Child hygiene / by S. Josephine Baker.

  • Sara Josephine Baker
Date:
[1925]
Catalogue details

Licence: Public Domain Mark

Credit: Child hygiene / by S. Josephine Baker. Source: Wellcome Collection.

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    dition, it was determined that children should have at least equal protection. From this simple beginning has arisen in this country the whole mass of child-welfare laws. These laws relate to every possible type of child welfare, and only a small number of them are of immediate concern to the question of child hygiene. It is of interest to know, however, that these laws rest basicly upon the proposition that all parents must provide food, shelter, medical attendance, and decent care for their minor children, and that if they fail to do so the state has a right to take the child from its parents and assume the guardianship. This idea has been extended until it has been held to include the essential legislation needed for the care of infants and young children, school medical inspection, and the broad laws for the protection of child life, such as the widows’ pension act, child labor laws, and the mass of legislation having to do with the truant, delin¬ quent, neglected, or illegitimate child. As a part of our newly stimulated interest in child welfare we have discovered that the laws of various states, as far as they relate to the protection of child life, have been for the most part ill-considered, in some instances ambiguous, and in nearly all cases of doubtful efficiency in their enact¬ ment. To remedy this condition, the Governor of Ohio in 1911 appointed a Children’s Code Commission. Its func¬ tion was to investigate existing institutions for child care and to study, revise, and codify the laws relating to children. The effect of this act was far-reaching. In 1913 New Hampshire and Oregon appointed similar commissions. Missouri’s commission was appointed in 1915, and in 1916 Minnesota established a Children’s Code Commission which was to prove of extended influence. The code adopted by Minnesota is modeled largely upon the Norwegian code and probably provides a better system for safeguarding the safety and rights of the child and for the protection of babies born out of wedlock than does any other code or the system of laws in any of the other states.
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