Marriageable age
Marriageable age is the minimum age at which a person is allowed by law to marry, either as a right or subject to parental, judicial or other forms of approval. Age and other prerequisites to marriage vary between jurisdictions, but in the vast majority of jurisdictions, the marriage age as a right is set at the age of majority. Most jurisdictions allow marriage at a younger age with parental or judicial approval, some allow younger people to marry if the female is pregnant; until the marriageable age for women was lower in many jurisdictions than for men, but in many places has now been raised to those of men. The marriage age should not be confused with the age of maturity or the age of consent, though in many places they may be the same. In many developing countries, the official age prescriptions stand as mere guidelines. International organizations, such as UNICEF, regard a marriage by a person below the age of 18 as a child marriage; the 55 parties to the 1962 Convention on Consent to Marriage, Minimum Age for Marriage, Registration of Marriages have agreed to specify a minimum marriage age by statute law‚ to override customary and tribal laws.
When the marriageable age under a law of a religious community is lower than that under the law of the land, the state law prevails. However, some religious communities do not accept the supremacy of state law in this respect, which may lead to child marriage or forced marriage; the 123 parties to the 1956 Supplementary Convention on the Abolition of Slavery have agreed to adopt a minimum age for marriage. The age of consent for a sexual union was determined by tribal custom, or was a matter for families to decide. In most cases, this coincided with signs of puberty: such as menstruation for a girl and pubic hair for a boy. In Jewish oral tradition, men cannot consent to marriage until they reach the age of majority of 13 years and one day and have undergone puberty. With no signs of puberty, they are considered minors until the age of twenty. After twenty, they are not considered adults. If they show no signs of puberty or do show impotence, they automatically become adults by age 35 and can marry.
The same rules apply to women, except their age of majority is a day. In Ancient Rome, it was common for girls to marry and have children shortly after the onset of puberty. Roman law required brides to be at least 12 years old. In Roman law, first marriages to brides from 12 to 24 required the consent of the bride and her father; the Catholic canon law followed the Roman law. In the 12th century, the Catholic Church drastically changed legal standards for marital consent by allowing daughters over 12 and sons over 14 to marry without their parents' approval if their marriage was made clandestinely. Parish studies have confirmed that late medieval women did sometimes marry without their parents' approval. In western Europe, the rise of Christianity and manorialism had both created incentives to keep families nuclear, thus the age of marriage increased; the Church prohibited consanguineous marriages, a marriage pattern, a means to maintain clans throughout history. The church forbade marriages in which the bride did not agree to the union.
After the Fall of the Western Roman Empire, manorialism helped weaken the ties of kinship and thus the power of clans. The Church and State had become allies in erasing the solidarity and thus the political power of the clans; as the peasants and serfs lived and worked on farms that they rented from the lord of the manor, they needed the permission of the lord to marry. Couples therefore had to comply with the lord of the manor and wait until a small farm became available before they could marry and thus produce children. For example, marriage ages in Medieval England varied depending on economic circumstances, with couples delaying marriage until their early twenties when times were bad, but might marry in their late teens after the Black Death, when there was a severe labour shortage. In medieval Eastern Europe, on the other hand, the Slavic traditions of patrilocality of early and universal marriage lingered; the first recorded age-of-consent law dates back 800 years. In 1275, in England, as part of the rape law, the Statute of Westminster 1275, made it a misdemeanour to "ravish" a "maiden within age", whether with or without her consent.
The phrase "within age" was interpreted by jurist Sir Edward Coke as meaning the age of marriage, which at the time was 12 years. In the 12th century, th
Haditha Dam
The Haditha Dam or Qadisiya Dam is an earth-fill dam on the Euphrates, north of Haditha, creating Lake Qadisiyah. The dam is 57 metres high; the purpose of the dam is to generate hydroelectricity, regulate the flow of the Euphrates and provide water for irrigation. It is the second-largest hydroelectric contributor to the power system in Iraq behind the Mosul Dam; the Haditha Dam project was conceived in the late 1960s. The dam embankment was designed by the Soviet Union's Ministry of Energy, with its power station and equipment being designed and constructed by various Yugoslavian firms, it was conceived of as a multi-purpose project that would generate hydroelectric power, regulate the flow of the Euphrates, provide water for irrigation. Construction lasted between 1977 and 1987 and was a joint undertaking by the Soviet Union and Iraqi governments; the cost of the initial construction of the Haditha Dam is estimated at US$830 million. With the creation of the Haditha Reservoir, the ancient archeological site of Usiyeh along with Anah were flooded.
