Child-placing in families; a manual for students and social workers

Chapter I A BRIEF HISTORY OF CHILD-PLACING The Family

Ancient Tribal Conditions Ancient Cities and Nations Code of Hammurabi The Jews Greece and Rome Early Christian Conditions Method of Early Christian Church Child-caring Institutions The Modern Period Renaissance of Child Welfare Work French Boarding-out System The Teutonic Empires Dr. Barnardo's Homes and Child-placing American Organizations Modern Jewish Work in America Extent and Variety of Work

Chapter II

MODERN CHILD-PLACING DEFINED Legal Definition A Working Definition Corollaries

25 25 26 26 26

27 28 28

29 29

30 32 32 33 35 35 37 38

40 40 40 4'

,0

Chapter III Organization Elements and Relations 43

Some Operating Essentials 46

Better Work Demanded 48

Private Organizations for States 48

Other Private Organizations 50

1 . Nonsectarian Agencies 50

2. Denominational Agencies 51 Public Child-placing Agencies 5 1 Juvenile Courts and Child-placing 53 New York Children's Home Bureau 55 State Boards of Children's Guardians 56 Institutional Child-placing 58

Chapter IV Classes by Causes 60

Neglected Children 61

Dependent Children 62

1 . Deserted Children 63

2. Foundlings 63

3. Needy Children 64

4. Orphans 65 Delinquent Children 65 Defective Children 67

1. Physical Defectives 68

2. Mental Defectives 69 Psychology and Classification 69 Mental Defectives Specially Classified , 73

74 74 74 74 75 76

I. Idiots

I dio- Imbeciles

Imbeciles

Morons

Dullards

3rr

nal Children Sometimes Placeable

Chapter V What Reception Involves

Receptions According to Function

Sacredness of the Work

Requests to Receive Children

Taking Children from Parents

Reception Sources i . The Courts

2. Poor Officials

3. Relatives and Friends

4. Other Agencies

Case Study

Medical Examination Needed

Detailed Diagnosis

1. Study of the Family

2. Study of the Child Itself

Accurate Records Needed

Formal Reception

Reception on Surrenders

Reception by Default

Reception by Favor

Court Process Best Basis

Papers and Records

9«

Official Reception

Co-operation and Reassignments

Personal Reception

Chapter VI Physical Essentials

1. Central Location

2. Site

3. Buildings

PAGE

Type of Buildings 97

1. Single Buildings 97

2. Cottage Group Plans 98

a. Two Cottage Plan 98

b. Three Cottage^Plan 100 Working Force 101

1. General Employes 101

2. Medical Staff 102

3. Psychologist 103 Physical Care of Wards 103

1 10

1 1 1

I.

Dietary Dining Room

Milk Supply Bathing Facilities Toilet Articles

Dormitories

Care of Infants

Clothing

Cleanliness

Children's Activities

Work

2. 3-

Play Education

Religious Privileges

Chapter VII General Placing-out 1 1 2

Discussion of Methods 1 13

Obtaining Applications 1 1 5

Illustrative Examples of Selection 1 16

1. Children's Aid Society of Pennsylvania 1 16

2. Illinois Children's Home and Aid Society 1 17 Indirect Selection 119 Replacements 119 Final Tests of Quality 121

Chapter VIII SELECTION AND PLACEMENT OF CHILDREN Personal Visits Necessary Types of Children Personal and Racial Selection Types of Placement

i . Boarding Homes

2. Ffee Homes

3. Working Homes Sending Children to Homes First Impressions Important Sex of Placing-out Agents Placing-out Standards Relatives and Placed-out Children

1 . Children in Boarding Homes

2. Children in Free Homes Guardianship and Consent to Adoption Laws and Decisions

1. Illinois

2. Idaho

3. Massachusetts Trained Workers Required

Chapter IX ADEQUATE SUPERVISION Supervision by Agencies Basis in Boston and Elsewhere The Golden Mean Supervision by Leading Agencies Studied

