What is ADOPT

To accept, appropriate , choose, or select; to make that one’s own (property or act) which was not so originally. To adopt a route for the transportation of the mail means to take the steps necessary to cause the mail to be transported over that route. Rhodes v. U. S., Dev. Ct. CI. 47. To adopt a contract is to accept it as binding, notwithstanding some defect which entitles the party to repudiate it. Thus, when a person affirms a voidable contract , or ratifies a contract made by his agent beyond his authority, he is said to adopt it Sweet. To accept, consent to, and put into effective operation; as in the case of a constitution , constitutional amendment, ordinance, or by-law. Real v. Teople, 42 N. Y. 2S2; People v. Norton, 59 Barb. (N. Y.) 191. To take into one’s family the child of another and give him or her the rights, privileges, and duties of a child and heir. State v. Thompson, 13 La. Ann. 515; Abney v. De Loach, 84 Ala. 393, 4 South. 757; In re Sessions’ Estate, 70 Micli. 297, 38 N. W. 249, 14 Am. St. Rep. 500; Smith v. Allen, 32 App. Div. 374, 53 N. Y. Supp. 114. Adoption of children was a tiling unknown to the common law, but was a familiar practice under the Roman law and in those countries where the civil law prevails, as France and Spain. Modern statutes authorizing adoption are taken from the civil law, and to that extent modify the rules of the common law as to the succession of property. Butterfield v. Sawyer, 187 111. 59S, 58 N. E. 002, 52 L. R. A. 75, 79 Am. St. Rep. 240; Vidal v. Commagere, 13 La. ADS Ann. 516; Eckford v. Knox, 67 Tex. 200, 2 S. W. 372.