mother; in the
former case there was some excuse from the harsh rule that the sick baby
of an unmarried mother cannot be received into a hospital unless the
mother goes in with it (the reason of this, of course, being that the
mother will use this means of ridding herself of the baby) and will
never come to reclaim it; but in the horrible case of No. 5 there is no
ray of excuse. This case is especially interesting because it makes so
abundantly plain the terrible need there is for the immediate
establishment of safe legal adoption. In cases No. 2 and No. 4 we have
the curious situation, by no means so uncommon as many might think, of
the wrong man acting the part of father to an illegitimately born child;
in the one case this was done through the trickery of the mother and was
but temporary, the child suffering, while in the other case, more
interesting and less common, vicarious fatherhood was voluntarily
adopted. I would ask you to note that in none of the five cases was bad
motherhood caused by poverty and homelessness. So frequently it is said:
"Give these mothers a chance, and their mother-love will blossom like
the rose"--or some similar and unproved tosh. It is not true. The good
mother may be a bad mother by adverse circumstances, this I acknowledge
readily, but that the most favorable circumstances can make the bad
mother into a good mother, I emphatically deny. This is why it is so
unsafe and so wrong of society to leave the child unprotected and
unwatched, for the mother to do with it what she likes.

The first case, because it shows so clearly the adverse action of the
mother's influence is, in my opinion, most instructive among the five
cases I have given. Such changeableness on the mother's part, and
interference with the child is just what is likely, and most often does
take place, and will go on taking place, until the law protects these
children by effective guardianship. I would specially point out that
this mother was not in the least indifferent to her baby. If you had
talked to her, probably your sentiment would have burned and glowed
about the hardness of her case in being separated from her baby, and
you would have said wonderful platitudes about the beauty of a mother's
love. And yet the shameful hurt she did to her child can never be
undone. Her undisciplined love was the cause of the child's undoing.

I have now, I hope, made it sufficiently plain why the illegitimately
born child should no lo