rancour against the child it would tend to arouse. (These questions are of importance only so long as the practice continues of passing determinate sentences. The introduction of the indeterminate sentence, which is in line with the tendency of evolution, would render these questions unimportant.) If any offender whose conduct against a child has proved him to be incapable of exercising with propriety parental authority, the powers of a guardian, the powers of a foster-parent, the duties of a teacher, it is essential to deprive him of these powers without delay; and this should be done, not only in the interests of the particular child, but in the interests of all children. Anyone who has committed a serious punishable offence against a child is, as a rule, altogether unfitted to exercise authority of any kind over any children. If the offender is punished, and thereafter the child is left in his power, the child will usually become the object upon which he will work off the rancour inspired by the punishment. It is essential that this change in the guardianship of the child should not be postponed until the case is decided and judgment is passed, but that it should be effected immediately it is thought necessary to institute proceedings. The objection that the right to remove a child from the care of an offender properly belongs, not to the criminal court, but to the Board of Guardianship, is invalid. The procedures rendered necessary in consequence of the initiation of the criminal proceedings cannot, in these cases, be distributed among various different authorities. In most instances it is essential to act at once. Authority over a child, in a modern State, is not essentially different from an official position. Since our criminal courts are empowered to decree any one’s unfitness to hold an official position, and to deprive any citizen of his civil rights, why should they not also be empowered to decide that certain persons are unfitted to exercise authority over children? The courts have the power to declare that through the loss of civil rights a man has become unfitted for the position of an official guardian; a teacher in a State school loses his position _ipso facto_ if convicted of a criminal offence; why should not the criminal courts have the power to deprive parents, foster-parents, and private teachers of their “office,” and to declare them to be unfitted to hold it? The great majority of punishable offences against children are committed against children of the lower classes.