Usiyeh was located on the right bank of the Euphrates between Haditha and Anah and was excavated by the Japanese Archaeological Expedition in Iraq between 1982 and 1983. A multi-room underground structure along with a staircase, four life-size lion terracotta statues, three medium-sized lion statues and one lion statuette were found; these findings dated back to 1800–1700 BC. Ancient Anah was flooded and contained a prized minaret. Today, only modern Anah exists. During the 2003 invasion of Iraq, United States Army Rangers seized the Haditha Dam on 1 April in order to prevent it from being destroyed. Destruction of the dam would have affected the functioning of the country's electrical grid and could cause major flooding downstream from the dam. Afterwards, various U. S. Marine units had been stationed at the dam, as well as a small detachment from Azerbaijan. In 2004, the Gulf Region Division of the United States Army Corps of Engineers carried out restoration works on one of the turbines to restore the dam's hydroelectric power station to full capacity.
According to the Coalition Provisional Authority, the inauguration of this turbine on 3 June 2004 signified the first time since 1990 that the power station operated at full capacity. In the same year, a new power line was established between Haditha and Baghdad with the help of the USACE to restore a line, destroyed; this new line, stretching over a distance of 223 kilometres with 504 towers, has a capacity of 400 kV and allows 350 MW from the Haditha Dam to be added to the national electrical grid. The cost of the line was US$56.7 million and was paid by Iraq's oil revenues. The dam is situated in a narrow stretch of the Euphrates Valley where a small secondary channel branched off the main channel; the width of the main channel was 350 metres. The hydroelectric station is located in this secondary channel; the Haditha Dam is 9,064 metres long and 57 metres high, with the hydropower station at 3,310 metres from the dam's southern edge. The crest is at 154 metres 20 metres wide. Total volume of the dam is 0.03 cubic kilometres.
In cross-section, the dam consists of an asphaltic concrete cutoff wall at its core, followed by meally detrital dolomites, a mixture of sand and gravel. These materials were chosen because they are available near the construction site; this core is protected by a reinforced concrete slab revetment on the upstream side of the dam, a rock-mass revetment on the downstream side. The power station contains six Kaplan turbines capable of generating 660 MW; the turbines are installed in a hydrocombine unit that comprises both the spillway and the hydro-powerplant in one structure. Maximum discharge of the spillway is 11,000 cubic metres per second. Two bottom outlets on the dam can discharge 3,000 cubic metres per second for irrigation. Both these outlets and the spillway are controlled by tainter gates; the Haditha Reservoir or Lake Qadisiyah has a maximum water storage capacity of 8.3 cubic kilometres and a maximum surface area of 500 square kilometres. Actual capacity is however 7 cubic kilometres, at which size the surface area is 415 square kilometres.
At maximum capacity, annual evaporation from the lake is estimated at 0.6 cubic kilometres
Child abuse
Child abuse or child maltreatment is physical, and/or psychological maltreatment or neglect of a child or children by a parent or a caregiver. Child abuse may include any act or failure to act by a parent or a caregiver that results in actual or potential harm to a child, can occur in a child's home, or in the organizations, schools or communities the child interacts with; the terms child abuse and child maltreatment are used interchangeably, although some researchers make a distinction between them, treating child maltreatment as an umbrella term to cover neglect and trafficking. Different jurisdictions have developed their own definitions of what constitutes child abuse for the purposes of removing children from their families or prosecuting a criminal charge. Definitions of what constitute child abuse vary among professionals, between social and cultural groups, as well as across time; the terms abuse and maltreatment are used interchangeably in the literature. Child maltreatment can be an umbrella term covering all forms of child abuse and child neglect.
Defining child maltreatment depends on prevailing cultural values as they relate to children, child development, parenting. Definitions of child maltreatment can vary across the sectors of society which deal with the issue, such as child protection agencies and medical communities, public health officials, researchers and child advocates. Since members of these various fields tend to use their own definitions, communication across disciplines can be limited, hampering efforts to identify, track and prevent child maltreatment. In general, abuse refers to acts of commission. Child maltreatment includes both acts of commission and acts of omission on the part of parents or caregivers that cause actual or threatened harm to a child; some health professionals and authors consider neglect as part of the definition of abuse, while others do not. Delayed effects of child abuse and neglect emotional neglect, the diversity of acts that qualify as child abuse, are factors; the World Health Organization defines child abuse and child maltreatment as "all forms of physical and/or emotional ill-treatment, sexual abuse, neglect or negligent treatment or commercial or other exploitation, resulting in actual or potential harm to the child's health, development or dignity in the context of a relationship of responsibility, trust or power."
