THE CARE OF FOUNDLINGS, WET-NURSING, AND BABY-FARMING
_Terminology._--In this work, when we speak of “the care of
foundlings,” the term is used throughout in the widest signification,
to denote the general care of the children boarded out, or
otherwise placed in external care by the Poor Law Boards or other
administrative instruments of poor-relief. Thus we do not refer to
the care of all abandoned children, nor even to the care of all
foundlings, but merely to the care of children permanently and
completely abandoned by their relatives. It is necessary to lay
this great stress upon the accurate definition of the term, for
the reason that in Germany and in England the systems by which the
community undertakes the care of foundlings is fiercely attacked;
but the opponents of the institution are attacking something very
different from what many of them imagine. To-day the care of
abandoned children, and institutions for the care of these children,
are altogether different from the foundling hospitals of former
times; abandoned children are cared for by the community, not only
in countries in which foundling hospitals exist, but also in Germany
and England, for in these latter countries, the so-called Germanic
system for the care of abandoned children, though there not spoken of
as “care for foundlings,” amounts to the same thing.
_History of the Care of Foundlings._--For two reasons it is necessary
that we should deal with the history of the care of foundlings.
In the first place, it is a branch of child-protection which is
rightly considered to be of great importance, and yet in regard to
this branch the most erroneous views prevail alike among laymen and
non-laymen. In the second place, the care of foundlings to-day cannot
possibly be understood by those who know nothing of the history of
the institution. Even during the time at which infanticide and the
exposing of children were still legally permissible among the Romans,
these practices were condemned by public opinion, especially when
the excuse of great poverty was lacking, and they were regarded as a
misuse of parental authority. This applies even more to infanticide
than to the exposing of children; for in the case of the latter, it
was always possible that the child would be rescued and brought up by
a third person. The Church naturally regarded both infanticide and
the exposing of children as immoral and sinful. But what could the
Church do to prevent infanticide? Infanticide was largely a result
of the fact that the Church and public opinion strongly condemned
illegitimate sexual relationships; in actual fact, infanticide was
usually the act of an unmarried mother. The only course open to the
Church, if it wished to prevent infanticide, was to tolerate the
exposure of children, and to take steps to ensure that the children
thus exposed should not perish. The Church permitted the lesser evil
in order to prevent the greater. According to some authorities, the
priests even publicly exhorted fallen women to expose their children
at the church doors. In many churches, marble basins were placed, in
which children could be left. In many communities, it was the duty
of the verger to take first charge of exposed children. Thus, the
exposing of children on these lines became transformed into a kind
of legitimate transference to another of the duty of maintaining a
child. To expose a child in any other way was a punishable offence.
Since those children that survived had to be brought up, the Church
made provision for this also. Gradually institutions were founded,
to which children were brought secretly, where they were received
without restriction as to number, and where they were brought up. The
institution of the turn-table dates from about the year 1200, and
for many centuries thereafter was the general method for the secret
reception of the children. The turn-table is a box, one side of which
is left open, fixed in the outer wall of the foundling hospital, and
rotating upon a vertical axis. Anyone wishing to leave a child at the
institution has merely to pass the child through the opening on to
the turn-table, and then to ring the bell adjacent to the turn-table.
Someone within the institution thereupon rotates the table to receive
the child, while the person who brought it can go away unseen.
The foundling hospitals of former times were mere death-traps,
with an infant mortality of 60 to 95 per cent. With the advance of
medical and educational science, and with the growth of milder views
regarding illegitimate sexual relationships, foundling hospitals
have been greatly transformed. Turn-tables have for the most part
been abolished, so that they remain to-day in a few countries only,
and in a few foundling hospitals. Unrestricted and secret reception
of infants has been replaced by restricted and public reception;
institutional care has given place to external care; natural feeding,
wherever possible, is preferred to artificial feeding. By these
means, the infant mortality has been greatly diminished, and those
children that survive receive a much better upbringing. With the
passage of time, the foundling hospitals have come to receive not
foundlings (abandoned and exposed children) only, but also other
children inadequately cared for by the persons legally responsible
(parents, guardians, &c.). The foundling hospitals thus take over the
work formerly done by orphan asylums and similar institutions.
