely concerned with attempts to
palliate the evils which necessarily result from the essential
nature of the social organism of to-day, and is not concerned with
efforts to transform the nature of that organism. Child-protection
alleviates some of the symptoms of capitalism, but does nothing to
prevent the ever-renewed production of such symptoms. Thus we see
that child-protection is not a scientific therapeutic method, for
such a method tends, as time passes, to render itself superfluous.
Child-protection is an important department of social activity. But
there are other much more important departments. If the amount of
wealth expended for the purposes of child-protection is excessive,
means requisite to the attainment of other ends will be sacrificed,
and the pursuit of much more important aims may be rendered
impossible. The expenditure upon child-protection is useful to this
extent, that it prevents the occurrence of much harm, and yet to-day
a large proportion of such expenditure is quite useless, because
the evils which child-protection attempts to relieve are not, as
a matter of fact, all relieved. Capitalism is the source of the
factors which make child-protection necessary. Hence all our efforts
for child-protection are useless so long as we continue to create
institutions by which capitalism is protected and strengthened.
Child-protection to-day is in essence nothing more than a number of
repressive measures, which are necessary only because capitalism
will not permit the desired ends to be obtained by the use of
preventive methods, owing to the fact that prevention would involve
the destruction of capitalism. Thus the destruction of capitalism is
a postulate, not of socialism merely, but also of child-protection.
Unfortunately, few people as yet recognise that prevention is the
true duty of the collective intelligence; instead of searching out
the causes which have made the use of repressive measures necessary,
they expect a cure to result from the use of repressive measures
alone.
Let our device be, Prevention. The existing social order must be
completely revolutionised. Let us have done with palliatives. It
is time for a new creation. Repression is good, but prevention is
a great deal better! The use of palliatives is a necessary evil
attaching to the existing social order; but it is a crying instance
of the contradictory character of existing social conditions. It is
not right that child-protection should be the leading social and
political activity of the State, although at present such activity
is supposed to be the climax of political science. The course of
action of a community which, while protecting children, oppresses
adults, is unjust; for it would be better that children should
perish, than that they should grow up to lives of misery, crime, or
prostitution. It is impossible to sympathise with a country which
sends the children of the working class to foundling hospitals, and
the adult workers themselves to prison; which protects children
simply in order to increase the population, and yet forcibly, as it
were, drives the adults from the country as emigrants; which offers
adult workers a starvation wage, and yet benevolently keeps paupers
alive; which brings up pauper children to become proletarians, which
breeds working men to depress by competition the wages of their
fellows, and to play the part of miserable strike-breakers.
(Hungary affords an interesting example of this, for the social and
political development of this country is by no means of the most
modern type, and yet, in the matter of child-protection, Hungarian
institutions are perhaps the finest in the whole world. It is true
that child-protection in Hungary is to a large extent no more than
child-protection on paper, if for no other reason, for this, that the
proper administration of the Hungarian methods of child-protection
cannot be carried out efficiently by the executive personnel
available in that country.)
The true child-protection, the child-protection of the future, will
take the form of the destruction of capitalism. It is true that in a
certain way, and within certain limits, child-protection alleviates
many of the evil effects of capitalism. But there is no doubt
whatever that the aims of child-protection could be attained far more
efficiently and far more rapidly by the destruction of capitalism. If
we were to remove the causes which make child-protection necessary,
as they would be removed by the destruction of capitalism, the need
for child-protection would disappear. But the causes which make
child-protection necessary to-day will not disappear until the State
of the future comes into being. The question presses, should we
postpone our attempts to deal with the symptoms of the disease, to
palliate the defects of the existing social order, until the day
arrives when we shall be in a position to deal with these evils once
and for all by radical measures?
No! Even to-day we have to concern ourselves with child-protection.
The physician must not refuse to treat his patient because the
means available for treatment will not suffice to cure. The wise
physician does indeed endeavour to discover and to remove the causes
of disease, but he does not neglect the symptoms. He is well aware
that the disappearance of the symptoms does not indicate the cure of
the disease. Nevertheless, he holds it to be his duty to prescribe
certain remedies which do no more than relieve symptoms. For in many
cases symptoms are disagreeable and even dangerous, and may actually
lead to the death of the patient, before there is time to bring into
play methods of treatment which might deal effectively with the
causes of the disease. Often, too, a remedial measure which does no
more than relieve symptoms may have an excellent effect upon the
general bodily well-being of the patient. There are even cases in
which a remedial measure exercises an unfavourable influence upon the
disease and upon the patient’s general condition, and none the less
it has to be administered, in order to ward off some greater evil.
To-day, child-protection is useful and even indispensable. It is true
that a well-planned social order affords the best child-protection,
and such an order is of far greater value than child-protection in
the narrower sense of the term; but this does not make the latter
form of child-protection superfluous.
_The Right View._--The answers to the questions asked in this
chapter, and more especially the detailed answer to the question,
what subdivisions of child-protection are the most important to-day,
and what is the relative importance of these various subdivisions,
will be found in the Special Part of this book. There I discuss the
individual subdivisions of child-protection, and discuss in each case
the tendency of evolution. Unquestionably, the tendency of evolution
is in the direction of the better regulation of the activities
applicable to the various subdivisions of child-protection.
CHAPTER VI
THE EXECUTIVE INSTRUMENTS OF CHILD-PROTECTION
_Introductory._--In individual countries there are three distinct
factors engaged in the relief of destitution: local governing bodies,
the central government, and the community at large. In different
countries the various departments and activities of poor-relief
are differently distributed among these several factors. Which of
the three plays the leading part in this work depends upon the
peculiar circumstances of the individual country. In any country that
factor which predominates in the general and in the special work
of administrative and executive activity is likely also to play a
predominant part in the relief of destitution. The same three factors
co-operate in the work of child-protection; and in any country
their relative shares in this work commonly (but not necessarily)
correspond to their relative shares in the work of poor-relief.
In Italy, even to-day, all three of these factors--the local
authorities, the central government and the community at large--are
engaged in providing for the care of foundlings and illegitimate
children; but the distribution of this work among the three factors
varies in different parts of the country, these differences being
referable to historical causes, and more especially to the former
territorial subdivisions of the country. In many countries in which
national responsibility for the relief of destitution is unknown,
many of the subdivisions of child-protection are nevertheless
administered by the State. As an example may be mentioned the care of
foundlings in France. There is a special reason for this in France,
inasmuch as, owing to the fact that in this country inquiries as
to the fatherhood of illegitimate children (_la recherche de la
paternité_) are forbidden, the care of foundlings constitutes a
great, general, and very pressing need, which can best be met by
State action. In many countries in which the central government is
responsible for poor-relief, some of the most important subdivisions
of child-protection are administered by voluntary associations;
England, the classical land of governmental poor-relief, affords
a good example of this. Here the fact that in England voluntary
associations, as the outcome of the collective activity of the
community at large, have long exercised a decisive influence in all
directions, accounts for the special conditions to which attention
has been drawn.
_Local Governing Bodies._--When we are concerned mainly with local
conditions, the local governing bodies become of primary importance.
They are best acquainted with the people and their needs, and
their acquaintance with these is the more intimate the smaller the
community. Hence the necessary duties can often be carried out most
effectively and most economically by the local authorities. Many
retrograde local authorities, especially the smaller ones and those
in the country districts, are hostile to many of the applications
of child-protection, regarding them as immoral, and they may even
be quite unable to grasp the mental attitude of those who advocate
child-protection. Many local authorities are very slow to undertake
any extensions of communal activity; either on account of this
reluctance, or else because in small communities the cost per
ratepayer of the work of child-protection is easily calculated, they
are apt to be too much influenced by narrow financial considerations.
This is, in fact, the gravest defect of child-protection as carried
out by local authorities; and this explains also why it is that
many local authorities either entirely neglect the most necessary
work of child-protection, or fail to perform it adequately; and
it explains why the institutions founded by such authorities for
the work of child-protection do not always fulfil the aims with
which they were originated. It is well known that in many local
government areas the homes for destitute orphans are at the same
time workhouses, poorhouses, foci of all kinds of evil elements. It
is well known that even to-day certain local authorities hand over
the children for whose care they are legally responsible, under
indentures, to those who will take them for the smallest premium,
the children receiving a wage of from 20 to 30 marks yearly. For
the reasons explained, we find in many countries that the relief of
destitution and child-protection are associated throughout extensive
areas, and even that special _ad hoc_ local authorities exist to
deal with these matters. Just what institutions we find in any
particular country will naturally depend upon how in that country the
individual executive and administrative functions are allotted to the
various municipal authorities, district councils, and such _ad hoc_
authorities as may exist.
_The Community at Large._--Where the sphere of functional activity
of the local authority and of the central government ends, there the
sphere of the community at large begins. The limit is that at which
the local authority and the central government regard their duties
as fulfilled; beyond this limit they are unwilling to interfere, and
the assistance they are able to give is no longer adapted to the
individual special cases, because their work is not individual but
bureaucratic. Beyond this limit, then, the community at large must
take up the burden. The benevolent activities of the community at
large are better able than those of the central or local authority
to deal with individual cases. The work of the State is done with
head and intellect, that of the community at large is done with
heart and feeling. But great as these advantages are, they are
counterbalanced by very grave defects. Child-protection undertaken by
the community at large is often nothing more than a multiplication
of fainéant societies, and an arena for self-important busybodies
who wish to thrust themselves well forward in the public eye, but
are completely ignorant of the subject of child-protection. (In
Germany, for instance, no subdivision, however minute, of the work of
child-protection can be mentioned, which does not possess a special
“Society” to deal with the matter.) Child-protection as undertaken
by the community at large lacks co-ordination with reference to any
well-defined plan of activity, it effects much that is unnecessary
and even harmful, whilst very necessary work is often done badly
or not at all. The expenditure of time and money are enormous; the
results attained are exceedingly small.
Of late years, especially in England and in the United States
of America, societies for the organisation of the voluntary
charitable activities undertaken by the community at large (the
Charity Organisation Society, &c.) have come into existence;
these are central organs to effect the harmonious co-ordination
of philanthropic efforts, but do not usually themselves directly
undertake charitable work. Such societies may play a very useful
part, but they do not render the organisation and administration of
poor-relief and child-protection by the central government and the
local authority altogether superfluous. A very instructive example
of the centralisation of voluntary activities for child-protection
is that furnished by the Ungarische Kinderschutzliga (Hungarian
Child-Protection League), founded in the year 1906. It is gradually
absorbing all the really valuable child-protection societies, founds
and administers all kinds of institutions for child-protection,
is directly associated with all the executive instruments of the
official work of child-protection, and sustains and amplifies the
work of government in this direction. Its work is supervised from a
central office in Buda-Pesth.
_The Central Government._--The central government must, first of all,
undertake those duties which, for financial reasons, the municipal
authorities, district councils, _ad hoc_ authorities, &c. cannot
attempt. It must also satisfy certain general needs--that is, those
needs whose mode of satisfaction is unaffected by varying local
conditions. As in other departments of administrative activity, so
also in the sphere of child-protection, a certain uniformity is
requisite; and this uniformity can be attained in no other way than
by the intervention of the central government. The satisfaction of
very pressing needs, the overcoming of extraordinary difficulties,
is possible only to the central government. Even in those countries
in which local self-government is in a very advanced state of
development, it is better that such legislative activity as is
requisite in the domain of child-protection should be left to the
central government.
The central government more readily takes over the duties of
child-protection from the hands of the community at large than from
the local authorities. As time goes on, ecclesiastical and voluntary
benevolent activities become ever less important and less extensive
as compared with those of the State. Whereas in ancient times private
benevolence, and in the Middle Ages ecclesiastical benevolence,
played the principal parts, in our own times these are more and more
superseded by organised communal effort operating through the central
government. At first the State takes over only the negative side of
destitution--police regulation of mendicancy and the like. To-day
there does not remain a single civilised State without at least the
first beginnings of a national relief of destitution. The tendency
to extend ever more widely the province of national responsibility
for the relief of destitution is quite unmistakable. Those who
oppose this tendency are already in a minority, and their number
continues to diminish. State systems of poor-relief are by no means
faultless, but the errors are not ineradicable; many of the defects
are remediable, and are, in fact, being remedied as time goes on. In
this respect the tendency of evolution in England, the classical land
of national poor-relief, is extremely satisfactory.
The central government is harder to move, has more inertia, than
the community at large. It is for this reason that new departments
of activity are always first undertaken by the latter, and for
this reason also that most of the subdivisions and institutions of
child-protection owe their inception and the first phases of their
development mainly to the community at large. But after this stage,
when the new institution has been put upon its trial, when it has
become generally diffused, and when its permanence is assured, it
is taken over by the State. But, even then, there still remains one
field of activity for the community at large, namely, to discover
and draw attention to the errors in the State administration of
child-protection. The development in Hungary of institutions for
the care of foundlings and other illegitimate children since the
beginning of the last quarter of the nineteenth century may serve as
an example of this.
Every social institution which originates on a broad basis and meets
a wide general need exhibits a natural tendency towards a unified
organisation and towards centralisation. We see this tendency at work
in the history of child-protection. Another tendency of evolution
is an enlargement in the sphere of activity of the State, in the
direction of the satisfaction of all the important vital needs of
the community by organised communal effort, operating through the
machinery of the central government.
The national acceptance of responsibility for poor-relief may take
the form of the State being satisfied with the centralised and
thorough governmental regulation of the relief of destitution,
the administrative details being left in the hands of the local
authorities and of the community at large. Of course this is no
more than a half-measure, and yet in certain circumstances it may
be an advantageous division of labour. For, when we consider the
respective rôles of the local authority and of the community at
large in the work of child-protection, we must not forget that
both are engaged in work delegated to them by the State, and for
which the State is really responsible. Moreover, the relief of
destitution, and that part of the work of child-protection analogous
to the relief of destitution, are intimately associated with the
problems of household-right and of domicile; because many central
governments admit responsibility for the destitute only in the case
of their own citizens, whilst in many countries a right to relief
in case of destitution at the hands of the local authority is
acquired by residence merely. Thus the problems of child-protection
are interconnected with the legal problems of local administrative
activity; and it may happen that the local authorities undertake
certain departments of child-protection merely because these
questions of domicile form part of their circle of interests.
