The Elements of Child-protection

by Sigmund Engel

(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.