the parent is liable for his support, if he be unable to support himself; but in this case the parent may discharge himself from all liability to support his child, by showing that the child is able to support himself.' This duty of supporting adult children. is, in England, enforced by a statute of Eliz., and similar statutes have been enacted in most, if not all, the States in the Union. The statute of this State makes it the duty of parents to support their children; and grandparents, their grandchildren; children, their parents; and grandchildren, their grandparents. This statute imposes on such relatives obligations. unknown to the common law. In the construction of our statutes, I have understood that when a parent is able to support his pauper child, no aid is to be called for from their grandparent; and so, too, when the child is able to support the parent, no aid is to be required of the grandchild. The English statute does not include grandchildren All, both male and female, with an exception hereafter mentioned, are bound to support their parents if they be of ability; and they will be assessed, where there are a number able, in proportion to their ability, without any reference to the property which they have received from their parents. One child may have received a good estate from his parent, and now be poor; whilst another, who has received nothing from his parent, may be in affluent circumstances. The ability to support is the only thing which governs in the quantum of assessment; and I apprehend this will not be in exact proportion to the property owned. One may possess an estate of £1,000; but his numerous family prevents his increasing his estate; whilst another, with the same estate, unincumbered with the expenses of a numerous family, is of greater ability to support his parent. When a man marries a wife, having children, the husband takes upon him, during coverture, all the obligations

1 The obligation to support adult children is purely statutory, as no such cbligation is recognized at common law. Blackley v. Laba., 63 Ia., 22; 50 Am. Rep.. 724; Crane v. Bandouine, 55 N. Y., 256; Boyd v. Sappington, 4 Watts, 247, Hawkins v. Hyde, 55 Vt. 55. But where adult children continue to live with the father, not as boarders, but as children, he cannot recover for or be allowed for their board from their estate, Beardsley v. Hotchkiss, 96 N. Y., 201, 221.

that lay on his wife; he took her cum onere. 1 Bl. Com., 448. If, then, she were able to maintain her children, when he married her, he is bound to maintain her children: if she were not able, he is not bound; for it is not a natural duty that he should support the offspring of another man; and by the law of baron and femme, when coverture ceases, his liabilities on account of his wife cease also.

I know that it has been a received opinion, that a husband in Connecticut is obliged to support his wife's children by a former husband, if he be of ability to do it, whether she was able at the time of the marrfage or not, to support her children. Such an opinion is destructive of the symmetry of the law, as it respects the liability of the husband to perform the duties of the wife. It is opposed to the construction of the English statute, which had received a construction long before our statute was enacted. So that it is a fair presumption that our legislature, when they enacted our statute, were perfectly satisfied with the construction given to the English statute. If they had intended to have made so important a variation, it is but reasonable to suppose that they would have expressed it in language that could not be mistaken.'

It has been decided, both by the English and our courts, that a husband is not bound to support the wife's parent or grandparent. (a) This is opposed to general principles; for his wife (a) 2 Buls., 345; Stra., 190.

1 As the law is now generally understood on this subject, a man's marriage, ipso facto, imposes no obligation upon him to support the minor children of his wife by a former marriage. But he may, by taking such step children into his family, or adopting them as his own, place himself in loco parentis, and become subject to the same duties toward them as toward his other children, so long as such step-children remain part of his family. Stone v. Carr, 3 Esp. Cas, Lord ELLENBOROUGH, in Cooper v. Martin, 4 East, 82, Sharp v. Cropsey, 11 Barb, 224; Williams v. Hutchinson, 3 N Y., 312; Ela v. Brand, 63 N. H.. 14; Re Besondy, 32 Minn., 385, Smith v. Rogers, 24 Kans., 140; 33 Am. Rep., 254. and note; Re Dissenger, 39 N. J. Eq., 227, Norton v. Ailor, 11 Lea, 563.

2 There is no obligation at common law by which a child can be compelled to support an infirm and indigent parent, but the obligation is created solely by statute; and therefore a promise from the child to pay for necessaries furnished without his request, to his indigent parent, is not implied by law. Edwards v. Davis, 16 John., 281. The natural and moral obliga

was liable to support them before marriage, and, of course, upon general principles, he would be obliged to support them after marriage. But the general principle is made to yield to the supposed superior strength of a principle of domestic policy which governs in this case, that family discord may be prevented. In Connecticut, the mode of enforcing this duty is by an application to the county court, to call all parties before. them, inquire, and assess the sum that is to be paid by each. This memorial may be made by any relatives concerned, or by the selectmen of the town, who, by our law, are overseers of the poor, or, indeed, by any neighbor, when this duty is neglected by all who ought to perform it. When the sum is assessed, security is given to abide the order of the court' which is to pay quarterly If security be not given, the court will issue quarterly executions against each of the parties in favor of the applicant, who becomes trustees of what he collects for the benefit of those on whose account the application was made. When the children are minors, and the parents will not support them, an action at common law lies against such parents by any person who supplies the children with necessaries. So, too, where one child, among several, supports his pauper parents, without application to the court for an assessment, he may maintain an action against each of his brethren, or sisters, who refuse to bear their proportion of the support.

