Rights of the Child.

I think it must now be sufficiently clear that, instead of handing over the school question for final settlement to page 91 the parents alone, as Bishop McQuaid recommends (of course with the reservation that the parents must settle it just as the Church dictates, on pain of being deprived of absolution for their sins), the question can only be justly settled by the whole community, after a careful consideration of the rights of the three parties interested : namely, the children, the parents, and the State. Parent though I am, I should refuse to be made judge in a case in which I am myself one of three equally interested parties; and I must decline election to the bench under such circumstances, even on so flattering a nomination. But I find it my duty to present to the community, the real tribunal, my view of the case as involving these three classes of rights.

The child's principal rights as an individual seem to be, briefly, these:—

1.	The right to existence. The father has no right to deprive him of it, for that would be murder, and the State, the protector of rights, would not admit the plea of "parental prerogative" as any defence against the just punishment of the crime. Even before the child's birth, his individual right to existence begins; and foeticide is justly regarded as a crime of the blackest dye.
2.	The right to proper maintenance, including food, clothing, and shelter. To withhold these is a crime against the laws of the State, which again stands ready to invade the "sanctity" of my household, if I press my "parental prerogative" so far as to wrong the little being entrusted to me by a wilful failure to provide for its fundamental wants.
3.	The right to a fair education, as the necessary condition of a happy and useful career in the life for which I am responsible. This right is very imperfectly protected by the law; and it is a right which constitutes a claim not only on the parent, but on the State. Society page 92 has even a larger stake in my child's education than I have, since the larger portion of the child's life is to be spent away from my care and control. The child has a right to be educated, for his own sake and for society's sake; and society, having at least as large a stake as mine in his future, must share with me the duty and the expense of furnishing the education. The burden and the cost of the education by which society is to be benefited at last even more than I, and to which the child may plead justly a natural right, ought in equity to be divided between the State and the parent. The right of the child to education, therefore, constitutes in equity a joint claim on both.
4.	The right to be protected by the State against parental selfishness, cruelty, ignorance, indifference, superstition. No parent has a right to over-work a child for the sake of his little earnings, or to work him at all to the neglect of his education. No parent has a right to abuse the child in any way. Such things as these are violations of the child's rights as an individual, and ought to be protected better than they are. The State is responsible for this protection, and sometimes affords it. An important case has just occurred in England, in which the State most righteously interfered to protect children from the unintentional cruelty resulting from mere superstition. Harper's Weekly, in its issue of Dec. 18, 1870, says :— "An important decision has been given by Lord Coleridge in the case of the 'Peculiar People,' which was carried up on appeal. A member of this sect, for neglect to provide medical attendance for his sick child, was charged with manslaughter. The conviction for this offence in the court below was affirmed by the judges. Baron Bramwell said that 'the man thought that to fulfil the duty imposed by statute was wrong; the law, however, did not excuse him on that account.'"

It is part of the creed of this sect of the "Peculiar People" never to call in medical aid in sickness, but to rely only on prayer; and it was rightly held that the child's right to decent care in his sickness could not lapse by reason of the father's superstition. This is a very instructive case, and shows how respect for the rights of children is gradually abolishing the barbarous "parental prerogative." The plea of parental "conscience" in this instance is no justification for the infringement of the child's right to life; it will be found equally invalid in justification of infringement of his right to education. The child has a right not to be taught superstitions which shall unfit him to be either a good man or a good citizen. He has a right to be taught what the rights of others are, and what his own corresponding duties are. A school which should teach children that it is wrong to take or to give medical advice in sickness would be as mischievous and criminal in character as a school for instruction in the "fine art" of murder. The facts of the universe discovered by physical or moral science are a part of the great human heritage of which it is as much a crime to defraud a child as to defraud him of his share in his father's estate. Children's rights in these matters have yet to be studied and defined far more exactly, and protected far more efficiently, than is done to-day; and they have a very important bearing on the whole school question.

Children, therefore, have, as individuals and members of society, a right to life, a right to maintenance, a right to education in the knowledge of those facts of the universe which are essential to their social welfare, and a right to protection against their own ignorance of those facts, whether enforced in the name of "parental prerogative" or any other name; and the State, which exists to protect individual rights, should protect the child from viola page 94 tion of these rights either by its own parents or by the Church.