The children received by a modern institution remain under its roof
for a short time only, until foster-parents have been found for them,
and return to the institution only in the event of illness. Children
that are ill when first received, are boarded out only after they
have recovered. The foster-parents are remunerated and subject to
inspection. Thus the modern foundling hospital is: 1. A depot for
the reception of children; 2. A children’s hospital; 3. The centre
for the supervision of the children that are boarded out. The latest
phases in the development of the care of foundlings can best be
studied in Hungary. In this country the matter has been the subject
of recent legislation and regulation, and every child declared by
the local authorities to be abandoned or neglected is received into
a foundling hospital. There have, of course, been countries and
districts in Europe in which such institutions as foundling hospitals
never developed, or in which those that did develop soon passed
into disuse (for instance, in consequence of the Reformation); here
foundlings were cared for in another way. The feudal chiefs, who, as
is well known, cared for the poor within the limits of their fief,
took over also in such cases the care of foundlings. Owing to the
desire for the rapid increase in population characteristic of the
dominance of the mercantile system of political economy, foundling
hospitals existed transitorily in Protestant countries.
_The Latin System and the Germanic System._--Two circumstances mainly
determine the manner in which in a particular country the care of
foundlings is regulated. The first of these is the condition of
poor relief in the country we are considering, inasmuch as the care
of foundlings is merely one section of poor relief. The second is
the legal position of illegitimate children, for the majority of
the children to be dealt with in this connection are illegitimate.
The essential peculiarity of the Latin system lies in this, that
abandoned and neglected children are dealt with through the mediation
of foundling hospitals. This system obtains especially in those
countries in which no inquiry into paternity is permitted. In the
Germanic system, on the other hand, foundling hospitals are unknown,
and abandoned and neglected children are dealt with on the same lines
as other destitute persons. The children are cared for directly by
the local authorities responsible for poor relief, being in some
cases boarded out, in others cared for in orphan asylums or other
institutions. The foster-parents of boarded-out children are directly
supervised by the Poor Law authorities. If the parents or other near
relatives of the children are living, it is only when the relatives
are unable to provide properly for the children, or are themselves
in need of poor relief, that the children are regarded as requiring
public assistance. The public assistance, in such cases, is not
given to the child, but to the person or persons regarded as legally
responsible for the child’s support. Thus, the child remains with
its family as an individual relieved in common with its relatives.
The Latin system employs a similar method to the one just explained
for the relief of unmarried mothers (_secours temporaire--secours
aux filles-mères_). To render it unnecessary for the mother to send
her child to a foundling hospital, and to relieve her of the cost of
maintaining it outside, she is provided with a monthly allowance.
This method, which, notwithstanding obvious defects, is ever more
widely applied, is of course associated with a supervision of the
mother--a supervision that is too often defective.
Institutional care is altogether unsuitable for infants. For the
child which cannot be cared for in its own family, the only efficient
and natural substitute is that it should be cared for in another
family; in comparison with this the best institutional care is purely
mechanical. Depots are, however, indispensable for the temporary care
of children until a suitable family can be found for their reception.
It often happens, for example, that a child needs public assistance
immediately after birth, and for such a child the depot is the only
place available. Of late years, even in the Germanic countries, this
has been more and more clearly recognised, and the Germanic system
has in consequence undergone substantial alterations. Depots are
being instituted, and much greater stress is being laid on family
care. In England again, the significance of institutional care (the
workhouse system) becomes continually less, and that of family care
(the boarding-out system and its modifications, scattered homes,
&c.) becomes ever greater. For the same reasons, orphan asylums are
undergoing, though very slowly, a transformation similar to that
which most foundling hospitals have already experienced. The orphan
asylum of the future will merely be: 1, A children’s depot; 2, a
children’s hospital; 3, a central station for the supervision of
children placed in external care.
