134 ADMINISTRATIVE SECTION 



There is an increasing tendency to find foster- 

 mothers to nurse and to care for babies of the asylum 

 type. The mother of the illegitimate child should be 

 compelled to keep and to nurse her own baby and 

 mother and infant should never be separated except 

 for urgent and compelling reasons. When necessary, 

 pensions should be granted by the municipality to the 

 mother rather than to pay the board of the baby in 

 an institution. This is successfully accomplished in 

 several European cities. The following extract from 

 the 1912 Report of the New York State Board of 

 Charities is worthy of attention in this connection : 

 " It is a short-sighted policy that authorizes the 

 payment to private charitable institutions of from two 

 to three dollars a week for each child of a good 

 mother, when that sum or in some cases even less 

 would have enabled such mother to maintain her 

 home and to keep her family together. This is 

 especially true in cases where, on the death or inca- 

 pacity of a father, three or more children have been 

 committed to institutions at public expense, and the 

 mother left to make her own living. The result of 

 this policy is to break up the family ties and in many 

 cases to expend a larger sum of money for the mainten- 

 ance of the children in institutions than would have 

 been necessary to aid the mother in maintaining her 

 family in her home for what would probably be a 

 shorter period." 



We of the new world cannot look back through 

 the centuries to trace the evolution in the institutional 

 care of infants, still we can point with some degree of 

 pride to the following rule adopted by the Common 

 Council of the City of New York in 1800: "Care 

 should be taken to provide health and proper (wet) 

 nurses for such of the infants as may require them, 

 and where this can be done outside of the almshouse 

 it shall be preferred." The records show that there 

 were 129 infants placed out " at nurse " and paid for 