1 . Number of Children to Visitor

2. Variation for Free, Boarding, and Working

Homes

3. Average Numbers in Desired Standards

4. Frequency of Visitation Aids in Supervision

A Few Essentials State Supervision

1 1

143 143 144 144 145 145

145 146 146

147 148 149

PAGE

Purposes of State Supervision 149

Declaration of White House Conference 1 50

State Supervisory Boards 1 50

1 . State Board of Charities System 1 5 1

2. State Board of Control System 151

3. State Commissioner or Department System 152

4. Director of Public Welfare System 1 52 State Research Bureaus 155

2. Iowa 156 Codes to Replace Legal Chaos 157 Essentials of State Supervision 160

Part Three Special Classes, Arguments, Andiforecasts

Chapter X

Numbers of Illegitimates 165

Results of Social Ostracism 166

Commercial Lying-in Homes 166

Disposition of Unwanted Children 168

Traffic in Children 168

General Social Program 170

Norway's New Law 1 72

Minnesota's New Code 173

Present Problems 174

The Negative Side 174

Foundling Asylums Fail 174

Combined Care Institutions 176

Foster Homes 176

Chapter XI

JUVENILE WAR DEPENDENTS 178

Policy of the American Red Cross 178

Institutional Care of Children of Soldiers 181

Chapter XII

PAGE i. Its Normality

2. Its Economy

3. Its Availability

.87

4. Its Universality

5. Its Ultimate Necessity

Summary

Chapter XIII

Four Elements

1 . The Children

2. The Homes

3. The Organizations

4. The Methods

The Public Interested

Personal Views of Leading Workers

The Agency Point of View i . Florida — Marcus C. Fagg

2. Illinois — Wilfred S. Reynolds

3. Iowa — A. T. Burnell

4. Kansas — D. F. Shirk

6. C. C. Carstens

7. Minnesota — S. W. Dickinson

8. Missouri — C. C. Stahmann

9. New York — Homer Folks

10. North Dakota— Frank D. Hall

1 1 . Ohio— C. V. Williams

12. Washington — Marion Johnson

The~ Institutional Point of View

1. New York — Ludwig B. Bernstein

2. R. R. Reeder

3. Ohio— S. D. Watts

4. E. J. Henry «3

PAGE

Conclusion 2 1 3

1. Active Workers 214

2. Members of Boards 214

3. Interest of Society at Large 214

4. Right Legislation and Supervision 214

PART FOUR APPENDICES, BIBLIOGRAPHY, AND INDEX Appendices

A. Twentieth Century Terminology 219

B. Building a Definition of Child-placing 224

C. Extracts from Laws and Supreme Court Decisions 227

D. The Tennessee Child Welfare Law 233

SELECTED BIBLIOGRAPHY 244

INDEX 249

LIST OF ILLUSTRATIONS

(Arranged alphabetically according to location of organization headquarters)

Boston

Boston Children's Aid Society PA

Brother and Sister in a Foster Home Frontispiece

Boarded-out Because Her Mother is 111 Typical Boarding Home in the Country

New England Home for Little Wanderers Receiving Home and Clinical Laboratory

Chicago

Illinois Children's Home and Aid Society Evanston Receiving Home Floor Plans

Des Moines

Iowa Children's Home Society

Receiving Home and Central Office

Jacksonville

Florida Children's Home Society

"Somewhere in Florida" — A Fine Foster Home

The Foster Mother

The Foster Children — Brother and Sister

Los Angeles

Children's Home Society of California

Receiving Home — Society Headquarters

A Foster Home

Interior of Foster Home, Highland, Cal.

New York

Children's Aid Society of the City of New York Typical Group at the Receiving Home A Neglected Boy Results — After Eight Years in Good Family Homes

State Charities Aid Association of New York A Child From This Shack Went to This Fine Free Home Happy in the Country Twin Girls and Their Excellent Free Home

LIST OF ILLUSTRATIONS

Philadelphia pagb Children's Aid Society of Pennsylvania

A Sample Foster Home 1 12b

A Happy Adopted Boy 1 12b

As Child Was Received 1 12b

Same Child Four Months Later 1 12b

Seattle

Washington Children's Home Society

Superintendent^ Residence and Receiving^Home 200b

Worcester

Worcester Children's Friend Society

A Boarding Home in the Country 50a

Preface

CHILD-PLACING in families is an important branch of organized child welfare work. It is an approved method of providing for destitute and homeless children. It possesses a technique as definite as that of any other branch of social service. Experts in social betterment show a constantly increasing interest in its ideals and in its practical operation.

Up to this time child-placing in families has received only incidental treatment in social service publications. Several conference reports and many special papers devoted to the subject, as well as numerous paragraphs and short sections on home-finding and placing-out, are to be found in books on related themes. But more extended treatment is desirable. Child-placing should have a theoretical and practical literature of its own. The present volume is an effort to treat the subject in one publication with a fair degree of completeness.

