initial commit of ebook 10482HEADmain

11 files changed, 39461 insertions, 0 deletions

diff --git a/.gitattributes b/.gitattributes
new file mode 100644
index 0000000..6833f05
--- /dev/null
+++ b/.gitattributes
@@ -0,0 +1,3 @@
+* text=auto
+*.txt text
+*.md text
diff --git a/10482-0.txt b/10482-0.txt
new file mode 100644
index 0000000..119b673
--- /dev/null
+++ b/10482-0.txt
@@ -0,0 +1,7609 @@
+*** START OF THE PROJECT GUTENBERG EBOOK 10482 ***
+
+THE YOUNG MOTHER, OR
+
+MANAGEMENT OF CHILDREN IN REGARD TO HEALTH.
+
+BY WM. A. ALCOTT
+
+
+1836
+
+
+
+ADVERTISEMENT TO THE THIRD EDITION.
+
+The present edition has been much enlarged. The author has added a
+section on the conduct and management of the mother herself, besides
+several other important amendments and additions. The whole has also
+been carefully revised, and we cannot but indulge the hope that no
+popular work of the kind will be found more perfect, or more worthy of
+the public confidence.
+
+
+
+
+CONTENTS.
+
+
+CHAPTER I. THE NURSERY.
+
+General remarks. Importance of a Nursery--generally overlooked. Its
+walls--ceiling--windows--chimney. Two apartments. Sliding partition.
+Reasons for this arrangement. Objections to carpets. Furniture, &c.
+Feather beds. Holes or crevices. Currents of air. Cats and dogs.
+"Sucking the child's breath." Brilliant objects. Squinting. Causes of
+blindness.
+
+
+CHAPTER II. TEMPERATURE.
+
+General principle--"Keep cool." Our own sensations not always to be
+trusted. Thermometer. Why infants require more external heat than
+adults. Means of warmth. Air heated in other apartments. Clothes taking
+fire. Stove--railing around it. Excess of heat--its dangers.
+
+
+CHAPTER III. VENTILATION.
+
+General ignorance of the constitution of the atmosphere. The subject
+briefly explained. Oxygen gas. Nitrogen. Carbonic acid. Fires, candles,
+and breathing dependent on oxygen. Danger from carbonic acid. How it
+destroys people. Impurity of the air arising from lamps and candles.
+Other sources of impurity. Experiment of putting the candle under the
+bed-clothes. Covering the heads of infants while sleeping--its dangers.
+Proportions of oxygen and nitrogen in pure and impure air. No wonder
+children become sickly. Particular means of ventilating rooms. Caution
+in regard to lamps. Washing, ironing, cooking, &c., in a nursery. Their
+evil tendency. Fumigation--camphor, vinegar.
+
+
+CHAPTER IV. THE CHILD'S DRESS.
+
+General principles--1. To cover us; 2. To defend us from cold; 3. from
+injury.
+
+SEC. 1. _Swathing the Body._
+
+Buffon's remarks. Transforming children into mummies. Use of a belly-band.
+Evils produced by having it too tight. Cripples sometimes made. Absurdity
+of confining the arms. Infants should be made happy.
+
+SEC. 2. _Form of the Dress._
+
+Curious suggestion of a London writer. Advantages of his plan. Killing
+with kindness. Dr. Buchan's opinion. Conformity to fashion. Tight-lacing
+the chest. Its effects--dangerous. Physiology of the chest. Its motions.
+An attempt to make the subject intelligible. Serious mistakes of some
+writers. Appeal to facts. Color of females. Their breathing. Their
+diseases. Customs of Tunis. Our own customs little less ridiculous.
+
+SEC. 3. _Material._
+
+Flannel in cold weather. Its use--1. As a kind
+of flesh brush; 2. As a protection against taking cold; 3. As means of
+equalizing the temperature. Clothing should be kept clean--often
+changed--color--lightness--softness. Cotton apt to take fire. Silk
+expensive. Linen not warm enough. Flannel under-clothes.
+
+SEC. 4. _Quantity._
+
+The power of habit, in this respect. Opinion that no clothing is
+necessary. Anecdote of Alexander and the Scythian. Argument from
+analogy. Begin right, in early life. We generally use too much
+clothing. Should clothing be often varied?--objections to it. Avoid
+dampness.
+
+SEC. 5. _Caps._
+
+How caps produce disease. Nature's head-dress. Miserable apology for
+caps. What diseases are avoided by going with the head bare. Judicious
+remarks of a foreign writer. Covering the "open of the head." Wetting
+the head with spirits.
+
+SEC. 6. _Hats and Bonnets._
+
+Hats usually too warm. No covering needed in the house; and but little
+in the sun or rain. Is it dangerous to go with the head always bare?
+
+SEC. 7. _Covering for the Feet._
+
+The feet should be well covered. Why. Rule of medical men. No garters.
+Objections to covering the feet considered. Shoes useful. Not too thick.
+Thick soles. Mr. Locke's opinion.
+
+SEC. 8. _Pins._
+
+These ought not to be used. Why. Substitutes. Practice of Dr. Dewees.
+Needles--their danger. Shocking anecdote.
+
+SEC. 9. _Remaining Wet._
+
+Changing wet clothing. Monstrous error--its evils. Clean as well as dry.
+A lame excuse for negligence. No excuse sufficient but poverty.
+
+SEC. 10. _Remarks on the Dress of Boys._
+
+Every restraint of body or limb injurious. Tight jackets. Stiff stocks
+and thick cravats. Boots. Evils of having them too tight. A painful
+sight.
+
+SEC. 11. _On the Dress of Girls._
+
+Clothing should be loose for girls or boys. Girls to be kept warmer than
+boys. Few girls comfortable, at home or abroad. Going out of warm rooms
+into the night air. How it promotes disease.
+
+
+CHAPTER V. CLEANLINESS.
+
+Physiology of the human skin. Of checking perspiration. Diseases thus
+produced. "Dirt" not "healthy." How the mistake originated. "Smell of
+the earth." Effect of uncleanliness on the morals. Filthiness produces
+bowel complaints. Changing dress for the sake of cleanliness.
+
+
+CHAPTER VI. BATHING.
+
+Practice of savage nations. Rather dangerous. Mistake of Rousseau.
+Plunging into cold water at birth may produce immediate death. Hundreds
+injured where one is benefited. Spirits added to the water. First
+washings of the child--should be thorough. Rules in regard to the
+temperature of both the water and the air. Washing an introduction to
+bathing. Hour for bathing changes with age. Temperature of the water.
+Size of a bathing vessel. Unreasonable fears of the warm bath. How they
+arose. A list of common whims. Apology for opposing cold baths. Dr
+Dewees' eight objections to them. Does cold water harden? Cold bath
+sometimes useful under the care of a skilful physician. Its danger in other
+cases. Rules for using the cold bath, if used at all. Securing a glow after
+it. General management. Proper hour. Coming out of the bath. Dressing.
+Singing. Bathing after a meal. Local bathing. Tea-spoonful of water in the
+mouth. Its use. The shower bath. Vapor bath. Medicated bath. Sponging.
+Conveniences for bathing indispensable to every family. General neglect
+of bathing. Attention of the Romans to this subject. We treat domestic
+animals better than children.
+
+
+CHAPTER VII. FOOD.
+
+SEC. 1. _General Principles._
+
+The mother's milk the only appropriate food of infants. Unreasonableness
+of some mothers. The tendency to ape foreign fashions. Nursing does not
+weaken the mother.
+
+SEC. 2. _Conduct of the Mother._
+
+Much depends on the mother. Opinions of medical societies. Mothers
+sometimes make children drunkards. The general fondness for excitements.
+Hints to those whom it concerns. Caution to mothers. Opinions of Dr.
+Dewees. Slavery of mothers to strong drink and exciting food. Opinions
+of the Charleston Board of Health.
+
+SEC. 3. _Nursing, how often._
+
+Children should never be nursed to quiet them. Stomach must have time
+for rest. Regular seasons for nursing. Once in three hours. Difference
+of constitution. Indulgence does not strengthen. Feeble children require
+the strictest management. Nothing should be given between meals.
+
+SEC. 4. _Quantity of Food._
+
+Errors. Repetition of aliment. Variety. Children over-fed. Appetite not
+a safe guide. Training to gluttony. Illustrations of the principle.
+Mankind eat twice as much as is necessary.
+
+SEC. 5. _How long should Milk be the only Food?_
+
+First change in diet. Objections of mothers. Choice bits. Ignorance of
+the nature of digestion. What digestion is. Food which the author of
+nature assigned.
+
+SEC. 6. _On Feeding before Teething._
+
+When feeding before teething is necessary. Diet of mothers. Substitute
+for the mother's milk. How prepared. Variety not necessary to the
+infant. Milk best from the same cow. Vessels in which it is used should
+be clean. Sweet milk not heated too much. Not frozen. Disgusting
+practices. Pure water. If not pure, boil it. Best of sugar. Is sugar
+injurious? When the state of the mother's health forbids nursing. Use of
+sucking-bottles. Feeding should in all cases be slow. Jolting children
+after eating. Tossing. Sucking-bottle as a plaything. Evils of using it
+as such. Dirty vessels. Poisonous ones. Character of nurses. Nursing at
+both breasts. Age of the nurse. Parents should have the oversight, even
+of a nurse.
+
+SEC. 7. _From Teething to Weaning._
+
+Proper age for weaning. Cullen's opinion. Proper season of the year.
+When the teeth have fairly protruded. First food given. New forms of
+food. Animal broth.
+
+SEC. 8. _During the Process of Weaning._
+
+The spring the best time for weaning. Should not be too sudden. The
+process--how managed. Exciting an aversion to the breast. What solid
+food should first be given. Buchan's opinion. Health of the mother. She
+should--if possible--avoid medicine.
+
+SEC. 9. _Food subsequently to Weaning._
+
+Views of Dr. Cadogan. Half the children that come into the world go out
+of it before they are good for anything. Why? Owing chiefly to errors in
+nursing, feeding, and clothing. Simplicity of children's food. Picture
+of a modern table. Every dish tortured till it is spoiled. Plain, simple
+food, generally despised. How bread is now regarded. How it ought to be.
+Mr. Locke's opinion in favor of bread for young children, and against
+the use of animal food. Does not differ materially from that of most
+medical writers. Vegetable food generally preferred to animal. What is
+true of youth, in this respect, is true of every age, with slight
+exceptions. Who require most food. Mere bread and water not best. Bread
+the staple article of diet. Best kind of bread. Objections to it. How
+groundless they are. Fondness, for hot, new bread not natural. Fondness
+of change. What it indicates. How it is caused. Train up a child in the
+way he should go. We can like what food we please. Second best kind of
+bread. Other kinds. Plain puddings. Indian cakes. Salt may be used, in
+moderate quantity, but no other condiments. Of butter, cheese, milk, &c.
+Potatoes, turnips, onions, beets, and other roots. Beans, peas, and
+asparagus. No fat or gravies should be used.
+
+SEC. 10. _Remarks on Fruit._
+
+Diversity of opinion. The cholera. Fruits useful. Seven plain rules in
+regard to them. Other rules. A mistake corrected. Fruit before
+breakfast. Four arguments in its favor. Particular fruits. Apples. Why
+fruits brought to market are generally unfit to be eaten. Are good, ripe
+fruits difficult of digestion? Cooking the apple? A man who lives
+entirely on apples. Cutting down orchards. Pears, peaches, melons,
+grapes. Mixing improper substances with summer fruits.
+
+SEC. 11. _Confectionary._
+
+Confectionary sometimes poisonous. Case in New York. All, or nearly
+all confectionaries injurious. Physical evils attending their use.
+Intellectual evils. Moral evils. The last most to be dreaded. Slaves
+to confectionary are on the road to gluttony, drunkenness, or
+debauchery--perhaps all three.
+
+SEC. 12. _Pastry._
+
+Dr. Paris's opinion of pastry. Various forms of it. Hot flour bread a
+species of it. Produces, among other evils, eruptions on the face.
+Appeal to mothers.
+
+SEC. 13. _Crude, or Raw Substances._
+
+Salads, herbs, &c.--raw--cooked. Nuts, spices, mustard, horseradish,
+onions, cucumbers, pickles, &c. None of these should be used, except as
+medicine.
+
+
+CHAPTER VIII. DRINKS.
+
+Infants need little drink. Adults, even, generally drink to cool
+themselves. Simple water the best drink. Opinions of Dr. Oliver and Dr.
+Dewees. Animal food increases thirst. Only one real drink in the world.
+The true object of all drink. Tea, coffee, chocolate, beer, &c. Milk
+and water, molasses and water, &c. Cider, wine, and ardent spirits. Bad
+food and drink the most prolific sources of disease. Children naturally
+prefer water. Danger of hot drinks. Cold drinks. Mischiefs they produce.
+Caution to mothers. Extracts. Drinking cold water, while hot.
+
+
+CHAPTER IX. GIVING MEDICINE.
+
+"Prevention" better than "cure." Nine in ten infantile diseases caused
+by errors in diet and drink. Signs of failing health. Causes of a bad
+breath. Flesh eaters. Gormandizers. General rule for preventing disease.
+When to call a physician.
+
+
+CHAPTER X. EXERCISE.
+
+SEC. 1. _Rocking in the Cradle._
+
+Objections to the use of cradles. Under what circumstances they are
+least objectionable.
+
+SEC. 2. _Carrying in the Arms._
+
+Carrying in the arms a suitable exercise for the first two months of
+life. Danger of too early sitting up. Improper position in the arms.
+Mothers must see to this themselves. Motion in the arms should be
+gentle. No tossing, running, or jumping. Infants should not always be
+carried on the same arm.
+
+SEC. 3. _Creeping._
+
+Creeping useful to health. Why. Go-carts and leading strings prohibited.
+The longer children creep, the better. Their progress in learning to
+stand. Let it be slow and natural. Let it be, as much as possible, by
+their own voluntary efforts.
+
+SEC. 4. _Walking._
+
+Walking in the nursery. Walking abroad. Hoisting children into carriages.
+Walks should not become fatiguing.
+
+SEC. 5. _Riding in Carriages._
+
+Carriages useful before children can walk. Their construction. Should be
+drawn steadily. Position of the child in them: Falling asleep. How long
+this exercise should be continued.
+
+SEC. 6 _Riding on Horseback._
+
+Never safe for infants. Riding schools. Objections to riding on
+horseback, while very young. Tends to cruelty and tyranny.
+
+
+CHAPTER XI. AMUSEMENTS.
+
+Universal need of amusements. Why so necessary. Error of schools. Error
+of families. Infant schools, as often conducted, particularly injurious.
+Lessons, or tasks, should be short. Mistakes of some manual labor
+schools. Of particular amusements in the nursery. With small wooden
+cubes--pictures--shuttlecock--the rocking horse--tops and
+marbles--backgammon--checkers--morrice--dice--nine-pins--skipping the
+rope--trundling the hoop--playing at ball--kites--skating and
+swimming--dissected maps--black boards--elements of letters--dissected
+pictures.
+
+
+CHAPTER XII. CRYING.
+
+Its importance. Danger of repressing a tendency to cry. Anecdote from
+Dr. Rush. Physiology of crying. Folly of attempting wholly to suppress
+it.
+
+
+CHAPTER XIII. LAUGHING.
+
+"Laugh and be fat." Laughing is healthy. A common error. Monastic
+notions yet too prevalent on this subject.
+
+
+CHAPTER XIV. SLEEP.
+
+General remarks. A prevalent mistake. A hint to fathers. Few Catos.
+Everything left to mothers.
+
+SEC. 1. _Hour for Repose._
+
+Night the season of repose, generally. Infants require all hours.
+Sleeping in dark rooms. Excess of caution. Habit of sleeping amid noise.
+
+SEC. 2. _Place._
+
+Where the infant should sleep. Why alone. Poisoning by impure air.
+Illustration. Proofs. Friedlander. Dr. Dewees. Destruction of children
+by mothers. Anecdote. Moral reasons for having children sleep alone.
+Sleeping with the aged. Sleeping with cats and dogs.
+
+SEC. 3 _Purity of the Air._
+
+Nurseries. Windows open during the night. Lowering them from the top.
+Habit of Dr. Gregory. Going abroad in the open air.
+
+SEC. 4. _The Bed._
+
+No feathers should be used. They are too warm. Their effluvia
+oppressive. Other objections to their use. Mattresses. Air beds. Beds of
+cut straw. Soft beds. Testimony of physicians. The pillow. Dampness.
+Curtains. Warming the bed. Beds recently occupied by the sick.
+
+SEC. 5. _The Covering._
+
+Light covering. Mistakes of some mothers. Covering the head with bed
+clothes.
+
+SEC. 6. _Night Dresses._
+
+As little dress during sleep as possible. No caps. No stockings. Loose
+night shirt. No tight articles of nightdress. Frequent exchanging of
+clothes.
+
+SEC. 7. _Posture of the Body._
+
+Sleeping on the back--on the sides. Position of the head. The infant's
+bedstead. Sir Charles Bell. Darkening the room.
+
+SEC. 8. _State of the Mind._
+
+Mental quiet favorable to sleep. Crying to sleep. A good father. All
+anxiety should be avoided.
+
+SEC. 9. _Quality of Sleep._
+
+Soundness of our sleep. Nightmare. How produced. Late reading. Late
+suppers. Influence of religion on sleep. Different opinions about sleep.
+Truth midway between extremes. Effect of silence and darkness on our
+sleep. Of sleep before midnight. Light unfavorable to sleep.
+
+SEC. 10. _Quantity._
+
+Infants need to sleep nearly the whole time. Number of hours required
+for sleep. Opinions of eminent men. The author's own opinion. Statements
+of Macnish. Estimates on the loss of time by over-sleeping. Hint to
+young mothers.
+
+
+CHAPTER XV. EARLY RISING.
+
+All children naturally early risers. Evils of sitting up late at night.
+Excitements in the evening. The morning, by its beauties, invites us
+abroad. Example of parents. Forbidding children to rise early. Keeping
+them out of the way. Burning them up. "Lecturing" them. What is an early
+hour?
+
+
+CHAPTER XVI. HARDENING THE CONSTITUTION.
+
+Mistakes about hardening children. Their clothing. Much cold enfeebles.
+The Scotch Highlanders. The two extremes equally fatal--over-tenderness
+and neglect. An interesting anecdote from Dr. Dewees.
+
+
+CHAPTER XVII. SOCIETY.
+
+Duty of mothers in this matter. Children prefer the society of parents.
+Importance of other society. Necessity of society. Early diffidence.
+Selecting companions. Moral effects of society on the young. Parents
+should play with their children.
+
+
+CHAPTER XVIII. EMPLOYMENTS.
+
+Influence of mothers over daughters. Anecdote of Benjamin West. Anecdote
+of a poor mother. Of set lessons and lectures. Daughters under the
+mother's eye. Disliking domestic employments. Miserable housewives--not
+to be wondered at. Mistake of one class of men. Mr. Flint's opinion.
+
+
+CHAPTER XIX. EDUCATION OF THE SENSES.
+
+Extent to which the senses can be improved. Case of the blind. The
+Indians. Julia Brace. Tailors, painters, &c.
+
+SEC. 1. _Hearing._
+
+Injury done by caps. Syringing the ears. Anecdote of deafness from
+neglect. Means of improving the hearing.
+
+SEC. 2. _Seeing._
+
+Importance of seeing. Near-sighted people--why so common. Heat of our
+rooms. Very fine print. Spectacles. Reading when tired. Rubbing the
+eyes. Cold water to the eyes.
+
+SEC. 3. _Tasting and Smelling._
+
+Benumbing the senses. How this has often been done. The teeth. How to
+preserve them.
+
+SEC. 4. _Feeling._
+
+Corpulence and slovenliness. Sense of touch. The blind--how taught to
+read. Hint to parents. The hand. Neglecting the left hand. Physiology of
+the hand and arm. Evils of being able to use but one hand. Both should
+be educated.
+
+
+CHAPTER XX. ABUSES.
+
+Bad seats for children at table and elsewhere. Why children hate Sunday.
+Seats at Sabbath school--at church--at district schools. Suspending
+children between the heavens and the earth. Cushions to sit on. Seats
+with backs. Children in factories. Evils produced. Bodily punishment.
+Striking the heads of children very injurious. Beating across the middle
+of the body. Anecdote of a teacher. Concluding advice to mothers.
+
+
+       *       *       *       *       *
+
+
+PREFACE.
+
+There is a prejudice abroad, to some extent, against agitating the
+questions--"What shall we eat? What shall we drink? and Wherewithal
+shall we be clothed?"--not so much because the Scriptures have charged
+us not to be over "anxious" on the subject, as because those who pay the
+least attention to what they eat and drink, are supposed to be, after
+all, the most healthy.
+
+It is not difficult to ascertain how this opinion originated. There are
+a few individuals who are perpetually thinking and talking on this
+subject, and who would fain comply with appropriate rules, if they knew
+what they were, and if a certain definite course, pursued a few days
+only, would change their whole condition, and completely restore a
+shattered or ruined constitution. But their ignorance of the laws which
+govern the human frame, both in sickness and in health, and their
+indisposition to pursue any proposed plan for their improvement long
+enough to receive much permanent benefit from it, keep them,
+notwithstanding all they say or do, always deteriorating.
+
+Then, on the other hand, there are a few who, in consequence of
+possessing by nature very strong constitutions, and laboring at some
+active and peculiarly healthy employment, are able for a few, and
+perhaps even for many years, to set all the rules of health at defiance.
+
+Now, strange as it may seem, these cases, though they are only
+exceptions (and those more apparent than real) to the general rule, are
+always dwelt upon, by those who are determined to live as they please,
+and to put no restraint either upon themselves or their appetites. For
+nothing can be plainer--so it seems to me--than that, taking mankind by
+families, or what is still better, by larger portions, they are most
+free from pain and disease, as well as most healthy and happy, who pay
+the most attention to the laws of human health, that is, those laws or
+rules by whose observance alone, that health can be certainly and
+permanently secured.
+
+But these families and communities are most healthy and happy, not
+because they live in a proper manner, by fits and starts, but because
+they have, from some cause or other, adopted and persevered in HABITS
+which, compared with the habits of other families, or other communities,
+are preferable; that is, more in obedience to the laws which govern the
+human constitution. Not that even _they_ are "without sin" or error on
+this subject--gross error too--but because their errors are fewer or
+less destructive than those of their neighbors.
+
+Now is it possible that any intelligent father or mother of a family,
+whose diet, clothing, exercise, &c. are thus comparatively well
+regulated, would derive no benefit from the perusal of works which treat
+candidly, rationally, and dispassionately, on these points? Is there a
+mother in the community who is so destitute of reason and common sense
+as not to desire the light of a broader experience in regard to the
+tendency of things than she has had, or possibly can have, in her own
+family? Is there one who will not be aided by understanding not only
+that a certain thing or course is better than another, but also WHY it
+is so?
+
+It is by no means the object of this little work to set people to
+watching their stomachs from meal to meal, in regard to the effects of
+food, drink, &c.; for nothing in the world is better calculated to make
+dyspeptics than this. It is true, indeed, that some things may be
+obviously and greatly injurious, taken only once; and when they are so,
+they should be avoided. But in general, it is the effect of a habitual
+use of certain things for a long time together--and the longer the
+experiment the better--which we are to observe.
+
+A book to guide mothers in the formation of early good habits in their
+offspring, should be the result of long observation and much experiment
+on these points, but more especially of a thorough understanding of
+human physiology. It should not consist so much of the conceits of a
+single brain--perhaps half turned--as of the logical deductions of
+severe science, and facts gleaned from the world's history.
+
+Here is a nation, or tribe of men, bringing up children to certain
+habits, from generation to generation--and such and such is their
+character. Here, again, is another large portion of our race, who, under
+similar circumstances of climate, &c. &c., have, for several hundred
+years, educated their children very differently, and with different
+results. A comparison of things on a large scale, together with a close
+attention to the constitution and relations of the human system, affords
+ground for drawing conclusions which are or may be useful. If this book
+shall not afford light derived from such sources, it were far better
+that it had never been written. If it only sets people to watching over
+the effects of things taken or used only for a single day, instead of
+leading them from early infancy to form in their children such habits as
+will preclude, in a great measure, the necessity of watching ourselves
+daily, then let the day perish from the memory of the writer, in which
+the plan of bringing it forth to the world was conceived. But he is
+confident of better things. He does not believe that a work which, to
+such an extent, GIVES THE REASON WHY, will be productive of more evil
+than good. On the contrary, it must, if read, have the opposite effect.
+
+I do not deny that even after the formation of the best habits, there
+will be a necessity of paying some attention to what we eat and what we
+drink, from day to day, and from hour to hour; but only that the
+tendency of this work is not to increase this necessity, but on the
+contrary, to diminish it. In my own view; these occasions of inquiry in
+regard to what is right, _physically_ as well as _morally_, are one part
+of our trials in this world--one means of forming our characters. We are
+constantly tempted to excess and to error, in spite of the most firm
+habits of self-denial which can be formed. If we resist temptation, our
+characters are improved. And it is by self-denial and self-government in
+these smaller matters, that we are to hope for nearly all the progress
+we can ever make in the great work of self-education. Great trials of
+character come but seldom; and when they come, we are often armed
+against them; but these little trials and temptations, coming upon us
+every hour--these it is, after all, that give shape to our characters,
+and make us constantly growing either better or worse, both in the sight
+of God and man. But, as I have repeatedly said, the object of this work
+is to diminish rather than to increase the frequency of these trials,
+useful though they may be, if duly improved, in the formation of
+virtuous, and even of holy character.
+
+There is a sense in which every infant may be said to be born healthy,
+so that we may not only adopt the language of the poet, Bowring, and
+say
+
+                   --"a child is born;
+  Take it, and make it a bud of _moral_ beauty,"
+
+but we may also add--Take it and make it beautiful _physically_. For
+though a hereditary predisposition undoubtedly renders some individuals
+more susceptible than others to particular diseases, yet when the bodily
+organization of an infant is complete, and the degree of vitality which
+nature gives it is sufficient to propel the machinery of the frame, it
+can scarcely be regarded as in any other state than that of health.
+
+Now if it be the intention of divine Providence (and who will doubt that
+it is?) that the animal body should be capable of resisting with
+impunity the impressions of heat, cold, light, air, and the various
+external influences to which, at birth, it is subjected, it may be
+properly asked why this primitive state of health cannot be maintained,
+and diseases, and medicines, and even PREVENTIVES wholly avoided.
+
+But the reason is obvious. Civilized society has placed the human race
+in artificial circumstances. Instead of listening to the dictates of
+reason, making ourselves acquainted with the nature of the human
+constitution, and studying to preserve it in health and vigor, we yield
+to the government of ignorance and presumption. The first moment, even,
+in which we draw breath, sees us placed under the control of individuals
+who are totally inadequate to the important charge of preserving the
+infant constitution in its original state, and aiding its progress to
+maturity. And thus it is that though infants, as a general rule, may be
+said to be born healthy, few actually remain so. Seldom, indeed, do we
+find a person who has arrived at maturity wholly free from disease, even
+in those parts of our country which are reckoned to have the most
+healthy climate.
+
+It is indeed commonly said, that a large proportion, both of children
+and adults, among the agricultural portion of our population, are
+healthy. But it is not so. There is room for doubt whether, on the
+whole, the farmers of this country are healthier than the mechanics, or
+much more so than the manufacturers; or the whole mass of the country
+population healthier than that of the crowded city. The causes of
+disease are sufficiently numerous, in all places and conditions; and
+this will continue to be the fact, not merely until parents and teachers
+shall become more enlightened, but until many generations have been
+trained under their enlightened influence.
+
+If the children and adults among our agricultural population derive from
+their employments in the open air a more ruddy appearance than those
+either of the city or country who are confined more to their rooms; or
+to a vitiated atmosphere, and to numerous other sources of disease, and
+if they _appear_ more favored with health, I have learned, by accurate
+observation, that these appearances are somewhat deceptive. Their active
+sports and employments in the open air give them a stronger appetite
+than any other class of people; and the indulgence of this appetite, not
+only with articles which are heating or indigestible in their nature,
+but with an unreasonable quantity even of those which are considered
+highly proper, is almost in an exact proportion. And it is hence
+scarcely possible for the causes of disease and premature death to be
+more operative in factories and in cities than in farm houses and the
+country. Indeed it may be questioned whether the abuses of the ANIMAL
+part of man--more common in some of their forms in country than in
+city--though they may be less conspicuous, are not more certainly and
+even more immediately destructive than those abuses which, in city life,
+and bustle, and competition, affect more the MORAL nature.
+
+Be that as it may, however--for this is not the place for the grave
+discussion of so broad a question--one thing, to my mind, is perfectly
+clear, namely, that until physical education shall receive more
+attention from all those who hold the sacred office of instructors of
+the young, humanity can neither be much elevated nor improved. Mothers
+and schoolmasters especially--they who, as Dr. Rush says, plant the
+seeds of nearly all the good or evil in the world--must understand, most
+deeply and thoroughly, the laws which regulate the various provinces of
+the little world in which the soul resides, and which, like so many
+states of a great confederacy, have not only their separate interests
+and rights, but certain common and general ones; as well as those laws
+by which the human constitution is related to and connected with the
+objects which everywhere surround, and influence, and limit, and extend
+it.
+
+This book contains little, if anything, new to those who are already
+familiar with anatomy and physiology. Indeed, whatever may be its
+claims, its merits or its demerits, it disclaims novelty. It is, indeed,
+in one point of view, _original_;--I mean in its form, manner, and
+arrangement. What I have written is chiefly from my own resources--the
+results of patient study and observation, and careful reflection; but
+that study and observation of human nature, and this reflection, have
+been greatly aided by reading the writings of others.
+
+In the prosecution of the task which I had assigned myself, no work has
+been of more service to me than an octavo volume of 548 pages, by Dr.
+Wm. P. Dewees, of Philadelphia, entitled, "A Treatise on the Physical
+and Medical Treatment of Children." It is one of the most valuable works
+on Physical Education in the English language, as is evident from the
+fact that notwithstanding its expense--three or four dollars--it has, in
+nine years, gone through five editions. If it were written in such a
+style, and published at such a price as would bring it within reach of
+the minds and purses of the mass of the community, its sale would have
+been, I think, much greater still; and the good which it has
+accomplished would have been increased ten-fold.
+
+If the "YOUNG MOTHER" should be favorably received by the American
+community, and prove extensively useful, it will undoubtedly be owing to
+the fact that it presents so large a collection of facts and principles
+on the great subject of physical education, in a manner so practical,
+and at a price which is very low. To accomplish an object so desirable
+is by no means an easy task. It was once said by the author of a huge
+volume, that he wrote so large a work because he had not time to prepare
+a smaller one. And however unaccountable it may be to those who have not
+made the trial, it may be safely asserted, that to present, within
+limits so small, anything like a system of Physical Education for the
+guidance of young mothers, requires much more time, and labor, and
+patience, than to prepare a work on the same subject twice as large.
+
+Nor is it to be expected, after all, that the work is, in all respects,
+perfect. I have indeed done what I could to render it so; but am
+conscious that future inquiries may lead to the discovery of errors.
+Should such discoveries be made, they will be cheerfully acknowledged
+and corrected; truth being, as it should be, the leading object.
+
+
+       *       *       *       *       *
+
+
+THE YOUNG MOTHER.
+
+
+
+CHAPTER I.
+
+THE NURSERY.
+
+General remarks. Importance of a Nursery--generally overlooked. Its
+walls--ceiling--windows--chimney. Two apartments. Sliding partition.
+Reasons for this arrangement. Objections to carpets. Furniture, &c.
+Feather beds. Holes or crevices. Currents of air. Cats and dogs.
+"Sucking the child's breath." Brilliant objects. Squinting. Causes of
+blindness.
+
+
+It is far from being in the power of every young mother to procure a
+suitable room for a nursery. In the present state of society, the
+majority must be contented with such places as they can get. Still there
+are various reasons for saying what a nursery should be. 1. It may be of
+service to those who _have_ the power of selection. 2. Information
+cannot injure those who _have not_. 3. It may lead those who have wealth
+to extend the hand of charity in this important direction; for there
+are not a few who have little sympathy with the wants and distresses of
+the adult poor, who will yet open their hearts and unfold their hands
+for the relief of suffering _infancy_.
+
+Among those who have what is called a nursery, few select for this
+purpose the most appropriate part of the building. It is not
+unfrequently the one that can best be spared, is most retired, or most
+convenient. Whether it is most favorable to the health and happiness of
+its occupants, is usually at best a secondary consideration.
+
+But this ought not so to be. A nursery should never, for example, be on
+a ground floor, or in a shaded situation, or in any circumstances which
+expose it to dampness, or hinder the occasional approach of the light of
+the sun. It should be spacious, with dry walls, high ceiling, and tight
+windows. The latter should always be so constructed that the upper sash
+can be lowered when we wish to admit or exclude air. It should have a
+chimney, if possible; but if not, there should be suitable holes in the
+ceiling, for the purposes of ventilation.
+
+The windows should have shutters, so that the room, when necessary, can
+be darkened--and green curtains. Some writers say that the windows
+should have cross bars before them; but if they do not descend within
+three feet of the floor, such an arrangement can hardly be required.
+
+It is highly desirable that every nursery should consist of two rooms,
+opening into each other; or what is still better, of one large room,
+with a sliding or swinging partition in the middle. The use of this is,
+that the mother and child may retire to one, while the other is being
+swept or ventilated. They would thus avoid damp air, currents, and dust.
+Such an arrangement would also give the occupants a room, fresh, clean
+and sweet, in the morning, (which is a very great advantage,) after
+having rendered the air of the other foul by sleeping in it.
+
+In winter, and while there is an infant in the nursery, just beginning
+to walk, it is recommended by many to cover the floor with a carpet. The
+only advantage which they mention is, that it secures the child from
+injury if it falls. But I have seldom seen lasting injury inflicted by
+simple falls on the hard floor; and there are so many objections to
+carpeting a nursery, since it favors an accumulation of dust, bad air,
+damp, grease, and other impurities, that it seems to me preferable to
+omit it. Many physicians, I must own, recommend carpets during winter,
+though not in summer; and in no case, unless they are well shaken and
+aired, at least once a week.
+
+No furniture should be admissible, except the beds for the mother and
+child, a table, and a few chairs. With the best writers and highest
+authorities on the subject, I am decidedly of opinion that all feather
+beds ought effectually and forever to be excluded from nurseries. The
+reasons for this prohibition will appear hereafter.
+
+Every nursery should, if possible, be free from holes or crevices;
+otherwise the occupants will be exposed to currents of air, and their
+sometimes terrible and always injurious consequences. The room may, in
+this way, be kept at a lower medium temperature--a point of very great
+importance.
+
+Cats and dogs, I believe, are usually excluded from the nursery; if not,
+they ought to be. For though the apprehension of cats "sucking the
+child's breath," is wholly groundless, yet they may be provoked by the
+rude attacks of a child to inflict upon it a lasting injury. Besides,
+they assist, by respiration, in contaminating the air, like all other
+animals.
+
+If there are, in the nursery, objects which, from the vivacity or
+brilliancy of their colors, attract the attention of the child, they
+should never be presented to them sideways, or immediately over their
+heads. The reason for this caution is, that children seek, and pursue
+almost instinctively, bright objects; and are thus liable to contract a
+habit of moving their eyes in an oblique direction, which _may_
+terminate in squinting.
+
+Many parents seem to take great pleasure in indulging the young infant
+in looking at these bright objects; especially a lamp or a candle. If
+the child is naturally strong and vigorous, no immediate perceptible
+injury may arise; but I am confident in the opinion that the result is
+often quite otherwise. For many weeks, if not many months of their early
+existence, they should not be permitted to sit or lie and gaze at any
+bright object, be it ever so weak or distant, unless placed exactly
+before their eyes; and even in the latter case, it were better to avoid
+it.
+
+Heat is also injurious to the eyes of all, and of course not less so to
+children than to adults. But when a strong light and heat are conjoined,
+as is the case of sitting around a large blazing fire--the former custom
+of New England--it is no wonder if the infantile eyes become early
+injured. No wonder that the generation now on the stage, early subjected
+to these abuses, should be found almost universally in the use of
+spectacles.
+
+This may be the most proper place for observing that great care ought to
+be taken, at the birth of the child, to prevent a too sudden exposure of
+the tender organ of vision to the light. We believe this caution is
+generally omitted by the American physician, though it is one which
+accords with the plainest dictates of common sense. Who of us has not
+experienced the pain of emerging suddenly from the darkness of a cellar
+to the ordinary light of day? The strongest eyes of the adult are
+scarcely able to bear the transition. How much more painful to the
+tender organs of the new-born infant must be the change to which it is
+so frequently subjected? And how easy it is to prevent the pain and
+danger of the change, by more effectually darkening the room into which
+it is introduced!
+
+But we have testimony on this point. A distinguished German physician
+states that he has known many cases of permanent blindness from this
+very cause to which we have referred. The Principal of the Institution
+for the Blind, at Vienna, says he is confident that most children who
+appear to be born blind, are actually made blind by neglecting this same
+precaution.
+
+
+
+
+CHAPTER II.
+
+TEMPERATURE.
+
+General principle--"Keep cool." Our own sensations not always to be
+trusted. Thermometer. Why infants require more external heat than
+adults. Means of warmth. Air heated in other apartments. Clothes taking
+fire. Stove--railing around it. Excess of heat--its dangers.
+
+
+There is one general principle, on this subject, which is alike
+applicable to all persons and circumstances. It is, to keep a little too
+cool, rather than in the slightest degree too warm. In other words, the
+lowest temperature which is compatible with comfort, is, in all cases,
+best adapted to health; and a slight degree of coldness, provided it
+amount not to a chill, and is not long continued, is more safe than the
+smallest unnecessary degree of warmth.
+
+But the application of this rule to those over whom we have control, is
+not without its difficulties. Our own sensations are so variable,
+independently of external and obvious causes, that we cannot at all
+times judge for others, especially for infants. The absolute and real
+state of temperature in a room can only be ascertained by the aid of a
+thermometer; and no nursery should ever be without one. It should be
+placed, however, in such a situation as to indicate the real temperature
+of the atmosphere, and not where it will give a false result.
+
+No mother should forget that the infant, at birth, has not the power of
+generating heat, internally, to the extent which it possesses afterward.
+The lungs have as yet but a feeble, inefficient action. The purification
+of the blood, through their agency, is not only incomplete, but the heat
+evolved is as yet inconsiderable. In the absence of internal heat, then,
+there is an increased demand externally. If 60º be deemed suitable for
+most other persons, the new-born infant may, for a few days, require 65º
+or even 70º.
+
+Much may and should be done in preserving the child in a proper
+temperature by means of its clothing. On this point I shall speak at
+length, in another part of this work. My present purpose is simply to
+treat of the temperature of the nursery.
+
+The best way of warming a nursery--or indeed any other room, where MERE
+warmth is demanded--is by means of air heated in other apartments, and
+admitted through openings in the floor or fire-place. The air is not
+only thus made more pure, but every possibility of accidents, such as
+having the clothes take fire, is precluded. This last consideration is
+one of very great importance, and I hope will not be much longer
+overlooked in infantile education.
+
+Next to that, in point of usefulness and safety, is a stove, placed near
+or IN the fire-place, and defended by an iron railing. Most people
+prefer an open stove; and on some accounts it is indeed preferable,
+especially where it is desirable to burn coal. Still I think that the
+direct rays of the heat, and the glare of light from open stoves and
+fire-places, particularly for the young, form a very serious objection
+to their use.
+
+One of the strongest objections to open stoves and fire-places in the
+nursery is, the increased exposure to accidents. I know it is said that
+this evil may be avoided by laying aside the use of cotton, and wearing
+nothing but worsted or flannel. This is indeed true; but I do not like
+the idea of being compelled to dress children in flannel or worsted, at
+all times when the least particle of fire is demanded; for this would be
+to wear this stimulating kind of clothing, in our climate, the greater
+part of the year.
+
+Besides, I write for many mothers who are compelled to use cotton, on
+account of the expense of flannel. And if the stove be a close one, and
+well defended by a railing, cotton will seldom expose to danger. Still,
+as has been already said, the introduction of heated air from another
+apartment, whenever it can possibly be afforded, is incomparably better
+than either stoves or fire-places.
+
+Dr. Dewees is fully persuaded that the excessive heat of nurseries has
+occasioned a great mortality among very young children. "In the first
+place," he says, "it over-stimulates them; and in the second, it renders
+them so susceptible of cold, that any draught of cold air endangers
+their lives. They are in a constant perspiration, which is frequently
+checked by an exposure to even an atmosphere of moderate temperature."
+If this is but to repeat what has been already said, the importance of
+the subject seems to be a sufficient apology.
+
+
+
+
+CHAPTER III.
+
+VENTILATION.
+
+General ignorance of the constitution of the atmosphere. The subject
+briefly explained. Oxygen gas. Nitrogen. Carbonic acid. Fires, candles,
+and breathing dependent on oxygen. Danger from carbonic acid. How it
+destroys people. Impurity of the air by means of lamps and candles.
+Other sources of impurity. Experiment of putting the candle under the
+bed-clothes. Covering the heads of infants while sleeping--its dangers.
+Proportions of oxygen and nitrogen in pure and impure air. No wonder
+children become sickly. Particular means of ventilating rooms. Caution
+in regard to lamps. Washing, ironing, cooking, &c., in a nursery. Their
+evil tendency. Fumigation--camphor, vinegar.
+
+
+Few people take sufficient pains to preserve the air in any of their
+apartments pure; for few know what the constitution of our atmosphere
+is, and in how many ways and with what ease it is rendered impure.
+
+It is not my purpose to go into a learned, scientific account in this
+place, or even in this work, of the constitution of the atmosphere. A
+few plain statements are all that are indispensable. The atmosphere
+which we breathe is composed of two different airs or gases. One of
+these is called oxygen, [Footnote: Oxygen gas is the chief supporter of
+combustion, as well as of respiration. It is the vital part, as it were,
+of the air. No animal or vegetable could long exist without it. And yet
+if alone, unmixed, it is too pure and too refined for animals to
+breathe. Nitrogen gas, on the contrary, while alone, will not support
+either respiration or combustion; mixed, however, with oxygen, it
+dilutes it, and in the most happy manner fits it for reception into the
+lungs.] and the other nitrogen. There is another gas usually found with
+these two, in smaller quantity, called carbonic acid gas; but whether it
+is necessary, in a very small quantity, to health, chemists, I believe,
+are not agreed. One thing, however, is certain--that if any portion of
+it is healthful, it must be very little--not more, certainly, than
+one-fiftieth or one-hundredth of the whole mass.
+
+It is by means of the oxygen it contains, that air sustains life and
+combustion. Were it not for this, neither fires nor candles would burn,
+and no animal could breathe a single moment. Breathing consumes this
+oxygen of the air very rapidly. When the oxygen is present in about a
+certain proportion, combustion and respiration go on well, but when its
+natural proportion is diminished, the fire does not burn so well,
+neither does the candle; and no one can breathe so freely.
+
+Not only are breathing and combustion impeded or disturbed by the
+diminution of oxygen in the atmosphere, but just in proportion as oxygen
+is diminished by these two processes, or either of them, carbonic acid
+is formed, which is not only bad for combustion, but much worse for
+health. If any considerable quantity of it is inhaled, it appears to be
+an absolute poison to the human system; and if in _very large quantity_,
+will often cause immediate death.
+
+It is this gas, accumulated in large quantities, that destroys so many
+people in close rooms, where there is no chimney, nor any other place
+for the bad air to escape. But it not only kills people outright--it
+partly kills, that is, it poisons, more or less, hundreds of thousands.
+
+In a nursery there is the mother and child, and perhaps the nurse, to
+render the air impure by breathing, the fire and the lamp or candle to
+contribute to the same result, besides several other causes not yet
+mentioned. One of these is nearly related to the former. I allude to the
+fact that our skins, by perspiration and by other means, are a source of
+much impurity to the atmosphere; a fact which will be more fully
+explained and illustrated in the chapter on Bathing and Cleanliness. It
+is only necessary to say, in this place, that it is not the matter of
+perspiration alone which, issuing from the skin, renders the air
+impure; there are other exhalations more or less constantly going off
+from every living body, especially from the lungs; and carbonic acid gas
+is even formed all over the surface of the skin, as well as by means of
+the lungs.
+
+One needs no better proof that carbonic acid is formed on the surface of
+the body, than the fact that after the body has been closely covered all
+night, if you introduce a candle under the bed-clothes into this
+confined air, it will be quickly extinguished, because there is too
+much carbonic acid gas there, and too little oxygen.
+
+We may hence see at once the evil of covering the heads of infants when
+they lie down--a very common practice. The air, when pure, contains a
+little more than 20 parts of oxygen, and a little less than 80 of
+nitrogen. Breathing this air, as I have already shown, consumes the
+oxygen, which is so necessary to life and health, and leaves in its
+place an increase of nitrogen and carbonic acid gas, which are not
+necessary to health, and the latter of which is even positively
+injurious. But when the oxygen, instead of forming 20 or more parts in
+100 of the atmosphere of the nursery, is reduced to 15 or 18 parts only,
+and the carbonic acid gas is increased from 1 or 2 parts in 100, to 5,
+6, 8 or 10--when to this is added the other noxious exhalations from the
+body, and from the lamp or candle, fire-place, feather bed, stagnant
+fluids in the room, &c., &c.--is it any wonder that children, in the
+end, become sickly? What else could be expected but that the seeds of
+disease, thus early sown, should in due time spring up, and produce
+their appropriate fruits?
+
+It is sometimes said that fire in a room purifies it. It undoubtedly
+does so, to a certain extent, if fresh air be often admitted; but not
+otherwise.
+
+I have classed feather beds among the common causes of impurity. Dr.
+Dewees also condemns them, most decidedly; and gives substantial reasons
+for "driving them out of the nursery."
+
+In speaking of the structure of the room used for a nursery, I have
+adverted to the importance of having a large or double room, with
+sliding doors between, in order that the occupants may go into one of
+them, while the other is being ventilated. But whatever may be the
+structure of the room, the circumstances of the occupants, or the state
+of the weather, every nursery ought to be most thoroughly ventilated,
+once a day, at least; and when the weather is tolerable, twice a day. If
+there is but one apartment, and fear is entertained of the dampness of
+the fresh air introduced, or of currents, and if the mother and babe
+cannot retire, there is a last resort, which is for them to get into
+bed, and cover themselves a short time with the clothing. For though I
+have prohibited the covering of the face with the bed-clothes for any
+considerable length of time together, yet to do so for some fifteen or
+twenty minutes is an evil of far less magnitude than to suffer an
+apartment to remain without being ventilated, for twenty-four hours
+together--a very common occurrence.
+
+When a lamp is kept burning in a nursery during the night, it should
+always be placed at the door of the stove, or in the chimney place, that
+its smoke, and the bad airs or gases which are formed, may escape. But
+it is better, in general, to avoid burning lamps or candles during the
+night. By means of common matches, a light may be produced, when
+necessary, almost instantly; especially if you have a spirit lamp in the
+nursery, or what is still better, one of spirit gas--that is, a mixture
+of alcohol and turpentine.
+
+It is highly desirable that all washing, ironing, and cooking should be
+avoided in the nursery. They load the air with noxious effluvia or
+vapor, or with particles of dust; none of which ought ever to enter the
+delicate lungs of an infant.
+
+Fumigations with camphor, vinegar, and other similar substances, have
+long been in reputation as a means of purifying the air in sick-rooms
+and nurseries; but they are of very little consequence. Fresh air, if it
+can be had, is always better.
+
+
+
+
+CHAPTER IV.
+
+THE CHILD'S DRESS
+
+General principles. SEC. 1. Swathing the body--its numerous evils.--SEC.
+2. Form of the dress. Fashion. Tight lacing--its dangers. Structure and
+motion of the chest. Diseases from tight lacing.--SEC. 3. Material of
+dress. Flannel--its uses. Cleanliness. Cotton--silk--linen.--SEC. 4.
+Quantity of dress. Power of habit. Anecdote. Begin right. Change.
+Dampness.--SEC. 5. Caps--their evils. Going bare-headed.--SEC. 6. Hats
+and bonnets.--SEC. 7. Covering for the feet. Stockings. Garters.
+Shoes--thick soles.--SEC. 8. Pins--their danger. Shocking
+anecdote.--SEC. 9. Remaining wet.--SEC. 10. Dress of boys. Tight
+jackets. Stocks and cravats. Boots.--SEC. 11. Dress of girls--should be
+loose. Temperature. Exposure to the night air.
+
+
+Dress serves three important purposes:--1. To cover us; 2. To defend us
+against cold; 3. To defend our bodies and limbs from injury. There is
+one more purpose of dress; in case of deformity, it seems to improve the
+appearance.
+
+In all our arrangements in regard to dress, whether of children or of
+adults, we should ever keep in mind the above principles. The form,
+fashion, material, application, and quantity of all clothing,
+especially for infants, ought to be regulated by these three or four
+rules.
+
+The subject of this chapter is one of so much importance, and embraces
+such a variety of items, that it will be more convenient, both to the
+reader and myself, to consider it under several minor heads.
+
+
+SEC. 1. _Swathing the Body._
+
+Buffon, in his "Natural History," says that in France, an infant has
+hardly enjoyed the liberty of moving and stretching its limbs, before it
+is put into confinement. "It is swathed," says he, "its head is fixed,
+its legs are stretched out at full length, and its arms placed straight
+down by the side of its body. In this manner it is bound tight with
+cloths and bandages, so that it cannot stir a limb; indeed it is
+fortunate that the poor thing is not muffled up so as to be unable to
+breathe."
+
+All swathing, except with a single bandage around the abdomen, is
+decidedly unreasonable, injurious and cruel. I do not pretend that the
+remarks of M. Buffon are fully applicable to the condition of infants in
+the United States. The good sense of the community nowhere permits us to
+transform a beautiful babe quite into an Egyptian mummy. Still there
+are many considerable errors on the subject of infantile dress, which,
+in the progress of my remarks, I shall find it necessary to expose.
+
+The use of a simple band cannot be objected to. It affords a general
+support to the abdomen, and a particular one to the _umbilicus_. The
+last point is one of great importance, where there is any tendency to a
+rupture at this part of the body--a tendency which very often exists in
+feeble children. And without some support of this kind, crying,
+coughing, sneezing, and straining in any way, might greatly aggravate
+the evil, if not produce serious consequences.
+
+But, in order to afford a support to the abdomen in the best manner, it
+is by no means necessary that the bandage should be drawn very tight.
+Two thirds of the nurses in this country greatly err in this respect,
+and suppose that the more tightly a bandage is drawn, the better. It
+should be firm, but yet gently yielding; and therefore a piece of
+flannel cut "bias," as it is termed, or, obliquely with respect to the
+threads of which it is composed, is the most appropriate material.
+
+If the attention of the mother were necessary nowhere else, it would be
+indispensable in the application of this article. If she do not take
+special pains to prevent it, the erring though well meaning nurse may
+so compress the body with the bandage as to produce pain and uneasiness,
+and sometimes severe colic. Nay, worse evils than even this have been
+known to arise. When a child sneezes, or coughs, or cries, the abdomen
+should naturally yield gently; but if it is so confined that it cannot
+yield where the band is applied, it will yield in an unnatural
+proportion below, to the great danger of producing a species of rupture,
+no less troublesome than the one which such tight swathing is designed
+to prevent.
+
+But besides the bandage already mentioned, no other restraint of the
+body and limbs of a child is at all admissible. The Creator has kindly
+ordained that the human body and limbs, and especially its muscles, or
+moving powers, shall be developed by exercise. Confine an arm or a leg,
+even in a child of ten years of age, and the limb will not increase
+either in strength or size as it otherwise would, because its muscles
+are not exercised; and the fact is still more obvious in infancy.
+
+There is a still deeper evil. On all the limbs are fixed two sets of
+muscles; one to extend, the other to draw up or bend the limb. If you
+keep a limb extended for a considerable time, you weaken the one set of
+muscles; if you keep it bent, you weaken the other. This weakness may
+become so great that the limb will be rendered useless. There are cases
+on record--well authenticated--where children, by being obliged to sit
+in one place on a hard floor, have been made cripples for life. Hundreds
+of others are injured, though they may not become absolutely crippled.
+
+I repeat it, therefore, their dress should be so free and loose that
+they may use their little limbs, their neck and their bodies, as much as
+they please; and in every desired direction. The practices of confining
+their arms while they lie down, for fear they should scratch themselves
+with their nails, and of pinning the clothes round their feet, are
+therefore highly reprehensible. Better that they should even
+occasionally scratch themselves with their nails, than that they should
+be made the victims of injurious restraint. Who would think of tying up
+or muffling the young lamb or kid? And even the young plant--what think
+you would be the effect, if its leaves and branches could not move
+gently with the soft breezes? Would the fluids circulate, and health be
+promoted: or would they stagnate, and a morbid, sickly and dwarfish
+state be the consequence?
+
+Those whose object is to make infancy, as well as any other period of
+existence, a season of happiness, will not fail to find an additional
+motive for giving the little stranger entire freedom in the land
+whither he has so recently arrived, especially when he seems to enjoy
+it so much. Who can be so hardened as to confine him, unless compelled
+by the most pressing necessity?
+
+
+SEC. 2. _Form of the Dress._
+
+On this subject a writer in the London Literary Gazette of some eight or
+ten years ago, lays down the following general directions, to which, in
+cold weather, there can be but one possible objection, which is, they
+are not _alamode_, and are not, therefore, likely to be followed.
+
+"All that a child requires, so far as regards clothing, in the first
+month of its existence, is a simple covering for the trunk and
+extremities of the body, made of a material soft and agreeable to the
+skin, and which can retain, in an equable degree, the animal
+temperature. These qualities are to be found in perfection in fine
+flannel; and I recommend that the only clothing, for the first month or
+six weeks, be a square piece of flannel, large enough to involve fully
+and overlap the whole of the babe, with the exception of the head, which
+should be left totally uncovered. This wrapper should be fixed by a
+button near the breast, and left so loose as to permit the arms and legs
+to be freely stretched, and moved in every direction. It should be
+succeeded by a loose flannel gown with sleeves, which should be worn
+till the end of the second month; after which it may be changed to the
+common clothing used by children of this age."
+
+The advantages of such a dress are, that the movements of the infant
+will be, as we have already seen, free and unrestrained, and we shall
+escape the misery of hearing the screams which now so frequently
+accompany the dressing and undressing of almost every child. No chafings
+from friction, moreover, can occur; and as the insensible perspiration
+is in this way promoted over the whole surface of the body, the sympathy
+between the stomach and skin is happily maintained. A healthy sympathy
+of this kind, duly kept up, does much towards preserving the stomach in
+a good state, and the skin from eruptions and sores.
+
+But as I apprehend that christianity is not yet very deeply rooted in
+the minds and hearts of parents, I have already expressed my doubts
+whether they are prepared to receive and profit by advice at once
+rational and physiological. Still I cannot help hoping that I shall
+succeed in persuading mothers to have every part of a child's dress
+perfectly loose, except the band already referred to; and that should be
+but moderately tight.
+
+Common humanity ought to teach us better than to put the body of a
+helpless infant into a _vise_, and press it to death, as the first mark
+of our attention. Who has not been struck with a strange inconsistency
+in the conduct of mothers and nurses, who, while they are so exceedingly
+tender towards the infant in some points as to injure it by their
+kindness, are yet almost insensible to its cries of distress while
+dressing it? So far, indeed, are they from feeling emotions of pity,
+that they often make light of its cries, regarding them as signs of
+health and vigor.
+
+There can be no doubt, I confess, that the first cries of an infant, if
+strong, both indicate and promote a healthy state of the lungs, to a
+certain extent; but there will always be unavoidable occasions enough
+for crying to promote health, even after we have done all we can in the
+way of avoiding pain. They who only draw the child's dress the tighter,
+the more it cries, are guilty of a crime of little less enormity than
+murder.
