It never occurred to him that the greater part of them, according to universal experience, would have perished.

For children can only be brought up in families.

There is a subtle sympathy between the mother and the child which cannot be supplied by other mothers, or by 'strong nurses one or more' (Laws).

If Plato's 'pen' was as fatal as the Creches of Paris, or the foundling hospital of Dublin, more than nine-tenths of his children would have perished.

There would have been no need to expose or put out of the way the weaklier children, for they would have died of themselves.