_A Unified System of Laws for Child-Protection._--Can the State
institute a unified system of laws for child-protection, one
comprising the entire legal material of child-protection? In former
times such provision as there was for child-protection existed only
in a dispersed form, as part of laws with other primary objects;
not until later, when the question of child-protection had become
one of considerable importance, did laws come into being dealing
specifically with this subject. Provision for the enforcement in
certain cases of a coercive reformatory education was originally
a mere supplementary provision of the criminal law or of certain
borough by-laws; but to-day, in many countries, special laws
dealing with coercive reformatory education have been passed by the
central government. The earliest special laws on the subject of
child-protection dealt with the care of foundlings and illegitimate
children, this being the first subdivision of our subject to attain
specific importance.
The tendency of evolution is to codify, in a unified system of laws,
all the legal material bearing upon any particular question. But a
unified system of laws dealing with the subject of child-protection
is not at present attainable. For child-protection is subject
to change, almost from day to day and from hour to hour. If the
legislator wished to keep pace with its development, he would have
to alter and patch his system of laws year by year; but if this
were done, the unified character of the legal system would soon
become illusory, and numerous legal technical difficulties would
inevitably arise. The question of child-protection finds a place in
every department of law. There are many legal regulations regarding
children which, owing in part to the technique of legislation, and
in part to other causes, are, for practical reasons, best embodied
in other laws. For example, laws relating to guardianship and to the
care of illegitimate children cannot well be dealt with apart from
the general laws bearing on family relationships.
_A Centralised Authority for Child-Protection._--Is a centralised
authority for child-protection possible? That is, is it possible
to group under a unitary control all the agencies dealing with the
protection of children? This idea certainly represents the tendency
of evolution. As regards the care of foundlings and of illegitimate
children, the tendency of evolution is in the direction of family
care, all the families with which such children are placed being
under the supervision of a single central authority, which deals
with them all in accordance with identical principles. Still more
clearly does this tendency manifest itself in the foundation of
children’s courts, and in the endeavour to extend the powers of
these to embrace all the legal relationships of children. In further
exemplification of this tendency may be mentioned the development
of infants’ milk depôts and of schools for mothers--a development
which has by no means reached its climax. Unquestionably, in the
domain of child-protection, institutions which originally appeared
very different in character become unified. Thus, infants’ milk
depôts, schools for mothers, schools for midwives, legal advice in
children’s cases, &c., are now all being administered in connection
with foundling hospitals.
The claims of the other departments of national and social life must
not, however, be left out of account. Thus, whether certain questions
should be referred to the law-courts, or to the local administrative
authorities, to lawyers or doctors, to architects or schoolmasters;
whether a local administrative authority should have the right to
deal with one or two technical questions only, such as arise in a
particular administrative area as to legal and executive powers,
or with a number of such questions; whether certain duties should
be undertaken only by specialised institutions, or by institutions
which also subserve other functions--such questions as these involve
a reference to other considerations in addition to those directly
connected with child-protection.
_Private and Official Activities._--To-day much of the work of
the relief of destitution and of child-protection is undertaken
by voluntary organisations, founded and administered by private
individuals who are engaged also in other activities. These private
persons work gratuitously, but often discharge their duties better
than professional salaried and permanently appointed officials.
Their work is better individualised, it is less bureaucratic, and
has more heart in it. These advantages are the fruit of good-will
and altruistic feeling. Nevertheless the rôle of voluntary societies
becomes continually less extensive. The tendency of evolution is to
bring into operation more and more the principle of the division of
labour, so that questions needing expert knowledge are dealt with by
professional experts, persons permanently appointed for such work,
paid accordingly, and really in possession of the specialised skill
which is needed. The relief of destitution, and child-protection
are, as is well known, both questions for experts; and it becomes
more and more necessary that their administration should be in
the hands of well-paid professional workers. Lawyers, although
in the domain of child-protection they are laymen merely, play a
decisive part to-day in this domain, as they do in most branches
of administrative activity. They are placed at the head of the
expert administrators, and have, if not the first word, what is
perhaps even worse, the last word, in the majority of technical
questions. It is necessary to enter an energetic protest against this
predominance of lawyers. It is absolutely essential that not only
the salaried professional workers, but also all those who take part
in the work of child-protection in honorary offices or as occasional
voluntary helpers, should receive an appropriate training for their
work. Quite recently has originated the idea of Schools of Public
Welfare--Schools and a Curriculum for Child-Protection. We must
carefully distinguish from such schools for professional workers,
courses of lectures whose purpose merely is to acquaint wider circles
with the aims and methods of child-protection, or to initiate novices
into such work.
_The Medical Profession._--The most important task of
child-protection is the protection of children’s health. The persons
who should undertake the management of this department are those who
possess the requisite expert knowledge in matters of health--that
is to say, medical practitioners and specialists in the diseases of
children. In most branches of child-protection, medical practitioners
now play an important part. It rests with them to determine whether
there does or does not exist a contra-indication to marriage.
They have to render assistance before and during childbirth, they
are the most important instruments for the protection of infants
and for the care of foundlings and illegitimate children, and as
consultants and administrators they exercise important activities
in the domain of child-labour. Their part in other subdivisions of
child-protection will be discussed in detail in a later chapter
of this work. The importance of the work of medical practitioners
continually increases. The tendency in almost all departments of
child-protection is to arrange for a preliminary examination of
the children by the doctor. Among the various reasons for such an
examination, we may mention that in the case of uncontrollable
children and juvenile criminals the doctor can make a thorough
examination of the child’s physical and mental condition, and upon
this examination he will base a decision, whether the child should
be placed in family or institutional care, in a reformatory school,
or in some other specialised institution--as, for example, a home
for mentally abnormal children; further, it is the doctor’s duty to
examine all children, before they begin to work for a living, as to
their physical fitness, and upon the results of this examination to
base an opinion whether the child is fit to earn its living at all,
and if so, whether the trade selected by the relatives is a suitable
one. The tendency is, further, that the doctor should give an opinion
regarding the method of protection suited for the particular child.
Quite recently, indeed, the desire has been widely and strongly
expressed that all children should be subjected to continuous and
appropriate medical control. The institution of school physicians,
supplemented in recent days by medical control of the domestic
environment of the school children, shows clearly that such medical
supervision of all children is likely in time to become universal.
In addition, we owe a great deal to the doctors in connection with
the literature of child-protection. The ablest and most important
works in this specialty are by physicians. In several handbooks of
hygiene, most of the problems of child-protection receive attention,
although the matter is not always treated very systematically. The
enormous influence which medical science has exercised and continues
to exercise upon the development of the individual branches of
child-protection will become apparent in the Special Part of this
work.
_Women._--To what extent can women play a part as executive
instruments of child-protection? Women are better fitted than men to
supervise the bodily care of children. Women can more readily gain
the confidence of those who need support and protection--above all,
the confidence of other women (especially of lonely and forsaken
women) and of children. They are better judges than men of defects
in housekeeping and how to remedy them. Many things are confided
to women which are kept hidden from men; and women can remedy many
concealed defects where men could do no good. Such duties as these
are commonly performed by women more conscientiously than by men, &c.
The following arguments have been put forward against the employment
of women: (_a_) Women ought not to be exposed to the dangers and
inconveniences inseparable from visiting the houses of the poor
and other places subject to inspection; (_b_) Women are gossiping,
soft-hearted, and credulous, so that they are unable to exercise
authority, and are inclined to pay undue attention to exaggerated and
quite irrelevant statements; (_c_) They interfere too much in the
management of the households of the foster-parents, &c.
These arguments are worthless. Besides, the question of the
employment of women in such capacities can only be decided fairly
with reference to the individual subdivisions of the work of
child-protection. Unquestionably, women are suitably employed as
children’s nurses, matrons of children’s homes, governesses and
school-mistresses, wet-nurses, medical practitioners, factory
inspectors, sick-nurses, confidential agents of the official
guardians of children, visitors of foster-parents. Where the common
people have no confidence in women employees, for example, in rough,
uncultivated districts, where, in the interests of child-protection,
police intervention is necessary, as, for example, in the case of
morally depraved and uncontrollable children, and where trusteeship
has to be undertaken as in the case of orphan children who are
heirs to considerable property, women cannot be employed. The
tendency of evolution is to employ women as executive instruments
of child-protection, and, indeed, to employ them as salaried public
officials.
Numerous and serious objections must, however, be raised against the
idea that ladies belonging to the upper classes should find amusement
and relief from the tedium of their ordinary life by engaging in some
branch of the work of child-protection (such as supervising the work
of midwives, or visiting the foster-parents of boarded-out children).
The work of such women is of little value in itself, and it takes
bread out of the mouths of women who could do the same work very much
better professionally and as a means of livelihood.
SPECIAL PART
_A._--DEPARTMENT OF CIVIL LAW AND INDIVIDUAL RIGHTS
CHAPTER I
MARRIAGE AND PARENTAL AUTHORITY
_Introductory._--The two chief purposes of human life are, first, the
maintenance of the individuals of the species, and, secondly, the
reproduction of the species. The laws relating to property subserve
the former aim; those relating to the family subserve the latter.
Property itself is the central feature of the former, and the family
is the central feature of the latter.
_Parental Authority and Marriage._--The laws of family life are based
upon a physiological or psychological foundation, the love of parents
for their children. In cases in which the legal regulation of family
life is unduly harsh--as in the case of the maintenance in former
times of parental authority in the interest of the parents--parental
love exercises a mitigating and counteracting influence.
To-day, the duty of parents to devote themselves to the careful
upbringing of their children is universally accepted on principle.
(There is but one exception to this generalisation: the duty of the
father to provide for the upbringing of an illegitimate child is
not as yet generally accepted on principle.) The duty of parents
to provide for the upbringing of their children is one prescribed,
not only by nature and morality, but also by the laws of human
society. And yet this duty is not directly established by law;
although it seems possible that children might be able to enforce by
legal process the duty of their parents to exercise their parental
authority in accordance with accepted rules. The obligation to
provide for the upbringing of their children is legally imposed
on parents, if only for the reason that the liabilities thus
incurred through the sexual act withhold many persons from needless
and excessive sexual indulgence--and such conditional abstinence
is advantageous, not merely to the individual, but also to the
community. The upbringing of children rests upon the legal basis of
parental authority. The suitable upbringing of the offspring is best
ensured when the legal relationships between the sexes are properly
regulated. In all times, the essence of such regulation has consisted
in the fact that a particular form of sexual union offers certain
advantages, but that the acceptance of these advantages involves the
performance of certain duties. This particular form of sexual union
is known as marriage.
_History of Marriage._--It is a debatable question whether matriarchy
ever really existed. The question interests us here only for the
reason that many modern scholars, including many Socialists, contend
that matriarchy did at one time really exist; and they infer from
this that a time will come in which the sexes will have equal rights.
In actual fact, in recent times, the importance of patriarchy--the
father right--has continually diminished.
_Child-Protection and the Family._--An overwhelmingly large
proportion of child-protection to-day is mainly concerned with
cases in which children have (in one sense or another, materially
or morally, permanently or temporarily, wholly or partially) been
abandoned by their parents. Such cases are those in which: (_a_)
the parents are unable to fulfil their duties, on account of lack
of means, illness, or absence; (_b_) the parents are unwilling to
fulfil their duties; (_c_) the parents make an improper use of their
parental authority. But certain children also need protection from
the community who cannot in any sense whatever be said to have been
abandoned by their parents; and it is altogether erroneous to suppose
that the idea of “child-protection” has reference solely to abandoned
children. The child is born in a state of complete helplessness, and
is unable to protect itself, not only immediately after birth, but
for a considerable time afterwards. It lacks the requisite organs for
self-protection, it lacks power, and it lacks instinctive knowledge.
For these reasons, if our legal system makes provision for the
protection of adults, _a fortiori_ must it do so, and to a greater
extent, in the case of children. From all these considerations it
follows that the most important relationships of child-protection
are not, as is commonly assumed, with criminal law and with local
administrative activity, but with civil law and individual rights.
The kind and degree of child-protection, depend chiefly upon the
mutual relationships existing between the State and the family. The
institutions of child-protection, in so far as they are associated
with civil law and individual rights, will, as a rule, be found to
be preventive in character; institutions based upon criminal law, on
the other hand, commonly exhibit punitive and repressive tendencies,
as will become apparent when a number of concrete instances are
studied. If the legal relationships of family life undergo changes,
the methods of child-protection will also be transformed.
_Maternal Authority._--In the matter of love for the offspring the
mother, for physiological reasons (pregnancy, parturition, and
lactation), stands on a higher plane than the father. The intensity
of her love for her children explains the fact that the mother
neither needs nor exercises much parental authority. Moreover,
inasmuch as hitherto the mother has always been in a state of greater
or less subjection to the father, parental authority has at all
times chiefly taken the form of paternal authority. But as time goes
on, this paternal authority is, in fact, tending to be transformed
very gradually into a true parental authority; that is to say, the
mother begins to exercise the rights and to perform the duties of
parental authority in a manner parallel with or subsidiary to that
of the father. To-day we stand at the beginning of this development.
Its chief cause is the profound transformation of economic life,
as a result of which women are to an ever greater extent entering
the arena as wage-earners, whilst the differences between the legal
position of men and women continually diminish.
_Fiduciary Character of Parental Authority._--Formerly, parental
authority took the form mainly of a right of dominion over
the child, subserving chiefly the interests of the head of the
family--the patriarch. The more complete the social integration
of any particular country, the more in that country does paternal
authority assume a fiduciary character, the character of a protective
authority, arising out of the child’s natural need for protection,
and subserving its need for guardianship. Owing to their possession
of parental authority, it is the duty and the right of the parents
to exercise the guardianship over their children in every capacity;
as the legal representatives of those of their children who are
still under age, the parents are competent to act on behalf of and
in the name of their children. Thus the second characteristic of the
developmental tendency of parental authority is, that that authority
involves the acceptance of an ever-increasing number of duties,
and also that the State, through the intermediation of Boards of
Guardianship[2] exercises a control over the parents which was almost
unknown in former times.
