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of its enjoyment. American civilization, with all its economic vigor and political health, will not be complete until we stop to create and to enjoy the ideal. In that progress toward light and beauty, one thread will be what has been until lately the most popular branch of literature -the drama. One individual, one generation, can do but a little; yet it is worth remembering that in demanding a more worthy representation of literature upon the stage, where all classes enjoy it, we are doing our part, not for the theatre alone, but for the general artistic temper of the nation.

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II.

DAVID DUDLEY FIELD.

The Child and the State.1

"The Homeless Boy" is the title of a wood-cut circulated by the Children's Aid Society. It is a sad picture. The little waif sits on a stone step, with his head bent over and resting on his hands, stretched across bare knees, his flowing hair covering his face, and his tattered clothes and bare 15 feet betokening utter wretchedness. Turning the leaf, we are informed that twenty dollars will enable the society to give the boy a home.

Can this picture be real and the statement true? The picture is too real, and that the statement is made in good 20 faith and for reasons sufficient, we have the guaranty of the society's good name and the known fidelity of its excellent secretary, Mr. Brace.

How many of such homeless children are there in the city of New York? We are told that there are at least twelve 25 thousand under twelve years of age; seven thousand of them

1 Reprinted from The Works of David Dudley Field by permission of Messrs. D. Appleton & Co.

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having no shelter, not knowing at morning where they can sleep at night, and the rest having only shelters revolting to behold. Less than $250,000 then would give them all decent and comfortable homes. Every night that these twelve thousand children are wandering in the streets or lurking about rum-shops and dance-houses, or huddled in dens that are as foul in air as they are foul in occupants, that sum many times over is spent in superfluous luxury. Rich parlors and wide halls are filled nightly with pleasure10 seekers, where the air is sweetened with the perfume of flowers, music wafted with the perfume, and the light is like 66 a new morn risen on mid noon." The voice of mirth in the ball-room drowns the wail of the children beyond, and when the night pales into morning, the dancers go home 15 rejoicing and the children go about the streets. Surely there must be something wrong with our civilization, our Christian civilization, so long as these strange contrasts are permitted to last.

It is not for the lack of sympathy or Christian charity. 20 New York is charitable and generous beyond most cities, and I think I might have said beyond any city of Christendom, which is as much as to say beyond any city of the earth. Private charity is great and association for public charity is greater. On every hand are asylums, retreats, dis25 pensaries; more than a hundred institutions organized for the relief of poverty and suffering; associations for mutual help established in all trades and nearly all professions; and over four hundred churches have their societies and committees in aid of needy members. How, then, is it that we 30 behold this dreadful apparition of helpless and innocent suffering, these homeless children, who, by no fault of their own, are in want of food, clothing and shelter, and are lurking in corners or scattered in the streets. It is because there is not a wider knowledge of the extent of the evil and a closer 35 study of the means to counteract it.

Let us enter into some details.

In one of the tenement houses of the city, and their number is legion, there is a room, nineteen feet long, fifteen feet broad and eleven high, where live a man and his wife and eight children. They sleep, dress, wash, cook and eat in this one room. These ten persons have altogether thirty- 5 one hundred and thirty-five cubic feet of air, while the law requires at least six thousand feet — nearly twice as much as they get. From tenement houses like this there flows out daily a stream of children, ragged and dirty, to pick up rags, cigar stumps, and other refuse of the streets, or to pilfer or 10 beg, as best they can. This is not the place to describe the horrors of the tenement house, nor to discuss the duty or failure of duty on the part of the state in respect of its construction and occupation. I ask attention only to the condition of the children, and for illustration take the case of a 15 boy, five years old, who is found, in a chill November day, barefooted, scantily clothed, searching among the rag heaps in the street. He is a well-formed child, his face is fair, and as he turns his bright eyes upon you when you ask him where he lives, you see that he has quick intelligence. Alto- 20 gether he is such a child as a father should look upon with pride and a true mother would press to her bosom. Yet the parents are miserably poor, the father half the time out of work, and the mother wan with the care of her family. This is not all. Father and mother both drink to excess, 25 and each is intoxicated as often at least as Saturday night comes round.

Has the state any duties toward this little boy, and if so what are they?

All will agree that it has some duty, at least that of pro- 30 tection from personal violence. May it go further, and rescue the child from its loathsome occupation, its contaminating surroundings and its faithless parents? I think that it may, and having the right, that it is charged with the duty of rescuing the child. This is a large subject, larger indeed 35 than can be fully treated in this paper, but some of the

reasons for my opinion shall be stated. At the outset, let me say that I am not a believer in the paternal theory of government. The great ends for which men are associated in political communities are mutual protection, and the con5 struction of those public works, of which roads and bridges are examples, for which individuals are not competent. The state should interfere as little as possible with the economy of the family and the liberty of the individual to pursue his own happiness in his own way. And as a general rule parIo ents are the best guardians of their children. The family is the primeval institution of the race. is the strongest of motives for the when parental love fails, and the offspring is either abandoned or educated in vice, the state may rightfully intervene. Its right is derived from its duty to protect itself and to protect all its people.

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The love of the parent

care of the child. But

I am not deducing the right of interference from an impulse of the heart, though that be the foundation on which our hospitals and almshouses are built, but I place it 20 upon the inherent and all-pervading right of protection and self-defense. Charity is an individual privilege; the impulse is an individual gift from Heaven. The state is not founded for charity, but for protection. The dictate of humanity is without doubt to take a child from an unfaithful parent and 25 give it the training most likely to lead to an honest and industrious life. This is to transfer the child from an unclean home to one that is clean, from indecency to decency, from foul air to pure, from unhealthy food to that which is healthy, from evil ways to good. Who can doubt that the 30 greatest good which can be done to a child neglected by its parent or taught beggary or crime, is to take it from the wicked parent, and give it into the care of one who will teach it, not only the rudiments of learning, but honest labor. In what other way can we better follow the example of the 35 Divine Master than by caring for these little ones, who are unable to take care of themselves?

Protection, however, is the foundation of the right I am asserting. We must of course have a care that interference for protection be not carried beyond its rightful limits. If any general rule could be laid down for marking these limits it would perhaps be this, that the state should not invade 5 one man's rights in order to protect another's. What the individual can do for himself the state should not undertake. But in the case supposed, the faithless parent has forfeited his right to his child, and the only point to be considered is the relation of the child to the state. This relation involves 10 considerations of economy and of safety, each of which may be considered by itself.

The question of economy has political and social aspects. The prevention of crime and the punishment of the criminal impose upon the state some of its heaviest burdens. The 15 cost of the police, of the courts and the prisons, makes one of the longest items in the roll of public expenditure. the year ending September 30, 1885, the maintenance of the three state prisons cost about $400,000. Besides these prisons, there are penitentiaries at New York, Brooklyn, Albany, 20 Syracuse, Rochester and Buffalo, and there is a county prison in each county. What all these cost there are no readily accessible statistics to tell. The yearly cost of the police in the city of New York is about $3,700,000, and that of the criminal courts $300,000. The cost, defrayed from 25 the city treasury, of prisons, reformatories, asylums, and other charitable institutions is over $3,000,000. The expense of prisons alone is with difficulty separated from the rest. These are approximate figures. It is hard to find out how much the people of this state, in all their municipalities 30 and political divisions, pay for police, courts and prisons. We know that the amount is appalling. Much of this, how much cannot be told, might be saved by fulfilling the scriptural injunction: "Train up a child in the way he should go, and when he is old he will not depart from it."

The question of safety is more vital still. Every one of

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