Thus, in course of time, alike the Latin system and the Germanic
system have been extensively transformed, and as a result of these
transformations the two systems have been assimilated to such an
extent as to have become almost identical. It is, in fact, almost
impossible to point out any notable difference between the modern
Germanic and the modern Latin system; and the few differences that
still exist are gradually disappearing. The unmistakable tendency of
evolution is that these two systems, so divergent in origin, will
ultimately be completely assimilated.
_Some Modern Methods for the Care of Foundlings._--It is necessary to
allude, further, to many modern methods for the care of foundlings,
some of which are applicable also in the case of neglected children.
These modern forms are--(_a_) upbringing in agricultural colonies
and training ships, (_b_) rescue homes for children, (_c_) scattered
homes (_Kindergruppen-Familiensystem_), (_d_) placing of the child
together with its mother in family care.
A rescue home for children is properly an asylum whose aim is to
undertake the upbringing of neglected children. These homes are
really a by-product of reformatory schools. In fact, the only
difference between a rescue home for children and a reformatory
school is that children are sent to the latter by a magistrate’s
order, but this is not so in the case of a rescue home.
The scattered home system originated in the endeavour to replace
the family by the formation of groups. It occupies an intermediate
position between institutional care and family care; and it is
claimed that it combines some of the advantages of institutional care
with the good effects of family life upon the character. The essence
of the system is that somewhere in the country, houses are built, or
suitable houses rented, in which the children are cared for in small
groups. There are from eight to twelve children in one house--that
is, such a number as are found in an ordinary large family. Each
house is managed by a childless couple of the superior working class,
the man being free to go to his work, while the woman devotes her
whole time to the children. The children attend the public elementary
school, associating freely with the other children; the boys in the
home are taught a trade by the man, whilst the girls are taught
housework by the woman.
The boarding out of an illegitimate child and its mother is a system
also practised in Hungary.
_The Care of Foundlings, Wet-Nursing, and Baby-Farming._--The care
of foundlings is closely connected with baby-farming and putting
children out to nurse. Children completely and permanently abandoned
by their relatives are in fact boarded out with nurses or brought up
with foster-parents. The principal difference between the Germanic
system for the care of foundlings and what is known as baby-farming
consists in this, that in the former the children are boarded out
by the administrators of the Poor Law, whilst in the latter case
it is the relatives of the children who make this arrangement for
them. The principal difference between the Latin system for the care
of foundlings and baby-farming consists in the fact that in the
former case the foundlings are in the first instance received into
a foundling hospital, whereas children sent by their relatives to a
baby-farm go there direct from their homes.
Speaking generally, children at a baby-farm are younger than those
under the care of the Poor Law authorities, for the need of putting
the former out to nurse commences with their birth. The mortality
of children at a baby-farm is usually greater than that of Poor Law
children, supervision in the case of the latter being commonly much
more effective. In most countries, State regulation of children
under the Poor Law extends only for the first few years of life,
and applies only to those boarded out for money; but supervision
may extend through the later years of childhood, and even to the
attainment of full legal age, and may apply to all the children for
whose care the local authority is responsible.
In the countries in which the Latin system for the care of
foundlings prevails--in those, that is to say, in which no
inquiry into paternity is permitted (for example, in France and
Italy)--baby-farming is less prevalent than it is in countries in
which inquiry into paternity is permitted. The reason for this
is that in these latter countries a much larger proportion of
unmarried mothers receive from the natural fathers an allowance
for the maintenance of their children, and therefore a much larger
proportion of illegitimate children in these countries are farmed
out for pay. At the present day, the requirements with which the
nurses and foster-parents have to comply in the case of all children
(alike those farmed out by their relatives and those boarded out by
the local authorities) are much the same in all countries; and there
is the same general similarity in the matter of the principles of
supervision and in that of the supervising authority. The tendency of
evolution is that all the nurses and all the foster-parents should be
supervised by the same authority, and in accordance with identical
principles.