The progress of the world war and the entrance of the United States as a direct participant presage an immense increase in juvenile dependents for many years to come. In addition to national and state pensions and insurance, and in co-operation with such public provisions for dependents, it is probable that accommodations in private institutions and the facilities of all organizations for child-caring for a long time will be taxed to the utmost. The author suggests that child-placing in families, properly strengthened and standardized, will afford a practical and satisfactory method of providing for all normal juvenile war dependents who cannot be cared for by parents or other near relatives.

It is with the object of meeting the needs and guiding the action of those engaged in this national service that the following manual has been written. It represents nineteen years of work and study by the author in this field. Many topics are only briefly outlined, and various important subjects, such as financing the work of private agencies, are omitted entirely. Yet it is hoped that students and social workers will find the book informing and helpful.

Child-placing in Families was selected as the title of this manual

AUTHOR S PREFACE

because the term seems to be the best and most comprehensive for the work described. Broader than "home-finding," a term very generally used in the Middle West and on the Pacific coast, it includes both "boarding-out" and "placing-out," terms widely used in all parts of the Union. It also includes "placing with kin," meaning the child's immediate family, and is therefore both suitable and comprehensive — one that will be understood in every section of the United States.

A definition of terms and a bibliography are inserted at the close of the book. As the use of some of the terms here listed varies in different parts of the Union, a preliminary study of this section will materially aid the reader in an understanding of the text. The bibliography was purposely kept small, so as not to discourage the student by a long and imposing array of titles; but each title represents a book or article directly related to the subject under consideration, and the list includes a vast amount of practical information for child welfare workers. Most of the books and pamphlets are very recent publications. The writer has drawn freely upon them, as the notes referring to direct quotations or condensations testify.

Many social workers have given substantial aid and counsel in the preparation of the volume. Among those to whom the writer feels especially indebted are the following: C. C. Carstens, Frederic H. Knight, J. Prentice Murphy, and Miss Helen A. Woods, of Massachusetts; Ludwig B. Bernstein, R. R. Reeder, Homer Folks, and C. Spencer Richardson, of New York; E. D. Solenberger, and Mrs. Martha P. Falconer, of Pennsylvania; W. J. Maybee, of Virginia; Marcus C. Fagg, of Florida; E. J. Henry, S. D. Watts, and C. V. Williams, of Ohio; George R. Bedinger, of Michigan; Wilfred S. Reynolds, of Illinois; A. T. Burnell, of Iowa; C. C. Stahmann, of Missouri; D. F. Shirk, of Kansas; S. W. Dickinson, of Minnesota; Frank D. Hall, of South Dakota; J. W. Flesher, of Montana; and Marion Johnson, of Washington. To these 24 child welfare workers sincere thanks and appreciation are here expressed, and thanks are also extended to as many others, in various parts of the United States, who have provided helpful material.

W. H. Slingerland. 18

Introduction

By HASTINGS H. HART, LL.D.

THE plan of placing-out dependent and neglected children in family homes, temporarily or permanently, has become well established; and it is generally recognized that, as a rule, a carefully selected family home is to be preferred to an institution as an abiding place for such a child, especially in the case of young children.

The use of foster homes for the permanent care of orphan children, or children whose parents are permanently unable or unfit to care for them, has had the strongest endorsement. As long ago as 1899 Hon. Thomas M. Mulry, of the St. Vincent de Paul Society, as Chairman of the Committee on the Care of Destitute and Neglected Children in the National Conference of Charities and Correction, discussing the report of the committee of the preceding year, declared that "The preponderance of opinion seemed to be in favor of placing the children in good homes where such could be found and the circumstances warranted such action being taken." Mr. Mulry favored institutional "care of those children who are prevented by circumstances from being placed in homes/' but he said in the report of the Committee: "There are homes in abundance throughout our cities, our towns, our farming sections, for every orphan child, if the people will but open their hearts and brighten their homes by studying in what way they may best show their love for their less fortunate fellow beings."

