202 Heredity and Child Culture 



cies that will attack this problem, the more wide- 

 spread and flexible will be the efforts and re- 

 sults. 



In 1910 my wife, wishing especially to help 

 this class of cases, began taking abandoned in- 

 fants and little children into our home to pre- 

 pare them for adoption. To our surprise, there 

 was a greater demand for these little waifs 

 than we could readily supply. Accordingly, the 

 Alice Chapin Adoption Nursery was launched 

 in an apartment where eight babies at a time 

 are nurtured, with adoption in view. Over four 

 hundred children have been placed in good 

 homes all over the country since the beginning 

 of this work. Some of the features came as an 

 additional surprise. It is understood that any 

 child can be returned within a year, and yet 

 among this large number only eight have been 

 sent back. In these returned cases the fault 

 lay more with the foster parents than with the 

 children, as other and more satisfactory place- 

 ments were soon made for the latter. It is as- 

 tonishing how soon close and tender relation- 

 ships are established between the foster parents 



