The citizen. (Honesdale, Pa.) 1908-1914, 1910-01-14
HOW AUSTRALIA
CARESFOR ORPHANS
A Real Home for Every One,
with the State Acting as a
Supervising Parent
HAVE NO ASYLUMS OVER THERE
Chicago Physicians Contrasts the Two
Systems to the Great Disadvantage
Of Ours-The States Guardian
Band-Reasonable 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:
In 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
a 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 1867. But more than this, Aus
tralia has a flexible Constitution, and
q people who demand decent and rea-
sonable legislation and its honest exc
cution.
This is illustrated most compre.
hensively by the treatment of the
fatherless and motherless infant. In
all this great continent embracing g.
100000 square miles and this fedora
tion of seven commonwealths there is
not 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
ings, sentiments, or complacency out
ragged by periodic exposures of the
TO- in 4ar
like structures where children are
huddled in the name of charity.
1T is this way: Every fatherless
and motherless child is a child of the
State The Children's Council, which
is a department of State, at once pro
Vides a father and mother for the
child of the State. Suppose a baby is
found by the police. 1t is at once
taken to the home of woman desig-
mated by the Childrens Council for
that service in that precinct. The
next day the child is taken before
the Judge of the Juvenile Court, when
the necessary legal records are made.
The proper officer Of the Children'g
Council then places the child in the
arms of a foster mother, who cares
for and nurses the child.
Every week the officer of the coun.
Gil visits the infant, and at regular
intervals the council physician and a
voluntary organization sends also its
visitor with deliCaCies in the way of
clothing. Records are kept at the
Office of the council, and the foster
mother is paid from the treasury of
the council weekly stipend.
"As the infant grows older he is
placed in a home, preferably in the
country, where the same inspection
continues and a smaller stipend is
paid. The child goes to school and
the teacher reports to the Childrens
Council as to a parent. At last the
child hires out to work part of each
year. The salary is deposited in the
Postal Savings Bank to the child's
credit. The regular schooling con
tinues, however The child becomes
ambitious, wishes to go a trade school
or TO a preparatory school. He ap
plies to the Children's Council fol
permission to draw his savings from
the bank for that purpose, The Coun
Gil acts as a parent would.
mo more interesting or hear
warming literature can be read thar
the formal and perfunctory reports o
the Childrens Council. But we q
on here building stone and brick or
phan asylums in which the death rat
is incredible among the children. Tn,
ath
er Christian denomination Ctill has it
orphan asylum, conducted by board
and funds are called for in the nam
of charity, if not in the name o
Christ. The reports do not show tn
death rate, the terrible condition o
the survivors mutilated by the infect
Gus diseases and dwarfed by inst,tU
tionalism.
When these same children brough
up in hotel-like structures arrive a
an age when they ought TO be sell
supporting they are forced out into
world of which they know nothing
They cannot build a fire. Ill or ligh
a kerosene lamp cook the simples
meal, or do the Commonest chores
The boys cannot do the barn worl
the girls cannot do the housework {
a common home,
Neither make good servants, an
IN the factory they can run only th
simplest machines They are neithC
strong, quick, nor well. They are
reparably untitled for modern or oth'
life
I'VE are richer than Australi
Can't we be as reasonable and as h
name? Every child is entitled to
mother. a father and home"
A f,,a, IA, T,uo Towns al Once