Rock Island Argus. (Rock Island, Ill.) 1893-1920, 1916-05-29
FRANCE MAY keep
| |TSWAR ORPHANS
Official Declares Country Will Not
Export Any Of the Children
Made Homeless.
STATE WILL CARE FOR THEM ALL
Under Present Plans There VIII Be
None Open to Foreign Adoption
As Was Reported.

neutrality-suspicious. Of the AS
ISOLATED Press -"France is not going
to export any of its war orphans" said
Monsieur Alfred Croiset. head of the
Faculty OF Letters of the Sorbonne,
explaining the participation of Ameri-
cans In the work of the Orphanage of
Armies of which he is president Il
know a statement was published re-
Gently to the effect that 10000 Amer
lean families had offered to adopt or
phans of the war. The number was a
little exaggerated, and the word adop-
ton used in its general sense was
misleading. Orphans of the war SO
far as it is possible are to remain in
their families, especially when the
mother is living. Where there are no
| immediate relatives to take care of
| them, they are to be placed in other
French families and ultimately will
be cared for by the state until their
majority; none of them is available
| for adoption under the common &C
ceptation of the term.
Most of the Americans who have
expressed the desire to participate in
| this work understand this point quite
| well; in fact, in our correspondence
the majority of the letters from the
| United States express the desire that
the children which they agree to sup
port should remain in their families.
The supposition that there are 900
American families wanting to take
care of orphans arose no doubt from
| the fact that we were asked by Amer
leans as to about how many war Or
phans there were needing assistance,
and we put the number at 10000.
This, of course, does not comprise all
Of the war orphans. They were esti-
mated recently in a.debate in the SEN
ate by Senator Jenouvrier at 100000,
| which of course included half-orphans.
| but a great proportion of these will
never become objects of charitable
work and the exact number may never
| be precisely determined.
| Committees have been organized in
a great many American cities to re-
! ceive propositions of families, not to
adopt orphans. but to support them in
their own surroundings for a period
of two years, which is supposed will
go beyond the end of the war and car
! ~ them to the time when the meas
ures taken by the government for the
care of orphans become effective. All
the people in France connected with
this movement have been deeply touch
ed by the generous ardor of Ameri-
cans in this work. We have received
many thousand letters, the numbers
are increasing every day, from fami-
| lies who want to enter into direct
communication with orphans and start
correspondence with them so as to
follow them until such time as they
need no further help.
THE plan of the Orphanage of the
Army is to bring these children up
without making them feel that they
are objects of charity, without with
drawing them from their usual en-
vironment except when that environ
ment is bad. We support them in
their own homes with contributions
Of money, clothing, books, pending
the organization of official means OF
providing for them. We are aided
largely in this work by pupils of the
public schools. There are about 49,
600 different schools in France, and
the children of each school contribute
their sous for the support of an Or
phan. Eventually each one of these
schools will have a ward as its
| charge"