In most countries to-day we may observe an unmistakable tendency towards the improvement of the legal position of the illegitimate child. This tendency is perceptible in those countries in which inquiry into paternity is permitted. In the Latin countries the necessity of permitting inquiry into paternity is becoming more and more widely recognised. In many countries we find, often in association with foundling hospitals, institutions for the provision of maintenance for illegitimate children. The reforms of the immediate future, some of which, in certain countries, have actually been effected, are the following: (_a_) In every country the inquiry into paternity must be permitted. (_b_) The legal proceedings for the discovery of paternity must be initiated and pursued by the local authorities or some other official body. (_c_) Where the father fails to pay the necessary maintenance for his illegitimate child, vigorous measures of compulsion must be available (imprisonment, forced labour, &c.). Such measures of compulsion already exist in many countries. (_d_) The child’s maintenance should not be merely such as will provide what are called “bare necessaries,” but should suffice for its proper upbringing. (_e_) The natural father should be forced to pay, not for the child’s maintenance only, but also the mother’s expenses in childbed; he should be forced to contribute the last-named expenses, and what is necessary for the child’s maintenance shortly after birth, before the child is actually born--that is, at a time when the needs of mother and child are greatest. (_f_) The objections which the father is to-day able to raise in bastardy actions should be abolished.