In the United States, the Centers for Disease Control and Prevention uses the term child maltreatment to refer to both acts of commission, which include "words or overt actions that cause harm, potential harm, or threat of harm to a child", acts of omission, meaning "the failure to provide for a child's basic physical, emotional, or educational needs or to protect a child from harm or potential harm". The United States federal Child Abuse Prevention and Treatment Act defines child abuse and neglect as, at minimum, "any recent act or failure to act on the part of a parent or caretaker which results in death, serious physical or emotional harm, sexual abuse or exploitation" or "an act or failure to act which presents an imminent risk of serious harm"; the World Health Organization distinguishes four types of child maltreatment: physical abuse. Among professionals and the general public, people do not agree on what behaviors constitute physical abuse of a child. Physical abuse does not occur in isolation, but as part of a constellation of behaviors including authoritarian control, anxiety-provoking behavior, a lack of parental warmth.
The WHO defines physical abuse as: Intentional use of physical force against the child that results in – or has a high likelihood of resulting in – harm for the child's health, development or dignity. This includes hitting, kicking, biting, scalding, burning and suffocating. Much physical violence against children in the home is inflicted with the object of punishing. Joan Durrant and Ron Ensom write that most physical abuse is physical punishment "in intent and effect". Overlapping definitions of physical abuse and physical punishment of children highlight a subtle or non-existent distinction between abuse and punishment. For instance, Paulo Sergio Pinheiro writes in the UN Secretary-General's Study on Violence Against Children: Corporal punishment involves hitting children, with the hand or with an implement – whip, belt, wooden spoon, etc, but it can involve, for example, shaking or throwing children, pinching, pulling hair or boxing ears, forcing children to stay in uncomfortable positions, scalding or forced ingestion.
Most nations with child abuse laws deem the deliberate infliction of serious injuries, or actions that place the child at obvious risk of serious injury or death, to be illegal. Bruises, burns, broken bones, lacerations — as well as repeated "mishaps," and rough treatment that could cause physical injuries — can be physical abuse. Multiple injuries or fractures at different stages of healing can raise suspicion of abuse; the psychologist Alice Miller, noted for her books on child abuse, took the view that humiliations and beatings, slaps in the face, etc. are all forms of abuse, because they injure the
Suffrage
Suffrage, political franchise, or franchise is the right to vote in public, political elections. In some languages, in English, the right to vote is called active suffrage, as distinct from passive suffrage, the right to stand for election; the combination of active and passive suffrage is sometimes called full suffrage. Suffrage is conceived in terms of elections for representatives. However, suffrage applies to referenda and initiatives. Suffrage describes not only the legal right to vote, but the practical question of whether a question will be put to a vote; the utility of suffrage is reduced when important questions are decided unilaterally without extensive, full disclosure and public review. In most democracies, eligible voters can vote in elections of representatives. Voting on issues by referendum may be available. For example, in Switzerland this is permitted at all levels of government. In the United States, some states such as California and Washington have exercised their shared sovereignty to offer citizens the opportunity to write and vote on referendums and initiatives.
Referendums in the United Kingdom are rare. Suffrage is granted to qualifying citizens. What constitutes a qualifying citizen depends on the government's decision. Resident non-citizens can vote in some countries, which may be restricted to citizens of linked countries or to certain offices or questions; the word suffrage comes from Latin suffragium, meaning "vote", "political support", the right to vote. The etymology of the Latin word is uncertain, with some sources citing Latin suffragari "lend support, vote for someone", from sub "under" + fragor "crash, shouts", related to frangere "to break". Other sources say; some etymologists think the word may be related to suffrago and may have meant an ankle bone or knuckle bone. Universal suffrage consists of the right to vote without restriction due to sex, social status, education level, or wealth, it does not extend the right to vote to all residents of a region. The short-lived Corsican Republic was the first country to grant limited universal suffrage to all citizens over the age of 25.