Protection is also a duty of parents toward their children. This duty is enjoined by municipal law no further than what respects their obligation to support them. It is allowed, in some cases, that the parent may maintain his child in a lawsuit. All persons are forbidden to do this for a stranger. The parent may justify a battery in favor of a child; that is, he may do all in defense of his child, in such a case, as the child may do. A stranger may do nothing more than what is necessary to prevent others from fighting; but the parent may take sides with the child.'

Education of children to some useful employment; the instruc

tion of a child to support an indigent parent can be enforced only in the mode pointed out by the act for the relief and settlement of the poor. Id. See, also, Stone v. Stone, 32 Conn., 142.

11 Wait's Act. & Def., 338.

tion of them in reading their own language, so as to be able to read with propriety, that they may be able, for themselves, to search the scriptures of truth, and from them learn the revealed will of God, is a duty which is not enforced by the law of England any further than that overseers of the poor have, by statute, a power to bind out the children of paupers to masters, where they may receive a proper education. By the laws of Connecticut, all parents are bound to teach their children to read the English language well; and the law concerning capital offenses. Nothing more is intended by this clause than that they should learn what offenses are capital. If they have not sufficient ability to do this, they are obliged to teach their children some orthodox catechism. Whatever might have been meant by our ancestors who enacted the law, by the terms orthodox catechism it is now understood to be some catechism approved by that denomination of Christians to which the parents belong; and if the parents will not teach their children in such manner, the selectmen of the town are enjoined to take their children from their parents and bind them out to proper masters, where they will be educated to some useful employment and will be taught to read and write, and the rules of arithmetic, so far as is necessary, to transact ordinary business.' Males are to be bound out until they are twenty-one years of age, and females until eighteen years of age. This law has, by some, been branded as tyrannical, and as an infringement of parental rights. It is not the object of this work to enter into any defense of any particular law, but I have no doubt that this law has produced very astonishing effects; and to this is to be attributed that general knowledge of reading and writing so observable among the people of this State. For twenty-seven years of my life I was in the practice of the law. During this period,

1 The common law has left it practically optional with the parent to discharge this duty toward his offspring or not; though, perhaps, none of its laxities has been less abused in the United States and England than this. The common school system, which, starting in New England, has been generally adopted throughout the States of the Union, and which is so justly regarded with pride by Americans, is too well known to need extended reference here. In New York and other States elementary education is compulsory. See N. Y. Sess. L. of 1874, Chap. 421. See, also, famous truant laws of Massachusetts.

in all the business which I transacted, I never found but one person that could not write and was obliged to make his mark.

The parent has a right to govern his minor child; and, as incident to this, he must have power to correct him. The maxim is, that he has power to chastise him moderately. The exercise of this power must be, in a great measure, discretionary. He may so chastise his child as to be liable in an action by the child against him for a battery. The child has rights which the law will protect against the brutality of a barbarous parent. I apprehend, however, it is a point of some difficulty to determine, with exact prescision, when a parent has exceeded the bounds of moderation. That correction which will be considered by some triers as unreasonable, will be viewed by others as perfectly reasonable. What may be considered by some a venial folly, to which none, or very little, correction ought to be applied, by others will be considered as an offense that requires very severe treatment. The parent is bound to correct a child, so as to prevent him from becoming the victim of vicious habits, and thereby proving a nuisance to the community. The true ground on which this ought to be placed, I apprehend, is, that the parent ought to be considered as acting in a judicial capacity when he corrects, and, of course, not liable for errors of opinion; and although the punishment should appear to the triers to be unreasonably severe, and in no measure proportioned to the offense, yet, if it should also appear that the parent acted conscientiously, and from motives of duty, no verdict ought to be found against him. But when the punishment is, in their opinion, thus unreasonable, and it appears that the parent acted, malo animo, from wicked motives, under the influence of an unsocial heart, he ought to be liable to damages. For error of opinion, he ought to be excused; but for malice of heart, he must not be shielded from the just claims of the child. Whether there was malice, may be collected from the circumstances attending the punishment. The instrument

used, the time when, the place where, the temper of heart exhibited at the time, may all unite in demonstrating what the motives were which influenced the parent. These observations