The famous White House Conference on the Care of Dependent Children, held at Washington, D. C, in January, 1909, included about 200 representatives of orphanages, children's homes, children's aid societies, societies for the prevention of cruelty to children, juvenile courts, and other agencies from all parts of the United States and representing various religious faiths. The Conference adopted unanimously a series of Conclusions, including the following:

"Home-Finding: As to the children who for sufficient reasons

INTRODUCTION

must be removed from their own homes, or who have no homes, it is desirable that, if normal in mind and body and not requiring special training, they should be cared for in families whenever practicable. The carefully selected foster home is for the normal child the best substitute for the natural home/'

The use of foster homes for the care of children whose parents are in temporary distress but who may be able to resume their care later is less common than their use for permanent care, but it already prevails widely in Massachusetts, New Jersey, Maryland, and Pennsylvania, and is gradually extending into other states. It has been tested with gratifying success on a large scale by the Department of Public Charities of the City of New York.

This method also was noted by Mr. Mulry in his report of 1899, when he said: "It is the opinion of some interested in the work that the payment of board in families would facilitate securing good homes for all children to be placed out." It was noted also in the Conclusions of the White House Conference as follows: " For the temporary, or more or less permanent, care of such children different methods are in use, notably the plan of placing them in families, paying for their board, and the plan of institutional care. Contact with family life is preferable for these children as well as for other normal children. It is necessary, however, that a large number of carefully selected boarding homes be found if these children are to be cared for in families. . . . Unless and until such homes are found, the use of institutions is necessary."

The author of Child-placing in Families has undertaken to reduce to terms the principles and standards of approved child-placing. He speaks with authority, having had eleven years of actual experience in the work, and eight years more in which he has watched that of others. He has also made use of the advice and criticism of those engaged in the same undertaking.

After having watched for thirty-five years the working of the plan of placing-out children and having shared in it for ten years, the writer of this introduction is keenly alive to the need of such a manual. Heretofore there has been no text book for the guidance of those who are called to take up this complex and delicate task. They have simply had to "learn by hard knocks" and the poor children have had to suffer for the mistakes made.

INTRODUCTION

There has not even been agreement in different parts of the country as to what was meant by "child-placing." In some communities it is applied chiefly to the boarding-out of children in family homes; in others, almost exclusively to the placing of children in free homes without the payment of board. As the author points out, some of the agencies which have placed-out children have not even been willing to admit that they did this work.

Heretofore there have been no established standards. The most active and best organized agencies have gradually come, it is true, to agree on many points; but, even among these, diverse views are held on such important matters as the need for receiving homes, the number of children that can be cared for by one agent, and whether unmarried mothers should be urged to care for their own children, and, if so, for how long. But there are many agencies, institutions, and individuals who dispose of children, body and soul, with little more thought or conscience than they would give to the disposal of surplus kittens or puppies. It is to be hoped that this book may help to awaken the public conscience on this subject.

The historical study in Chapter I brings out the fact that placing children in family homes is a well-accredited plan of ancient standing, and that it was used by many orphanages in Europe and America long before Mr. Brace in New York and Dr. Barnardo in London organized their great child-placing societies.

The author shows conclusively that child-placing is a most technical and responsible work, to be properly done only by people of a high degree of judgment, conscience, and training. He wisely opposes the employment of inexperienced or sentimental people, emphasizing the fact that the little children who must be given over to the care of strangers are in no way to blame for their sad plight, have no volition as to what is to be done with them, and depend entirely for their welfare, happiness, and future opportunity upon the faithfulness and skill with which the task of placing them is performed. We are under double obligation, therefore, to guarantee the quality of the agents who are to undertake it.

Dr. Slingerland justly urges the need of thorough case work in order to find out, first, what children are proper subjects for the

INTRODUCTION

child-placing method, and what ones have parents or relatives who can and ought to care for them, as well as those disqualified by disease or mental weakness; second, the kind of treatment, medical, educational, or vocational, and the kinds of homes they need in order to insure their future. It is probably fair to say that, out of about 1,500 institutions and agencies in the United States which place children in family homes, not 25 are doing such case work as would be recognized as adequate by any well-trained worker.

The manual makes it plain that the selection of the foster home is a crucial matter — not only a home which may be suitable for some child but the home that is best suited to the needs of the particular child in hand. It appears also that there is danger of mistake in selection; the possession of wealth or social standing, or even the philanthropic impulse of the prospective foster parents does not always prove that the home is one to be chosen for the particular boy or girl in hand. It is made plain also that the careful fitting of the child to the home and the forming of happy relations between it and the foster parents, at the outset, are indispensable in order to insure a good result.