In the modern State, the following ideas as to parental authority
are generally prevalent. Parental authority involves duties as well
as rights. Our laws give rights to parents only in order to enable
them to fulfil their duties. They are, in a sense, plenipotentiaries
of the State, entrusted with the duty of bringing up their children
in a state of bodily, mental, and moral health, and of ensuring that
these children shall develop in such a way that they will be useful
to society. To enable them to attain these ends, parents are endowed
with certain rights. Just as, in the matter of public education, the
State enforces upon the child a minimum of school attendance, even
against the wishes of the parents, so also, in the general upbringing
of children, the State enforces a certain standard, with which all
parents have to comply.
_The Elementary Principles of State Interference with Parental
Authority._ (_The State as “Over-Parent.”_)--The modern State
interferes with parental authority in accordance with the following
principles. It is impossible for the State to supervise in detail the
domestic life of millions of families, or to examine the soundness of
the upbringing which millions of parents provide for their children.
For these reasons, the State can intervene only in cases in which
the conviction arises that by the conduct of the parents the mental
or physical well-being of the child has been endangered, and thereby
the interest of the State seriously threatened. If one endowed with
parental authority has disturbed the natural foundations of that
authority by criminal offences or immoral conduct, and has thus shown
himself unworthy of the confidence exhibited in him by the State
which has hitherto permitted him to exercise parental authority, the
State is fully justified in depriving him of his delegated powers. In
its own interest, in such cases, the State is compelled to withdraw
the parental authority wholly or partially, and even to order that
the child shall be removed from its parents’ house, to be brought
up in a suitable family, in a reformatory school, or in some other
institution (_Zwangserzichung_, _Fürsorgeerzichung_).
The legislator is not in a position to define in precise terms
the cases in which parental authority should be withdrawn, or the
child transferred to other guardianship than that of the parents;
it must suffice to explain the general principles which the Boards
of Guardianship (see note on last page) have to apply at their own
discretion.
There can be no question of the need for State interference when
the parents are leading a disorderly or immoral life; when they
are ill-using or exploiting their child; when they are quite
ignorant of the proper way of bringing up children; or when, owing
to severe illness, alcoholism, morphinism, or utter destitution,
they are obviously unfitted to bring up their own children. Since
long drawn-out proceedings in the law courts are desirable in
the interests neither of the parents nor of the children, it is
better that the procedure in these cases should not in the first
instance necessarily involve an application to the law courts. But
the parents must have the right of appeal to the courts, if they
consider they have been unjustly treated by depriving them of the
custody of their child. Although the institution of such education
under guardianship must not be made dependent upon the financial
position of the parents, these latter should be made responsible for
the greater part of the cost. Unless this were done, for parents
to neglect their children would be a step towards shaking off a
financial burden--those parents would be rewarded who failed to bring
up their children properly; this would naturally still further weaken
the parents’ sense of responsibility; and this again, by a vicious
circle, would still further encourage them to neglect their children.
Indeed, we have to ask whether, in the case of parents able to pay,
an effective system of forced labour might not be introduced.
The withdrawal of parental authority must on no account be regarded
as a punishment. There may be cases in which the parents are quite
blameless, and yet in the interests of the child it may be absolutely
necessary to abrogate the parental authority; or, in similar cases,
it may be necessary, for educational purposes, to remove the child
from its home. Again, it often happens, for example, that only
the father is to blame, and yet the mother cannot be permitted to
exercise her parental authority, but the child must be removed from
its home, because in no other way can the harmful influence of the
father be overcome. There are worthy parents who, simply from an
excessive blind affection for their children, fail to bring them up
properly; there are worthy working-class parents who have positively
no time to attend satisfactorily to the upbringing of their children.
CHAPTER II
MARRIAGE AND HEREDITY
_Heredity in General._--Heredity is a general phenomenon of natural
life. The offspring resembles the parent to a greater or less degree.
In the human species, also, children on the average resemble their
own parents more closely than they resemble other persons, but the
degree to which this resemblance is manifested is a variable one,
and it remains an open question whether the concrete qualities
and capabilities whereby the parents are distinguished from other
persons are transmitted to their offspring by inheritance. It is
possible that the qualities of the parents may not appear at all
in the children; that they may appear somewhat modified, or in a
very different form; that they may remain latent in one or more
generations, to reappear in the grandchildren or great-grandchildren;
or that the qualities of the parents may not appear to be present
in the children at birth, but that as the latter grow up, these
qualities may make their appearance at the same age at which they
appeared in the parents. It is still in dispute whether qualities
acquired by the parents are inherited by the offspring; nor is there
general agreement as to what are the precise limits between inherited
and acquired characters, respectively. This question as to the
inheritance of acquired characters is one of profound importance;
for if acquired characters are not inherited, racial improvement can
be effected solely by means of the struggle for existence, and the
continued elimination of the weaker elements of the species.[3]
_Inheritance of Diseases._--The word “disease” is used here in the
widest possible signification. Diseased parents as a rule procreate
diseased children, or bring up diseased individuals. But the
physical, mental, and moral defects of the parents may make their
appearance in the children in a transmuted form. A disease in the
parent, when transmitted by inheritance, may appear in the offspring
as general weakness, either bodily, mental, or moral; or it may
appear in the form of a predisposition to the particular disease; and
conversely, that which in the parent is no more than predisposition
to a disease, may appear in the offspring in the form of the actual
disease. In concrete instances, it may be very difficult to determine
whether persons are or are not diseased. Again, with respect to
atavism and to the hereditary transmission of latent qualities, it is
questionable whether, in cases in which the subject of investigation
is not himself affected with disease, but his near relatives are
so affected, we have reason to fear the hereditary transmission of
harmful consequences to the offspring. It is especially with regard
to the male sex that the question of the hereditary transmission of
morbid qualities is so important, for, in marriage, it is the male
partner who contributes the greater proportion of the diseases.
It is not through inheritance only that diseases may be transmitted
from parents to children; the same result may follow from the fact
that parents and children live in such close association, or because
children are brought up by their parents. The existence of morbid
qualities or conditions in the parents may lead in the offspring, not
only to the inheritance of disease, but to other disastrous results.
Morbid conditions in either parent, besides being transmitted to
the offspring by inheritance, may be communicated by the husband
to the wife, or by the wife to the husband, either in the act of
sexual intercourse, or through the close association of married
life. Parents suffering from disease cannot bring up their children
properly. The treatment of their own illness may be very costly, and
may involve the expenditure of much time and pains, and these things
work adversely to the interest of the children. Sickly parents whose
children are likewise sickly are apt to endeavour to make up for the
deficient quality of their offspring by an increase in their number,
whereby matters are made considerably worse. Those who enter into
marriage when already ill are apt subsequently to reproach themselves
upon their conduct towards their sexual partners; this is likely to
react unfavourably upon the illness, and to disturb the married life,
to the disadvantage of the children. Sickly parents die sooner than
healthy ones, whereby the children are prematurely orphaned, and are
exposed to the dangers of poverty. The state of engagement to marry
(with consequent ungratified sexual excitement up to the time of
marriage), sexual intercourse, pregnancy, and childbirth, may all
exercise an unfavourable influence upon the diseased organism, may
favour or accelerate the course of the disease, and may even lead
to its fatal issue. From the children’s point of view, all these
things are extremely undesirable. Thus, there are certain persons to
whom marriage is permissible, but who should on no account procreate
children--that is to say, such a married pair may enjoy sexual
congress, but must not fail to use efficient means for the prevention
of conception.
_Individual Diseases._--(_a_) Of all diseases transmissible by
inheritance, mental disorders pass most readily from parents to
offspring, and undergo the least alteration as they pass. In the
etiology of mental disorders, hereditary transmission plays an
important part.
(_b_) It is still undecided whether alcohol is a specific
protoplasmic poison; but it is an indisputable fact that, among
the offspring of those addicted to alcohol, the ill effects of the
parental alcoholism may be displayed in other ways besides by the
appearance of alcoholic tendencies in the next generation. The
children of drunkards tend to be cruel, dissolute, dirty in their
habits, hypersensitive, or themselves inclined to drink; and in any
or all of these ways they may be a danger to society. For example,
it has been found in wine-growing districts that the children born
in any one year are stupider in proportion as the vintage of their
birth-year was a good one. Often the effects of alcohol are better
marked in the children of alcoholics than in the parents themselves.
When both parents are drunkards, the children are apt to suffer
from moral insanity; and the offspring of drunkards tend to become
criminals. Children whose parents were in a state of actual inebriety
at the time of procreation will most probably be feeble-minded.
Since alcohol increases sexual desire, even though it diminishes
sexual potency, alcoholics tend to procreate more children than
non-alcoholics; but any advantage that might ensue from the greater
quantity of the offspring is more than outbalanced by their inferior
quality. And because alcohol strengthens sexual desire, the number of
alcoholics who were procreated by parents in a state of inebriety is
considerable. Some experts contend that if the father is a drinker,
the daughter is unable to suckle her own children.
(_c_) What has been said regarding alcoholism applies also to some
extent to morphinism.
(_d_) Tuberculosis is not directly transmitted by inheritance. But
the predisposition to tuberculosis is so transmitted; that is to say,
it is regarded as unquestionable that an inferior power of resistance
to the virus of tubercle passes by inheritance from parent to
offspring. Those predisposed to tuberculosis tend to have a vigorous
sexual impulse, and exhibit a high degree of fertility.
(_e_) Gonorrhœa lessens or destroys fertility to such an extent that,
in from 40 to 50 per cent. of childless marriages, the sterility
is referable to gonorrhœal infection. Gonorrhœa, _i.e._ specific
gonorrhœal urethritis or vaginitis, is not itself transmissible by
inheritance; but gonorrhœa in the parent may lead to certain diseases
in the offspring, and the most important of these is ophthalmia of
the new-born--the commonest cause of blindness.
(_f_) Syphilis is in most cases transmissible by inheritance. The
children of syphilitic parents are commonly feeble-minded or idiotic;
or bodily, mentally, or morally degenerate; and they possess an
inferior power of resistance to diseases.
_The Age of the Parents._--The age of the parents at the time of
procreation has a marked influence upon the health of the offspring.
The parents should not be too young. It is not well that the mother
should be less than twenty, or the father less than twenty-four
years of age. Many of the children of such extremely youthful parents
are weakly, and have poor health. On the other hand, the parents
should not be very old. When the mother is over forty and the father
over fifty years of age, the children are apt to be weakly; also they
are apt to be left orphaned at a comparatively early age. It is also
undesirable that there should be a great difference between the ages
of the parents. Thus the parents should be young, but not too young.
The younger they are, the more children can they procreate--first
of all, because their fertility is greater in youth, and, secondly,
because their married life lasts longer. Qualitatively, also, the
children of such marriages are usually healthier. As a matter of
fact, the age indicated is the normal age for marriage--the age at
which the great majority enter upon marriage.
_The Marriage of Near Kin._--We still lack precise information to
enable us to decide whether the marriage of near kin is injurious to
the offspring of such marriages. According to certain (unofficial)
statistics, of 1000 marriages, from 7 to 11 are those of persons near
akin. Naturally, in certain remote and inaccessible districts, the
proportion of such marriages is greater than this. Two very different
views have been put forward by scientific authorities. According
to one school, the marriages of persons near akin either prove
completely sterile, or else produce offspring defective in body or
in mind. According to the other school, blood relationship has _per
se_ no influence upon the offspring of the unions of nearly-related
persons; where the parents (in such marriages) are themselves free
from defects transmissible by inheritance, there is no reason to
anticipate that the offspring will be in any way defective, unless
other noxious influences (in addition to the kinship of the parents),
such as disease, debility, exhaustion from previous excesses, &c.,
have been at work. But if such noxious influences have affected
both parents, the danger of some congenital defect appearing in
the children is very great. We certainly see many cases in which
the marriage of near kin results in the procreation of large and
thoroughly healthy families; but, in contrast with these, we also
see many cases in which the offspring of such marriages have proved
non-viable or degenerate (especially, blind, deaf-mute, idiotic,
insane, polydactylous, or affected with congenital developmental
defects).
Marriages between persons whose qualities are extremely divergent,
and marriages between persons whose qualities are too closely
similar, are alike undesirable. Neither the offspring of marriages
between those belonging to different races nor the offspring of
marriages between those too closely related appear to be a gain for
the race. It is the degree of divergence or of resemblance which here
plays the decisive part.
It remains a subject of controversy whether the institution of
exogamy originated from the fact that it was regarded as desirable to
refresh the blood of the tribe by cross-fertilisation with the blood
of another tribe. But it is incontestably established that since
historic times began there has existed in the human race a natural
antipathy to incestuous sexual relations, and more especially to
incestuous marriages. The mental abnormalities seen in the offspring
of incestuous marriages are to a large extent explicable from the
fact that the incestuous relationship was itself the outcome of
mental abnormality in those who entered upon that relationship.
The possibility of the hereditary transmission of disease is greater
in the case of the marriage of near kin than it is in ordinary
marriages. When both parents suffer from the same transmissible
defect, the likelihood that that defect will manifest itself in the
offspring in a graver form is greatly increased. Thus, in the case
of the offspring of nearly related persons, the probability of the
appearance of certain transmissible defects is considerable. For
perfectly healthy parents are rarities, and when husband and wife are
closely related the probability that both will suffer from the same
transmissible defect or disorder is relatively high.
_Disease in the Parents from the Legal Standpoint._--In relation to
marriage, disease has a twofold significance: on the one hand, it
may be a factor leading to the dissolution of the marriage (owing
to divorce, nullity of marriage, venereal infection); on the other
hand, the existence of disease may prevent marriage. Very naturally,
the latter factor is of preponderant importance, because we lay the
chief stress upon prevention. It is for this reason that so little
attention is paid to the legal significance of the former factor.
_Divorce._--In cases in which one partner to a marriage suffers
from disease, divorce should be rendered as easy as possible. The
interests of the children are often put forward as reasons against
this course. There is no doubt that many married couples to-day
refrain from separation or divorce solely because they regard it
as to their children’s interest that they should continue to live
together. But it is precisely on the ground of the children’s
interest that such marriages ought to be dissolved, and that the
child or children should remain with the healthy parent. The opposite
course would only destroy the happiness of the healthy parent,
without doing the other parent any good.
