This collection of facsimile reprints brings together essays in the field of American law relating to the controversial area of children's rights, parents' rights, and state's obligations toward children. Articles discuss the major rulings concerning an array of hotly debated issues. Volume one focuses on the obligations of the state to insure the protection of children and to intervene on behalf of a child. Issues include the rights of parents to educate children, to retain custody of children and to inflict corporal and noncorporal punishment on children. This volume also covers the state's lack of obligation to intervene in the private sphere of the family, i.e. the right of the state to remain neutral in cases of abuse, threat, or in cases where decisions made by the head of a household might appear to compromise the welfare or best interests of a child.