In 1819 60-80,000 men and women from 30 miles around Manchester assembled in the city's St. Peter's Square to protest their lack of any representation in the Houses of Parliament. Historian Robert Poole has called the Peterloo Massacre one of the defining moments of its age.. The film Peterloo featured; this was followed by other experiments in the Paris Commune of 1871 and the island republic of Franceville. The 1840 constitution of the Kingdom of Hawai'i granted universal suffrage to all male and female adults. In 1893, when the Kingdom of Hawai'i was overthrown in a coup, New Zealand became the only independent country to practice universal suffrage, the Freedom in the World index lists New Zealand as the only free country in the world in 1893. Women's suffrage is, by definition, the right of women to vote; this was the goal of the suffragists, who believed in using legal means and the suffragettes, who used extremist measures. Short-lived suffrage equity was drafted into provisions of the State of New Jersey's first, 1776 Constitution, which extended the Right to Vote to unwed female landholders & black land owners.
"IV. That all inhabitants of this Colony, of full age, who are worth fifty pounds proclamation money, clear estate in the same, have resided within the county in which they claim a vote for twelve months preceding the election, shall be entitled to vote for Representatives in Council and Assembly. New Jersey 1776 However, the document did not specify an Amendment procedure, the provision was subsequently replaced in 1844 by the adoption of the succeeding constitution, which reverted to "all white male" suffrage restrictions. Although the Kingdom of Hawai'i granted female suffrage in 1840, the right was rescinded in 1852. Limited voting rights were gained by some women in Sweden and some western U. S. states in the 1860s. In 1893, the British colony of New Zealand became the first self-governing nation to extend the right to vote to all adult women. In 1894 the women of South Australia achieved the right to both stand for Parliament; the autonomous Grand Duchy of Finland in the Russian Empire was the first nation to allow all women to both vote and run for parliament.
Those against the women's suffrage movement made public organizations to put down the political movement, with the main argument being that a woman's place was in the home, not polls. Political cartoons and public outrage over women's rights increased as the opposition to suffrage worked day and night to organize legitimate groups campaigning against women's voting rights; the Massachusetts Association Opposed to the Further Extension of Suffrage to Women was one organization that came out of the 1880's to put down the voting efforts. Many anti-suffrage propaganda poked fun at the idea of women in politics. Political cartoons displayed the most sentiment by portraying the issue of women's suffrage to be swapped with men's lives; some mocked the popular suf
United States Navy Riverine Squadron
The Riverine Squadrons of the United States Navy are elements of the Navy Expeditionary Combat Command. According to the Navy: “The Navy’s Riverine force focuses on conducting Maritime Security Operations and Theater Security Cooperation in a riverine area of operations or other suitable area; the force is capable of combating enemy riverine forces by applying fires directly, or by coordinating supporting fires. It will share battle space with the other Services in an effort to close the seams in Doctrine, Tactics and Procedures, Command, Communications, Intelligence and Reconnaissance.”As of 2008, three riverine squadrons were active in the Navy, all under the command of Riverine Group 1, located in Norfolk, Virginia. Riverine Squadron 1 deployed to Iraq in April 2007 and was relieved by Riverine Squadron 2 in October 2007. Riverine Squadron 3 was established in July 2007 and relieved RIVRON 2 in Iraq when their deployment completed in April 2008. Riverine Group and Riverine Squadron 1 were both formally established May 25, 2006, under Navy Expeditionary Combat Command.
It was modeled after the Marines Small Craft Company. The establishment brought together sailors from diverse backgrounds to begin a transformation from blue water to brown water sailors. Following several months of training in combat skills, SURC operations, cultural and language skills, RIVRON 1 Advance Party deployed to Iraq on February 13, 2007, followed by RIVRON 1 Main Body deployed March 8. RIVRON 1 conducted integrated maritime combat operations with Marines, Coalition Forces, Iraqi Army, Iraqi Police. RIVRON 1 assumed patrol duties around Haditha Dam from the Marine Corps, performing this task. On 1 August 2012, RIVRON 1 was decommissioned, it was replaced by Coastal Riverine Squadron 4, which combined RIVRON 1 with Maritime Expeditionary Security Squadron 4. This reorganization combined navy small boat units to provide both offensive and defensive force protection. RIVRON 2 was established on February 2, 2007 and began unit-level training with the Marine Corps at Camp Lejeune, North Carolina.