_Marriage-Prohibitions in Past Times._--The marriage-prohibitions
of former times may be classified under two heads, ecclesiastical
and civil. The leading principle of the canon law of marriage is
the limitation to monogamy of the permissible forms of the sexual
relationship. More strictly, indeed, we may say, the limitation to
ecclesiastical marriage. Marriage is a sacrament, and therefore
indissoluble; it conforms to ecclesiastical law only when certain
formalities have been observed, and when no ecclesiastical
prohibition has been infringed (differences in religious belief,
broken vows, &c.).
Civil marriage prohibitions date chiefly from the seventeenth
and eighteenth centuries. They owe their origin to the fear lest
parents should allow their offspring to become chargeable to
the community, and especially to the poor-law authorities. Such
marriage-prohibitions, of course, concerned chiefly the lower classes
of the population, and especially mendicants, prostitutes, persons
in receipt of poor relief, persons of disorderly life, offenders
against the criminal law. A marriage concluded in defiance of such
prohibitions involved the deprivation of certain legal rights, and
also rendered the offenders liable to punishment.
To-day, in the sphere of marriage-law, ecclesiastical law has largely
lost significance, and continues to lose what little it still
possesses, so that its marriage-prohibitions are coming to possess
little more than historical interest. The civil marriage prohibitions
were repealed in the nineteenth century, because they were found to
have no other effect than to increase the number of illegal unions
and the births of illegitimate children, and because they merely
increased the burdens upon the poor-law. Even in the nineteenth
century, however, certain political parties--the Conservatives, for
example--desire that these civil prohibitions should be reintroduced,
but in this form, that the marriage of persons actually in receipt
of poor relief should be forbidden, or that persons belonging to
the lower classes should be allowed to marry only when able to
demonstrate the possession of a small capital.
Marriage-prohibitions still exist to-day. The difference is merely
this, that in place of the ecclesiastical prohibitions and the civil
prohibitions affecting members of the lower classes, moral, hygienic,
and economic prohibitions and hindrances have come into being,
affecting the middle classes. The State, as a rule, insists upon
absolute celibacy in the case of its female employees. Soldiers and
officers are hemmed in by rigid regulations, by which marriage is to
a large extent rendered impossible; in the case of the proletariat,
the liability to compulsory military service offers the greatest
obstacle to early marriage. From Catholic priests, ecclesiastical
prohibitions demand absolute celibacy. As the result of these
various marriage-prohibitions, many persons who would probably have
been able to procreate healthy children are prevented marrying. But
there is to-day hardly any difficulty in the way of the marriage of
persons whose union is likely to lead to the procreation of defective
children. At most, minors, certified lunatics, confirmed drunkards,
wards in chancery, and near relatives are forbidden to marry.
_Proposed Reforms._--Increasing attention is, however, being paid
to the possible legal applications of the doctrine of evolution.
Even those who are opposed to any radical reforms see that persons
suffering from communicable venereal disease must be unconditionally
forbidden, on pain of very severe punishment, not merely to contract
marriage, not merely to practise sexual intercourse, but to perform
any act, of whatever kind, by which they could communicate infection.
The existing state of the law, by which, notwithstanding the great
frequency of such occurrences, isolated instances only of the
transmission of venereal diseases are punished (for example, the
case of the nurse who infects the child entrusted to her care), is
altogether unsatisfactory; the communication of any kind of venereal
infection, in any possible way, should be severely punished.
Those who recognise the need for improving the human species by
purposive selection go much further than this. They desire that every
person with regard to whom there is strong reason to believe that
his or her offspring would be diseased, and every man or woman in
a state in which he or she would transmit infection to the sexual
partner, should be stringently forbidden to marry. Such persons are:
those with disease of the central nervous system, mental disorder,
mental weakness, epilepsy, hysteria, idiocy; those with diminished
moral responsibility; those suffering from syphilis, gonorrhœa,
tuberculosis, rachitis; cripples, &c.
_Objections._--The following objections are raised by those who are
adverse to the institution of such marriage prohibitions as these:
(_a_) They limit personal freedom, and even in some cases actually
abolish it. (_b_) By means of marriage-prohibitions, it is possible
to limit the number of legitimate children born, but not the number
of children as a whole, since persons to whom legal marriage is
forbidden will in that case procreate illegitimate children. But
it is far from being desirable that this should happen. All the
defects previously enumerated would be present in such children,
and their birth would be unconditionally harmful to society. It is
statistically proved that marriage-prohibitions lead to an increase
in the number of illegitimate births. In Bavaria, for example, down
to the year 1868, the local authorities imposed an unconditional
veto upon the marriage of persons supported solely by wage-earning;
against this prohibition there was no appeal whatever. In the year
1868 was passed the law relating to marriage and domicile, by which
most of the former marriage-prohibitions were repealed. The sequel
of this was that, whereas from 1854 to 1868 illegitimate births
constituted 22 per cent. of all births, in the seven years following
1868 the percentage of illegitimate births fell to 12·6 per cent.
(_c_) It is better, say the objectors, that a man suffering from
venereal disease should marry, for in that case he makes only
one woman unhappy and procreates a few children only. But if he
is forbidden to marry, he has intercourse with numerous women,
especially with prostitutes, he infects many women, and procreates
more children. (_d_) Marriage-prohibitions do not prevent unhappy
marriages only, but also those which would be likely to prove happy.
Many couples enter into marriage for other reasons than desire
for sexual intercourse. There are also many sick persons upon
whom marriage exercises a curative influence--curing, or at least
alleviating, the disease from which they suffer. For example, many
alcoholics become abstemious or temperate as a result of marriage;
many weakly and delicate girls become strong and healthy women when
they marry. Many marriages are happy although husband and wife do not
practise sexual intercourse; and it is by no means uncommon for a
woman to marry a sick man simply because she pities him, and wishes
to act as his sick-nurse. (_e_) Marriage-prohibitions accentuate
class contrasts. (_f_) Diseased persons commonly have no offspring.
(_g_) Diseased persons to whom, after consideration of their case,
marriage is permitted, have the responsibility taken out of their
hands, and consequently tend to lose all sense of responsibility.
(_h_) Marriage-prohibitions interfere with natural selection,
inasmuch as they render impossible the acquirement of immunity to
disease and the process of regeneration. (_i_) It would be a logical
counterpart to marriage-prohibitions to compel healthy persons to
enter upon marriage--a course that is obviously impracticable.
_The Right View._--The prohibitions suggested in the section on
“Proposed Reforms” are sound in principle. The prevention of the
birth of such children as are born in the absence of effective
prohibitions of this kind, effects an enormous social economy. The
children of thoroughly healthy parents, who have married from love,
are the healthiest; such marriages are, therefore, to be promoted.
But it does not follow that all other marriages than these should be
prevented. This would go too far, and would, moreover, be utterly
impracticable. Marriage-prohibitions must not err by excess, and
too energetic intervention in these matters is undesirable. For
such a course of action would render it impossible for very many
persons to marry; and, in fact, no one with any disease, mild or
severe, and no one with any kind of defect of body or mind, could
enter upon marriage. All that is practicable is, in the first place,
to prevent the marriage of those who are obviously suffering from
serious disease; and, in the second place, to prevent the marriage
of persons exhibiting defects of bodily development, or in whom
the sexual characters are inadequately developed, even though such
persons cannot be said to be suffering from disease (_e.g._ women
with weakly-formed breasts, with poor hips, with a badly-formed
pelvis, &c.)
Passing now to consider the objections in detail, (_a_) is
true. But the mode of action of a State which introduces
such marriage-prohibitions differs quantitatively only, not
qualitatively, from the mode of action of other States to-day. The
marriage-prohibitions now in existence certainly limit personal
freedom; but in other departments of the activity of the modern
State we encounter numerous institutions by which individual liberty
is far more seriously impaired. Consider, for instance, compulsory
military service: the modern State insists that all young men shall
undergo a medical examination, and that those found to be physically
fit shall devote the best years of their life to the service of the
State. Besides, when we are considering the common weal, the question
of individual liberty is no longer decisive. The notion that it is
an inalienable right of every human being to found a family may be
quietly dismissed as a piece of egregious sentimentality. (_b_)
By punitive measures, and by the diffusion of enlightenment, it
is possible to prevent the classes of persons here mentioned from
entering into illegitimate sexual relationships. Women will not allow
themselves to become entangled with men to whom, for the reasons
here considered, marriage is forbidden; first of all, because such
men are considered to be of inferior worth; in the second place,
because, in view of the fact that an intimacy (_liaison_) cannot
lead to marriage, the intimacy is regarded as fruitless, (_c_) The
probability of transmitting venereal infection and the probability
of procreating children are both considerably greater in cases
of long-enduring intimacy than where there are numerous, brief,
frequently-changed sexual relationships. (_d_) It is altogether
exceptional for marriage to exercise a curative influence upon the
progress of a disease, and this probability is one which can never
be counted upon. Once the marriage is contracted, sexual intercourse
and the procreation of children cannot be prevented. (_f_) As regards
persons suffering from tuberculosis and alcoholism, the reverse of
what was stated in objection (_f_) is definitely established. (_h_)
The data available as to the immunising influence of inherited
diseases against the same diseases accidentally acquired (_e.g._
of congenital syphilis against acquired syphilis) are extremely
debatable. They seem, indeed, to show provisionally that such an
immunising effect is non-existent. The question of regeneration is
still obscure, and requires thorough investigation. It is certainly
possible that in some cases intermarriage between the diseased
and the healthy may lead, not to the deterioration, but to the
improvement of the race, owing to the fact that thereby favourable
elements are introduced into the family. The principal argument
against this idea of regeneration is that, from marriages in which
both parties are healthy, healthier offspring unquestionably result,
than from marriages in which one or both parties are diseased. The
resulting postulate is, that the healthy should marry the healthy.
_How to Effect Reforms._--No general rules can be formulated
regarding the marriage of persons suffering from disease. The
majority of diseases are of such a nature that their existence
can be established only by means of direct medical examination.
In most cases, medical examination will not justify the assertion
that the particular person must be altogether forbidden to marry,
but only that this particular person ought not to marry some other
specifically indicated individual; should the question arise
regarding another proposed marriage (that is to say, with a different
individual), then a fresh medical examination will be desirable. For
example, we cannot lay it down as a general rule that the marriage
of persons suffering from tuberculosis must be unconditionally
forbidden; all we are able to say is, that when anyone suffering from
tuberculosis desires to marry, that person ought first to submit to
a thorough medical examination. It is therefore necessary that prior
to marriage there should be a medical examination made by one of a
number of doctors officially appointed for this purpose. As a result
of their examination, these officials will give an opinion, whether
the marriage of the person they have examined with some other person
specifically named is or is not desirable in the interest of the
common weal.
There is yet another way in which this idea might be carried out.
(_a_) Everyone wishing to marry should provide, in addition to
the various documents which are now requisite to the official
sanction of marriage, a medical certificate to the effect that he
is free from any disease which should prevent his marriage with the
other party named in the certificate. Many, indeed, wish that, in
addition to this certificate, another should be provided, to the
effect that of the two parties about to enter into marriage, the
woman will be presumably competent to suckle her child, to bring
it up, and to educate it; the man, that he will presumably be
competent to undertake the two duties last named. (_b_) Before the
marriage is solemnised, the physicians of both parties should hold a
consultation, and decide jointly whether the marriage is permissible.
(_c_) Everyone who enters into marriage should be under statutory
obligation to insure his life, and this also involves a complete
medical examination. (_d_) Many consider that the following method
of procedure would suffice. Before the marriage is solemnised, both
parties should be medically examined, and the result of the medical
examination of each should be communicated to the other. If they then
wish to proceed with the marriage, no further obstacles should be
interposed.
_The Tendency of Evolution._--The importance of marriage-prohibitions
on hygienic grounds is continually increasing. Recent legislation
in many States of the American Union furnish us with the best
examples of this evolutionary tendency. In the social life of the
future, marriage-prohibitions on hygienic grounds will play a very
important part. The detailed treatment of this question at any
particular time and in any particular country will of course depend
upon the acquirements of medical science. It is probable that the
general principles will be statutorily determined, and that medical
examination will ultimately be made compulsory in the case of
everyone contemplating marriage.
CHAPTER III
THE PROTECTION OF ILLEGITIMATE CHILDREN
_The Legal Position of the Illegitimate Child._--The legal position
of the illegitimate child is regulated by civil law only in respect
of certain relationships; and the brief and restricted enactments
on this subject are in sharp contrast with the great importance
of the matter. Even in those countries in which the position of
illegitimate children is relatively favourable, it is only in
relation to the mother and to the blood-relatives of the mother that
the legal position of the illegitimate child corresponds with that
of the legitimate child; no further duty is imposed upon the father
of any illegitimate child than to provide for the child until it is
sixteen years of age an allowance for maintenance corresponding to
the social position of the mother. Even in these countries the proof
of paternity is apt to be a matter of considerable difficulty. The
father of a natural child can raise various objections; for instance,
he may allege loose conduct on the part of the mother (_exceptio
plurium concumbentium_), and the proof of this will discharge him of
his duty of maintenance.
In civil law there are various institutions by which the position of
the illegitimate child may be improved; for example, recognition,
adoption of the child, and, above all, legitimisation. But of
course these will redound to the advantage of those children only
towards whom the natural father has no feeling of hostility. By
legitimisation, the illegitimate child acquires the position of the
legitimate child. There are two chief methods of legitimisation,
viz., _legitimatio per subsequens matrimonium_, and _legitimatio per
rescriptum principis_. About 25 to 30 per cent. of all illegitimate
children are legitimised. Of children legitimised during the first
year of life, the process is effected in the great majority during
the second and third months after birth. The older the child, the
less likelihood is there of its legitimisation; and legitimisation is
less probable in towns than in the country.
