hands of a parent who might be brutal and immoral, who was often careless and lax. A girl—to take the strongest and most probable case of wrong—might be brought up ignorant of the most rudimentary knowledge, a Pagan in faith, without sufficient food or clothing, without the common decencies of life in her home, and might be forced to drudge in the fields, or at a loom from her tenderest years. As she grew older, the law did not safeguard her in any efficient way from being forced to earn money by prostitution, though it never of course actually sanctioned this. That the great nations of the world are as good as they are, shows that parents have for the most part treasured the honour of the family in a rude but sufficient fashion. On the other hand, that every country has been scourged with a criminal class that defied punishment and Church restraints is conclusive proof that in many families the parents have been untrustworthy guardians of their children's characters. It has, however, been the healths and the minds of children that have suffered most under the enormous powers delegated to the family. Most of the labour to which the young can be put is either brutalising or unhealthy. Work in isolation, such as tending sheep or scaring birds, is apt to make the brain torpid; the work in gangs, while it endured, was actually demoralising; and for children, who need fresh air and exercise, work over a loom or in a stifling room can only be carried on at the cost of vitality. Nevertheless, the necessity for the parent to make money by his children's earnings has habitually been so great that he has used his authority simply to compel labour. The State has interposed in the last resort, and not without many misgivings, because the interests of its future men and women—their health and mental equipment—were
