Sigmund Engel - The Elements of Child-Protection

Excerpt from The Elements of Child-Protection During the latter half of the nineteenth century, the importance of child-protection gained a far wider recognition. The nineteenth century has been well named The Century of the Child. But there are reasons no less cogent for describing this century as The Century of Socialism, or The Century of Darwinism. The intimate interdependence of child-protection with Socialism and with Darwinism must on no account be overlooked. It was my own assurance of this twofold interdependence which led me to undertake the study of the whole system of child-protection from the joint out look of Socialism and of Darwinism. This book is an investigation of all the problems involved by child-protection from the standpoints of the modern socialist movement and of modern social science. My work makes no attempt to be either a Philosophy of Child-Protection or a Handbook of Child-Protection. For this reason it contains no definitions, it gives no history of child-protection, and attempts no detailed description of the institutions which exist for the purpose of child-protection in the various countries of the civilised world. In view of the almost incalculable bulk of the materials available in this field of study, I have been forced to content myself with a brief indication of my opinions in the various departments, without endeavouring to go into details. Obviously, therefore, those in need of detailed information will not find it in this book. About the Publisher Forgotten Books publishes hundreds of thousands of rare and classic books. Find more at www.forgottenbooks.com This book is a reproduction of an important historical work. Forgotten Books uses state-of-the-art technology to digitally reconstruct the work, preserving the original format whilst repairing imperfections present in the aged copy. In rare cases, an imperfection in the original, such as a blemish or missing page, may be replicated in our edition. We do, however, repair the vast majority of imperfections successfully; any imperfections that remain are intentionally left to preserve the state of such historical works.