+
+"Think," says Dr. Buchan, "of the immense number of children that die of
+convulsions soon after birth; and be assured that these (its cries) are
+much oftener owing to galling pressure, or some external injury, than to
+any inward cause." This same writer adds, that he has known a child
+which was "seized with convulsion fits" soon after being "swaddled,"
+immediately relieved by taking off the rollers and bandages; and he says
+that a loose dress prevented the return of the disease.
+
+I think it is obvious that the utmost extent to which we ought to go, in
+yielding to the fashion, as it regards form, is to use three pieces of
+clothing--the shirt, the petticoat and the frock; all of which must be
+as loose as possible; and before the infant begins to crawl about much,
+the latter should be long, for the salve of covering the feet and legs.
+At four or five years of age, loose trowsers, with boys, may be
+substituted for the petticoat; but it is a question whether something
+like the frock might not, with every individual, be usefully retained
+through life.
+
+I wish it were unnecessary, in a book like this, to join in the general
+complaint against tight lacing any part of the body, but especially the
+chest. But as this work of torture is sometimes begun almost from the
+cradle, and as prevention is better than cure, the hope of preventing
+that for which no cure appears yet to have been found, leads me to make
+a few remarks on the subject.
+
+As it has long been my opinion that one reason why mothers continue to
+overlook the subject is, that they do not understand the structure and
+motion of the chest, I have attempted the following explanation and
+illustration.
+
+I have already said, that if we bandage tightly, for a considerable
+time, any part of the human frame, it is apt to become weaker. The more
+a portion of the frame which is furnished with muscles, those curious
+instruments of motion, is used, provided it is not _over_-exerted, the
+more vigorous it is. Bind up an arm, or a hand, or a foot, and keep it
+bound for twelve hours of the day for many years, and think you it will
+be as strong as it otherwise would have been? Facts prove the contrary.
+The Chinese swathe the feet of their infant females; and they are not
+only small, but weak.
+
+I have said their feet are smaller for being bandaged. So is a hand or
+an arm. Action--healthy, constant action--is indispensable to the
+perfect development of the body and limbs. Why it is so, is another
+thing. But so it is; and it is a principle or law of the great Creator
+which cannot be evaded. More than this; if you bind some parts of the
+body tightly, so as to compress them as much as you can without
+producing actual pain, you will find that the part not only ceases to
+grow, but actually dwindles away. I have seen this tried again and
+again. Even the solid parts perish under pressure. When a person first
+wears a false head of hair, the clasp which rests upon the head, at the
+upper part of the forehead, being new and elastic, and pressing rather
+closely, will, in a few months, often make quite an indentation in the
+cranium or bone of the head.
+
+Now is it probable--nay, is it possible--that the lungs, especially
+those of young persons, can expand and come to their full and natural
+size under pressure, even though the pressure should be slight? Must
+they not be weakened? And if the pressure be strong, as it sometimes is,
+must they not dwindle away?
+
+We know, too, from the nature and structure of the lungs themselves,
+that tight lacing must injure them. Many mothers have very imperfect
+notions of what physicians mean, when they say that corsets impede the
+circulation, by preventing the full and undisturbed action of the lungs.
+They get no higher ideas of the _motion_ of the _chest_, than what is
+connected with bending the body forward and backward, from right to
+left, &c. They know that, if dressed too tightly, _this_ motion is not
+so free as it otherwise would be; but if they are not so closely laced
+as to prevent that free bending of the body of which I have been
+speaking, they think there can be no danger; or at least, none of
+consequence.
+
+Now it happens that this sort of motion is not that to which physicians
+refer, when they complain of corsets. Strictly speaking, this bending of
+the whole body is performed by the muscles of the back, and not those
+of the chest. The latter have very little to do with it. It is true,
+that even _this_ motion ought not to be hindered; but if it is, the evil
+is one of little comparative magnitude.
+
+Every time we breathe naturally, all the ribs, together with the breast
+bone, have motion. The ribs rise, and spread a little outward,
+especially towards the fore part. The breast bone not only rises, but
+swings forward a little, like a pendulum. But the moment the chest is
+swathed or bandaged, this motion must be hindered; and the more, in
+proportion to the tightness.
+
+On this point, those persons make a sad mistake, who say that "a busk
+not too wide nor too rigid seems to correspond to the supporting spine,
+and to assist, rather than impede the efforts of nature, to keep the
+body erect."
+
+Can we seriously compare the offices of the spine with those of the
+ribs, and suppose that because the former is fixed like a post, at the
+back part of the lungs, therefore an artificial post in front would be
+useful? Why, we might just as well argue in favor of hanging weights to
+a door, or a clog to a pendulum, in order to make it swing backwards and
+forwards more easily. We might almost as well say that the elbow ought
+to be made firm, to correspond with the shoulders, and thus become
+advocates for letting the stays or bandages enclose the arm above the
+elbow, and fasten it firmly to the side. Indeed, the consequences in the
+latter case, aside from a little inconvenience, would not be half so
+destructive to health as in the former. The ribs, where they join to the
+back bone, form hinges; and hinges are made for motion. But if you
+fasten them to a post in front, of what value are the hinges?
+
+If mothers ask, of what use this motion of the lungs is, it is only
+necessary to refer them to the chapter on Ventilation, in which I trust
+the subject is made intelligible, and a satisfactory answer afforded.
+
+But I might appeal to facts. Let us look at females around us generally.
+Do their countenances indicate that they enjoy as good health as they
+did when dress was worn more loosely? Have they not oftener a leaden
+hue, as if the blood in them was darker? Are they not oftener
+short-breathed than formerly? As they advance in life, have they not
+more chronic diseases? Are not their chests smaller and weaker? And as
+the doctrine that if one member suffers, all the other members suffer
+with it, is not less true in physiology than in morals, do we not find
+other organs besides the lungs weakened? Surgeons and physicians, who,
+like faithful sentinels, have watched at their post half a century,
+tell us, moreover, that if these foolish and injurious practices to
+which I refer are tolerated two centuries longer, every female will be
+deformed, and the whole race greatly degenerated, physically and
+morally.
+
+Those with whom no arguments will avail, are recommended to read the
+following remarks from the first volume of the Library of Health, p.
+119:
+
+"It is related, on the authority of Macgill, that in Tunis, after a girl
+is engaged, or betrothed, she is then _fattened_. For this purpose, she
+is cooped up in a small room, and shackles of gold and silver are placed
+upon her ancles and wrists, as a piece of dress. If she is to be married
+to a man who has discharged, despatched, or lost a former wife, the
+shackles which the former wife wore are put on the new bride's limbs,
+and she is fed till they are filled up to a proper thickness. The food
+used for this custom worthy of the barbarians is called _drough_, which
+is of an extraordinary fattening quality, and also famous for rendering
+the milk of the nurse rich and abundant. With this and their national
+dish, _cuscasoo_, the bride is literally crammed, and many actually die
+under the spoon."
+
+We laugh at all this, and well we may; but there are customs not very
+far from home, no less ridiculous.
+
+"There is a country four or five thousand miles westward of Tunis,
+where the females, to a very great extent, are emaciated for marriage,
+instead being fattened. This process is begun, in part, by shackles--not
+of gold and silver, perhaps, but of wood--but instead of being put on
+loosely, and causing the body or limbs to fill them, they are made to
+compress the body in the outset; and as the size of the latter
+diminishes, the shackles are contracted or tightened. As with the
+eastern, so with the western females, many of them die under the
+process; though a far greater number die at a remote period, as the
+consequence of it."
+
+
+SEC. 3. _Material._
+
+I have already committed myself to the reader as favoring the use of
+soft flannel in cold weather, especially for children who are not yet
+able to run about freely in the open air. The advantages of an early use
+of this material, at least for under-clothes, are numerous. The
+following are a few of them.
+
+1. Flannel, next to the skin, is a pleasant flesh brush; keeping up a
+gentle and equable irritation, and promoting perspiration and every
+other function which it is the office of the skin to perform, or assist
+in performing.
+
+2. It guards the body against the cooling effects of evaporation, when
+in a state of profuse perspiration.
+
+3. By preventing the heat of the body from escaping too rapidly, it
+keeps up a steadier temperature on the surface than any other known
+substance. The importance of the last consideration is greater, in a
+climate like our own, than elsewhere.
+
+But there are limits to the use of this article of clothing. Whenever
+the temperature of the atmosphere is so great, even without artificial
+heat, that we no longer wish to retain the heat of the body by the
+clothing, then all flannel should be removed at once, and linen should
+be substituted; taking care to replace the flannel whenever the
+temperature of the atmosphere, as indicated by the thermometer, or by
+the child's feelings, may seem to require it.
+
+It should also be kept clean. There is a very general mistake abroad on
+this subject. Many suppose that flannel can be worn longer without
+washing than other kinds of cloth. On the contrary, it should be changed
+oftener than cotton, or even linen, because it will absorb a great deal
+of fluid, especially the matter of perspiration, which, if long
+retained, is believed to ferment, and produce unhealthy, if not
+poisonous gases. For this reason, too, flannel for children's clothing
+should be white, that it may show dirt the more readily, and obtain the
+more frequent washing; although it is for this very reason--its
+liability to exhibit the least particles of dirt--that it is commonly
+rejected.
+
+One caution more in regard to the use of flannel may be necessary. With
+some children, owing to a peculiarity of constitution, flannel will
+produce eruptions on the skin, which are very troublesome. Whenever this
+is the case, the flannel should be immediately laid aside; upon which
+the eruptions usually disappear.
+
+If parents would take proper pains to get the lighter, softer kinds of
+flannel for this purpose, and be particular about its looseness and
+quantity, I should prefer, as I have already intimated, to have very
+young children, in our climate, wear this material the greater part of
+the year, excepting perhaps July and August.
+
+My reasons for this course would be, first, that I like the stimulus of
+soft flannel on the skin, if changed sufficiently often, better than
+that of any other kind of clothing. Secondly, cotton is so liable to
+take fire, that its use in the nursery and among little children seems
+very hazardous. Thirdly, silk is not quite the appropriate material, as
+a general thing, besides being too expensive; and fourthly, linen is
+not warm enough, except in mid-summer.
+
+Except, therefore, in July and August, and in cases of idiosyncracy,
+such as have just been alluded to, I would use flannel for the
+under-clothes of young children, throughout the year. But whenever they
+acquire sufficient strength to walk and run, and play much in the open
+air, I would gradually lay aside the use of all flannel, even in winter.
+Great attention, however, must be paid to the _quantity_. The parent
+who, guided by this rule, should keep on her child the same amount of
+flannel, and of the same thickness, from January to June 30th, and then,
+on the first of July, should suddenly exchange it for thin linen, in
+moderate quantity, might find trouble from it. It is better to make the
+changes more gradually; otherwise, whatever may be the material of the
+dress, the child will be likely to suffer.
+
+
+SEC. 4. _Quantity._
+
+The quantity of clothing used by different individuals of the same age,
+in the same climate, possessing constitutions nearly alike, and
+following similar occupations, is so different as to strike us with
+surprise when we first observe the fact.
+
+One will wear nothing but a coarse linen or cotton shirt, coarse coat,
+waistcoat, and pantaloons, and boots, in the coldest weather. He never,
+unless it be on the Sabbath, puts on even a cravat, and never in any
+case stockings or mittens.
+
+Another, in similar circumstances in all respects, constantly wears his
+thick stockings, flannel wrapper and drawers, and cravat; and seldom
+goes out, in cold weather, without mittens and an overcoat. He is not a
+whit warmer: indeed he often suffers more from the cold, than his
+neighbor who dresses in the manner just described.
+
+Why all this difference? It is no doubt the result of habit. Any
+individual may accustom himself to much or little clothing. And the
+earlier the habit is begun, the greater is its influence.
+
+Some persons, observing how little clothing one may accustom himself to
+use and yet be comfortable, have told us, that so far as mere
+temperature is concerned, we need no clothing at all. They relate the
+story of the Scythian and Alexander. Alexander asked the former how he
+could go without clothes in such a cold climate. He replied, by asking
+Alexander how he could go with his face naked. "Habit reconciles us to
+this;" was the reply. "Think me, then, _all_ face," said the Scythian.
+
+But admitting that certain individuals, and even a few rude tribes,
+have gone without clothing; did they therefore follow, in this respect,
+the intentions of nature? The greatest stickler for adhering to nature's
+plan, cannot prove this. Analogy is against it. Most of the other
+animals, even in hot climates, are furnished with a hairy covering from
+the first; and in cold climates, the Author of their being has even
+provided them with an increase of clothing for the winter. Their fur, on
+the approach of cold weather, not only becomes whiter, and therefore
+conducts the heat away from the body more slowly, but, as every dealer
+in furs well understands, it becomes softer and thicker. And yet the
+blood of the furred animals of cold countries is as warm as ours, if not
+warmer.
+
+The inferences which it seems to me we ought to make from this are, that
+if other animals require clothing, and even a change of clothing, so
+does man; and that as the Creator has left him to provide, by his own
+ingenuity, for a great many of his wants, instead of furnishing him with
+instinct to direct him, so in relation to dress. And even if it could be
+proved that dress were naturally unnecessary, with reference to
+temperature, I should still defend its use on other principles. The few
+speculative minds, therefore, that in the vagaries of their fancy, but
+never in their practice, reject it, are not to be regarded.
+
+The principle laid down in the commencement of the chapter on
+Temperature, is the great principle which should guide us in regard to
+dress. But although we should always keep a little too cool rather than
+a little too warm, it is by no means desirable to be cold. Any degree of
+chilliness, long continued, interrupts the functions which the skin
+ought to perform, and thus produces mischief.
+
+The same rules, in this respect, apply to eating, as well as to dress.
+It is better to eat a little less than nature requires, than a little
+more. It is a generally received opinion, however, that mankind
+frequently, at least in this country, eat about twice as much as health
+requires. This is owing to habit; and perhaps the power of the latter is
+as great in this respect as in regard to dress.
+
+The great point in regard to food or dress is, to _begin_ right, and,
+observing what nature requires--studying at the same time the testimony
+of others--to endeavor to keep within the bounds she has assigned. It
+has already been more than intimated, that if the nursery be kept in a
+proper temperature, a single loose piece of dress is, for some time, all
+that is required. In pursuance of this principle, through life, I
+believe few persons would be found who would need more at one time than
+a single suit of woollen clothes, even in the severest winters of our
+northern climate.
+
+I have always observed that they who wear the greatest amount of
+clothing, are most subject to colds. There are obvious reasons why it
+should be so. This, then, if a fact, is one of the strongest reasons in
+favor of acquiring a habit of going as thinly clad as we possibly can,
+and not at the same time feel any inconvenience.
+
+But after all, whether it be winter or summer, we must vary our clothing
+with the variations of the weather, as indicated by the thermometer, and
+our own feelings. Sometimes, in our ever-changing and ever-changeable
+climate, it may be necessary to vary our dress three or four times a
+day. Some cry out against this practice as dangerous, but I have never
+found it so. I have known persons who made it a constant practice; and I
+never found that they sustained any injury from it, except the loss of a
+little time; and the increase of comfort was more than enough to
+compensate for that. There is one thing to be avoided, however, whether
+we change our clothing--our linen especially--twice a day, or only twice
+a week--which is, _dampness_.
+
+
+SEC. 5. _Caps._
+
+The practice of putting caps on infants is happily going by; and perhaps
+it may be thought unnecessary for me to dwell a single moment on the
+subject. But as the practice still prevails in some parts of the
+country, it may be well to bestow upon it a few passing remarks.
+
+Many mothers have not considered that the circulation of the blood in
+young infants is peculiarly active; that a large amount of blood is at
+that period carried to the head; that in consequence of this, the head
+is proportionably hotter than in adults; and that from this source
+arises the tendency of very young children to brain-fever, dropsy in the
+head, and other diseases of this part of the system. But these are most
+undoubted facts.
+
+Hence one reason why the heads of infants should be kept as cool as
+possible; and though a thin cap confines less heat than a thick head of
+hair does when they are older, yet they are less able to bear it. The
+truth is, that nature furnishes a covering for the head, just about as
+fast as a covering is required, and the child's safety will permit.
+
+At the present day, few persons will probably be found, who will defend
+the utility of caps, any longer than till the hair is grown. The
+general apology for their use after this period, and indeed in most
+instances before, is, that they look pretty. "What would people say to
+see my darling without a cap?"
+
+But when the head is kept, from the first, totally uncovered, the hair
+grows more rapidly, dandruff and other scurfy diseases rarely attack the
+scalp; catarrh, snuffles, and other similar complaints, and above all,
+dropsy in the head, seldom show themselves; and the period of cutting
+teeth, that most dangerous period in the life of an infant, is passed
+over with much more safety.
+
+"Nothing but custom," says a foreign writer, "can reconcile us to the
+cap, with all its lace and trumpery ornaments, on the beautiful head of
+a child; and I would ask any one to say candidly, whether he thinks the
+children in the pictures of Titian and Raffaelle would be improved by
+having their heads covered with caps, instead of the silken curls--the
+adornment of nature--which cluster round their smiling faces. If there
+were no other reason for disusing caps for infants, but the improvement
+which it produces in the _appearance_ of the child, I would maintain
+that this is a sufficient inducement." And I concur with him fully.
+
+As to the notion--now I hope nearly exploded--that it is necessary to
+cover up the "open of the head," as it is called, nothing can be more
+idle. This part of the head requires no more covering than any other
+part; and if it did, all the dress in the world could not affect it in
+the least, except to retard the growth of the bones, which, in due time,
+ought to close up the space; and this effect, anything which keeps the
+head too hot might help to produce. Of the folly of wetting the head
+with spirits, or any other medicated lotions, and of making daily
+efforts to bring it into shape, it is unnecessary to speak in the
+present chapter.
+
+
+SEC. 6. _Hats and Bonnets._
+
+The hats worn in this country are almost universally too warm. But if it
+is a great mistake in adults to wear thick, heavy hats, it is much more
+so in the case of children.
+
+The infant in the nursery, as we have already seen, needs no covering of
+the kind. It is absolutely necessary that the head should be kept as
+cool as possible; and absolutely dangerous to cover it too warmly. At a
+later period, however, the danger greatly diminishes, because the
+circulation of the blood becomes more equal, and does not tend so much
+towards the brain.
+
+Still, however, the head is hotter than the limbs, especially the hands
+and feet; and I cannot help thinking that the hair is the only covering
+which is perfectly safe, either in childhood or age; except in the
+sunshine or in the storm. There may be--there probably is--some danger
+in going without hat or bonnet in the hot sun; though I have known many
+children, and some grown persons, who were constantly exposed in this
+way, and yet appeared not to suffer from it.
+
+But this may be the proper place to state that we are ever in great
+danger of deceiving ourselves on this subject. If the individuals who
+follow practices usually regarded as pernicious, while their habits in
+other respects are just like those of other persons around them who have
+similar strength, &c. of constitution,--if these individuals, I say,
+were wholly to escape disease, through life, or if they were to be so
+much more free from it, and live to an age so much greater than others
+as to constitute a striking and obvious difference in their favor, we
+might then safely argue that the practices which they follow are at
+least without dangers, if not of obvious advantage. But when we see them
+beset with ills, like other people, it is not safe to pronounce their
+habits favorable to health, since it is impossible to know whether some
+of the ills which they suffer are not produced by them.
+
+These remarks are applicable to the disuse of any covering for the head
+in the sun and in the rain. For you will find those who adopt this
+practice from early infancy,[Footnote: I say, from early infancy;
+because we may adopt the best habits in mature years, after our
+constitutions have been broken up by error and vice, without effecting
+anything more than to keep us from actually sinking at once. Indeed, in
+most cases we ought not to expect more.] subject to as many diseases as
+those around them with similar constitutions, but with habits somewhat
+different; and as our diseases are generally the consequences of our
+errors in one way or another, it is impossible to say with certainty
+that some of them might not have arisen from exposure of the head.
+
+I should not hesitate, therefore, to advise all mothers to put a light
+hat or bonnet on the heads of their children, whenever they are to be
+exposed to the direct rays of the summer sun, or to the rain. And as we
+cannot always foresee when and where these exposures will arise, and as
+it is believed that these coverings, if light, will never be productive
+of much injury while we are abroad in the open air, it will follow that
+it is better to wear than to omit them.
+
+But while I contend for their use as consistent with health and sound
+philosophy, I must not be understood as admitting the use of such hats
+as are worn at present, even by children. They are, as I have said
+before, too hot. What should be substituted, I am unable to determine;
+but until something can be supplied, which would not be half so
+oppressive as our common wool hats, I should regard it as the lesser
+evil to omit them entirely. The danger of going bare-headed, if the
+practice is commenced early, we know from the customs of some savage
+nations, can never be very great.
+
+
+SEC. 7. _Covering for the Feet._
+
+The same reason for avoiding the use of any covering for the head, in
+early infancy, is a sufficient reason for covering the feet well. For
+just in proportion as the blood is sent to the head in superabundance,
+and keeps up in it an undue degree of heat, just in the same proportion
+is it sent to the feet in too _small_ a quantity, leaving these parts
+liable to cold. Now it is a fundamental law with medical men, that the
+feet ought to be kept warmer than the head, if possible; especially
+while the child is very young, and exposed to brain diseases.
+
+So long, therefore, as children are young, and unable to exercise their
+feet, stockings ought to be used, both in summer and winter; but I
+prefer to have them short, unless long ones can be used without garters.
+Everything in the shape of a garter or ligature round the limbs, body,
+or neck of a child, except a single body-band, already mentioned in
+another chapter, ought forever to be banished.
+
+It has often been objected, I know, that stockings will make the feet
+tender. But as no child was ever hardened by _continued_ and severe cold
+applied to any part of the body, but the contrary, so no one was ever
+made more tender by being kept moderately warm. Excess of heat, like
+excess of cold, will alike weaken either children or adults; but there
+is little danger of heating the feet and legs of infants too much during
+the first year of infancy.
+
+It is also said that stockings are apt to receive and retain wet. But as
+I shall show in another place that wet clothes should be frequently
+changed, this objection would be equally strong against wearing coats
+and diapers.
+
+As to shoes, there is some variety of opinion among medical men. A few
+hold that they cramp the feet, and prevent children from learning to
+walk as early as they otherwise would. If it were best for children
+that they should learn to walk as early as possible, the last objection
+might have weight. But it seems to me not at all desirable to be in
+haste about their walking. Indeed, I greatly prefer to retard their
+progress, in this respect, rather than to hasten it.
+
+As to the first objection, that shoes cramp the feet too much, nearly
+its whole force turns upon the question whether they are made of proper
+materials or not. There is no need of making them of cow-hide, or any
+other thick leather. The soles are the most important part. These will
+defend the feet against pins, needles, and such other sharp substances
+as are usually found on the floor; and the upper part of the shoe, so
+long as the wearer remains in the nursery, may be made of the softest
+and most yielding material--even of cloth. Infants' shoes should always
+be made on two lasts, one for each foot.
+
+The philosopher Locke held, that in order to harden the young, their
+shoes ought to be "so that they might leak and let in water, whenever
+they came near it." There may be and probably is, no harm in having a
+child wet his feet occasionally, provided he is soon supplied with dry
+stockings again; but it is hazardous for either children or adults to go
+too long in wet stockings, and especially to sit long in them, after
+they have been using much active exercise. I am in favor of good,
+substantial shoes and stockings for people of all ages and conditions,
+and at all seasons; and believe it entirely in accordance with sound
+economy and the laws of the human constitution.
+
+
+SEC. 8. _Pins._
+
+The custom of using ten or a dozen pins in the dressing of children,
+ought by all means to be set aside. They not only often wound the skin,
+but they have occasionally been known to penetrate the body and the
+joints of the limbs. So many of these dreadful accidents occur, and
+where no accident happens, so much pain is occasionally given by their
+sharp points to the little sufferer, who cannot tell what the matter is,
+that it is quite time the practice were abolished.
+
+Do you ask what can be substituted?--The following mode is adopted by
+Dr. Dewees in his own family, as mentioned in his work on the "Physical
+and Medical Treatment of Children," at page 86.
+
+"The belly-band and the petticoat have strings; and not a single pin is
+used in their adjustment. The little shirt, which is always made much
+larger than the infant's body, is folded on the back and bosom, and
+these folds kept in their places by properly adjusting the body of the
+petticoat: so far not a pin is used. The diaper requires one, but this
+should be of a large size, and made to serve the double purpose of
+holding the folds of this article, as well as keeping the belly-band in
+its proper place; the latter having a small tag of double linen
+depending from its lower margin, by which it is secured to the diaper,
+by the same pin.
+
+"Should an extraordinary display of best 'bib and tucker' be required
+upon any special occasion, a third pin may be admitted to ensure the
+well-sitting of the 'frock' waist in front;--this last pin, however, is
+applied externally; so that the risk of its getting into the child's
+body is very small, even if it should become displaced."
+
+The writer from whom the last two paragraphs are taken, says be has seen
+needles substituted for pins; and relates a long story of a child whose
+life was well nigh destroyed in this manner. It underwent months of ill
+health, and many moments of excruciating agony, before the cause of its
+trouble was suspected. Sometimes its distress was so great that nothing
+but large doses of laudanum, sufficient to stupify it, could afford the
+least relief. At last a tumor was discovered by the attending physician,
+near one of the bones on which we sit, and a needle was extracted two
+inches long. The needle had been put in its clothes, and, by slipping
+into the folds of the skin, had insinuated itself, unperceived, into the
+child's body. It is pleasing to add, that, although the little sufferer
+had now been ill seven or eight months, and had endured almost
+everything but death,--fever, diarrhoea, and the most excruciating
+pain,--it soon recovered.
+
+This shocking circumstance is enough, one would think, to deter every
+mother or nurse, who becomes acquainted with it, from using needles in
+infants' clothes. Happy would it be, if, in banishing needles, they
+would contrive to banish pins also, and adopt either the plan of Dr.
+Dewees, or one still more rational.
+
+
+SEC. 9. _Remaining Wet._
+
+On the subject of changing the wet clothing of a child, there is a
+strange and monstrous error abroad; which is, that by suffering them to
+remain wet and cold, we harden the constitution. The filthiness of this
+practice is enough to condemn it, were there nothing else to be said
+against it.
+
+It is insisted on by many, I know, that as water which is salt, when it
+is applied to the skin, and suffered to remain long, while it secures
+the point of hardening the child, prevents all possibility of its taking
+cold, it hence follows, that wet diapers are not injurious. But this is
+a mistake. Every time an infant is allowed to remain wet, we not only
+endanger its taking cold, but expose it to excoriations of the skin, if
+not to serious and dangerous inflammation. In short, if frequent changes
+are not made, whatever some mothers and nurses may think, they may rest
+assured, that the health of the child must sooner or later suffer as the
+consequence.
+
+Nor is it enough to hang up a diaper by the fire, and, as soon as it is
+dry, apply it again. It should be clean, as well as dry. Let us not be
+told, that it is troublesome to wash so often. Everything is in a
+certain sense troublesome. Everything in this world, which is worth
+having, is the result of toil. Nothing but absolute poverty affords the
+shadow of an excuse for neglecting anything which will promote the
+health, or even the comfort of the tender infant.
+
+Of the impropriety and danger of suffering wet clothes to dry upon us, I
+shall speak elsewhere; as well as of the evil of suffering children to
+remain dirty,--their skins or their clothing.
+
+
+SEC. 10. _Remarks on the Dress of Boys._
+
+Whatever tends to disturb the growth of the body, or hinder the free
+exercise of the limbs, during the infancy and childhood of both sexes
+is injurious. And as every mother has the control of these things, I
+have thought it desirable to append to this chapter a few thoughts on
+the particular dress of each sex. I begin with that of boys.
+
+"Nothing can be more injurious to health," says a foreign writer, "than
+the tight jacket, buttoned up to the throat, the well-fitted boots, and
+the stiff stock." And his remarks are nearly as applicable to this
+country as to England. The consequences of this preposterous method of
+dressing boys, are diminutive manhood, deformity of person, and a
+constitution either already imbued with disease, or highly susceptible
+of its impression.
+
+No part of the modern dress of boys is more absurd, than the stiff
+stock, or thick cravat. It is not only injurious by pressing on the
+_jugular_ veins, and preventing the blood from freely passing out of the
+head, but, by constantly pressing on the numerous and complex muscles of
+the neck, at this period of life, it prevents their development; because
+whatever hinders the action of the muscular parts, hinders their growth,
+and makes them even appear as if wasted.
+
+It would be a great improvement, if this part of dress were wholly
+discarded; and when is there so appropriate a time for setting it aside,
+as _before we began to use it_; or rather while we are under the more
+immediate care of our mothers?
+
+The use of jackets buttoned up to the throat, except in cold weather, is
+objectionable; but this is very fortunately going out of fashion.
+
+Boots, if used at all, should fit well; to this there can be no possible
+objection. What the writer, whom I have quoted, referred to, was
+probably the tight boot, worn to prevent the foot from being large and
+unseemly; but producing, as tight boots inevitably do, an injurious
+effect upon the muscles, a constrained walk, and corns.
+
+What can be more painful, than to see little boys--yes, _little_
+boys--boys neither fifteen, nor twenty, nor twenty-five, walk as if they
+were fettered and trussed up for the spit; unable to look down, or turn
+their heads, on account of a thick stock, or two or three cravats piled
+on the top of each other--and only capable of using their arms to dangle
+a cane, or carry an umbrella, as they hobble along, perhaps on a hot
+sun-shiny day in July or August?
+
+But this evil, you who are mothers, have it very generally in your power
+to prevent, if you are only wise enough to secure that ascendancy over
+your children's minds which the Author of their nature designed. At the
+least, you can prevent it for a time--the most important period, too--by
+your own authority. This you will not need any urging to induce you to
+do, if you ever become thoroughly convinced of its pre-eminent folly.
+
+
+SEC. 11. _On the Dress of Girls._
+
+The same general principles which should guide the young mother in
+regard to the dress of boys, are equally important and applicable in the
+management of girls. The whole dress should, as much as possible, hang
+loosely from the shoulders, without pressing on the body, or any part of
+it. This, I say, is the grand point to be aimed at; and this is the only
+great principle, whatever some mothers may think, which will lead to
+true beauty of person, and gracefulness of gesture.
+
+There is, however, a slight difference to be made between the dress of
+girls and that of boys. The greater delicacy of the female frame
+requires that the surface of the body should be kept rather warmer, as
+well as better protected from the vicissitudes of the atmosphere.
+
+But is this the fact? Is not the contrary true? While boys in the winter
+are clad in warm woollen vestments, covering every part of their trunk,
+many portions of the female frame, and especially many parts of their
+limbs, are left so much exposed, that in cold weather you scarcely find
+a girl abroad, who appears to be comfortable.
+
+Nay, they are not only uncomfortable abroad, but at home; and if I were
+to present to mothers in detail, a tenth of the evils which their
+daughters suffer from not adopting a warmer method of clothing, I should
+probably be stared at by some, and laughed at by others. All this, too,
+without speaking of going out of warm concert rooms, theatres, ball
+rooms and lecture rooms, into the night air, or out of school rooms and
+churches, to walk home with measured and stiffened pace, lest the sin
+unpardonable of walking swiftly or RUNNING,--that active exercise which
+health requires, which youthful feeling prompts, and which duty ought to
+inspire,--should unwarily be committed.
+
+The tremendous evils of confining the lungs have been adverted to at
+sufficient length. In reference to that general subject, I need only
+add, that if the chest be not duly exercised and expanded, the liver,
+the lungs, the stomach, digestion, absorption, circulation and
+perspiration, are all hindered. And even so far as the various internal
+organs of the body _are_ active, they act at a great disadvantage. The
+blood which they "work up," is bad blood, and must be so, as long as the
+lungs do not have free play. Hence may and do arise all sorts of
+diseases; especially diseases of OBSTRUCTION; and such as are often very
+difficult of removal.
+
+What can be a more pitiable sight than some modern girls going home from
+school or church in winter? Thinly clad, the blood is all driven from
+the surface upon the internal organs, and what remains is so loaded with
+carbon, which the lungs ought but cannot discharge, that her skin has a
+leaden hue; her teeth chatter; her very heart is chilled in her panting,
+frozen bosom; she cannot run, and if she could, she must not, for it
+would be vulgar! Every mother should shrink from the sight of such a
+picture.
+
+
+
+
+CHAPTER V.
+
+CLEANLINESS.
+
+Physiology of the human skin. Of checking perspiration. Diseases thus
+produced. "Dirt" not "healthy." How the mistake originated. "Smell of
+the earth." Effect of uncleanliness on the morals. Filthiness produces
+bowel complaints. Changing dress for the sake of cleanliness.
+
+
+No mother will ever pay that attention to cleanliness which its
+importance to health and happiness demands, till she perceives its
+necessity. And she will never perceive that necessity till she has
+studied attentively the machinery of the human frame--and especially its
+wonderful covering.
+
+The skin is pierced with little openings or _pores_, so numerous that
+some have reckoned them at a million to every square inch. At all
+events, they are so small that the naked eye can neither distinguish nor
+count them; and so numerous, that we cannot pierce the skin with the
+finest needle without hitting one or more of them.
+
+When we are in perfect health, and the skin clean, a gentle moisture or
+mist continually oozes through these pores. This process is called
+_perspiration_; and the moisture which thus escapes, the _matter_ of
+perspiration.
+
+Perspiration may be checked in two ways. 1. by filth on the skin; 2. by
+what is commonly called taking cold--for taking cold essentially
+consists in chilling the skin to such a degree as to stop, for some
+time, the escape of this moisture. Most persons have doubtless observed,
+that in the first stages of a cold, they frequently have a very dry
+skin. Whereas, when we are in health, the skin usually feels moist.
+
+Our health is not only endangered, and a foundation laid for fevers,
+rheumatisms, and consumptions, by stopping the pores of the skin with
+dirt, or anything else, but there is also danger from another and a very
+different source.
+
+The blood, in its circulation through the body, is constantly becoming
+impure; and as it thus comes back impure to the heart, is as constantly
+sent to the lungs, where it comes in close contact with the air which we
+breathe, and is purified. But this same purifying process which goes on
+in the lungs, goes on, too, if the skin is in a pure, free, healthy
+condition, all over the surface of the body. If it is not--if the skin
+cannot do this part of the work--an additional burden is thus laid on
+the lungs, which in this way soon become so overworked, that they
+cannot perform their own proportion of the labor. And whenever this
+happens, the health must soon suffer.
+
+The strange belief, that "dirt is healthy," has much influence on the
+daily practice of thousands of those who are ignorant of the human
+structure, and the laws which govern and regulate the animal economy. It
+has probably originated in the well-known fact, that those children who
+are allowed to play in the dirt, are often as healthy--and even _more_
+healthy--than those who are confined to the nursery or the parlor.
+
+Now, while it is admitted that this is a very common case, it is yet
+believed that the former class of children would be still more vigorous
+than they now are, if they were kept more cleanly, or were at least
+frequently washed. It is not the dirt which promotes their health, but
+their active exercise in the open air; the advantages of which are more
+than sufficient to compensate for the injury which they sustain from the
+dirt. That is to say, they retain, in spite of the dirt, better health
+than those who are denied the blessings of pure air and abundant
+exercise, and subjected to the opposite extreme of almost constant
+confinement.
+
+There is something deceitful, after all, in the ruddy, blooming
+appearance of those children who are left by the busy parent to play in
+the road or field, without attention to cleanliness. If this were not
+so, how comes it to pass that they suffer much more, not only from
+chronic, but from acute diseases, than children whose parents are in
+better circumstances?
+
+I am the more solicitous to combat a belief in the salutary tendency of
+an unclean skin, because I know it prevails to some extent; and because
+I know also, both from reason and from fact, that it is a gross error.
+
+It is, however, true, that years sometimes intervene, before the evil
+consequences of dirtiness appear. The office of the vessels of the skin
+being interrupted, an increase of action is imposed on other parts,
+especially on those internal organs commonly called glands, which action
+is apt to settle into obstinate disease. Hence, at least when aided by
+other causes, often arise, in later life, after the source of the evil
+is forgotten, if it were ever suspected, rheumatism, scrofula, jaundice,
+and even consumption.
+
+There is a strange notion abroad, that the _smell_ of the earth is
+beneficial, especially to consumptive persons. I honestly believe,
+however, that it is more likely to create consumption than to cure it.
+Besides, in what does this smell consist? Do the silex, the alumine, and
+the other earths, with their compounds, emit any odor? Rarely, I
+believe, unless when mixed with vegetable matter. But no gases
+necessary to health are evolved during the decomposition of vegetable
+matter; on the contrary, it is well known that many of them tend to
+induce disease.
+
+I am thoroughly persuaded that too much attention cannot be paid to
+cleanliness; and the demand for such attention is equally imperious in
+the case of those who cultivate the earth, or labor in it, or on stone,
+during the intervals of their useful avocations, as in the case of those
+individuals who follow other employments.
+
+I must also protest against the doctrine, that the smell or taste of the
+earth, much less a coat of it spread over the surface, and closing up,
+for hours and days together, thousands and millions of those little
+pores with which the Author of this "wondrous frame" has pierced the
+skin, can have a salutary tendency.
+
+The opinion has been even maintained, that uncleanly habits are not only
+unfavorable to health, but to morality. There can be no doubt that he
+who neglects his person and dress will be found lower in the scale of
+morals, other things being equal, than he who pays a due regard to
+cleanliness.
+
+Some have supposed that a disposition to neglect personal cleanliness
+was indicative of genius. But this opinion is grossly erroneous, and
+has well nigh ruined many a young man.
+
+I am far from recommending any degree of fastidiousness on this subject.
+Truth and correct practice usually lie between extremes. But I do and
+must insist, that the connection between cleanliness of body and purity
+of moral character, is much more close and direct than has usually been
+supposed.
+
+But to return to the more immediate effects of cleanliness on health.
+There is one class of diseases in particular which, in an eminent
+degree, owe their origin to a neglect of cleanliness. I refer to the
+bowel complaints so common among children during summer and autumn.
+Except in case of teething, the use of unripe fruits, or the _abuse_ of
+those which are in themselves excellent, it is probable that more than
+half of the bowel complaints of the young are either produced or greatly
+aggravated by a foul skin.
+
+The importance of washing the whole body in water will be insisted on in
+the chapter on Bathing; it is therefore unnecessary to say anything
+farther on that subject in this place, except to observe that whether
+the washings of the body be partial or general, they should be thorough,
+so far as they are carried. There are thousands of children who, in
+pretending to wash their hands and face, will do little more than wet
+the inside of their hands, and the tips of their noses and ears unless
+great care is taken.
+
+Few things are more important than suitable changes of dress. There are
+those, who, from principle, never wear the same under-garment but one
+day without washing, either in summer or winter; and there are others
+who, though they may wear an article without washing two or three
+successive days, take care to change their dress at night--never
+sleeping in a garment which they have worn during the day.
+
+It is a very common objection to suggestions like these, that they will
+do very well for those who have wealth, but not for the poor;--that
+_they_ have neither the time nor the means of attending to them. How can
+they change their clothes every day? we are asked. And how can they
+afford to have a separate dress for the night?
+
+There must be retrenchment in some other matters, it is admitted. In
+order to find time for more washing, or money to pay others for the
+labor, the poor must deny themselves a few things which they now
+suppose, if they have ever thought at all on the subject, are conducive
+to their happiness--but which are in reality either useless or
+injurious. Something may be saved by a reasonable dress, as I have
+already shown. Other items of expense, which might be spared with great
+advantage to health and happiness, and applied to the purpose in
+question, will be mentioned in the chapter on Food and Drink.
+
+
+
+
+CHAPTER VI.
+
+ON BATHING.
+
+Danger of savage practices. Rousseau. Cold water at birth. First washing
+of the child. Rules. Temperature. Bathing vessels. Unreasonable fears.
+Whims. Views of Dr. Dewees. Hardening. Rules for the cold bath. Securing
+a glow. Coming out of the bath. Local baths. Shower bath. Vapor bath.
+Sponging. Neglect of bathing. The Romans. Treatment of children compared
+with that of domestic animals.
+
+
+Some of the hardy nations of antiquity, as well as a few savage tribes
+of modern times, have been accustomed to plunge their new-born infants
+into cold water. This is done for the two-fold purpose of washing and
+hardening them.
+
+To all who reason but for a moment on this subject, the danger of such a
+practice must be obvious. So sudden a change from a temperature of
+nearly 100º of Fahrenheit to one quite low, perhaps scarcely 40º, must
+and does have a powerful effect on the nervous system even of an adult;
+but how much more on that of a tender infant? We may form some idea of
+this, by the suddenness and violence of its cries, by the sudden
+contractions and relaxations of its limbs and body, and by its
+palpitating heart and difficult breathing.
+
+Every one's experience may also remind him, that what produces at best a
+momentary pain to himself, cannot otherwise than be painful to the
+infant. In making a comparison between adults and infants, however, in
+this respect, we should remember that the lungs of the infant do not get
+into full and vigorous action until some time after birth; and that, on
+this account, the hold they have on life is so feeble, that any powerful
+shock, and especially that given by the cold bath, is ten times more
+dangerous to them than to adults, or even to infants themselves, after a
+few months have elapsed.
+
+It is surprising to me that so sensible a writer as Rousseau generally
+is on education, should have encouraged this dangerous practice; and
+still more so that many fathers even now, blinded by theory, should
+persist in it, notwithstanding the pleadings of the mother or the nurse,
+and the plainest dictates of common sense and common prudence.[Footnote:
+Nothing is intended to be said here, which shall encourage unthinking
+nurses or mothers in setting themselves against measures which have been
+prescribed by higher authority,--I mean the physician. There are cases
+of this kind, where it requires all the resolution which a father,
+uninterrupted, can summon to his aid, to administer a dose or perform a
+task, on which he knows the existence of his child may be depending: but
+when the thoughtless entreaties of the mother or nurse are interposed,
+it makes his condition most distressing. Mothers, in such cases, ought
+to encourage rather than remonstrate. They who _do not_, are guilty of
+cruelty, and--perhaps--of infanticide.]
+
+A child plunged into cold water at birth, by those whose theories carry
+them so far as to do it even in the coldest weather, has sometimes been
+twenty-four hours in recovering, notwithstanding the most active and
+judicious efforts to restore it. In other instances the results have
+been still more distressing. Dr. Dewees is persuaded that he has "known
+death itself to follow the use of cold water," in this way--I believe he
+means _immediate_ death--and adds, with great confidence, that he has
+"repeatedly seen it require the lapse of several hours before reaction
+could establish itself; during which time the pale and sunken cheeks and
+livid lips declared the almost exhausted state" of the infant's
+excitability.[Footnote: "Dewees on children" p. 72.]
+
+We need not hesitate to put very great confidence in the opinion here
+expressed; for besides being a close and just observer of human nature,
+Dr. D. has had the direction and management, in a greater or less
+degree, of several thousands of new-born infants.
+
+Nothing, indeed, in the whole range of physical education, seems better
+proved, than that while some few infants, whose constitutions are
+naturally very strong, are invigorated by the practice in question,
+others, in the proportion of hundreds for one, who are _less_ robust,
+are injured for life; some of them seriously.
+
+Nor will spirits added to the water make any material difference. I am
+aware that there is a very general notion abroad, that the injurious
+effects of cold water, in its application both internally and
+externally, are greatly diminished by the addition of a little spirit;
+but it is not so. Does the addition of such a small quantity of spirit
+as is generally used in these cases, materially alter the temperature?
+Is it not the application of a cold liquid to a heated surface, still?
+Can we make anything else of it, either more or less?
+
+I do not undertake to say, that the cold bath may not be so managed in
+the progress of infancy, as to make it beneficial, especially to strong
+constitutions. It is its indiscriminate application to all new-born
+children, without regard to strength of constitution, or any other
+circumstances, that I most strenuously oppose. Of its occasional use,
+under the eye of a physician, and by parents who will discriminate, I
+shall say more presently.
+
+Our first duty on receiving a new inhabitant of the world is, to see
+that it is gently but thoroughly washed, in moderately warm soft water,
+with fine soap. Special attention should be paid to the folds of the
+joints, the neck, the arm pits, &c. For rubbing the body, in order to
+disengage anything which might obstruct the pores, or irritate or fret
+the skin, nothing can be preferable to a piece of soft sponge or
+flannel. Though the operation should be thorough, and also as rapid as
+the nature of circumstances will permit, all harshness should be
+avoided. When finished, the child should be wiped perfectly dry with
+soft flannel.
+
+While the washing is performed, the temperature of the room should be
+but a few degrees lower than that of the water; and the child should not
+be exposed to currents of cold air. If the weather is severe, or if
+currents of air in the room cannot otherwise be avoided, the dressing,
+undressing, washing, &c., may be done near the fire. And I repeat the
+rule, it should always be done with as much rapidity as is compatible
+with safety.
+
+Here will be seen one great advantage of simplicity in the form of
+dress. If the more rational suggestions of our chapter on that subject
+are attended to, it will greatly facilitate the process of washing, and
+the subsequent daily process of bathing, which I am about to recommend
+to my readers.
+
+This washing process is also an introduction to bathing. For it should
+be repeated every day; but with less and less attention to the washing,
+and more and more reference to the bathing. How long the child should
+stay in the bath, must be left to experience. If he is quiet, fifteen
+minutes can never be too long; and I should not object to twenty. If
+otherwise, and you are obliged to remove him in five minutes, or even in
+three, still the bathing will be of too much service to be dispensed
+with.
+
+Nothing should be mixed with the water, if the infant is healthy, except
+a little soap, as already mentioned. Some are fond of using salt; but it
+is by no means necessary, and may do harm.
+
+The proper hour for bathing is the early part of the day, or about the
+middle of the forenoon. This season is selected, because the process,
+manage it as carefully as we may, is at first a little exhausting. As
+the child grows older, however, and not only becomes stronger, but
+appears to be actually refreshed and invigorated by the bath, it will be
+advisable to defer it to a later and later hour. By the time the babe is
+three months old, particularly in the warm season, the hour of bathing
+may be at sunset.
+
+The degree of heat must be determined, in part, by observing its effect
+on the child; and in part by a thermometer. For this, and for other
+purposes, a thermometer, as I have already more than hinted, is
+indispensable in every nursery. Our own sensations are often at best a
+very unsafe guide. There is one rule which should always be
+observed--never to have the temperature of the bath below that of the
+air of the room. If the thermometer show the latter to be 70º, the bath
+should be something like 80º; perhaps with feeble children, rather more.
+
+Great care ought always to be taken to proportion the air of the room
+and the water of the bath to each other. If, for example, the
+temperature of the room have been, for some time, unusually warm, that
+of the water must not be so low as if it had been otherwise. On the
+contrary, if the room have been, for a considerable time, rather cool,
+the bath may be made several degrees cooler than in other circumstances.
+But in no case and in no circumstances must a _warm_ bath--intended as
+such, simply--be so warm or so cold, as to make the child uncomfortable;
+whether the temperature be 70º, 80º, or 90º.
+
+It is hardly necessary to add, that in bathing a young child, the vessel
+used for the purpose should be large enough to give free scope to all
+the motions of its extremities. Most children are delighted to play and
+scramble about in the water. I know, indeed, that the contrary sometimes
+happens; but when it does, it is usually--I do not say _always_--because
+the countenances of those who are around express fear or apprehension;
+for it is surprising how early these little beings learn to decipher our
+feelings by our very countenances.
+
+Some of our readers may be surprised at the intimation that there are
+mothers and nurses who have fears or apprehensions in regard to the
+effects of the warm bath; but others--and it is for such that I write
+this paragraph--will fully understand me. I have been often surprised at
+the fact, but it is undoubted, that there is a strong prejudice against
+warm bathing, in many parts of the country. In endeavoring to trace the
+cause, I have usually found that it arose from having seen or heard of
+some child who died soon after its application. I have had many a parent
+remonstrate with me on the danger of the warm bath; and this, too, in
+circumstances when it appeared to me, that the child's existence
+depended, under God, on that very measure. Perhaps it is useless in such
+cases, however, to reason with parents on the subject. The medical
+practitioner must do his duty boldly and fearlessly, and risk the
+consequences.
+
+But as I am writing, not for persons under immediate excitement, but for
+those that may be reasoned with, it is proper to say, that in medicine,
+the warm bath is so often used in extreme cases, and as a last resort,
+even when death has already grasped, or is about to fix his grasp on the
+sufferer, that it would be very strange if many persons _did not_ die,
+just after bathing. But that the bathing itself ever produced this
+result, in one case in a thousand, there is not the slightest reason for
+believing. [Footnote: Let me not be understood as intimating that, the
+general neglect of bathing, of which I complain so loudly, is _chiefly_
+owing to this unreasonable prejudice, though this no doubt has its sway.
+On the contrary, I believe it is much oftener owing to ignorance,
+indolence, and parsimony.]
+
+There are many more whims connected with bathing, as with almost
+everything else, which it were equally desirable to remove. Some nurses
+and mothers think that if the child's skin is wiped dry after bathing,
+it will impair, if not destroy, the good effects of the operation.
+Others still, shocking to relate, will even put it to bed in its wet
+clothes; this, too, from principle. Not unlike this, is the belief, very
+common among adults, that if we get our clothes wet--even our
+stockings--we must, by all means, suffer them to dry on us; a belief
+which, in its results, has sent thousands to a premature grave--and,
+what is still worse, made invalids, for life, of a still greater number.
+
+I am aware, that in rejecting the indiscriminate cold bathing of
+infants, I am treading on ground which is rather unpopular, even with
+medical men; a large proportion of whom seem to believe that the
+practice may be useful. But I am not _wholly_ alone. Dr. Dewees--of
+whose large experience I have already spoken--and some others, do not
+hesitate to avow similar sentiments.
+
+The objections of Dr. Dewees to cold bathing are the following. 1. There
+often exists a predisposition to disease, which cold bathing is sure to
+rouse to action. Or if the disease have already begun to affect the
+system, the bath is sure to aggravate it. 2. Some children have such
+feeble constitutions that they are sure to be permanently weakened by
+it, rather than invigorated. 3. To those in whom there is the tendency
+of a large quantity of blood to the head, lungs, liver, &c., it is
+injurious. 4. In some, the shock produces a species of syncope, or
+catalepsy. 5. The _reaction_, as shown by the heat which follows the
+cold bath, is, in some cases, so great as to produce a degree of fever,
+and consequent debility. 6. It never answers the purposes of
+cleanliness--one great object of bathing--so well as the warm bath. 7.
+It is always unpleasant or painful to the child; especially at first. 8.
+It sometimes produces severe pain in the bowels.
+
+This is a very formidable list of objections; and certainly deserves
+consideration. There is one statement made by Dr. D. in the progress of
+his remarks on this subject, in which I do not concur. He says--"The
+object of all bathing is to remove impurities arising from dust,
+perspiration, &c., from the surface; that the skin may not be obstructed
+in the performance of its proper offices."
+
+But the object of cold bathing, with many, is to _harden_; consequently
+it is not true that cleanliness is the _only object_. If he means, even,
+that cleanliness is the only _legitimate_ object of all bathing, I shall
+still be compelled to dissent.
+
+If the cold bath could be used, always, by and with the direction of a
+skilful physician, I believe its occasional use might be rendered
+salutary. And although as it is now commonly used, I believe its effects
+are almost anything but salutary, I do not deny that if its use were
+cautiously and gradually begun, and judiciously conducted, it might be
+the means of making children who are already robust, still more hardy
+and healthy than before, and better able to resist those sudden changes
+of temperature so common in our climate, and so apt to produce cold,
+fever, and consumption.
+
+Cold bathing, in the hands of those who are ignorant of the laws of the
+human frame--and such unfortunately and unaccountably most fathers and
+mothers are--I cannot help regarding as a highly dangerous weapon; and
+therefore it is, that in view of the whole subject, I cannot recommend
+its general and indiscriminate use.
+
+If there are individuals, however, who are determined to employ it, in
+the case of their more vigorous children, and without the advice or
+direction of their family physician, I beg them to attend to the
+following rules or principles, expressed as briefly as possible.
+
+In no ordinary case whatever, is the cold bath useful, unless it is
+succeeded by that degree of warmth on the surface of the body which is
+usually called a _glow_. This is a leading and important principle. The
+contrary, that is, the injurious effects of cold bathing--its
+_immediate_ bad effects, I mean--are shown by the skin remaining pale
+and shrivelled after coming out of the bath, by its blue appearance, and
+by its coldness, as well as by a sunken state of the eyes, and much
+general languor.
+
+To secure this point--I mean the GLOW--it is indispensably important to
+begin the use of cold water gradually; that is, to use it at first of
+so high a temperature as to produce only a slight sensation of cold, and
+to take special care that the skin be immediately wiped very dry, and
+the temperature of the room be quite as high as usual. Afterward the
+water may be cooled gradually, from week to week, though never more than
+a degree or two at once.
+
+It will probably be unsafe to commence this practice of cold
+bathing--even in the case of the most robust children--until they are at
+least six months of age.
+
+The appropriate season will be the middle of the forenoon, the hour when
+the system is usually the most vigorous, and at which we shall be most
+likely to secure a reaction. At first, twice or three times a week are
+as often as it will be safe to repeat it. Some writers recommend it
+twice a day; but once is enough, under any ordinary circumstances.
+
+The method at first is, to give the infant a single plunge. Afterward,
+when he becomes older, and more inured to it, he may be plunged several
+times in succession.
+
+On taking him out of the bath, the skin should be wiped perfectly dry,
+as in the case of the warm bath, and with the same or an increased
+degree of attention to other circumstances--the temperature of the
+room, the avoiding currents of air, &c. He should next be put in a soft,
+warm blanket, and be kept for some time in a state of gentle motion; and
+after a little time, should be dressed.
+
+I have already mentioned the importance of avoiding the manifestation of
+fear, when we bathe a child; and the caution is particularly necessary
+in the administration of the cold bath. Some writers even recommend,
+that during the whole process of undressing, bathing, exercising, and
+dressing, singing should be employed. There is philosophy in this
+advice, and it is easily tried; but I cannot speak of it from
+experience.
+
+There is one thing which may serve to calm our apprehensions--if we have
+any--of danger; which is, that though the child's lungs are feeble at
+first, from their not having been, like the heart, accustomed to
+previous action, yet when they get fairly into motion and action, and
+the child is a few months old, they are probably as strong, if not
+stronger, in proportion, than those of adults.
+
+Bathing in cold water should never be performed immediately after a full
+meal. Neither is it desirable to go to the contrary extreme, and bathe
+when the stomach has been long empty; nor when the child's mental or
+bodily powers are more than usually exhausted by fatigue.
+
+Although I have given these rules for those who are determined to use
+the cold bath with their children, yet, for fear I shall be
+misunderstood, I must be suffered to repeat, in this place, that,
+uninformed as people generally are in regard to physiology, I cannot
+advise even its moderate use. On the contrary, I would gladly dissuade
+from it, as most likely, in the way it would inevitably be used, to do
+more harm than good.
+
+There is no sort of objection to what might be called local bathing with
+cold water. If the child's head is hot at any time, the temples, and
+indeed the whole upper part of the head, may be very properly wet with
+moderately cold water--taking care to avoid wetting the clothes. But
+avoid, by all means, the common but foolish practice of putting spirits
+in the water.
+
+A tea-spoonful of cold water cannot be too early put into the mouth of
+the infant. The object is to cleanse or rinse the mouth; and the process
+may be aided by wiping it out with a piece of soft linen rag. If a part
+or all of the water should be swallowed, no harm will be done. This
+practice, commenced almost as soon as children are born, has saved many
+a sore mouth.
+
+There are other forms of bathing besides those already mentioned; among
+which are the shower bath, the vapor bath, and the medicated bath. The
+shower bath--for which purpose the water is commonly used cold--is but
+poorly adapted to the wants of infants. The shock is much greater than
+the common cold bath, and more apt to frighten; and fear is unfavorable
+to reaction, or the production of a genial glow.
+
+The vapor bath is much better; and probably has quite as good an effect
+as the common warm bath. The trouble and expense of procuring the
+necessary apparatus is somewhat greater, however, as a mere bathing tub
+costs but little, and can be made by every father who possesses common
+ingenuity. But whatever may be the expense, it is indispensable in every
+family; and whenever the pores of the skin are obstructed, a vapor
+bathing apparatus is equally desirable.
