A survey of the history of child welfare with a brief study of the problem of child welfare in the Maltese Islands

Abstract

The scope of this work is to outline the gradual development of interest in child welfare. This development can only be clearly understood against a background depicting the state of the child a few centuries back. The first part of this work is aimed to describe what was being done for the welfare of children during the eighteenth and nineteenth centuries. This time was a very hard one for children in general. There was no laws to protect them. Most of the landed aristocracy of the time were too much absorbed in their pursuits, to devote any time for the care of the younger generation. With the general spread of education which brought in its wake an upward trend of civilization, a rise in social meanings resulted in the passing of social laws, and in researches in medicine and in psychology. The laissez-fair policy of the last century gave way to a more humane and democratic line of action, and this lifted up humanity in general, and especially the younger section, to a higher level in the style of life. That the State has stepped in today is a sign that public conscience has been stirred to effort, many years after the Church had set up the example, even though its work was done quietly and without the fanfare of the government press.