To-day, baby-farming represents the first stage of evolution, the Latin system for the care of foundlings the second, the Germanic system the third, coercive reformatory education the fourth, the education of criminal children the fifth. In a comparatively short time all the different branches of child-protection will come to stand at the same level, and in so far as they relate to children neglected by their relatives, in whatever manner, they will all take the same form of family care, under a unified centralised control, and supervised locally by the same administrative authority. CHAPTER IV WOMEN’S LABOUR AND CHILD-LABOUR _History of Child-Labour._--During the Middle Ages child-labour seems not to have been very general. At the time of the guilds, improper utilisation of the working powers of children and young persons was hardly possible. Night work was unknown, and the working conditions were strictly regulated by the guilds. In the statutes of the guilds, there is no reference to child-labour; whereas, had such labour been at all common, its regulation would have been inevitable. We find, for example, in the statutes precise rules as to production, as to the sale of the finished products, as to the hours of work, as to the number of craftsmen to be employed by the individual masters, &c. As the guilds became mean-spirited, the condition of the apprentices became worse. With the development of manufacturing industry and the growth of machine production, handicraftmanship lost its dominant position. In consequence of the industrial revolution, the guilds perished, the principle of freedom of contract was established, and in accordance with this principle the working powers of the cheapest of all objects of exploitation, children, were utilised. But the first phase of the development of capitalism was the most dangerous one, not only for youthful, but also for adult workers. In England, for example, it was towards the end of the eighteenth century that the conditions as regards child-labour were at their worst. The factory owners hired children from the workhouses and orphan asylums. These latter institutions were far from the factories, and for this reason no official supervision of the children was possible, and their care was left entirely in the hands of the factory owners. The condition of these orphan children, similarly with that of the other youthful workers, mocks every attempt at description. The most heartrending tortures were customary. They were tormented with the utmost refinement of cruelty; chained, flogged, starved to emaciation, and driven to suicide. All this is easily comprehensible. The aim of the factory owner was to utilise as rapidly as possible the opportunity resulting from the replacement of hand-labour by machine-labour, to utilise it to gain wealth for himself before machine-labour became general; he therefore procured his labour at the cheapest