_Reasons for these Legal Disabilities._--The defenders of the
existing legal order, when asked why it is that the civil law deals
so harshly with the illegitimate child, are accustomed to answer
as follows. Marriage is the foundation of society; if the legal
position of the illegitimate child were as good as that of the
legitimate child, this foundation would be shattered. Those who enter
into illegitimate sexual relationships, and even the issue of such
relationships, must incur serious legal disabilities; for otherwise
the principal motive to marriage would be removed, and people would
light-heartedly enter into illegitimate sexual unions. Ordinarily,
it is only upon the basis of permanent marriage that a groundwork
can be erected providing for those moral principles which are the
indispensable preconditions of the legal rights and duties of family
life; only in permanent marriage, and the family life which is the
outcome of permanent marriage, do we obtain adequate guarantees
for the fulfilment of these duties and for the proper exercise of
these rights. It is only in an insignificant minority of instances
that the natural association between an illegitimate child and its
father leads to the formation of a more intimate bond between the
two. In most cases, the father is indifferent and even hostile
to his illegitimate child. He regards it as a burden, and has no
interest in its well-being, or in its bodily and mental development.
Only in the rarest cases does an illegitimate child share directly
in the family life and in the property of the father; and if the
father does take over the care for and upbringing of the child,
he often does this solely in his own financial interest, in order
subsequently to hand over the care of the child to the person who
will undertake this at the cheapest rate. In such cases the moral
and circumstantial prerequisites to the foundation of true family
relationships are utterly lacking; and this is true above all of
those cases in which the fatherhood of the child is not voluntarily
acknowledged, but is admitted as the sequel of a successful bastardy
suit. It has also to be remembered that the proof of the fatherhood
of an illegitimate child, though it cannot be regarded as impossible,
is nevertheless beset by numerous and considerable practical
difficulties; and, in addition, that the adoption of legal measures
to enable the paternity of an illegitimate child to be established
with comparative ease would involve very grave social dangers, if
the acceptance of extensive family responsibilities were to be made
consequent upon such proof of paternity. The laws of inheritance
protect the institution of private property and the institution of
legal marriage; for the integrity of both of these institutions would
be threatened if the illegitimate child were endowed with the right
to inherit its father’s property.
_Advantages and Disadvantages of Illegitimate Birth._--Three
different views prevail regarding the relative advantages and
disadvantages of illegitimate births. (1) Illegitimate children
come into the world favourably equipped, for their parents are
young, and their union depends not upon interest, but upon love.
(2) Illegitimate children are hereditarily defective, as is clearly
manifest in all relationships. Private statistical data show that in
respect of body-weight and body-length the illegitimate new-born,
boys as well as girls, compare unfavourably with the legitimate.
Many illegitimate children exhibit a disposition to various mental
disorders (degenerative neuroses and psychoses). Since in most cases
the father is unknown, and his qualities therefore elude observation,
there would appear to be some ground for the assumption that the
hereditary tainting of illegitimate children is even greater than it
is actually proved to be. (3) Illegitimate children come into the
world with the same equipment as legitimate children.
The first of these views is erroneous, if only for the reason that in
men often nothing more than sensuality, and in women often nothing
more than self-interest, leads to the formation of an irregular
sexual intimacy. But neither the second view nor the third can be
accepted without reserve. In interpreting the statistical data
relating to illegitimacy, many circumstances have to be considered.
Attention must always be paid to the question, which were the
intimacies in which the conditions were similar to those of married
life, and to the question as to the extent to which the peculiarities
apparent in the illegitimate are dependent solely upon the legal
disabilities of their status. The material conditions in which
illegitimate children are placed must be compared with those of
legitimate children belonging to similar social classes. It would
be altogether fallacious to compare the condition of illegitimate
children with the average condition of legitimate children, instead
of with the average condition of children of the proletariat. If
these considerations receive due attention, it will become apparent
that illegitimacy _per se_ is not a decisive factor, but merely
renders more apparent the disadvantages attendant on being brought up
under the conditions inevitable for the children of the proletariat.
_Abortion, Premature Birth, Still-Birth._--The general causes
of abortion, premature birth, and still-birth operate even more
frequently in cases of illegitimate than in cases of legitimate
birth. The chief causes are the following: (_a_) Keeping at work up
to the time of childbirth. (_b_) Criminal abortion. (_c_) Syphilitic
infection, which, as is well known, is intimately associated
with extra-conjugal sexual intercourse. With regard to (_a_),
unmarried mothers, who are for the most part working-class women,
servant-maids, laundresses, sempstresses, &c., are commonly compelled
to remain at work until pregnancy is far advanced. With regard
to (_b_), the fear of disgrace and the prospect of poverty impel
many unmarried women about to become mothers to attempt to procure
abortion. These factors naturally affect town-dwellers to a greater
extent than they affect persons living in the country.
In Europe, miscarriages and still-births occur in cases of
illegitimate births about 25 per cent. more frequently than in
cases of legitimate births. These statistical data must, however,
be corrected by the consideration of the following facts: (_a_)
Many live-born illegitimate children are returned as still-born,
in order to conceal the manipulations which were effected during
or immediately after birth. On the other hand, many still-born
children are returned as live-born, for the reason that many material
interests may render such a misreport desirable. (_b_) The larger
moiety of illegitimate births are children born to primiparae. For
this reason, the percentage of still-births is greater than in the
case of all legitimate births taken together--although the effect of
the primiparous state of the mother is to some extent counteracted by
the fact that the mother of an illegitimate child is commonly quite
young.
_Childbirth in Unmarried Mothers._--When a married woman is about
to become a mother, she makes early preparation of all that will
be required during childbirth and the lying-in period. A large
proportion of unmarried mothers, on the other hand, spend their
last penny before the termination of pregnancy, and are altogether
destitute when the time of their delivery arrives. A sense of shame
prevents many pregnant women from entering a lying-in hospital,
although to do this would provide them with free medical aid. Most
women also have a dread of the gynecological clinique, because they
think they will be made use of there for the instruction of students.
To unmarried mothers, many charitable institutions close their doors.
(_a_) But notwithstanding this, the majority of unmarried mothers are
delivered at public lying-in hospitals, gynecological cliniques, and
obstetric wards of general hospitals. (_b_) A small proportion are
delivered in private lying-in institutions (and these naturally of a
bad class, since such women lack money to pay the fees demanded by
the better-class institutions). (_c_) A third moiety are delivered
amid conditions the most unfavourable that can possibly be imagined.
All these circumstances combine to exercise a most unfavourable
influence upon the morbidity and the mortality of illegitimate
new-born infants.
_Causes of the Great Mortality of Illegitimate Children._--Owing
to causes which come into operation immediately or shortly after
birth (syphilis, marasmus, congenital debility, &c.), a much larger
percentage of illegitimate children succumb than of legitimate
children. The mother returns to work almost immediately after the
birth of her child; usually her work takes her away from home, but
if otherwise, it is almost certain to be work which will prevent
her giving proper care to her child. Hence the great majority of
unmarried mothers are forced to separate from their children almost
immediately after the birth of the latter. In many cases, the mother
does not even commit her child to a foundling hospital, or entrust
it to a foster mother, but she kills it or exposes it immediately
after birth. It is well known that infanticide and the exposing of
infants are almost exclusively the work of unmarried mothers; and in
a considerable proportion of cases, criminal abortion is the outcome
of an attempt on the part of an unmarried woman to conceal the fact
that she has been impregnated.
Baby-farming is in actual practice nothing but a cruel method
of infanticide--a method whose causation is apparent on brief
consideration. It has been pointed out that the great majority of
unmarried mothers belong to a social stratum in which the average
income is extremely low. A maid-servant receives at best [in Germany
and Austria] an annual wage of from £10 to £15, a female factory-hand
from £25 to £30. The maintenance of an infant, if the elementary
principles of the hygiene of childhood are to be observed, and if
the foster-parents are to make any profit at all, costs at the very
least £15 a year. The mere nutriment of a child during the first
year of life costs 4d. per day, or a little more than £6 per annum.
When allowance is made for house-room, clothing, and necessary
incidental expenses, we reach a minimal total of £10 to £11. How is
it possible for the average unmarried mother to find the sum asked by
the foster-parents? Those who, as foster-parents, assume the charge
of an illegitimate child, cannot reckon on the child’s remaining
permanently in their care, and ultimately becoming a useful member
of the family. The mother’s payments are scanty and irregular. Her
intentions may be good at the outset, and perhaps she has not yet
completely exhausted her savings. At first too, perhaps, the father
gives, or at least promises, a little pecuniary aid. But when the
child is out of sight, his willingness to make sacrifices on its
behalf soon wanes. Nothing more is heard of the father. The mother
is perhaps out of work for a time, and a fresh pregnancy may ensue.
The foster-parents know very well that if this particular child
dies, they will readily find another to be entrusted to their care.
Sometimes the mother’s own interest in the life of her child fades.
How, indeed, can she continue to love it, when it is kept at a
distance from her, and when to provide the money needed for its
maintenance demands the greatest possible sacrifices? Why should she
not desire the child’s death, when this would not merely remove a
difficulty from her own path, but might well be regarded as the best
possible thing for the child itself, ailing and in lack of proper
and loving care? Thus there is often a tacit understanding between
the mother and the foster-mother, that the child’s life shall be as
short as possible. Unfortunately in such cases it is rarely possible
to punish the foster-parents, since in the case of infants it is so
difficult to determine precisely where ignorance, stupidity, and
poverty end and infanticide by deliberate neglect begins. The law
rightly prescribes severe penalties for infanticide; but we may
well ask whether it is worse for a mother to suffocate her child
immediately after its birth, or, by the lack of proper care, to
inflict upon the infant a more tedious but no less certain doom.
We often hear it asserted that such murderous baby-farming is in
Europe a thing of the past. My own opinion is that France is the only
European country of which this assertion may possibly be true.
The food and other necessaries supplied to illegitimate children
are commonly inadequate. The more important contributory causes of
the enormous mortality of illegitimate children (the primiparous
condition of the mother, syphilis, and intra-uterine influences) have
previously been mentioned. It is owing to the co-operation of these
various unfavourable factors that the death-rate of illegitimate
is so much higher than that of legitimate children--the ratio
between the two death-rates in the civilised countries of Europe
during the twentieth century being, according to my calculations,
as 1·4:1. Only in those countries in which the mortality among
legitimate infants or the general infant mortality is higher, does
a comparison between the infantile death-rates of the legitimate
and the illegitimate, respectively, furnish a result which appears
less unfavourable to the latter. What this high death-rate of
illegitimate children really means becomes apparent when we recall
the fact that every year in Europe no fewer than 600,000 illegitimate
children are born. In reality the infantile death-rate among the
illegitimate is even greater than these figures would appear to show;
for a proportion of those born as illegitimate are subsequently
legitimised, and, in consequence of this, many infants which at birth
were included among the illegitimate, appear in the mortality lists
among the legitimate. In the country, the infantile death-rate is
greater than in the towns. The differences in the death-rates of
illegitimate and of legitimate children, respectively, are greatest
in the first month of life, and diminish month by month as age
advances. In other words, the expectation of life of an illegitimate
infant increases month by month after birth. After the first year
of life, the ratio between the death-rates of illegitimate and
legitimate children is less unfavourable to the former than in
infants under one year of age.
_Criminality in the Illegitimate._--Private and official statistical
data combine to prove that in illegitimate children criminality is
considerably more common than it is in the legitimate. In individual
countries, and in respect of different criminal offences, the
relationships are very variable; but there is not a single civilised
country in which we fail to find that the average criminality-rate
of illegitimate children is considerably higher than the average
criminality-rate of the legitimate. We see this difference
maintained, alike in respect of the number of punishable offences
committed on the average by each convicted person, in respect of
particular offences in the case of those who experience only one
conviction, and finally in respect of the percentage of convicted
offenders among the two respective classes. Not a single punishable
offence can be mentioned, in respect of which we fail to find that
the percentage of illegitimates convicted of that offence is larger
than the percentage of legitimates so convicted. Moreover, if we
compare recidivists and major offenders with other criminals, we find
that the unfavourable influence of illegitimacy is especially marked
in the case of the former. The conclusions drawn from the criminal
statistics are confirmed by those obtained from reformatories and
similar institutions; everywhere we find a higher criminality-rate
among the illegitimate.
One circumstance, however, which is commonly overlooked, has to
be taken into account. Among those convicted of criminal offences,
a certain percentage are persons of illegitimate birth (_a_); a
certain percentage of all births are those of illegitimates (_b_); a
certain percentage of persons who have attained the age at which they
become legally liable to punishment for their actions are persons of
illegitimate birth (_c_). It is not the ratio between the numbers in
class (_a_) and the numbers in class (_b_) that we have to consider,
but the ratio between the numbers in class (_a_) and the numbers
in class (_c_). For the death-rate among illegitimate children is
much higher than the death-rate of the legitimate; and the number
of the illegitimate diminishes through legitimisation. Thus a much
smaller proportion of young persons and of adults consists of persons
of illegitimate birth than in the case of the new-born. The proper
method of comparison would be to ascertain whether the percentage
of illegitimate children at a certain age convicted of criminal
offences or undergoing education in a reformatory is greater than the
percentage of legitimate children of like age found to be undergoing
the same punishment or the same education.
All the causes of crime--imperfect education, poverty, hereditary
taint--are present to a greater extent in the illegitimate than
in the legitimate. How can we expect that an illegitimate child
will be properly brought up when the father commonly accepts no
responsibility for the matter, and the mother is usually forced
to commit her child to the care of a baby-farmer or to send it to
a foundling hospital? By the contemptuous attitude of the general
public towards him, and by his inferior legal, social, and economic
position, the person of illegitimate birth is, as it were, forced
to seek revenge from society for the wrongs which, in his opinion,
society has inflicted upon him. Medical statistics establish beyond
dispute the fact that among illegitimate children the proportion of
feeble-minded is larger than among the legitimate.
_Illegitimacy and Prostitution._--I have not been able to obtain
trustworthy statistical data as to what percentage of prostitutes are
persons of illegitimate birth, but it is generally supposed that the
proportion is as high as 30 per cent. A very brief examination of
the matter shows that among prostitutes there is a higher percentage
of illegitimates than among the general population. The reason for
this state of affairs is doubtless the inferior legal position of
illegitimate children under the conditions of our time. Illegitimate
girls are not properly brought up; they are despised by the world
even if their conduct is irreproachable, and thus one of the most
potent reasons for remaining respectable--the fear of the loss of
good repute--is lacking in their case. A woman who receives no help,
or inadequate help, from the father of her illegitimate child, is
very apt to become a prostitute.
