n
will often render valuable assistance. Such a society is likely to be
hampered in its work by the unwillingness of charitable visitors to
tell what they know in court. Sometimes this is due to timidity, and
sometimes to a fear of losing influence in the neighborhood. Clergymen
have been known to refuse their testimony for this latter reason. The
friendly visitor, {90} whose interest is centred in only one family in
the neighborhood, need not be so cautious, and his continuous visiting,
extending over many months, makes his testimony very valuable. No fear
of losing influence with other members of the family should prevent him
from speaking out where a child's future is at stake. Just a few
months more in evil surroundings may mean moral death to the child, and
neighbors are notoriously unwilling to tell what they know.

It is impossible to enter here upon the vexed question of the relative
merits of boarding-out dependent children, of placing them without pay
in country homes, or of committing them to the care of institutions,
though I cannot refrain from quoting, in passing, the opinion of Miss
Mason, for twelve years an English government inspector of boarded-out
children, that "well carried out, boarding-out may be the best way of
caring for dependent children; ill carried out, it may be the worst."
There is a very foolish saying that the worst home is better than the
best institution, but no one who knows how bad a home can be {91} or
how good an institution can be will venture beyond the statement that,
other things being equal, a home is certainly better than an
institution. The friendly visitor should make himself familiar with
what has been written on this subject, and should be prepared, in any
given case, to make the wisest selection of a home that local
conditions make possible, always remembering, of course, that his
responsibility does not end here; that he should continue to visit the
child, if it be placed within visiting distance.

The visitor should also be familiar with the local laws for the
protection of children. These usually include laws against
child-begging; against selling liquor and tobacco to minors; against
the employment of children as pedlers, public singers, dancers, etc.;
against the employment of children under a certain age for more than a
specified number of hours (or prohibiting their employment entirely);
and against the abduction or harboring of female minors for immoral