+
+The medicated vapor bath is sometimes used; but I am not now treating of
+infants who are sick, but of those who are in a state of health.
+
+The common warm bath is sometimes medicated by putting in salt. This, of
+course, renders the water more stimulating to the skin; but except when
+the perspiration is checked, or the skin peculiarly inactive from some
+other cause--in other words, unless we are sick--it is seldom expedient
+to use it.
+
+There is one substitute for the bathing tub, in the case of the cold
+bath. I refer to the use of a wet cloth or sponge, applied rapidly to
+the whole surface of the body. When this is done, the skin should be
+wiped thoroughly dry immediately afterwards, as in the case of complete
+immersion.
+
+The application of either a cloth or a sponge, filled with warm water,
+to the skin, in this manner, even if continued for several minutes
+together, is less efficacious than a continuous immersion. I repeat
+it--no family ought to be without conveniences for bathing in warm water
+daily. I speak now of every member of the family, young and old, as well
+as the infant; and I refer particularly to the summer season: though I
+do not think the practice ought to be wholly discontinued during the
+winter.
+
+It will still be objected that this care of, and attention to the young,
+in reference to health--this provision for bathing daily, and care to
+see that it is performed--can never be afforded by the laboring portion
+of the community. But I shall as strenuously insist on the contrary; and
+trust I shall, in the sequel, produce reasons which will be
+satisfactory.
+
+The great difficulty is, to convince parents that these things are
+vastly more productive of health and happiness to their children--more
+truly necessaries--than a great many things for which they now expend
+their time and money. There is, and always has been--except, perhaps,
+among the Jews, in the earliest periods of the history of that wonderful
+nation--a strange disposition to overlook the happiness of the young. It
+is not necessary to represent this dereliction as peculiar to modern
+times, for we find traces of the same thing thousands of years ago.
+
+The Roman emperors--Dioclesian in particular--could make provision for
+bathing, to an extent which now astonishes us; but for whom? For whom, I
+repeat it, was incurred the enormous expense of fitting up and keeping
+in repair accommodations for bathing at once 18,000 people? For adults;
+and for adults alone. I do not say that children were not admitted, in
+any case; but I say they were not contemplated in these arrangements.
+Nothing was done--not a single thing--that would not have been done, had
+there been no child under ten years of age in the whole empire.
+
+And what better than this do WE, now? We make provision for the
+happiness of the adult. The most indigent person will find time and
+money to spend for the gratification of his own senses, his pride, or
+his curiosity; but his children--they may be overlooked! Or, if he has
+an eye to the future happiness of his child, he conceives that he is
+promoting it in the best possible degree, by endeavoring to lay up a few
+dollars for his use, after his character is formed--at a period, as it
+too often happens, when money will do him little good, since it can
+neither purchase health, peace of mind, nor reputation.
+
+Far be it from me to say, that the poor--ground into the dust as they
+are, by the force of circumstances operating with their own concurrence,
+to make them ignorant, vicious, or miserable--can do for their children
+all that is desirable. By no means. But they have it in their power to
+do much more than they are at present doing. They have it in their
+power, at least, to use the same good sense in the management of the
+human being that they do in that of a pig, a calf, or a colt, or even a
+young vegetable. No parent, let him be ever so poor, is found in the
+habit of neglecting either of these in proportion to its infancy, and of
+exerting himself only in proportion as it grows older. Common sense
+tells him that the contrary is the true course; that however poor he may
+be, he will be still poorer, if he do not take special pains with the
+young animal, to rear it and with the young vegetable, to give it the
+right direction, by keeping down the weeds, and pruning and watering it.
+And I say again, that however deserving of censure the wealthy of a
+Christian community may be in not directing the ignorant and vicious
+into the right path, and in not expending more of their wealth on those
+who are poor, in elevating their minds and their manners, and promoting
+their health, still the latter are inexcusable for their present neglect
+of their infant offspring, while they would not think of neglecting, on
+the same principle, the offspring of their domestic animals.
+
+
+
+
+CHAPTER VII.
+
+FOOD.
+
+SEC. 1. General principles.--SEC. 2. Conduct of the mother.--SEC. 3.
+Nursing--rules in regard to it.--SEC. 4. Quantity of food. Errors.
+Over-feeding. Gluttony.--SEC. 5. How long should milk be the child's
+only food?--SEC. 6 Feeding before teething. Cow's milk. Sucking bottles.
+Cleanliness. Nurses.--SEC. 7. Treatment from teething to weaning.--SEC.
+8. Process of weaning-rules in regard to it.--SEC. 9. First food to be
+used after weaning. Importance of good bread. Other kinds of food.--SEC.
+10. Remarks on fruit.--SEC. 11. Evils and dangers of confectionary.--SEC.
+12. Mischiefs of pastry.--SEC. 13. Crude and raw substances.
+
+
+SEC. 1. _General Principles._
+
+The mother's milk, in suitable quantity, and under suitable regulations,
+is so obviously the appropriate food of an infant during the first
+months of its existence, that it seems almost unnecessary to repeat the
+fact. And yet the violations of this rule are so numerous and constant,
+as to require a few passing remarks.
+
+There are some mothers who seem to have a perfect hatred of children;
+and if they can find any plausible apology for neglecting to nurse them,
+they will. Few, indeed, will publicly acknowledge a state of feeling so
+unnatural; but there are some even of such. On the latter, all argument
+would, I fear, be utterly lost. Of the former, there may, be hope.
+
+They tell us--and they are often sustained by those around them--that it
+is very inconvenient to be so confined to a child that they cannot leave
+home for a little while. Can it be their duty--for in these days, when
+virtue and religion, and everything good, are so highly complimented, no
+people are more ready to talk of _duty_ than they who have the least
+regard to it--can it be their duty, they ask, to exclude themselves from
+the pleasures and comforts of social life for half or two thirds of
+their most active and happy years? Ought they not to go abroad, at least
+occasionally? But if so, and their children have no other source of
+dependence, must they not suffer? Is it not better, therefore, that they
+should be early accustomed to other food, for a part of the time?
+Besides, they may be sick; and then the child must rely on others; and
+will it not be useful to accustom it early to do so?
+
+Perhaps few mothers are conscious that this train of reasoning passes
+through their minds. But that something like it is often made the
+occasion of substituting food which is less proper, for that furnished
+by Divine Providence, there cannot be a doubt. And the mischief is, that
+she who has gone so far, will not scruple, ere long, to go farther. And,
+strange and unnatural as it may seem, that mothers should turn over
+their children to be nursed wholly by others, in order to get rid of the
+inconvenience of nursing them at their own bosoms, it is only carrying
+out to its fullest extent, and reducing to practice, the train of
+reasoning mentioned above.
+
+Nor is it necessary that I should stop here to denounce a course of
+conduct so unchristian and savage. I know it is very common in some
+countries; and those American mothers who ape the other eastern
+fashions, or countenance their sons and daughters in doing it, will not
+be slow to imitate this also--especially as it is a very _convenient_
+fashion. And I question whether I shall succeed in reasoning them out of
+it. Habit, both of thought and action, is exceedingly powerful. I will,
+therefore, confine myself chiefly to those efforts at prevention, from
+which much more is to be hoped, in the present state of society, than
+from direct attempts at cure.
+
+It will be soon enough to leave a child with another person, when the
+mother is actually sick, or unavoidably absent; or when some other
+adequate cause is known to exist. We are to be governed, in these and
+similar cases, by general rules, and not by exceptions. The general
+rule, in the present case, is, that mothers can nurse their own
+children; and, if they have the proper disposition, that they can do it
+uninterruptedly.
+
+But those who are so ready to become counsellors on these occasions,
+will tell us, perhaps, that the child must be "fed to spare the mother."
+That is to say, nursing weakens the mother, and the child must be taken
+away, a part of the time, to save her strength.
+
+Now it may safely be doubted whether the process of nursing, in itself
+considered, does weaken, at all. The Author of nature has made provision
+for the secretion (formation) of the milk, whether the child receives it
+or not. If it is not taken by the child, or drawn off in some other way,
+one of two things must follow;--either it must be taken up by what are
+called absorbent vessels, and carried into the circulation, and chiefly
+thrown out of the system as waste matter, or it will prove a source of
+irritation, if not of inflammation, to the organs themselves which
+secrete it. In both cases, the strength of the mother is quite as likely
+to be taxed, as if the child received the milk in the way that nature
+intended.
+
+Besides, on this very principle, the plan of saving a mother's strength
+by requiring another to nurse for her, is but saying that we will weaken
+one person to save another. Or if we feed the child, to "spare its
+mother," what is this, in practice, but to say that the works of the
+Creator are very imperfect; and that he has thrown upon the mass of
+mankind a task to which they are not equal? For the mass of mankind are
+poor; and the poor, having neither the means nor the time to escape the
+duties in question, must submit to them, while their more wealthy
+neighbors escape.
+
+But it is idle to defend customs so monstrous. They admit of no defence
+that has the slightest claim to solidity. The general rule then is, that
+mothers should nurse their own children.
+
+
+SEC. 2. _Conduct of the Mother._
+
+Originally it was not my intention to give directions, in this volume,
+in regard to the food, drink, &c., of the mother while nursing; but
+repeated solicitations on this point, have led me to the conclusion that
+a few general principles may be very properly introduced.
+
+The future health, and even the moral well-being of the child, depend
+much more on the proper management of the mother herself than is usually
+supposed. How, indeed, can it be other wise? How can the mother's blood
+be constantly irritated with improper food and drink, without rendering
+the milk so? And how can a child draw, daily and hourly, from this
+feverish fountain, without being affected, not only in his physical
+frame, but in his very temper and feelings?
+
+It is not enough that we adopt the principles already insisted on by
+some of our wisest medical men, and even by one or two medical
+societies,[Footnote: Those of Connecticut and New Hampshire.] that
+children in this way often acquire a propensity for exciting drinks,
+that may end in their downright intemperance. What if it should not, in
+every case, proceed quite so far as to make the child a drunkard? If it
+but lays the foundation of a constitutional fondness for _excitements_,
+it tends to disease. Indeed that, in itself, is a disease; and one, too,
+which is destroying more persons every year than the cholera, or even
+the consumption. Consumption has at most only slain her tens of
+thousands [Footnote: About 40,000 a year, in the United States, as nearly
+as it can be estimated.] a year; but a fondness for exciting food and
+drink--innocent and harmless as it is often supposed to be, and
+therefore only the more dangerous a foe--does not fail to slay every
+year, directly or indirectly, its hundreds of thousands. At least this
+is my own opinion.
+
+Why, where can you find the individual who is not a slave to this
+perpetual rage within--this perpetual cry, "Who will show us any"
+physical "good"? Who, in this land of abundance, will eat or drink plain
+things? Who will eat simple bread, meat, potatoes, rice, pudding,
+apples, &c. or drink simple water? A few instances may be found, of
+late, in which people confine themselves to simple water for drink; but
+they are rather rare. And no wonder. They _must_ be rare so long as an
+unnatural thirst is kept up everywhere by the most exciting and most
+strange mixtures of food. Where, I again ask, is the person who will eat
+and relish plain bread, plain meat, plain puddings, &c.? Certainly not
+in the nursery. No young mother--scarcely one I mean--will, for a single
+meal, confine herself to a piece of bread, the sweetest and best food in
+the whole world, unless it is hot, or toasted, or soaked, or buttered. A
+natural, healthy appetite, is as rare a thing on our planet, almost, as
+an inhabitant of the sun or moon.
+
+I have seen more than one mother made sick by using, while nursing,
+improper food and drink. I have known milk punch, taken by
+stealth--(because how could the mother, it was said, ever have a supply
+of food for her poor child without it!)--to kindle a fever that came
+very near burning up the mother and child both. And yet, if I have once
+or twice succeeded in convincing the mother that she was only suffering
+the natural punishment of her own transgressions, I have never, so far
+as I now recollect, succeeded in making her believe that her iniquities
+were visited upon her unoffending infant.
+
+There is everywhere the most painful apathy on this most painful
+subject. We see little children of all ages, everywhere, the victims of
+debility, and pain, and suffering, and disease and death, and yet we
+very seldom seem to search for one moment for the causes of this
+premature destruction. In fact most parents--even many intelligent
+mothers--at once stare, if you attempt to inquire into the causes of
+their child's death, as if it was either a kind of sacrilege, or an
+impeachment of their own parental affection. Diseases, even at this day,
+with the sun of science blazing in meridian splendor, they seem to
+regard as the judgments of heaven; and to think of tracing out the
+causes of the early death of half our race, is, in their estimation, not
+only idle, but wicked.
+
+Yet this is obviously one of the first steps, every, where, which
+philanthropy demands; to say nothing of the demands of christianity. It
+is the first step for the physician, the first step for the educator,
+the first step for the parent, and above all, the mother. Nay; more--we
+must not suppress so great and important a truth--it is the first step
+for the legislator and the minister. What sense is there in continuing,
+century after century, and age after age, to expend all our efforts in
+merely _mending_ the diseased half of mankind, when those same efforts
+are amply sufficient, if early and properly applied, not only to
+continue the lives of the whole, but to make them _whole beings_,
+instead of passing through life mere _fragments_ of humanity?
+
+But I must not forget that this is merely a small manual, not intended
+for those who make it their profession to teach the laws of God and man,
+but simply for young mothers. For the sake of erring humanity, would
+that I could, but for one moment, divest myself of the idea, that in
+writing for the young mother I am not writing for legislators and
+ministers! Would that I could banish from my mind the deep conviction
+that the mother is everywhere far more the law-giver to her infant--far
+more the arbiter of the present and eternal destiny of her child--than
+he who is more commonly regarded as such.
+
+Every mother owes it, not only to herself--for on this part she is not
+_wholly_ forgetful--but to her offspring, to abstain, during the period
+of nursing at least, from all causes which tend to produce a feverish
+state of her fluids. Among these are every form of premature exertion,
+whether in sitting up, laboring, conversing, or even thinking. It is of
+very great importance that both the body and the mind should be kept
+quiet; and the more so, the better.
+
+Among the particular causes of fever to the young mother, Dr. Dewees
+enumerates spirits, wine, and other fermented liquors, a room too much
+heated, closed curtains, confined air, too much exposure, and too much
+company; and during the early period of confinement, broths and animal
+food.
+
+There is nothing which he insists on more strongly, than the importance
+of fresh air. Indeed, the practice of confining a nursing woman in a
+space scarcely six feet square, and excluding the air surrounding her by
+curtains and closed windows, and subjecting her to the necessity of
+breathing twenty times the air that has already been as often
+discharged, filled with poison, from her lungs, is not too strongly
+reprobated by Dr. Dewees, or anybody else. But I have spoken of these
+things in the chapter which treats on "The Nursery." I would only
+observe, on this point, that if I were asked what one thing is most
+indispensable to the health of the nursing woman, I would reply, Fresh
+air; and if asked what were the second and third most important things,
+I would still repeat--in imitation of the orator of old, in regard to
+another subject--Fresh air, Fresh air.
+
+This important ingredient in human happiness, and especially in the
+happiness of the young mother and her tender infant, can usually be had
+within doors, if pains enough be taken. But if the weather is fine and
+in every respect favorable, a woman who is in tolerable health may
+venture abroad a little in about three weeks after her confinement, and
+sometimes even in two. Whether her exercise be without or within doors,
+however, she should be effectually protected against chills, and against
+the influence of currents of cold air.
+
+It has been incidentally stated, that Dr. Dewees objects to the mother's
+use, during her early period of nursing, of broths and animal food. This
+is about as much as we could reasonably expect from one who belongs to a
+profession whose members are, almost without exception, enslaved to the
+practice of flesh-eating. But even this advice of his, if duly followed,
+would be a great advance upon the practice which generally prevails.
+There is so universal a belief among females that they demand, at this
+period of their existence, not only a larger quantity of food than
+usual, but also that which is more stimulating in its quality, as almost
+to forbid the hopes of making much impression upon their minds. Many
+young mothers seem to consider themselves as licensed, during a part of
+their lives, not only to eat immoderately, and even to gluttony, but
+also to swallow almost every species of vile trash which a vile world
+affords.
+
+How long will it be, ere the mother can be induced to take as much pains
+to select the most appropriate and most healthy aliment for herself and
+her child, as she now does that which is demanded by a capricious
+appetite, without the smallest reference to fitness or digestibility!
+How long will it be ere the mother can be brought to believe and feel
+that, in every step she takes, she is forming the habitation of an
+immortal spirit--a spirit, too, whose character and destiny, both
+present and eternal, must depend, in no small degree, upon the character
+of the dwelling it occupies while passing through this stage of earthly
+existence! How long will it be, before mothers can be made to believe
+even these two simple truths, that the nourishment, which the human
+being actually receives, is not always in exact proportion to the
+quantity of nutritious food which he throws into his stomach, and that
+the diet is always best for both mother and child, which is least
+exciting.
+
+The Charleston Board of Health, during the existence of cholera in that
+city in 1836, publicly announced that the "best food is the least
+exciting," and this great truth is just as true in all other places and
+circumstances on the globe as it was then in South Carolina. And though
+I am far from believing that health depends more on food and drink than
+on all other things put together, as many seem to suppose, yet I am
+entirely of opinion that he who should devote himself successfully to
+the work of applying this truth, in all its bearings, to the dietetic
+practice of all mankind, would do more for their reformation--yes, and
+their salvation too--than has yet been done by any merely _human_ being,
+since the first day of the creation.
+
+
+SEC. 3. _Nursing--how often._
+
+Many lay it down, as an invariable rule, that no system can be pursued
+with a child till it is six months old; and it must be admitted by all,
+that for several months after birth there are serious difficulties in
+the way of determining, with any degree of precision, how often a child
+should be nursed or fed. Still, there are a few rules of universal
+application; some of which are here presented.
+
+1. A child should never be nursed, merely to quiet it; for if this be
+done, it will soon learn to cry, whenever it feels the slightest
+uneasiness, not only from hunger, but from other causes; merely to be
+gratified with nursing. Besides, if its cries should happen to be from
+illness, it is ten to one but the reception of anything into the stomach
+will do harm instead of good.
+
+2. The stomach, like every other organ in the body which is muscular,
+must have time for rest; and this in the case of children as well as
+adults. But to nurse them too frequently is in opposition to this rule,
+and therefore of evil tendency.
+
+3. For reasons which may be seen by the last rule, there should be
+regular seasons for nursing, and these should be adhered to, especially
+by night. When very young, once in three hours may not be too frequent;
+I believe that it is seldom proper to nurse a child more frequently than
+this. But whenever three hours becomes a suitable period by day, once in
+four hours will be often enough by night. I will not undertake to say at
+what precise age children should be nursed at intervals of three and
+four hours each; because some children are older, _constitutionally_, at
+three months, than others are at four.
+
+There is one grand mistake, however, against which I must caution young
+mothers; which is, not to indulge the vain expectation that feeble
+infants will become robust, in proportion to their indulgence. On the
+contrary, it is the more necessary to be strict with feeble children,
+_because_ they are feeble. To keep them hanging at the breast to
+invigorate them, is the very way to counteract our own intentions, and
+defeat our own purpose. Seasons of entire rest are even more important
+to their stomachs than to those of other persons.
+
+4. But in order to secure intervals of rest, both to the strong and the
+feeble, we must avoid the pernicious habit of giving infants pap, and
+other delicacies, "between meals." Many a child's health is ruined by
+this practice. Nothing should be put into their stomachs for many
+months--if they are in health--but the mother's milk.
+
+"This," says Dr. Dunglison, "is the sole food of the infant, and is
+consequently sufficiently nutrient to maintain life, and to minister to
+the growth, during the earliest periods of existence." [Footnote:
+Elements of Hygiene, page 271.] In another place, he says, "Milk is an
+appropriate nourishment at all ages, and is more so the nearer to
+birth."
+
+
+SEC. 4. _Quantity of Food._
+
+"We all know," says Dr. Dewees, "how easily the stomach may be made to
+demand more food than is absolutely required; first, by the repetition
+of aliment, and secondly, by its variety;--therefore both of these
+causes must be avoided. The stomach, like every other part, can, and
+unfortunately does, acquire habits highly injurious to itself; and that
+of demanding an unnecessary quantity of aliment is not one of the least.
+It should, therefore, be constantly borne in mind, that it is not the
+quantity of food taken into the stomach, that is available to the proper
+purposes of the system; but the quantity which can be digested, and
+converted into nourishment fit to be applied to such purposes."
+
+There is a great deal of truth in these remarks; and especially in the
+closing one, that not all which is taken into the stomach is digested.
+It is highly probable, that the least quantity which is usually given to
+an infant is more than sufficient for the purposes of digestion; and
+that nearly every child in the arms of its mother, is over-fed.
+
+I know it has been said, by some physicians--and by those who are
+sensible men, in other respects, too--that the child's stomach is a
+pretty correct guide in regard to quantity. If we give it too much, say
+they, it will reject it;--as if that were an end of the matter.
+
+But it is not so. It is by no means harmless to fill the child's stomach
+as full as is possible without overflowing. Such a process, though it
+should not create disease directly, would produce a gluttonous habit.
+The stomach, being muscular, may be increased in size by use, like all
+other muscular organs. The hands, the arms, the legs, the feet, the
+fleshy portions of the face, even, may be disproportionally enlarged by
+constant use. Thus a sailor, who uses his hands and arms much more than
+his legs and feet, has the former unusually large; one who is much
+accustomed to walking, has large feet; and in a tailor, who from
+childhood uses his lower limbs comparatively little, they are both small
+and slender. On the same principle, the stomach, by inordinate use, and
+by carrying unreasonable loads, may be made nearly twice as large as
+nature intended, and may demand twice as much food. And I have no doubt
+that the bulk of mankind, young and old, eat about twice as much as
+nature, unperverted, would require.
+
+If the suggestions of our last section are duly attended to, one of the
+causes which lead the stomach to demand an unreasonable quantity of food
+will be avoided--I mean the too frequent "repetition of aliment." And if
+we never depart from the general rule, already laid down, not to give
+the infant anything but its mother's milk, we shall escape the evils
+incident to variety.
+
+
+SEC. 5. _How long should milk be the only food._
+
+On this point, there is a great diversity of opinion. Perhaps the most
+approved role, of universal application, is, that the first change
+should be made in the child's diet, when the teeth begin to appear.
+
+This period, it is well known, cannot be fixed to any particular age,
+but varies from the fifth to the twelfth month.
+
+Some mothers, who have borne with me patiently to this place, will
+probably here object. "What child," they will ask, "would ever have any
+strength, brought up so?" Not only a little pap and gruel is, in their
+estimation, necessary, long before this period, but even many choice
+bits of meat.
+
+Now I am very sure, that these choice bits--whatever they may be--given
+to a child before it has teeth, not only do no good, but actually do
+mischief. Indeed, that which does no good in the stomach must do harm,
+of course; since it is not only in the way, but acts like a foreign body
+there, producing more or less of irritation.
+
+I ought to state, in this place, that many people--mothers among the
+rest--have very inadequate ideas of digestion. They appear to have no
+farther notion of the digestive process than that it consists in
+reducing to a pulp the substances which are swallowed; and hence,
+whatever is reduced to a pulp, they regard as being digested. Whereas
+nothing is better known to the anatomist and physiologist, than that
+this--the formation of _chyme_ in the stomach--constitutes only a very
+small part of the digestive process. The chyme must pass into the
+duodenum and other portions of intestine beyond the stomach, and be
+retained there for some time, before it will form perfect chyle.
+
+This is a more important part of the work of digestion than even the
+former. For, suppose the chyme to be perfect, though even this may be
+mere pulp, rather than chyme, and suppose it pass quietly along into the
+duodenum and other small intestines. All this process, thus far, may go
+on naturally enough, and yet the chyle may not be well formed, and the
+chymous mass may find its way out of the system without answering any of
+the purposes of nutrition. For no matter how well the food is dissolved
+in the stomach, if it do not become good and proper chyle, the blood
+which is formed will not be good and perfect blood; or, lastly, if it
+_seem_ to make good blood, it may still be faulty, so that the
+particles which should be applied to build up or repair the system, are
+either not used, or if used, answer the purpose but imperfectly.
+
+We hence see how little prepared a large proportion of the community,
+are, to judge of the digestibility or fitness of a substance for
+infants, by their own observation and experience merely; and how much
+more wisely they act, in contenting themselves with giving them--at
+least until they have teeth--such food only as the Author of nature
+seems to have assigned them; especially when thus course, is precisely
+that which is recommended or sanctioned by nearly every judicious
+physician, as well as by almost all our writers on health.
+
+
+SEC. 6. _On Feeding before Teething._
+
+Having laid down the general rule, that until the appearance of teeth,
+the sole food of an infant should be the milk of its own mother, I
+proceed to speak of some of the more common exceptions to it.
+
+EXCEPTION 1.--The first of these is when the supply furnished by the
+mother is scanty. There may be two causes of the scantiness of this
+supply; 1st, the want of suitable nourishment by the mother; and, 2dly,
+a feeble constitution, or bad health. In the former case, it should be
+her first object, as it undoubtedly will be that of her physician, to
+improve the quality of her diet; and in the latter, to restore her
+health, or at least invigorate her constitution.
+
+In regard to the proper diet of a _mother_, as such, as well as the
+general management which her case requires, a volume might be written
+without exhausting the subject. But I have already said as much on this
+subject, in another place, as my limits will permit.
+
+But we cannot wait for the mother's health to improve, and allow the
+infant to suffer, in the mean time, for a due supply of food. The
+appropriate question now is, How shall such a supply be furnished?
+
+This should be done by means of an article resembling in its properties,
+as closely as possible, the mother's milk. For this purpose, we have
+only to mix with a suitable quantity of new cow's milk, one third of
+water, and sweeten it a little with loaf sugar. This is to be given to
+the child, at suitable intervals, and in proper quantities, by means of
+a common sucking bottle. It is, indeed, sometimes given with the spoon;
+but the bottle is better.
+
+To the question, whether the child should be confined to this, till the
+period of weaning, Dr. Dewees answers, No. I am surprised at this; and
+my surprise is increased, when I find him, almost in the very next
+breath, urging with all his might, numerous reasons against the very
+common notion, that children in early life require a variety of food. He
+even insists on the importance of confining the child to a single
+article of food when it is practicable. Yet he has not given us so much
+as one reason why it is not practicable in the case before us; but has
+gone on to speak of barley water, gum arabic water, rice water,
+arrowroot, &c. I venture, therefore, to dissent from him, and to answer
+the foregoing question in the affirmative. When one good and substantial
+reason can be given for _change_, the decision will, however, be
+reconsidered.
+
+I have already stated the general rule for preparing this substitute for
+the mother's milk. But there are several minor directions, which may be
+useful to those who are wholly without experience on the subject.
+
+If possible, the milk used should not only be just taken from the cow,
+but should always be from the _same_ cow; for it is well known, that the
+quality of milk often differs very materially, even among cows feeding
+in the same pasture, or from the same pile of hay; and the stomach
+becomes most easily reconciled to the mixture when it is uniform in its
+qualities. Great care should also be taken to see that the cow whose
+milk is used is young and healthy.
+
+The mixture should not be prepared any faster than it is wanted, and
+should always be prepared in vessels perfectly clean and sweet, and
+given as soon as possible after it is prepared, to prevent any degree of
+fermentation. It is never so well to heat it by the fire. If taken from
+the cow just before it is used, and if the water to be added is warm
+enough, the temperature will hardly need to be raised any higher.
+
+When it is impracticable, in all cases, to take milk for this purpose
+immediately from the cow, it should be kept, in winter, where it will
+not freeze; and in summer, where there will be no tendency to acidity.
+
+Some mothers and nurses are addicted to the practice of passing the food
+through their own mouths, before they give it to the child--with a view,
+no doubt, to see that it is at a proper temperature. This practice is
+not only wholly unnecessary, but altogether disgusting, and even
+ridiculous. A thermometer would answer every purpose; and save even the
+trouble of another disgusting practice--that of blowing it with the
+breath.
+
+The most proper season for giving the child this preparation, is
+immediately after it has been nursing. It is better for both mother and
+child, that the latter should nurse just as often as though the supply
+of food was adequate to his wants. And when his first supply is
+exhausted, then let him make up his meal from the sucking bottle. The
+great advantage of this plan is, that he will not be so likely in this
+way to be over-fed. If he is really needy, he will accept the bottle,
+even if he do not like it quite so well; if he refuse it, let him go
+without till he is hungry enough to receive it.
+
+In regard to the water used in the preparation, only one thing needs to
+be said; which is, that it should be pure. If it is not, it should by
+all means be boiled. The sugar used should be of the very best kind; and
+the quantity not large; since if the preparation be too sweet, it
+readily becomes acid in the stomach.
+
+There has been, and still is, a controversy going on among medical men,
+whether sugar is or is not hurtful to the young. "Who shall decide, when
+doctors disagree?" has often been asked. Without undertaking the task
+myself, I may perhaps be permitted to say, that I cannot see any reason
+why a substance so pure, and so highly nutritious as sugar--if given in
+very small quantity only--should prove injurious: though I do not regard
+the reasoning of Dr. Dewees as very conclusive on the subject, when, in
+reply to Dr. Cadogan, he has the following language--"If sugar be
+improper, why does it so largely enter into the composition of the early
+food of all animals? It is in vain that physicians declaim against this
+article, since it forms between seven and eight per cent of the mother's
+milk."--Now with me, the fact that milk and almost all other kinds of
+food are furnished with a measure of this substance, is the strongest
+reason I am acquainted with for making no additions. I believe, however,
+that they may sometimes be made, but not for these reasons.
+
+EXCEPTION 2.--The second striking exception to the general rule that has
+been laid down, is when the mother is unable to nurse her own child from
+positive ill health, or when circumstances exist which render it
+obviously improper that she should do it. The following are some of the
+circumstances which render such a departure from nature indispensable.
+
+1. When the mother is affected strongly with a hereditary disease, such
+as consumption or scrofula; or when her constitution is tainted, as it
+were, with venereal disease, or other permanent affections.
+
+2. When nursing produces, uniformly, some very troublesome or dangerous
+disease in the mother; as cough, colic, &c.
+
+3. There are a few instances in which the milk of the mother, owing to
+an unknown cause, has been found by experience to disagree with the
+child. In these circumstances, it is the unquestionable duty of the
+mother to resort wholly to feeding.
+
+4. Sometimes the milk, at first abundant, fails suddenly, owing to some
+accidental or constitutional defect; and this failure becomes habitual.
+In all these circumstances, the proper resort is to a sucking bottle, or
+a hired nurse. I generally prefer the latter. The cases which seem to me
+to admit of the former, will be pointed out in the next section.
+
+"When the bottle is used," says Dr. Dewees, "much care is requisite to
+preserve it sweet and free from all impurities, or the remains of the
+former food, by which the present may be rendered impure or sour; for
+which purpose a great deal of caution must be observed."
+
+The business of feeding a child, whether by the bottle or the spoon,
+should never be hurried: the slower it is, the better. We should stop
+from time to time, during the process. Nor should the nourishment be
+given while lying down; it is much more pleasant, as well as more safe,
+to sit up.
+
+A few thoughts more on the character and condition of the milk which we
+give to the young, will conclude the second division of this section.
+
+Some are fond of boiling milk for infants; but to this I am decidedly
+opposed, so long as they are in health. Boiling takes away, or appears
+to take away, some of the best properties of the milk.
+
+It is true that milk which is boiled does not turn sour so readily in
+hot weather; but it is quite unnecessary to boil milk in the common
+manner in order to present its changing, since such a result can be
+prevented by another process. You have only to put your milk in a
+kettle, cover it closely, and heat it quickly to the boiling point, and
+then remove and cool it as speedily as possible. This plan prevents the
+rising to the surface of that coat or pellicle which contains some of
+the most valuable properties of the milk.
+
+I have already said that it was as necessary that the stomach should
+have rest as any other muscular organ. Some writers say that the infant
+should be kept perfectly quiet, at least half an hour, after each meal.
+This is certainly necessary with feeble children, but I question its
+necessity in the case of those who are strong and robust. I would not
+recommend, however, nor even tolerate, for one moment, the absurd
+practice of _jolting_, so common with a few ignorant nurses and,
+mothers, as if they could jolt down the food in the stomach with just as
+much safety as they can shake down the contents of a farmer's bag of
+produce. Such mothers as these should go and reside among the native
+tribes of Indians in Guiana, in South America, where they make it a
+point not only to stuff their children's stomachs as long as they will
+hold, but actually to shake it down.
+
+Little less absurd than jolting is the custom of tossing a child high,
+in quick succession, which is practised not only after meals, but at
+other times. But on this point, I have treated elsewhere.
+
+Some give the sucking bottle to children as a plaything. This is just
+about as wise a practice as that of giving them books as playthings.
+Both are done, usually, to save the time and trouble of those whose
+office it is to devote their time to the very purpose of managing and
+educating their offspring. The evil, however, of suffering the child to
+have the bottle when it pleases is, that he will thus be tasting food so
+often as to interfere with and disturb the process of digestion, to his
+great and lasting injury. For in this way, a part of the food will pass
+from the stomach into the bowels unchanged, or at least but imperfectly
+digested, where it is liable to become sour, and cause disease. It is
+not to be doubted that many diarrhoeas, as well as, other bowel
+affections, are produced in this way. Children that are always eating
+are seldom healthy; and we may hence see the reason.
+
+In speaking of the importance of keeping the bottle, from which a child
+takes his food, perfectly clean and sweet, I ought to have extended the
+injunction much farther. There is a degree of slovenliness sometimes
+observable in those who manage children, both when they are sick and
+when they are in health, which even common sense cannot and ought not to
+tolerate. Every vessel which is used in preparing or administering
+anything for children, ought, after we have used it, to be immediately
+and effectually cleansed. How shocking is it to see dirty vessels
+standing in the nursery from hour to hour, becoming sour or impure! How
+much more so still, to see food in copper vessels, or in the red earthen
+ones, glazed with a poisonous oxyd! I speak now more particularly of
+vessels in which food is given; for with the administration of medicine,
+and nursing the sick, I do not intend in this volume to interfere.
+
+EXCEPTION 3.--We come now to the consideration of those cases--for such
+it will not be doubted there are--where a hired nurse is to be preferred
+to feeding by the hand.
+
+Before proceeding farther, however, it is important to say, that if a
+nurse could always be procured whose health, and temper, and habits were
+good, who had no infant of her own, and who would do as well for the
+infant, in every respect, as his own mother, it would be preferable to
+have no feeding by the hand at all.
+
+But such nurses are very scarce. Their temper, or habits, or general
+health, will often be such as no genuine parent would desire, and such
+as they ought to be sorry to see engrafted, in any degree, on the child.
+For even admitting what is claimed by some, that the temper of the nurse
+does _not_ affect the properties of the milk, and thus injure the child
+both physically and morally, still much injury may and inevitably will
+result from the influence of her constant presence and example.
+
+Others have infants of their own, in which case either their own child
+or the adopted one will suffer; and in a majority of cases, it can
+scarcely be doubted _which_ it will be. And I doubt the morality of
+requiring a nurse, in these cases, to give up her own child wholly. If
+_one_ must be fed, why not our own, as well as that of another?
+
+The only cases, then, which seem to me to justify the employment of a
+nurse, are where she possesses at least the qualifications above
+mentioned; and as these are rare, not many nurses, of course, would on
+this principle be employed. But when employed, it is highly desirable
+that the following rules should be observed:
+
+1: The nurse should suckle the child at both breasts; otherwise he is
+liable to acquire a degree of crookedness in his form. There is another
+evil which sometimes results from the too common neglect of this rule,
+which is, that it endangers the deterioration of the quality of the
+milk.
+
+2. The milk which is thus substituted for that of the mother, should be
+as nearly as possible of the same age as the child who is to receive it.
+It should be remembered, however, that the milk is not so good after the
+twelfth or thirteenth month, nor _quite_ so good under the third.
+
+3. When the parent or some trusty and confidential friend can, without
+the aid of interested spies and emissaries, have an eye to the general
+treatment, and especially to the moral management, it should be done;
+for even the best nurses may so differ in their principles, manners and
+habits from the parent, that the latter would deem it preferable to
+withdraw the child, and resort at once to feeding.
+
+
+SEC. 7. _From Teething to Weaning._
+
+This period will, of course, be longer or shorter according as the teeth
+begin to appear earlier or later, and according to the time when it is
+thought proper to wean.
+
+On few points, perhaps, has there existed a greater diversity of opinion
+than in regard to the age most proper for weaning. The limits of this
+work do not permit a thorough discussion of the question; and I shall
+therefore be very brief in my remarks on the subject.
+
+Dr. Cullen, whose opinion on topics of this kind is certainly entitled
+to much respect, thought that less than seven, or more than eleven
+months of nursing was injurious. Yet in some countries, and even in some
+parts of our own, the period is extended by the mother, from choice, to
+two years. And although the milk is not so good after the thirteenth or
+fourteenth month, I have never either known or heard that any evil
+consequences followed from the practice.
+
+Dr. Loudon, a recent writer, observes, that the period of nursing has a
+great influence over the numbers of mankind in various countries, as is
+evinced by numerous facts. He adduces proofs of this, position. Thus, he
+says, in China, where the population is excessive, and the inhuman
+practice of infanticide is common, they wean a child as soon as it can
+put its hand to its mouth. On the other hand, the Indians of North
+America do not wean their children until they are old and strong enough
+to run about: generally they are suckled for a period of more than two
+years.
+
+He then enters into a physiological inquiry why it is that British
+mothers do not usually suckle their children longer than ten months. He
+seems--though he does not give us his precise opinion--to think that, in
+all ordinary cases, the period of nursing ought to be protracted to two
+or three years, and that perhaps it would be better still to extend it
+to four or five. His remarks are so excellent, and withal so curious,
+and their tendency so humane, that we venture to insert one or two of
+his paragraphs entire.
+
+"Certain it is, that the milk does not diminish particularly at that
+time, (ten months,) so far as regards quantity; and from the health of
+children reared without spoon-meat beyond this time, it as certainly
+undergoes no change in its quality. Children are sometimes so old before
+weaning, as to be able to ask for the breast; and it has not been
+remarked that the health of mothers, thus suckling, was in any way worse
+than that of their neighbors. Altogether, then, it may be asserted, that
+a mother is likely to enjoy better health, and to be less liable to
+sickness and death during lactation, than during pregnancy.
+
+"Many women believe, or affect to believe, that the weakness they labor
+under arises from some latent moral or physical cause; but this weakness
+is not attributed to lactation in the earlier months of suckling,
+because the mother then considers herself fulfilling a necessary duty,
+which her constitution, for so long, is well able to bear. So soon,
+however, as the period of lactation has passed over, as it is
+established by custom or fashion, she imagines she is exceeding the
+intentions of nature, and she forthwith concludes that the continuance
+of suckling is the cause of her uncomfortable sensations. This whim
+being entertained, the child is weaned, and too often becomes the victim
+of a most reprehensible delusion.
+
+"Since nature has furnished the mother with milk for a longer period
+than custom demands, it is evident that some good purpose for the mother
+and child was intended in this arrangement. Had it been otherwise, the
+secretion of milk would stop at a definite time, in like manner as the
+period of gestation is definite. That a child, in comparison with the
+young of the lower animals, is so long unable to provide for itself,
+strongly tends to corroborate the proofs already advanced--that nature
+originally had in view a more protracted period for lactation than is
+now allowed.
+
+"Some writers, following the laws of nature, as they interpreted them,
+fixed the period of weaning at fifteen months, when the infant has got
+its eight incisors and four canine teeth. There are well-authenticated
+instances of mothers having suckled their children for three, four,
+five, and even seven consecutive years; we ourselves have known cases
+of lactation being prolonged far three and for four years, with the
+happiest results."
+
+It appears to me better, therefore, that the child should be nursed, in
+all ordinary cases, from twelve to fifteen months; and when there are no
+special objections, about two years. As the change, whenever it is made,
+and however gradual it may be, is an important one, in its effects on
+the stomach and bowels, it is better to wean a little earlier or a
+little later, than to do so just at the close of summer or beginning of
+autumn, at which season bowel complaints are most common, most severe,
+and most dangerous. It is sufficiently unfortunate that teething should
+commence just at this period; but when we add another cause of irregular
+action, which we can control, to one which we _cannot_, we act very
+unwisely.
+
+I have already observed that we may begin to feed children when the
+teeth begin to appear. By this is not meant that we should do so while
+the system is under the irritation to which teething usually, or at
+least often, subjects it. But when this is over, and a few teeth have
+appeared, it is usually a proper time to commence our operations.
+
+The first food given should be precisely of the kind which has been
+recommended for those children who are fed by the hand. The rules and
+restrictions by which we are to be guided, are the same, except in one
+point, which is, that in the case we are now considering, the child
+should be fed _between nursing_.
+
+Let not parents be anxious about their healthy children under two years,
+who have a supply of good milk, either from the mother or from the cow.
+For those that are feeble, a physician may and ought to prescribe--not
+medicine, but appropriate food, drink, &c.
+
+When the grinding teeth have cut through, if we have any doubts in
+regard to the nutritive qualities of the food we are giving, we may
+improve it by adding, instead of the one third of pure water, a similar
+quantity of gum arabic water, barley water, or rice water. Some use a
+little weak animal broth; but this is unnecessary, and I think, on the
+whole, injurious, except for purposes strictly medicinal.
+
+This course is so simple, and so far removed from that which is
+generally adopted, that few mothers will probably be willing to pursue
+it with perseverance, especially when the teeth appear very late. Those
+who are, however, will be richly rewarded, in the end, in the
+advantages; which will accrue to the child's health, and the vigor it
+will ensure to his constitution.
+
+
+SEC. 8. _During the process of Weaning._
+
+It has already been shown that, in weaning, some regard should be had to
+the season of the year; and that the end of summer and beginning of fall
+are of all periods the most unfavorable. The best time, on every
+account, is in the spring--in March, April, May, or June; and the next
+best is during the months of October and November. But December, January
+and February are better than July, August and September.
+
+Weaning should never be sudden. We may safely and properly call upon
+those who are addicted to snuff or opium taking, tobacco chewing, rum
+drinking, and other habits which are purely artificial, to break
+off--_to wean themselves_--suddenly; since _they_ can do so with
+considerable safety, and will seldom have the courage or the
+perseverance to do it otherwise. But with the child, in regard to his
+food, such a course will not be advisable. If we regard his future
+health or happiness, he must be weaned gradually.
+
+The first proper step will be to give the child a little larger quantity
+of the cow's milk and gum arabic mixture, between nursings, at the same
+time increasing very gradually the intervals of nursing. When the
+intervals become six hours distant from each other, it will be best to
+add a little good bread to the milk with which it is fed, about two or
+three times a day. Arrowroot jelly, if he can be made to relish it, will
+be highly useful; but if not, some boiled rice, into which a little
+arrowroot has been sprinkled while boiling, may be added to his milk.
+
+It may be worth the attempt to excite an aversion in the child to
+nursing his mother, so that be will refuse to nurse, if possible, of his
+own accord. This aversion may be excited by such an application of
+aloes, or some other offensive substance, as will cause him to withdraw
+himself from the breast as soon as he tastes it.
+
+A serious mistake is often made, in connection with weaning, in giving
+the child not only too much food, but that which is too solid, or too
+rich. This mistake has undoubtedly grown out of the belief that his
+feeble condition _requires_ it; whereas the truth is, that he neither
+needs food at this period, nor is capable of digesting it. For let us be
+as judicious in the process of weaning as we may, the tone of the
+child's stomach will be somewhat reduced, or in other words, its powers
+of digestion will be weakened by it; and to give it strong food, or
+overload it with that which is weaker, is not only unreasonable and
+unphilosophical, but cruel. And if there should be a tendency in the
+child's constitution to rickets, scrofula, consumption, and other
+wasting diseases, such a course would be likely to bring them on, and
+destroy life.
+
+"When milk will agree," says Dr. Dewees, "there is no food so proper. It
+may be employed in any of its combinations, with good wheaten bread,
+rice, sago, &c., only remembering that when either of these articles is
+found to agree, it should be continued perseveringly, until it may
+become offensive. In this case, some new combination may be required." I
+do not see the necessity of continuing one kind of food till it
+_offends_. Besides, I do not believe that these simple articles of food
+are apt to become offensive to stomachs that have not already been
+spoiled. But whether a single dish should or should not come to be
+offensive, I greatly prefer an occasional change.
+
+Buchan, in his Advice to Mothers, has recommended it to them to boil
+bread for their infants, in water. It should not, for this purpose--nor
+indeed for any other--be new; it is best at one or two days, old. It may
+be boiled in a small quantity of water, or what is still better, of
+milk; or it may be steamed till it becomes soft and light, almost like
+new bread, but without any of the objectionable properties of that which
+is wholly new. To bread, thus prepared, is to be added a suitable
+quantity of milk, fresh from the cow, and a little diluted with water,
+but not boiled.
+
+But as there may be, here and there, at any age, a stomach with which
+milk, with bread, or rice, or sago, will not agree--though I think they
+must be very rare cases--we may be allowed to substitute for it a
+solution of "gum arabic, in the proportion of an ounce to a pint of
+water," to which may be added a little sugar; and if the child is old
+enough to observe the color, just milk enough to change the appearance.
+Another preparation for the same purpose consists of rennet whey, a
+little sweetened, and "disguised, if necessary, as just stated."
+
+The health of the mother, too, during the period of weaning, often needs
+great attention. Let her avoid medicine, however, if possible. A due
+regard to food, drink, exercise, and rest of body and mind, &c., will
+usually be found more effective, as well as more permanently
+efficacious.
+
+
+SEC. 9. _Food subsequently to Weaning._
+
+You will allow me to introduce in this place, some of the sentiments of
+Dr. Cadogan, an English physician, from a little work on the management
+of children. [Footnote: Though Dr. C.'s remarks will apply more closely
+to England in 1750, they are by no means inapplicable to the United
+States in 1837.] I do it with the more pleasure because, though he wrote
+almost a century ago, he urges the same general principles on which I
+have all along been insisting: hence it will be seen that mine are no
+new-fangled notions. His remarks refer to the young of every age, but
+chiefly to early infancy and childhood. It will be found necessary, in
+some instances, to abridge, but I shall endeavor not to misrepresent the
+Doctor's views.
+
+       *       *       *       *       *
+
+"Look over the bills of mortality. Almost half of those who fill up that
+black list, die under five years of age; so that half the people that
+come into the world go out of it again, before they become of the least
+use to it or to themselves. To me, this seems to deserve serious
+consideration.
+
+"It is ridiculous to charge it upon nature, and to suppose that infants
+are more subject to disease and death than grown persons; on the
+contrary, they bear pain and disease much better--fevers especially; and
+for the same reason that a twig is less hurt by a storm than an oak.
+
+"In all the other productions of nature, we see the greatest vigor and
+luxuriancy of health, the nearer they are to the egg or bud. When was
+there a lamb, a bird, or a tree, that died because it was young? These
+are under the immediate nursing of unerring nature; and they thrive
+accordingly.
+
+"Ought it not, therefore, to be the care of every nurse and every
+parent, not only to protect their nurslings from injury, but to be well
+assured that their own officious services be not the greatest evils the
+helpless creatures can suffer?
+
+"In the lower class of mankind, especially in the country, disease and
+mortality are not so frequent, either among adults or their children.
+Health and posterity are the portion of the poor--I mean the laborious.
+The want of superfluity confines them more within the limits of nature;
+hence they enjoy the blessings they feel not, and are ignorant of their
+cause.
+
+"In the course of my practice, I have had frequent occasion to be fully
+satisfied of this; and have often heard a mother anxiously say, 'the
+child has not been well ever since it has done puking and crying.'
+
+"These complaints, though not attended to, point very plainly to the
+cause. Is it not very evident that when a child rids its stomach of its
+contents several times a day, it has been overloaded? While the natural
+strength lasts, (for every child is born with more health and strength
+than is generally imagined,) it cries at or rejects the superfluous
+load, and _thrives apace_; that is, grows very fat, bloated, and
+distended beyond measure, like a house lamb.
+
+"But in time, the same oppressive cause continuing, the natural powers
+are overcome, being no longer able to throw off the unequal weight. The
+child, now unable to cry any more, languishes and is quiet.
+
+"The misfortune is, that these complaints are not understood. The child
+is swaddled and crammed on, till, after gripes, purging, &c., it sinks
+under both burdens into a convulsion fit, and escapes farther torture.
+This would be the case with the lamb, were it not killed, when full fat.
+
+"That the present mode of nursing is wrong, one would think needed no
+other proof than the frequent miscarriages attending it, the death of
+many, and the ill health of those that survive. But what I am going to
+complain of is, that children, in general, are over-clothed and
+over-fed, and fed and clothed improperly. To these causes I attribute
+almost all their diseases.
+
+"But the feeding of children is much more important to them than their
+clothing. Let us consider what nature directs in the case. If we follow
+nature, instead of leading or driving her, we cannot err. In the
+business of nursing, as well as physic, art, if it do not exactly copy
+this original, is ever destructive.
+
+"If I could prevail, no child should ever be crammed with any unnatural
+mixture, till the provision of nature was ready for it; nor afterwards
+fed with any ungenial diet whatever, at least for the _first three
+months_; for it is not well able to digest and assimilate other elements
+sooner.
+
+"I have seen very healthy children that never ate or drank anything
+whatever but their mother's milk, for the first ten or twelve months.
+Nature seems to direct to this, by giving them no teeth till about that
+time. The call of nature should be waited for to feed them with anything
+more substantial; and the appetite ought ever to precede the food--not
+only with regard to the daily meals, but those changes of diet which
+opening, increasing life requires. But this is never done, in either
+case; which is one of the greatest mistakes of all nurses.
+
+"When the child requires more solid sustenance, we are to inquire what
+and how much is most proper to give it. We may be well assured there is
+a great mistake either in the quantity or quality of children's food, or
+both, as it is usually given them, because they are made sick by it; for
+to this mistake I cannot help imputing nine in ten of all their
+diseases.
+
+"As to quantity, there is a most ridiculous error in the common
+practice; for it is generally supposed that whenever a child cries, it
+wants victuals: it is accordingly fed ten or twelve or more times in a
+day and night. This is so obvious a misapprehension, that I am surprised
+it should ever prevail.
+
+"If a child's wants and motions be diligently and judiciously attended
+to, it will be found that it never cries, but from pain. Now the first
+sensations of hunger are not attended with pain; accordingly, a very
+young child that is hungry will make a hundred other signs of its want,
+before it will cry for food. If it be healthy, and quite easy in its
+dress, it will hardly ever cry at all. Indeed, these signs and motions I
+speak of are but rarely observed, because it seldom happens that
+children are ever suffered to be hungry.[Footnote: That which we
+commonly observe in them, in such cases, and call by the name of hunger,
+the Doctor, I suppose would regard as morbid or unnatural feeling,
+wholly unworthy of the name of HUNGER.]
+
+"In a few, very few, whom I have had the pleasure to see reasonably
+nursed, that were not fed above two or three times in twenty-four hours,
+and yet were perfectly healthy, active, and happy, I have seen these
+signals, which were as intelligible as if they had spoken.
+
+"There are many faults in the quality of children's food.
+
+"1. It is not simple enough. Their paps, panadas, gruels, &c. are
+generally enriched with sugar, spices, and other nice things, and
+sometimes a drop of wine--none of which they ought ever to take. Our
+bodies never want them; they are what luxury only has introduced, to the
+destruction of the health of mankind.
+
+"2. It is not enough that their food should be simple; it should also be
+light. Many people, I find, are mistaken in their notions of what is
+light, and fancy that most kinds of pastry, puddings, custards, &c. are
+light; that is, light of digestion. But there is nothing heavier, in
+this sense, than unfermented flour and eggs, boiled hard, which are the
+chief ingredients in some of these preparations.
+
+"What I mean by light food--to give the best idea I can of it--is, any
+substance that is easily separated, and soluble in warm water. Good
+bread is the lightest thing I know, and the fittest food for young
+children. Cows' milk is also simple and light, and very good for them;
+but it is often injudiciously prepared. It should never be boiled; for
+boiling alters the taste and properties of it, destroys its sweetness,
+and makes it thicker, heavier, and less fit to mix and assimilate with
+the blood."
+
+       *       *       *       *       *
+
+It is hardly necessary for me to repeat, that in these general views of
+Dr. C., with a few exceptions, I entirely concur; indeed some of them
+have already been presented. But I have expressed my doubts of the
+soundness of his conclusion in regard to sugar. Used with food, in very
+small quantity, by persons whose stomachs are already in a good
+condition, both sugar and molasses, especially the former, appear to me
+not only harmless, but wholesome and useful.
+
+On the subject of simplicity in children's food, I should be glad to
+enlarge. There is nothing more important in diet than simplicity, and
+yet I think there is nothing more rare. To suit the fashion, everything
+must be mixed and varied. I have no objection to variety at different
+meals, both for children and adults; indeed I am disposed to recommend
+it, as will be seen hereafter. But I am utterly opposed to any
+considerable variety at the same meal; and above all, in a single dish.
+The simpler a dish can be, the better.
+
+But let us look, for a moment, at the dishes of food which are often
+presented, even at what are called plain tables.
+
+Meats cannot be eaten--so many persons think--without being covered
+with mustard, or pepper, or gravy--or soaked in vinegar; and not a few
+regard them as insipid, unless several of these are combined. Few people
+think a piece of plain boiled or broiled muscle (lean flesh) with
+nothing on it but a little salt, is fit to be eaten. Everything, it is
+thought, must be rendered more stimulating, or acrid; or must be
+swimming in gravy, or melted fat or butter.
+
+Bread, though proverbially the staff of life, can scarcely be eaten in
+its simple state. It must be buttered, or honied, or toasted, or soaked
+in milk, or dipped in gravy. Puddings must have cherries or fruits of
+some sort, or spices in them, and must be sweetened largely. Or
+perhaps--more ridiculous still--they must have suet in them. And after
+all this is done, who can eat them without the addition of sauce, or
+butter, or molasses, or cream? Potatoes, boiled, steamed or roasted,
+delightful as they are to an unperverted appetite, are yet thought by
+many people hardly palatable till they are mashed, and buttered or
+gravied; or perhaps soaked in vinegar. In short, the plainest and
+simplest article for the table is deemed nearly unfit for the stomach,
+till it has been buttered, and peppered, and spiced, and perhaps
+_pearlashed_. Even bread and milk must be filled with berries or fruits.
+Where can you find many adults who would relish a meal which should
+consist entirely of plain bread, without any addition; of plain
+potatoes, without anything on them except a little salt; of a plain rice
+pudding, and nothing with it; or of plain baked or boiled apples or
+pears? And _could_ such persons be found, how many of them would bring
+up their children to live on such plain dishes?
+
+It need not be wondered at, that a palate which has been so long tickled
+by variety, and by so many stimulating mixtures of food, should come to
+regard cold water for drink as insipid; and should feel dissatisfied
+with it, and desirous of boiling some narcotic or poisonous herb in it,
+or brewing it with something which will impart to it more or less of
+alcohol. The wonder is, not that some of our epicures become drunkards,
+but that all of them do not.
+
+Dr. Cadogan alludes to a sad mistake everywhere made about _light_ food;
+and condemns, very justly, hard-boiled custards, pastry, &c. It is very
+strange that these substances--for these are among the injurious
+articles which I call mixtures--should ever have obtained currency in
+the world, to the exclusion of bread, which, as the same writer justly
+says, is among the lightest articles of food which are known.
+
+It is strange, in particular, what views people have about bread.
+Judging from what I see, I am compelled to believe that there are few
+who regard it in any other light than as a kind of necessary evil. They
+appear to eat it, not because they are fond of it, by itself, but
+because they _must_ eat it; or rather, because it is a fashionable
+article; and not to make believe they eat it, at the least, would be
+unfashionable. They will get rid of it, however, when they can. And when
+they must eat it, they soak it, or cover it with butter or milk, or
+something else which will render it tolerable--or toast it. And use it
+as they may, it must be hot from the oven. After it is once cold, very
+few will eat it. The idea, above all, of making a full meal of simple
+cold bread, twenty-four hours old, would be rejected by ninety-nine
+persons in a hundred; and by some with abhorrence.
