ral instruction and fitted for a worthy
vocation; that wholesome social relations be established by means of
playgrounds, clubs, and societies; that industrial conditions be
properly supervised, and young people be able to earn not alone a
living but a marriageable wage; and that some means of social
insurance be provided sufficient to prevent suffering and want in
sickness and old age. In such an environment there is opportunity to
realize the value that will accrue from a good inheritance, and there
is incentive to make the most of life's possibilities as they come and
go.

Ever since the importance of environment was made plain in the
nineteenth century, social physicians have been trying all sorts of
experiments in community therapeutics. Many of the remedies will be
discussed in various connections. It is enough to remark here that
social education, social regulation, and social idealism are all
necessary, and that a social Utopia cannot be obtained in a day.

53. =The Right to Proper Care.=--Granted the right of the child to be
well-born and the right to a favorable environment, there follows the
right to be taken care of. This may be involved in the subject of a
proper environment, but it deserves consideration by itself. There is
more danger to the race from neglect than from race suicide. It is
better that a child should not be born at all, than that he should be
condemned to the hard knocks of a loveless home or a callous
neighborhood. There is first the case of the child born out of
wedlock, often a foundling with parentage unacknowledged. Then there
is the child who is legitimately born as far as the law is concerned,
but whose parents had no legitimate right to bring him into the world,
because they had no reasonable expectation that they could provide
properly for his wants. The wretched pauper recks nothing of the
future of his offspring. Since the family group can never remain
independent of the community, it may well be debated whether society
is not under obligation to interfere and either by prohibition of
excessive parenthood or by social provision for the care of such
children, to secure to the young this right of proper care.

Cruelty is a twin evil of neglect. The history of childhood deserves
careful study side by side with the history of womanhood. In primitive
times not even the right to existence was recognized. Abortion and
infanticide, especially in the case of females, were practices use