We may note a tendency to enlarge the responsibilities, powers and duties of the guardians for successfully launching the children in the world--an enlargement which plainly loses sight altogether of the principle of "less eligibility." We see the Central Authority making elaborate suggestions for the care of children apprenticed or in service, and issuing an Order enabling the guardians to provide outfits when children were sent out, without previously asking for sanction, which had before been necessary under some of the Orders. When the Central Authority had been asked for such sanction it had taken the opportunity of objecting to a child being sent to service without money wages, or to an inn or public-house (unless in exceptional circumstances), or to any place where the conditions of service seemed unsatisfactory, and of requiring to be satisfied that the child was qualified for employment as required by the Education Acts. By allowing guardians to obtain outfits without obtaining express sanction the Central Authority relinquished this opportunity of control over the conditions of service. It therefore referred to these points in the Circular on the Order, and expressed its confidence that the guardians would see that all was satisfactory in these respects.[644] It did not approve of the Poor Law children being engaged as servants to officers of Poor Law establishments--situations which, like those in public-houses, etc., were left to be filled by the less carefully protected children of independent parents or those on outdoor relief--considering it desirable that the children should be severed from all connection with pauper surroundings as soon as possible after attaining an age at which they can secure employment.[645] [644] Circular on "Outfits for Children sent to Service," 14th July 1897, in Twenty-seventh Annual Report, 1897-8, p. 26. [645] _Local Government Chronicle_, 18th October 1902, p. 1051.