DR. F. E. FREMANTLE'S PAPER 47 



prescribed summary punishment for wilful neglect to 

 provide children with adequate food, lodging, clothing 

 or medical aid. The chief progress made by the 

 State in the protection of children lay in the institu- 

 tion of effective police ; but definite Acts for the 

 prevention of cruelty to children and the protection 

 of infant life were passed in 1889, 1894, 1897, '904 

 and 1908. Children are now entitled to protection from 

 injury, suffering or even uncleanliness ; legal facilities 

 for conviction are greatly enhanced, and the parent, 

 where unable to do so himself, is bound to invoke 

 the aid of the Poor Law. In the administration of 

 these measures the State has been much assisted 

 since 1895 by the Society for the Prevention of 

 Cruelty to Children, and at all times by religious and 

 philanthropic agencies. In discussing the problem of 

 infant mortality sight must not be lost of these 

 disciplinary methods, by which the State throws on 

 the parent his proper responsibility, and provides an 

 effective substitute in the case of parental disability 

 or default. The part played, moreover, by voluntary 

 assistance in protecting infancy against cruelty and 

 neglect is typical of the best method of State action 

 through the co-operation of voluntary endeavour, 

 the powers of the State being held in reserve to be 

 used only where no other power is of avail. 



But until medical science was associated with the 

 administration of the law for children, the waste of 

 infant life continued without check. Indeed, even 

 medical science, up to the end of the last century, was 

 astray. We turn to the late Sir John Simon's 

 " English Sanitary Institutions," l a classic, and the 

 only classic on the subject, by the first central medical 

 officer of the State in this country, who served the 

 General Board of Health from 1855 to 1858 and, on 



1 " English Sanitary Institutions," by Sir John Simon, K.C.B. 

 Smith, Elder and Co. Second Edition, 1897. 