_Occupation in Relationship to Illegitimacy._--The illegitimate
originate in the ranks of the proletariat, and remain in those ranks.
The statistics of the subject show that about 90 per cent. of adult
persons of illegitimate birth are manual workers, and that not more
than a fourth of these are skilled artisans. Statistics prove also
that about 10 per cent. more of legitimate males are able to qualify
by examination for a reduction of the term of military service to one
year, than in the case of illegitimate males.
_The Different Classes of the Illegitimate._--Those who wish to
understand the position of illegitimate children must consider
the different classes of the illegitimate. (_a_) There are many
differences in these respects in various countries. For example, in
certain countries the children born to a betrothed pair have a better
legal position than other illegitimate children. In some countries,
again, the legal position of children born of an adulterous or of an
incestuous union is worse than that of other illegitimate children.
The social position of the parents, and the existence or
non-existence of differences in social rank between father and
mother, are circumstances which may exercise a decisive influence
upon the position of an illegitimate child. It might almost be
maintained that the higher the social position of the unmarried
mother, the worse will be the position of her child. For the higher
the social position, the more sinful is sexual indulgence considered
on the part of a woman except under the forms of marriage; the
unmarried mother, when her social position has been a good one, is
apt to be driven from her family, boycotted by society, and abandoned
by her seducer. The greater the difference in social rank between
the two parents, the worse will be the position of the child; when
the father’s position is much better than the mother’s, he usually
refuses to acknowledge the child at all. (_c_) The assumption that
those women who marry after bearing an illegitimate child, marry
in most cases the father of their child, is erroneous. Erroneous
also is the assumption that the position of an illegitimate child
with a step-father is less favourable than the position of the
illegitimate child which has been legitimised through the subsequent
marriage of its true parents. As regards Germany, we learn from
private statistical data, on the one hand, that nearly 50 per cent.
of the women who marry after giving birth to an illegitimate child,
marry another man than the father of that child; and, on the other
hand, that the position of illegitimate children who thus acquire
a step-father is about as good as that of legitimate children in
similar classes of society; and their position is certainly much
better than that of those illegitimate children whose mothers remain
unmarried. We should be led to expect this from the fact that the
step-father in such cases marries the woman because he loves her,
and does not regard the child as a serious objection; moreover,
the records show that such marriages are commonly effected when
illegitimate children are still quite young, so that from its early
youth upwards the child is a member of the family circle. It seems
almost incredible that it should be better for an illegitimate child
for its mother to die than for her to remain alive, but unmarried;
and yet this may very well be the case, for the upbringing the
illegitimate child receives from its own mother is apt to be most
unsatisfactory; but should the mother die, the child will usually be
cared for by the poor-law authorities.
_Illegitimacy and Child-Protection._--The mortality and the
criminality of illegitimate children are important elements in
general mortality and general criminality; they are closely dependent
upon the legal position of illegitimate children, and one of the
principal aims of child-protection is to diminish criminality and
mortality. For these reasons, the legal position of illegitimate
children exercises a decisive influence in determining the methods
and the intensity of child-protection. The history of illegitimate
children would, as a rule, be even more tragic than it is, if
the community at large and the State intervened only in order to
counteract the disadvantages resulting from the inferior legal
position of illegitimate children, and if no attempt were made to
undertake the work of child-protection from the point of view of
criminal law or from that of local administrative activity. But when
we study the position of child-protection in the individual countries
of Europe, we see at once that that position is influenced mainly
by one consideration, namely, the legal status of the illegitimate
child. Numerous and important branches of child-protection--the
care of foundlings, for instance--are concerned chiefly with
illegitimate children; and in other departments of child-protection
the protection of the illegitimate must be more vigorous than that
of the legitimate. But the more unfavourable the legal status of the
illegitimate child, the more energetic must intervention be from the
side of criminal law and from that of local administration, not only
for the protection of the illegitimate themselves, but also for the
protection of society against the illegitimate. Where the status
of the illegitimate child is a favourable one, the importance of
child-protection by means of criminal law and local administrative
activity is much less than elsewhere.
The Teutonic and the Latin methods of dealing with illegitimate
children are distinguished by the fact that in the Teutonic States
inquiry into paternity is permitted, whilst in the Latin States
it is forbidden. Where the Latin system prevails--that is, where
inquiry into paternity is forbidden--as in France and Italy, the
local authorities find it necessary to board out more children than
in those countries in which the inquiry into paternity is allowed;
for in the latter a larger proportion of unmarried mothers secure an
allowance for maintenance from the fathers of their children, and
for this reason more illegitimate children are boarded out directly
by the mothers. An assimilation of the legal status of legitimate
and illegitimate children would obviate numerous evils, so that a
few paragraphs in the code of civil law would render superfluous a
considerable proportion of the child-protection now dependent upon
criminal law and local administrative activity.
Until the Italian legal code provides for the proper recognition of
_figli di genitori ignoti_, any attempt at administrative reform
of the Italian methods of dealing with foundlings would be futile.
[In Italy, not even the mother is compelled to recognise her child;
recognition must not be confused with legitimisation. A child which
is recognised neither by the father nor by the mother is termed
_figlio di genitori ignoti_ (the child of unknown parents), and it
is only a child recognised by at least one parent which is termed
_figlio illegitimo_ (illegitimate child).] As long as Section 340
of the French Civil Code continues to state categorically, “La
recherche de la paternité est interdite,” not even the risk of
capital punishment will restrain from infanticide the mother of an
illegitimate child, more especially in view of the fact that in such
cases humanely disposed jurymen now so frequently bring in a verdict
of Not Guilty.
It may be hoped that before long it will be generally recognised that
any attempt to reform child-protection, and especially our dealings
with foundlings, must begin with a reform in the legal status of
the illegitimate child. Nevertheless, child-protection by the local
authorities and through the instrumentality of the criminal law,
and, above all, our ways of dealing with foundlings, exert a great
influence upon the position of illegitimate children. It is still
in dispute whether these things affect the numbers of illegitimate
children. It is widely assumed that the existence of foundling
hospitals leads to an increase in the number of illegitimate
children. But in reality foundling hospitals are not a cause, but a
consequence, of the large numbers of illegitimate children.
_The Tendency of Evolution._--As time goes on, the position of
illegitimate children steadily improves. Formerly, illegitimacy
entailed grave civil and ecclesiastical disabilities; to-day, the
only differences between illegitimate and legitimate children
concern their respective legal status, and even these differences
are gradually disappearing. The circumstance that public opinion is
taking an ever milder view regarding illegitimate sexual intimacy,
exercises a great influence upon the position of the illegitimate
child, and a much more extensive mitigation of public opinion in
this direction may be confidently anticipated. The fate of the
illegitimate child is greatly influenced by the judgment passed
upon illegitimate sexual intercourse by the associates, parents,
and relatives of the mother. Among the Jews, owing to the sacred
character of their family life, the birth of illegitimate children
was altogether exceptional. But such a high estimation of marriage is
apt to result in complete rupture of relations between the fallen one
and her family. Although among the Jews infant mortality in general
is lower than among the Gentiles, the mortality of illegitimate
children among the Jews is even higher than among the Gentile
population.
In most countries to-day we may observe an unmistakable tendency
towards the improvement of the legal position of the illegitimate
child. This tendency is perceptible in those countries in which
inquiry into paternity is permitted. In the Latin countries the
necessity of permitting inquiry into paternity is becoming more
and more widely recognised. In many countries we find, often in
association with foundling hospitals, institutions for the provision
of maintenance for illegitimate children.
The reforms of the immediate future, some of which, in certain
countries, have actually been effected, are the following: (_a_) In
every country the inquiry into paternity must be permitted. (_b_) The
legal proceedings for the discovery of paternity must be initiated
and pursued by the local authorities or some other official body.
(_c_) Where the father fails to pay the necessary maintenance for his
illegitimate child, vigorous measures of compulsion must be available
(imprisonment, forced labour, &c.). Such measures of compulsion
already exist in many countries. (_d_) The child’s maintenance
should not be merely such as will provide what are called “bare
necessaries,” but should suffice for its proper upbringing. (_e_)
The natural father should be forced to pay, not for the child’s
maintenance only, but also the mother’s expenses in childbed; he
should be forced to contribute the last-named expenses, and what is
necessary for the child’s maintenance shortly after birth, before the
child is actually born--that is, at a time when the needs of mother
and child are greatest. (_f_) The objections which the father is
to-day able to raise in bastardy actions should be abolished.
_A Radical Reform._--Marriage will best be protected by preventing
the birth of illegitimate children. This can only be effected
by imposing upon the father of an illegitimate child the same
responsibilities that are now imposed upon the father of a legitimate
child. Men would be much more careful to avoid the procreation of
illegitimate children if they were unable to get off so cheaply as
they can to-day. The objection that in the moment of passion no
one thinks of consequences is unsound. In most cases, before the
sexual act there is a period in which the man has leisure to think
of the consequences of what he is going to do. The fact that in
countries in which inquiry into paternity is permitted the number
of illegitimate children is no smaller than in countries in which
such inquiry is forbidden, proves nothing. For other circumstances
besides this influence the number of illegitimate children, and in
the Teutonic countries it is probable that inquiry into paternity
is permitted only in order to counteract these other factors. The
objection that such regulations as have been proposed would promote
immorality, that they would make women far more ready than they are
at present to enter into an illicit sexual relationship, and would
thus lead to an increase in the number of illegitimate children, is
unsound. The present system tends to render inoperative factors which
might exercise a great influence on the conduct of the stronger sex.
Moreover, all these objections are rendered nugatory by the fact
that hitherto the most severe punishments and the most extreme moral
condemnation of illegitimate sexual relationships have not sufficed
to hinder these.
It is objected that the proposed reforms could only be introduced
in association with the abolition of monogamy and the introduction
of free love. If the legal consequences of marriage and of
illegitimate sexual union were made identical, there would be no
reason for entering the marriage state, for monogamy would be a
legal institution without any peculiar legal consequences. But in
marriage three distinct legal relationships have to be considered:
the mutual relationship of husband and wife, their relationship to
persons outside the family, and the relationship of the parents to
their children. The fact that the children resulting from a sexual
relationship are legitimised does not constitute that relationship a
marriage.
In the interest of the illegitimate child the argument is often
put forward that it is not right for the illegitimate child to be
punished for the errors of its parents. This argument is totally
false. If the interest of marriage and that of society really
demanded that the legal position of the illegitimate child should be
an unfavourable one, the circumstance that the child is blameless
is altogether irrelevant. The interest of society is paramount, and
in case of need even innocent children must be sacrificed to this
interest.
CHAPTER IV
LIMITED POWERS OF MINORS AND GUARDIANSHIP
_Limited Powers of Minors._--The legal protection of the child
against the consequences of its own acts is closely associated with
the questions of parental authority and of guardianship. In fact the
regulation of this matter really forms part of the regulation of
parental authority and of guardianship. The minor lacks the requisite
degree of intellectual maturity and of business experience to enable
it to act independently in legal matters without injury to its own
interests; hence, in the matter of legacies, it often happens that a
child is willing to enter into bargains which its maturer judgment
would rightly repudiate. The law, indeed, protects everyone against
usury and extortion, and gives to everyone the legal right to dispute
the validity of an undertaking extracted from him by knavery or
under stress of threats. But these institutions would not suffice to
protect children, inasmuch as the right to repudiate an undertaking
when that undertaking has already been acted upon would be of
extremely questionable value. Moreover, the law of parcimony forbids
that persons should enter into legal undertakings, and subsequently
attempt to repudiate them.
The special legal protection conferred upon minors consists of a
limitation of their powers to enter into valid business engagements,
the extent and consequences of the limitation being such as to
render any engagements made by minors as harmless as possible. In
the majority of legal systems, this leading idea is carried into
effect as follows. Two classes of undertaking are distinguished:
first, those by which the minor acquires certain rights or is freed
from certain obligations; and, secondly, those which effect neither
the one nor the other. Inasmuch as undertakings of the first-named
order are only such as are to the minor’s advantage, no guardianship
is necessary in the case of these, and the minor’s powers to act
are here unrestricted. But undertakings of the last-named order
can be entered into by a minor only with the consent of his legal
representative; thus, a disadvantageous undertaking given by a minor
without the consent of his legal representative is invalid, and the
validity of the undertaking is conditional upon the consent of the
guardian.
_The Tendency of Evolution._--Two points have especially to be
considered in respect of the future regulation of this problem:
the abolition of free competition, and the abolition of the right
of individual inheritance. Many persons consider that it would
be a logical outcome of the abolition of the right of individual
inheritance for the State to undertake the maintenance of all widows
and orphans, either through the instrumentality of a system of
compulsory insurance analogous to Workmen’s Insurance, or else by a
method of provision analogous to that now made for the widows and
orphans of those in the employ of the State.
_The Nature of Guardianship._--The purpose of guardianship is
to provide minors with the equivalent of parents. A guardian is
appointed for a minor when the latter is not subjected to any
parental authority; or when, although the minor has parents, these
are unfitted, through lack of means or through defect of personal
character, to make a proper use of their parental authority. The
analogy between parental authority and guardianship should result in
the guardian, in his care for the person and property of the ward,
being invested with almost the same duties and rights as belong to
the possessor of parental authority. But since the relationship
between ward and guardian is less intimate than the relationship
between a child and its parents, the guardian’s sphere of activity is
naturally a more restricted one. For example, in respect of certain
very important undertakings, outside the limits of the guardian’s
usual sphere of administrative activity, the latter’s powers are
restricted by the qualification that in such cases the undertaking
is rendered valid only with the prior assent of the Board of
Guardianship (see footnote to p. 74).
_Guardianship of Poor Children._--The principal aim of guardianship
to-day is to provide for the careful administration of the property
of the ward, and it thus has no bearing upon the fate of orphans of
the proletarian class, although these are really more in need of
guardianship than orphan children belonging to the upper classes.