+
+People not only dislike bread, but regard it as unnutritious. I have
+heard many a fond parent say to the child who ate no meat, and seemed to
+depend almost wholly on bread--"Why, my dear child, you will starve if
+you eat no meat. Do at least put some butter on your bread or your
+potatoes." A thousand times have I been admonished, when eating my
+vegetable dinner during the hot and fatiguing days of summer--for I was
+bred to the farm, and ate little or no meat till I was fourteen years
+of age--to eat more butter, or cheese, or something that would give me
+strength; for I could not work, they said, without something more
+nourishing than bread and the other vegetables. And yet few if any boys
+of my age did more work, or performed it better, or with more ease, than
+myself. And I early observed the same thing in other vegetable eaters.
+
+The truth is, there is nothing in the world better adapted to the daily
+wants of the human stomach than good bread; and few things more
+nutritious. There may be a little more nutriment in eggs or jelly; but
+if the former are hard-boiled, the stomach cannot digest them; and fat
+meat of any kind is digested with great difficulty. Indeed it is
+doubtful whether stomachs in temperate climates digest fat at all. They
+may dissolve it, but that is not making good chyle of it. They may even
+reduce it to chyle; _but chyle is not blood_. Fat may slip through the
+system without much of it _adhering_; and I think it pretty evident that
+it usually does so.
+
+The muscle--the lean part of animals--may be nearly as nutritious as
+good bread, and is more easily digested. But it is very far from being
+proved that, for the healthy, those things are always best which are
+most easily digested. Nobody will pretend that potatoes are better for
+us than bread; and yet the experiments of Dr. Beaumont seem to prove
+that boiled or roasted potatoes are much more quick and easy of
+digestion than bread of the first and best quality. Even over-boiled
+eggs and raw cabbage, bad as they are, are dissolved in the stomach, and
+appear to be digested as quick, if not quicker, than good wheat bread.
+But nobody in the world will pretend they form more wholesome food.
+Neither is meat--even _lean_ meat--necessarily more wholesome, or better
+calculated to give strength than bread, simply be cause it is more
+quickly and easily digested. It would be nearer the truth to say, that
+those substances which digest slowest (provided they do not irritate)
+are best adapted to the wants of the human stomach.
+
+The philosopher LOCKE--perhaps from his knowledge of medicine--gives
+some excellent directions on this subject. "Great care should be used,"
+be says, that the child "eat bread plentifully, both alone and with
+everything else; and whatever he eats that is solid, make him chew it
+well." This writer, by the way, supposed that the teeth were made to be
+used in beating our food; and that we ought neither to swallow it
+without chewing, as is customary in our busy New England, nor to mash or
+soak it in order to save the labor of mastication--a practice almost
+equally universal. But let us hear his own words.
+
+"As for his diet, it ought to be very plain and simple; and if I might
+advise, flesh should be forborne, at least till he is two or three years
+old. But of whatever advantage this may be to his future health and
+strength, I fear it will hardly be consented to by parents, misled by
+the custom of eating too much flesh themselves, who will be apt to think
+their children--as they do themselves--in danger to be starved; if they
+have not flesh at least twice a day. This I am sure, children would
+breed their teeth with much less danger, be freer from diseases while
+they were little, and lay the foundations of a healthy and strong
+constitution much surer, if they were not crammed so much as they are,
+by fond mothers and foolish servants, and were kept wholly from flesh
+the first three or four years of their lives."
+
+Were Locke still living, I should like to interrogate him at this
+place. He first speaks of giving children no meat till they are two or
+three years old; and then afterwards extends the period to three or
+four. The question I would put is this: If the child is healthier
+without meat till he is three or four years old, why not till he is
+thirteen or fourteen; or even till thirty, or forty, or seventy? And is
+not Professor Stuart, of Andover--a meat eater himself, and an advocate
+for its moderate use by those who have already been trained to the use
+of it--is not the Professor, I say, more than half right when he
+asserts, as I have heard him, that it may be well to train all children,
+from the first, to the exclusive use of vegetable food?
+
+I have a few more extracts from Locke, particularly on the subject of
+bread.
+
+"I should think that a good piece of well made and well baked brown
+bread would be often the best breakfast for my young master. I am sure
+it is as wholesome, and will make him as strong a man, as greater
+delicacies; and if he be used to it, it will be as pleasant to him.
+
+"If he, at any time, call for victuals between meals, use him to nothing
+but dry bread. If he be hungry more than wanton, bread will go down; and
+if he be not hungry, it is not fit that he should eat. By this you will
+obtain two good effects. First, that by custom he will come to be in
+love with bread; for, as I said, our palates and stomachs, too, are
+pleased with the things we are used to. Another good you will gain
+hereby is, that you will not teach him to eat more nor oftener than
+nature requires.
+
+"I do not think that all people's appetites are alike; some have
+naturally stronger and some weaker stomachs. But this I think, that
+many are made gormands and gluttons by custom, that were not so by
+nature. And I see, in some countries, men as lusty and strong, that eat
+but two meals a day, as those that have set their stomachs, by a
+constant usage, to call on them for four or five.
+
+"The Romans usually fasted till supper, the only set meal, even of those
+who ate more than once in a day; and those who used breakfasts, as some
+did at eight, same at ten, others at twelve of the clock, and some
+later, neither ate flesh nor had anything made ready for them.
+
+"Augustus, when the greatest monarch on the earth, tells us he took a
+piece of dry bread in his chariot; and Seneca, in his 83d epistle,
+giving an account how be managed himself when he was old, and his age
+permitted indulgence, says that he used to eat a piece of dry bread for
+his dinner, without the formality of sitting to it. Yet Seneca, as it is
+well known, was wealthy.
+
+"The masters of the world were brought up with this spare diet, and the
+young gentlemen of Rome felt no want of strength or spirit because they
+ate but once a day. Or if it happened by chance that any one could not
+fast so long as till supper, their only set meal, he took nothing but a
+bit of dry bread, or at most a few raisins or some such slight thing
+with it, to stay his stomach. And more than one set meal a day was
+thought so monstrous that it was a reproach, as low as Caesar's time, to
+make an entertainment, or sit down to a table, till towards sunset.
+Therefore I judge it most convenient that my young master should have
+nothing but bread for breakfast. I impute a great part of our diseases
+in England to our eating too much flesh, and too little bread. Dry
+bread, though the best nourishment, has the least temptation."
+
+I shall not undertake to defend all the sentiments of Mr. Locke in these
+extracts; but in regard to the main point--the nutritive properties and
+wholesome tendency of bread, and the importance of making it a principal
+article of diet for children--I think his views are just. In short, they
+do not differ, substantially, from those of a large proportion of the
+best writers on this subject in every country, during the last three
+hundred years. As if with one voice, they dissuade from the use of too
+much animal food for the young, and encourage the use of a larger
+proportion of vegetable food--bread, plain puddings, rice, potatoes,
+turnips, beets, apples, pears, &c., and milk.
+
+Yet they all, or nearly all, seem to write just as if they did not
+expect to be believed; or if believed, to be followed. They seem to
+regard mankind as so inveterately attached to old habits, and so much
+addicted to flesh eating, that there is little hope of reclaiming them.
+
+Now, though my opinions are no more entitled to respect than many of
+theirs, I hope for greater success than they appear to do. I expect that
+many young mothers who read this work, will be led to think and inquire
+further on the subject; and if they find that the views here advanced
+are in accordance with reason, and common sense, and higher authority, I
+am not without hope that they will reform, and do what they can to
+reform their neighbors.
+
+I have dwelt the longer, in this section, on the _general_ principles of
+diet, because I am of opinion that whatever is true, on this subject, in
+regard to the diet of children, soon after weaning, is equally, or
+nearly equally applicable to the whole of childhood, youth, manhood and
+age. It is not true that one period of life, and one mode of employment,
+demands a diet essentially different from that which is demanded at
+another period, and in other circumstances; provided always, that the
+individual is in health. Occasional instances of the kind, there may be;
+but they are not numerous.
+
+The digestive powers of the young are more nearly as strong as those of
+the adult than is usually admitted, and they are much more active. They
+require a less quantity of food, undoubtedly; and they should be fed at
+shorter intervals. But as a general rule, what is best for them, as
+regards its quality, at three years old, is best for them at thirty; or,
+should they live so long, at ninety. I repeat it; there is very little
+difference in the nature of the food required ever after teething.
+
+Let me not be understood as saying that the strong, and the robust, and
+the active cannot digest food which the weak, and enervated, and
+indolent cannot. Undoubtedly they can. But this does not prove that they
+_ought_ to do it. It does not prove that their strength and vigor were
+not given them for other purposes than to be expended on the poorer
+substances for food, when they might have better. Nor is it true, as
+often pretended, that the hard laborer needs either more food, or that
+which is of a stronger quality, just in proportion to the severity of
+his labor. The man or the child who labors moderately, just sufficient
+for the purposes of health, and labors with his hands in the open air,
+needs rather _more_ food than the indolent or the sedentary, or those
+who labor to excess; but not that which is of a stronger quality. It is
+he who labors to excess--if any difference of quality were required at
+all--who should eat milder food, as well as less in quantity.
+
+Some physicians there are who tell us that all mankind would live
+longer, as well as be more healthful, if they ate nothing but bread, and
+drank nothing but water. It may be so, but I do not believe it. Water,
+as I shall show hereafter, is indeed the only appropriate drink; but I
+do not believe that bread, even after the second year, is in all cases
+and circumstances the best food. Besides that the experiments of
+Majendie and other physiologists go a little way--though not far, I
+confess--to prove that animals generally, (and if so, why not man, as
+well as the rest?) thrive best with some degree of variety in their
+food, it seems to me more in accordance with the general intentions of
+the Creator, so far as we can discover what they are.
+
+While, therefore, I deny that either milk or bread is better, in all
+cases, for human sustenance, than any other articles of food, I must, at
+the same time, be permitted to regard them as among the best, and as
+deserving more general attention. Every infant, after leaving the
+breast, should, as it seems to me, make bread, in some of its forms, a
+chief article of food.
+
+This article, so justly and emphatically called the staff of life, may
+be found in almost every country. Common sense seems to have dictated
+the propriety of its use; though fashion has often led us to overlook
+or despise it--like air, and fire, and water, and nearly every other
+common but indispensable blessing.
+
+The best kind of bread is made from wheat, the worst from bark,
+saw-dust, &c. Wood and bark afford so little nutriment, that it is only
+in such countries as Norway, Sweden, Lapland. Iceland, Greenland, and
+Siberia, that the inhabitants can be induced to make use of them. Here
+they are often useful; either because people cannot get food which is
+better, or to blend with their fat or oily animal food. For it should
+never be forgotten, that healthy digestion requires a large proportion
+of innutritious matter along with the pure nutriment. In order to make
+bread from wheat, the meal should not be bolted. If it seems to contain
+particles which are too coarse, it may be well to pass it through a
+coarse family sieve; but the best bread I have ever eaten, as well as
+the cleanest and neatest, was not sifted at all.
+
+I know there is an almost universal prejudice against this sort of
+bread. Some complain that it scratches their throats; others, that it is
+tasteless; and others still, that it does not agree with them. With
+others there is another objection--which is that bread of this sort has
+sometimes been called _dyspepsia_ bread; and with others still, that it
+has been called _Graham_ bread. Either of these appellations seems
+sufficient to condemn it.
+
+Now as to the harshness, this is owing to its being made of bad
+materials, or to its being baked too hard, or kept too long. Much of
+what they call dyspepsia bread, in our cities, is evidently made by
+mixing the bran and flour of wheat after they have been once separated;
+besides which, in not a few cases, the finest of the flour appears to be
+taken away. Now bread made of such materials thus combined, will always
+be darker colored, as well as harsher, than when made from the wheat,
+simply ground without any bolting, and wet up in the usual manner. Such
+bread is best two or three days old. After four days, it becomes dry and
+somewhat harsh.
+
+They who complain that such bread is insipid, are persons whose
+appetites have been injured by food which is high-seasoned; and who, if
+they eat bread at all, must eat it hot, or soaked in butter. No wonder
+such persons do not like plain bread, and say it is tasteless. But it
+must not be denied that bakers often suffer this kind of bread to be
+over-risen, in order to make it sufficiently light and porous. This
+renders it less tasteful, and from the saleratus they use, less
+wholesome.
+
+No child who has been accustomed, from the first, to good wheaten bread,
+made of unbolted meal, and not less than one day old, will ever prefer
+any other, until he has been rendered capricious on this subject, and
+wishes to change for the sake of changing, or until he has been misled
+by surrounding example. I speak from observation when I say that
+infants, whose habits have not been depraved, will not prefer hot bread
+of any kind. "It is hot, mother," I have heard them say, as an apology
+for refusing a piece of bread; but never, "It is cold," or "It is too
+old."
+
+It is the epicurean--it is he with whom it is a sufficient objection to
+any kind of food whatever, that he has used it for several successive
+meals or days--that is most ready to complain of good bread. He whose
+habits are correct, and who is the more unwilling to change any of his
+articles of diet, the longer he has been in the use of them, and who
+only changes them, or uses variety, from principle--he, I say, will
+never complain of harshness or want of taste in good wheat bread; nor
+will it be an objection of weight with him that _Mr. Graham_ has
+recommended it, or that it has either prevented or cured _dyspepsia_.
+
+Nor will the epicurean himself complain that bread is insipid, after
+being confined to it for a month or six weeks. He will then find a
+sweetness in it, for which he had long sought in vain in the more
+delicate and costly viands of a luxurious, and expensive, and
+unchristian modern table.
+
+It is they only who observe simplicity, and confine themselves to very
+plain food, who truly enjoy pleasure in eating. The bulk of mankind
+benumb their sense of taste by their high-seasoned, over-stimulating
+food and drink, and by such constant variety and strange mixtures; and
+thus, in their eager cry, "Who will show us any good?" they actually
+enjoy less than he who eats plain food, and is contented with it.
+
+Bread of all kinds is greatly improved in whiteness and pleasantness by
+being wet with milk; though even when wet with nothing but water, there
+is a solid and rational sweetness to it, of which the despisers of
+bread, and devourers of much flesh and condiments never dreamed, and
+never will dream, till they reform their habits.
+
+If children are furnished with good bread, on the plan of Mr. Locke,
+there is no doubt that they will relish it most keenly; that their
+attachment to it will strengthen, and that unless we give them other
+food occasionally, from principle, or seduce them by depraving their
+tastes, they will continue it through life. "Train up a child in the way
+he should go, and when he is old he will not depart from it," is a
+general rule, and has as few exceptions, when applied to the diet of a
+child, as when it is applied to his moral tastes and preferences.
+
+With those parents who, though convinced of the justness of the views
+here advanced, have already trained their children in the way they
+should _not_ go, but are anxious to retrace their steps as far as
+possible, there will here be a difficulty. "Our children," they will
+say, "do not, at present, _relish_ the kind of bread you speak of; and
+how shall we bring them to do so? or is the thing indeed possible?"
+
+The answer to these inquiries is easy. Such parents have only to confine
+their children to the kinds of food which they deem proper for them, a
+few weeks or a few months, and they will soon relish them. If those who
+are old enough to be convinced can be brought to unite heartily in the
+change, and to endeavor to be pleased with it, the work of reformation
+will be more pleasant and probably more speedy. I have never found any
+difficulty of bringing myself to relish in a very short time an article
+of food for which I had no relish before, and to which I had even a
+dislike, provided I was thoroughly convinced it was best for me, and was
+earnest in the desire of change--except sweet oil, to which I was about
+six months in becoming reconciled.
+
+It is with physical, as with moral habits, in their formation. We
+should fix on what we believe, from experience, observation, and divine
+and human testimony, is best for us, and habit will soon render it
+agreeable. It is important, even to health, that food should be
+agreeable; but as I have already said, what we know to be best for us
+will soon become agreeable, if we confine ourselves to it; and to our
+children also, if we confine them to it, in like manner.
+
+Next to bread made of wheat--when that cannot be procured--is a mixture
+of wheat and Indian meal; but the proportion of the latter should be the
+smallest. Wheat, rye, and Indian, in the proportion of one third of
+each, make excellent bread, sometimes called _third_ bread. Rye and
+Indian make a tolerable bread. Rye alone is not so good. The want, in
+the latter, of the vegetable principle called gluten, makes its general
+use of very questionable propriety.
+
+Indian meal alone, baked in cakes by the fire, if eaten only in small
+quantities, is a very nutritious and by no means unwholesome bread. But
+its sweetness, and the general fondness which people who are accustomed
+to its use have for it, lead them to eat it in too large proportions, if
+they use it while it is warm. In these circumstances, it proves itself
+too active for the stomach and bowels. If warm, six ounces is as much
+as a hearty adult ought to eat of it at once; and children should of
+course take much less. It is less active on the bowels, and scarcely
+less agreeable, as soon as we become accustomed to it, if eaten when it
+is cold--even if baked in loaves, in the oven.
+
+Potatoes, added to unbolted wheat flour, make excellent bread; and so,
+as I am informed, does rice. Of the latter, however, I have never eaten.
+Oats and barley, and many other grains and substances, will make bread;
+but it is of an inferior kind.
+
+The question may again recur, after this extended series of remarks,
+whether I intend to confine the young almost exclusively to bread, in
+one or another of its forms. We shall see how this is, presently.
+
+While bread, therefore, should constitute a part, at least, and
+sometimes the whole of a meal, a great variety of other articles are not
+only admissible, but desirable. Among these may be mentioned plain
+puddings.
+
+One of the most wholesome puddings is made of Indian meal, enclosed in a
+bag and boiled. Nearly allied to this is the common hasty pudding; but
+the last is less wholesome, because it requires less chewing; and it
+ought to have been observed, before now, that after weaning, any food
+is digested better which has undergone the process of thorough
+mastication.
+
+Boiled rice, though hardly to be regarded as a pudding, is very
+nutritious, and very easy of digestion. I am not without doubts,
+however, in regard to the utility of a large proportion of rice, as
+food. A dinner of it, two or three times a week, I believe to be
+wholesome; but used too frequently, it seems to me not active enough for
+the stomach and bowels; having in this respect precisely a contrary
+effect to that of warm Indian cakes. The common notion that rice has a
+tendency to make people blind, is entirely unfounded. Its worst effect
+is when eaten without being boiled through. In such cases, I have known
+it to do mischief; perhaps because it was swallowed without much
+chewing. Some grind it, and use the flour; but I cannot recommend it to
+be used in this manner.
+
+The best pudding in the world is a loaf of bread, (What!--you will
+say--bread again?) three or four or five days old, boiled, or rather
+_steamed_, in milk. All kinds of bread are excellent for this purpose,
+but wheat and Indian are the best. They are excellent even without
+milk--that is, simply steamed.
+
+Puddings made of the flour of wheat, rye, buckwheat, &c., are less
+wholesome than those which have been already mentioned. And all sorts
+of puddings are less wholesome, when eaten as hot as our unreasonable
+fashions require, than when their temperature is quite below that of our
+bodies. I would not have them so cold as to chill us, for this would be
+to go to the other, though less dangerous extreme; but they ought to be
+cool. Too much heat is an unnatural stimulus, likely to leave more or
+less debility behind it. In addition to this, those who eat hot food are
+more exposed to take cold, in consequence of it.
+
+With none of these puddings ought we to mix any fruits, green or
+dried--not even raisins. Some of the more important properties of nearly
+every kind of fruit or berry are lost by boiling, unless we eat the
+water in which they are boiled, and save the vapor which would otherwise
+escape. I am not in favor of boiled fruit generally, especially if
+boiled in puddings.
+
+Puddings, like most other kinds of food--even bread--may be slightly
+salted: not that this is indispensable, but because the balance of human
+testimony is in its favor. The argument that we evidently need salt
+because the other animals require it, is without much weight. The other
+animals do not _generally_ require or use it.[Footnote: Some
+considerable savage nations use no salt, and a few have a strong
+aversion to it.] The cases so often triumphantly mentioned, where
+animals appear to thrive better from the use of it, are only exceptions
+to the general rule, nor are they very numerous in comparison with the
+whole race of animals. Still I have no objections to its moderate use.
+It may be useful in preventing worms; though there are doubts even of
+that. In large quantities, it is unquestionably hurtful.
+
+But neither fruits nor berries--permit me to repeat the sentiment--no,
+nor any such thing as cinnamon or spices, nor even sugar or molasses in
+any considerable quantity, should go into the composition of any sort of
+pudding. If the puddings are not sweet enough without, it is better to
+add a little sugar or molasses on your plate. Nor should sauces, or
+cream, or butter, or suet be used in or upon them; though of all these
+substances, cream is least injurious. Nutmegs, grated cheese, &c., are
+unnecessary and hurtful. Cheese should never be eaten, in any way.
+
+There is one thing, however, which may be eaten in moderate quantity
+with all sorts of puddings and with bread; I mean milk. I say eaten
+_with_, for it is better never to put these substances, nor indeed any
+other, _into_ the milk. The bread, pudding, &c., should be eaten by
+itself, and the milk by itself, also. In this way we shall not be liable
+to cheat the teeth out of what is justly their due, and then make the
+deranged stomach and general system pay for it.
+
+Potatoes are a good article of diet--to be used once a day--though they
+are not very nutritious. They are best either steamed or roasted in the
+ashes. They are also excellent when boiled. Turnips are also good.
+Onions are not so useful as is generally supposed, except for the
+purposes of medicine.
+
+Beets; in small quantity, and carrots and asparagus, and above all,
+beans and peas--but not their pods--are tolerable food once a day,
+during most of the year, except it be the middle of the winter. But
+neither these, nor potatoes, nor any other vegetables, ought to be
+cooked in any way with fat, or fat meat, or butter; or be mashed after
+they are cooked, or eaten with oil or butter.
+
+If there be an exception to this general rule--which may seem to be
+rather sweeping--it should be in favor of a little sweet oil on rice, or
+on bread puddings. But the common practice, founded upon the apparent
+belief that we can scarcely eat anything until it is well covered with
+lard or butter, is quite objectionable--nay, it is even disgusting. No
+pure stomach would ever prefer oily bread, or pudding, or beans, or
+peas; and most people would abhor the sight of such a strange
+combination, were not habit, in its power to change our very nature,
+almost omnipotent.
+
+
+SEC. 10. _Remarks on Fruit._
+
+There is a very great diversity of opinion on the subject of fruit. Some
+maintain that all fruit, even in the most ripe and perfect state, is of
+doubtful utility, especially for children. Others say none is hurtful,
+if ripe, and eaten in moderate quantity. Some require care in making a
+proper selection; but here again, in regard to what constitutes a proper
+selection, there is a difference of opinion. Some consider fruits easy
+of digestion; others believe they are digested only with very great
+difficulty.
+
+When the cholera prevailed in the large cities of the United States, a
+majority of the physicians believed all fruits, even those which were
+ripe, to be injurious in their tendency. But it was insisted by the
+minority--I think very justly--that whenever fruit appeared to be
+injurious, it was accidental--that is, the disease, being prepared to
+make its attack just at that time, happened to do so immediately after
+the use of fruit, rather than something else, and especially in the
+_season_ of fruits--or on account of excess; or (which was certainly
+the case in some instances) because the quality of the fruit was bad.
+
+At present, the _weight_ of testimony on this subject--estimating
+according to talent, and not according to numbers--is in favor of good
+fruit, used with moderation--even in the face of the cholera. Dr.
+Dunglison--one of the last to adopt such an opinion--appears to be in
+its favor.
+
+On several points, in regard to fruit, I believe that among medical men
+there is no essential difference of opinion. As I always prefer, in
+controversies, to see in how many things antagonists agree, before
+proceeding to the points in which they differ, I will here endeavor to
+enumerate them.
+
+1. All unripe fruits, especially, if eaten raw and uncooked--let the
+season, or prevalent disease, or individual, be what or who it may--are
+unwholesome.
+
+2. Excess, in the use of the most wholesome fruits, under any
+circumstances, is also injurious.
+
+3. Fruits, eaten immediately after a full meal, when the stomach is in
+an improper condition for receiving anything more, contribute to
+overtask the digestive powers, and must hence produce more or less of
+injury.
+
+4. The skins and kernels of the larger fruits are unwholesome, because
+indigestible. The skins of fruits, if beaten or masticated finely; may
+appear to be digested, because dissolved; but I have already endeavored
+to show that solution is not always digestion.
+
+5. Fruits of all kinds are most wholesome in their own country, and in
+their own appropriate season.
+
+6. Dried fruits are less wholesome than fresh.
+
+7. Fruit of all kinds should be withheld from infants, until they have
+teeth.
+
+Thus far, as I have already said, all agree; at least so far as I know.
+There are several other points on which medical men are generally
+agreed, though not universally. One of these is, that fruits, if eaten
+at all, should usually form a part of a regular meal. Another is, that
+it is better not to eat them immediately before going to bed.
+
+There are contradictory opinions among the mass of the community,
+physicians as well as others, on the general intention of our summer
+fruits. From the fact that children's diseases prevail more at the
+season of the year when fruits are more abundant, many think the fruits
+are the immediate cause of them. Others, and with better reason, suppose
+that the latter are intended by the Author of nature to check or prevent
+the bowel diseases of summer.
+
+Nothing, certainly, is more unnatural than to suppose that at the very
+season of the year when so many other influences combine to awaken a
+tendency to disease in the human system, the Creator should place before
+our eyes an abundance of fruits, inviting us by all their cooling and
+tempting properties, only to do us mischief. On the contrary, it seems
+to me much more probable that many of them were designed for our
+moderate use. In what quantity, under what circumstances, and which are
+best, it is left to human experience to determine.
+
+Some say that fruit should never be eaten in the morning, before
+breakfast. Now everything I know of the human constitution, together
+with what I have learned from experience and observation, has been for
+years leading me to the contrary opinion. Indeed, I am most fully
+convinced, that of all periods for eating fruit, whether we use it alone
+or make it a part of our regular meals, the morning, soon after we rise,
+is the most favorable. [Footnote: I ought to remark, that as the morning
+is the best time for eating _good_ fruit, so it is the very worst time
+for eating it if _not_ good; and as a large proportion of that which is
+eaten is unripe, or otherwise bad, this may account for the general
+prejudice against eating it at this period.] My reasons are as follows:
+
+1. The rest and sleep of the preceding night has restored our general
+vigor, and consequently has invigorated the stomach, so that digestion
+will be more easily and perfectly accomplished.
+
+2. We have been, at our rising, so long without food on our stomachs,
+that they are not likely to be oppressed by a moderate quantity of good,
+ripe, wholesome fruit. In the course of our waking hours, meals follow
+each other in such quick succession, and there is so much variety, even
+at the plainest tables, to tempt us to excess, that there is more danger
+of injury from the addition of fruit than at our first rising.
+
+3. I have never known any one to receive injury from the use of fruit in
+this way, provided no other circumstance in relation to quantity,
+quality, &c. had been disregarded. In my own case, the practice has, on
+the contrary, seemed beneficial.
+
+4. There is one reason in favor of this practice which perhaps would
+have less weight, if people rose as early in the morning as they ought;
+or, in the language of Dr. Franklin to the inhabitants of Paris, if they
+knew that the sun gives light as soon as he rises. I allude to the
+demand which I conceive that the stomach makes for something, after so
+long fasting, and the pernicious custom of late breakfasts. I am
+persuaded that it is advisable to eat something nearly as soon as we
+rise, be it never so early; and if we can get nothing else for
+breakfast, and have not accustomed ourselves to relish a piece of good
+bread, or some other simple thing, which requires no labor of
+preparation, I think it perfectly proper to eat a small quantity of
+fruit.
+
+We come now to the particular consideration of some of those fruits
+which universal experience has shown to be the most salutary.
+
+Of all these, none is more wholesome than the apple. There is indeed a
+great diversity in the quality even of this single article. Sweet apples
+are the most nutritious; but perhaps those which are gently acid, and at
+the same time mealy, are rather more cooling, and when eaten raw, and in
+the heat of summer, not less wholesome.
+
+Apples which come to maturity very early in the season appear, as a
+general rule, to be less rich, and even less perfect, than those which
+ripen later. In view of this fact, some writers have endeavored to
+dissuade us from their use; and among others, Mr. Locke. We may judge a
+little what his opinions were, from his concluding remarks on the
+subject:--"I never knew apples hurt anybody," says he, "after October."
+
+But although neither apples nor any other fruits which ripen uncommonly
+early are quite so good as those which come in a little later, yet I do
+not think they are to be wholly rejected, unless they have been raised
+in hot houses. Fruits, and indeed vegetables in general, whose maturity
+is hastened by artificial processes, must be less wholesome than when
+brought to perfection in nature's own appropriate time and manner. I
+ought to say, however, very distinctly, that of the fruits of any
+particular tree, those which first ripen are always the worst; for they
+are usually wormy, or otherwise defective.
+
+Most of the fruit, as well as other vegetables, brought to our city
+markets in this country, is utterly unfit to be eaten. Sometimes it is
+immature; sometimes it has a hot house maturity; sometimes it has been
+picked so long that it has begun to decay. Many fruits--berries
+especially--are in perfection for a very short period only. Mulberries,
+for example--one kind especially--are not in perfection long enough to
+carry to the market house, even though the distance were very small.
+Luckily, however, very few mulberries are eaten. But the raspberry and
+strawberry, if perfect when gathered, have usually begun to decay,
+before they are purchased. That this appears to be rather unfrequent, is
+because they are gathered before they are ripe.
+
+Dr. Dewees regards most fruits as difficult of digestion. I do not think
+they are so, if perfect and ripe. The experiments of Dr. Beaumont, so
+far as they prove any general principle, show conclusively that mellow
+sweet apples are more quickly digested than any kind of vegetable food
+whatever, except rice and sago. But even admitting they were slow of
+digestion, I do not think--as I have already shown in another
+place--that they ought on that account to be excluded. Besides, my
+opinion differs from that of Dr. D. in regard to the strength of the
+digestive powers of children. After teething, they seem to me to be able
+to digest any substances which adults can; and with as little
+difficulty.
+
+But to return:--No fruit is in perfection longer than the apple.
+Besides, no fruit appears to be less injured in its nature and
+properties by picking it a little before it is ripe, and preserving it
+during the winter. It is on this account, more perhaps than any other,
+that I value it more highly than all other fruits united.
+
+Apples may be used either raw or cooked. In either case, the skins and
+seeds should be avoided, as has been before suggested. I am not ignorant
+that WILLICH, in his "Lectures on Diet and Regimen"--an excellent work,
+in the main--says that the seeds ought to be eaten; but I believe few
+physiologists would comply with his injunction, especially when it is
+considered that he recommends, in the same connection, that we swallow
+the stones of cherries and plums. Strange how far our theories will
+sometimes carry us!
+
+The apple is excellent when roasted or baked, especially the sweet
+apple. It is very common, in some places, to eat baked sweet apples with
+milk; and the practice is by no means a bad one. Indeed, baked or raw
+apples might be advantageously made a part of at least one of our meals
+every day. There is said to be a miserly farmer--a single gentleman--in
+the western part of the state of Massachusetts, who has lived on nothing
+but apples for his food, and water for his drink, about forty years. And
+yet he is said to enjoy the most perfect health. I do not propose this
+as an example worthy of imitation; but it shows that apples maybe made
+to subserve an important purpose in diet. And though I have more than
+once expressed an opinion highly unfavorable to the exclusive use of any
+one article of diet, yet if I were to confine myself to any one thing, I
+know of nothing except bread that I should prefer to good apples. Still,
+however, I prefer a variety--sweet, sour, early, late, &c.; and I should
+use them raw, roasted, baked, made into sauce with new or unfermented
+cider, and boiled. Good apples, eaten raw, with bread, form not only a
+very wholesome, but, to an unperverted appetite, a most delicious
+dinner.
+
+Much has been said about cutting down orchards; but the whole seems to
+me idle--for if the fruit is of a good quality, it may be used as food,
+either for man or beast. And if not good, the trees ought either to be
+destroyed or replaced by those that will produce fruit which is
+better--even if the object were to make it into cider. I have said that
+apples may be used both by man and beast. It is well known that most
+domestic animals thrive well on good apples, especially sweet ones. Very
+tolerable molasses is also sometimes made from sweet apples.
+
+Nearly everything which has been said above in regard to apples, will
+apply to pears. The best varieties of this excellent fruit are quite as
+nutritious and as wholesome as the apple; and as much improved for the
+table by baking. I believe, however, that no cheap process has yet been
+devised for keeping them as long in the winter. They may be preserved in
+the form of sauce, prepared in the same way with common apple sauce. The
+skins, of many kinds of pears are less injurious than those of apples;
+but even the skins of pears need not be eaten.
+
+Some kinds of peaches are tolerably wholesome; but the stringy character
+of their pulp appears to me to render them less so than apples and
+pears, though I am not confident on this point. But if used at all, they
+should be used in less quantity at one time. Tempting as their flavor
+is, I seldom eat them, when I can get apples and pears; holding myself
+in duty bound to use the _best_, even of the fruits.
+
+"Fruit," says Mr. Locke, "makes one of the most difficult chapters in
+the government of health, especially that of children. Our first parents
+ventured Paradise for it; and it is no wonder our children cannot stand
+the temptation, though it cost them their health. The regulation of this
+cannot come under any one general rule; for I am by no means of their
+mind who would keep children wholly from fruit, as a thing totally
+unwholesome for them, by which strict way they make them but the more
+ravenous after it, to eat good or bad, ripe or unripe, all that they can
+get, whenever they come at it.
+
+"Melons, peaches, most sorts of plums, and all sorts of grapes, in
+_England_, I think children should be wholly kept from, as having a very
+tempting taste, in a very unwholesome juice, so that if it were
+possible, they should never so much as see them, or know that there was
+any such thing. But strawberries, cherries, gooseberries and currants,
+when thoroughly ripe, I think may be pretty safely allowed them."
+
+Excellent as these remarks are, in general, I do not like his entire
+interdiction of the use of melons, peaches, plums, and grapes, even in
+England. Peaches, to be sure, as they come at a season when apples or
+pears, or both of them--which are more wholesome than peaches--are
+abundant, may be better omitted, delicious as they are to the taste; and
+I do not think very highly of plums. But melons, in very moderate
+quantity, and grapes, if we eat nothing but the ripe pulp, rejecting
+both the husk and the interior hard part, including the seeds, are, I
+think, useful and wholesome. On the other hand, I should never place
+cherries and gooseberries in the same list with strawberries; for the
+latter are, if I may use the expression, infinitely the most wholesome.
+
+Many seem to think that not to eat all sorts of fruits is to despise, or
+at least to treat with neglect the gifts of God, intended for our
+reception; by which they mean, if they mean anything, that the use of
+all sorts of fruits is already found out, even in the present
+comparative infancy of the world. Now I do not suppose that God has made
+anything in vain--absolutely so--though I do not think we have found out
+the true uses of half the things which he has made and given us. And
+among those things of which we are yet ignorant, are some of the fruits.
+I do not believe it follows, necessarily, that because fruits are
+created, we are obliged to use them all.
+
+Besides, if this is a rule, it is one which nobody follows. Every one
+uses more of some sorts, and fewer of others; and a large proportion of
+the community entirely reject some kinds. Now if the statement commonly
+made, that all fruits are the gifts of God, and ought therefore to be
+used by all persons, is correct, those who make the statement ought to
+conform to it as a rule of their lives, and to eat all kinds of fruit
+which the season and country affords; and not only eat all kinds, but
+see that the whole of every kind is consumed; since to waste any portion
+is to slight the good gifts of God.
+
+The result then is, that we cannot obey such a rule; but are driven back
+to the mode which common sense dictates, which is, to make a selection,
+using some, and rejecting others. And the value of studying the nature
+of these fruits, by examining the experience of mankind in regard to
+them, consists in the aid thus afforded us in making our selection
+wisely.
+
+There is one very common error in the use of the smaller summer fruits,
+such as strawberries, whortleberries, currants, &c., which is that of
+mixing cream, wine, spices, sugar, &c., with them. We are thus tempted
+to eat too great a quantity at once. Besides--which is a worse evil--we
+change the proportions of the saccharine parts, and thus do all in our
+power, by increasing a similarity in all fruits, to destroy that
+agreeable variety which God has established, and which is probably
+salutary.
+
+
+SEC. 11. _Confectionary._
+
+By confectionary we here mean the substances usually sold at those shops
+in our cities distinguished by the general name of confectionaries, and
+which consist either wholly of sugar, or of sugar and some other
+substances combined.
+
+As to the use of a moderate quantity of pure sugar at our meals, whether
+it is procured at a confectioner's shop or elsewhere, I do not know that
+there is any strong objection to it; though I believe that it cannot be
+regarded as indispensable to health--for were that the fact, it seems to
+me to imply something short of infinite wisdom in the creation of
+articles destined for our sustenance. But I have spoken on this subject
+elsewhere.
+
+A part, however, of the contents of the confectionary shop are actually
+poisonous. I refer to those things which are either frosted, as it is
+called, or colored. The substances applied to the sugar for this purpose
+are usually some mineral or vegetable poison; although the fact of its
+being a poison may not always be known to the manufacturer. The most
+unhappy consequences have occasionally followed the use of
+confectionary, when poisoned in this manner. A family of four persons,
+in New York, were made sick in this way in March of year before last,
+and some of them came very near losing their lives. The "frosting" which
+caused the mischief was pronounced by eminent chemists to be one fifth
+rank poison.[Footnote: It is to be remembered that those who eat
+confectionary so slightly poisoned that it does not make them sick at
+once, may nevertheless be as much injured in their constitutions as they
+who are poisoned outright. In the latter case, the poison is in part
+thrown out of the body; in the former, it remains in it much longer--and
+therefore more surely, though more slowly, accomplishes the work of
+destruction.] The coloring substances used are sometimes poisonous, as
+well as the frosting.
+
+Some of the articles sold at these shops consist of sugar mixed with
+paste. Others are called sweetmeats; that is, fruits, or rinds of
+fruits, preserved in sugar. All these substances, I believe, without
+exception, are injurious.
+
+The great evils of confectionary yet remain to be mentioned. These are
+of three kinds, physical, mental and moral.
+
+Some of the _physical_ evils have, it is true, just been mentioned; but
+there is another evil of still greater magnitude. Young people who eat
+confectionary, commonly eat it between meals. This produces mischief in
+two ways. First, it keeps the stomach at work when it ought to rest; for
+this, like every other muscular organ, requires its seasons of repose.
+Secondly, it destroys gradually the appetite; so that when the regular
+meal arrives, the accustomed keenness of appetite does not come with it.
+And the consequence is, not so much that we do not eat enough, as that
+we are fastidious, and eat a little of this, then a little of that; and
+usually select the worst things. We are not hungry enough to make a meal
+of a single article of plain food. And this evil goes on increasing, as
+long as we have access to the confectionary shop. These statements
+describe the case of thousands of pupils, of both sexes, at our schools
+and seminaries.
+
+The _intellectual_ evil resulting from the use of confectionary consists
+in the fondness for excitement which is produced. You will seldom find a
+person who depends daily and almost hourly on some excitement to his
+appetite and stomach, and is not satisfied with plain food, who will
+content himself to _study_ without unnatural excitements of the mind.
+Duty to himself or to others will not move him. He must have before him
+the hope of reward, or the fear of punishment. He must be moved by
+emulation or ambition, or some other questionable or wicked motive or
+passion.
+
+But the _moral_ results, to the young, of using confectionary, are still
+more dreadful. I do not here refer to the danger of meeting with bad
+company at the shops themselves, or of going from these places of
+pollution _directly_ to the grog-shop, the gambling-house, or the
+brothel; though there is danger enough, even here. But I allude to the
+tendency which a habit of not resting satisfied with plain food, but of
+depending on exciting things, has, to make us dissatisfied with plain
+moral enjoyments--the society of friends, and the quiet discharge of our
+duty to God and our neighbor. Just in proportion as we gratify our
+propensity for excitement at the confectioner's shop, just in the same
+proportion do we expose ourselves to the, danger of yielding to
+temptation, should other gratifications present themselves. The young of
+both sexes who are in the use of confectionary, are on the high road to
+gluttony, drunkenness, or debauchery; perhaps to all three. I do not say
+they will certainly arrive there, for circumstances not quite miraculous
+may pluck them as "brands from the burning;" but I do not hesitate to
+say that such is the inevitable tendency; and I call on every mother and
+teacher who reads this section, to beware of confectionaries, and see,
+if possible, that the young never set foot in them. They are a road
+through which thousands pass to the chamber of death--death to the
+immortal spirit, as well as to the body, its vehicle.
+
+More might be added--for this is an important subject--but I trust I
+have said enough. Those who have read and believe what I have written,
+if they remain wholly unaffected and unmoved, would not be roused to
+effort were anything to be added.
+
+
+SEC. 12. _Pastry._
+
+Dr. Paris, a distinguished British writer on diet, says that all pastry
+is "an abomination." And yet, go where we will, we find it often on the
+table. Hardly any one, whether old or young, attempts to do without it.
+
+There are indeed some, who will not eat pie-crust, or high-seasoned
+cakes formed of paste; but yet will not hesitate to eat hot bread, or
+rolls, or biscuits made of wheat flour, bolted. Now what is this but
+paste? If we could see the contents of the stomach, an hour after the
+mass is swallowed, we should find it to be paste, and _mere_ paste.
+
+And yet the evil is increasing everywhere. So generally is this true,
+that a person who refuses to eat hot bread, or cake, or biscuit, is
+deemed singular. He who ventures to lift his voice against it is deemed
+an ascetic or a visionary. But such a voice must be raised, and heard,
+too, whether its monitions are or are not regarded.
+
+Pastry is less objectionable, however, when used in the form of hot
+bread, &c., than when butter or fat is mixed with it. Then it becomes
+one of the most indigestible substances in the world. Besides, it not
+only tries the patience of the stomach, but according to Willich, whose
+authority ranks high, it tends to produce diseases of the skin,
+especially a disease which he calls "copper in the face," and which he
+pronounces incurable.
+
+I know not whether the eruptions so common on the faces of young people
+in this country, and especially of young men, are in every instance
+either produced or aggravated by pastry; but I am very sure of one
+thing, viz., that those who are in the use of pastry, and have eruptions
+of the skin of any kind, will not be apt to get well, as long as they
+continue the use of this objectionable substance.
+
+Physicians are often consulted about eruptions on the face. When they
+assign the real cause, which is undoubtedly connected with the improper
+gratification of some of the appetites, in one way or another, it is
+seldom that the patient has self-command enough to follow his
+prescription of temperance or abstinence. Mothers, it is yours to
+prevent this mischief;--first, by establishing correct physical habits;
+secondly, by teaching your children the great duty of self-denial--not
+only by precept, but by your own good example.
+
+
+SEC. 13. _Crude or Raw Substances._
+
+I have reserved this section for remarks on certain articles used at our
+fashionable modern tables, of which I could not well find it convenient
+to speak elsewhere. And first, of SALADS, and HERBS used in cooking;
+such as asparagus, artichokes, spinage, plantain, cabbage, dock,
+lettuce, water-cresses, chives, &c.
+
+Several of these substances are often eaten raw, in which state they are
+exceedingly indigestible, at the best; and they are rendered still more
+beyond the reach of the powers of the stomach, by the oil or vinegar
+which is added to them. Boiled, they are more tolerable; especially
+asparagus. In the midst, however, of such an abundance of excellent food
+as this country affords, it is most surprising that anybody should ever
+take it into their heads to eat such crude substances; and above all,
+that they should fill children's stomachs with them. What child, with an
+unperverted appetite, would not prefer a good ripe apple, or peach, or
+pear, to the most approved raw salads?--and a good baked one, to the
+best boiled asparagus?
+
+NUTS, in general, are probably made for other animals rather than man;
+though of this we cannot in the present infancy of human knowledge be
+quite certain. But if any of them were intended, by the Creator, for
+man, it is the chesnut; and this should be boiled. Boiled chesnuts are
+used as food, in many parts of southern Europe; and to a very
+considerable extent.
+
+SPICES, as they are sometimes called, such as nutmeg, mace, pepper,
+pimento; cubebs, cardamoms, juniper berries, ginger, calamus, cloves,
+cinnamon, caraway, coriander, fennel, parsley, dill, sage, marjoram,
+thyme, pennyroyal, lavender, hyssop, peppermint, &c., are unfit for the
+human stomach--above all in infancy--except as medicines.
+
+There are several other vegetables equally objectionable with the last,
+though they cannot be classed under the same head. Such are mustard,
+horseradish, raw onions, garlic, cucumbers, and pickles. No appetite
+which has not been accustomed to these substances in early infancy, will
+ever require them. Not that they may not sometimes be useful in enabling
+the stomach--at every age--to get rid of certain substances with which
+it has been improperly or unreasonably loaded;--this is undoubtedly the
+fact; ardent spirits would do the same. And it is with a view to some
+such effect, generally, that medical writers have spoken in their favor.
+Some of them stimulate the stomach to get rid of a load of _green_
+fruit; others, of a load of _fat_ or _salt_ food; others, again,
+of too large a _quantity_ of food which is naturally wholesome.
+
+But in all these cases, they should be considered, not as food, but as
+medicine; and we ought to call them by their right name. And if we
+withhold the cause of the disease, there will be no need of the
+medicine.
+
+
+
+
+CHAPTER VIII.
+
+DRINKS.
+
+Infants need little drink. Adults, even, generally drink to cool
+themselves. Simple water the best drink. Opinions of Dr. Oliver and Dr.
+Dewees. Animal food increases thirst. Only one real drink in the world.
+The true object of all drink. Tea, coffee, chocolate, beer, &c. Milk and
+water, molasses and water, &c. Cider, wine, and ardent spirits. Bad food
+and drink the most prolific sources of disease. Children naturally
+prefer water. Danger of hot drinks. Cold drinks. Mischief they produce.
+Caution to mothers. Extracts. Drinking cold water, while hot.
+
+
+Children need little if any drink, so long as their food is nothing but
+milk; nor indeed for some time afterward, unless they are indulged in
+the use of animal food. Adults, even, very seldom drink merely to quench
+natural thirst. In the summer, people usually drink either to cool
+themselves, or to gratify a thirst which is wholly artificial. Tea,
+coffee, beer, cider, and most other common drinks, when not used for the
+sake of their coolness, are drank, both in winter and summer, for this
+purpose.
+
+That this is the fact, we have the most abundant and unequivocal
+evidence. I know that much is said of the demand which a profuse
+perspiration creates among hard laborers in the summer. Such a sudden
+abstraction of a large amount of fluid requires, it is said, a
+proportional supply, or life would soon become extinct. Yet there are
+many old men who have perspired profusely at their labor all their days,
+and yet have drank nothing at all, except their tea, morning and
+evening; and perhaps have eaten, for one or two of their meals daily, in
+summer, a bowl of bread and milk. And some of them are among the most
+remarkable instances of longevity which the country affords.
+
+How the system acquires a sufficient supply of moisture to keep up good
+health, in these cases, I do not pretend to determine: perhaps it is
+through the medium of the lungs. But at any rate, it can obtain it
+without our drinking for that sole purpose, to the great danger of
+exciting liver complaints, diarrhoea, dyspepsia, colds, rheumatisms, and
+fevers.
+
+But if adults who perspire freely do not require much drink, children
+certainly do not; and above all, young children. And if they do require
+any thing, it is only simple water. The following remarks of Dr. Oliver,
+of Hanover, N.H., are extracted from Dr. Mussey's late Prize Essay on
+Ardent Spirits:
+
+"Who has not observed the extreme satisfaction which children derive
+from quenching their thirst with pure water? And who that has perverted
+his appetite for drink, by stimulating his palate with bitter beer, sour
+cider, rum and water, and other beverages of human invention, but would
+be a gainer, even on the score of mere animal gratification, without any
+reference to health, if he could bring back his vitiated taste to the
+simple relish of nature?
+
+"Children drink because they are dry. Grown people drink, whether dry or
+not, because they have discovered a way of making drink pleasant.
+Children drink water because this is a beverage of nature's own brewing,
+which she has made for the purpose of quenching a natural thirst. Grown
+people drink anything but water, because this fluid is intended to
+quench only a natural thirst; and natural thirst is a thing which they
+seldom feel."
+
+There is a great deal of truth, as well as of sound philosophy, in these
+two paragraphs, and little less of truth in the following paragraph from
+Dr. Dewees:
+
+"We have witnessed very often, with sorrow, parents giving to their
+young children wine, or other stimulating liquors. Nature never intended
+anything stronger than water to be the drink for children. This they
+enjoy greatly; and much advantage is occasionally experienced from its
+use, especially after they have commenced the use of animal food."
+
+Two things are to be observed in the last remarks, which are, that
+children demand drink of any kind but seldom, and that even this
+occasional demand is often the special result of the use of animal food.
+Here comes out an important secret. It is the use of animal food, to a
+very great degree, in adults and children both, that creates so much of
+that unnatural thirst which prevails in the community. When we shall
+come to lay aside animal food, in childhood, youth, manhood and age,
+much that is now _called_ thirst will be banished; and much of the
+intemperance and other kinds of sensuality which follow in its train.
+
+It has been sometimes said that there is but one kind of drink in the
+world--and that is water. This is strictly, or rather _physiologically_
+true. For, though many mixtures are _called_ drinks, it is only the
+water which they contain that answers any of the legitimate purposes for
+which drink was intended by the Creator.
+
+The object of drink, besides quenching our thirst, or rather _while_ it
+quenches it, is, not to be digested, like food, but to pass directly
+from the stomach into the blood-vessels, and dilute and temper the
+blood, rendering it more fit to answer the great purpose of sustaining
+life and health. Now, there is nothing that can do this but water.
+Alcohol cannot do it, nor can turpentine, oil, quicksilver, melted lead,
+or any other liquid.
+
+Tea, coffee, chocolate, small beer, soda water, lemonade, &c., which are
+nearly all water, quench the thirst very well, it is true; but not quite
+so well as water alone would. The narcotic principle of the first two,
+the alcoholic principle of the fourth, and the mucilage, nutriment,
+acid, and alkali of the rest, are in the way; for thirst would be
+quenched still better without them, even when it is of an unnatural
+kind.
+
+Indeed, the same or similar remarks may be made in regard to all other
+mixtures which are usually proposed as drinks. Even milk and water,
+molasses and water, &c., in favor of which so much is said, are
+objectionable, as mere drinks. Not that they contain anything poisonous,
+but they evidently contain nutriment; and even this, except as a part or
+the whole of a regular meal, does harm; for it sets the stomach at work
+when it needs repose. Mere drink, as I have already said, is never
+digested.
+
+But if the drinks above mentioned, and even milk and water, are
+objectionable, what shall we say of cider, wine, and ardent
+spirits?--substances which contain, the latter one half, and the two
+former from one twentieth to one fourth alcohol. Surely, nobody will
+deny that these substances ought, at all events, to be banished from the
+nursery. And yet we occasionally find them there, not only for the use
+of the mother, to the ruin of the child, indirectly--but also, in some
+of their smoother forms, for the use of the child itself.
+
+I would not lay too much stress on food and drink; for, as I have
+already observed, more than once, the causes of infantile ill health and
+mortality are numerous. Still I must insist that, of all the sources of
+disease, these are the most prolific. Much is done towards ruining the
+health of children by the improper food and drink of the mother. But
+when, in addition to all this, the children themselves are early fed
+with animal food, and with stimulating drinks--punch, coffee, tea,
+&c.--and an artificial thirst is early excited and rendered habitual,
+their destruction, for time and eternity, is almost inevitable.
+
+Very few children relish any drink but water, or sweetened water, at
+first; and where they do, it is probably hereditary. I have been struck
+with their tastes and preferences; nor less with the folly of those
+around them, in endeavoring to change them, by requiring them--almost
+always against their will--to sip a little coffee, or a little tea, or
+a little lemonade; or, it may be, a little toddy. Such children _may_
+escape the death of the drunkard or the debauchee; but if they do, it
+will not be through the instrumentality of the parents.
+
+I am very much opposed to giving children hot drinks of any kind. If
+they are to drink substances which are injurious, as tea or coffee, let
+them be cool. I do not say _cold_, for that would be going to the other
+extreme. But no drink, in any ordinary case, should be above the heat of
+our bodies; that is, about 98 degrees of Fahrenheit's thermometer. Yet
+the precautions of this paragraph will be almost unnecessary, if
+children are confined--as they ought to be, and would be, did we not go
+out of our way to teach them otherwise--to water, as their only drink.
+Cold water is almost always preferred. Not one child in a thousand would
+ever prefer it hot, until his taste had been perverted. No writer has
+inveighed more against hot drinks of every kind, than the late William
+Cobbett--and, as I think, with more justice.
+
+But, in avoiding one rock, we must not, as has already been intimated,
+make shipwreck on another. Hot drinks, though they injure the powers of
+the stomach, and by that means and through that medium, are one
+principal cause of the almost universal early decay of teeth, are yet
+less injurious, or at least less dangerous, immediately, than cold ones.
+Mr. Locke, in speaking of the sports of a child, in the open air, has
+the following quaint, but judicious remarks:
+
+"Playing in the open air has but this one danger in it, that I know; and
+that is, that when he is hot with running up and down, he should sit or
+lie down on the cold or moist earth. This, I grant, and drinking cold
+drink, when they are hot with labor or exercise, brings more people to
+the grave, or to the brink of it, by fevers and other diseases, than
+anything I know. These mischiefs are easily enough prevented when he is
+little, being then seldom out of sight. And if, during his childhood, he
+be constantly and rigorously kept from sitting on the ground, or
+drinking any cold liquor, while he is hot, the custom of forbearing,
+grown into _habit_, will help much to preserve him, when he is no longer
+under his maid's or tutor's eye.
+
+"More fevers and surfeits are got by people's drinking when they are
+hot, than by any one thing I know. If he (the child) be very hot, he
+should by no means _drink_; at least a good piece of bread, first to be
+eaten, will gain time to warm his drink _blood hot_, which then he may
+drink safely. If he be very dry, it will go down so warmed, and quench
+his thirst better; and if he will not drink it so warmed, abstaining
+will not hurt him. Besides, this will teach him to forbear, which is a
+habit of the greatest use for health of mind and body too."
+
+The last remarks are full of wisdom. Mothers may depend upon it, that
+every indulgence to which they accustom their children paves the way for
+_habitual_ indulgence; and has a tendency to lead, indirectly, to
+indulgence in other matters; and, on the contrary, every self-denial
+which they can lead children to exercise, voluntarily--even in these
+every-day matters of food, drink, exercise, &c. is so much gained in the
+great work of self-denial and the resisting of temptation in matters of
+higher importance. But I must not moralize too long; having dwelt on
+this same point under the head Confectionary. I proceed, therefore, to
+make a few more extracts from Mr. Locke:
+
+"Not being permitted to _drink_ without eating, will prevent the custom
+of having the cup often at his nose; a dangerous beginning."
+
+"Men often bring habitual hunger and thirst on themselves by custom."
+
+"You may, if you please, bring any one to be thirsty every hour."
+
+"I once lived in a house, where, to appease a froward child, they gave
+him _drink_ as often as he cried, so that he was constantly bibbing.
+And though he could not speak, yet he drank more in twenty-four hours
+than I did."
+
+"It is convenient, for health and sobriety, to drink no more than
+natural thirst requires; and he that eats not salt meats, nor drinks
+strong drink, will seldom thirst between meals."
+
+Great mischief is often done to their health by children at school; and
+one instance of this is, in getting violently heated with exercise, and
+then pouring down large quantities of cold water to cool themselves. I
+once made it a habitual rule for pupils, that they must drink water, if
+they drank it at all, on leaving their seats to go to their plays, but
+not afterwards: and I was so situated that I could prevent the law from
+being broken, as there was no spring or well to which they could have
+access, privately. And though they thought the rule rather severe, I
+have no doubt it saved them from much injury, and perhaps sometimes from
+sickness.