_Institutional Care_ versus _Family Care_.--If the child is not cared
for in its own home, the question arises, is recourse to be had
to institutional care or to family care (close or open care). The
following are the objections to institutional care.
(_a_) It does not readily allow proper attention to be paid to the
individuality of each child. The care of the emotional life is a
matter of especial difficulty. It is utterly impossible that all the
children in an institution should be truly and individually loved.
To pay a preference to individual children arouses jealousy. In an
institution the children learn nothing about the daily experiences
of family life (for example, the difficulties of earning a living,
troubles small and great); on the other hand, occurrences which
profoundly disturb the life of the family (illness and death, for
example) are matters of daily experience in the life of institutions.
(_b_) In the institution the child never experiences absolute
freedom. On the contrary, it feels itself subject to unceasing
control.
(_c_) Epidemic diseases spread very readily.
(_d_) A few bad children may readily communicate unwholesome ideas
and practices to the others.
(_e_) In institutional life, the children learn nothing of the vital
needs of daily life, or of the difficulties of the struggle for
existence; and yet it is all the more necessary that they should
learn something about these matters, inasmuch as in their subsequent
life they will presumably have a hard struggle for their daily bread.
Whatever the child really needs, it receives in the institution;
thus an idea arises in its mind that there is some higher power
which cares for all these things. The child has to make no effort,
no sacrifices are exacted from it; in the institution, tests of the
child’s power of resistance, such as might strengthen it to meet the
temptations of the outer world, are few and far between, for from the
temptations of the outer world it is sheltered by the walls of the
institution.
(_f_) The institution is not adapted to provide for the complete
education of a child--for the learning of a trade. It is absolutely
necessary that institutional care should be supplemented by work
under a master, in a technical school or teaching workshop.
(_g_) Institutional care is costlier than family care.
(_h_) Only family care can replace for a child the loss of its own
family. Family care is the only natural method of upbringing, whereas
the best possible institutional care is purely mechanical, full of
defects, and cannot possibly replace a free life. In a sense, the
institution is indeed a large family. But in the free life, outside
the particular family to which the child belongs, there are thousands
of others, communicating and competing with one another. No such
competition exists in the institution; the child’s work there is
purely mechanical, but as soon as it enters the open world, the child
has to seek work, and often fails to find it.
(_i_) The State lays down the principles in accordance with which
the foster-parents must bring up the child, and sees that the
foster-parents have access to expert advice concerning every
department of the hygiene of childhood. The State insists that
whenever necessary the foster-children shall have medical aid,
that the children shall attend the elementary school, &c. If the
foster-parents apply these principles properly in their care of
the foster-children, they are likely to take care that their own
children are treated at least equally well. And if, in any community,
these principles are applied cordially and intelligently by the
foster-parents, it is probable that the other parents of the same
community will follow this good example.
(_k_) Statistical data show, moreover, that family care gives better
results than institutional care, alike physically, mentally, and
morally.
(_l_) With regard to the alleged defects of family care (such as
that foster-children are less well treated than the foster-parents’
own children, that they are exploited by the foster-parents, that
suitable foster-parents are hard to find), these can readily be
overcome.
From these considerations it would appear that only in special
circumstances is institutional care necessary or desirable. In the
case, for instance, of children physically or mentally ill, we
cannot dispense with institutional care. Moreover, institutions are
necessary as a supplement to the system of family care--institutions
having the characteristics of a depot and an asylum. Such depots are
indispensable, if only for the reason that orphans immediately after
the loss of their parents are in a condition of mingled depression
and excitement, and must, therefore, before being boarded with a
family, be calmed and strengthened for a time by a sojourn in an
institution.