The only “property” of the proletarian child, whether orphaned or
not, is its power of working for wages. The adequate cultivation
and utilisation of this power is more important to the proletarian
child than the right administration of its property is to the child
of the well-to-do. Although, as a rule, the proletarian child begins
to work for wages while still under age, our existing legal systems
make no provision for guardians and the Board of Guardianship to
exercise much influence upon the working conditions of such children.
It is owing to this defect in our laws that the exploitation of the
labour-power of minors is so widely prevalent.
To obviate these disadvantages, the following institutions are
necessary, although they would temporarily interfere with social
intercourse. Contracts of service in the case of minors should not
be valid without the assent of the latter’s legal representatives
and that of the Board of Guardianship, and such contracts should be
terminable at any time by the legal representative with the approval
of the Board of Guardianship. Should the parents of a child secretly
arrange for it a contract of service, or should they compel the child
to work for wages, they should have no legal claim to any portion
of these wages. Where such measures are in operation, as in some of
the States of the American Union, children are much less frequently
compelled by their parents to work for wages.
_Guardianship of Illegitimate Children._--The guardianship of
illegitimate children is a matter of great importance: first, because
a very large number of influences affect illegitimate children
unfavourably, and the children have to be protected against these
influences; secondly, because the guardian has to safeguard the
interests of his ward against the natural father and also against the
Destitution Authority; thirdly, because in many countries the laws
provide that every illegitimate child should have a guardian. Who
should be the guardian of an illegitimate child? The guardian may
be, (_a_) the mother, (_b_) the father, (_c_) some other relative,
(_d_) a stranger.
(_a_) According to the laws of most countries, the mother has no
parental authority over her illegitimate child; indeed, in some
cases, the mother is not even granted legal powers of guardianship
over her illegitimate child (or is granted such powers only if
she herself is of full age). The reasons for this are as follows:
The considerations on account of which the granting of parental
authority to the married mother is regarded as permissible, have
no bearing upon the case of the unmarried mother. The interest of
the illegitimate child, and, indirectly, the interest of society at
large, urgently demand the securest possible guarantees that the
child will be properly brought up. Even if the unmarried mother is
capable of undertaking and exercising the duties and rights involved
in parental authority, she still too often lacks the necessary
good-will and the requisite earnestness. In many cases the unmarried
mother does not feel for her illegitimate child the interest and the
love which are felt by the married mother for the legitimate child;
she is rather inclined to be indifferent towards her illegitimate
child, and to regard it merely as a serious burden, from which
she hopes to be free, and the sooner the better. In addition, the
unmarried mother seldom has a settled home of her own, and in order
to gain her livelihood she commonly has to separate herself from her
child. Moreover, the position of the unmarried mother differs from
that of the married mother in this respect, that the latter, as a
rule, does not acquire the parental authority until after the death
of her child’s father--that is to say, when she is herself of mature
age. The care of the property and the exercise of the powers of a
legal representative are associated with the exercise of parental
authority, and there is an obvious danger, in many instances, that
a thoughtless mother might utilise the child’s property--more
especially an allowance for maintenance made by the father, or a
capital sum paid by the latter to provide for the child--in her own
interest, instead of in that of the child, and that in this way the
provision made by the child’s natural father would be unprofitably
employed. If the mother of an illegitimate child be disallowed the
right of acting as the child’s legal representative, we obviate the
danger that that right may be misused by a dissolute or thoughtless
mother by making fraudulent claims for a bastardy allowance in the
name of the child upon various men who may have had intercourse with
her during the period of pregnancy. In many cases, unmarried mothers
are dissolute, extravagant, and therefore untrustworthy persons, and
for this reason it is in the interest of morality that the unmarried
mother should not be able to derive any direct pecuniary advantage
as a result of her position. Often she cannot or will not make the
necessary claim upon the father of the child, either from shame or
from undue sentimentality, or, again, because she still secretly
hopes that he will marry her, and fears to offend him, or, finally,
because in many cases she is not herself certain who is the father
of her child. The various reasons we have been considering are not
altogether free from objection. The advocates of the emancipation
of women, and also the socialists, contest these reasons with
considerable force on the ground that other persons than the mother
of an illegitimate child, who are suggested as guardians, are even
less fitted for the position than she may be herself.
(_b_) It is impossible, in any case, that the natural father should
be the child’s guardian. How, for example, can he be expected to
sue himself for the child’s maintenance? It often happens that the
mother refuses to name the father of her child, but recommends him
as guardian, and he actually is in some cases appointed guardian. To
avoid this, many wish to make it the mother’s legal duty to disclose
the name of the child’s father to the Board of Guardianship.
(_c_) One of the child’s relatives is no suitable person for
guardian. The mother’s relatives have in most cases broken with the
mother owing to the birth of the illegitimate child. The relatives of
the father of an illegitimate child are as little suited to act as
guardians as the father himself.
(_d_) A stranger is utterly unsuitable for the guardianship of an
illegitimate child. In most cases he has no interest whatever in the
child, and very frequently, from sheer laziness, he fails to make
good the claim for maintenance against the father. Indeed, he is
not in a position to make such a claim good. He is ill-informed,
inexperienced, ignorant of the law, does not understand the procedure
of the Boards of Guardianship, and is incompetent to overcome the
mother’s opposition. His appointment is often long delayed, although
it is a fact of general experience that a claim for maintenance can
more readily be established the earlier proceedings are taken against
the father. The father often changes his residence, and the guardian
has no facilities for obtaining information about his dwelling-place
or his means.
_The Defects of Individual Guardianship._--As time goes on it becomes
increasingly difficult to obtain suitable guardians for children of
the lower classes. Owing to the increasing frequency of migration,
owing to the search for work and means of livelihood, and owing to
the development of the means of communication, the wider family
ties have been loosened and in part entirely destroyed. Since it is
only in the case of propertied wards that the guardian receives any
remuneration, the guardianship of a ward without means is a purely
honorary office. But we cannot rely upon finding a self-sacrificing
disposition in the relatives of a proletarian child. If a man of a
higher class than that to which the child belongs be appointed, he
will be afraid lest he should have to put his hand in his own pocket.
If a man of a lower class be appointed, the child will not regard him
with the necessary respect.
In small communities, where the circumstances are simple, where the
number of births and deaths is small, where everyone knows everyone
else, and where the guardian is under the control of everybody, the
difficulties are not so great. But in large towns the population is
in a state of continual flux, a large proportion has immigrated from
the country districts, and has neither relatives nor acquaintances
in the towns, and the Boards of Guardianship are unlikely to know
anyone suitable for the position of guardian. In large towns, persons
living under the same roof may be utter strangers, not knowing one
another’s name nor even one another’s general appearance. Since the
appointment as guardian is one which as a rule cannot be refused, it
is easy to understand the manner in which one who has been appointed
guardian against his will is likely to neglect his duties. As the
legal representative of the child, the guardian has frequent dealing
with the local authorities. Since the ward can make claims upon
the Destitution Authority, his domicile must be established, for
which purpose it may be necessary to pay a visit to the locality in
question, &c.
The guardian, especially one who belongs to the lower classes, is
without experience, is ignorant of the law, is ignorant of the
methods of procedure of the local authorities, and fails to inspire
respect in the strangers with whom he has to deal. Often the
guardian, far from assisting the poor-law authorities in their work,
puts needless obstacles in the way of these latter, and renders it
difficult for them to carry out their aims. This last remark applies
even more forcibly to the other legal representatives of minors, viz.
to their parents. It often happens that the legal representative
endeavours to exercise an evil influence upon a child under the care
of the poor-law authorities; while the child is still quite young,
he ignores its existence, but as soon as it attains an age at which
it becomes competent to earn any money, he demands that it should
be handed over to his care. If the Board surrenders the care of the
child, all the trouble previously taken to bring it up properly will
usually be found to have been wasted, for the child now returns to
the evil environment from which it had formerly been removed. In
England, a law passed in the year 1899 gives the Poor Law Guardians
the right to refuse to accede to the request of parents that a child
should be restored to their care in cases in which the parents’ life
is such as to make it impossible for them to provide for the child’s
regular education, or when the parents are persons with vicious
habits. Attempts are being made to improve the system of individual
guardianship, by a thorough reconstruction, by the organisation of
the guardians, &c. It is mainly owing to the defects that have been
pointed out in the system of individual guardianship that official
(general or collective) guardianship, and institutional guardianship,
have come into existence.
_Nature of Official and Institutional Guardianship._--The legal basis
of official guardianship is the right and the duty of the State to
act as the supreme guardian of all minors. Its characteristics are
as follows: Over a specified group of children--children put out
to nurse, foundlings, or illegitimate children, a particular person
(he may be a private individual or one in an official position),
in virtue of the authority of the law (that is, without specific
appointment in each case, and without the option of refusing in
particular cases to exercise his powers), exercises the powers of a
guardian. In certain cases, official guardianship involves powers
superseding those of ordinary parental authority (this applies to
the case of illegitimate children, destitute children, and children
put out to nurse). There can be no reasonable objection to this,
for in such cases the parents’ own authority exists _de jure_ only,
and not _de facto_. But the parental authority is not irrevocably
invested in the official guardian, and the latter exercises only such
rights and duties as properly belong to a guardian. For example,
the right of usufruct in a child’s property cannot be assigned to
the official guardian. Institutional guardianship consists in the
exercise of guardianship by a State educational institution, or other
State institution for the care of children, over children in that
institution, the actual powers of guardianship being invested in the
director or some other official of the institution.
_Advantages of Official and Institutional Guardianship._--(_a_) The
local authorities entrusted with the general care of a particular
group of children--destitute children, for instance--can readily, and
with little additional trouble, assume the duties of guardianship.
Experience shows that this combination of duties gives extremely
satisfactory results, without imposing on the Boards in question
any serious increase in their duties. The administrative Boards
controlling reformatory schools must, if their duties are to be
properly performed, possess unlimited authority in respect of all
matters bearing on the upbringing of those under their care. In
Europe, the official guardianship of morally uncontrollable children
is likely to bring into being a system of children’s courts, with
probation officers, or to develop that system further where it
already exists.
(_b_) The official guardian is much better able than the individual
guardian to make good the claim for a maintenance allowance for an
illegitimate child. The official guardian, who is in most cases an
official working on behalf of the poor-law authorities, will push
such a claim with the greatest possible vigour, in order to prevent
the cost of the child’s maintenance from coming upon the poor law.
The official guardian will be actively at work on the child’s behalf
within a very few days of its birth, and will probably have been
able to secure that a proper provision for maintenance shall have
been made at the very time when it is most urgently needed. The
father will show much more respect to the official guardian--a man
in an official position--than he will to the individual guardian.
In Germany it has been the general experience, that in most cases
the father of an illegitimate child, when summoned by the official
guardian, puts in an appearance, admits his paternity, recognises
the child, and undertakes to make an allowance for maintenance. Nor
does it so rarely happen that, under the persuasion of the official
guardian, the child’s father and mother agree to marry, and to
legitimise their child. The official guardian owes his influence to
his official position.
(_c_) The official guardian possesses special legal and educational
experience, and in the management of the large number of cases with
which he has to deal acquires yet more experience. For these reasons
he is often consulted in difficult cases by individual guardians, and
even by many parents.
(_d_) It is easier for the official guardian than it is for the
private guardian to find suitable employment for his wards. He is
better acquainted with employers and with working conditions. It
is not to his interest that his wards should begin wage-earning at
the earliest possible age; thus, under his guardianship, many who
would otherwise have become unskilled labourers, are trained to be
skilled artisans. (But to make it possible to attain this end, and
because the years immediately after leaving school are the years most
dangerous to the child, the official guardianship must be continued
until the child attains its majority.)
(_e_) Since the existence of the official guardian makes the
appointment of private guardians superfluous, the persons who would
have otherwise been engaged as private guardians are set free for
other spheres of activity.
(_f_) Institutional guardianship renders it possible for the
influence of the guardians to be maintained very effectively even
after the minor has left the institution.
_Objections to Collective and Institutional Guardianship._--The
following objections to collective and to institutional guardianship
have been put forward. (_a_) A conflict of interests and duties may
arise. The business of the poor-law authorities is to keep down
expenses, but the guardian has to think first of all of the interests
of his ward, who may need the financial assistance of the poor-law
authorities. (_b_) The local authorities are not in a position to
carry out properly the duties of official guardianship. In a large
local governmental area the circumstances of individual residents
are not adequately known; whilst in a small area, suitable official
guardians are not likely to be forthcoming. (_c_) The authority
administering the work of official guardianship has to accept a
position of subordination in relation to the (central) Board of
Guardianship. Thus there arises friction, and the autonomy of the
local authorities may even be endangered. (_d_) Owing to the fact
that the wards under the charge of an official guardian are very
numerous, the duties are necessarily discharged in a bureaucratic and
stereotyped manner, and the requisite individualisation is lacking.
_These Objections Answered._--There is no doubt whatever that
official guardianship gives better results than an otherwise equally
efficient system of private guardianship. But the very statement
of the antithesis involves a fallacy, for the kernel of the matter
is, that in cases in which no competent and willing individual
guardian is available, the official guardian is there to take over
the necessary duties. The fact that an official guardian exists need
not prevent the placing of the child under the guardianship of a
suitable private person, should such a one be forthcoming. Objection
(_b_) is valid to this extent, that in small local governmental
areas, in which the cost of official guardianship falls upon the
poor rate, and the burden of this rate is grievously felt, official
guardianship cannot be properly carried out. Objection (_d_) has
but little validity. Of course, the official guardian cannot do
everything himself. He must have confidential assistants, who will
visit the foster-parents of the ward, and report to him everything
of importance concerning the child. The official guardian has not
only to supervise the work of these confidential assistants, to
support them with his advice in difficult cases, and to control the
necessary expenditure; he has also to attend to all the legal aspects
of his charge, and to perform the duties entailed upon him as legal
representative of his ward. Thus the official guardian’s duties
may be classified as follows: (_a_) the upbringing of his ward;
(_b_) legal duties; (_c_) the choice of confidential assistants.