+
+
+
+
+CHAPTER IX.
+
+GIVING MEDICINE.
+
+"Prevention" better than "cure." Nine in ten infantile diseases caused
+by errors in diet and drink. Signs of failing health. Causes of a bad
+breath. Flesh eaters. Gormandizers. General rule for preventing disease.
+When to call a physician.
+
+
+So much error prevails in regard to the medical management of the young,
+that a volume might be written without exhausting the subject.[Footnote:
+Such a volume is in preparation. It is intended as a companion to the
+present.] My present limits and plan allow of only a few remarks, and
+those must be general.
+
+That "an ounce of prevention is worth a pound of cure," has so long ago
+become a proverb, that it seems almost idle to repeat the sentiment. And
+yet it is to be feared that very few receive it as a practical truth, in
+the management of children. Now nothing is more certain than that it is
+easier, as well as more humane, to prevent diseases than to cure them.
+
+I have elsewhere mentioned the opinion of a very eminent physician,
+that nine in ten of children's diseases may be imputed to error with
+regard to the quantity or the quality of their food. For myself, I am by
+no means certain that nine out of ten is the exact proportion, though I
+think the number is, at all events, very large. Few children, or even
+grown persons, are seized with disease suddenly. Their progress towards
+it is always gradual, and sometimes imperceptible. To a physician of any
+tolerable degree of skill, however, there is no difficulty in observing
+and pointing out the first steps towards illness; in those whose habits
+of life are well known to him; and of foretelling the consequence.
+
+But since parents and nurses are not so well qualified as physicians to
+make these observations, I will endeavor to point out a few certain
+signs and symptoms by which they may know a child's health to be
+declining, even before be appears to be sick.--For if these are
+neglected, the evil increases, goes on from bad to worse, and more
+violent and apparent complaints will follow, and perhaps end in
+incurable diseases, which a timely remedy, or a slight change in the
+diet and manner of life, would have infallibly prevented.
+
+"The first tendency to disease," says Dr. Cadogan, "may be observed in a
+child's breath. It is not enough that the breath is not offensive; it
+should be sweet and fragrant, like a nosegay of fresh flowers, or a pail
+of new milk from a young cow that feeds upon the sweetest grass of the
+spring; and this as well at first waking in the morning, as all day
+long." [Footnote: Buchan's "Advice to Mothers," pages 337, 388]
+
+There is much of truth in these remarks; but if they are wholly true,
+then very few children are perfectly healthy. For no child that eats
+much animal food of any sort, or, what amounts to nearly the same thing,
+much butter or gravy, will long retain the fragrant breath here alluded
+to. Who has not observed the difference in this respect, between animals
+in general which feed on flesh, and those which feed on grass? And
+whether it is the character of their respective food that makes the
+difference or not, it is also true that there is nearly as much
+difference of breath between _men_ who use animal food and those who do
+not, as between other animals. The breath of some of our enormous meat
+eaters would almost remind one of a slaughter house.
+
+Nor is it the quality of food alone, that will induce a foul breath,
+either in adults or infants. He who swallows such enormous quantities,
+even of plain food, as by overloading and fatiguing the stomach, tend
+gradually to debilitate it, will produce the same effect. The enormous
+feeders of this full feeding country, whether they are young or old,
+whether they inhabit the mountain or the vale, and whether they feed on
+animal food or not, have generally a bad breath; and if they seldom
+offend, it is because few feed otherwise. And it is not too much--in my
+own opinion--to say of this whole class of gormandizers, no less than of
+the flesh eaters, that they have laid for themselves the foundation of
+future disease.
+
+One general rule may here be distinctly laid down. As a child's breath
+becomes hot and feverish, or strong, or acid, we may be certain that
+"digestion and surfeit have fouled and disturbed the blood; and now is
+the time to apply a proper remedy, and prevent a train of impending
+evils. Let the child be restrained in its food. Let it eat less, live
+upon milk or thin broth for a day or two, and be carried (or walk if it
+is able) a little more than usual in the open air." [Footnote: Advice to
+Mothers, page 338]
+
+This rule is the more important, because, if duly persevered in, it will
+generally prevent disease, and save the trouble and evil consequences of
+taking medicine at all. Meanwhile it will be advisable to call in a
+physician--not to give drugs, but to prevent the necessity of giving
+them. There is a foolish fear abroad that physicians, if called before a
+person is violently sick, will dose him with their drugs, as a matter of
+course, till they _make_ him sick. But this, no judicious physician will
+ever do. It may _have been_ done, though I believe it has been seldom.
+The more general course is to defer calling for medical advice, till it
+is too late to use preventive means; and medicine is then resorted to by
+the physician as a sort of necessary evil.
+
+A judicious physician, seasonably called in, would in many instances
+save a severe fit of sickness, besides a great deal of expense, both of
+time and money.
+
+But if the first symptoms of approaching disease are overlooked--if the
+child is fed, or rather crammed; with solid food as much as ever--and if
+no medical advice is sought, his sleep will soon become disturbed; he
+will be talking, starting, and tumbling about, and will have frightful
+dreams; or he will at other times be found smiling and laughing. To
+these, in the end, may be added, loss of appetite, paleness, emaciation,
+weakness, cough, and consumption; or colics, worms, and convulsions.
+
+I do not undertake to say that the most judicious parental management,
+aided by the greatest medical skill, will always prevent disease; far
+from it. The child may and undoubtedly sometimes does inherit a tendency
+to a particular disease; or he may be made sick by error in regard to
+dress, exercise, &c. But so long as nine tenths of the disease and early
+mortality of the young might be prevented by due attention to all these
+means combined, so long will it be necessary to reiterate the sentiments
+of the present section.
+
+
+
+
+CHAPTER X
+
+EXERCISE.
+
+SEC. 1. Objections to the use of cradles.--SEC. 2. Carrying in the
+arms--its uses and abuses.--SEC. 3. Creeping--why useful--to be
+encouraged.--SEC. 4. Walking--general directions about it.--SEC. 5.
+Riding abroad in carriages.--SEC. 6. Riding on horseback--objections.
+Riding schools.
+
+
+This subject may be considered under the following heads: ROCKING IN THE
+CRADLE; CARRYING IN THE ARMS; CREEPING; WALKING; RIDING IN A CARRIAGE;
+AND RIDING ON HORSEBACK. These I shall consider in their order.
+
+
+
+SEC. 1. _Rocking in the Cradle._
+
+There are two opinions in regard to the use of the cradle in the
+nursery. Some condemn it altogether; others think its occasional use
+highly proper. Those who condemn it, do it chiefly on the ground that it
+produces a whirling motion of the brain, which, while it inclines to
+giddiness and lulls to sleep, disturbs, in some degree, the process of
+digestion.
+
+It seems to me that there is weight to this objection; and although the
+cradle has been extensively used without producing any obviously evil
+effects, I should greatly prefer to have it universally laid aside. As
+far as mere amusement is demanded, it is quite unnecessary, since there
+are so many amusements which are far better. As a means of inducing
+sleep, I am still more strongly opposed to it; for if a child be
+rationally treated in every other respect, it will never need artificial
+means to induce it to sleep. Nature will then be the most appropriate
+directress in this matter.
+
+If there is a cradle in a nursery, it is almost always full of clothes
+loaded with air more or less impure, and the child is buried in it more
+than is compatible with health, even in the judgment of the mother or
+the nurse; for so convenient is its use, and so great the temptation to
+keep the child in it, that he will often be found soaking there a large
+proportion of his time. Every one knows that the air has not so free
+access to a child in the cradle as elsewhere, especially if it have a
+kind of covering or hood to it, as we often see. Besides, the cradle is
+a piece of furniture which takes up a great deal of space in the
+nursery; and every one who has made the trial effectually, will, it
+seems to me, greatly prefer its room to its company.
+
+If any cradle is to be used, those are best which are suspended by
+cords, and are swung, rather than rocked. And this swinging should be in
+a line with the body of the child as much as possible; as this motion is
+less likely to produce injury than its opposite.
+
+
+SEC. 2. _Carrying in the Arms._
+
+This is the most appropriate exercise for the first two months of
+existence; and indeed, one of the best for some time afterward.
+
+Although a healthy, thriving child ought to sleep, for some time after
+birth, from two thirds to three fourths of his time, yet it should never
+be forgotten that the demand for proper exercise during the rest of the
+time, is not the less imperious on this account; but probably the more
+so.
+
+I have already mentioned the importance of bathing, which is one form of
+exercise, and of gentle motion in the arms, immediately afterward. The
+same gentle motion should be often repeated during the day; care being
+taken to hold the child in such a position as will be easy to him, and
+favorable to the free exercise of all his limbs and muscles.
+
+There are many mothers and nurses, who not only rejoice that the infant
+inclines to sleep a great deal, since it gives them more liberty, but
+who take pains to prolong these hours beyond what nature requires, by
+artificial means. I refer not only to the use of the cradle, but to
+means still more artificial--the use of cordials and opiates, to which I
+have already adverted. But whatever the means used may be, they defeat
+the purposes of nature, and are in the highest degree reprehensible.
+Nothing but the most chilling poverty should prevent the mother from
+having the child--for a few weeks of its first existence at least--in
+her own arms, nearly all the time which is not absolutely demanded for
+repose. She should even invite it to wakefulness, rather than encourage
+sleep.
+
+Attention to exercise ought to be commenced before the child is more
+than ten days old. For this purpose he should be placed on his back, on
+a pillow, in order that the body may rest at as many points as possible.
+In this position he has the opportunity to move his limbs with the most
+perfect freedom, and to exercise his numerous muscles. There is nothing
+more important to the infant--not even sleep itself--than the action of
+all his muscles; and nothing contributes more to his rapid growth.
+
+At first, the body should be kept, while on the arm, in nearly a
+horizontal position, with the head perhaps a very little elevated; but
+after a few weeks, it will be proper to change the position for a small
+part of the time; placing the body so that it may form an angle of a few
+degrees with the horizon. When this is done, however, it should always
+be by placing the hand against the shoulders and head, in such a manner
+as to support well the back; for it is extremely injurious to suffer the
+feeble spine to sustain, at this early period, any considerable weight.
+
+Still more erroneous is the practice of some careless nurses, of
+carrying the child quite upright a part of the time, almost without any
+support at all. There can be no doubt that the spinal column of many a
+child is injured for life in this way. There can be no apology for such
+things.
+
+But it is not sufficient to denounce, merely, the custom of holding the
+infant's body in an erect position. Every inquiring mother--and it is
+for such, and no other, that I write--will naturally and properly ask
+the reason why.
+
+The child is not born with all its bones solid. Some are mere cartilage
+for a considerable time. This is the case with the bones of the back.
+Now every person must see that the weight of the child's head and
+shoulders, resting for a considerable time on the slender cartilaginous
+spinal column, may easily bend it. And a curvature, thus given, may, and
+often does, deform children for life.
+
+Dr. Dewees mentions a nurse who, from a foolish fondness for displaying
+them, made the children consigned to her charge sit perfectly upright
+before they were a month old. It is truly ludicrous, he says, to see the
+little creatures sitting as straight as if they were stiffened by a back
+board. It is truly _horrible_, I should say, rather than ludicrous.
+Crooked spines must be the inevitable consequence, if nothing worse.
+
+The practice of bracing children, as it is called, by straps, back
+boards, corsets, &c., where it has produced any effect at all, has
+always had a tendency to crook the spine. This may be seen first, by
+observing one shoulder to be lower than the other, and next by a
+projection of the part of the shoulder blades next to the spine.
+Whenever these changes begin to appear, it is time to send for a
+physician, though it may often be too late to effect a cure. But on the
+general subject of bracing and corseting, I have treated at sufficient
+length elsewhere.
+
+There is another error committed in carrying children in the arms. The
+head of the infant is often permitted either to hang constantly on one
+side, or to roll about loosely; as if it hardly belonged to the body.
+In the former case there is danger of producing a habit of holding the
+head upon one side, which it will be very difficult to overcome; in the
+latter, the spinal marrow itself may be injured--which would produce
+alarming and perhaps fatal consequences.
+
+But all these evils, as has already been said, may be prevented, if the
+hand is placed so as to support the head and shoulders. Let not the
+mother, however, who reads this work, trust the matter wholly to a
+nurse; she must see to it herself; else she incurs a most fearful
+responsibility. The suggestions I have made are the more important in
+the case of children either very fleshy or very feeble, and of those
+disposed to rickets or scrofula; but they are important to all.
+
+I have said that the motion of the child, on the arm, should be gentle.
+Many are in the habit of tossing infants about. There can be no
+objection to a slight and slow movement up and down, for a minute or so
+at a time; indeed, it is rather to be recommended, as likely to give
+strength and vigor no less than pleasure to the child. But when such
+movements are carried to excess, so as to frighten the child, they are
+highly reprehensible. The shock thus produced to the nervous system has
+sometimes been so great as to produce sudden death. Nor is it safe to
+run, jump, or descend stairs hastily or violently, with a child in our
+arms; and for similar reasons.
+
+Infants should not be carried always on the same arm, for there is
+danger of contracting a habit of leaning to one side, and thus of
+becoming crooked. On this account, the arm on which they rest should be
+often changed. Nor should they be grasped too firmly. A skilful mother
+will hold a child quite loosely, with the most perfect safety; while an
+inexperienced one will grasp him so hard as to expose the soft bones to
+be bent out of their place, and yet be quite as liable to let him fall
+as she who handles him with more ease and freedom.
+
+
+SEC. 3. _Creeping._
+
+"Mankind must creep before they can walk," is an old adage often used to
+remind us of that patient application which is so indispensable to
+secure any highly important or valuable end. But it is as true
+literally, as it is figuratively. The act of creeping exercises in a
+remarkable degree nearly all the muscles of the body; and this, too,
+without much fatigue.
+
+Some mothers there indeed are, who think it a happy circumstance if a
+child can be taught to walk without this intermediate step. But such
+mothers must have strange ideas of the animal economy. They must never
+have thought of the pleasure which creeping affords the mind, or of the
+vigor it imparts to the body.
+
+Children are wonderfully pleased with their own voluntary efforts. What
+they can do themselves, yields them ten-fold greater pleasure than if
+done by the mother or the nurse. Yet the latter are exceedingly prone to
+forget or overlook all this--and to say, at least practically, that the
+only proper efforts are those to which themselves give direction.
+
+They are moreover exceedingly fond of display. Some mothers seem to
+act--in all they do with and for children--as if all the latter were
+good for, was display and amusement. They feed them, indeed, and strive
+to prolong their existence; but it appears to be for similar reasons to
+those which would lead them to take kind care of a pet lamb.
+
+It is on this account that they dress them out in the manner they do,
+strive to make them sit up straight, and prohibit their creeping. It is
+on this account too, as much perhaps as any other, that go-carts and
+leading strings are put in such early requisition. The contrary would be
+far the safer extreme; and the parent who keeps his child scrambling
+about upon the back as long as possible, and when he cannot prevent
+longer an inversion of this position, retains him at creeping as long
+as is in his power, is as much wiser, in comparison with him who urges
+him forward to make a prodigy of him, as he is who, instead of making
+his child a prodigy in mind or morals at premature age, holds him back,
+and endeavors to have his mental and moral nature developed no faster
+than his physical frame.
+
+I wish young mothers would settle it in their minds at once, that the
+longer their children creep the better. They need have no fears that the
+force of habit will retain them on their knees after nature has given
+them strength to rise and walk; for their incessant activity and
+incontrollable restlessness will be sure to rouse them as early as it
+ought. Least of all ought the difficulty of keeping them clean, to move
+them from the path of duty.
+
+Children who are allowed to crawl, will soon be anxious to do more. We
+shall presently see them taking hold of a chair or a table, and
+endeavoring to raise themselves up by it. If they fail in a dozen
+attempts, they do not give up the point; but persevere till their
+efforts are crowned with success.
+
+Having succeeded in raising themselves from the floor, they soon learn
+to stand, by holding to the object by which they have raised themselves.
+Soon, they acquire the art of standing without holding; [Footnote: The
+art of standing, which consists in balancing one's self, by means of the
+muscles of the body and lower limb--simple as it may seem to those who
+have never reflected on the subject--is really an important acquisition
+for a child of twelve or fifteen months. No wonder they feel a conscious
+pride, when they find themselves able to stand erect, like the world
+around them.] ere long they venture to put forward one foot--they then
+repeat the effort and walk a little, holding at the same time by a
+chair; and lastly they acquire, with joy to them inexpressible and to us
+inconceivable, the art of "trudging" alone.
+
+When children learn to walk in nature's own way, it is seldom indeed
+that we find them with curved legs, or crooked or clubbed feet. These
+deformities are almost universally owing either to the mother or the
+nurse.
+
+Let me be distinctly understood as utterly opposed, not only to
+go-carts, leading strings, and every other _mechanical_ contrivance, to
+induce children to walk before their legs are fit for it, but to efforts
+of every kind, whose main object is the same. Teaching them to walk by
+taking hold of one of their hands, is in some respects quite as bad as
+any other mode; for if the child should fall while we have hold of his
+hand, there is some danger of dislocating or otherwise injuring the
+limb.
+
+Falls we must expect; but if a child is left to his own voluntary
+efforts as much as possible, these falls will be fewer, and probably
+less serious, than under any other circumstances.
+
+
+SEC. 4. _Walking._
+
+"The way to learn how to write without ruled lines, is _to rule_," was
+the frequent saying of an old schoolmaster whom I once knew; and I may
+say with as much confidence and with more truth, that "the way for a
+child to learn to walk alone, is to hold by things."
+
+I have anticipated, in previous pages, much of what might have otherwise
+been contained in this section. A few additional remarks are all that
+will be necessary.
+
+At first, the nursery will be quite large enough for our young
+pedestrian. Much time should elapse before he is permitted to go abroad,
+upon the green grass;--not lest the air should reach him, or the sun
+shine upon his face and hands, but because the surface of the ground is
+so much less firm and regular than the floor, that he ought to be quite
+familiar with walking on the latter, in the first place.
+
+But when he can walk well in the play ground, garden, fields, and
+roads, it is highly desirable that he should go out more or less every
+day, when the weather will possibly admit; nor would I be so fearful as
+many are of a drop of rain or dew, or a breath of wind. For say what
+they will in favor of riding, sailing, and other modes of exercise,
+there is none equal to walking, as soon as a child is able;--none so
+natural--none, in ordinary cases, so salutary. I know it is unpopular,
+and therefore our young master or young miss must be hoisted into a
+carriage, or upon the back of a horse, to the manifest danger of health
+or limbs, or both.
+
+Who of us ever knew a herdsman or a shepherd who found it for the health
+and well-being of the young calf or lamb to hoist it into a carriage,
+and carry it through the streets, instead of suffering it to walk? Such
+a thing would excite astonishment; and the man who should do it would be
+deemed insane. The health and growth of our young domestic animals is
+best promoted by suffering them to walk, run, and skip in their own way.
+They ask no artificial legs, or horses, or carriages. But would it not
+be difficult to find arguments in favor of carrying children about, when
+they are able to walk, which would not be equally strong in favor of
+carrying about lambs and calves and pigs.
+
+This is the more remarkable from the consideration, elsewhere urged,
+that in general we take more rational pains about the physical
+well-being of domestic animals, than of children. However, it will be
+seen, on a little reflection, that the number of those who carry
+children about, is, after all, very inconsiderable. The greater portion
+of the community regard it as too troublesome or costly; and if poverty
+brought with it no other evils than a permit to children to walk on the
+legs which the Creator gave them, it could hardly be deemed a
+misfortune.
+
+It is scarcely necessary to add that there will be nothing gained to the
+young--or to persons of any age--from walks which are very long and
+fatiguing. Walking should refresh and invigorate: when it is carried
+beyond this, especially with the young child, we have passed the line of
+safety.
+
+
+SEC. 5. _Riding in Carriages._
+
+It will be seen by the foregoing section, that I am not very friendly to
+the use of carriages for the young, after they can walk. Before this
+period, however, I think they may be often serviceable; and there are
+occasional instances which may render them useful afterward. On this
+account, I have thought it might be well to give the following general
+directions.
+
+Carriages for children should be so constructed as not to be liable to
+overset. To this end, the wheels must be low, and the axle unusually
+extended. The body should be long enough to allow the child to lie down
+when necessary; and so deep that he may not be likely to fall out.
+Everything should be made secure and firm, to avoid, if possible, the
+danger of accidents.
+
+The carriage should be drawn steadily and slowly; not violently, or with
+a jerking motion. Such a place should be selected as will secure the
+child--if necessary--from the full blaze of a hot sun. This point might
+indeed be secured by having the carriage covered; but I am opposed to
+covered carriages, for children or adults, unless we are compelled to
+ride in the rain.
+
+While the child is unable to sit up without injury, and even for some
+months afterwards, he ought by all means to lie down in a carriage,
+because it requires more strength to sit in a seat which is moving, than
+in a place where he is stationary. In assuming the horizontal position,
+in a carriage, a pillow is needed, and such other arrangements as will
+prevent too much rolling.
+
+After the child's strength will fairly permit, he may sit up in the
+carriage, but he ought still to be secured against too much motion. As
+his strength increases, however, the latter direction will be less and
+less necessary. I need not repeat in this place, (had I not witnessed so
+many accidents from neglect,) the caution recently given, that great
+care should be taken to prevent the child from falling out of the
+carriage.
+
+While children are riding abroad in cold weather, much pains should be
+taken to see that they are suitably clothed. It is well to keep them in
+motion, while they are in the carriage, and especially to guard against
+their falling asleep in the open air, until they have become very much
+accustomed to being out in it.
+
+It has been said by some writers, that a ride ought never to exceed the
+length of half an hour; but no positive rule can be given, except to
+avoid over-fatigue.
+
+
+SEC. 6. _Riding on Horseback._
+
+While children are very young, I think it both improper and unsafe to
+take them abroad on horseback; I mean so long as they are in health. In
+case of disease, this mode of exercise is sometimes one of the most
+salutary in the world. But after boys are six or seven years old, and
+girls ten, if they are ever to practise horsemanship, it is time for
+them to begin; both because they are less apt to be unreasonably timid
+at this age, and because they learn much more rapidly.
+
+So few parents are good horsemen, that if there is a riding school at
+hand, I should prefer placing a child in it at once. But I wish to be
+distinctly understood, that I do not consider it a matter of importance,
+especially to females, that they should ever learn to ride at all.
+
+Some of the principal objections to riding on horseback, by boys, as an
+ordinary exercise, are the following:
+
+1. Walking, as I have already intimated, is one of the most HEALTHY
+modes of exercise in the world. It is nature's exercise; and was
+unquestionably in exclusive use long before universal dominion was given
+to man, if not for many centuries afterward; and I believe it would be
+very difficult to prove that it interfered at all with human longevity;
+for the first of our race lived almost a thousand years.
+
+2. Young children, in riding on horseback, are rather apt to acquire,
+rapidly, the habit of domineering over animals. It seems almost needless
+to say how easy the transition is, in such cases, should opportunity
+offer, from tyranny over the brute slave, to tyranny over the human
+being. There are slave-holders in the family and in the school, as well
+as elsewhere. It is the SPIRIT of a person which makes him either a
+tyrant or slave-holder. And let us beware how we foster this spirit in
+the children whom God has given us.
+
+
+
+
+CHAPTER XI.
+
+AMUSEMENTS.
+
+Universal need of amusements. Why so necessary. Error of schools. Error
+of families. Infant schools, as often conducted, particularly injurious.
+Lessons, or tasks, should be short. Mistakes of some manual labor
+schools. Of particular amusements in the nursery. With small wooden
+cubes--pictures--shuttlecock--the rocking horse--tops and
+marbles--backgammon--checkers--morrice--dice--nine-pins--skipping the
+rope--trundling the hoop--playing at ball--kites--skating and
+swimming--dissected maps--black boards--elements of letters--dissected
+pictures.
+
+
+However heterodox the concession may be, I am one of those who believe
+amusements of some sort or other to be universally necessary. Indeed I
+cannot possibly conceive of an individual in health, whatever may be the
+age, sex, condition, or employment, who does not need them, in a greater
+or less degree.
+
+Now if by the term amusement, I merely meant employment, nobody would
+probably differ from me--at least in theory. Every one is ready to admit
+the importance of being constantly employed. A mind unemployed is a
+VACANT mind. And a vacant or idle mind is "the devil's work-shop;" so
+says the proverb.
+
+By amusement, however, I mean something more than mere employment; for
+the more constantly an adult individual is employed, the greater,
+generally, is his demand for amusement. Indolent persons have less need
+of being amused than others; but perhaps there are few if any persons to
+be found, who are so indolent as not to think continually, on one
+subject or another. And it is this constant thinking, more than anything
+else, that creates the necessity of which I am speaking. The mere
+drudge, whether biped or quadruped--he, I mean, whose thinking powers
+are scarcely alive--has little need of the relief which is afforded by
+amusement.
+
+The young of all animals--man among the rest--appear to have such an
+instinctive fondness for amusement, that so long as they are
+unrestrained, they seldom need any urging on this point. In regard to
+_quality_, the case is somewhat different. In this respect, most
+children require attention and restraint; and some of them a great deal
+of it.
+
+But what is the nature of the amusement which adults--nay, mankind
+generally--require? I answer, it is relief from the employment of
+thinking. For it is not that mankind do not really think at all, that
+moralists complain so loudly. When they tell us that men will not
+think, they mean that they will not think as rational beings. They
+think, indeed; and so do the ox, and the horse, and the dog, and the
+elephant--but not as rational men ought to do; and this it is that
+constitutes the burden of complaint. But you will probably find few
+persons belonging to the human species who do not think constantly, at
+least while awake; and whose mental powers do not become fatigued, and
+demand relief in amusement.
+
+Children's minds are so soon wearied by a continuous train of thinking,
+even on topics which are pleasing to them, that they can seldom he
+brought to give their attention to a single subject long at once. They
+require almost incessant change; both for the sake of relief, and to
+amuse for the _sake_ of amusement. And it is, to my own mind, one of
+the most striking proofs of Infinite Wisdom in the creation of the human
+mind, that it has, during infancy, such an irresistible tendency to
+amusement.
+
+How greatly do they err, who grudge children, especially very young
+children, the time which, in obedience to the dictates of their nature,
+they are so fond of spending in sports and gambols! How much more
+rational would it be to encourage and direct them in their amusements!
+And how exceedingly unwise is the practice, whenever and wherever it
+exists, of confining them to school rooms and benches, not only for
+hours, but for whole half days at once.
+
+If individuals and circumstances were everywhere combined, with the
+special purpose to oppose the intentions of nature respecting the human
+being, at every step of his progress from the cradle to maturity, and
+from maturity to the grave, I hardly know how they could contrive to
+accomplish such a purpose more effectually than it is at present
+accomplished. But it is proper that I should here explain a little.
+
+All our family arrangements tend to repress amusement. Everything is
+contrived to facilitate business--especially the business or employments
+of adults. The child is hardly regarded as a human being,--certainly not
+as a _perfect_ being. He is considered as a mere fragment; or to change
+the figure, as a plant too young to be of any real service to mankind,
+because too young to bear any of its appropriate fruits. Whereas, in my
+opinion, both infancy and childhood, at every stage, should bring forth
+their appropriate fruits. In other words, the child of the most tender
+years should be regarded as a whole, and not as the mere fragment of a
+being; as a perfect member of a family--occupying a full and complete,
+only a more limited sphere than older members: and all the rules and
+regulations and arrangements of the family should have a reference to
+this point. So long as a child is reckoned to be a mere cipher in
+creation, or at most, as of no more practical importance, till the
+arrival of his twenty-first birth day, or some other equally arbitrary
+period, than our domestic animals--that is, of just sufficient
+consequence to be fed, and caressed, and fondled, and made a pet of--so
+long will our arrangements be made with reference to the comfort and
+happiness of adults. There may indeed be here and there a child's chair,
+or a child's carriage, or newspaper, or book; but there will seldom be,
+except by stealth, any free juvenile conversation at the table or the
+fireside. Here the child must sit as a blank or cypher, to ruminate on
+the past, or to receive half formed and passive impressions from the
+present.
+
+The arrangements of the infant school, also, seem designed for the same
+purpose--to repress as much as possible the infantile desire for
+amusement. Not that this was their original, nor that it now is their
+legitimate intention. Their legitimate object is, or should be, not to
+develope the intellect by over-working the tender brain, but to promote
+cheerfulness and health and love and happiness, by well contrived
+amusements, conducted as much as possible in the open air; and by
+unremitting efforts to elicit and direct the affections.
+
+Infant schools should repress rather than encourage the hard study of
+books. Lessons at this age should be drawn chiefly from objects in the
+garden, the field, and the grove; from the flower, the plant, the tree,
+the brook, the bird, the beast, the worm, the fly, the human body--the
+sun, or the visible heavens. These lessons, whether given by the parent,
+as constituting a part of the family arrangements, or by the infant or
+primary school teacher, should, it is true, be regarded for the time
+being as study, but they should never be long; and they should be
+frequently relieved by the most free and unrestrained pastimes and
+gambols of the young on the green grass, or beside the rippling stream,
+uninfluenced, or at least unrepressed, by those who are set over them.
+
+The public or common school, overlooking as it does any direct attempts
+to make provision for the amusement of the pupils, even during the
+scanty recess that is afforded them once in three hours, would appear to
+a stranger on this planet, at first sight, to be designed as much as
+possible to defeat every intention of nature with reference to the
+growth of the human frame. For we may often travel many hundred miles
+and not see so much as an enclosed play ground; and never perhaps any
+direct provision for particular and more favorable amusements.
+
+I might speak of other schools and places of resort for children, and
+proceed to show how all our arrangements appear to be the offspring of a
+species of utilitarianism which rejects every sport whose value cannot
+be estimated in dollars and cents. I might even refer to those schools
+of our country where these ultra utilitarian notions are carried to an
+extent which excludes amusing conversation or reading even during
+meal-time; and devotes the hours which were formerly spent in
+recreation, to manual labor of some productive kind or other.--But I
+forbear. Enough has been said to illustrate the position I have taken,
+that there is in vogue a system which bears the marks of having been
+contrived, if not by the enemies of our race, either openly or covertly,
+at least by those whom ignorance renders scarcely less at war with the
+general happiness.
+
+Now I would not deny nor attempt to deny that change of occupation of
+body or mind is of itself an amusement, and one too of great value.
+Undoubtedly it is so. To some children, studies of every kind are an
+amusement; and there are few indeed to whom none are so. Labor, with
+many, when alternated with study, is amusing. And yet, after all, unless
+such labors are performed in company, where light and cheerful
+conversation is sure to keep the mind away from the subjects about
+which it has just been engaged, I am afraid that the purposes for which
+amusements were designed, are very far from being _all_ secured.
+
+But perhaps I am dwelling too long on the general principle that people
+of every age, and children in particular, need, and must have
+amusements, whether they are of a productive kind or not; and that it is
+very far from being sufficient, were it either practicable or desirable,
+to turn all study and labor into amusement. [Footnote: I will even say,
+more distinctly than I have already done, that however popular the
+contrary opinion may be, neither study nor work ought to be regarded as
+mere amusement. I would, it is true, take every possible pains to render
+both work and study agreeable; but I would at the same time have it
+distinctly understood, that one of them is by no means the other; that,
+on the contrary, work is _work_--study, _study_--and amusement,
+_amusement_.] My business is with those who direct the first dawnings
+of affection and intellect. Principles are by no means of less importance
+on this account; but the limits of a work for young mothers do not admit
+of anything more than a brief discussion of their importance.
+
+I will now proceed to speak of some of the more common amusements of the
+nursery.
+
+I have seen very young children sit on the floor and amuse themselves
+for nearly half an hour together, with piling up and taking down small
+wooden cubes, of different sizes. Some of them, instead of being cubes,
+however, may be of the shape of bricks. Their ingenuity, while they are
+scarcely a year or two old, in erecting houses, temples, churches, &c.,
+is sometimes surprising. Girls as well as boys seem to be greatly amused
+with this form of exercise; and both seem to be little less gratified in
+destroying than in rearing their lilliputian edifices.
+
+Next to the latter kind of amusement, is the viewing of pictures. It is
+surprising at what an early age children may be taught to notice
+miniature representations of objects; living objects especially.
+Representations of the works of art should come in a little later than
+those of things in nature. I know a father who prepares volumes of
+pictures, solely for this purpose; though he usually regards them not
+only as a source of amusement to children, but as a medium of
+instruction.
+
+Battledoor or shuttlecock may be taught to children of both sexes very
+early; and it affords a healthy and almost untiring source of amusement.
+It gives activity as well as strength to the muscles or moving powers,
+and has many other important advantages. There is some danger, according
+to Dr. Pierson [Footnote: See his Lecture before the American Institute
+of Instruction] of distorting the spine by playing at shuttlecock too
+frequently and too long; but this will seldom be the case with little
+children in the nursery. Neither shuttlecock nor any other amusement
+will secure their attention long enough to injure them very much.
+
+Perhaps this exercise comes nearer to my ideas of a perfect amusement
+than almost any which could be named. The mind is agreeably occupied,
+without being fatigued; and if the amusements are proportioned to the
+age and strength of the child, there is very little fatigue of the body.
+It gives, moreover, great practical accuracy to the eye and to the hand.
+
+A rocking-horse is much recommended for the nursery. I have had no
+opportunity for observing the effects of this kind of amusement; but if
+it is one half as valuable as some suppose, I should be inclined to
+recommend it. But I am opposed to fostering in the rider lessons of
+cruelty, by arming him with whips and spurs. If the young are ever to
+learn to ride, on a living horse, the exercises of the rocking-horse
+will, most certainly, be a sort of preparation for the purpose.
+
+Tops and marbles afford a great deal of rational amusement to the young;
+and of a very useful kind, too. Spinning a top is second to no exercise
+which I have yet mentioned, unless it is playing at shuttlecock.
+
+Dr. Dewees recommends a small backgammon table, with men, but without
+dice. He says, also, that "children, as soon as they are capable of
+comprehending the subject, should be taught draughts or checkers. This
+game is not only highly amusing, but also very instructive." In another
+place he heaps additional encomiums upon the game of checkers. "It
+becomes a source of endless amusement," he says, "as it never tires, but
+always instructs." Of exercises which instruct, however, as well as
+amuse, I shall speak presently.
+
+The amusements called "morrice," "fox and geese," &c., with which some
+of the children of almost every neighborhood are more or less
+acquainted, are of the same general character and tendency as checkers.
+So is a play, sometimes, but very improperly, called dice, in which two
+parties play with a small bundle of wooden pins, not unlike knitting
+pins in shape, but shorter.
+
+The writer to whom I have referred above recommends nine-pins and balls
+of proper size, as highly useful both for diversion and exercise. If
+they can be used without leading to bad habits and bad associations, I
+think they may be useful.
+
+For girls, who demand a great deal more of exercise, both within doors
+and without, skipping the rope is an excellent amusement. So also is
+swinging. Both of these exercises may be used either out of doors, or
+in the nursery.
+
+Trundling a hoop I have always regarded as an amusing out-of-door
+exercise; and I am not sorry when I sometimes see girls, as well as
+boys, engaged in it, under the eye of their mothers and teachers.
+
+Playing ball, of which there are many different games, and flying kites,
+employ a large proportion if not all of the muscles of the body, in such
+a manner as is likely to confirm the strength, and greatly improve the
+health. The same may be said of skating in the winter, and swimming in
+the summer. But these last are exercises over which the mother cannot,
+ordinarily, have very much control.
+
+Under the head of amusements, it only remains for me to speak of a few
+juvenile employments of a mixed nature. Of these I shall treat very
+briefly, as they are a branch of the subject which does not necessarily
+come within the compass of my present plan. They are exercises, too,
+which should more properly come under the head of Infantile Instruction.
+
+Dissected maps afford children of every age a great fund of amusement;
+but much caution is necessary, with those that are very young, not to
+discourage or confound them by showing them too many at once. Thus if
+we cut in pieces the map of one of the smaller United States, at the
+county lines, or the whole United States, at the state lines, it is
+quite as many divisions as they can manage. Cut up as large a state,
+even, as Pennsylvania or New York is, into counties, and try to lead
+them to amuse themselves by putting together so large a number, many of
+which must inevitably very closely resemble each other, and it is ten to
+one but you bewilder, and even perplex and discourage them. The same
+results would follow from cutting up even the whole of a large county,
+or a small state, into towns. I have usually begun with little children,
+by requiring them to put together the eight counties of the small state
+of Connecticut. In this case the counties are not only few, but there is
+a very striking difference in their shape.
+
+A black board and a piece of chalk, along with a little ingenuity on the
+part of the mother, will furnish the child with an almost endless
+variety of amusement. Let him attempt to imitate almost any object which
+interests him, whether among the works of nature or art. However rude
+his pictures may be, do not laugh at, but on the contrary, endeavor to
+encourage him. He may also be permitted to imitate letters and figures.
+The elements of letters, too, both printed and written, may be given
+him, and he may be required to put them together. Dissected pictures, as
+well as dissected maps and letters, are useful, and to most children,
+very acceptable.
+
+In short, the devices of an ingenious, thinking mother, for the
+amusement of her very young children, are almost endless; and the great
+danger is, that when a mother once enters deeply into the spirit of
+these exercises, she will substitute them for those much more healthy
+ones which have been already mentioned, such as require muscular
+activity, or may be performed in the open air.
+
+
+
+
+CHAPTER XII.
+
+CRYING.
+
+Its importance. Danger of repressing a tendency to cry. Anecdote from
+Dr. Rush. Physiology of crying. Folly of attempting wholly to suppress
+it.
+
+
+"Crying," says Dr. Dewees, "should be looked upon as an exercise of much
+importance;" and he is sustained in this view by many eminent medical
+writers.
+
+But people generally think otherwise. Nothing is more common than the
+idea that to cry is unbecoming; and children are everywhere taught, when
+they suffer pain, to brave it out, and _not cry_. Such a direction--to
+say nothing of its tendency to encourage hypocrisy--is wholly
+unphilosophical. The following anecdote may serve in part to illustrate
+my meaning. It is said to have been related by Dr. Rush.
+
+A gentleman in South Carolina was about to undergo a very painful
+surgical operation. He had imbibed the idea that it was beneath the
+dignity of a man ever to say or do anything expressive of pain. He
+therefore refused to submit to the usual precaution of securing the
+hands and feet by bandages, declaring to his surgeon that he had nothing
+to fear from his being untied, for he would not move a muscle of his
+body. He kept his word, it is true; but he died instantly after the
+operation, from apoplexy.
+
+There is very little doubt, in the mind of any physiologist, in regard
+to the cause of apoplexy in this case; and that it might have been
+prevented by the relief which is always afforded by groans and tears.
+
+It is, I believe, very generally known, that in the profoundest grief,
+people do not, and cannot shed tears; and that when the _latter_ begin
+to flow, it affords immediate relief.
+
+I do not undertake to argue from this, that crying is so important,
+either to the young or the old, that it is ever worth while to excite or
+continue it by artificial means; or that a habit of crying, so easily
+and readily acquired by the young, is not to be guarded against as a
+serious, evil. My object was first to show the folly of those who
+denounce all crying, and secondly, to point out some of its
+advantages--in the hope of preventing parents from going to that extreme
+which borders upon stoicism.
+
+One of the most intelligent men I ever knew, frequently made it his
+boast that he neither laughed nor cried on any occasion; and on being
+told that both laughing and crying were physiologically useful, he only
+ridiculed the sentiment.
+
+Crying is useful to very young infants, because it favors the passage of
+blood in their lungs, where it had not before been accustomed to travel,
+and where its motion is now indispensable. And it not only promotes the
+circulation of the blood, but expands the air-cells of the lungs, and
+thus helps forward that great change, by which the dark-colored impure
+blood of the veins is changed at once into pure blood, and thus rendered
+fit to nourish the system, and sustain life.
+
+But this is not all. Crying strengthens the lungs themselves. It does
+this by expanding the little air-cells of which I have just spoken, and
+not only accustoms them to being stretched, at a period, of all others,
+the most favorable for this purpose, but frees them at the same time
+from mucus, and other injurious accumulations.
+
+They, therefore, who oppose an infant's crying, know not what they do.
+So far is it from being hurtful to the child, that its occasional
+recurrence is, as we have already seen, positively useful. Some
+practitioners of medicine, in some of the more trying situations in
+which human nature can be placed, even encourage their patients to
+suffer tears to flow, as a means of relief.
+
+Infants, it should also be recollected, have no other language by which
+to express their wants and feelings, than sighs and tears. Crying is not
+always an expression of positive pain; it sometimes indicates hunger and
+thirst, and sometimes the want of a change of posture. This last
+consideration deserves great attention, and all the inconveniences of
+crying ought to be borne cheerfully, for the sake of having the little
+sufferer remind us when nature demands a change of position. No child
+ought to be permitted to remain in one position longer than two hours,
+even while sleeping; nor half that time, while awake; and if nurses and
+mothers will overlook this matter, as they often do, it is a favorable
+circumstance that the child should remind them of it.
+
+Crying has been called the "waste gate" of the human system; the door of
+escape to that excess of excitability which sometimes prevails,
+especially among children and nervous adults. To all such persons it is
+healthy--most undoubtedly so; nor do I know that its occasional
+recurrence is injurious to any adult--a fastidious public sentiment to
+the contrary notwithstanding.
+
+Some have supposed, that what is here said will be construed by the
+young mother into a license to suffer her child to cry unnecessarily.
+Perhaps, say they, she is a laboring woman, and wishes to be at work.
+Well, she lays down her child in the cradle, or on the bed, and goes to
+her work. Presently the child, becoming wet perhaps, begins to cry, as
+well he might. But, instead of going to him and taking care of him, she
+continues at her employment; and when one remonstrates against her
+conduct as cruelty, she pleads the authority of the author of the "Young
+Mother."
+
+All this may happen; but if it should, I am not answerable for it. I
+have insisted strongly on guarding the child against wet clothing, and
+on watching him with the utmost care to prevent all real suffering.
+Mothers, like the specimen here given, if they happen to have a little
+sensibility to suffering, and not much love of their offspring,
+generally know of a shorter way to quiet their infants and procure time
+to work, than that which is here mentioned. They have nothing to do but
+to give them some cordial or elixir, whose basis is opium. Startle not,
+reader, at the statement;--this abominable practice is followed by many
+a female who claims the sacred name of mother. And many a wretch has
+thus, in her ignorance, indolence or avarice, slowly destroyed her
+children!
+
+I repeat, therefore, that I do not think my remarks on crying are
+necessarily liable to abuse; though I am not sure that there are not a
+few individuals to be found who may apply them in the manner above
+mentioned--an application, however, which is as far removed from the
+original intention of the author, as can possibly be conceived.
+
+
+
+
+CHAPTER XIII.
+
+LAUGHING.
+
+"Laugh and be fat." Laughing is healthy. A common error. Monastic
+notions yet too prevalent on this subject.
+
+
+Laughing, like crying, has a good effect on the infantile lungs; nor is
+it less salutary in other respects. "Laugh and be fat," an old adage,
+has its meaning, and also its philosophy.
+
+There is an excess, however, to which laughing, no less than crying, may
+be carried, and which we cannot too carefully avoid. But how little to
+be envied--how much to be pitied--are they who consider it a weakness
+and a sin to laugh, and in the plenitude of their wisdom, tell us that
+_the Saviour of mankind never laughed_. When I hear this last assertion,
+I am always ready to ask, whether the individual who makes it has read a
+new revelation or a new gospel; for certainly none of the sacred books
+which I have seen give us any such information.
+
+But I will not dwell here. The common notion on this subject, if not
+ridiculous, is certainly strange. I will only add, that, come into vogue
+as it might have done, there is no opinion more unfounded than the very
+general one among adults, that children should be uniformly grave; and
+that just in proportion as they laugh and appear frolicsome, just in the
+same proportion are they out of the way, and deserving of reprehension.
+
+It is strange that it should be so, but I have seen many parents who
+were miserable because their children were sportive and joyful. Oh, when
+will the days of monkish sadness and austerity be over; and the public
+sentiment in the christian world get right on this subject!
+
+
+
+
+CHAPTER XIV
+
+SLEEP.
+
+General remarks. Hints to fathers.--SEC. 1. Proper hours for repose.
+Dark rooms. Noise.--SEC. 2. Place for sleeping. Sleeping
+alone--reasons.--SEC. 3. Purity of the air in sleeping rooms.--SEC. 4.
+The bed. Objections to feathers. Other materials.--SEC. 5. The covering
+of beds. Covering the head.--SEC. 6. Night Dresses. Robes.--SEC. 7.
+Posture of the body in sleep.--SEC. 8. State of the mind.--SEC. 9.
+Quality of sleep.--SEC. 10. Quantity of sleep.
+
+
+Not a few persons consider all rules relative to sleep as utterly
+futile. They regard it as so much of a natural or animal process, that
+if we are let alone we shall seldom err, at any age, respecting it.
+Rules on the subject, above all, they regard as wholly misplaced.
+
+Those who entertain such views, would do well, in order to be
+consistent, to go a little farther; and as breathing and eating and
+drinking--nay, even _thinking_--are natural processes, deny the utility
+of all rules respecting _them_ also. Perhaps they would do well,
+moreover, to deny that rules of any sort are valuable. But would not
+this have the effect to bar the door perpetually against all human
+improvement? Would it not be equivalent to saying, to a half-civilized,
+because only half-christianized community--Go on with your barbarous
+customs, and your uncleanly and unthinking habits, forever?
+
+But I have not so learned human nature. I regard man as susceptible of
+endless progression. And I know of no way in which more rapid progress
+can be made, than by enlightening young mothers on subjects which
+pertain to our physical nature, and the means of physical improvement.
+Not for the _sake_ of that perishable part of man, the frame, but
+because it is nearly in vain to attempt to improve the mind and heart,
+without due attention to the frame-work, to which mind and heart, for
+the present, are appended, and most intimately related.
+
+Let it be left to fathers to study the improvement of hounds and horses
+and cattle, and at the same time to think themselves above the concerns
+of the nursery. We may, indeed, read of a Cato once in three thousand
+years, who was in the habit of quitting all other business in order to
+be present when the nurse washed and rubbed his child. But our passion
+for gain, in the present age, is so much more absorbing and
+soul-destroying than the passion for military glory, that we cannot
+expect many Catos. Oh no. All, or nearly all, must devolve on the
+mother. The father has no time to attend to his children! What belongs
+to the mother, if she can be duly awakened, may be at least _half_ done;
+what belongs to the father, must, I fear, be left undone.
+
+I am accustomed to regard every day--even of the infant--as a miniature
+life. I am, moreover, accustomed to consider mental and bodily vigor,
+not only for each separate day, but for life's whole day, as greatly
+influenced by the circumstances of sleep; the HOUR, PLACE, PURITY OF THE
+AIR, THE BED, THE COVERING, DRESS, POSTURE, STATE OF THE MIND, QUALITY,
+QUANTITY, AND DURATION.
+
+
+SEC. 1. _Hour for Repose._
+
+Generally speaking, the night is the appropriate season for repose; but
+in early infancy, it is _every_ hour. I have already spoken of the vast
+amount of sleep which the new-born infant requires, as well as of many
+other circumstances connected with it, requiring our attention. Suffer
+me, however, to enlarge, at the risk of a little repetition.
+
+What time the infant is awake, should be during the day. It is of very
+great importance, in the formation of good habits, that he should be
+undressed and put to bed, at evening, with as much regularity as if be
+had not slept during the day for a single moment. It is also important
+that he be permitted to sleep during the whole night, as uninterruptedly
+as possible; and that when he is aroused, to have his position or
+diapers changed, or to receive food, it should be done with little
+parade and noise, and with as little light as possible. All persons, old
+as well as young, sleep more quietly in a dark room, than in one where a
+light is burning.
+
+I am well aware that the course here recommended, may be carried to an
+excess which will utterly defeat the object intended, since there are
+children to be found, who are so trained in this respect, that the
+lightest tread upon the floor will awake, and perhaps frighten them. But
+this is an excess which is not required. All that is necessary during
+the night, is a reasonable degree of silence, in order to induce the
+habit of continued rest, if possible. In the day time, on the contrary,
+fatigue will impel a child to sleep occasionally, even in the midst of
+noise. I am not sure that the habit of sleeping in the midst of noise is
+not worth a little pains on the part of the mother. Nor is it improbable
+that a habit of this kind, once acquired by the infant, might ultimately
+be extended to the night, so that over-caution, even in regard to that
+season, might gradually be laid aside.
+
+Dr. North, a distinguished medical practitioner in Hartford, Conn.,
+confirms the foregoing sentiments; and adds, that he deems it an
+imperious duty of those parents who wish well to their infants, to form
+in them the habit of sleeping when fatigued, whether the room be quiet
+or noisy. With his children, no cradles or opiates are needed or used.
+
+
+SEC. 2. _Place._
+
+For some time after its birth, the infant should sleep near its mother,
+though not in the same bed. The bedstead should be of the usual height
+of bedsteads, and should be enclosed with a railing sufficient to secure
+the infant from falling out, but not of such a structure as to hinder,
+in any degree, a free circulation of the air.
+
+The reasons why a child ought to sleep alone, and not with the mother or
+nurse, are numerous; but the following are the principal;
+
+1. The heat accumulated by the bodies of the mother and child both, is
+often too great for health.
+
+2. The air is too impure. I have already spoken of the change in the
+purity of the air which is produced by breathing in it. It is bad
+enough for two adults to sleep in the same bed, breathing over and over
+again the impure air, as they must do more or less, even if the bed is
+very large;--but it is still worse for infants. Their lungs demand
+atmospheric air in its utmost purity; and if denied it, they must
+eventually suffer.
+
+3. But besides the change of the air by breathing, the surface of the
+body is perpetually changing it in the same manner, as was stated in the
+chapter on Ventilation. Now a child will almost inevitably breathe a
+stream of this bad air, as it issues from the bed; and what is still
+worse, it is very apt, in spite of every precaution, to get its head
+covered up with the clothes, where it can hardly breathe anything else.
+This, if frequently repeated, is slow but certain death;--as much so as
+if the child were to drink poison in moderate quantities.
+
+Let me not be told that this is an exaggeration; that thousands of
+mothers make it a point to cover up the beads of their infants; and that
+notwithstanding this, they are as healthy as the infants of their
+neighbors. I have not said that they would droop and die while infants.
+The fumes of lead, which is a certain poison, may be inhaled, and yet
+the child or adult who inhales them may live on, in tolerable health,
+for many years. But suffer he must, in the end, in spite of every effort
+and every hope. So must the child, whose head is covered habitually
+with the bed clothing, where it is compelled to breathe not only the air
+spoiled by its own skin, but also that which is spoiled by the much
+larger surface of body of the mother or nurse.
+
+But I have proof on this subject. Friedlander, in his "Physical
+Education," says expressly, that in Great Britain alone, between the
+years 1686 and 1800, no less than 40,000 children died in consequence of
+this practice of allowing them to sleep near their nurses. I was at
+first disposed to doubt the accuracy of this most remarkable statement.
+But when I consider the respectability of the authority from which it
+emanated, and that it is only about 350 a year for that great empire, I
+cannot doubt that the estimate is substantially correct. What a
+sacrifice at the shrine of ignorance and folly!
+
+It should be added, in this place, both to confirm the foregoing
+sentiment, and to show that British mothers and nurses are not alone,
+that Dr. Dewees has witnessed, in the circle of his practice, four
+deaths from the same cause. If every physician in the United States has
+met with as many cases of the kind, in proportion to his practice, as
+Dr. D., the evil is about as great in this country as Dr. F. says it is
+in Great Britain.
+
+If a child sleeps alone, it cannot of course be liable to as much
+suffering of this kind as if it slept with another person; though much
+precaution will still be necessary to keep its head uncovered, and
+prevent its inhaling air spoiled by its own lungs and skin.
+
+4. There is one more evil which will be avoided by having a child sleep
+alone. Many a mother has seriously injured her child by pressure. I do
+not here allude to those monsters in human nature, whose besotted habits
+have been the frequent cause of the suffocation and death of their
+offspring, but to the more careful and tender mother, who would sooner
+injure herself than her own child. Such mothers, even, have been known
+to dislocate or fracture a limb![Footnote: There may be instances where
+the debility of an infant will be so great that the mother or a nurse
+must sleep with it, to keep it warm. But such cases of disease are very
+rare.]
+
+To cap the climax of error in this matter, some mothers allow their
+infants to lie on their arm, as a pillow. This practice not only exposes
+them to all or nearly all the evils which have been mentioned, but to
+one more; viz. the danger of being thrown from the bed.
+
+A young mother, with whom I was well acquainted, was sleeping one night
+with her infant on her arm, when she made a sudden and rather violent
+effort to turn in the bed, in doing which she threw the child upon the
+floor with such violence as to fracture its little skull, and cause its
+death.
+
+Enough, I trust, has now been said to convince every reasonable young
+mother, where absolute poverty does not preclude comfort and health,
+that her child ought never to be permitted to sleep in the same bed with
+her; but that it should be placed on a bedstead by itself at a short
+distance from her, and properly guarded from accidents--and above all,
+from inhaling impure air.
+
+At a suitable age, a child may be removed from the nursery to a separate
+chamber. Here, if the circumstances permit, it should still sleep by
+itself; and if the bedstead be somewhat lower than ordinary, and the
+room be not too small, it will need no watching.
+
+Perhaps this may be the proper place to say that there are more reasons
+than one--and some of them are of a moral nature, too--why a child
+should continue to sleep alone, after it leaves the nursery. Nor is it
+sufficient to prohibit its sleeping with younger persons, and yet crowd
+it into the bed with an aged grandfather or grandmother, or with both.
+There is no excuse for a course like this, except the iron hand of
+necessity. And even then, I should prefer to have a child of mine sleep
+on the hard floor, at least during the summer season, rather than with
+an aged person.
+
+Let it not be supposed I have imbibed the fashionable idea that it is
+_peculiarly_ unhealthy for the young to sleep with the old. I know this
+doctrine has many learned advocates. And yet I doubt its correctness. I
+believe that the manners and habits of the old may injure the young who
+sleep with them, and I know that they render the air impure, like other
+people. But I cannot see why the mere circumstance of their being _old_
+should be a source of unhealthiness to their younger bed-fellows. Still
+I say, that there are reasons enough against the practice I am opposing,
+without this.
+
+Some parents allow dogs and cats to sleep with children. Others have a
+prejudice against cats, but not against dogs. The truth is, that they
+both contaminate the air by respiration and perspiration, in the same
+manner that adults do. And aside from the fact that they are often
+infested by lice and other insects, and addicted to uncleanly habits,
+they ought always to be excluded, and with iron bars and bolts, if
+necessary, from the beds of children. But of this, too, I have treated
+elsewhere.
+
+
+SEC. 3. _Purity of the Air._
+
+The general importance of pure air has been mentioned. I have spoken of
+the elements of the atmosphere in which we live, of the manner in
+which it may be vitiated, and the consequences to health. I have
+shown--perhaps at sufficient length--the impropriety of washing, drying,
+and ironing clothes in the room where a child is kept; of cooking in the
+room, especially on a stove; of suffering the floor or clothes,
+particularly those of the child, to remain long wet, in the room; of
+smoking tobacco, using spirits, burning oil with too long a wick, &c.
+
+All which has thus been said of the purity of the air of the nursery
+generally, is applicable to that of all sleeping rooms. It is an
+important point gained, when we can secure a nursery with folding doors
+in the centre, so as, when we please, to make two rooms of it. In that
+case, the division in which the bed is, can be completely ventilated a
+little before night, and thus be comparatively pure for the reception of
+both the mother and the child.
+
+Shall the windows and doors where a child sleeps, be kept closed; or
+shall they be suffered to remain open a part or the whole of the night?
+This must be determined by circumstances. If there are no doors but
+such as communicate with apartments whose air is equally impure with
+that in which the child is, it is preferable to keep them closed. If the
+windows cannot be opened without exposing the child to a current of air,
+it is perhaps the less of two evils, not to open them.
