The Elements of Child-protection

The author examines child-protection through the lenses of socialism and Darwinism, surveying demographic and statistical issues such as fertility, infant mortality, and age classification. He assesses heredity, eugenics, and the limits of education, balancing concerns about natural selection with arguments for social intervention. Legal chapters analyze marriage, parental authority, illegitimacy, guardianship, and proposals for centralized and local administrative instruments. Practical measures discussed include prenatal and postnatal care, infant feeding, foundlings, regulation of child and women's labor, disease prevention, and public elementary schooling. Throughout he weighs objections and reform options, emphasizing state responsibility and the evolutionary tendency toward institutionalized protection.