(_g_) Institutional care is costlier than family care.
(_h_) Only family care can replace for a child the loss of its own family. Family care is the only natural method of upbringing, whereas the best possible institutional care is purely mechanical, full of defects, and cannot possibly replace a free life. In a sense, the institution is indeed a large family. But in the free life, outside the particular family to which the child belongs, there are thousands of others, communicating and competing with one another. No such competition exists in the institution; the child’s work there is purely mechanical, but as soon as it enters the open world, the child has to seek work, and often fails to find it.
(_i_) The State lays down the principles in accordance with which the foster-parents must bring up the child, and sees that the foster-parents have access to expert advice concerning every department of the hygiene of childhood. The State insists that whenever necessary the foster-children shall have medical aid, that the children shall attend the elementary school, &c. If the foster-parents apply these principles properly in their care of the foster-children, they are likely to take care that their own children are treated at least equally well. And if, in any community, these principles are applied cordially and intelligently by the foster-parents, it is probable that the other parents of the same community will follow this good example.
(_k_) Statistical data show, moreover, that family care gives better results than institutional care, alike physically, mentally, and morally.
(_l_) With regard to the alleged defects of family care (such as that foster-children are less well treated than the foster-parents’ own children, that they are exploited by the foster-parents, that suitable foster-parents are hard to find), these can readily be overcome.
From these considerations it would appear that only in special circumstances is institutional care necessary or desirable. In the case, for instance, of children physically or mentally ill, we cannot dispense with institutional care. Moreover, institutions are necessary as a supplement to the system of family care--institutions having the characteristics of a depot and an asylum. Such depots are indispensable, if only for the reason that orphans immediately after the loss of their parents are in a condition of mingled depression and excitement, and must, therefore, before being boarded with a family, be calmed and strengthened for a time by a sojourn in an institution.