+
+But we are not usually driven to such extremities. In some instances,
+windows are constructed--and all of them ought to be--so that they can
+be lowered from the top. When this is not the case, something can be
+placed before the window to break the current, so that it need not fall
+directly upon the child. Closing the blinds will partially effect this,
+where blinds exist.
+
+I have known many an individual who was in the habit of sleeping with
+his windows open during the whole year, and without any obvious evil
+consequences. Dr. Gregory was of this habit. But if adults--not trained
+to it--can acquire such a habit with impunity, with how much more safety
+could children be trained to it from the very first year. Macnish says,
+"there can be no doubt that a gentle current pervading our sleeping
+apartments, is in the highest degree ESSENTIAL TO HEALTH."
+
+This consideration--I mean the impurity of sleeping rooms, even after
+every precaution has been used to keep them ventilated--affords one
+of the strongest inducements to going abroad early in the morning
+(especially when there is no other room which either adults or children
+can occupy) while the nursery or chamber is aired and ventilated. The
+utility of _rising_ early, I hope no one can doubt; but some have doubts
+of the propriety of going abroad, till the dew has "passed away." Such
+should be reminded, by the foregoing train of remarks, that early
+walking may be a choice of evils; and that if it _is_ on the whole
+advantageous to adults, it cannot be less so to children. And as soon as
+the sun has chased away the vapors of the night, if the weather is
+tolerable, most children should be carried abroad.
+
+
+SEC. 4. _The Bed._
+
+This should never be of feathers. There are many reasons for this
+prohibition, especially to the feeble.
+
+1. They are too warm. Infants should by all means be kept warm enough,
+as I have all along insisted. But excess of heat excites or stimulates
+the skin, causing an unnatural degree of perspiration, and thus inducing
+weakness or debility.
+
+2. When we first enter a room in which there is a feather bed which has
+been occupied during the night, we are struck with the offensive smell
+of the air. This is owing to a variety of causes; one of which probably
+is, that beds of this kind are better adapted to absorb and retain the
+effluvia of our bodies. But let the causes be what they may, the effects
+ought, if possible, to be avoided; for both experience and authority
+combine to pronounce them very injurious.
+
+3. Feather beds--if used in the nursery--will inevitably discharge more
+or less of dust and down; both of which are injurious to the tender
+lungs of the infant.
+
+Mattresses are better for persons of every age, than soft feather beds.
+They may be made of horse hair or moss; but hair is the best. If the
+mattress does not appear to be warm enough for the very young infant, a
+blanket may be spread over it. Dr. Dewees says that in case mattresses
+cannot be had, "the sacking bottom" may be substituted, or "even the
+floor;" at least in warm weather: "for almost anything," he adds, "is
+preferable to feathers."
+
+Macnish, in his "Philosophy of Sleep," objects strongly to air beds, and
+says that he can assert "from experience," that they are the very worst
+that can possibly be employed. My theories--for I have had no experience
+on the subject--would lead me to a similar conclusion. A British
+writer of eminence assures us that the higher classes in Ireland, to a
+considerable extent, accustom themselves and their infants to sleep on
+bags of cut straw, overspread with blankets and a light coverlid; and
+that the custom is rapidly finding favor. I have slept on straw, both in
+winter and summer, for many years, yet I am always warm; and those who
+know my habits say I use less _covering_ on my bed than almost any
+individual whom they have ever known.
+
+I have no hostility to soft beds, especially for young children and feeble
+adults, could softness be secured without much heat and relaxation
+of the system. On the contrary, it is certainly desirable, in itself,
+to have the bed so soft that as large a proportion of the surface of
+the body may rest on it as possible. But I consider hardness as a
+much smaller evil than feathers.
+
+It is worthy of remark how generally physicians, for the last hundred
+years, have recommended hard beds, especially straw beds or hair
+mattresses, to their more feeble and delicate patients. This fact might
+at least quiet our apprehensions in regard to their tendency on those
+who are accustomed to them in early infancy.
+
+Some writers on these subjects appear to doubt whether, after all that
+they say, they shall have much influence on mothers in inducing them to
+give up feather beds for their infants. But they need not be so
+faithless. Multitudes have already been reformed by their writings; and
+multitudes larger still would be so, could they gain access to them. It
+is a most serious evil that they are often so written and published that
+comparatively few mothers will ever possess them.
+
+The pillow, as well as the bed, should be rather hard; and its thickness
+should be much less than is usual, or we shall do mischief by bending
+the neck, and thus compressing the vessels, and obstructing the
+circulation of the blood. But on this subject I will say more, when I
+come to treat on "Posture."
+
+The child's bed should not be placed near the wall, on account of
+dampness. There is also, during the summer, another reason. Should
+lightning strike the house, it will be much more apt to injure those who
+are near the wall than other persons; as it seldom leaves the wall to
+pass over the central part of the room.
+
+Curtains are not only useless, but injurious. They prevent a free
+circulation of the air. Everything which has this tendency must be
+studiously guarded against, in the management of infants.
+
+Nothing is more injurious to the old or the young than damp beds and
+damp covering. It behoves, especially, all those who have the care of
+infants, to see that everything about their beds is thoroughly dry. The
+walls and clothes should also be dry; and wet clothes should never be
+hung up in the room. By neglecting these precautions, colds,
+rheumatisms, inflammations, fevers, consumptions, and death, may ensue.
+Many a person loses his health, and not a few their lives, in this way.
+The author of this work was once thrown into a fever from such a cause.
+
+Warming the bed is, in all cases, a bad practice. While in the nursery,
+if the air be kept at a proper temperature, there will be no need of it;
+after the child is assigned to a separate chamber, its enervating
+tendency would result in more evil than good. It is better to let the
+bed became gradually heated by the body, in a natural and healthy way.
+
+No person, and above all, no infant, should be suffered to sleep in a
+bed that has been recently occupied by the sick. The bed and all the
+clothes should first be thoroughly aired. Could we see with our eyes at
+once, how rapidly these bodies of ours fill the air, and even the beds
+we sleep in, with carbonic acid and other hurtful gases and impurities,
+even while in health, but much more so in sickness, we should be
+cautious of exposing the lungs of the tender infant, in such an
+atmosphere, until everything had been properly cleansed, and the
+apartments properly ventilated.
+
+
+SEC. 5. _The Covering._
+
+The covering of the bed should be sufficiently warm, but never any
+warmer than is absolutely necessary to protect the child from
+chilliness. The lightest covering which will secure this object is the
+best. Perhaps there is nothing in use that, with so little weight,
+secures so much heat as what are called "comfortables."
+
+The clothes should not be "tucked up" at the sides and foot of the bed
+with too much care and exactness. For when the bed is once warmed
+thoroughly with the child's body, the admission of a little fresh air
+into it, when he elevates or otherwise moves his limbs, can do no harm,
+but _may_ do much of good, in the way of ventilation. I deem it
+important, moreover, to inure children very early to little partial
+exposures of this kind.
+
+Those mothers who, from over-tenderness, and want of correct information
+on the subject, pursue a contrary course, and consider it as almost
+certain death to have a particle of fresh air reach the bodies of their
+infants during their slumbers, are generally sure to outwit themselves,
+and defeat their very intentions. For by being thus tender of their
+children, it often turns out that whenever the mother is ill, or when on
+any other account she ceases to watch over them--and such times must,
+in general, sooner or later come--they are much more liable to take cold
+or sustain other injury, should they be exposed, than if they had been
+treated more rationally.
+
+I knew a mother who would not trust her children to take care of their
+own beds on retiring to rest, as long as they remained in her house,
+even though they were twenty or thirty years old. But they had no better
+or firmer constitutions than the other children of the same
+neighborhood.
+
+Hardly anything can be more injurious than covering the head with the
+bed clothes; and yet some mothers and nurses cover, in this way, not
+only their own heads, but those of their children. I have elsewhere
+shown how impure the air is, which is imprisoned under the bed clothes.
+I hope those mothers who are willing to destroy _themselves_ by covering
+up their heads while they sleep, will at least have mercy on their
+unoffending infants.
+
+
+SEC. 6. _Night Dresses._
+
+The grand rule on this point is, to wear as little dress during sleep as
+possible. Some mothers not only suffer their infants to sleep in the
+same shirt, cap, and stockings that they have worn during the day, but
+add a night gown to the rest. No cap should be worn during the night,
+any more than in the day time. Or if the foolish practice has been
+adopted for the day, it should be discontinued at night. It is enough
+for those adults whose long hair would otherwise be dishevelled, to wear
+night caps, and subject themselves, as they inevitably do, to catarrh
+and periodical headache. Children's heads should have nothing on them by
+night; nor even by day, except to defend them from the rain or the hot
+rays of the sun.
+
+The stockings, too, should be wholly laid aside at night, unless in the
+case of those who are feeble, apt to have their feet cold, or
+particularly liable to bowel complaints. Such may be allowed to sleep in
+their stockings, but not in those which have been worn all the day.
+
+Indeed, neither children nor adults should ever wear a single garment in
+the night which they have worn during the day. The reason is, that there
+are too many causes of impurity in operation while we sleep, without our
+wearing the clothes in which we have been perspiring during the
+day-time--and which must be already more or less filled with the
+effluvia of our bodies.
+
+It is a very easy thing to have a loose night gown to supply the place
+of the shirt we have worn during the day; and if nothing else is
+convenient, a spare shirt will answer. But both a night gown and shirt
+should never be admitted, especially in warm weather. The garment to
+supply the place of the shirt during the night, may be of calico in the
+summer, and of flannel in the winter.
+
+The collar and wristbands of this night dress should be loose; and the
+whole garment should be large and long. No article of dress should ever
+press upon our bodies, so as in the least to impede the circulation; and
+for this reason it is, that writers on physical education have inveighed
+so much against cravats, straps, garters, &c. This caution, so important
+to all, is doubly so to young mothers, on whom devolves the management
+of the tender infant.
+
+When the child has been perspiring freely during the evening, just
+before he is undressed, or when he has just been subjected to the warm
+bath, it may be well to use a little care in undressing and exchanging
+clothes, to prevent taking cold;--though it should ever be remembered,
+that those children who are managed on a rational system will bear
+slight exposures with far more safety, than they who have been managed
+at random--sometimes, indeed, with great tenderness, but at others,
+wholly neglected.
+
+
+SEC. 7. _Posture of the Body._
+
+In early infancy, children who are not stuffed rather than fed, may
+occasionally be permitted to sleep on their backs, especially if they
+incline to do so. But it will be well to encourage them to sleep on one
+side, as soon as you can without great inconvenience.
+
+The right side, as a general rule, is preferable; because the stomach,
+which lies towards the left side, is thus left uncompressed, and
+digestion undisturbed. I would not, however, require a child to lie
+always on the right side, but would occasionally change his position,
+lest he should become unable to sleep at all, except in a particular
+manner.
+
+I have said elsewhere, that the head ought to be a little raised,
+especially if the child is liable to diseases of the brain. But this
+remark, rather hastily thrown out, requires explanation.
+
+There is so much blood sent by the heart to the head and upper parts of
+the system of infants, as to predispose those parts, especially the
+brain, to disease. In a horizontal position of the body, there is more
+blood sent to the brain than when the body is erect. This will show the
+reader, at once, that if the infant is peculiarly exposed to diseases
+of the brain--and it certainly is so--he ought to remain in a horizontal
+posture as little as possible, except during sleep; and that even then
+it is desirable to make his bed in such a manner as to elevate the head
+and shoulders as much as we can without compressing the lungs, or
+obstructing the circulation in the neck.
+
+I recommend, therefore, to raise the head of an infant's bedstead a
+little higher than the foot; though not so much as to incline him to
+slide downwards into the bed, for that would be to produce one evil in
+curing another.
+
+Sir Charles Bell thinks that the common disease of infants called
+_diabetes_, arises from their being permitted to sleep on their backs;
+and that by breaking up the habit of lying in this position, and
+accustoming them to lie on their sides, we shall prevent it. I doubt
+whether the effect here referred to, is ever the result of such a cause.
+Still I am as much opposed to the _habit_ of sleeping on the back, as
+Sir Charles Bell. It is quite injurious to free respiration.
+
+Closely allied to the subject of bodily position in general, is the
+state of particular organs; especially the stomach and the senses. I
+have already intimated that in order to have an infant sleep quietly, it
+is desirable to darken the room. This is the more necessary, where
+infants are unnaturally wakeful. In such cases, not only light should
+be excluded from the eye, but sounds from the ear, odors from the
+nostrils, &c. A remarkably full stomach is in the way of going quietly
+to sleep, whether the person be old or young. Neither infants nor adults
+ought to take food for some time previous to their going to sleep for
+the night. Great bodily heat, as well as too great cold, is also
+unfavorable. If too hot, the temperature of the infant should be
+somewhat reduced by exposure to the air; if too cold, it should be
+raised in a natural, healthy, and appropriate manner.
+
+
+SEC. 8. _State of the Mind._
+
+In giving directions how to procure pleasant dreams, Dr. Franklin
+mentions as a highly important requisition, the possession of a quiet
+conscience. A wise prescription, no doubt.
+
+But infants, as well as adults, in order to sleep quietly, should have
+their minds and feelings in a state of tranquillity. The youngest child
+has its "troubles;" and it is highly important, if not indispensable, to
+_healthy_ sleep, that the mother take all reasonable pains to remove
+them before sleep is induced.
+
+We sometimes hear about children crying themselves to sleep, as if it
+were a matter of no consequence; and sometimes, as if it were, on the
+contrary, rather desirable. But is the sleep of an adult satisfying, who
+goes to bed in trouble, and only sleeps because nature is so exhausted
+that she cannot bear the protracted watchfulness any longer? Why then
+should we expect it, in the case of the infant?
+
+I know an excellent father who is so far from believing this doctrine,
+that he silences the cries of his child by the word of command--and
+believes that in so doing, he promotes both his health and his
+happiness. He would no more let him cry himself to sleep than he would
+let him cough himself to sleep; though both crying and coughing, in
+their places, may be and undoubtedly are salutary.
+
+Whatever may be the age and circumstances of an individual, he ought to
+retire for rest with a cheerful mind. All anxiety about the future, all
+regret about the past, all plans even, in regard to the business or
+amusement of the morrow, should be kept wholly out of the mind. We
+should yield ourselves up to the arms of sleep with the same quietude as
+if life were finished, and we had nothing more to do or think of.
+
+
+SEC. 9. _Quality of Sleep._
+
+The soundness, as well as other qualities, of sleep, differs greatly in
+different individuals; and even in the same night, with the same
+individual in different circumstances. The first four or five hours of
+sleep are usually more sound than the remainder. Hardly anything will
+interrupt the repose of some persons during the early part of the night,
+while they awake afterwards at the slightest noise or movement--the
+chirping of a cricket, or the playing of a kitten.
+
+In profound sleep, we probably dream very little, if at all; but in
+other circumstances, we are constantly disturbed by dreaming, and
+sometimes start and wake in the greatest anxiety or horror.
+
+Nightmare is generally accompanied by dreams of the most distressing
+kind. We imagine a wild beast, or a serpent in pursuit of us; or a rock
+is detached from some neighboring cliff, and is about to roll upon and
+crush us; and yet all our efforts to fly are unavailing. We seem chained
+to the spot; but while in the very jaws of destruction, perhaps we
+awake, trembling, and palpitating, and weary, as if something of a
+serious nature had really happened.
+
+In the case of nightmare, it is more than probable that we fall asleep
+with our stomachs too heavily loaded with food, or with a smaller
+quantity of that which is highly indigestible. Or it may sometimes arise
+from an improper position of the body, such as disturbs the action of
+the stomach or lungs, or of both these organs. Lying on the back, when
+we first go to sleep, is very apt to produce nightmare.
+
+But distressing dreams often follow an evening of anxious cares,
+especially if those cares preyed upon us for the last half hour; and
+also after late suppers, even if they are light--and late reading. Hence
+the injunctions of the last section. Hence, too, the importance of
+taking our last meal two or three hours before sleep, and of engaging,
+during these hours, in cheerful conversation, and in the social and
+private duties of religion. Family and private worship, in the evening,
+are enjoined no less by philosophy than they are by christianity; and
+every young mother will do well to understand this matter, and train her
+offspring accordingly.
+
+"That sleep from which we are easily roused, is the healthiest," says
+Macnish. "Very profound slumber partakes of the nature of apoplexy." I
+should say, rather, that a medium between the two extremes is
+healthiest. Profound apoplectic sleep, I am sure, is injurious; but
+that from which we are too easily roused cannot, it seems to me,
+be less so. Thus, I have often gone to sleep with a resolution
+to wake at a certain hour, or at the striking of the clock;
+and have found myself able to wake at the proposed time, almost
+without one failure in twenty instances where I have made the trial. But
+my sleep was obviously unsound, and certainly unsatisfying. The desire
+to awake at a certain moment or period, seemed to buoy me above the
+usual state of healthy sleep, and render me liable to awake at the
+slightest disturbance. Were it not for sacrificing the ease of others,
+it would be far better, in such cases, to rely upon some person to wake
+us, instead of charging our own minds with it.
+
+The quality of our sleep will be greatly affected by the quantity. But
+this thought, if extended, would anticipate the subject of our next
+section; so easily does one thing, especially in physical education, run
+into or involve another. I will therefore, for the present, only say
+that if we confine ourselves to a smaller number of hours than is really
+required, our sleep becomes too sound to be quite healthy, as if nature
+endeavored to make up in quality, for want of due quantity. On the
+contrary, if we attempt to sleep longer than is really necessary to
+restore us, the quality of our sleep is not what it ought to be; for we
+do not sleep soundly enough.
+
+The silence and darkness of the night tend to induce sleep of a better
+quality than the noise and activity of day. It is unquestionably
+desirable that children should be able to sleep, at least occasionally,
+without absolute quiet. And yet such sleep cannot be sufficiently sound
+to answer the purposes of health, if frequently repeated.
+
+Hence it is, perhaps--at least in part--that the maxim has obtained
+currency, that one hour of sleep before midnight is worth two afterward.
+The comparison has probably been made between the quiet and darksome
+hours of evening and those which followed daybreak, when light, and
+music, and bustle conspire, as they should, to make us wakeful. No
+person can sleep as soundly and as effectually, when light reaches his
+closed eyes, and sounds strike his ears, as in darkness and silence. He
+may sleep, indeed, under almost any circumstances, when fatigue and
+exhaustion demand it; but never so profoundly as when in absolute
+abstraction of light, and complete quiet.
+
+
+SEC. 10. _Quantity._
+
+On this point much might be said, without exhausting the subject. But I
+have already observed that infants, when first born, require to sleep
+nearly their whole time. As they advance in years, the necessity for
+sleep; however, diminishes, until they come to maturity, when it remains
+for many years nearly stationary. In advanced age, the necessity for
+sleep again increases, till we reach the extremest old age, or what is
+usually called second childhood, when we again sometimes sleep nearly
+the whole time.
+
+I have already remarked that much might be said on this subject; but I
+do not think that the present occasion requires it. If the suggestions
+which are made in the chapter on "Early Rising" should receive the
+attention I flatter myself they merit, I do not believe children would
+often sleep too long. If, on the contrary, they are suffered to lie late
+in the morning, and then sit up late in the evening, all healthful
+habits and tendencies will he so deranged or broken up, that nature, in
+her indications, will by no means prove the unerring guide which she is
+wont to do in other circumstances.
+
+A few thoughts here, on the quantity of sleep required by the young
+after they approach maturity, may not be misplaced.
+
+Jeremy Taylor thought that for a healthy adult, three hours in
+twenty-four were enough for all the purposes of sleep. Baxter thought
+four hours about a reasonable time; Wesley, six; Lord Coke and Sir Wm.
+Jones, seven; and Sir John Sinclair, eight. These were the _theories_ of
+men who were all eminent for their learning, and most of them for their
+piety. How far their _practice_ corresponded with their theories, we are
+not, in every instance, told.
+
+But to come to the practice of several persons who have been
+distinguished in the world. General Elliot, one of the most vigorous men
+of his age, though living for his whole life on nothing but vegetables
+and water, and who at sixty-four had scarcely begun to feel the
+infirmities of old age, slept but four hours in twenty-four. Frederick
+the Great of Prussia, and the illustrious British surgeon, John Hunter,
+slept but five hours a day. Napoleon Bonaparte, for a great part of his
+life, slept only four hours; and Lord Brougham is said to require no
+more. Others, in numerous instances, require but six hours. But there
+are others still, who consume eight.
+
+The conclusion--in my own mind--is, that with a good constitution and
+active habits, men may habituate themselves to very different quantities
+of sleep. Still I think that six hours are little enough for most
+persons; and if a child, on arriving at maturity, is not inclined to
+sleep much longer than that, I should not regard him as wasting time.
+Most persons, it appears to me, require six hours of sound sleep in
+twenty-four;--I mean between the ages of twenty and seventy.
+
+Macnish is the most liberal modern writer I am acquainted with, in his
+allowance of time for sleep. Speaking of the wants of adults he
+says--"No person who passes only eight hours in bed can be said to waste
+his time in sleep." Yet he obviously contradicts himself on the very
+same page; for he says expressly, that when a person is young, strong
+and healthy, an hour or two less may be sufficient. But an hour or two
+less than eight hours reduces the amount to seven or six hours. And
+taking the whole period of life, to which he probably refers--say from
+eighteen to forty--into consideration, there is a very considerable
+difference between six hours and eight hours a day. If six hours are
+"sufficient," it cannot be right to sleep eight hours.
+
+Let us here make a few estimates. If six hours are sufficient for sleep
+between the ages of eighteen and forty, he who sleeps eight hours a day,
+actually loses 16,060 hours--equal to nearly two whole years of life, or
+about two years and three quarters of time in which we are usually
+awake. This, in the meridian of life, is not a small waste. Permit it to
+every person now in the United States, and the sum total of wasted time
+to a single generation, would be 25,649,098 years--equal to the average
+duration of the lives of 854,970 persons. The value of this time, as a
+commodity in the market, at a low estimate--only forty dollars a
+year--would be over A THOUSAND MILLIONS of DOLLARS! And its value, for
+the purposes of mental and moral improvement, cannot be estimated except
+in ETERNITY!
+
+Every young mother must derive from these considerations a motive to
+discourage all unnecessary waste of time in sleep; while no one, as I
+trust, will forget that to sleep too little is also dangerous to health,
+and prejudicial to the general happiness.
+
+
+
+
+CHAPTER XV.
+
+EARLY RISING.
+
+All children naturally early risers. Evils of sitting up late at night.
+Excitements in the evening. The morning, by its beauties, invites us
+abroad. Example of parents. Forbidding children to rise early. Keeping
+them out of the way. How many are burnt up by parental neglect.
+"Lecturing" them. What is an early hour?
+
+
+Some writer--I do not recollect who--has said that all children are
+naturally early risers. And I cannot help coming to the same conclusion.
+That they are not so, is no more proved from the fact that as things now
+are they are generally found addicted to the contrary habit, than the
+very general neglect of milk among the higher classes of our citizens,
+proves that they have not a natural relish for it--when every one knows
+that at our first setting out in life, milk is, almost without
+exception, the sole article of human sustenance.
+
+One of the great difficulties in the way of early rising, as I have
+already had occasion to say, is late sitting up. If children are not
+accustomed to retire till nine or ten o'clock, nor then until they have
+been subjected to all the excitements pertaining to fashionable
+life--company, heated and impure air, stimulating drink, fruits,
+high-seasoned food, and perhaps music--and are become actually feverish,
+no one but an ignorant person or a brute ought to expect them to rise
+early. Indeed, whatever may have been the cause, and whether it have
+operated on high or low life, late retiring will inevitably result in
+late rising. The current may be turned out of its course a little while,
+it is true, but not always. It will ere long return to its accustomed
+channel; perhaps to renew its course with increased pertinacity.
+
+Everything, in the morning, naturally invites to early rising. The
+pleasant light, the music, at certain seasons, of some of the animated
+tribes, and the joy which we feel in activity, and in the society of
+those whom we love, all conspire to rouse us. If we have retired late,
+however, and especially in a feverish condition, so that when we wake we
+feel wretched, and, as sometimes happens, more fatigued than when we lay
+down, other collateral motives may be needed.
+
+I have said that everything invites us, in the morning, to rise early;
+but it was upon the presumption that our parents, and brothers, and
+sisters set us a good example. If parents and other friends lie in bed
+late themselves, can anything else be, expected of children? Admitting,
+even, that they rise early themselves, if they never speak of early
+rising as a pleasure, and connect along with it, in their children's
+minds, pleasant associations, they would be unreasonable to expect
+otherwise than that their children should cling to the morning couch,
+till they are fairly compelled to rise as a relief from pain and
+uneasiness.
+
+But when parents go farther than this, and actually discourage their
+children from rising early, and use every means in their power short of
+actual punishment--and sometimes even that--to make them lie still till
+breakfast, in order that they may be out of the way, what shall we say?
+And what is to be expected as the result?
+
+There is hope, however, under the last circumstances. People sometimes
+carry things to an extreme that defeats their very purposes. Thus it
+occasionally is, in the case before us. This forbidding children to rise
+early, and threatening them if they do, sometimes excites their
+curiosity, and leads them to the forbidden course of conduct, simply
+_because_ it is forbidden. Not a few persons among us possess the
+disposition to be governed by what has sometimes been called the "rule
+of contrary."
+
+I might stop here to show that there is nothing so well calculated to
+develope and improve the mind and heart, even of parents themselves, as
+the society of those whom God gives them to train for Him and their
+country. I might show that not a few of those traits of character which
+render the company of many old persons rather irksome, especially to the
+young, have their origin in their neglect of the young, and of keeping
+up, as long as circumstances will possibly admit, juvenile feelings,
+actions, and habits.
+
+And yet what do we too often witness in life? Is not every effort made
+to induce the young to lie in bed late that they may be out of the way?
+Are they not placed, as soon as possible after they are up, with the
+servants--if unfortunately there are any in the family--that they may be
+out of the way? Are they not required to breakfast, and dine, and sup
+elsewhere, if possible, that they may be out of the way? Do we not send
+them to school, even the Sabbath school, to get them out of the way? Do
+not some mothers even dose their infants with stupifying medicines to
+lull them to sleep, in order to have them out of the way? And to crown
+all, though they are quite too often permitted to sit up late in the
+evening, to enjoy that society which they are denied so great a part of
+the day-time, are they not occasionally put to bed early that they may
+be out of the way, and that the parents may attend late parties, to
+indulge in immoral or unhealthy habits?
+
+In the last instance, they are indeed sometimes put out of the way, in
+the result--and with a vengeance. Many a child, nay, many thousands of
+children, are burnt up yearly, while their parents are gone abroad in
+the evening in quest of that enjoyment which ought to be found in the
+bosom of their families. "In Westminster, a part of London, containing
+less than two hundred thousand inhabitants, one hundred children were
+thus destroyed, during a single year." And the moral results which
+occasionally happen are a thousand times worse than burning. But enough
+of this.
+
+The common practice of lecturing the young on the importance of early
+rising, may have a good effect on a few; but in general, it is believed
+to produce the contrary result. It is, in short, to sum up the whole
+matter, the influence of parental example, and the speaking often of the
+happiness which early rising affords, with perhaps the occasional
+indulgence of the child in a pleasant morning walk, which, if he retires
+early enough, are almost certain to produce in him the valuable habit of
+early rising.
+
+But what is an early hour? Some call it early, when the sun is one hour
+high; some at sunrise; others, when they hear of an early riser,
+suppose he must be one who rises at least by daybreak.
+
+Midnight is, of course, as near the middle of the night as any hour; and
+he who goes to bed four or five hours before midnight, will never
+complain of those who insist that _he_ is not an early riser who is not
+up by four or five o'clock. In summer, no adult ought to lie in bed
+after four o'clock, and no child, except the mere infant, after five.
+
+Much is said by a few writers, especially Macnish, of the danger of
+rising before the sun has attained a sufficient height above the horizon
+to chase away the vapors, and remove the dampness. But I must insist
+upon earlier rising than this, though we should not choose to venture
+abroad. Invigorated and restored as we are by sleep, I cannot think that
+the dampness of the morning air is more injurious than the foul air of
+some of our sleeping rooms.
+
+
+
+
+CHAPTER XVI.
+
+HARDENING THE CONSTITUTION.
+
+Mistakes about hardening children. Their clothing. Much cold enfeebles.
+The Scotch Highlanders. The two extremes equally fatal--over-tenderness
+and neglect. An interesting anecdote from Dr. Dewees.
+
+
+While I have been very particular in enjoining on my readers the
+importance of thoroughly ventilating their dwellings, I have also
+insisted upon the necessity of taking children abroad, as much as
+possible. Not, however, to harden them, so much as to give them a more
+free access to air and light than they can have at home; and also--when
+they are old enough--to cultivate the faculties of attention,
+comparison, &c.
+
+The practice of attempting to harden children by frequent exposure to
+air much colder than that to which they have been accustomed, without
+sufficient additional clothing, is open to the same objections which
+have been brought against cold bathing. Under the management of a
+judicious medical practitioner, it may do great good to a few
+constitutions; but its indiscriminate use would injure a thousand
+infants for one who was benefited.
+
+True it is that if the child is protected against cold, no harm, but on
+the contrary much good may result, from carrying him abroad into the
+fresh air, even in very cold weather. But what can be more painful than
+to see the little sufferers carried along when their limbs are purple,
+or benumbed with cold? And how idle it is to hope that such exposure
+hardens or improves the constitution!
+
+It is on the same mistaken principle that many adults go thinly clad,
+late in the fall. I have seen men in November and December beating and
+rubbing their hands, who, on being asked why they did not wear mittens,
+replied, that if they should wear one pair of mittens so early in the
+season, they should want two in the winter.
+
+Now I cheerfully admit that to put on additional clothing before the
+severity of the weather demands it, actually produces the effect here
+supposed; but to endure severe cold, on the contrary, never hardens
+anybody. Nay, more, it enfeebles. Cold, when combined with the evils of
+_poverty_, produces more mischief and destroys more lives than any one
+disease in the whole catalogue of human maladies.
+
+Adam Smith says that it is not uncommon for mothers in the Highlands of
+Scotland, who have borne twenty children, to have only two of them
+alive.
+
+It may be difficult to say whether children are oftener destroyed by
+over-tenderness than by neglect, and the evils incident to poverty. Both
+extremes are common; while the happy medium--that of conducting a
+child's education upon the principles of physiology, is rarely known,
+and still more rarely followed.
+
+I have been much amused, and not a little instructed, by the following
+anecdote on this point, from Dr. Dewees:
+
+We were speaking with a lady who had lost three or four children with
+"croup," who informed us she was convinced, from absolute experiment,
+that there was nothing like exposure to all kinds of weather to protect
+and harden the system. By her first plan of managing her children, which
+was by keeping them very warmly clad, she said she lost several by the
+croup; but since she had adopted the opposite scheme, her children had
+been perfectly healthy, and never had betrayed the slightest disposition
+to that terrible disease which had robbed her of her children.
+
+Perhaps, madam, we observed, you did not, in making your first
+experiments, attend to a number of details which might be thought
+essential to the plan. You did not probably take the proper precautions
+when you sent them into the cold air, or observe what was important for
+them when they returned from it.
+
+"Oh, yes," she replied, "I took every possible care when they, were
+going out. I always made them wear a very warm great coat, well lined
+with baize, and a fur cape or collar. I always made them wear a
+'comfortable' round their necks, made of soft woollen yarn. And as for
+their feet, they were always protected by socks or over-shoes lined with
+wool or fur, as the weather might be wet or dry."
+
+Do you believe, madam, they were kept at a proper degree of warmth by
+these means?
+
+"Oh, certainly. Indeed, rather too warm; for they would often be in a
+state of perspiration, they told me, when in the open air; especially if
+they ran, slid, or skated."
+
+And what was done when they were thus heated?
+
+"Oh, they got cool enough before they reached home."
+
+And would they receive no injury in passing from this state of
+perspiration to that of chill?
+
+"Not at all; for when this happened, I always made them take a little
+warm brandy, or wine and water, and made them toast their feet well by
+the fire." [Footnote: This absurd custom is a fruitful source of that
+distressing condition of the hands and feet, in winter, called
+"chilblains."]
+
+Did they sleep in a cold or warm room?
+
+"In a warm room. A good fire was always made in the stove before they
+went to bed, which kept them quite warm all night."
+
+Would they never complain of being cold towards morning, when the stove
+had become cold?
+
+"Yes, certainly; but then there were always at hand additional
+bed-clothes, with which they could cover themselves."
+
+And did they always do it?
+
+"Oh, I suppose so."
+
+Well, madam, how did you carry your second plan into execution, which
+you say was attended with such happy results?
+
+"I began by not letting them put on their great coats, except when the
+weather was so cold as to require this additional covering, and did not
+permit them to wear a 'comfortable' or fur round their necks. I took
+away their over-shoes, and if their feet chanced to get wet, (for they
+were always provided with good sound shoes,) the shoes were immediately
+changed, if they were at home. If the weather was wet, or unusually
+cold, they were permitted to wear their great coats, but not without.
+If they came home very cold, they were not allowed to approach the fire
+too soon. I gave them no warm, heating drinks, and accustomed them to
+sleep in rooms without fire."
+
+Who does not recognize, in this second plan for the enjoyment of air and
+exercise, as judicious a plan of physical education, so far as it goes,
+as can well be pointed out? We were so successful as to convince this
+lady, in a very short time, that our own plan of exposing the body was
+precisely the one she had pursued with so much success.
+
+We also inquired of her what plan she pursued with her children, when
+too young to be submitted to the rules just mentioned. She informed us
+that it was the same system throughout, only the details varied as
+circumstances of age, &c. made it necessary. That is, she sent her
+children into the open air at very early periods of their lives,
+provided in summer it was neither too wet nor too warm; in winter, when
+the air was mild, dry and clear--but always carefully wrapped up, that
+their little extremities might not suffer from cold. She never suffered
+them to sleep in the open air, if it could be avoided; to prevent which,
+as much as possible, she constantly charged the nurse to bring the
+children home, as soon as she found them disposed to sleep, unless it
+was when they were very young, at which time it was impossible to guard
+against it.
+
+And when her children were sufficiently old to walk, she took care to
+prepare them properly for it, whether it might be in warm, cold, or
+moderate weather. She never sent them abroad for pleasure at the risk of
+encountering a storm of any kind; nor permitted them to walk at the
+hazard of getting wet or very muddy feet.
+
+Were the constitutions of your children pretty much the same? we
+demanded of this lady.
+
+"No; one of my boys was extremely feeble, from his very birth."
+
+Did you treat him precisely as you did the others?
+
+"Yes, as far as regarded principles; that is, I permitted him to bear as
+much of cold, heat or wet as his constitution would endure without pain
+or injury. The degrees, however, were very different from those his
+brothers bore, had they been determined by the measurement of the
+thermometer, but precisely the same in effect, as far as could be
+ascertained by consequences. Thus, if he were exposed to the same
+temperature as his brothers, he experienced no more inconvenience from
+it, when it was very low, than they, because he had additional covering
+to protect him."
+
+
+
+
+CHAPTER XVII.
+
+SOCIETY.
+
+Duty of mothers in this matter. Children prefer the society of parents.
+Importance of other society. Necessity of society illustrated. Early
+diffidence. Selecting companions for children. Moral effects of society
+on the young. Parents should play with their children.
+
+
+Every mother is unquestionably as much bound to have an eye to the
+society of her child, as to his food, drink or clothing. And if the
+quality, amount and general character of the latter are important, those
+of the former are by no means less so.
+
+It is indeed true that many a child has been happy, in a degree, in the
+society of its mother alone, where the father was seldom seen, and the
+brothers and sisters never. And it is equally true; that a few children
+have so far preferred the society of their parents alone, as to become
+disinclined to other society. But cases of this kind are only as
+exceptions to the general rule; and are probably monstrous formations
+of character. I cannot believe that any child, rightly educated, would
+prefer the society of none but its parents, or even its parents and
+brothers and sisters.
+
+A French author has written a considerable volume on the importance of
+what he calls _gaiety_, but which he should prefer to call cheerfulness.
+Among the rest, he maintains that it is indispensable to the best
+health. But if so--and I do not doubt it--then it ought to be encouraged
+in children, and the earlier the better. Now there is no way to
+encourage cheerfulness in the young so effectually as by indulging them
+with considerable society.
+
+That the thing may be carried to excess, I have no doubt. I have seen
+mothers who permitted their children to play with their mates till they
+became excited, and were thus led to continue their sports, not only
+farther than cheerfulness and health demanded, but until they were
+excessively fatigued, and almost made sick. And I believe that the
+excitement of numbers, in infant and other schools, may be so great as
+to be injurious, rather than salutary. Still I think these are rare
+cases.
+
+Truth usually lies somewhere between extremes. To keep a child,
+especially a boy, always in the nursery, or even in the parlor with his
+mother, is one extreme; and to let him go abroad continually, till his
+home and its smaller circle become insipid, is the other. A child
+properly trained will _usually_ prefer home, and only desire to go
+abroad occasionally. He will rather need urging in the matter than
+require restraint.
+
+But he must, at any rate, be taught to be sociable, not only for the
+salve of cheerfulness and the consequent health, but for the sake of his
+manners, his mind, and his morals.
+
+If it is a matter of indifference, in the formation of human character,
+whether we mix in society or not, then, for anything I can see, an
+improvement might be proposed in the construction of the material
+universe. Instead of forming the planets so large--and this earth among
+the rest--each might have been divided into hundreds of millions; and
+every human being might have had a little planet, and an immortality,
+exclusively his own. Such an arrangement would certainly prevent a great
+many evils; and, among the rest, a great deal of quarrelling and
+bloodshed.
+
+But divine wisdom is higher than human wisdom, and one world to hundreds
+of millions of human beings has been made, instead of giving to each
+individual of the universe a little world of his own, in which he might
+have reigned sole monarch, and only wept, with Alexander, because none
+of the other worlds were within his grasp. Where a family is already
+large, other society will be unnecessary for some time; but where it
+consists of a mother only, although her society is always to be
+considered of the _first_ importance, I cannot but think she ought to
+take great pains to introduce her child occasionally to the company of
+other children.
+
+That diffidence, which almost destroys the influence and the happiness
+of many individuals, is often cherished, if not created, by too much
+seclusion. Where there is a natural constitution which predisposes the
+child to timidity and diffidence, the danger is greatly increased; and
+parents should take unwearied pains to guard against it.
+
+It is hardly necessary for me to say, that great care should also be
+used in selecting the companions of children. Their character will be
+greatly influenced for life by their earlier associates. Friendships
+between children are sometimes formed, while playing together, which are
+interrupted only by death. Those parents who are so fond of controlling
+the choice of their sons and daughters in regard to a companion for
+life, at a period when control is generally resisted, would do well to
+take a hint from what has here been suggested. There is no doubt but
+they might often--very often--give such a direction to the embryo
+affections of their infants and children, as would terminate only with
+their existence.
+
+It is still less necessary to advert, in a work like this, to the effect
+which much observation and experience shows good society to have on
+purity, both physical and moral. Every one must have observed its
+tendency to form habits of cleanliness, not to say neatness. There may
+be excess, even in this. Young persons, of both sexes, often spend too
+much time in preparing their dress for the reception or the visiting of
+their friends. Still this is only the abuse of a good thing. Nor is it
+less true, though it may be less obvious, that moral purity is more
+likely to be secured where children and youth of both sexes associate a
+great deal, from the earliest infancy. [Footnote: If this principle be
+correct, what is the tendency of our numerous schools, which are
+exclusively for one sex? Must there not be latent evil to counterbalance
+some of the seeming good? For myself, I doubt whether moral character
+can ever be formed in due proportion and harmony, where this separation
+long exists.] There are tremendous cases of declension on record, which
+establish this point beyond the possibility of debate.
+
+To say that the mother--and indeed both parents--ought to form a part of
+the playing circle of the youngest children, in order to watch their
+opening dispositions, to check what may be improper, and encourage what
+ought to be encouraged, would be only to repeat what has often been
+recommended by the best writers on education--but which must be
+repeated, again and again, till it leaves an impression, especially on
+CHRISTIAN parents. It is strange that many regard this matter as they
+do, and appear not only ashamed to be seen sporting with their children,
+but almost ashamed to have their children thus occupied. They might as
+well be ashamed of the gambols of the kitten or the lamb; or of the
+grave mother, as she turns aside occasionally to join in its frolics.
+When will parents be willing to take lessons in education from that
+brute world which they have been so long accustomed to overlook or
+despise?
+
+
+
+
+CHAPTER XVIII.
+
+EMPLOYMENTS.
+
+Influence of mothers over daughters. Anecdote of Benjamin West. Anecdote
+of a poor mother. Of set lessons and lectures. Daughters under the
+mother's eye. Why young ladies, now-a-days, dislike domestic
+employments. Miserable housewives--not to be wondered at. Mistake of one
+class of men. Mr. Flint's opinion.
+
+
+One important and never-to-be-forgotten employment of the young is the
+cultivation of their minds; and another, that of their morals. But my
+present purpose is only to speak of those employments denominated
+manual, or physical.
+
+It is obvious, at the first glance, that the influence of the mother, in
+our own country, at least, will be less over boys than over girls. We
+leave it to savages and semi-savages to employ their females, and even
+their mothers, in hard manual labor. Here, in America, what I should say
+on the employment of boys would be more properly addressed to the YOUNG
+FATHER.
+
+There are some exceptions to the general truth contained in the last
+paragraph. Many a mother has--unconsciously at the time, but with no
+less certainty than if she had done it intentionally--given a direction
+to the whole current of her son's life; and this, too, at a very early
+period. The mother of Benjamin West, the painter, if she did not give
+the first tendency to his favorite pursuit, while he was yet a mere
+child, at the least greatly confirmed him in it, by the manner of
+expressing her surprise at one of his early performances. "My mother's
+kiss," on that occasion, said he, "made me a painter." Nor are facts of
+the same general character by any means uncommon.
+
+I know a poor mother who, in the absence of her husband at his weekly
+or monthly labors, used to detain her eldest boy, then almost an
+infant, from going to bed in the evening till her day's work was
+finished--because, in her loneliness, she wanted his company--by telling
+stories of eminent men, and especially of distinguished philanthropists,
+until she had unconsciously kindled in him a philanthropic spirit, which
+will not cease to burn till his death.
+
+But it is in forming the predilections of daughters for their destined
+employments, that mothers are especially influential. Not so much by
+their set lessons or lectures, however, as by the force of continued
+example. No mother who sends her child away to be nursed, and
+subsequently to her return seizes on every possible opportunity to keep
+her out of the way and out of her sight, will be likely to give her any
+choice of employment, or indeed any fondness for employment at all.
+
+Nor is it sufficient that she keep her daughter constantly under her
+eye, with a view to qualify her for the duties of a housewife, if the
+daughter see as plainly as in the light of mid-day, that the mother
+dislikes the employment herself. She must love what she would have her
+daughter love, and even what she would have her understand. Nor is it
+sufficient that she _affect_ a fondness for the employment; her love for
+it must be real. Little girls have keener eyes and better judgments than
+some mothers seem willing to believe or to admit.
+
+Many persons seem greatly surprised that the young ladies of modern days
+have so little fondness for domestic life and domestic duties. How few,
+it is often said, will do their own housework, if they can possibly get
+a train of domestics around them; even though the care and oversight of
+the domestics themselves gear them out more rapidly than bodily labor
+would.
+
+But there is a reason for this hostility to domestic employments. It is
+because mothers, almost universally, consider their occupations as mere
+drudgery, and bring up their children in the same spirit. And what else
+could be expected as the result? It would be an anomaly in the history,
+of human nature, if the female members of families were to grow up in
+love with ordinary domestic avocations, when they have been accustomed
+to see their mothers, and nurses, and elder sisters complaining and
+fretting while engaged in them; and showing by their actions, no less
+than by their words, that they regarded themselves as miserable and
+wretched.
+
+No wonder so many girls, of the present day, make miserable housewives.
+No wonder a factory, a book-bindery, or a shoemaker's shop, is
+considered preferable to the kitchen. No wonder the world degenerates,
+because females, no longer healthfully employed, become pale and sickly,
+spreading gloom and misery all around them, and transmitting the same
+ills which themselves suffer to those who come after them.
+
+It is true, the guilt of this dereliction must not be charged wholly on
+mothers; though they ought, unquestionably, to bear a large share of it.
+Those who have, and ought to have, much influence in society,
+erroneously, and I suppose thoughtlessly, help mothers along in their
+evil ways. If there were a universal combination between certain classes
+of mankind and the whole race of mothers, to ruin, rather than be
+instrumental of reforming mankind, and of saving their deathless souls,
+I hardly know how they could invent a much better, or at least a much
+more certain plan, than that now in operation. So long as those who take
+the lead in society, and govern the fashion in this matter, as others
+govern it in the matter of dress, refuse, as a general rule, to form
+alliances for life, except with those who practically despise house-hold
+concerns--and so long as our houses are filled with domestics, whose
+object is to aid these spoiled mothers, but whose real effect is to
+complete their ruin, and accelerate the ruin of mankind--just so long
+will human progress towards perfection be retarded.
+
+If mothers were in love with their occupations, and their daughters knew
+it, then to the influence of a good example they could add many lessons
+of instruction. These might be given in the way of natural, unstudied
+conversation, and thus be not only heard with attention, but sink deep.
+If the world is ever to be reformed, says Mr. Flint, in his Western
+Review, woman, sensible, enlightened, well educated and principled, must
+be the original mover in the great work. Every one who has considered
+well the extent and nature of female influence, will concur in the
+sentiment; and if he have one remaining particle of devotion to the
+Father of spirits, he will send up the most fervent petitions to his
+throne of mercy in behalf of this often depressed or enslaved half of
+the human race, that they may speedily be emancipated, and become as
+conspicuous in human redemption, as they have sometimes been in human
+condemnation.
+
+
+
+
+CHAPTER XIX.
+
+EDUCATION OF THE SENSES.
+
+Improving the senses. Examples of improvement. SEC. 1. Hearing--how
+injured--how improved.--SEC. 2. Seeing--how injured.--SEC. 3. Tasting
+and smelling--how benumbed--how preserved.--SEC. 4. Feeling. The blind.
+Hints to parents. Education of both hands.
+
+
+Man is much less useful and happy in this world than he would be, if
+more pains were taken by parents and teachers, as well as by himself, to
+cultivate his senses--hearing, seeing, feeling; tasting, and
+smelling--and to preserve their rectitude.
+
+The extent to which the senses can be improved or exalted, can best be
+understood by observing how perfect they become when we are compelled to
+cultivate them. Thus the blind, who are obliged to cultivate hearing,
+feeling, and smelling, often astonish us by the keenness of these
+senses. They will distinguish sounds--especially voices--which others
+cannot; and with so much accuracy, as to remember for several years the
+voice of a person in a large company, which they hear but once. They
+will also distinguish small pieces of money, different fabrics and
+qualities of cloth, &c.; and, in walking, often ascertain, by the
+feeling of the air, or by other sensations, when they approach a
+building, or any other considerable body. So the North American Indian,
+whose habits of life seem to require it, can hear the footsteps of an
+approaching enemy at distances which astonish us. So also the deaf and
+dumb are very keen-sighted, and generally make very accurate
+observations. Any reader who is sceptical in regard to the cultivation
+of the senses, would do well to consult the account of Julia Brace, the
+deaf and dumb and blind girl, as published in some of the early volumes
+of the "Annals of Education."
+
+But it is hardly necessary to resort to the blind, or to savages, or to
+the deaf and dumb, in order to prove man's susceptibility in this
+respect. We may be reminded of the same fact by observing with what
+accuracy the merchant tailor can distinguish, by feeling, the quality of
+his goods; how quick a painter, an engraver, or a printer, will discover
+errors in painting or printing, which wholly escape ordinary readers or
+observers; and how quick the ear of a good musician will discover the
+existence and origin of a discordant sound in his choir.
+
+Now I do not undertake to say or prove, that mankind would be better or
+happier for having their senses all cultivated in the highest possible
+degree; though I am not sure that this would not be the case. But so
+long as a large proportion of our ideas enter our minds through the
+medium of the five senses, it is desirable that something should be done
+to perfect them, instead of overlooking the whole subject. What mothers
+ought to do in this matter, deserves, therefore, a brief consideration.
+
+
+SEC. 1. _Hearing._
+
+The suggestion, in another place, to keep away caps from the child's
+head, if duly attended to, is one means of perfecting, or at least of
+preserving, the sense of hearing. For caps, by the heat they produce to
+a part which cannot safely endure an increase of temperature, greatly
+expose children to catarrhal affections; and many a catarrh has laid the
+foundation for dulness of hearing, if not of actual deafness.
+
+The ears should be kept clean. If washed sufficiently often, and
+syringed once a week with warm milk and water, or with very weak
+soap-suds, gently warmed, the cerumen or ear wax will hardly be found
+accumulated in such masses as to produce deafness. And yet such
+accumulations, with such consequences, are by no means uncommon. It is
+not long since a young man with whom I am acquainted, applied to an
+eminent surgeon of Boston, on account of deafness in one ear, which had
+become quite troublesome, and as it was feared, incurable. Syringing
+with a large and strong syringe disengaged a large mass of cerumen, and
+hearing was immediately restored.
+
+Children should be taught to distinguish sounds with closed eyes, or
+blindfolded. We may strike on various objects, and ask them to tell what
+we struck, &c. This will lead them to _observe_ sounds; and will perfect
+their hearing in a remarkable degree.
+
+There are also advantages to be derived from accustoming a child to a
+great variety of sounds; both as regards their strength and character.
+But this must only be occasional; for if the ear be constantly
+accustomed to sounds of any kind, and more especially those which are
+harsh or loud, the organ of hearing is liable to sustain injury. Music,
+as it is now beginning to be taught to children in our schools, will do
+much, I think, to improve the faculty of hearing.
+
+
+SEC. 2. _Seeing._
+
+The sight, says Addison, is the most perfect of all our senses; and this
+is unquestionably true. But it is more or less perfect, in different
+individuals, according to the early education they have received.
+Sometimes, it is true, we are born near-or dim-sighted; but such cases
+are comparatively rare.
+
+The question is sometimes asked why there are so many persons,
+now-a-days, who lose their sight, become near-sighted, &c. very young.
+It may be difficult to answer this question fully; yet I cannot help
+thinking that the following are some of the causes.
+
+1. The great heat of our apartments, which, together with late hours and
+much lamp light, affects the eyes unpleasantly, is believed to be among
+the more prominent causes of early decay of sight. Formerly, our
+apartments were neither so steadily nor so generally heated; and we rose
+earlier, and consequently went to bed earlier.
+
+2. The fine print of a large proportion of our books, especially our
+school books, has done immense injury. I do not believe that reading
+fine print, occasionally, for a few moments at a time, or reading by a
+very strong or very weak light in the same way, does harm. On the
+contrary, I think it may strengthen and improve the sight. It is the
+long continuance of these things that does the mischief; and the
+mischief thus done is immense. I rejoice that printers and publishers
+are beginning of late to use much larger type than they have done for
+some years past.
+
+3. The early use of spectacles does mischief--I mean before they are
+needed. After they begin to be needed, there is no advantage in delaying
+to use them, as some do, for fear they shall wear them too soon. This is
+about as wise as the practice of going cold to harden ourselves.
+
+4. Reading when we are fatigued, or ill, or have a very full stomach, is
+another way to injure the sight.
+
+5. Rubbing the eyes with the fingers, or with anything else, does
+inevitable mischief. The Germans have a proverb which says--"Never touch
+your eye, except with your elbow." There is much of good sense in it.
+
+In short, there are a thousand ways in which that delicate organ, the
+human eye, may sustain injury; and nearly as many in which it may be
+strengthened, cultivated, and improved. But my limits merely permit me
+to add, that the frequent but gentle application of water to the eye,
+several times a day, at such a temperature as is most agreeable--but
+cold, when it can be borne--is one of the best preservatives of sight
+which the world affords.
+
+Connected alike with physical and intellectual education, is the
+practice of measuring by the eye heights, distances, superfices,
+weights, and solids. It is not difficult to train the eye to an accuracy
+in this matter which would astonish the uninstructed.
+
+
+SEC. 3. _Tasting and Smelling._
+
+I do not know that it is worth our while to take pains, by any direct
+methods, to cultivate the organs of taste or smell; but I think it
+proper, at the least, to preserve their original rectitude.
+
+Many, I know, undertake to say, that were it not for our errors in
+regard to food and drink, and were it not, in particular, for the
+multitude of strange mixtures which tend to benumb those two senses, we
+might determine the qualities of food and drink--whether they are
+favorable or adverse--by means of taste and smell, like the animals. But
+I do not believe this. The Creator has substituted reason, in us, for
+instinct in the brute animals. It is not necessary that we should
+possess the latter, when the former is so manifestly superior to it; and
+accordingly I do not believe that it is given us, or any of that
+acuteness of sensation which exists in the dog, the tiger, the vulture,
+&c.--and which so closely resembles it.
+
+There can be no doubt--no reasonable doubt, certainly--that the wretched
+customs of modern cookery benumb the senses of taste and smell, more or
+less, and that high-seasoned food, condiments, and stimulating drinks do
+the same; and should for this reason, were it for no other, be
+studiously avoided.
+
+Closely connected with the organ of taste are the TEETH. A volume might
+profitably be written on these--as on the eye. But I will only say that
+they should be kept perfectly clean, either by rinsing or brushing, or
+both, especially after eating; that they should be permitted to chew all
+our food, instead of merely standing by as silent spectators to the
+passage of that which is mashed, soaked, chopped, &c.; that they should
+not be picked or cleaned with pins, or other equally hard instruments;
+that they should not be used to crack nuts or other hard, indigestible
+substances; and that the stomach, with which they are apt to sympathize
+very strongly, should also be kept in a good and healthy condition.
+
+
+SEC. 4. _Feeling._
+
+Corpulence and slovenliness are generally among the more prolific
+sources of a want of acuteness in feeling. The first is a disease, and
+may be avoided by a proper diet, and by active mental and bodily
+employment. Slovenliness we may of course avoid, whenever there is a
+wish to do so, and an abundance of water.
+
+But the sense of feeling, or especially that accumulation of it which we
+call TOUCH, and which seems to be specially located in the balls of the
+fingers and on the palm of the hand, is susceptible of a degree of
+improvement far beyond what would be the natural result of cleanliness,
+and freedom from plethora or corpulence.
+
+I have already alluded, in my general remarks at the head of this
+chapter, to the acuteness of this sense in the blind, as well as in the
+dealer in cloths. I might add many more illustrations, but a single one,
+in relation to the blind, which was accidentally omitted in that place,
+will be sufficient.
+
+The blind at the Institution in this city, as well as in other similar
+institutions, are now taught to read and write with considerable
+facility. But how? Most of my readers may have heard how they read, but
+I will describe the process as well as I can. A description of their
+method of writing is more difficult.
+
+The letters are formed by pressing the paper, while quite moist, upon
+rather large type, which raises a ridge in the line of every letter, and
+which remains prominent after the paper is dry. In order to read, the
+pupil has to feel out these ridges. A circular ridge on the paper he is
+told is O; a perpendicular one, I; a crooked one, S; &c. They read music
+and arithmetic printed in a similar manner. A few months of practice, in
+this way, will enable an ingenious youth to read with considerable ease
+and despatch.
+
+Now if nothing is wanting but a little training to render the touch so
+accurate, would it not be useful to train every child to judge
+frequently of the properties of bodies by this sense? And cannot every
+one recall to his mind a thousand situations in which a greater accuracy
+of this sense would have saved him much inconvenience, as well as
+afforded him no little pleasure?
+
+I shall conclude this section with a few remarks on the HAND. The custom
+of neglecting, or almost neglecting the left hand, though nearly
+universal, in this country at least, appears to me to be
+wrong--decidedly so. For although more blood may be sent to the right
+arm than to the left, as physiologists say, yet the difference is not as
+great at birth as it is afterward; so that education either weakens the
+one or strengthens the other.