The faithful watch-care of the child in the foster home is seen to be the essential corollary of the child-placing method. We recognize the guilt of the father, perhaps out of work, who deserts his family, and of the mother who abandons her baby; but what shall be said of the conduct of a voluntary association which, having put a child into the home of strangers, leaves it for one or two or three years without once trying to learn whether it is well treated and the foster parents are doing their duty? Yet there are scores of placing-out agencies which grossly neglect to meet this imperative trust.

Hastings H. Hart.

Part I Historical And General Basis

We are born to be grouped together and brooded by love, and reared day by day in that first of churches, the family. — Henry Ward Beecher.

He who helps a child helps humanity with a distinctness, with an immediateness, which no other help, given in any other stage of human life, can possibly give again. — Phillips Brooks.

There are some children for whom the institution is much better than the individual home. But for the average normal child — for your child should it lose you — the home is the place where you would want it to grow up, and the home is therefore where we should see to it that the children of those who can no longer look after them are brought. — Julian W. Mack.

Chapter I A Brief History Of Child-placing

CHILD-PLACING in families, as a means of providing for needy and homeless children, is a recognized branch of social service. It has a history, a special terminology, and an assured place in modern philanthropy. It should be studied both as a system to promote juvenile welfare and as a section of sociology. People at large should be made acquainted with its aims, methods, and relations to other philanthropic service, while social workers should study its plans and principles, its possibilities and limitations, in order to direct its practice along lines of real social welfare.

The demand for the historical as well as the practical outlines of a theme is especially urgent in the student of sociology. Methods and practices rooted in religious convictions and held by the race for centuries, are the basis of much of our modern thought on the subject. Many things about child-placing in families will therefore be plainer for a brief look at the past.

The Family. The first and elemental social organism is the family. To be complete it must contain both parents and children. Upon it depend the reproduction and the preservation of the race. Various social elements operate to destroy family life, to produce homelessness and to leave children in distress and danger, jeopardizing the future of individuals and even of society itself. It is not our present function to dwell upon the necessity of family protection, or upon the best methods of preserving families unbroken. These services belong in another field. Child-placing predicates broken families — a deeply regretted social fact. It also implies the rescue of the juvenile fragments and uniting them to other families. Founded on the thesis that the family circle is the proper place to rear the normal child, it utilizes the home to protect children rendered helpless through the casualties of war, the ravages of disease, or the accidents and incidents of common life.

Ancient Tribal Conditions. The elementary precursor of child-placing was found in the original tribal conditions of primitive races. The tribe was simply an enlarged family. All of its members were in some degree related. Children who by the misfortunes of war or of the chase, or who because of disease lost their parents and became dependent, were simply included in the family group of relatives.

Ancient Cities and Nations. The collection of independent tribes into alliances, and the erection of walled cities for defense and community habitation, led to the breaking down of tribal barriers, to free social intercourse and to general intermarriage throughout the communities, and to a loss of direct tribal responsibility for dependent children. The nations of the ancient world with three exceptions — the Babylonians, the Jews, and the Athenians — seem to have left no records of social or general provision for children robbed by misfortune of their natural guardians; and the Babylonian laws appear to relate to such children only after citizens had voluntarily rescued them from homelessness by adopting them into their own families.

Code of Hammurabi. These Babylonian laws are found in the recently unearthed code of Hammurabi.1 That pre-Semitic civilization which had its seat in Mesopotamia is noted not only because it is the earliest known, but because it contains the most ancient laws relating to women and children. Hammurabi, a Sumerian king of Babylon, identified by the Assyriologists as the Amraphael of Genesis XIV-i, reigned about 2250 B.C. This code shows that the adoption of children was a common practice at least 4,000 years ago. But while formally recognizing adoption, the laws instead of being framed to guard the welfare of the child seem rather framed to protect the adoptive parent if the child should become rebellious, or if others should lay claim to him. Here is emphasized the property right to children, exercised without limit by all barbarous tribes in every age, and hardly outgrown by some supposedly civilized nations of the present time. Bible students will note that Hammurabi reigned about the time when,

1 Encyclopedia Britannica, Vol. Ill, pp. 1 15-121. 26 a thousand miles westward from Babylon, Abraham adopted into his own family Lot, his brother's son; and that this was several hundred years previous to the time when Moses, the great lawgiver of the Hebrews, became the adopted son of Pharaoh's daughter.

