The Columbian. [volume] (Bloomsburg, Pa.) 1866-1910, 1909-09-09
HOW AUSTRALIA
CARESF0R ORPHANS
A Real Home for Every One,
with the State Acting as
Supervising Parent
HAVE NO ASyLURS OVER THERE
Chicago Physicians Contrasts the Two
Systems to the Great Disadvantage
cf ours-The States Guardian
Cand-Reasonable and Humane.

rand-Reasonabe and Humane,
Chicago.--Dr. Bayard Holmes, a
Chicago physician, in an article en-
titled "A Continent Without an Or
phan Asylum" attacks the methods
OF caring for orphans in the United
States and lauds the Australian sys-
TEN as ideal He says in part:
I'm all things, social as well as geo.
graphical, is the Commonwealth of
Australia antipodal to US. The COM
mon law OF England prevails there,
modified by 301 years Of English and
d less number of Australian common
sense Our statutes, if not our State
Constitutions, make our common law
rest where the English common law
was in 1907. But more than this, Aus
tralia has a flexible Constitution, and
a people who demand decent and rea-
sonable legislation and its honest exc
cItion.
This Is illustrated most compre-
rensiyely by the treatment of the
fatheriess arl .o:ler.ess infant. In
all this great continent embracing g.
GOO COO square miles and this fedora
ton of seven commonwealths there is
no. an orphan or an orphan asylum,
there is not a baby farm or found
ling asylum, there is not a private
eleemosynary body exploiting the IA
therless and motherless. No commun-
ity in that great continent has its feel
lngs. sentiments, or complacency out
ragged by periodic exposures Of the
enormous death rates in monastery
ike structures where children are
huddled in the name Of charity.
"It is this way: Every fatherless
and motherless child is a child Of the
State. The Children's Council, which
is department Of State, at once pro-
vides a father and mother for the
child of the State. Suppose baby is
found by the police. 1t is at once
taken to the home of a woman desig.
rated by the Children's Council for
70 service in that precinct. The
=. day the child is taken before
Judge of the Juvenile Court, when
necessary legal records are made.
proper officer of the Children's
Jncil then places the child in the
rs of foster mother, who cares
Tor and nurses the child.
Every week the officer of the coun
ell visits the infant, and at regular
intervals the council physician and q
voluntary organization sends also its
visitor with delicacies in the way o.
clothing. Records are kept at the
office of the council, and the foster
mother is paid from the treasury o.
the council weekly stipend.
AS the infant grows older he i.
placed in home, preferably in the
country where the same inspection
continues and a smaller stipend i:
paid. The child goes TO school anC
the teacher reports to the Children
Council as to a parent At last th'
child hires out TO work a part of eacl
year. The salary is deposited in th'
Postal Savings Bank 10 the child
credit. The regular schooling con
tinues, however. The child become
ambitious, wishes to go trade schoo
or to preparatory school. He al
plies to the Childrens Council 70
permission to draw his savings from
the bank for that purpose. The Cour
ell acts as parent would.
mo more interesting or hear
warming literature can be read tina
the formal and perfunctory reports G
the Children's Council. But We 6
on here building stone and brick Of
phan asylums in which the death rat
is incredible among the children. Tn
Baptist, the Methodist. and every otl
er Christian denomination still has il
orphan asylum, conducted by boart
and funds are called for in the nam
of charity, if not in the name {
Christ. The reports do not show tn
death rate, the terrible condition {
the survivors mutilated by the infect
GUS diseases and dwarfed by institl
tionalism.
When these same children brougf
up in hotel-like structures arrive {
an age when they ought to be sci
supporting they are forced out INTO
world OF which they know nothin
They cannot build a fire, fill or ligl
"a kerosene lamp, cook the simplet
meal, or do the commonest chore
The boys cannot do the barn wor
the girls cannot do the housework
a common home.
Neither make good servants, ar
in the factory they can run only Il
simplest machines. They are neith'
strong, quick, nor well. They are
reparably untitled for modern or 9TH
life.
I'VE are richer than Australi
Can't we be as reasonable and as h
maneY Every child is entitled to
mother, father and home"
i,.~e liz, TAun TnNns AZ OhHA