As a result of all these considerations, the tendency of evolution is
to replace institutional care by a form of family care in which the
foster-parents are supervised from a central depot, which serves also
for the temporary institutional care of children needing such care.
Whereas formerly institutional upbringing was the dominant method,
to-day family upbringing has become of much greater importance.
_Supervision of Family Care._--The modern State no longer regards
the family care of children by others than their own parents as a
purely private matter. A few decades ago, to receive children in
this way for pay was an open profession, but it is so no longer.
The local authorities regulate the matter in detail, defining very
precisely the standard of life of the boarded-out child and the
methods of supervision; and, as a result of this intervention, the
scandalous mortality attendant upon the old-time baby-farming is now
largely a thing of the past. Where children are received in family
care for pay, the intention is that these children should have all
the advantages of the natural care they would have obtained in their
own families. Thus, as far as possible, the child should remain
permanently with the same family. In actual fact, a proportion of
the children committed to family care do permanently remain with
their foster-parents--a proportion are indeed adopted. Since the
children are as a rule the offspring of poor parents, and inasmuch
as well-to-do people rarely trouble themselves to undertake the
upbringing of other people’s children, the foster-parents will
themselves usually be poor. But they must not be extremely poor,
for if this were so, even though the remuneration were ample,
the greater part of the money would be used by them for their
own purposes, to the consequent detriment of the child. But the
foster-parents usually want to make some profit. In many countries
they have to demonstrate that there is no absolute financial
necessity for them to receive a boarded-out child. It is as well,
in any case, that the social position of the foster-parents should
be at least a trifle higher than that of the real parents of the
child. Persons in receipt of public assistance are not suitable as
foster-parents.
The foster-mother must not have too much to do, apart from her work
for the child; and, above all, she should not be employed away from
the house. It is necessary that the foster-parents should lead an
orderly, decent life, that they should be really fond of children,
that they should have a proper knowledge of how to bring up children,
and that they should live in a suitable house. The remuneration
must be reasonably high. If it is too low, the child will not be
properly cared for, will not get enough to eat, will very probably
be ill-treated and exploited. It has been statistically demonstrated
that the death-rate of boarded-out children is inversely proportional
to the amount paid for their care. The foster-parents are supervised
by the local authority. Medical practitioners are the chief executive
instruments of this supervision. Supervision by members of the laity
is inadequate, for these do not pay sufficient attention to hygienic
considerations. Voluntary honorary workers are also unsuitable,
for the reason that years of experience are requisite to a proper
knowledge of the conditions we are considering, and voluntary
officers will not face the unpleasantnesses incident to efficient
inspection.
It is a very important question whether the family care of children
can better be carried out in country districts or in towns. Children
who are no longer quite young cannot in any case be sent to the
country, for they will already have acquired the usual preference
of their class for town life. The following reasons are adduced
for preferring family care in the country:--(_a_) In large towns,
or in the neighbourhood of such towns, owing to the high rents,
the foster-parents will not have a suitable dwelling. (_b_) The
children must be kept at a distance from the dangerous influences of
town life, and, it may be, also from the influence of undesirable
relatives living in the town. (_c_) We ought to counteract the
drift of population into the town, and we can do this by sending
these children back to the country. (_d_) In the interest of the
agricultural districts, which suffer from insufficient labour, it is
desirable that these children should become agricultural labourers.
In answer to these arguments, the following points have to be
considered:--(_a_) When the children grow up, they will be influenced
by the general drift from the country towards the towns, and whereas
they will probably have learned no skilled trade in the country, the
great majority of them will fall into the ranks of the unskilled
labourers. (_b_) From the hygienic standpoint, it is important to
remember that the town population is more intelligent, and that in
towns medical aid is more readily available. Unquestionably, in the
country, the only foster-parents available would be agricultural
labourers and other manual labourers. In any case, this question
cannot be decided on general principles, but only on a consideration
of the needs of the individual case, with especial reference to the
question whether the child shows an inclination towards agricultural
work or manufacturing industry.
