OUR ORPHANAGES.

Manawatu Standard, Volume XLVI, Issue 25, 29 December 1925, Page 6

OUR ORPHANAGES.

The Education Department is doing valuable work amongst the poor and neglected children who come under its care. There is, however, a danger, hinted at by a writer in an English review, that it is moving too fast and in an undesirable direction in establishing such “a complete control over almost every child in the country, that the work of church and other private orphanages” will bo interfered with. It is quite possible to carry legislation too far, and to thus defeat the first essentials of just and humane intentions. The Child Welfare Act, which admittedly makes better provision for the care of delinquent, indigent and defective children, and for child welfare generally, gives to the departmental officers concerned greater pow r ers in dealing with such matters as the protection of infants, the control of neglected children, street trading and the co-ordina-tion of all private and denominational social service organisations. Miss Constance Clyde, the writer to whom we have referred, in describing what she terms this “children’s charter” says that “illegal children are to become the property of this (the Education) department, which can give them to which ever parent it pleas.es, or to an institution. At present, of ’course, if a mother through poverty puts her child in a State orphanage, she cannot take it out or even see it, so that, naturally, she prefers the church orphanages wffiich have no such law\ As a consequence there is considerable jealousy of these private institutions and this charter is really to do away with all such outside homes, and to bring all helpless boys and girls into the poAver of the State, which means one watertight department ruled by a very few men and no women.” If that statement correctly represents the position (although, while the trend is in that direction, we hardly think it does) it is time a protest wvas entered against any unnecessary interferences with the denominational and other private orphanages and homes for children which have been brought into existence and are supported by the more philanthropically minded of our citizens. In the interests of the children themselves it is desirable there should be some sort of supervision over the care and training of the inmates of all such institutions, but that the latter should be dominated by departmental officials, much less closed by them, is neither necessary nor desirable. Such church and other private orphanages as have come within our ken are answ-ering their purpose admirably, the children being well looked after and cared for; their education, both morally and spiritually, is, generally speaking, the primary consideration with those in charge of the institutions. The Church of England, the Presbyterians, the Homan Catholics, the Methodists, the Baptists, and last, but certainly not least, the Salvation Army, have each established orphanages and homes for destitute or neglected children which are a credit to their respective denominations and there are undenominational homes, one of Avhich w r e have in Palmerston North, in ad-

dition to All Saints’ Children’s Home, all carrying on a A’ery admirable and praiseworthy work with good results so far as the children are concerned. It would be a mistake, little short of criminal, for the State to interfere unnecessarily with their working, for they are at once an outlet for philanthropic endeavour and Christian enterprise which should be encouraged to the fullest possible extent. • If the Education Department really has any such intentions as those credited to it by Miss Clyde, the sooner the cry of “Hands off the orphanages” is raised the better.