Up to a certain period the child’s helplessness demands that every opportunity for development be given him, but that is not the whole of society’s responsibility. The time comes when the child’s own interests and those of the community demand the wisest, least selfish, and most statesmanlike action. Society must state in definite terms its right to be protected from the hopelessly defective and the moral pervert, wherever found. This constitutes the real problem of the abnormal. At the adolescent period those unfit for parenthood should be guarded—girls and boys—and society should be vested with authority and power to accomplish segregation, the conditions of which should attract and not repel. Because so much needs to be said upon it, if anything is said at all, I am loath to touch upon the one great obstacle to the effective use of all the intelligence and the resources available for the well-being of these children, the most baffling impediment to their and the community’s protection, namely, the supreme authority of parenthood, be it never so inefficient, avaricious, or even immoral. * * * * * The breaking up of the family because of poverty, through the death or disappearance of the wage-earner, was, until comparatively recent years, generally accepted as inevitable. In the first winter of our residence on the East Side we took care of Mr. S⸺, who was in an advanced stage of phthisis; and we daily admired the wonderful ability of his wife, who kept the home dignified while she sewed on wrappers, nursed her husband, and allowed nothing to interfere with the children’s daily attendance at school. When her husband died it seemed the most natural thing in the world to help her to realize her own wishes and to approve her good judgment in desiring to keep the family together. The orphan asylum would doubtless have taken the children from her, leaving her childless as well as widowed, and with no counterbalancing advantage for the children to lighten her double woe. A large-minded lover of children, who gave his money to orphans as well as to orphanages, readily agreed to give the mother a monthly allowance until the eldest son could legally go to work. It was our first “widow’s pension.” Our hopes in this particular case have been more than realized. The eldest boy, it is true, has not achieved any notable place in the community; but his sisters are teachers and most desirable elements in the public school system of the city,—living testimony to the worth of the mother’s character. In no instance where we have prevented the disintegration of the family because of poverty have we had reason to regret our decision. Of course, the ability of the mother to maintain a standard in the home and control the children is a necessary qualification in any general recommendation for this treatment of the widow and orphan, and competent supervision is essential to insure the maintenance of these conditions.