FOUNDLING
160
FOUNDLING
foundling asylum should be provided with a revolving
crib. The consequence was that the number of aban-
doned children greatly increased, and the crib had to
be abolislied. By the law of 1874 every child under
two years of age which is taken care of for liire outside
the home of its parents becomes an oliject of public
guardianship. Nevertheless, the actual work and ex-
pense of caring for foundlings are to a large extent
undertaken by religious communities and private as-
sociations, both in asylums and in families. In Ger-
many the asylum method seems never to have been
as common as in Italy and in France. To-day that
country has no foundling asylum in the strict sense of
the term. The prevaihng practice is to place the in-
fant temporarily in an institution, usually an orphan
asylum, and then to give it into the charge of a family.
Both the public authorities and the religious commu-
nities follow this system. Since the days of Joseph
II, foundling asylums have been rather general in
Austria. When the mother engages herself to serve
in the hospital for four months as a nurse, the child
will be taken in and kept permanently, that is, until it
reaches the age of ten or, in some asylums, of sis years.
In case the mother does not reclaim it at the end of
this period, it is turned over to the magistracy of her
legal residence. When the child is not taken subject
to this condition, it is placed in a family as soon as a
suital:>le one can be found. The asylum in Vienna is
the largest in the world, having under its care either
within or without its doors more than 30,000 children
every year. Of the seventy odd thousand infants
received during ten years only 902 were legitimate.
In proportion to its population, Italy exceeds all other countries in the number of institutions which are exclusively devoted to the care of foundlings. The number in 1898 was 113, and the number of children cared for 100,418. Most of these, however, were placed out in families, although the famous asylum of Florence (founded 1310) sheltered more than six thou- sand five hundred in the year 1899. The revolving crib has all but disappeared, owing to the conviction of competent authorities that it increased both illegiti- macy and child-abandonment. In 1888 the province of Rovigo introduced a system according to which all mothers who acknowledge their infants are supported for one and one-half years. Experience has shown that this method is more favourable to the child and less expensive to the community. It has been ex- tended to other provinces, was approved by the char- ity congress of Turin in 1899, and has been embodied in a bill introduced in the Italian Parliament. Rus- sia has two very large foundling asylums, which were established by Catherine II. In 1899 the one at St. Petersburg cared for 33,366 children, while the Moscow institution had charge of 39,033. The policy of the latter is to induce the mother, if jjossible, to nurse her child, and to pay her for this service. If she does not appear, the infant is kept only a few weeks; it is then placed in the family of some peasant. In England the care of foundlings is in the hands of the Poor Law Guardians, religious and private associations, and the managers of the London Foundling Hospital. Those who are under the care of the guardians are sometimes kept in the general workhouse, and sometimes boarded out in families. The Catholic authorities place found- lings both in the private family and in the orphan asylum. The London Foundling Hospital (estal> lished 1739) seems to be the only institution of any considerable size which is devoted exclusively to this class of unfortunates. Scotland has never had a foundling asylum, but utilizes the workhouse and the system of boarding-out. These methods and the care of foundlings in orphan asylums by religious commu- nities are the prevailing ones in Ireland.
About the only public institutions available for the care of foundlings in the United States are the county almshouses, or poorhouses. In most of the large
cities there are foundling asylums under the manage-
ment of individuals, private associations, or religious
bodies and communities. In 1907 the Catholic infant
asylum of Chicago had 676 inmates; that of Boston,
S5S; that of Milwaukee, 408; that of San Francisco,
480. In most places, however, foundlings are re-
ceived in the CathoUc orphan asylums, and are not
separately classified in any official publication. The
same practice obtains in many orphan asylums under
the control of private persons and non-Catholic socie-
ties. The volume of the United States census (1904)
on benevolent institutions gives the number of or-
phanages and children's homes, public, private, and
religious, as 1075, and the numljer of inmates as
92,887. The majority of these children are of course
not foundlings but orphans. On the other hand, the
foundlings in these institutions undoubtedly form only
a minority of the whole number in the country; for
there is a considerable number in poorhouses, and a
still larger number in families. Thus, the State of
Massachusetts places all the foundlings committed to
it in families under public supervision. Hence it is
impossible to give even approximately the total num-
ber of foundlings in the country.
The ideal method of caring for foundlings is still as much a disputed question as most of the other prob- lems of practical charity. One phase of the general question has, however, received a fairly definite an- swer. Experience and a due regard for the respective interests of the infant, the parent, the community, and good morals have led to the conclusion that in every case a reasonable amount of effort should be made to discover the parents and to compel them to assist as far as possible in caring for the child. The other method, which had its most thorough exemplification in the revolving crib, tends, indeed, to diminish in- fanticide, but it also increases illegitimacy, and by depriving the infant of its natural protector produces at least as high a rate of mortality as the inquisition system. Moreover, it throws upon public and private charity a burden that in many cases could be borne by the parents. Hence the present tendency is everywhere towards the method which aims to give the child the benefit of a mother's care and to keep alive in parents a proper sense of their responsibility.
A question more variously answered is, whether the maintenance of foundling asylums is wise. Those who take a stand for the negative point to the very high death-rate in these places (sometimes more than 90 per cent), to the smaller expense of the family sys- tem, and to the obvious fact that the family is the natural home for young children. Most of the Protes- tant countries and communities prefer the method of placing the foundling in a family. The positive argu- ments in its favour are unanswerable, but against them must be set the fact that it is not always possible to find suitable families who are willing to care for foundlings. Experience shows that sufficient homes of the right kind cannot now be found for all orphan children who have arrived at an age which renders them more attractive as well as more useful than utterly helpless infants. It would seem, therefore, that institutions are necessary which will shelter foundlings for a number of years. Nevertheless, the foundling asylum should endeavour to ascertain the identity of the parents, to induce the mothers to act as nurses to their infants in the institution, and to keep alive the natural bond between child and parent.
Henderson, Modern Methods of Charity {New York, 1904); Devine, Principles of Relief (New York, 1905); The St. Vincent de Paul Quarlerlii (New York); Proceedings of the National Con- ferences of Charities and Correction (Indianapolis, 1874-1908); Bboglie, 67. Vijicent de Paul, tr. Partridge (London, 1899); Ratzinger, Armenpflege (Freiburg, 1884); Epstein, Sludien zur Frage, Findelanstalten (Prague, 1882); Lallemand, His- toire des enfants abandonnes et delaiss^s (Paris, 1885); Ratz- inger in Kirchenlex.. s. v. Findelhauser; Bernard in io grande encijcloprdie, a. v. Enfants Trouves.
John A. Ryan.
