ABSTRACT
When the history of the child in the twentieth century comes to be written, the Convention adopted by the United Nations in 1989 may well be seen as its greatest achievement. The twentieth century was to have been the century of the child: Ellen Key, the author of the book with this title, so assured in her book, which was published in Sweden in 1900. It was to be the century of the child, just as the nineteenth century had been the century of the woman. Ellen Key had a vision that the twentieth century would be the 'century of the child'. Many of her proposals have been accepted: the end of illegitimacy, the development of anti-corporal punishment laws, and more child-centred education. At the end of the century of the child, fifty years after the introduction of the National Health Service, this audit on the health of the children should set alarm bells ringing.
