by the industrial revolution, deserve notice for the reason that they are not yet in abeyance. They are fourfold now. Factory life of necessity separates the woman from the child, and with the improvement of machinery the demand for women's labour is becoming accentuated in many departments. Secondly, the change whereby about three-quarters of our people have removed to towns, operates to the prejudice of the health of children. So far, then, the tendency has been for great numbers of our children to need more care than formerly. Thirdly, in the increasing strain of the industrial struggle the woman knows that it is vital to maintain the strength of the bread-winner, even at the expense of the child, and every economic investigation reveals this tendency. Fourthly, a strong motive has been brought into play inducing the parents to despatch the children at the earliest possible age into economic employment, in order to add to the family budget. The deleterious effects of this common procedure are universally recognised. Thus, the family, the factory which makes the future, is still thrown out of gear by the industrial revolution.
Looking backwards, we may recognise that the five volumes of the Commission of 1842-43 initiated the first stage of a social transformation. This primary epoch may be said to have lasted until 1889, and during the years of its currency, I have counted no less than eighty public statutes dealing mercifully with children, so deeply was