In the first department, the most important matter is the careful
choice of the foster-parents. The official guardian’s experience and
business connections undoubtedly make him far more likely than the
individual guardian to secure good foster-parents. The legal duties
of the official guardian, such as the provision of maintenance for
the child, are merely routine official duties. It is much easier to
secure the requisite ten confidential assistants than to secure a
hundred private guardians.
_The Tendency of Evolution._--(_a_) The property of a ward is usually
inherited, and as time goes on such property becomes of less and less
importance. The guardianship we are considering here has very little
to do with such questions of property, and the guardian’s activities
are practically limited to securing the personal well-being of the
child. (_b_) Official guardianship is a typical example, on the one
hand, of the manner in which a matter appertaining to civil law
tends to become an affair of local administrative activity, and in
which duties originally honorary and benevolent tend to pass into
the hands of a salaried public official; and, on the other hand, of
the fact that in this sphere also the principle of the division of
labour comes to be ever more strictly applied, so that functions
formerly exercised non-professionally by private individuals are now
discharged professionally by public servants.
The importance of official guardianship has steadily increased. The
idea that the guardianship of children supported by the community
might be exercised by the poor-law authorities was first put into
practice in France towards the end of the eighteenth century.
In other countries the same idea has been applied with greater
or less modification. In Germany, official and institutional
guardianship were permitted by the Civil Code of 1900. Official
guardianship exists at present only in the larger towns; but the
institution continues to spread. In France, a law enacted in the
year 1889 permits the voluntary transference of parental authority
to the _Assistance Publique_, in which case the Prefect or his
representative, the Departmental Inspector _des enfants assistés_,
acts as guardian. By the law passed in the year 1904, the same
inspector acts as guardian of the _enfants assistés_. But the
inspector has no concern with the enforcement of the rights of
illegitimate children as against their father, since any inquiry
into paternity is forbidden by the French Civil Code. Official
guardianship exists in many of the cantons of Switzerland.
_Certain Civil Laws which are of Importance in Relation to
Child-Protection._--(_a_) Legitimisation has been considered above.
(_b_) Adoption would be a very important and valuable institution
from the point of view of child-protection, if adopted children
were more numerous. The fact that this institution exists is often
disadvantageous from the point of view of child-protection. In many
cases it operates as an obstacle to the legitimisation of the child
by the father, although legitimisation would be more advantageous
to the child than adoption. For in many cases the father, if he
could not adopt the child, would legitimise it. A certain though
small proportion of foster-parents adopt their foster children. This
tendency is certainly one worthy of encouragement.
(_c_) We have also to refer to the legal relationships which arise
when a contract has been made for the temporary or permanent, partial
or complete, upbringing of a child. As an example of permanent and
complete upbringing, may be adduced the upbringing of a child by
foster-parents. In this case, the duties of the foster-parent are
controlled by special legal stipulations. As an example of temporary
or partial upbringing, may be mentioned the case of a child sent
to a boarding school at a distance from its home, a child boarding
with a family, and various similar arrangements. All these legal
relationships are covered by the laws relating to contract, and by
the laws relating to family life. This is a matter of considerable
importance, because, in a legal relationship taking the forms of
family life, the presumption is that a child’s upbringing is effected
without any expectation of a return, _i.e._ gratuitously.
_B._--DEPARTMENT OF LOCAL ADMINISTRATIVE ACTIVITY
CHAPTER I
CHILD-PROTECTION BEFORE, DURING, AND IMMEDIATELY AFTER BIRTH
_Introductory._--The physical, mental, and moral health of human
beings depends very largely upon the conditions in which they are
brought up, upon the conditions which operate upon them while still
within the mother’s womb, and upon the circumstances in which they
were born. Was the child the offspring of a legitimate or of an
illegitimate sexual relationship? At the time of procreation, were
its parents mentally and physically healthy, or were they diseased?
During pregnancy, was the mother obliged to work for her living,
or could she take proper care of herself; did she or did she not
deliberately attempt to injure or destroy the fruit of her womb?
During parturition, did she or did she not receive proper medical
aid? These are the stars with a knowledge of which we can accurately
forecast the individual human horoscope.
_Before Birth._--It is a matter of great importance that pregnant
women should regulate their lives in accordance with certain
elementary rules of hygiene, and for this reason it is urgently
necessary that women should be properly instructed in this respect.
Syphilis is one of the most potent causes of intra-uterine death
and of abortion and premature labour. Everything possible should be
done to prevent persons suffering from syphilis practising sexual
intercourse, and to protect the fruit of conception from subsequent
syphilitic infection. One of the most effective means of prevention
would be the abolition of prostitution. Abortion is possible
from the very outset of pregnancy, and attempts at its prevention
must therefore be taken in hand thus early. In the later stages
of pregnancy care should be taken to prevent pregnant women doing
any arduous work. The data obtainable from lying-in hospitals show
that the vitality of the new-born infant is greater in proportion
as a longer time is spent by the mother in the institution prior
to delivery. The best course, but one which is at present almost
impracticable, from considerations of cost, would be for pregnant
women to enter a public lying-in hospital during the sixth month
of pregnancy, and to remain there till the time of delivery, doing
nothing more than the lighter household duties of the institution.
A less radical procedure would be to prohibit pregnant women from
working for wages for a certain time--such as eight weeks--before
the expected termination of pregnancy. (At the present day, the only
restrictions imposed are upon wage-earning by women for a certain
period after childbirth, and this prohibition relates only to
employment in factories and workshops.)
The following are the objections to the enforcement of such a
prohibition as has been suggested. (_a_) Administrative difficulties
would make it impossible of application except in the case of women
employed in factories and workshops. (_b_) The prohibition would
force pregnant women, if they received no material compensation, to
earn a living, either by prostitution or else by some work--perhaps
even more arduous than that which has been forbidden to them--outside
the purview of the Factory Acts; in domestic service, as
sempstresses, washerwomen, ironers, &c. To-day, in large factories
and workshops, the employer pays no attention to the question whether
his female employees are or are not pregnant; and other employers
than those are disinclined to employ pregnant women at all. Consider,
for instance, the case of women servants. To-day, many pregnant
women go to work in a factory or a workshop, simply because there
is no other employment open to them. (_c_) The prohibition would
necessitate the compulsory notification of pregnancy.
_During Birth._--The health both of the mother and of the child
suffers in many cases, unless during and after delivery the mother
is attended by a qualified midwife or by a medical practitioner. The
reasons for the frequent lack of skilled help in such cases are as
follows: (_a_) Poverty; (_b_) desire for secrecy--this particularly
in unmarried mothers; (_c_) in thinly-populated districts the help of
a qualified midwife or that of a medical practitioner is not always
easy to obtain; and even should such help be forthcoming, in the
event of serious difficulty in delivery, the assistance of a skilled
specialist will be unattainable.
With regard to (_a_), it is necessary for poor pregnant women
that the services of midwife and physician should be available
gratuitously. This may be arranged, either through the woman being
attended gratuitously in her own home by a monthly nurse or midwife
and a doctor, the fees of these latter being paid out of charitable
or public funds for poor relief; or else by her free admission to a
public lying-in hospital. In many countries, the _Krankenkassen_[4]
support women (in most cases only women employed in factories and
workshops) for some weeks after delivery, and provide for the free
attendance of doctor and monthly nurse or midwife.
(_b_) It is necessary that unmarried mothers should be legally
compelled to arrange for the attendance of a midwife or medical
practitioner, and, on the other hand, that the services of these
should be provided for unmarried mothers in childbirth. Of course,
it would be going too far to insist that unmarried mothers, or
other persons who are aware of their condition, should, under heavy
penalties, notify the local authorities of the state of affairs.
Although such a provision does exist in the legal system of several
countries, it is unworkable in practice.
(_c_) With regard to provision for proper midwifery attendance in
thinly-populated districts, what is needed is a proper organisation
of the services of medical practitioners or midwives in such a
way that these are equitably distributed throughout the country in
proportion to population, and so that in every local governmental
area there shall be at least one midwife and one doctor. The proper
training of midwives is a matter of great importance, but, above
all, a midwife should understand that at the least sign of danger
it is her duty to send for a doctor. It is also a matter of great
importance that all medical practitioners should have an adequate
training in midwifery.
_After Birth._--In public lying-in hospitals, women usually remain
no more than one to two weeks after delivery; they are then
discharged, regardless of their condition (physical and mental
helplessness, &c.). Those institutions which are connected with a
foundling hospital are exceptions in this respect, for some of the
women enter the foundling hospital as wet nurses. In the interest
of the child it is, above all, necessary that the mother should be
well cared for after delivery, for it is during the first three or
four weeks after birth that the child is most of all dependent upon
the maternal breast. The resumption of work by the mother very soon
after delivery, before the resolution of the uterus is completed, and
before the abdominal walls have recovered their tone, plays a great
part in the causation of the numerous acute and chronic diseases of
women. If the woman is sent back into the street almost immediately
after delivery, she has no option but to return to work. She must
do this, first, because pregnancy and childbirth have exhausted her
savings, and, secondly, because she is afraid, if she delays to
return, that she will find her place filled. To-day this is becoming
generally understood, and institutions are arising in which women
can be properly cared for during and after childbirth. Homes for
lying-in women and convalescent homes, in which mothers with their
children can remain for a considerable time after delivery, subserve
this purpose. Quite recently, organisations have been founded for the
domestic care of women in childbed--the so-called _Hauspflegevereine_
(Domestic Care Clubs). They send out _Hauspflegerinnen_ (Domestic
Assistants), who do the housework of the woman during her
confinement, and thus secure for her the necessary rest and quiet.
But, unfortunately, in most cases, these associations help married
women only. Very little has as yet been done by the State to help
women in childbirth. All that communal activity has effected in this
direction has been the work of the community at large. Institutions
are now being founded, equipped with proper apparatus (incubators,
warm chambers, &c.), in which prematurely-born children can be
cared for until they acquire the normal powers of resistance of the
full-time infant.
_The Insurance of Motherhood._--Recently, the insurance of
motherhood has been recommended, especially by the advocates of the
emancipation of women, on the following grounds. Neglect of women
during pregnancy, childbirth, and the lying-in period, and neglect
of new-born infants, are responsible for numerous and serious
disadvantages. Childbirth is very painful and extremely arduous,
and the woman who gives birth to a child performs a supremely
valuable social service. The suggestion is, that the insurance
of motherhood should provide for every aspect of women’s task of
reproduction. It should support women during pregnancy; during
parturition, and during the lying-in period; a full allowance should
be provided for eight weeks before and eight weeks after delivery;
free attendance of a midwife, with free medical help if requisite,
and such other care as may be needed, should be provided for the
delivery. In connection with the insurance of motherhood, suitable
homes should be erected for pregnant women, lying-in women, and
new-born infants, and the women and children admitted to these
institutions should be gratuitously supported. The insurance of
motherhood, it is suggested, should be compulsory, on the one hand,
for all wage-earning women, and, on the other, for all married women
whose husbands earn less than a certain minimum wage. All these
women should pay contributions. In other respects, the cost of the
insurance of motherhood should be met on the same lines as the
cost of the _Krankenkassen_ (see note on page 120). Thus it is not
proposed that the insurance of motherhood should take the form of an
entirely independent branch of national insurance. Many contend that
child-bearing is just as necessary a branch of national economy as
the wage-paid labour of men, and that for this reason women should
be directly remunerated for this social service; they wish that the
insurance of motherhood on these lines should provide for the child’s
upbringing until it becomes old enough to earn its own living. But
even the most radical advocates of the insurance of motherhood
regard this idea of the endowment of motherhood as extreme, and as
impracticable at present.
The following objections have been raised against the insurance of
motherhood. (_a_) No sound actuarial foundation can be provided for
such insurance. The birth-rate cannot be predicted with certainty,
so that the amount of contributions and the benefits cannot be
calculated with the requisite precision. (_b_) Motherhood depends
upon physiological processes, and has nothing whatever to do with
illness.
The objection (_a_) is based upon ignorance or upon misunderstanding
of the facts. The expected number of births can be calculated with
the same precision as the expected number of deaths. The objection
(_b_) is also erroneous. Women need medical aid during pregnancy,
childbirth, and the lying-in period. Moreover, the aim of sickness
insurance is not merely the care and the cure of sick persons, but
also the prevention of the diseases, which in many cases can be
prevented by the proper treatment of women in pregnancy, childbirth,
and the lying-in period. Since, in the case of pregnancy and
parturition, malingering (for fear of which liberal payment during
sickness is considered undesirable) may be almost entirely excluded,
the insurance of motherhood can be effected on very liberal terms,
and there is all the more reason for this, because pregnancy and
childbirth entail upon the mother greatly increased expenditure.
It is hardly conceivable that women would incur pregnancy and
parturition solely on account of the proposed pecuniary advantages.
Insurance of motherhood is to-day of considerable importance in
Germany, France, and Italy. In Italy it was introduced some years
ago on national lines. In France and Germany, mutual co-operative
associations for this purpose have been founded by the women
concerned. The principal contributors to the expenses are the
insured themselves, all contributing alike, irrespective of the fact
whether they are poor or well-to-do--that is to say, motherhood
insurance is entirely free from the characteristics of poor relief.
The co-operative organisations for motherhood insurance are run
upon similar lines to the _Krankenkassen_, with which, indeed, they
are sometimes closely associated (_Mutterschaftskassenverbände_).
The local authorities have nothing more to do with the matter than
to co-operate in the foundation, organisation, and management of
these _Kassen_. The results of this development have been extremely
satisfactory; for example, experience shows that a much larger
percentage of insured mothers than of non-insured suckle their own
children.
_The Tendency of Evolution._--It is as yet impossible to predict
the future course of development in this matter, and to foresee
whether it will take the form of a further elaboration of motherhood
insurance. This much only is certain, that all women will receive
proper care in pregnancy, and during and after childbirth. From a
certain stage in her pregnancy until a certain period after delivery,
no woman will be allowed to work for wages. Women far advanced in
pregnancy, during delivery, and throughout the lying-in period, will
be cared for almost exclusively in institutions. Such institutions
will be very numerous, if only for the reason that the domestic care
of childbirth will become rarer and rarer, that the institutional
care of such women is far better and cheaper than any other, and that
the extension of institutional care is a tendency of evolution.