+
+Besides this, we occasionally find a person who is left-handed, as it is
+called; that is, his left hand and arm are as much larger and stronger
+than the right, as the right is usually stronger than the left. How is
+this? Do we find a corresponding change in the internal structure? But
+suppose it could be ascertained that such a change did exist, which I
+believe has never been done, the question would still arise whether the
+difference was the same at birth, or whether the more frequent use of
+the left hand has not, in part, produced it.
+
+I do not mean, here, to intimate that a more frequent use of the left
+hand than the right would make new blood-vessels grow where there were
+none before. But it would certainly do one thing; it would make the same
+vessels carry more blood than they did before, which is, in effect,
+nearly the same thing:--for the more blood in the limb, as a general
+rule, the more strength--provided the limb is in due health and
+exercise.
+
+The inference which I wish the reader to make from all this is, that
+since the left hand and arm, by due cultivation, and without essential
+difference or change of structure to begin with, can occasionally be
+made stronger than the right, it is fair to conclude that it may, if
+found desirable, be always rendered more nearly equal to it than, in
+adult years, we usually find it.
+
+The question is now fairly before us--Is such a result desirable? I
+maintain that it is; and shall endeavor to show my reasons.
+
+How often is one hand injured by an accident, or rendered nearly useless
+by disease? But if it should be the right, how helpless it makes us! The
+man who is accustomed to shave himself, must now resort to a barber. If
+he is a barber himself, or almost any other mechanic, his business must
+be discontinued. Or if he is a clerk, he cannot use his left hand, and
+must consequently lose his time. Or if amputation chances to be
+performed on a favorite arm, how entirely useless to society we are,
+till we have learned to use the other! It not only takes up a great deal
+of valuable time to acquire a facility of using it, but if we are
+already arrived at maturity, we can never use it so well as the other,
+during our whole lives; because it is too late in life to increase its
+size and strength much by constant exercise. Whereas in youth, it might
+have been done easily.
+
+Is it not then important--for these and many more reasons--to teach a
+child to use with nearly equal readiness, both of his hands? But if so,
+who can do it better than the mother? And when can it be better done
+than in the earliest infancy? When is the time which would be devoted to
+it worth less than at this period?
+
+
+
+
+CHAPTER XX.
+
+ABUSES.
+
+Bad seats for children at table and elsewhere. Why children hate Sunday.
+Seats at Sabbath school--at church--at district schools. Suspending
+children between the heavens and the earth. Cushions to sit on. Seats
+with backs. Children in factories. Evils produced. Bodily punishment.
+Striking the heads of children very injurious. Beating across the middle
+of the body. Anecdote of a teacher. Concluding advice to mothers.
+
+
+It is difficult to determine, in regard to many things which concern the
+management of the young, whether they belong most properly to moral or
+physical education; so close is the connection between the two, and so
+decidedly does everything, or nearly everything which relates to the
+management of the body, have a bearing upon the formation of moral
+character. This work might be extended very much farther, did it comport
+with my original plan. But I hasten to close the volume, with a few
+thoughts on certain abuses of the body, which prevail to a greater or
+less extent in families and schools; and to which I have not adverted
+elsewhere.
+
+The seats of children are usually bad, both at table and elsewhere. It
+seems not enough that we condemn them to the use of knives, forks,
+spoons, &c., of the same size with those of adults. We go farther; and
+give them chairs of the same height and proportion with our own. There
+are a few exceptions to the truth of this remark. Here and there we see
+a child's chair, it is true--but not often.
+
+But how unreasonable is it to seat a child in a chair so high that his
+feet cannot reach the floor; and so constructed that there is no outer
+place on which the feet can rest. What adult would be willing to sit in
+so painful a posture, with his legs dangling? No wonder children dislike
+to sit much, in such circumstances. And it is a great blessing to both
+parent and child that they do. No wonder children hate the Sabbath,
+especially in those families where they are compelled to keep the day
+holy by sitting motionless! Sabbath schools, though they bring with them
+some evil along with a great deal of good, are a relief to the young in
+this particular--especially if their seats are more comfortable
+elsewhere than at home. They consider it much more tolerable to spend
+the morning and intermission of the day in going and returning from
+Sabbath school, than in constant and close confinement. They prefer
+variety, and the occasional light and air of heaven, to monotony and
+seclusion and silence.
+
+It happens, however, that the seats at the Sabbath school and at church,
+are not always what they should be; nor, so far as church is concerned,
+do I see that this evil can be wholly avoided. Children usually sit with
+their parents, in the sanctuary--and they ought to do so: and the height
+of the seats cannot, of course, accommodate both. If there is a building
+erected solely for the use of the Sabbath school, the seats may be
+constructed accordingly, without seriously incommoding anybody; but in
+the church, I do not see, as I have once before observed, how the evil
+can be remedied.
+
+The greatest trouble in regard to seats, however, is at the day school;
+especially in our district or common schools. There, it is usual for
+children to be confined six hours a day--and sometimes two in
+succession--to hard, narrow, plank seats, a large proportion of which
+are without backs, and raised so high that the feet of most of the
+pupils cannot possibly touch the floor. There, "suspended," as I have
+said in another work, [Footnote: See a "Prize Essay," on School Houses,
+page 7.] "between the heavens and the earth, they are compelled to
+remain motionless for an hour or an hour and a half together."
+
+I have also shown, in the same essay, that in regard to the desks, and
+indeed many other things which pertain to, or are connected with the
+school, very little pains is taken to provide for the physical welfare
+or even comfort of the pupils; and that a thorough reform on the subject
+appears to be indispensable.
+
+When I speak of hard plank seats, let me not be understood as hinting at
+the necessity of cushions. When I wrote the essay above mentioned, I did
+indeed believe that they were desirable. But I am now opposed to their
+use, either by children or adults, even where a laborious employment
+would seem to demand a long confinement to this awkward and unnatural
+position. If our seats are cushioned, we shall sit too easily. I believe
+that our health requires a hard seat; because its very hardness inclines
+us to change, frequently, our position.
+
+But if we must sit, be it ever so short a time, our seats should always
+have backs; and those which are designed for children, should not be so
+high as to render them uncomfortable. Nor should the backs of seats be
+so high as they usually are, either for children or adults. They should
+never come much higher than the middle of the body. If they reach the
+shoulders, they either favor a crouching forward, or interfere with the
+free action of the lungs.
+
+This might be deemed a proper place for saying something on the position
+of children in manufactories. But here a world of abuse opens upon my
+view, the full development of which demands a large volume. How many
+crooked spines, emaciated bodies, decaying lungs, as well as scrofulas,
+fevers, and consumptions, are either induced or accelerated by these
+unnatural employments! I mean they are unnatural for the _young_. As to
+employing adults in them, I have nothing at present to say. But when I
+think of the cruel custom of placing children in these places, whose
+bodies--and were this the place, I might add, _minds_--are immature, and
+especially girls, I am compelled, by the voice of conscience, and, as I
+trust, by a regard to those laws which God has established in our
+physical frames, but which are yet so strangely violated, to protest
+against it. Better that no factories should exist, than that children
+should be ruined in them as they now are. Better by far that we should
+return, were it possible, to the primitive habits of New England--to
+those by-gone days when mothers and daughters made the wearing apparel
+of themselves and their families--when, if there was less of
+intellectual cultivation, and less money expended for luxuries and
+extravagances, there was much more of health and happiness.
+
+There is one more species of abuse to which, in closing, I wish to
+direct maternal attention. I allude to injudicious modes of inflicting
+corporal punishment.
+
+Let me not be understood to appear, in this place, as the advocate of
+bodily punishments of any kind; for if they are even admissible under
+some circumstances, I am fully convinced that in the way in which they
+are commonly administered, they do much more harm than good.
+
+But leaving the question of their utility, in the abstract, wholly
+untouched, and taking it for granted, for the present, that they are--as
+is undoubtedly the fact--sometimes employed, and will continue to be so
+for a great while to come, I proceed to speak of their more flagrant
+abuses.
+
+Among these, none are more reprehensible than blows of any kind on the
+head. Even the rod is objectionable for this purpose, since it exposes
+the eyes. But the hand--in boxing the ears or striking in any way--is
+more so. The bones of the head, in young children, are not yet firmly
+knit together, and these concussions may injure the tender brain. I
+know of whole families, whose mental faculties are dull, as the
+consequence--I believe--of a perpetual boxing and striking of the head.
+Some individuals are made almost idiots, in this very manner.--But the
+worst is not yet told. Many teachers are in the habit of striking their
+pupils' heads with thick heavy books; and with wooden rules. I have seen
+one of the latter, of considerable size and thickness, broken in two
+across the head of a very small boy; and this, too--such is the public
+mind--in the presence of a mother who was paying a visit to the school.
+I have seen parents and masters strike the heads of their children with
+pieces of wood, of much larger size;--in one instance with a common
+sized tailor's press-board; in another with the heavy end of a wooden
+whip-handle, about an inch in diameter.
+
+Children are sometimes severely beaten across the middle of the
+body--the region where lie the vital organs--the lungs, the heart, the
+liver, &c. They are sometimes beaten too, across the joints, or in any
+place that the excited, perhaps passionate teacher or parent can reach.
+Rules and books are thrown with violence at pupils in school. There is a
+story in the "Annals of Education," Vol. IV. at page 28, of a teacher
+who threw a rule at a little boy, six years old, which struck him with
+great force, within an inch of one of his eyes. Had it struck a little
+nearer to his nose, it would, in all probability, have destroyed his
+left eye.
+
+       *       *       *       *       *
+
+But without extending these remarks any farther, every intelligent
+mother who reads what I have already written, will see, as I trust, the
+necessity of properly informing herself on the great subject of physical
+education; and of being better prepared than she has hitherto been for
+acquitting herself, with satisfaction, of those high and sacred
+responsibilities which, in the wise arrangements of Nature and
+Providence, devolve upon her.
+
+
+
+
+
+End of the Project Gutenberg EBook of The Young Mother, by William A. Alcott
+
+*** END OF THE PROJECT GUTENBERG EBOOK 10482 ***
diff --git a/10482-h/10482-h.htm b/10482-h/10482-h.htm
new file mode 100644
index 0000000..fc7723d
--- /dev/null
+++ b/10482-h/10482-h.htm
@@ -0,0 +1,7667 @@
+<!DOCTYPE HTML PUBLIC "-//W3C//DTD HTML 4.01 Transitional//EN">
+<html>
+  <head>
+    <meta http-equiv="Content-Type" content=
+    "text/html; charset=UTF-8">
+    <title>
+      The Project Gutenberg eBook of THE YOUNG MOTHER, by WM. A. ALCOTT.
+    </title>
+    <style type="text/css">
+    <!--
+    * {  font-family: Times;}
+    P {  text-indent: 1em;
+         margin-top: .75em;
+         margin-left: 2em;
+         margin-right: 2em;
+         text-align: justify;
+         margin-bottom: .75em; }
+    P.sec {  margin-top: .75em;
+         margin-left: 1em;
+         margin-right: 2em;
+         text-align: justify;
+         margin-bottom: .75em; }
+
+    blockquote {  margin-left: 4em;
+         margin-right: 4em; }
+    blockquote.small { font-size: 90%;
+         margin-left: 4em;
+         margin-right: 4em; }
+    H1,H2,H3,H4,H5,H6 {     text-align: center; }
+    H4.ind {  text-align: left;
+          margin-left: 1em; }
+    HR { width: 65%; }
+    hr.chapterEnd { width: 65%; margin-top: 1em; margin-bottom: 1em;}
+
+    -->
+    </style>
+
+   </head>
+	 <body>
+<div>*** START OF THE PROJECT GUTENBERG EBOOK 10482 ***</div>
+
+<H1>THE YOUNG MOTHER</H1>
+
+<h2>or</h2>
+
+<h1>Management of Children in Regard to Health.</H1>
+
+<H2>BY WM. A. ALCOTT</H2>
+
+<br><hr style="width: 45%;"><br>
+
+<center>1836.</center>
+
+<br><hr style="width: 45%;"><br>
+
+
+
+<h5>ADVERTISEMENT TO THE THIRD EDITION.</h5>
+
+<p>The present edition has been much enlarged. The author has added a
+section on the conduct and management of the mother herself, besides
+several other important amendments and additions. The whole has also
+been carefully revised, and we cannot but indulge the hope that no
+popular work of the kind will be found more perfect, or more worthy of
+the public confidence.</p>
+
+<br><hr style="width: 45%;"><br>
+
+<h3>CONTENTS.</h3>
+<br>
+
+<h4 class="ind"><a href="#CHAPTER_I.">CHAPTER I. THE NURSERY.</a></h4>
+
+<blockquote class="small">General remarks. Importance of a Nursery&mdash;generally overlooked. Its
+walls&mdash;ceiling&mdash;windows&mdash;chimney. Two apartments. Sliding partition.
+Reasons for this arrangement. Objections to carpets. Furniture, &amp;c.
+Feather beds. Holes or crevices. Currents of air. Cats and dogs.
+&quot;Sucking the child's breath.&quot; Brilliant objects. Squinting. Causes of
+blindness.</blockquote>
+<br>
+
+<h4 class="ind"><a href="#CHAPTER_II.">
+CHAPTER II. TEMPERATURE.</a></h4>
+
+<blockquote class="small">General principle&mdash;&quot;Keep cool.&quot; Our own sensations not always to be
+trusted. Thermometer. Why infants require more external heat than
+adults. Means of warmth. Air heated in other apartments. Clothes taking
+fire. Stove&mdash;railing around it. Excess of heat&mdash;its dangers.</blockquote>
+<br>
+
+<h4 class="ind"><a href="#CHAPTER_III.">
+CHAPTER III. VENTILATION.</a></h4>
+
+<blockquote class="small">General ignorance of the constitution of the atmosphere. The subject
+briefly explained. Oxygen gas. Nitrogen. Carbonic acid. Fires, candles,
+and breathing dependent on oxygen. Danger from carbonic acid. How it
+destroys people. Impurity of the air arising from lamps and candles.
+Other sources of impurity. Experiment of putting the candle under the
+bed-clothes. Covering the heads of infants while sleeping&mdash;its dangers.
+Proportions of oxygen and nitrogen in pure and impure air. No wonder
+children become sickly. Particular means of ventilating rooms. Caution
+in regard to lamps. Washing, ironing, cooking, &amp;c., in a nursery. Their
+evil tendency. Fumigation&mdash;camphor, vinegar.</blockquote>
+<br>
+
+<h4 class="ind"><a href="#CHAPTER_IV.">
+CHAPTER IV. THE CHILD'S DRESS.</a></h4>
+
+<blockquote class="small">General principles&mdash;1. To cover us; 2. To defend us from cold; 3. from
+injury.</blockquote>
+
+<p class="sec">SEC. 1. <i>Swathing the Body.</i></p>
+
+<blockquote class="small">Buffon's remarks. Transforming children into mummies. Use of a belly-band.
+Evils produced by having it too tight. Cripples sometimes made. Absurdity
+of confining the arms. Infants should be made happy.</blockquote>
+
+<p class="sec">SEC. 2. <i>Form of the Dress.</i></p>
+
+<blockquote class="small">Curious suggestion of a London writer. Advantages of his plan. Killing
+with kindness. Dr. Buchan's opinion. Conformity to fashion. Tight-lacing
+the chest. Its effects&mdash;dangerous. Physiology of the chest. Its motions.
+An attempt to make the subject intelligible. Serious mistakes of some
+writers. Appeal to facts. Color of females. Their breathing. Their
+diseases. Customs of Tunis. Our own customs little less ridiculous.</blockquote>
+
+<p class="sec">SEC. 3. <i>Material.</i></p>
+
+<blockquote class="small">Flannel in cold weather. Its use&mdash;1. As a kind
+of flesh brush; 2. As a protection against taking cold; 3. As means of
+equalizing the temperature. Clothing should be kept clean&mdash;often
+changed&mdash;color&mdash;lightness&mdash;softness. Cotton apt to take fire. Silk
+expensive. Linen not warm enough. Flannel under-clothes.</blockquote>
+
+<p class="sec">SEC. 4. <i>Quantity.</i></p>
+
+<blockquote class="small">The power of habit, in this respect. Opinion that no clothing is
+necessary. Anecdote of Alexander and the Scythian. Argument from
+analogy. Begin right, in early life. We generally use too much
+clothing. Should clothing be often varied?&mdash;objections to it. Avoid
+dampness.</blockquote>
+
+<p class="sec">SEC. 5. <i>Caps.</i></p>
+
+<blockquote class="small">How caps produce disease. Nature's head-dress. Miserable apology for
+caps. What diseases are avoided by going with the head bare. Judicious
+remarks of a foreign writer. Covering the &quot;open of the head.&quot; Wetting
+the head with spirits.</blockquote>
+
+<p class="sec">SEC. 6. <i>Hats and Bonnets.</i></p>
+
+<blockquote class="small">Hats usually too warm. No covering needed in the house; and but little
+in the sun or rain. Is it dangerous to go with the head always bare?</blockquote>
+
+<p class="sec">SEC. 7. <i>Covering for the Feet.</i></p>
+
+<blockquote class="small">The feet should be well covered. Why. Rule of medical men. No garters.
+Objections to covering the feet considered. Shoes useful. Not too thick.
+Thick soles. Mr. Locke's opinion.</blockquote>
+
+<p class="sec">SEC. 8. <i>Pins.</i></p>
+
+<blockquote class="small">These ought not to be used. Why. Substitutes. Practice of Dr. Dewees.
+Needles&mdash;their danger. Shocking anecdote.</blockquote>
+
+<p class="sec">SEC. 9. <i>Remaining Wet.</i></p>
+
+<blockquote class="small">Changing wet clothing. Monstrous error&mdash;its evils. Clean as well as dry.
+A lame excuse for negligence. No excuse sufficient but poverty.</blockquote>
+
+<p class="sec">SEC. 10. <i>Remarks on the Dress of Boys.</i></p>
+
+<blockquote class="small">Every restraint of body or limb injurious. Tight jackets. Stiff stocks
+and thick cravats. Boots. Evils of having them too tight. A painful
+sight.</blockquote>
+
+<p class="sec">SEC. 11. <i>On the Dress of Girls.</i></p>
+
+<blockquote class="small">Clothing should be loose for girls or boys. Girls to be kept warmer than
+boys. Few girls comfortable, at home or abroad. Going out of warm rooms
+into the night air. How it promotes disease.</blockquote>
+<br>
+
+<h4 class="ind"><a href="#CHAPTER_V.">
+CHAPTER V. CLEANLINESS.</a></h4>
+
+<blockquote class="small">Physiology of the human skin. Of checking perspiration. Diseases thus
+produced. &quot;Dirt&quot; not &quot;healthy.&quot; How the mistake originated. &quot;Smell of
+the earth.&quot; Effect of uncleanliness on the morals. Filthiness produces
+bowel complaints. Changing dress for the sake of cleanliness.</blockquote>
+<br>
+
+<h4 class="ind"><a href="#CHAPTER_VI.">
+CHAPTER VI. BATHING.</a></h4>
+
+<blockquote class="small">Practice of savage nations. Rather dangerous. Mistake of Rousseau.
+Plunging into cold water at birth may produce immediate death. Hundreds
+injured where one is benefited. Spirits added to the water. First
+washings of the child&mdash;should be thorough. Rules in regard to the
+temperature of both the water and the air. Washing an introduction to
+bathing. Hour for bathing changes with age. Temperature of the water.
+Size of a bathing vessel. Unreasonable fears of the warm bath. How they
+arose. A list of common whims. Apology for opposing cold baths. Dr
+Dewees' eight objections to them. Does cold water harden? Cold bath
+sometimes useful under the care of a skilful physician. Its danger in other
+cases. Rules for using the cold bath, if used at all. Securing a glow after
+it. General management. Proper hour. Coming out of the bath. Dressing.
+Singing. Bathing after a meal. Local bathing. Tea-spoonful of water in the
+mouth. Its use. The shower bath. Vapor bath. Medicated bath. Sponging.
+Conveniences for bathing indispensable to every family. General neglect
+of bathing. Attention of the Romans to this subject. We treat domestic
+animals better than children.</blockquote>
+<br>
+
+<h4 class="ind"><a href="#CHAPTER_VII.">
+CHAPTER VII. FOOD.</a></h4>
+
+<p class="sec">SEC. 1. <i>General Principles.</i></p>
+
+<blockquote class="small">The mother's milk the only appropriate food of infants. Unreasonableness
+of some mothers. The tendency to ape foreign fashions. Nursing does not
+weaken the mother.</blockquote>
+
+<p class="sec">SEC. 2. <i>Conduct of the Mother.</i></p>
+
+<blockquote class="small">Much depends on the mother. Opinions of medical societies. Mothers
+sometimes make children drunkards. The general fondness for excitements.
+Hints to those whom it concerns. Caution to mothers. Opinions of Dr.
+Dewees. Slavery of mothers to strong drink and exciting food. Opinions
+of the Charleston Board of Health.</blockquote>
+
+<p class="sec">SEC. 3. <i>Nursing, how often.</i></p>
+
+<blockquote class="small">Children should never be nursed to quiet them. Stomach must have time
+for rest. Regular seasons for nursing. Once in three hours. Difference
+of constitution. Indulgence does not strengthen. Feeble children require
+the strictest management. Nothing should be given between meals.</blockquote>
+
+<p class="sec">SEC. 4. <i>Quantity of Food.</i></p>
+
+<blockquote class="small">Errors. Repetition of aliment. Variety. Children over-fed. Appetite not
+a safe guide. Training to gluttony. Illustrations of the principle.
+Mankind eat twice as much as is necessary.</blockquote>
+
+<p class="sec">SEC. 5. <i>How long should Milk be the only Food?</i></p>
+
+<blockquote class="small">First change in diet. Objections of mothers. Choice bits. Ignorance of
+the nature of digestion. What digestion is. Food which the author of
+nature assigned.</blockquote>
+
+<p class="sec">SEC. 6. <i>On Feeding before Teething.</i></p>
+
+<blockquote class="small">When feeding before teething is necessary. Diet of mothers. Substitute
+for the mother's milk. How prepared. Variety not necessary to the
+infant. Milk best from the same cow. Vessels in which it is used should
+be clean. Sweet milk not heated too much. Not frozen. Disgusting
+practices. Pure water. If not pure, boil it. Best of sugar. Is sugar
+injurious? When the state of the mother's health forbids nursing. Use of
+sucking-bottles. Feeding should in all cases be slow. Jolting children
+after eating. Tossing. Sucking-bottle as a plaything. Evils of using it
+as such. Dirty vessels. Poisonous ones. Character of nurses. Nursing at
+both breasts. Age of the nurse. Parents should have the oversight, even
+of a nurse.</blockquote>
+
+<p class="sec">SEC. 7. <i>From Teething to Weaning.</i></p>
+
+<blockquote class="small">Proper age for weaning. Cullen's opinion. Proper season of the year.
+When the teeth have fairly protruded. First food given. New forms of
+food. Animal broth.</blockquote>
+
+<p class="sec">SEC. 8. <i>During the Process of Weaning.</i></p>
+
+<blockquote class="small">The spring the best time for weaning. Should not be too sudden. The
+process&mdash;how managed. Exciting an aversion to the breast. What solid
+food should first be given. Buchan's opinion. Health of the mother. She
+should&mdash;if possible&mdash;avoid medicine.</blockquote>
+
+<p class="sec">SEC. 9. <i>Food subsequently to Weaning.</i></p>
+
+<blockquote class="small">Views of Dr. Cadogan. Half the children that come into the world go out
+of it before they are good for anything. Why? Owing chiefly to errors in
+nursing, feeding, and clothing. Simplicity of children's food. Picture
+of a modern table. Every dish tortured till it is spoiled. Plain, simple
+food, generally despised. How bread is now regarded. How it ought to be.
+Mr. Locke's opinion in favor of bread for young children, and against
+the use of animal food. Does not differ materially from that of most
+medical writers. Vegetable food generally preferred to animal. What is
+true of youth, in this respect, is true of every age, with slight
+exceptions. Who require most food. Mere bread and water not best. Bread
+the staple article of diet. Best kind of bread. Objections to it. How
+groundless they are. Fondness, for hot, new bread not natural. Fondness
+of change. What it indicates. How it is caused. Train up a child in the
+way he should go. We can like what food we please. Second best kind of
+bread. Other kinds. Plain puddings. Indian cakes. Salt may be used, in
+moderate quantity, but no other condiments. Of butter, cheese, milk, &amp;c.
+Potatoes, turnips, onions, beets, and other roots. Beans, peas, and
+asparagus. No fat or gravies should be used.</blockquote>
+
+<p class="sec">SEC. 10. <i>Remarks on Fruit.</i></p>
+
+<blockquote class="small">Diversity of opinion. The cholera. Fruits useful. Seven plain rules in
+regard to them. Other rules. A mistake corrected. Fruit before
+breakfast. Four arguments in its favor. Particular fruits. Apples. Why
+fruits brought to market are generally unfit to be eaten. Are good, ripe
+fruits difficult of digestion? Cooking the apple? A man who lives
+entirely on apples. Cutting down orchards. Pears, peaches, melons,
+grapes. Mixing improper substances with summer fruits.</blockquote>
+
+<p class="sec">SEC. 11. <i>Confectionary.</i></p>
+
+<blockquote class="small">Confectionary sometimes poisonous. Case in New York. All, or nearly
+all confectionaries injurious. Physical evils attending their use.
+Intellectual evils. Moral evils. The last most to be dreaded. Slaves
+to confectionary are on the road to gluttony, drunkenness, or
+debauchery&mdash;perhaps all three.</blockquote>
+
+<p class="sec">SEC. 12. <i>Pastry.</i></p>
+
+<blockquote class="small">Dr. Paris's opinion of pastry. Various forms of it. Hot flour bread a
+species of it. Produces, among other evils, eruptions on the face.
+Appeal to mothers.</blockquote>
+
+<p class="sec">SEC. 13. <i>Crude, or Raw Substances.</i></p>
+
+<blockquote class="small">Salads, herbs, &amp;c.&mdash;raw&mdash;cooked. Nuts, spices, mustard, horseradish,
+onions, cucumbers, pickles, &amp;c. None of these should be used, except as
+medicine.</blockquote>
+<br>
+
+<h4 class="ind"><a href="#CHAPTER_VIII.">
+CHAPTER VIII. DRINKS.</a></h4>
+
+<blockquote class="small">Infants need little drink. Adults, even, generally drink to cool
+themselves. Simple water the best drink. Opinions of Dr. Oliver and Dr.
+Dewees. Animal food increases thirst. Only one real drink in the world.
+The true object of all drink. Tea, coffee, chocolate, beer, &amp;c. Milk
+and water, molasses and water, &amp;c. Cider, wine, and ardent spirits. Bad
+food and drink the most prolific sources of disease. Children naturally
+prefer water. Danger of hot drinks. Cold drinks. Mischiefs they produce.
+Caution to mothers. Extracts. Drinking cold water, while hot.</blockquote>
+<br>
+
+<h4 class="ind"><a href="#CHAPTER_IX.">
+CHAPTER IX. GIVING MEDICINE.</a></h4>
+
+<blockquote class="small">&quot;Prevention&quot; better than &quot;cure.&quot; Nine in ten infantile diseases caused
+by errors in diet and drink. Signs of failing health. Causes of a bad
+breath. Flesh eaters. Gormandizers. General rule for preventing disease.
+When to call a physician.</blockquote>
+<br>
+
+<h4 class="ind"><a href="#CHAPTER_X.">
+CHAPTER X. EXERCISE.</a></h4>
+
+<p class="sec">SEC. 1. <i>Rocking in the Cradle.</i></p>
+
+<blockquote class="small">Objections to the use of cradles. Under what circumstances they are
+least objectionable.</blockquote>
+
+<p class="sec">SEC. 2. <i>Carrying in the Arms.</i></p>
+
+<blockquote class="small">Carrying in the arms a suitable exercise for the first two months of
+life. Danger of too early sitting up. Improper position in the arms.
+Mothers must see to this themselves. Motion in the arms should be
+gentle. No tossing, running, or jumping. Infants should not always be
+carried on the same arm.</blockquote>
+
+<p class="sec">SEC. 3. <i>Creeping.</i></p>
+
+<blockquote class="small">Creeping useful to health. Why. Go-carts and leading strings prohibited.
+The longer children creep, the better. Their progress in learning to
+stand. Let it be slow and natural. Let it be, as much as possible, by
+their own voluntary efforts.</blockquote>
+
+<p class="sec">SEC. 4. <i>Walking.</i></p>
+
+<blockquote class="small">Walking in the nursery. Walking abroad. Hoisting children into carriages.
+Walks should not become fatiguing.</blockquote>
+
+<p class="sec">SEC. 5. <i>Riding in Carriages.</i></p>
+
+<blockquote class="small">Carriages useful before children can walk. Their construction. Should be
+drawn steadily. Position of the child in them: Falling asleep. How long
+this exercise should be continued.</blockquote>
+
+<p class="sec">SEC. 6. <i>Riding on Horseback.</i></p>
+
+<blockquote class="small">Never safe for infants. Riding schools. Objections to riding on
+horseback, while very young. Tends to cruelty and tyranny.</blockquote>
+<br>
+
+<h4 class="ind"><a href="#CHAPTER_XI.">
+CHAPTER XI. AMUSEMENTS.</a></h4>
+
+<blockquote class="small">Universal need of amusements. Why so necessary. Error of schools. Error
+of families. Infant schools, as often conducted, particularly injurious.
+Lessons, or tasks, should be short. Mistakes of some manual labor
+schools. Of particular amusements in the nursery. With small wooden
+cubes&mdash;pictures&mdash;shuttlecock&mdash;the rocking horse&mdash;tops and
+marbles&mdash;backgammon&mdash;checkers&mdash;morrice&mdash;dice&mdash;nine-pins&mdash;skipping the
+rope&mdash;trundling the hoop&mdash;playing at ball&mdash;kites&mdash;skating and
+swimming&mdash;dissected maps&mdash;black boards&mdash;elements of letters&mdash;dissected
+pictures.</blockquote>
+<br>
+
+<h4 class="ind"><a href="#CHAPTER_XII.">
+CHAPTER XII. CRYING.</a></h4>
+
+<blockquote class="small">Its importance. Danger of repressing a tendency to cry. Anecdote from
+Dr. Rush. Physiology of crying. Folly of attempting wholly to suppress
+it.</blockquote>
+<br>
+
+<h4 class="ind"><a href="#CHAPTER_XIII.">
+CHAPTER XIII. LAUGHING.</a></h4>
+
+<blockquote class="small">&quot;Laugh and be fat.&quot; Laughing is healthy. A common error. Monastic
+notions yet too prevalent on this subject.</blockquote>
+<br>
+
+<h4 class="ind"><a href="#CHAPTER_XIV.">
+CHAPTER XIV. SLEEP.</a></h4>
+
+<blockquote class="small">General remarks. A prevalent mistake. A hint to fathers. Few Catos.
+Everything left to mothers.</blockquote>
+
+<p class="sec">SEC. 1. <i>Hour for Repose.</i></p>
+
+<blockquote class="small">Night the season of repose, generally. Infants require all hours.
+Sleeping in dark rooms. Excess of caution. Habit of sleeping amid noise.</blockquote>
+
+<p class="sec">SEC. 2. <i>Place.</i></p>
+
+<blockquote class="small">Where the infant should sleep. Why alone. Poisoning by impure air.
+Illustration. Proofs. Friedlander. Dr. Dewees. Destruction of children
+by mothers. Anecdote. Moral reasons for having children sleep alone.
+Sleeping with the aged. Sleeping with cats and dogs.</blockquote>
+
+<p class="sec">SEC. 3 <i>Purity of the Air.</i></p>
+
+<blockquote class="small">Nurseries. Windows open during the night. Lowering them from the top.
+Habit of Dr. Gregory. Going abroad in the open air.</blockquote>
+
+<p class="sec">SEC. 4. <i>The Bed.</i></p>
+
+<blockquote class="small">No feathers should be used. They are too warm. Their effluvia
+oppressive. Other objections to their use. Mattresses. Air beds. Beds of
+cut straw. Soft beds. Testimony of physicians. The pillow. Dampness.
+Curtains. Warming the bed. Beds recently occupied by the sick.</blockquote>
+
+<p class="sec">SEC. 5. <i>The Covering.</i></p>
+
+<blockquote class="small">Light covering. Mistakes of some mothers. Covering the head with bed
+clothes.</blockquote>
+
+<p class="sec">SEC. 6. <i>Night Dresses.</i></p>
+
+<blockquote class="small">As little dress during sleep as possible. No caps. No stockings. Loose
+night shirt. No tight articles of nightdress. Frequent exchanging of
+clothes.</blockquote>
+
+<p class="sec">SEC. 7. <i>Posture of the Body.</i></p>
+
+<blockquote class="small">Sleeping on the back&mdash;on the sides. Position of the head. The infant's
+bedstead. Sir Charles Bell. Darkening the room.</blockquote>
+
+<p class="sec">SEC. 8. <i>State of the Mind.</i></p>
+
+<blockquote class="small">Mental quiet favorable to sleep. Crying to sleep. A good father. All
+anxiety should be avoided.</blockquote>
+
+<p class="sec">SEC. 9. <i>Quality of Sleep.</i></p>
+
+<blockquote class="small">Soundness of our sleep. Nightmare. How produced. Late reading. Late
+suppers. Influence of religion on sleep. Different opinions about sleep.
+Truth midway between extremes. Effect of silence and darkness on our
+sleep. Of sleep before midnight. Light unfavorable to sleep.</blockquote>
+
+<p class="sec">SEC. 10. <i>Quantity.</i></p>
+
+<blockquote class="small">Infants need to sleep nearly the whole time. Number of hours required
+for sleep. Opinions of eminent men. The author's own opinion. Statements
+of Macnish. Estimates on the loss of time by over-sleeping. Hint to
+young mothers.</blockquote>
+<br>
+
+<h4 class="ind"><a href="#CHAPTER_XV.">
+CHAPTER XV. EARLY RISING.</a></h4>
+
+<blockquote class="small">All children naturally early risers. Evils of sitting up late at night.
+Excitements in the evening. The morning, by its beauties, invites us
+abroad. Example of parents. Forbidding children to rise early. Keeping
+them out of the way. Burning them up. &quot;Lecturing&quot; them. What is an early
+hour?</blockquote>
+<br>
+
+<h4 class="ind"><a href="#CHAPTER_XVI.">
+CHAPTER XVI. HARDENING THE CONSTITUTION.</a></h4>
+
+<blockquote class="small">Mistakes about hardening children. Their clothing. Much cold enfeebles.
+The Scotch Highlanders. The two extremes equally fatal&mdash;over-tenderness
+and neglect. An interesting anecdote from Dr. Dewees.</blockquote>
+<br>
+
+<h4 class="ind"><a href="#CHAPTER_XVII.">
+CHAPTER XVII. SOCIETY.</a></h4>
+
+<blockquote class="small">Duty of mothers in this matter. Children prefer the society of parents.
+Importance of other society. Necessity of society. Early diffidence.
+Selecting companions. Moral effects of society on the young. Parents
+should play with their children.</blockquote>
+<br>
+
+<h4 class="ind"><a href="#CHAPTER_XVIII.">
+CHAPTER XVIII. EMPLOYMENTS.</a></h4>
+
+<blockquote class="small">Influence of mothers over daughters. Anecdote of Benjamin West. Anecdote
+of a poor mother. Of set lessons and lectures. Daughters under the
+mother's eye. Disliking domestic employments. Miserable housewives&mdash;not
+to be wondered at. Mistake of one class of men. Mr. Flint's opinion.</blockquote>
+<br>
+
+<h4 class="ind"><a href="#CHAPTER_XIX.">
+CHAPTER XIX. EDUCATION OF THE SENSES.</a></h4>
+
+<blockquote class="small">Extent to which the senses can be improved. Case of the blind. The
+Indians. Julia Brace. Tailors, painters, &amp;c.</blockquote>
+
+<p class="sec">SEC. 1. <i>Hearing.</i></p>
+
+<blockquote class="small">Injury done by caps. Syringing the ears. Anecdote of deafness from
+neglect. Means of improving the hearing.</blockquote>
+
+<p class="sec">SEC. 2. <i>Seeing.</i></p>
+
+<blockquote class="small">Importance of seeing. Near-sighted people&mdash;why so common. Heat of our
+rooms. Very fine print. Spectacles. Reading when tired. Rubbing the
+eyes. Cold water to the eyes.</blockquote>
+
+<p class="sec">SEC. 3. <i>Tasting and Smelling.</i></p>
+
+<blockquote class="small">Benumbing the senses. How this has often been done. The teeth. How to
+preserve them.</blockquote>
+
+<p class="sec">SEC. 4. <i>Feeling.</i></p>
+
+<blockquote class="small">Corpulence and slovenliness. Sense of touch. The blind&mdash;how taught to
+read. Hint to parents. The hand. Neglecting the left hand. Physiology of
+the hand and arm. Evils of being able to use but one hand. Both should
+be educated.</blockquote>
+<br>
+
+<h4 class="ind"><a href="#CHAPTER_XX.">
+CHAPTER XX. ABUSES.</a></h4>
+
+<blockquote class="small">Bad seats for children at table and elsewhere. Why children hate Sunday.
+Seats at Sabbath school&mdash;at church&mdash;at district schools. Suspending
+children between the heavens and the earth. Cushions to sit on. Seats
+with backs. Children in factories. Evils produced. Bodily punishment.
+Striking the heads of children very injurious. Beating across the middle
+of the body. Anecdote of a teacher. Concluding advice to mothers.</blockquote>
+
+
+<br><hr style="width: 45%;"><br>
+<br>
+
+<h3>PREFACE.</h3>
+
+<p>There is a prejudice abroad, to some extent, against agitating the
+questions&mdash;&quot;What shall we eat? What shall we drink? and Wherewithal
+shall we be clothed?&quot;&mdash;not so much because the Scriptures have charged
+us not to be over &quot;anxious&quot; on the subject, as because those who pay the
+least attention to what they eat and drink, are supposed to be, after
+all, the most healthy.</p>
+
+<p>It is not difficult to ascertain how this opinion originated. There are
+a few individuals who are perpetually thinking and talking on this
+subject, and who would fain comply with appropriate rules, if they knew
+what they were, and if a certain definite course, pursued a few days
+only, would change their whole condition, and completely restore a
+shattered or ruined constitution. But their ignorance of the laws which
+govern the human frame, both in sickness and in health, and their
+indisposition to pursue any proposed plan for their improvement long
+enough to receive much permanent benefit from it, keep them,
+notwithstanding all they say or do, always deteriorating.</p>
+
+<p>Then, on the other hand, there are a few who, in consequence of
+possessing by nature very strong constitutions, and laboring at some
+active and peculiarly healthy employment, are able for a few, and
+perhaps even for many years, to set all the rules of health at defiance.</p>
+
+<p>Now, strange as it may seem, these cases, though they are only
+exceptions (and those more apparent than real) to the general rule, are
+always dwelt upon, by those who are determined to live as they please,
+and to put no restraint either upon themselves or their appetites. For
+nothing can be plainer&mdash;so it seems to me&mdash;than that, taking mankind by
+families, or what is still better, by larger portions, they are most
+free from pain and disease, as well as most healthy and happy, who pay
+the most attention to the laws of human health, that is, those laws or
+rules by whose observance alone, that health can be certainly and
+permanently secured.</p>
+
+<p>But these families and communities are most healthy and happy, not
+because they live in a proper manner, by fits and starts, but because
+they have, from some cause or other, adopted and persevered in HABITS
+which, compared with the habits of other families, or other communities,
+are preferable; that is, more in obedience to the laws which govern the
+human constitution. Not that even <i>they</i> are &quot;without sin&quot; or error on
+this subject&mdash;gross error too&mdash;but because their errors are fewer or
+less destructive than those of their neighbors.</p>
+
+<p>Now is it possible that any intelligent father or mother of a family,
+whose diet, clothing, exercise, &amp;c. are thus comparatively well
+regulated, would derive no benefit from the perusal of works which treat
+candidly, rationally, and dispassionately, on these points? Is there a
+mother in the community who is so destitute of reason and common sense
+as not to desire the light of a broader experience in regard to the
+tendency of things than she has had, or possibly can have, in her own
+family? Is there one who will not be aided by understanding not only
+that a certain thing or course is better than another, but also WHY it
+is so?</p>
+
+<p>It is by no means the object of this little work to set people to
+watching their stomachs from meal to meal, in regard to the effects of
+food, drink, &amp;c.; for nothing in the world is better calculated to make
+dyspeptics than this. It is true, indeed, that some things may be
+obviously and greatly injurious, taken only once; and when they are so,
+they should be avoided. But in general, it is the effect of a habitual
+use of certain things for a long time together&mdash;and the longer the
+experiment the better&mdash;which we are to observe.</p>
+
+<p>A book to guide mothers in the formation of early good habits in their
+offspring, should be the result of long observation and much experiment
+on these points, but more especially of a thorough understanding of
+human physiology. It should not consist so much of the conceits of a
+single brain&mdash;perhaps half turned&mdash;as of the logical deductions of
+severe science, and facts gleaned from the world's history.</p>
+
+<p>Here is a nation, or tribe of men, bringing up children to certain
+habits, from generation to generation&mdash;and such and such is their
+character. Here, again, is another large portion of our race, who, under
+similar circumstances of climate, &amp;c. &amp;c., have, for several hundred
+years, educated their children very differently, and with different
+results. A comparison of things on a large scale, together with a close
+attention to the constitution and relations of the human system, affords
+ground for drawing conclusions which are or may be useful. If this book
+shall not afford light derived from such sources, it were far better
+that it had never been written. If it only sets people to watching over
+the effects of things taken or used only for a single day, instead of
+leading them from early infancy to form in their children such habits as
+will preclude, in a great measure, the necessity of watching ourselves
+daily, then let the day perish from the memory of the writer, in which
+the plan of bringing it forth to the world was conceived. But he is
+confident of better things. He does not believe that a work which, to
+such an extent, GIVES THE REASON WHY, will be productive of more evil
+than good. On the contrary, it must, if read, have the opposite effect.</p>
+
+<p>I do not deny that even after the formation of the best habits, there
+will be a necessity of paying some attention to what we eat and what we
+drink, from day to day, and from hour to hour; but only that the
+tendency of this work is not to increase this necessity, but on the
+contrary, to diminish it. In my own view; these occasions of inquiry in
+regard to what is right, <i>physically</i> as well as <i>morally</i>, are one part
+of our trials in this world&mdash;one means of forming our characters. We are
+constantly tempted to excess and to error, in spite of the most firm
+habits of self-denial which can be formed. If we resist temptation, our
+characters are improved. And it is by self-denial and self-government in
+these smaller matters, that we are to hope for nearly all the progress
+we can ever make in the great work of self-education. Great trials of
+character come but seldom; and when they come, we are often armed
+against them; but these little trials and temptations, coming upon us
+every hour&mdash;these it is, after all, that give shape to our characters,
+and make us constantly growing either better or worse, both in the sight
+of God and man. But, as I have repeatedly said, the object of this work
+is to diminish rather than to increase the frequency of these trials,
+useful though they may be, if duly improved, in the formation of
+virtuous, and even of holy character.</p>
+
+<p>There is a sense in which every infant may be said to be born healthy,
+so that we may not only adopt the language of the poet, Bowring, and
+say</p>
+
+<span style="layout-flow: horizontal; margin-left: 8em;">&mdash;"a child is born;</span><br>
+<span style="layout-flow: horizontal; margin-left: 6em;">Take it, and make it a bud of <i>moral</i> beauty,"</span><br>
+
+<p>but we may also add&mdash;Take it and make it beautiful <i>physically</i>. For
+though a hereditary predisposition undoubtedly renders some individuals
+more susceptible than others to particular diseases, yet when the bodily
+organization of an infant is complete, and the degree of vitality which
+nature gives it is sufficient to propel the machinery of the frame, it
+can scarcely be regarded as in any other state than that of health.</p>
+
+<p>Now if it be the intention of divine Providence (and who will doubt that
+it is?) that the animal body should be capable of resisting with
+impunity the impressions of heat, cold, light, air, and the various
+external influences to which, at birth, it is subjected, it may be
+properly asked why this primitive state of health cannot be maintained,
+and diseases, and medicines, and even PREVENTIVES wholly avoided.</p>
+
+<p>But the reason is obvious. Civilized society has placed the human race
+in artificial circumstances. Instead of listening to the dictates of
+reason, making ourselves acquainted with the nature of the human
+constitution, and studying to preserve it in health and vigor, we yield
+to the government of ignorance and presumption. The first moment, even,
+in which we draw breath, sees us placed under the control of individuals
+who are totally inadequate to the important charge of preserving the
+infant constitution in its original state, and aiding its progress to
+maturity. And thus it is that though infants, as a general rule, may be
+said to be born healthy, few actually remain so. Seldom, indeed, do we
+find a person who has arrived at maturity wholly free from disease, even
+in those parts of our country which are reckoned to have the most
+healthy climate.</p>
+
+<p>It is indeed commonly said, that a large proportion, both of children
+and adults, among the agricultural portion of our population, are
+healthy. But it is not so. There is room for doubt whether, on the
+whole, the farmers of this country are healthier than the mechanics, or
+much more so than the manufacturers; or the whole mass of the country
+population healthier than that of the crowded city. The causes of
+disease are sufficiently numerous, in all places and conditions; and
+this will continue to be the fact, not merely until parents and teachers
+shall become more enlightened, but until many generations have been
+trained under their enlightened influence.</p>
+
+<p>If the children and adults among our agricultural population derive from
+their employments in the open air a more ruddy appearance than those
+either of the city or country who are confined more to their rooms; or
+to a vitiated atmosphere, and to numerous other sources of disease, and
+if they <i>appear</i> more favored with health, I have learned, by accurate
+observation, that these appearances are somewhat deceptive. Their active
+sports and employments in the open air give them a stronger appetite
+than any other class of people; and the indulgence of this appetite, not
+only with articles which are heating or indigestible in their nature,
+but with an unreasonable quantity even of those which are considered
+highly proper, is almost in an exact proportion. And it is hence
+scarcely possible for the causes of disease and premature death to be
+more operative in factories and in cities than in farm houses and the
+country. Indeed it may be questioned whether the abuses of the ANIMAL
+part of man&mdash;more common in some of their forms in country than in
+city&mdash;though they may be less conspicuous, are not more certainly and
+even more immediately destructive than those abuses which, in city life,
+and bustle, and competition, affect more the MORAL nature.</p>
+
+<p>Be that as it may, however&mdash;for this is not the place for the grave
+discussion of so broad a question&mdash;one thing, to my mind, is perfectly
+clear, namely, that until physical education shall receive more
+attention from all those who hold the sacred office of instructors of
+the young, humanity can neither be much elevated nor improved. Mothers
+and schoolmasters especially&mdash;they who, as Dr. Rush says, plant the
+seeds of nearly all the good or evil in the world&mdash;must understand, most
+deeply and thoroughly, the laws which regulate the various provinces of
+the little world in which the soul resides, and which, like so many
+states of a great confederacy, have not only their separate interests
+and rights, but certain common and general ones; as well as those laws
+by which the human constitution is related to and connected with the
+objects which everywhere surround, and influence, and limit, and extend
+it.</p>
+
+<p>This book contains little, if anything, new to those who are already
+familiar with anatomy and physiology. Indeed, whatever may be its
+claims, its merits or its demerits, it disclaims novelty. It is, indeed,
+in one point of view, <i>original</i>;&mdash;I mean in its form, manner, and
+arrangement. What I have written is chiefly from my own resources&mdash;the
+results of patient study and observation, and careful reflection; but
+that study and observation of human nature, and this reflection, have
+been greatly aided by reading the writings of others.</p>
+
+<p>In the prosecution of the task which I had assigned myself, no work has
+been of more service to me than an octavo volume of 548 pages, by Dr.
+Wm. P. Dewees, of Philadelphia, entitled, &quot;A Treatise on the Physical
+and Medical Treatment of Children.&quot; It is one of the most valuable works
+on Physical Education in the English language, as is evident from the
+fact that notwithstanding its expense&mdash;three or four dollars&mdash;it has, in
+nine years, gone through five editions. If it were written in such a
+style, and published at such a price as would bring it within reach of
+the minds and purses of the mass of the community, its sale would have
+been, I think, much greater still; and the good which it has
+accomplished would have been increased ten-fold.</p>
+
+<p>If the &quot;YOUNG MOTHER&quot; should be favorably received by the American
+community, and prove extensively useful, it will undoubtedly be owing to
+the fact that it presents so large a collection of facts and principles
+on the great subject of physical education, in a manner so practical,
+and at a price which is very low. To accomplish an object so desirable
+is by no means an easy task. It was once said by the author of a huge
+volume, that he wrote so large a work because he had not time to prepare
+a smaller one. And however unaccountable it may be to those who have not
+made the trial, it may be safely asserted, that to present, within
+limits so small, anything like a system of Physical Education for the
+guidance of young mothers, requires much more time, and labor, and
+patience, than to prepare a work on the same subject twice as large.</p>
+
+<p>Nor is it to be expected, after all, that the work is, in all respects,
+perfect. I have indeed done what I could to render it so; but am
+conscious that future inquiries may lead to the discovery of errors.
+Should such discoveries be made, they will be cheerfully acknowledged
+and corrected; truth being, as it should be, the leading object.</p>
+
+
+<br><hr style="width: 65%;"><br>
+<br>
+
+<h2>THE YOUNG MOTHER.</h2>
+
+<hr class="chapterEnd" />
+
+<h2><a name="CHAPTER_I.">CHAPTER I.</a></h2>
+
+<h3>THE NURSERY.</h3>
+
+<blockquote class="small">General remarks. Importance of a Nursery&mdash;generally overlooked. Its
+walls&mdash;ceiling&mdash;windows&mdash;chimney. Two apartments. Sliding partition.
+Reasons for this arrangement. Objections to carpets. Furniture, &amp;c.
+Feather beds. Holes or crevices. Currents of air. Cats and dogs.
+&quot;Sucking the child's breath.&quot; Brilliant objects. Squinting. Causes of
+blindness.</blockquote>
+<br>
+
+<p>It is far from being in the power of every young mother to procure a
+suitable room for a nursery. In the present state of society, the
+majority must be contented with such places as they can get. Still there
+are various reasons for saying what a nursery should be. 1. It may be of
+service to those who <i>have</i> the power of selection. 2. Information
+cannot injure those who <i>have not</i>. 3. It may lead those who have wealth
+to extend the hand of charity in this important direction; for there
+are not a few who have little sympathy with the wants and distresses of
+the adult poor, who will yet open their hearts and unfold their hands
+for the relief of suffering <i>infancy</i>.</p>
+
+<p>Among those who have what is called a nursery, few select for this
+purpose the most appropriate part of the building. It is not
+unfrequently the one that can best be spared, is most retired, or most
+convenient. Whether it is most favorable to the health and happiness of
+its occupants, is usually at best a secondary consideration.</p>
+
+<p>But this ought not so to be. A nursery should never, for example, be on
+a ground floor, or in a shaded situation, or in any circumstances which
+expose it to dampness, or hinder the occasional approach of the light of
+the sun. It should be spacious, with dry walls, high ceiling, and tight
+windows. The latter should always be so constructed that the upper sash
+can be lowered when we wish to admit or exclude air. It should have a
+chimney, if possible; but if not, there should be suitable holes in the
+ceiling, for the purposes of ventilation.</p>
+
+<p>The windows should have shutters, so that the room, when necessary, can
+be darkened&mdash;and green curtains. Some writers say that the windows
+should have cross bars before them; but if they do not descend within
+three feet of the floor, such an arrangement can hardly be required.</p>
+
+<p>It is highly desirable that every nursery should consist of two rooms,
+opening into each other; or what is still better, of one large room,
+with a sliding or swinging partition in the middle. The use of this is,
+that the mother and child may retire to one, while the other is being
+swept or ventilated. They would thus avoid damp air, currents, and dust.
+Such an arrangement would also give the occupants a room, fresh, clean
+and sweet, in the morning, (which is a very great advantage,) after
+having rendered the air of the other foul by sleeping in it.</p>
+
+<p>In winter, and while there is an infant in the nursery, just beginning
+to walk, it is recommended by many to cover the floor with a carpet. The
+only advantage which they mention is, that it secures the child from
+injury if it falls. But I have seldom seen lasting injury inflicted by
+simple falls on the hard floor; and there are so many objections to
+carpeting a nursery, since it favors an accumulation of dust, bad air,
+damp, grease, and other impurities, that it seems to me preferable to
+omit it. Many physicians, I must own, recommend carpets during winter,
+though not in summer; and in no case, unless they are well shaken and
+aired, at least once a week.</p>
+
+<p>No furniture should be admissible, except the beds for the mother and
+child, a table, and a few chairs. With the best writers and highest
+authorities on the subject, I am decidedly of opinion that all feather
+beds ought effectually and forever to be excluded from nurseries. The
+reasons for this prohibition will appear hereafter.</p>
+
+<p>Every nursery should, if possible, be free from holes or crevices;
+otherwise the occupants will be exposed to currents of air, and their
+sometimes terrible and always injurious consequences. The room may, in
+this way, be kept at a lower medium temperature&mdash;a point of very great
+importance.</p>
+
+<p>Cats and dogs, I believe, are usually excluded from the nursery; if not,
+they ought to be. For though the apprehension of cats &quot;sucking the
+child's breath,&quot; is wholly groundless, yet they may be provoked by the
+rude attacks of a child to inflict upon it a lasting injury. Besides,
+they assist, by respiration, in contaminating the air, like all other
+animals.</p>
+
+<p>If there are, in the nursery, objects which, from the vivacity or
+brilliancy of their colors, attract the attention of the child, they
+should never be presented to them sideways, or immediately over their
+heads. The reason for this caution is, that children seek, and pursue
+almost instinctively, bright objects; and are thus liable to contract a
+habit of moving their eyes in an oblique direction, which <i>may</i>
+terminate in squinting.</p>
+
+<p>Many parents seem to take great pleasure in indulging the young infant
+in looking at these bright objects; especially a lamp or a candle. If
+the child is naturally strong and vigorous, no immediate perceptible
+injury may arise; but I am confident in the opinion that the result is
+often quite otherwise. For many weeks, if not many months of their early
+existence, they should not be permitted to sit or lie and gaze at any
+bright object, be it ever so weak or distant, unless placed exactly
+before their eyes; and even in the latter case, it were better to avoid
+it.</p>
+
+<p>Heat is also injurious to the eyes of all, and of course not less so to
+children than to adults. But when a strong light and heat are conjoined,
+as is the case of sitting around a large blazing fire&mdash;the former custom
+of New England&mdash;it is no wonder if the infantile eyes become early
+injured. No wonder that the generation now on the stage, early subjected
+to these abuses, should be found almost universally in the use of
+spectacles.</p>
+
+<p>This may be the most proper place for observing that great care ought to
+be taken, at the birth of the child, to prevent a too sudden exposure of
+the tender organ of vision to the light. We believe this caution is
+generally omitted by the American physician, though it is one which
+accords with the plainest dictates of common sense. Who of us has not
+experienced the pain of emerging suddenly from the darkness of a cellar
+to the ordinary light of day? The strongest eyes of the adult are
+scarcely able to bear the transition. How much more painful to the
+tender organs of the new-born infant must be the change to which it is
+so frequently subjected? And how easy it is to prevent the pain and
+danger of the change, by more effectually darkening the room into which
+it is introduced!</p>
+
+<p>But we have testimony on this point. A distinguished German physician
+states that he has known many cases of permanent blindness from this
+very cause to which we have referred. The Principal of the Institution
+for the Blind, at Vienna, says he is confident that most children who
+appear to be born blind, are actually made blind by neglecting this same
+precaution.</p>
+
+
+
+<br><br><hr style="width: 65%;"><br><br>
+<h2><a name="CHAPTER_II.">CHAPTER II.</a></h2>
+
+<h3>TEMPERATURE.</h3>
+
+<blockquote class="small">General principle&mdash;&quot;Keep cool.&quot; Our own sensations not always to be
+trusted. Thermometer. Why infants require more external heat than
+adults. Means of warmth. Air heated in other apartments. Clothes taking
+fire. Stove&mdash;railing around it. Excess of heat&mdash;its dangers.</blockquote>
+<br>
+
+<p>There is one general principle, on this subject, which is alike
+applicable to all persons and circumstances. It is, to keep a little too
+cool, rather than in the slightest degree too warm. In other words, the
+lowest temperature which is compatible with comfort, is, in all cases,
+best adapted to health; and a slight degree of coldness, provided it
+amount not to a chill, and is not long continued, is more safe than the
+smallest unnecessary degree of warmth.</p>
+
+<p>But the application of this rule to those over whom we have control, is
+not without its difficulties. Our own sensations are so variable,
+independently of external and obvious causes, that we cannot at all
+times judge for others, especially for infants. The absolute and real
+state of temperature in a room can only be ascertained by the aid of a
+thermometer; and no nursery should ever be without one. It should be
+placed, however, in such a situation as to indicate the real temperature
+of the atmosphere, and not where it will give a false result.</p>
+
+<p>No mother should forget that the infant, at birth, has not the power of
+generating heat, internally, to the extent which it possesses afterward.