RIVRON 2 deployed to Iraq in October 2007, relieving RIVRON 1. RIVRON 3 was established on July 2007 at Naval Weapons Station Yorktown, Virginia; the unit deployed to Iraq in April 2008 relieving RIVRON 2. Riverine Group ONE, Little Creek, Virginia Riverine Squadron ONE, Little Creek, Virginia Riverine Squadron TWO, Little Creek, Virginia Riverine Squadron THREE, Virginia Special Warfare Combatant-craft Crewmen 2016 U. S.–Iran naval incident rivron 4 Navy Expeditionary Combat Command GlobalSecurity.org: “Navy getting back into the riverboat patrol business in Iraq” Stars and Stripes: “Navy’s revived riverine squadron to patrol dam”, 2007-03-24 U. S. Navy Bureau of Personnel: Qualification requirements for the Riverine Force Navy Times: “First riverine unit deploys to Iraq”, 2007-03-09 United States Central Command: “Navy’s riverine force plans first homecoming since Vietnam”, 2007-09-22 U. S. Marine Corps News: “Riverines combat guerrilla tactics, enforce new curfew”, 2007-10-03 Photos https://web.archive.org/web/20130301233842/http://www.public.navy.mil/necc/hq/PublishingImages/NECC%20fact%20sheets/NECC_CRF_FactSheet2012.pdf
Child labour
Child labour refers to the exploitation of children through any form of work that deprives children of their childhood, interferes with their ability to attend regular school, is mentally, physically or morally harmful. Such exploitation is prohibited by legislation worldwide, although these laws do not consider all work by children as child labour. Child labour has existed to varying extents throughout history. During the 19th and early 20th centuries, many children aged 5–14 from poorer families worked in Western nations and their colonies alike; these children worked in agriculture, home-based assembly operations, factories and services such as news boys—some worked night shifts lasting 12 hours. With the rise of household income, availability of schools and passage of child labour laws, the incidence rates of child labour fell. In the world's poorest countries, around 1 in 4 children are engaged in child labour, the highest number of whom live in sub-saharan Africa. In 2017, four African nations witnessed over 50 percent of children aged 5–14 working.
Worldwide agriculture is the largest employer of child labour. The vast majority of child labour is found in informal urban economies. Poverty and lack of schools are considered the primary cause of child labour. Globally the incidence of child labour decreased from 25% to 10% between 1960 and 2003, according to the World Bank; the total number of child labourers remains high, with UNICEF and ILO acknowledging an estimated 168 million children aged 5–17 worldwide were involved in child labour in 2013. Child labour forms an intrinsic part of pre-industrial economies. In pre-industrial societies, there is a concept of childhood in the modern sense. Children begin to participate in activities such as child rearing and farming as soon as they are competent. In many societies, children as young as 13 are seen as adults and engage in the same activities as adults; the work of children was important in pre-industrial societies, as children needed to provide their labour for their survival and that of their group.
Pre-industrial societies were characterised by low productivity and short life expectancy, preventing children from participating in productive work would be more harmful to their welfare and that of their group in the long run. In pre-industrial societies, there was little need for children to attend school; this is the case in non literate societies. Most pre-industrial skill and knowledge were amenable to being passed down through direct mentoring or apprenticing by competent adults. With the onset of the Industrial Revolution in Britain in the late 18th century, there was a rapid increase in the industrial exploitation of labour, including child labour. Industrial cities such as Birmingham and Liverpool grew from small villages into large cities and improving child mortality rates; these cities drew in the population, growing due to increased agricultural output. This process was replicated in other industrialising countries; the Victorian era in particular became notorious for the conditions under which children were employed.
Children as young as four were employed in production factories and mines working long hours in dangerous fatal, working conditions. In coal mines, children would crawl through tunnels too low for adults. Children worked as errand boys, crossing sweepers, shoe blacks, or selling matches and other cheap goods; some children undertook work as apprentices to respectable trades, such as building or as domestic servants. Working hours were long: builders worked 64 hours a week in summer and 52 in winter, while domestic servants worked 80-hour weeks. Child labour played an important role in the Industrial Revolution from its outset brought about by economic hardship; the children of the poor were expected to contribute to their family income. In 19th-century Great Britain, one-third of poor families were without a breadwinner, as a result of death or abandonment, obliging many children to work from a young age. In England and Scotland in 1788, two-thirds of the workers in 143 water-powered cotton mills were described as children.
A high number of children worked as prostitutes. The author Charles Dickens worked at the age of 12 in a blacking factory, with his family in debtor's prison. Child wages were low. Karl Marx was an outspoken opponent of child labour, saying British industries, "could but live by sucking blood, children’s blood too," and that U. S. capital was financed by the "capitalized blood of children". Letitia Elizabeth Landon castigated child labour in her 1835 poem The Factory, portions of which she pointedly included in her 18th Birthday Tribute to Princess Victoria in 1837. Throughout the second half of the 19th century, child labour began to decline in industrialised societies due to regulation and economic factors because of the Growth of Trade Unions; the regulation of child labour began from the earliest days of the Industrial revolution. The first act to regulate child labour in Britain was passed in 1803; as early as 1802 and 1819 Factory Acts were passed to regulate the working hours of workhouse children in factories and cotton mills to 12 hours per day.