_Subsidiary Aims of the Care of Foundlings._--The care of foundlings
is utilised by the civil order for the attainment of its ends. This
system renders possible the upbringing of submissive proletarians,
immunised against socialist ideas, who can be enlisted in the
reserve army of labour. From the very earliest times the existence
of foundling hospitals has been justified on the ground that through
their instrumentality persons were brought up who could devote their
time, their working powers, and their life wholly to the State.
In the beginning of the nineteenth century, children under the
care of the English Poor Law were hired out to the factory owners.
In Germany, among the arguments for the introduction of coercive
reformatory education, it was pointed out that by this means cheaper
labour could be provided for those agricultural districts in which
labour was scarce. In Hungary, where a few years ago modern laws
for child-protection were passed, it is constantly pointed out
as the task of child-protection to bring up the children as “good
patriots.” For this reason children are boarded out with “patriotic”
foster-parents only, and in districts where a strong Hungarian
nationalist feeling prevails, boarded-out children are hardly ever
to be found. In the history of this institution, we encounter again
and again the idea that foundlings should be brought up as soldiers,
sailors, or colonial pioneers. Napoleon the First wished to make
use of foundlings for recruiting the army, and especially for the
marines. He did much to secure that in every arrondissement in
France, foundling hospitals with turn-tables should be instituted;
and he even arranged for the foundation of such institutions in the
various countries he conquered. Quite recently the idea has once
more recurred to utilise foundling hospitals and orphan asylums as
recruiting grounds for the army and the navy, and with this end in
view to combine these institutions with military and naval training
schools.
For the attainment of these ends, the civil order has laid down the
principle that from the first the children shall be brought up with
an eye to the conditions awaiting them in the future--hard work,
deprivation, and poverty. But this principle is only partially
sound. Undoubtedly the child must be habituated to regular work,
for only in this way will work be other than distasteful. But the
child should be taught in such a way as to safeguard it from the lot
of the great mass of unskilled labourers. The standard of life of
boarded-out children should be a good one; for only if the child has
been accustomed to such a standard, will it be spurred, after it had
become independent, to secure the same standard by its own exertions.
In the case of boarded-out children who have already begun to work
for wages, the attempt on the part of employers to pay them at a
specially low rate must be strenuously resisted. The reason given
in such cases by the employers, that these children need much more
attention than other young workpeople, is invalid. The wage in such
cases should be the standard wage of the district for other workers
doing the same class of work, as otherwise the young people feel
exploited and oppressed. The rightful aim is thus to lift foundlings
out of the lower strata into the higher strata of wage-labour.
_The Tendency of Evolution._--(_a_) Baby-farming is distinguished
from the care of foundlings only by the fact that in the former the
children are entrusted to foster-parents by their relatives instead
of by the local authorities. (_b_) The various systems for the care
of foundlings tend to become continually more similar. The general
tendency in every case is to have recourse to a system of family care
supervised by the same administrative authority. (_c_) There is a
tendency to assimilate the upbringing of neglected and of criminal
children, and to adopt for both the same methods of family care
and the same kind of supervision. (_d_) The same remarks apply in
the case of children who have become legally liable to a coercive
reformatory education. (_e_) In course of time the supervision of the
foster-parents--indifferently whether the children committed to their
care are materially or morally neglected or criminal children, and
whether they are boarded out by the children’s relatives or by the
local authorities--comes to be exercised by the same administrative
authority and in accordance with the same principles.
To-day, baby-farming represents the first stage of evolution, the
Latin system for the care of foundlings the second, the Germanic
system the third, coercive reformatory education the fourth, the
education of criminal children the fifth. In a comparatively short
time all the different branches of child-protection will come to
stand at the same level, and in so far as they relate to children
neglected by their relatives, in whatever manner, they will all take
the same form of family care, under a unified centralised control,
and supervised locally by the same administrative authority.