The Jews. The earliest chronicles of legal child-placing are found in the Old Testament scriptures, and in the Talmud, that body of Jewish and canonical law not included in the Pentateuch. Of all the peoples of antiquity the Jews alone made the care of dependent children a special duty under forms of law. From the time the national life began with the giving of the Law, immediately after the Exodus from Egypt, about 1500 B.C., they placed orphan and fatherless children in selected family homes. It is significant that this fact obtains in relation to that nation definitely declared to be God's chosen people.1

The Pentateuch, especially the Book of Deuteronomy, includes the first laws and precepts on record in behalf of orphans and the fatherless.2 Elsewhere in the Old Testament, and especially in the Psalms, are found many references to these original laws and their application. Psalm LXVIII-5, 6 declares that God is "A Father of the fatherless," and that He "setteth the solitary in families." In the Talmud are found special laws to guard the inheritance of orphans, and enactments to provide for abandoned and foundling children. The methods employed in this earliest provision for dependent children make it the more interesting to the modern student of child-placing. Under these ancient Jewish laws and customs, children lacking parental care became members of the households of other relatives, if such there were, who reared them for adult life. Foundlings and other children without close relatives were probably taken into the homes of childless couples, who brought them up as their own.3 In the Talmud is this suggestive statement: "The blessed man, 'that doeth righteousness at all times,' is the man that brings up an orphan

1 See the Holy Bible, especially the Books of Exodus, Leviticus, and Deuteronomy.

2 Deuteronomy XI V-28, 29; XXIV-21; and XXVI-12, 13.

3 Foundlings, Julius H. Greenstone, Jewish Encyclopedia, Funk & Wagnalls, New York, 1907, Vol. V, p. 441.

boy or girl until marriage has given him or her another home."1 Child-placing in families, under definite forms and legal requirements, is therefore nearly 3,500 years old, and originated among the Jews.

Greece and Rome. Both early Greece and Rome practiced the exposure of unwanted infants, sometimes, as in Sparta, in order that the state might contain none but healthy citizens, sometimes from economic reasons. In Greece, even as late as in the age of Plutarch (A.D. 46 to 120), parents, because of poverty or for other reasons, put their unwanted children out to die or to be rescued by strangers. It should be said, however, that the Athenians made some provision by national law for orphans provided they were well born, that is, of citizen stock, or were the children of fathers fallen in battle. The motive was not humanitarian, but rather a means of conserving a population depleted by war. The dictates of patriotism also required that children of men who had died for their country be cherished, particularly if they inherited property. They were therefore cared for and educated up to the age of eighteen years, and under a form of guardianship were given into the care of citizens of high standing who were willing to assume the burden.2 Aristotle declared against all almsgiving to the poor, saying that it only prolonged useless lives, and no Athenian is recorded as advocating the care of dependent children as a matter of humanity.

As for Rome, in that city, writes Professor Ryan : " Two places were formally set aside for the exposure of infants who were unwelcome to their parents. The proportion of abandoned children that was rescued was very small, and the purposes for which they were rescued were cruelly selfish. Under the Roman law they were slaves."3

Early Christian Conditions. At the beginning of the Christian era, and for several centuries later, the Roman empire practically ruled the world. In matters of the status of children, so far as

Orphan, Max Seligsohn, Jewish Encyclopedia, Funk & Wagnalls, New York, 1907, Vol. IX, p. 438.

2 Orphans and Orphanages, Charles F. McKenna, Catholic Encyclopedia, Robert Appleton and Co., New York, 1907, Vol. XI, p. 323.

3 Foundling Asylums, Prof. John A. Ryan, Catholic Encyclopedia, Robert Appleton and Co., New York, 1907, Vol. VI, p. 159.

national action was concerned, the situation after the dawn of the new era remained almost unchanged until the influence of Christianity modified the practices of the people and the laws of the empire. Very many of the first Christians were originally Jews, and Jewish ideas and methods in regard to the care and adoption of children were naturally carried into Christianity by the followers of Christ.

Method of the Early Christian Church. It has been stated that under Judaism the method of providing for dependent children was by placing them in foster families — the families of relatives when available, or, if such were not available, in other Jewish families. In the early Christian Church the same type of service prevailed for nearly or quite two hundred years and never has been wholly displaced, although in later centuries institutional care was substituted to a large extent, especially in European countries. Out of the persecutions of Nero and other emperors came the necessity of caring for multitudes of orphan and other dependent children. Relatives and even church associates were unable to meet these increasing needs. After all possible free homes had been utilized, the Church began boarding children with worthy widows, paying for the service by collections taken in the various congregations. This was the real genesis of the boarding-out system, revived, not originated, in the nineteenth century.1