The Dependent Child 191 



Loeb^ has stated that the local governments in 

 41 states have now solved this question by- 

 entering widows' homes and seeing to it that 

 the dependent children have that home influence 

 which is most essential in the rearing of citi- 

 zens. A Widows' Pension Law has been 

 enacted in these states after the deliberations 

 of a commission charged with the work of in- 

 vestigating the subject. Thus, instead of 

 removing dependent children from their own 

 mothers and paying institutions to care for 

 them, the money is paid to the mother herself 

 and the home thereby kept intact. It is fur- 

 ther stated by Miss Loeb that during the first 

 six months of a recent year, New York City 

 cared for 16,526 children together with their 

 mothers: for the same period, 20,868 children 

 were housed in private institutions. Aside 

 from the great humanitarian element involved, 

 it cost New York nearly twice as much to keep 

 children in institutional homes as compared 

 with the cost of keeping them in the private 

 homes of their mothers. 



^Everyman's Child — The Century Co. 



