ABSTRACT
Many people in easy or independent circumstances have few or no children. A vigorous stream of life may thus be made to flow into some of our older families by engrafting children who, although having a poor social inheritance, may yet be the possessors of a healthy organic inheritance. The adoption of children goes back to great antiquity. The legal relations are the same as those that exist between natural parents and children, including control, obedience and inheritance rights. Statutes permitting and regulating adoption are in force in most of the states of the Union. The legal relations are the same as those that exist between natural parents and children, including control, obedience and inheritance rights. Infants born out of wedlock reach from three to twelve per cent, of all births in civilized countries. There is a yearly average of 32,000 illegitimate births among the white population of the United States.
