I shall not wait to give you the many and overwhelming facts and figures that I could bring forward in support of these statements. To-day all the pitiful statistics of illegitimate births are widely known; at least they are known intellectually, though I doubt their being known emotionally, which is quite another matter and whips our indifference into action. Only the workers in the darkest places of our great cities know how large illegitimacy looms as a factor in the social disintegration that leads to the prison, to the mad-house, to the hospitals, to the casual wards, and to the streets. Only the eye of the scientist can vision in the relation of the unhonored child to its mother the seed of that evil which one day shall become the dishonor of the dishonorable man.[170:1] VIII I can foresee an objection that will be made: it will be urged that much of what I say of the unfitness of the average unmarried mother to train her child is equally applicable to the average married mother. True: I agree. There is, however, this all important difference. The child of the married woman is not placed, either by circumstances or by the law, in the power of its mother. It has a second parent: even if the father is dead and its mother is the only parent, the home is watched by grandmother, by grandfather--perhaps by four grandparents, by sharp-eyed aunts and encouraging uncles; probably there are brothers and sisters, cousins, great-aunts and great-cousins. There will also be a more or less extensive circle of criticizing friends. Thus the baby is surrounded from its birth by watchers--a veritable host of unpaid inspectors. Now, you see my point and understand the immense difference. It is the terrible loneliness of the child born illegitimately, outside the safe publicity of marriage, without relations, belonging by right to nobody, that makes the power given by law to its mother so dangerous. That is why I would plead, with every power that I have, that we leave sentiment behind us as we approach this question. We are a hopelessly sentimental nation, and we cling to platitudes as a half naked beggar will cling to his tattered shirt. We collect moral antiquities. Inherited and worn-out ideas, psychological fossils, moral survivals, these must be treasured only in romance; they must be deleted from life. Every moral rule, every sentiment, as also every institution, must be tested, from period to period, to see if it works still in a practical and healthful direction to help the individual to do right and for the betterment of the race. IX We English are sentimental.