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 Unrestricted and secret reception of infants has been replaced by restricted and public reception; institutional care has given place to external care; natural feeding, wherever possible, is preferred to artificial feeding.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.