These acts were ineffective and after radical agitation, by for example the "Short Time Committees" in 1831
Homeschooling
Homeschooling known as home education is the education of children at home or a variety of other places. Home education is conducted by a parent or tutor or online teacher. Many families use less formal ways of educating. "Homeschooling" is the term used in North America, whereas "home education" is used in the United Kingdom, in many Commonwealth countries. Before the introduction of compulsory school attendance laws, most childhood education was done by families and local communities. In many developed countries, homeschooling is a legal alternative to private schools. In other nations, homeschooling remains illegal or restricted to specific conditions, as recorded by homeschooling international status and statistics. According to the US National Center for Education Statistics, about three percent of all children in the US were homeschooled in 2011–2012 school year; the study found that 83 percent were White, 5 percent were Black, 7 percent were Hispanic, 2 percent were Asian or Pacific Islander.
As of 2016, there are about 1.7 million homeschooled students in the United States. On average, homeschoolers score above the national average on standardized tests. Homeschool students have been accepted into many Ivy League universities. For most of history and in different cultures, the education of children at home by family members was a common practice. Enlisting professional tutors was an option available only to the wealthy. Homeschooling declined in the 19th and 20th centuries with the enactment of compulsory attendance laws. But, it continued to be practiced in isolated communities. Homeschooling began a resurgence in the 1960s and 1970s with educational reformists dissatisfied with industrialized education; the earliest public schools in modern Western culture were established during the reformation with the encouragement of Martin Luther in the German states of Gotha and Thuringia in 1524 and 1527. From the 1500s to 1800s the literacy rate increased. Home education and apprenticeship continued to remain the main form of education until the 1830s.
However, in the 18th century, the majority of people in Europe lacked formal education. Since the early 19th century, formal classroom schooling became the most common means of schooling throughout the developed countries. In 1647, New England provided compulsory elementary education. Regional differences in schooling existed in colonial America. In the south and plantations were so dispersed that community schools such as those in the more compact settlements of the north were impossible. In the middle colonies, the educational situation varied. Most Native American tribal cultures traditionally used home education and apprenticeship to pass knowledge to children. Parents were supported by tribal leaders in the education of their children; the Native Americans vigorously resisted compulsory education in the United States. In the 1960s, Rousas John Rushdoony began to advocate homeschooling, which he saw as a way to combat the secular nature of the public school system in the United States, he vigorously attacked progressive school reformers such as Horace Mann and John Dewey, argued for the dismantling of the state's influence in education in three works: Intellectual Schizophrenia, The Messianic Character of American Education, The Philosophy of the Christian Curriculum.
Rushdoony was called as an expert witness by the Home School Legal Defense Association in court cases. He advocated the use of private schools. During this time, American educational professionals Raymond and Dorothy Moore began to research the academic validity of the growing Early Childhood Education movement; this research included independent studies by other researchers and a review of over 8,000 studies bearing on early childhood education and the physical and mental development of children. They asserted that formal schooling before ages 8–12 not only lacked the anticipated effectiveness, but harmed children; the Moores published their view that formal schooling was damaging young children academically mentally, physiologically. The Moores presented evidence that childhood problems such as juvenile delinquency, increased enrollment of students in special education classes and behavioral problems were the result of earlier enrollment of students; the Moores cited studies demonstrating that orphans who were given surrogate mothers were measurably more intelligent, with superior long-term effects – though the mothers were "mentally retarded teenagers" – and that illiterate tribal mothers in Africa produced children who were and more advanced than typical western children, "by western standards of measurement".
Their primary assertion was that the bonds and emotional development made at home with parents during these years produced critical long-term results that were cut short by enrollment in schools, could neither be replaced nor corrected in an institutional setting afterward. Recognizing a necessity for early out-of-home care for some children special needs and impoverished children and children from exceptionally inferior homes, they maintained that the vast majority of children were far better situated at home with mediocre parents, than with the most gifted and motivated teachers in a school setting, they described the difference as follows: "This is like saying, if you can help a child by taking him off the cold street and housing him in a warm tent warm tents should be provided for all children – when obviousl
