FOUNDLING
159
FOUNDLINQ
(with certain exceptions) be sold within a year from
the testator's deatn; gifts of land for charitable pur-
poses, otherwise than by will, are valid if the require-
ments of the Act ijl and 52 Vic, c. 42, are observed.
Of these the principal ones are: (1) the conveyance
must be by deed; (2) the gift must take effect twelve
months before the deatli of the donor; and (3) the
gift must be witliout any reservation or condition
for the benefit of the donor. For the English legis-
lation and court practice concerning trusts and be-
quests for Catholic religious uses see, in general, Lilly
and Wallis, " A Manual of the Law specially affecting
Catholics" (London, 1893), 135-167 ._ In the United
States property cannot legally be de\'ised to a corpora-
tion (e. g. to a church when incorporated) unless such
corporation is authorized by its charter to receive be-
quests by will. Many theologians believe that bequests
for religious and charitable purposes are valid and bind-
ing in conscience, even though null according to law;
however, D'Annibale does not agree (Summula Theol.
Mor., II, 339).
For the ecclesiastical legislation of the Diocese of Quebec see "La discipline du diocese de Quebec" (Quebec, 1895), 131; for the ecclesiastico-eivil law of the Province of Quebec, Mignault, " Le droit parois- sial" (Montreal, 1893), 138, 260-62. (See Puoperty, Ecclesiastical; Mass; Endowment.)
For the law of ecclesiastical foundations in Ger- many see Sagmiiller, " Kirchenrecht" (Freiburg, 1904), III, 800-3; and for the German civil law, Gortz in "Staatslexikon" (2nd ed., Freiburg, 1904), V, 574- 78. For France see Bargilliat, " Prcelectiones Jur. can." (Paris, 1907), nos. 1363-81; also Andr6- Wagner, "Diet, de droit canonique" (2nd ed., Paris, 1901), II, 225-28. For the administration of the important ecclesiastical foundations in Hungary see Vering, "Kirchenrecht" (3rd ed., Freiburg, 1893), 149; in Baden: op. cit., 249-50.
Taunton, Law of the Church (London, 1906); Smith, Ele- ments of Eccles. Law (New York, 1886); Bouix, De Episcopis (Paris, 1859); Bargilliat, Prwlect. Jur. can. (27th ed., Paris, 1907); LuclDl,Z)e('Ki(. sac. liminum (3rded., Rome, 1883); vo.v Obercamp in Kirchenlexikon, s. v. Causts Piw; Ferraris, Bibliolheca prompta (ed. Rome, 1883). >^ _^
David Dunpord.
FoundUngf Asylums. — Under this title are com- prised all institutions which take charge of infants whose parents or guardians are unable or unwilling to care for them. At the present time many foundling asylums give shelter to orphans, but originally their activity was confined almost entirely to the rescue and care of foundlings in the strict sense, that is, infants who had been delilierately abandoned by their nat- ural protectors. The practice of exposing to the risk of death by the elements or by starvation those infants whom they were unwilling to rear was very common among parents in the ancient pagan nations. Very- general, too, was the more direct method of infanti- cide. Both methods had the sanction of law and public opinion. Lycurgus and the Decemviri decreed that deformed children should be killed in the inter- ests of heahhy citizenship. Aristotle advocated the enactment of laws which would prescribe the exposure of deformed infants and also of all infants in excess of a socially useful number, and which would make the practice of abortion compulsory whenever it was re- quired by the public welfare. In his opinion these measures should find a place in the ideal state, and in every existing community where they were not already approved by the laws and customs (Politics, vii, 16). Even Pliny and Seneca thought it wise sometimes to allow deformed and superfluous infants to perish. In the city of Rome two places were for- mally set aside for the exposure of infants who were unwelcome to their parents. The proportion of abandoned cliildren that was rescued was very small, and the purposes for which they were rescued were cruelly selfish. Under Roman law they were slaves.
The prevalence of these inhuman practices in Greek
and Roman society is undoubtedly explained to a
great extent by the pagan theory that neither the
foetus nor the newly born child was in the full sense a
human being, as well as by the view that the individ-
ual existed for the sake of the State. Against both
these beliefs Christianity laid down the doctrine that
the human offspring is intrinsically sacred, and not a
mere means to any end whatever. Hence we find that
the first noteworthy condemnation of the practice of in-
fant exposure, and the first systematic measures of res-
cue, came from Christian writers, priests, and bishops.
Among the earliest of these were Lactantius, Tertul-
lian, Justin Martyr, and Cyprian. Influenced by the
Christian teaching and practice, the Emperors Gratian
and Valentinian decreed that infanticide should be
punished by death, while Justinian relieved foundlings
of the disability of slavery and placed them under the
patronage of the bishops and prefects. The work of
rescue was at first performed by individuals — as, in
France, by the deaconesses — and the rescued infants
were adopted into Christian families. A marble basin
was placed at the church door in which unfortunate
or inlmman parents could place their infants, with the
assurance that the latter would be cared for by the
Church. Although mention is made of a foundling
asylum at Trier in the seventh century, the first one
of which there is any authentic record was established
in Milan by the archpriest Datheus in 7S7. In 1070
one was founded at Montpellier. Innocent III caused
one to be erected in 1198 at Rome in connexion with
the hospital of the Holy Ghost. The thirteenth and
fourteenth centuries witnessed a great increase of
foundling asylums, especially in Italy. Prominent
among these were the institutions at Einbeck (1200),
Florence (1316), Nuremberg (1331), Paris (1362), and
Vienna (1380). During the Middle Ages most of the
foundling asylums were provided with a revolving
crib {tour, ruota, Drehladen) which was fitted into the
wall in such a way that one half of it was always on the
outside of the building. In this the infant could be
placed, and then brought into the building by turning
the crib. This device completely shielded the person
who abandoned the child, but it also multiplied un-
necessarily the number of children abandoned. Hence
it has been almost universally abolished, even in
Italy.
Foundling asylums did not, however, become gen- eral throughout Europe. In many places infants were still deposited at the doors of the churches, and thence taken in charge by the church autliorities with a view to their adoption by families. In France the means of caring for foundlings had become quite in- adequate during the sixteenth and seventeenth cen- turies. The original foundling asylum of Paris seems to have been no longer in existence at this period; for the only institution of this nature that we hear of is the " Maison de la Couche", in charge of a widow and two servants. So badly was it managed that it had won the nickname of " Maison de la Mort ". Through the all-embracing pity of Saint Vincent de Paul the place came under the direction of the Ladies of Char- ity, and through his influence the king and the nobles subscribed an annual sum of 40,000 francs to carry on the work of child saving. As a result there was a great increase in the number of foundling asylums in France during the seventeenth and eighteenth centuries.
At present the care of foundlings varies consider- ably in different countries. Methods in France have undergone many changes since the middle of the eigh- teenth century. Under the government of the Revo- lution allfoundlings were treated as wardsofthenation, and for a time subsidies were paid to the mothers of illegitimate children. In 1811 this legislation was repealed, and the care of foundlings was trans- ferred from the central authorities to the depart- ments. At the same time it was decreed that every
