argued, "and you remove one of the chief obstacles to the reckless
reproduction of the unfit. Leave it in the parents' hands and you must
have the cruelty." But really this is not a dilemma at all. There is a
quite excellent middle way. It may not be within the sphere of
practical politics at present--if not, it is work for the New Republic
to get it there--but it would practically settle all this problem of
neglected children. This way is simply to make the parent the debtor to
society on account of the child for adequate food, clothing, and care
for at least the first twelve or thirteen years of life, and in the
event of parental default to invest the local authority with
exceptional powers of recovery in this matter. It would be quite easy
to set up a minimum standard of clothing, cleanliness, growth,
nutrition and education, and provide, that if that standard was not
maintained by a child, or if the child was found to be bruised or
maimed without the parents being able to account for these injuries,
the child should be at once removed from the parental care, and the
parents charged with the cost of a suitable maintenance--which need not
be excessively cheap. If the parents failed in the payments they could
be put into celibate labour establishments to work off as much of the
debt as they could, and they would not be released until their debt was
fully discharged. Legislation of this type would not only secure all
and more of the advantages children of the least desirable sort now get
from charities and public institutions, but it would certainly invest
parentage with a quite unprecedented gravity for the reckless, and it
would enormously reduce the number of births of the least desirable
sort. Into this net, for example, every habitual drunkard who was a
parent would, for his own good and the world's, be almost certain to
fall. [Footnote: Mr. C. G. Stuart Menteath has favored me with some
valuable comments upon this point. He writes: "I agree that calling
such persons as have shown themselves incapable of parental duties