+The lungs have as yet but a feeble, inefficient action. The purification
+of the blood, through their agency, is not only incomplete, but the heat
+evolved is as yet inconsiderable. In the absence of internal heat, then,
+there is an increased demand externally. If 60&deg; be deemed suitable for
+most other persons, the new-born infant may, for a few days, require 65&deg;
+or even 70&deg;.</p>
+
+<p>Much may and should be done in preserving the child in a proper
+temperature by means of its clothing. On this point I shall speak at
+length, in another part of this work. My present purpose is simply to
+treat of the temperature of the nursery.</p>
+
+<p>The best way of warming a nursery&mdash;or indeed any other room, where MERE
+warmth is demanded&mdash;is by means of air heated in other apartments, and
+admitted through openings in the floor or fire-place. The air is not
+only thus made more pure, but every possibility of accidents, such as
+having the clothes take fire, is precluded. This last consideration is
+one of very great importance, and I hope will not be much longer
+overlooked in infantile education.</p>
+
+<p>Next to that, in point of usefulness and safety, is a stove, placed near
+or IN the fire-place, and defended by an iron railing. Most people
+prefer an open stove; and on some accounts it is indeed preferable,
+especially where it is desirable to burn coal. Still I think that the
+direct rays of the heat, and the glare of light from open stoves and
+fire-places, particularly for the young, form a very serious objection
+to their use.</p>
+
+<p>One of the strongest objections to open stoves and fire-places in the
+nursery is, the increased exposure to accidents. I know it is said that
+this evil may be avoided by laying aside the use of cotton, and wearing
+nothing but worsted or flannel. This is indeed true; but I do not like
+the idea of being compelled to dress children in flannel or worsted, at
+all times when the least particle of fire is demanded; for this would be
+to wear this stimulating kind of clothing, in our climate, the greater
+part of the year.</p>
+
+<p>Besides, I write for many mothers who are compelled to use cotton, on
+account of the expense of flannel. And if the stove be a close one, and
+well defended by a railing, cotton will seldom expose to danger. Still,
+as has been already said, the introduction of heated air from another
+apartment, whenever it can possibly be afforded, is incomparably better
+than either stoves or fire-places.</p>
+
+<p>Dr. Dewees is fully persuaded that the excessive heat of nurseries has
+occasioned a great mortality among very young children. &quot;In the first
+place,&quot; he says, &quot;it over-stimulates them; and in the second, it renders
+them so susceptible of cold, that any draught of cold air endangers
+their lives. They are in a constant perspiration, which is frequently
+checked by an exposure to even an atmosphere of moderate temperature.&quot;
+If this is but to repeat what has been already said, the importance of
+the subject seems to be a sufficient apology.</p>
+
+
+
+<br><br><hr style="width: 65%;"><br><br>
+<h2><a name="CHAPTER_III.">CHAPTER III.</a></h2>
+
+<h3>VENTILATION.</h3>
+
+<blockquote class="small">General ignorance of the constitution of the atmosphere. The subject
+briefly explained. Oxygen gas. Nitrogen. Carbonic acid. Fires, candles,
+and breathing dependent on oxygen. Danger from carbonic acid. How it
+destroys people. Impurity of the air by means of lamps and candles.
+Other sources of impurity. Experiment of putting the candle under the
+bed-clothes. Covering the heads of infants while sleeping&mdash;its dangers.
+Proportions of oxygen and nitrogen in pure and impure air. No wonder
+children become sickly. Particular means of ventilating rooms. Caution
+in regard to lamps. Washing, ironing, cooking, &amp;c., in a nursery. Their
+evil tendency. Fumigation&mdash;camphor, vinegar.</blockquote>
+<br>
+
+<p>Few people take sufficient pains to preserve the air in any of their
+apartments pure; for few know what the constitution of our atmosphere
+is, and in how many ways and with what ease it is rendered impure.</p>
+
+<p>It is not my purpose to go into a learned, scientific account in this
+place, or even in this work, of the constitution of the atmosphere. A
+few plain statements are all that are indispensable. The atmosphere
+which we breathe is composed of two different airs or gases. One of
+these is called oxygen, [Footnote: Oxygen gas is the chief supporter of
+combustion, as well as of respiration. It is the vital part, as it were,
+of the air. No animal or vegetable could long exist without it. And yet
+if alone, unmixed, it is too pure and too refined for animals to
+breathe. Nitrogen gas, on the contrary, while alone, will not support
+either respiration or combustion; mixed, however, with oxygen, it
+dilutes it, and in the most happy manner fits it for reception into the
+lungs.] and the other nitrogen. There is another gas usually found with
+these two, in smaller quantity, called carbonic acid gas; but whether it
+is necessary, in a very small quantity, to health, chemists, I believe,
+are not agreed. One thing, however, is certain&mdash;that if any portion of
+it is healthful, it must be very little&mdash;not more, certainly, than
+one-fiftieth or one-hundredth of the whole mass.</p>
+
+<p>It is by means of the oxygen it contains, that air sustains life and
+combustion. Were it not for this, neither fires nor candles would burn,
+and no animal could breathe a single moment. Breathing consumes this
+oxygen of the air very rapidly. When the oxygen is present in about a
+certain proportion, combustion and respiration go on well, but when its
+natural proportion is diminished, the fire does not burn so well,
+neither does the candle; and no one can breathe so freely.</p>
+
+<p>Not only are breathing and combustion impeded or disturbed by the
+diminution of oxygen in the atmosphere, but just in proportion as oxygen
+is diminished by these two processes, or either of them, carbonic acid
+is formed, which is not only bad for combustion, but much worse for
+health. If any considerable quantity of it is inhaled, it appears to be
+an absolute poison to the human system; and if in <i>very large quantity</i>,
+will often cause immediate death.</p>
+
+<p>It is this gas, accumulated in large quantities, that destroys so many
+people in close rooms, where there is no chimney, nor any other place
+for the bad air to escape. But it not only kills people outright&mdash;it
+partly kills, that is, it poisons, more or less, hundreds of thousands.</p>
+
+<p>In a nursery there is the mother and child, and perhaps the nurse, to
+render the air impure by breathing, the fire and the lamp or candle to
+contribute to the same result, besides several other causes not yet
+mentioned. One of these is nearly related to the former. I allude to the
+fact that our skins, by perspiration and by other means, are a source of
+much impurity to the atmosphere; a fact which will be more fully
+explained and illustrated in the chapter on Bathing and Cleanliness. It
+is only necessary to say, in this place, that it is not the matter of
+perspiration alone which, issuing from the skin, renders the air
+impure; there are other exhalations more or less constantly going off
+from every living body, especially from the lungs; and carbonic acid gas
+is even formed all over the surface of the skin, as well as by means of
+the lungs.</p>
+
+<p>One needs no better proof that carbonic acid is formed on the surface of
+the body, than the fact that after the body has been closely covered all
+night, if you introduce a candle under the bed-clothes into this
+confined air, it will be quickly extinguished, because there is too
+much carbonic acid gas there, and too little oxygen.</p>
+
+<p>We may hence see at once the evil of covering the heads of infants when
+they lie down&mdash;a very common practice. The air, when pure, contains a
+little more than 20 parts of oxygen, and a little less than 80 of
+nitrogen. Breathing this air, as I have already shown, consumes the
+oxygen, which is so necessary to life and health, and leaves in its
+place an increase of nitrogen and carbonic acid gas, which are not
+necessary to health, and the latter of which is even positively
+injurious. But when the oxygen, instead of forming 20 or more parts in
+100 of the atmosphere of the nursery, is reduced to 15 or 18 parts only,
+and the carbonic acid gas is increased from 1 or 2 parts in 100, to 5,
+6, 8 or 10&mdash;when to this is added the other noxious exhalations from the
+body, and from the lamp or candle, fire-place, feather bed, stagnant
+fluids in the room, &amp;c., &amp;c.&mdash;is it any wonder that children, in the
+end, become sickly? What else could be expected but that the seeds of
+disease, thus early sown, should in due time spring up, and produce
+their appropriate fruits?</p>
+
+<p>It is sometimes said that fire in a room purifies it. It undoubtedly
+does so, to a certain extent, if fresh air be often admitted; but not
+otherwise.</p>
+
+<p>I have classed feather beds among the common causes of impurity. Dr.
+Dewees also condemns them, most decidedly; and gives substantial reasons
+for &quot;driving them out of the nursery.&quot;</p>
+
+<p>In speaking of the structure of the room used for a nursery, I have
+adverted to the importance of having a large or double room, with
+sliding doors between, in order that the occupants may go into one of
+them, while the other is being ventilated. But whatever may be the
+structure of the room, the circumstances of the occupants, or the state
+of the weather, every nursery ought to be most thoroughly ventilated,
+once a day, at least; and when the weather is tolerable, twice a day. If
+there is but one apartment, and fear is entertained of the dampness of
+the fresh air introduced, or of currents, and if the mother and babe
+cannot retire, there is a last resort, which is for them to get into
+bed, and cover themselves a short time with the clothing. For though I
+have prohibited the covering of the face with the bed-clothes for any
+considerable length of time together, yet to do so for some fifteen or
+twenty minutes is an evil of far less magnitude than to suffer an
+apartment to remain without being ventilated, for twenty-four hours
+together&mdash;a very common occurrence.</p>
+
+<p>When a lamp is kept burning in a nursery during the night, it should
+always be placed at the door of the stove, or in the chimney place, that
+its smoke, and the bad airs or gases which are formed, may escape. But
+it is better, in general, to avoid burning lamps or candles during the
+night. By means of common matches, a light may be produced, when
+necessary, almost instantly; especially if you have a spirit lamp in the
+nursery, or what is still better, one of spirit gas&mdash;that is, a mixture
+of alcohol and turpentine.</p>
+
+<p>It is highly desirable that all washing, ironing, and cooking should be
+avoided in the nursery. They load the air with noxious effluvia or
+vapor, or with particles of dust; none of which ought ever to enter the
+delicate lungs of an infant.</p>
+
+<p>Fumigations with camphor, vinegar, and other similar substances, have
+long been in reputation as a means of purifying the air in sick-rooms
+and nurseries; but they are of very little consequence. Fresh air, if it
+can be had, is always better.</p>
+
+
+
+<br><br><hr style="width: 65%;"><br><br>
+<h2><a name="CHAPTER_IV."></a>CHAPTER IV.</h2>
+
+<h3>THE CHILD'S DRESS</h3>
+
+<blockquote class="small">General principles. SEC. 1. Swathing the body&mdash;its numerous evils.&mdash;SEC.
+2. Form of the dress. Fashion. Tight lacing&mdash;its dangers. Structure and
+motion of the chest. Diseases from tight lacing.&mdash;SEC. 3. Material of
+dress. Flannel&mdash;its uses. Cleanliness. Cotton&mdash;silk&mdash;linen.&mdash;SEC. 4.
+Quantity of dress. Power of habit. Anecdote. Begin right. Change.
+Dampness.&mdash;SEC. 5. Caps&mdash;their evils. Going bare-headed.&mdash;SEC. 6. Hats
+and bonnets.&mdash;SEC. 7. Covering for the feet. Stockings. Garters.
+Shoes&mdash;thick soles.&mdash;SEC. 8. Pins&mdash;their danger. Shocking
+anecdote.&mdash;SEC. 9. Remaining wet.&mdash;SEC. 10. Dress of boys. Tight
+jackets. Stocks and cravats. Boots.&mdash;SEC. 11. Dress of girls&mdash;should be
+loose. Temperature. Exposure to the night air.</blockquote>
+<br>
+
+<p>Dress serves three important purposes:&mdash;1. To cover us; 2. To defend us
+against cold; 3. To defend our bodies and limbs from injury. There is
+one more purpose of dress; in case of deformity, it seems to improve the
+appearance.</p>
+
+<p>In all our arrangements in regard to dress, whether of children or of
+adults, we should ever keep in mind the above principles. The form,
+fashion, material, application, and quantity of all clothing,
+especially for infants, ought to be regulated by these three or four
+rules.</p>
+
+<p>The subject of this chapter is one of so much importance, and embraces
+such a variety of items, that it will be more convenient, both to the
+reader and myself, to consider it under several minor heads.</p>
+<br>
+
+<h4>SEC. 1. <i>Swathing the Body.</i></h4>
+
+<p>Buffon, in his &quot;Natural History,&quot; says that in France, an infant has
+hardly enjoyed the liberty of moving and stretching its limbs, before it
+is put into confinement. &quot;It is swathed,&quot; says he, &quot;its head is fixed,
+its legs are stretched out at full length, and its arms placed straight
+down by the side of its body. In this manner it is bound tight with
+cloths and bandages, so that it cannot stir a limb; indeed it is
+fortunate that the poor thing is not muffled up so as to be unable to
+breathe.&quot;</p>
+
+<p>All swathing, except with a single bandage around the abdomen, is
+decidedly unreasonable, injurious and cruel. I do not pretend that the
+remarks of M. Buffon are fully applicable to the condition of infants in
+the United States. The good sense of the community nowhere permits us to
+transform a beautiful babe quite into an Egyptian mummy. Still there
+are many considerable errors on the subject of infantile dress, which,
+in the progress of my remarks, I shall find it necessary to expose.</p>
+
+<p>The use of a simple band cannot be objected to. It affords a general
+support to the abdomen, and a particular one to the <i>umbilicus</i>. The
+last point is one of great importance, where there is any tendency to a
+rupture at this part of the body&mdash;a tendency which very often exists in
+feeble children. And without some support of this kind, crying,
+coughing, sneezing, and straining in any way, might greatly aggravate
+the evil, if not produce serious consequences.</p>
+
+<p>But, in order to afford a support to the abdomen in the best manner, it
+is by no means necessary that the bandage should be drawn very tight.
+Two thirds of the nurses in this country greatly err in this respect,
+and suppose that the more tightly a bandage is drawn, the better. It
+should be firm, but yet gently yielding; and therefore a piece of
+flannel cut &quot;bias,&quot; as it is termed, or, obliquely with respect to the
+threads of which it is composed, is the most appropriate material.</p>
+
+<p>If the attention of the mother were necessary nowhere else, it would be
+indispensable in the application of this article. If she do not take
+special pains to prevent it, the erring though well meaning nurse may
+so compress the body with the bandage as to produce pain and uneasiness,
+and sometimes severe colic. Nay, worse evils than even this have been
+known to arise. When a child sneezes, or coughs, or cries, the abdomen
+should naturally yield gently; but if it is so confined that it cannot
+yield where the band is applied, it will yield in an unnatural
+proportion below, to the great danger of producing a species of rupture,
+no less troublesome than the one which such tight swathing is designed
+to prevent.</p>
+
+<p>But besides the bandage already mentioned, no other restraint of the
+body and limbs of a child is at all admissible. The Creator has kindly
+ordained that the human body and limbs, and especially its muscles, or
+moving powers, shall be developed by exercise. Confine an arm or a leg,
+even in a child of ten years of age, and the limb will not increase
+either in strength or size as it otherwise would, because its muscles
+are not exercised; and the fact is still more obvious in infancy.</p>
+
+<p>There is a still deeper evil. On all the limbs are fixed two sets of
+muscles; one to extend, the other to draw up or bend the limb. If you
+keep a limb extended for a considerable time, you weaken the one set of
+muscles; if you keep it bent, you weaken the other. This weakness may
+become so great that the limb will be rendered useless. There are cases
+on record&mdash;well authenticated&mdash;where children, by being obliged to sit
+in one place on a hard floor, have been made cripples for life. Hundreds
+of others are injured, though they may not become absolutely crippled.</p>
+
+<p>I repeat it, therefore, their dress should be so free and loose that
+they may use their little limbs, their neck and their bodies, as much as
+they please; and in every desired direction. The practices of confining
+their arms while they lie down, for fear they should scratch themselves
+with their nails, and of pinning the clothes round their feet, are
+therefore highly reprehensible. Better that they should even
+occasionally scratch themselves with their nails, than that they should
+be made the victims of injurious restraint. Who would think of tying up
+or muffling the young lamb or kid? And even the young plant&mdash;what think
+you would be the effect, if its leaves and branches could not move
+gently with the soft breezes? Would the fluids circulate, and health be
+promoted: or would they stagnate, and a morbid, sickly and dwarfish
+state be the consequence?</p>
+
+<p>Those whose object is to make infancy, as well as any other period of
+existence, a season of happiness, will not fail to find an additional
+motive for giving the little stranger entire freedom in the land
+whither he has so recently arrived, especially when he seems to enjoy
+it so much. Who can be so hardened as to confine him, unless compelled
+by the most pressing necessity?</p>
+<br>
+
+<h4>SEC. 2. <i>Form of the Dress.</i></h4>
+
+<p>On this subject a writer in the London Literary Gazette of some eight or
+ten years ago, lays down the following general directions, to which, in
+cold weather, there can be but one possible objection, which is, they
+are not <i>alamode</i>, and are not, therefore, likely to be followed.</p>
+
+<p>&quot;All that a child requires, so far as regards clothing, in the first
+month of its existence, is a simple covering for the trunk and
+extremities of the body, made of a material soft and agreeable to the
+skin, and which can retain, in an equable degree, the animal
+temperature. These qualities are to be found in perfection in fine
+flannel; and I recommend that the only clothing, for the first month or
+six weeks, be a square piece of flannel, large enough to involve fully
+and overlap the whole of the babe, with the exception of the head, which
+should be left totally uncovered. This wrapper should be fixed by a
+button near the breast, and left so loose as to permit the arms and legs
+to be freely stretched, and moved in every direction. It should be
+succeeded by a loose flannel gown with sleeves, which should be worn
+till the end of the second month; after which it may be changed to the
+common clothing used by children of this age.&quot;</p>
+
+<p>The advantages of such a dress are, that the movements of the infant
+will be, as we have already seen, free and unrestrained, and we shall
+escape the misery of hearing the screams which now so frequently
+accompany the dressing and undressing of almost every child. No chafings
+from friction, moreover, can occur; and as the insensible perspiration
+is in this way promoted over the whole surface of the body, the sympathy
+between the stomach and skin is happily maintained. A healthy sympathy
+of this kind, duly kept up, does much towards preserving the stomach in
+a good state, and the skin from eruptions and sores.</p>
+
+<p>But as I apprehend that christianity is not yet very deeply rooted in
+the minds and hearts of parents, I have already expressed my doubts
+whether they are prepared to receive and profit by advice at once
+rational and physiological. Still I cannot help hoping that I shall
+succeed in persuading mothers to have every part of a child's dress
+perfectly loose, except the band already referred to; and that should be
+but moderately tight.</p>
+
+<p>Common humanity ought to teach us better than to put the body of a
+helpless infant into a <i>vise</i>, and press it to death, as the first mark
+of our attention. Who has not been struck with a strange inconsistency
+in the conduct of mothers and nurses, who, while they are so exceedingly
+tender towards the infant in some points as to injure it by their
+kindness, are yet almost insensible to its cries of distress while
+dressing it? So far, indeed, are they from feeling emotions of pity,
+that they often make light of its cries, regarding them as signs of
+health and vigor.</p>
+
+<p>There can be no doubt, I confess, that the first cries of an infant, if
+strong, both indicate and promote a healthy state of the lungs, to a
+certain extent; but there will always be unavoidable occasions enough
+for crying to promote health, even after we have done all we can in the
+way of avoiding pain. They who only draw the child's dress the tighter,
+the more it cries, are guilty of a crime of little less enormity than
+murder.</p>
+
+<p>&quot;Think,&quot; says Dr. Buchan, &quot;of the immense number of children that die of
+convulsions soon after birth; and be assured that these (its cries) are
+much oftener owing to galling pressure, or some external injury, than to
+any inward cause.&quot; This same writer adds, that he has known a child
+which was &quot;seized with convulsion fits&quot; soon after being &quot;swaddled,&quot;
+immediately relieved by taking off the rollers and bandages; and he says
+that a loose dress prevented the return of the disease.</p>
+
+<p>I think it is obvious that the utmost extent to which we ought to go, in
+yielding to the fashion, as it regards form, is to use three pieces of
+clothing&mdash;the shirt, the petticoat and the frock; all of which must be
+as loose as possible; and before the infant begins to crawl about much,
+the latter should be long, for the salve of covering the feet and legs.
+At four or five years of age, loose trowsers, with boys, may be
+substituted for the petticoat; but it is a question whether something
+like the frock might not, with every individual, be usefully retained
+through life.</p>
+
+<p>I wish it were unnecessary, in a book like this, to join in the general
+complaint against tight lacing any part of the body, but especially the
+chest. But as this work of torture is sometimes begun almost from the
+cradle, and as prevention is better than cure, the hope of preventing
+that for which no cure appears yet to have been found, leads me to make
+a few remarks on the subject.</p>
+
+<p>As it has long been my opinion that one reason why mothers continue to
+overlook the subject is, that they do not understand the structure and
+motion of the chest, I have attempted the following explanation and
+illustration.</p>
+
+<p>I have already said, that if we bandage tightly, for a considerable
+time, any part of the human frame, it is apt to become weaker. The more
+a portion of the frame which is furnished with muscles, those curious
+instruments of motion, is used, provided it is not <i>over</i>-exerted, the
+more vigorous it is. Bind up an arm, or a hand, or a foot, and keep it
+bound for twelve hours of the day for many years, and think you it will
+be as strong as it otherwise would have been? Facts prove the contrary.
+The Chinese swathe the feet of their infant females; and they are not
+only small, but weak.</p>
+
+<p>I have said their feet are smaller for being bandaged. So is a hand or
+an arm. Action&mdash;healthy, constant action&mdash;is indispensable to the
+perfect development of the body and limbs. Why it is so, is another
+thing. But so it is; and it is a principle or law of the great Creator
+which cannot be evaded. More than this; if you bind some parts of the
+body tightly, so as to compress them as much as you can without
+producing actual pain, you will find that the part not only ceases to
+grow, but actually dwindles away. I have seen this tried again and
+again. Even the solid parts perish under pressure. When a person first
+wears a false head of hair, the clasp which rests upon the head, at the
+upper part of the forehead, being new and elastic, and pressing rather
+closely, will, in a few months, often make quite an indentation in the
+cranium or bone of the head.</p>
+
+<p>Now is it probable&mdash;nay, is it possible&mdash;that the lungs, especially
+those of young persons, can expand and come to their full and natural
+size under pressure, even though the pressure should be slight? Must
+they not be weakened? And if the pressure be strong, as it sometimes is,
+must they not dwindle away?</p>
+
+<p>We know, too, from the nature and structure of the lungs themselves,
+that tight lacing must injure them. Many mothers have very imperfect
+notions of what physicians mean, when they say that corsets impede the
+circulation, by preventing the full and undisturbed action of the lungs.
+They get no higher ideas of the <i>motion</i> of the <i>chest</i>, than what is
+connected with bending the body forward and backward, from right to
+left, &amp;c. They know that, if dressed too tightly, <i>this</i> motion is not
+so free as it otherwise would be; but if they are not so closely laced
+as to prevent that free bending of the body of which I have been
+speaking, they think there can be no danger; or at least, none of
+consequence.</p>
+
+<p>Now it happens that this sort of motion is not that to which physicians
+refer, when they complain of corsets. Strictly speaking, this bending of
+the whole body is performed by the muscles of the back, and not those
+of the chest. The latter have very little to do with it. It is true,
+that even <i>this</i> motion ought not to be hindered; but if it is, the evil
+is one of little comparative magnitude.</p>
+
+<p>Every time we breathe naturally, all the ribs, together with the breast
+bone, have motion. The ribs rise, and spread a little outward,
+especially towards the fore part. The breast bone not only rises, but
+swings forward a little, like a pendulum. But the moment the chest is
+swathed or bandaged, this motion must be hindered; and the more, in
+proportion to the tightness.</p>
+
+<p>On this point, those persons make a sad mistake, who say that &quot;a busk
+not too wide nor too rigid seems to correspond to the supporting spine,
+and to assist, rather than impede the efforts of nature, to keep the
+body erect.&quot;</p>
+
+<p>Can we seriously compare the offices of the spine with those of the
+ribs, and suppose that because the former is fixed like a post, at the
+back part of the lungs, therefore an artificial post in front would be
+useful? Why, we might just as well argue in favor of hanging weights to
+a door, or a clog to a pendulum, in order to make it swing backwards and
+forwards more easily. We might almost as well say that the elbow ought
+to be made firm, to correspond with the shoulders, and thus become
+advocates for letting the stays or bandages enclose the arm above the
+elbow, and fasten it firmly to the side. Indeed, the consequences in the
+latter case, aside from a little inconvenience, would not be half so
+destructive to health as in the former. The ribs, where they join to the
+back bone, form hinges; and hinges are made for motion. But if you
+fasten them to a post in front, of what value are the hinges?</p>
+
+<p>If mothers ask, of what use this motion of the lungs is, it is only
+necessary to refer them to the chapter on Ventilation, in which I trust
+the subject is made intelligible, and a satisfactory answer afforded.</p>
+
+<p>But I might appeal to facts. Let us look at females around us generally.
+Do their countenances indicate that they enjoy as good health as they
+did when dress was worn more loosely? Have they not oftener a leaden
+hue, as if the blood in them was darker? Are they not oftener
+short-breathed than formerly? As they advance in life, have they not
+more chronic diseases? Are not their chests smaller and weaker? And as
+the doctrine that if one member suffers, all the other members suffer
+with it, is not less true in physiology than in morals, do we not find
+other organs besides the lungs weakened? Surgeons and physicians, who,
+like faithful sentinels, have watched at their post half a century,
+tell us, moreover, that if these foolish and injurious practices to
+which I refer are tolerated two centuries longer, every female will be
+deformed, and the whole race greatly degenerated, physically and
+morally.</p>
+
+<p>Those with whom no arguments will avail, are recommended to read the
+following remarks from the first volume of the Library of Health, p.
+119:</p>
+
+<p>&quot;It is related, on the authority of Macgill, that in Tunis, after a girl
+is engaged, or betrothed, she is then <i>fattened</i>. For this purpose, she
+is cooped up in a small room, and shackles of gold and silver are placed
+upon her ancles and wrists, as a piece of dress. If she is to be married
+to a man who has discharged, despatched, or lost a former wife, the
+shackles which the former wife wore are put on the new bride's limbs,
+and she is fed till they are filled up to a proper thickness. The food
+used for this custom worthy of the barbarians is called <i>drough</i>, which
+is of an extraordinary fattening quality, and also famous for rendering
+the milk of the nurse rich and abundant. With this and their national
+dish, <i>cuscasoo</i>, the bride is literally crammed, and many actually die
+under the spoon.&quot;</p>
+
+<p>We laugh at all this, and well we may; but there are customs not very
+far from home, no less ridiculous.</p>
+
+<p>&quot;There is a country four or five thousand miles westward of Tunis,
+where the females, to a very great extent, are emaciated for marriage,
+instead being fattened. This process is begun, in part, by shackles&mdash;not
+of gold and silver, perhaps, but of wood&mdash;but instead of being put on
+loosely, and causing the body or limbs to fill them, they are made to
+compress the body in the outset; and as the size of the latter
+diminishes, the shackles are contracted or tightened. As with the
+eastern, so with the western females, many of them die under the
+process; though a far greater number die at a remote period, as the
+consequence of it.&quot;</p>
+<br>
+
+<h4>SEC. 3. <i>Material.</i></h4>
+
+<p>I have already committed myself to the reader as favoring the use of
+soft flannel in cold weather, especially for children who are not yet
+able to run about freely in the open air. The advantages of an early use
+of this material, at least for under-clothes, are numerous. The
+following are a few of them.</p>
+
+<p>1. Flannel, next to the skin, is a pleasant flesh brush; keeping up a
+gentle and equable irritation, and promoting perspiration and every
+other function which it is the office of the skin to perform, or assist
+in performing.</p>
+
+<p>2. It guards the body against the cooling effects of evaporation, when
+in a state of profuse perspiration.</p>
+
+<p>3. By preventing the heat of the body from escaping too rapidly, it
+keeps up a steadier temperature on the surface than any other known
+substance. The importance of the last consideration is greater, in a
+climate like our own, than elsewhere.</p>
+
+<p>But there are limits to the use of this article of clothing. Whenever
+the temperature of the atmosphere is so great, even without artificial
+heat, that we no longer wish to retain the heat of the body by the
+clothing, then all flannel should be removed at once, and linen should
+be substituted; taking care to replace the flannel whenever the
+temperature of the atmosphere, as indicated by the thermometer, or by
+the child's feelings, may seem to require it.</p>
+
+<p>It should also be kept clean. There is a very general mistake abroad on
+this subject. Many suppose that flannel can be worn longer without
+washing than other kinds of cloth. On the contrary, it should be changed
+oftener than cotton, or even linen, because it will absorb a great deal
+of fluid, especially the matter of perspiration, which, if long
+retained, is believed to ferment, and produce unhealthy, if not
+poisonous gases. For this reason, too, flannel for children's clothing
+should be white, that it may show dirt the more readily, and obtain the
+more frequent washing; although it is for this very reason&mdash;its
+liability to exhibit the least particles of dirt&mdash;that it is commonly
+rejected.</p>
+
+<p>One caution more in regard to the use of flannel may be necessary. With
+some children, owing to a peculiarity of constitution, flannel will
+produce eruptions on the skin, which are very troublesome. Whenever this
+is the case, the flannel should be immediately laid aside; upon which
+the eruptions usually disappear.</p>
+
+<p>If parents would take proper pains to get the lighter, softer kinds of
+flannel for this purpose, and be particular about its looseness and
+quantity, I should prefer, as I have already intimated, to have very
+young children, in our climate, wear this material the greater part of
+the year, excepting perhaps July and August.</p>
+
+<p>My reasons for this course would be, first, that I like the stimulus of
+soft flannel on the skin, if changed sufficiently often, better than
+that of any other kind of clothing. Secondly, cotton is so liable to
+take fire, that its use in the nursery and among little children seems
+very hazardous. Thirdly, silk is not quite the appropriate material, as
+a general thing, besides being too expensive; and fourthly, linen is
+not warm enough, except in mid-summer.</p>
+
+<p>Except, therefore, in July and August, and in cases of idiosyncracy,
+such as have just been alluded to, I would use flannel for the
+under-clothes of young children, throughout the year. But whenever they
+acquire sufficient strength to walk and run, and play much in the open
+air, I would gradually lay aside the use of all flannel, even in winter.
+Great attention, however, must be paid to the <i>quantity</i>. The parent
+who, guided by this rule, should keep on her child the same amount of
+flannel, and of the same thickness, from January to June 30th, and then,
+on the first of July, should suddenly exchange it for thin linen, in
+moderate quantity, might find trouble from it. It is better to make the
+changes more gradually; otherwise, whatever may be the material of the
+dress, the child will be likely to suffer.</p>
+<br>
+
+<h4>SEC. 4. <i>Quantity.</i></h4>
+
+<p>The quantity of clothing used by different individuals of the same age,
+in the same climate, possessing constitutions nearly alike, and
+following similar occupations, is so different as to strike us with
+surprise when we first observe the fact.</p>
+
+<p>One will wear nothing but a coarse linen or cotton shirt, coarse coat,
+waistcoat, and pantaloons, and boots, in the coldest weather. He never,
+unless it be on the Sabbath, puts on even a cravat, and never in any
+case stockings or mittens.</p>
+
+<p>Another, in similar circumstances in all respects, constantly wears his
+thick stockings, flannel wrapper and drawers, and cravat; and seldom
+goes out, in cold weather, without mittens and an overcoat. He is not a
+whit warmer: indeed he often suffers more from the cold, than his
+neighbor who dresses in the manner just described.</p>
+
+<p>Why all this difference? It is no doubt the result of habit. Any
+individual may accustom himself to much or little clothing. And the
+earlier the habit is begun, the greater is its influence.</p>
+
+<p>Some persons, observing how little clothing one may accustom himself to
+use and yet be comfortable, have told us, that so far as mere
+temperature is concerned, we need no clothing at all. They relate the
+story of the Scythian and Alexander. Alexander asked the former how he
+could go without clothes in such a cold climate. He replied, by asking
+Alexander how he could go with his face naked. &quot;Habit reconciles us to
+this;&quot; was the reply. &quot;Think me, then, <i>all</i> face,&quot; said the Scythian.</p>
+
+<p>But admitting that certain individuals, and even a few rude tribes,
+have gone without clothing; did they therefore follow, in this respect,
+the intentions of nature? The greatest stickler for adhering to nature's
+plan, cannot prove this. Analogy is against it. Most of the other
+animals, even in hot climates, are furnished with a hairy covering from
+the first; and in cold climates, the Author of their being has even
+provided them with an increase of clothing for the winter. Their fur, on
+the approach of cold weather, not only becomes whiter, and therefore
+conducts the heat away from the body more slowly, but, as every dealer
+in furs well understands, it becomes softer and thicker. And yet the
+blood of the furred animals of cold countries is as warm as ours, if not
+warmer.</p>
+
+<p>The inferences which it seems to me we ought to make from this are, that
+if other animals require clothing, and even a change of clothing, so
+does man; and that as the Creator has left him to provide, by his own
+ingenuity, for a great many of his wants, instead of furnishing him with
+instinct to direct him, so in relation to dress. And even if it could be
+proved that dress were naturally unnecessary, with reference to
+temperature, I should still defend its use on other principles. The few
+speculative minds, therefore, that in the vagaries of their fancy, but
+never in their practice, reject it, are not to be regarded.</p>
+
+<p>The principle laid down in the commencement of the chapter on
+Temperature, is the great principle which should guide us in regard to
+dress. But although we should always keep a little too cool rather than
+a little too warm, it is by no means desirable to be cold. Any degree of
+chilliness, long continued, interrupts the functions which the skin
+ought to perform, and thus produces mischief.</p>
+
+<p>The same rules, in this respect, apply to eating, as well as to dress.
+It is better to eat a little less than nature requires, than a little
+more. It is a generally received opinion, however, that mankind
+frequently, at least in this country, eat about twice as much as health
+requires. This is owing to habit; and perhaps the power of the latter is
+as great in this respect as in regard to dress.</p>
+
+<p>The great point in regard to food or dress is, to <i>begin</i> right, and,
+observing what nature requires&mdash;studying at the same time the testimony
+of others&mdash;to endeavor to keep within the bounds she has assigned. It
+has already been more than intimated, that if the nursery be kept in a
+proper temperature, a single loose piece of dress is, for some time, all
+that is required. In pursuance of this principle, through life, I
+believe few persons would be found who would need more at one time than
+a single suit of woollen clothes, even in the severest winters of our
+northern climate.</p>
+
+<p>I have always observed that they who wear the greatest amount of
+clothing, are most subject to colds. There are obvious reasons why it
+should be so. This, then, if a fact, is one of the strongest reasons in
+favor of acquiring a habit of going as thinly clad as we possibly can,
+and not at the same time feel any inconvenience.</p>
+
+<p>But after all, whether it be winter or summer, we must vary our clothing
+with the variations of the weather, as indicated by the thermometer, and
+our own feelings. Sometimes, in our ever-changing and ever-changeable
+climate, it may be necessary to vary our dress three or four times a
+day. Some cry out against this practice as dangerous, but I have never
+found it so. I have known persons who made it a constant practice; and I
+never found that they sustained any injury from it, except the loss of a
+little time; and the increase of comfort was more than enough to
+compensate for that. There is one thing to be avoided, however, whether
+we change our clothing&mdash;our linen especially&mdash;twice a day, or only twice
+a week&mdash;which is, <i>dampness</i>.</p>
+<br>
+
+<h4>SEC. 5. <i>Caps.</i></h4>
+
+<p>The practice of putting caps on infants is happily going by; and perhaps
+it may be thought unnecessary for me to dwell a single moment on the
+subject. But as the practice still prevails in some parts of the
+country, it may be well to bestow upon it a few passing remarks.</p>
+
+<p>Many mothers have not considered that the circulation of the blood in
+young infants is peculiarly active; that a large amount of blood is at
+that period carried to the head; that in consequence of this, the head
+is proportionably hotter than in adults; and that from this source
+arises the tendency of very young children to brain-fever, dropsy in the
+head, and other diseases of this part of the system. But these are most
+undoubted facts.</p>
+
+<p>Hence one reason why the heads of infants should be kept as cool as
+possible; and though a thin cap confines less heat than a thick head of
+hair does when they are older, yet they are less able to bear it. The
+truth is, that nature furnishes a covering for the head, just about as
+fast as a covering is required, and the child's safety will permit.</p>
+
+<p>At the present day, few persons will probably be found, who will defend
+the utility of caps, any longer than till the hair is grown. The
+general apology for their use after this period, and indeed in most
+instances before, is, that they look pretty. &quot;What would people say to
+see my darling without a cap?&quot;</p>
+
+<p>But when the head is kept, from the first, totally uncovered, the hair
+grows more rapidly, dandruff and other scurfy diseases rarely attack the
+scalp; catarrh, snuffles, and other similar complaints, and above all,
+dropsy in the head, seldom show themselves; and the period of cutting
+teeth, that most dangerous period in the life of an infant, is passed
+over with much more safety.</p>
+
+<p>&quot;Nothing but custom,&quot; says a foreign writer, &quot;can reconcile us to the
+cap, with all its lace and trumpery ornaments, on the beautiful head of
+a child; and I would ask any one to say candidly, whether he thinks the
+children in the pictures of Titian and Raffaelle would be improved by
+having their heads covered with caps, instead of the silken curls&mdash;the
+adornment of nature&mdash;which cluster round their smiling faces. If there
+were no other reason for disusing caps for infants, but the improvement
+which it produces in the <i>appearance</i> of the child, I would maintain
+that this is a sufficient inducement.&quot; And I concur with him fully.</p>
+
+<p>As to the notion&mdash;now I hope nearly exploded&mdash;that it is necessary to
+cover up the &quot;open of the head,&quot; as it is called, nothing can be more
+idle. This part of the head requires no more covering than any other
+part; and if it did, all the dress in the world could not affect it in
+the least, except to retard the growth of the bones, which, in due time,
+ought to close up the space; and this effect, anything which keeps the
+head too hot might help to produce. Of the folly of wetting the head
+with spirits, or any other medicated lotions, and of making daily
+efforts to bring it into shape, it is unnecessary to speak in the
+present chapter.</p>
+<br>
+
+<h4>SEC. 6. <i>Hats and Bonnets.</i></h4>
+
+<p>The hats worn in this country are almost universally too warm. But if it
+is a great mistake in adults to wear thick, heavy hats, it is much more
+so in the case of children.</p>
+
+<p>The infant in the nursery, as we have already seen, needs no covering of
+the kind. It is absolutely necessary that the head should be kept as
+cool as possible; and absolutely dangerous to cover it too warmly. At a
+later period, however, the danger greatly diminishes, because the
+circulation of the blood becomes more equal, and does not tend so much
+towards the brain.</p>
+
+<p>Still, however, the head is hotter than the limbs, especially the hands
+and feet; and I cannot help thinking that the hair is the only covering
+which is perfectly safe, either in childhood or age; except in the
+sunshine or in the storm. There may be&mdash;there probably is&mdash;some danger
+in going without hat or bonnet in the hot sun; though I have known many
+children, and some grown persons, who were constantly exposed in this
+way, and yet appeared not to suffer from it.</p>
+
+<p>But this may be the proper place to state that we are ever in great
+danger of deceiving ourselves on this subject. If the individuals who
+follow practices usually regarded as pernicious, while their habits in
+other respects are just like those of other persons around them who have
+similar strength, &amp;c. of constitution,&mdash;if these individuals, I say,
+were wholly to escape disease, through life, or if they were to be so
+much more free from it, and live to an age so much greater than others
+as to constitute a striking and obvious difference in their favor, we
+might then safely argue that the practices which they follow are at
+least without dangers, if not of obvious advantage. But when we see them
+beset with ills, like other people, it is not safe to pronounce their
+habits favorable to health, since it is impossible to know whether some
+of the ills which they suffer are not produced by them.</p>
+
+<p>These remarks are applicable to the disuse of any covering for the head
+in the sun and in the rain. For you will find those who adopt this
+practice from early infancy,[Footnote: I say, from early infancy;
+because we may adopt the best habits in mature years, after our
+constitutions have been broken up by error and vice, without effecting
+anything more than to keep us from actually sinking at once. Indeed, in
+most cases we ought not to expect more.] subject to as many diseases as
+those around them with similar constitutions, but with habits somewhat
+different; and as our diseases are generally the consequences of our
+errors in one way or another, it is impossible to say with certainty
+that some of them might not have arisen from exposure of the head.</p>
+
+<p>I should not hesitate, therefore, to advise all mothers to put a light
+hat or bonnet on the heads of their children, whenever they are to be
+exposed to the direct rays of the summer sun, or to the rain. And as we
+cannot always foresee when and where these exposures will arise, and as
+it is believed that these coverings, if light, will never be productive
+of much injury while we are abroad in the open air, it will follow that
+it is better to wear than to omit them.</p>
+
+<p>But while I contend for their use as consistent with health and sound
+philosophy, I must not be understood as admitting the use of such hats
+as are worn at present, even by children. They are, as I have said
+before, too hot. What should be substituted, I am unable to determine;
+but until something can be supplied, which would not be half so
+oppressive as our common wool hats, I should regard it as the lesser
+evil to omit them entirely. The danger of going bare-headed, if the
+practice is commenced early, we know from the customs of some savage
+nations, can never be very great.</p>
+<br>
+
+<h4>SEC. 7. <i>Covering for the Feet.</i></h4>
+
+<p>The same reason for avoiding the use of any covering for the head, in
+early infancy, is a sufficient reason for covering the feet well. For
+just in proportion as the blood is sent to the head in superabundance,
+and keeps up in it an undue degree of heat, just in the same proportion
+is it sent to the feet in too <i>small</i> a quantity, leaving these parts
+liable to cold. Now it is a fundamental law with medical men, that the
+feet ought to be kept warmer than the head, if possible; especially
+while the child is very young, and exposed to brain diseases.</p>
+
+<p>So long, therefore, as children are young, and unable to exercise their
+feet, stockings ought to be used, both in summer and winter; but I
+prefer to have them short, unless long ones can be used without garters.
+Everything in the shape of a garter or ligature round the limbs, body,
+or neck of a child, except a single body-band, already mentioned in
+another chapter, ought forever to be banished.</p>
+
+<p>It has often been objected, I know, that stockings will make the feet
+tender. But as no child was ever hardened by <i>continued</i> and severe cold
+applied to any part of the body, but the contrary, so no one was ever
+made more tender by being kept moderately warm. Excess of heat, like
+excess of cold, will alike weaken either children or adults; but there
+is little danger of heating the feet and legs of infants too much during
+the first year of infancy.</p>
+
+<p>It is also said that stockings are apt to receive and retain wet. But as
+I shall show in another place that wet clothes should be frequently
+changed, this objection would be equally strong against wearing coats
+and diapers.</p>
+
+<p>As to shoes, there is some variety of opinion among medical men. A few
+hold that they cramp the feet, and prevent children from learning to
+walk as early as they otherwise would. If it were best for children
+that they should learn to walk as early as possible, the last objection
+might have weight. But it seems to me not at all desirable to be in
+haste about their walking. Indeed, I greatly prefer to retard their
+progress, in this respect, rather than to hasten it.</p>
+
+<p>As to the first objection, that shoes cramp the feet too much, nearly
+its whole force turns upon the question whether they are made of proper
+materials or not. There is no need of making them of cow-hide, or any
+other thick leather. The soles are the most important part. These will
+defend the feet against pins, needles, and such other sharp substances
+as are usually found on the floor; and the upper part of the shoe, so
+long as the wearer remains in the nursery, may be made of the softest
+and most yielding material&mdash;even of cloth. Infants' shoes should always
+be made on two lasts, one for each foot.</p>
+
+<p>The philosopher Locke held, that in order to harden the young, their
+shoes ought to be &quot;so that they might leak and let in water, whenever
+they came near it.&quot; There may be and probably is, no harm in having a
+child wet his feet occasionally, provided he is soon supplied with dry
+stockings again; but it is hazardous for either children or adults to go
+too long in wet stockings, and especially to sit long in them, after
+they have been using much active exercise. I am in favor of good,
+substantial shoes and stockings for people of all ages and conditions,
+and at all seasons; and believe it entirely in accordance with sound
+economy and the laws of the human constitution.</p>
+<br>
+
+<h4>SEC. 8. <i>Pins.</i></h4>
+
+<p>The custom of using ten or a dozen pins in the dressing of children,
+ought by all means to be set aside. They not only often wound the skin,
+but they have occasionally been known to penetrate the body and the
+joints of the limbs. So many of these dreadful accidents occur, and
+where no accident happens, so much pain is occasionally given by their
+sharp points to the little sufferer, who cannot tell what the matter is,
+that it is quite time the practice were abolished.</p>
+
+<p>Do you ask what can be substituted?&mdash;The following mode is adopted by
+Dr. Dewees in his own family, as mentioned in his work on the &quot;Physical
+and Medical Treatment of Children,&quot; at page 86.</p>
+
+<p>&quot;The belly-band and the petticoat have strings; and not a single pin is
+used in their adjustment. The little shirt, which is always made much
+larger than the infant's body, is folded on the back and bosom, and
+these folds kept in their places by properly adjusting the body of the
+petticoat: so far not a pin is used. The diaper requires one, but this
+should be of a large size, and made to serve the double purpose of
+holding the folds of this article, as well as keeping the belly-band in
+its proper place; the latter having a small tag of double linen
+depending from its lower margin, by which it is secured to the diaper,
+by the same pin.</p>
+
+<p>&quot;Should an extraordinary display of best 'bib and tucker' be required
+upon any special occasion, a third pin may be admitted to ensure the
+well-sitting of the 'frock' waist in front;&mdash;this last pin, however, is
+applied externally; so that the risk of its getting into the child's
+body is very small, even if it should become displaced.&quot;</p>
+
+<p>The writer from whom the last two paragraphs are taken, says be has seen
+needles substituted for pins; and relates a long story of a child whose
+life was well nigh destroyed in this manner. It underwent months of ill
+health, and many moments of excruciating agony, before the cause of its
+trouble was suspected. Sometimes its distress was so great that nothing
+but large doses of laudanum, sufficient to stupify it, could afford the
+least relief. At last a tumor was discovered by the attending physician,
+near one of the bones on which we sit, and a needle was extracted two
+inches long. The needle had been put in its clothes, and, by slipping
+into the folds of the skin, had insinuated itself, unperceived, into the
+child's body. It is pleasing to add, that, although the little sufferer
+had now been ill seven or eight months, and had endured almost
+everything but death,&mdash;fever, diarrhoea, and the most excruciating
+pain,&mdash;it soon recovered.</p>
+
+<p>This shocking circumstance is enough, one would think, to deter every
+mother or nurse, who becomes acquainted with it, from using needles in
+infants' clothes. Happy would it be, if, in banishing needles, they
+would contrive to banish pins also, and adopt either the plan of Dr.
+Dewees, or one still more rational.</p>
+<br>
+
+<h4>SEC. 9. <i>Remaining Wet.</i></h4>
+
+<p>On the subject of changing the wet clothing of a child, there is a
+strange and monstrous error abroad; which is, that by suffering them to
+remain wet and cold, we harden the constitution. The filthiness of this
+practice is enough to condemn it, were there nothing else to be said
+against it.</p>
+
+<p>It is insisted on by many, I know, that as water which is salt, when it
+is applied to the skin, and suffered to remain long, while it secures
+the point of hardening the child, prevents all possibility of its taking
+cold, it hence follows, that wet diapers are not injurious. But this is
+a mistake. Every time an infant is allowed to remain wet, we not only
+endanger its taking cold, but expose it to excoriations of the skin, if
+not to serious and dangerous inflammation. In short, if frequent changes
+are not made, whatever some mothers and nurses may think, they may rest
+assured, that the health of the child must sooner or later suffer as the
+consequence.</p>
+
+<p>Nor is it enough to hang up a diaper by the fire, and, as soon as it is
+dry, apply it again. It should be clean, as well as dry. Let us not be
+told, that it is troublesome to wash so often. Everything is in a
+certain sense troublesome. Everything in this world, which is worth
+having, is the result of toil. Nothing but absolute poverty affords the
+shadow of an excuse for neglecting anything which will promote the
+health, or even the comfort of the tender infant.</p>
+
+<p>Of the impropriety and danger of suffering wet clothes to dry upon us, I
+shall speak elsewhere; as well as of the evil of suffering children to
+remain dirty,&mdash;their skins or their clothing.</p>
+<br>
+
+<h4>SEC. 10. <i>Remarks on the Dress of Boys.</i></h4>
+
+<p>Whatever tends to disturb the growth of the body, or hinder the free
+exercise of the limbs, during the infancy and childhood of both sexes
+is injurious. And as every mother has the control of these things, I
+have thought it desirable to append to this chapter a few thoughts on
+the particular dress of each sex. I begin with that of boys.</p>
+
+<p>&quot;Nothing can be more injurious to health,&quot; says a foreign writer, &quot;than
+the tight jacket, buttoned up to the throat, the well-fitted boots, and
+the stiff stock.&quot; And his remarks are nearly as applicable to this
+country as to England. The consequences of this preposterous method of
+dressing boys, are diminutive manhood, deformity of person, and a
+constitution either already imbued with disease, or highly susceptible
+of its impression.</p>
+
+<p>No part of the modern dress of boys is more absurd, than the stiff
+stock, or thick cravat. It is not only injurious by pressing on the
+<i>jugular</i> veins, and preventing the blood from freely passing out of the
+head, but, by constantly pressing on the numerous and complex muscles of
+the neck, at this period of life, it prevents their development; because
+whatever hinders the action of the muscular parts, hinders their growth,
+and makes them even appear as if wasted.</p>
+
+<p>It would be a great improvement, if this part of dress were wholly
+discarded; and when is there so appropriate a time for setting it aside,
+as <i>before we began to use it</i>; or rather while we are under the more
+immediate care of our mothers?</p>
+
+<p>The use of jackets buttoned up to the throat, except in cold weather, is
+objectionable; but this is very fortunately going out of fashion.</p>
+
+<p>Boots, if used at all, should fit well; to this there can be no possible
+objection. What the writer, whom I have quoted, referred to, was
+probably the tight boot, worn to prevent the foot from being large and
+unseemly; but producing, as tight boots inevitably do, an injurious
+effect upon the muscles, a constrained walk, and corns.</p>
+
+<p>What can be more painful, than to see little boys&mdash;yes, <i>little</i>
+boys&mdash;boys neither fifteen, nor twenty, nor twenty-five, walk as if they
+were fettered and trussed up for the spit; unable to look down, or turn
+their heads, on account of a thick stock, or two or three cravats piled
+on the top of each other&mdash;and only capable of using their arms to dangle
+a cane, or carry an umbrella, as they hobble along, perhaps on a hot
+sun-shiny day in July or August?</p>
+
+<p>But this evil, you who are mothers, have it very generally in your power
+to prevent, if you are only wise enough to secure that ascendancy over
+your children's minds which the Author of their nature designed. At the
+least, you can prevent it for a time&mdash;the most important period, too&mdash;by
+your own authority. This you will not need any urging to induce you to
+do, if you ever become thoroughly convinced of its pre-eminent folly.</p>
+<br>
+
+<h4>SEC. 11. <i>On the Dress of Girls.</i></h4>
+
+<p>The same general principles which should guide the young mother in
+regard to the dress of boys, are equally important and applicable in the
+management of girls. The whole dress should, as much as possible, hang
+loosely from the shoulders, without pressing on the body, or any part of
+it. This, I say, is the grand point to be aimed at; and this is the only
+great principle, whatever some mothers may think, which will lead to
+true beauty of person, and gracefulness of gesture.</p>
+
+<p>There is, however, a slight difference to be made between the dress of
+girls and that of boys. The greater delicacy of the female frame
+requires that the surface of the body should be kept rather warmer, as
+well as better protected from the vicissitudes of the atmosphere.</p>
+
+<p>But is this the fact? Is not the contrary true? While boys in the winter
+are clad in warm woollen vestments, covering every part of their trunk,
+many portions of the female frame, and especially many parts of their
+limbs, are left so much exposed, that in cold weather you scarcely find
+a girl abroad, who appears to be comfortable.</p>
+
+<p>Nay, they are not only uncomfortable abroad, but at home; and if I were
+to present to mothers in detail, a tenth of the evils which their
+daughters suffer from not adopting a warmer method of clothing, I should
+probably be stared at by some, and laughed at by others. All this, too,
+without speaking of going out of warm concert rooms, theatres, ball
+rooms and lecture rooms, into the night air, or out of school rooms and
+churches, to walk home with measured and stiffened pace, lest the sin
+unpardonable of walking swiftly or RUNNING,&mdash;that active exercise which
+health requires, which youthful feeling prompts, and which duty ought to
+inspire,&mdash;should unwarily be committed.</p>
+
+<p>The tremendous evils of confining the lungs have been adverted to at
+sufficient length. In reference to that general subject, I need only
+add, that if the chest be not duly exercised and expanded, the liver,
+the lungs, the stomach, digestion, absorption, circulation and
+perspiration, are all hindered. And even so far as the various internal
+organs of the body <i>are</i> active, they act at a great disadvantage. The
+blood which they &quot;work up,&quot; is bad blood, and must be so, as long as the
+lungs do not have free play. Hence may and do arise all sorts of
+diseases; especially diseases of OBSTRUCTION; and such as are often very
+difficult of removal.</p>
+
+<p>What can be a more pitiable sight than some modern girls going home from
+school or church in winter? Thinly clad, the blood is all driven from
+the surface upon the internal organs, and what remains is so loaded with
+carbon, which the lungs ought but cannot discharge, that her skin has a
+leaden hue; her teeth chatter; her very heart is chilled in her panting,
+frozen bosom; she cannot run, and if she could, she must not, for it
+would be vulgar! Every mother should shrink from the sight of such a
+picture.</p>
+
+
+
+<br><br><hr style="width: 65%;"><br><br>
+<a name="CHAPTER_V."></a><h2>CHAPTER V.</h2>
+
+<h3>CLEANLINESS.</h3>
+
+<blockquote class="small">Physiology of the human skin. Of checking perspiration. Diseases thus
+produced. &quot;Dirt&quot; not &quot;healthy.&quot; How the mistake originated. &quot;Smell of
+the earth.&quot; Effect of uncleanliness on the morals. Filthiness produces
+bowel complaints. Changing dress for the sake of cleanliness.</blockquote>
+<br>
+
+<p>No mother will ever pay that attention to cleanliness which its
+importance to health and happiness demands, till she perceives its
+necessity. And she will never perceive that necessity till she has
+studied attentively the machinery of the human frame&mdash;and especially its
+wonderful covering.</p>
+
+<p>The skin is pierced with little openings or <i>pores</i>, so numerous that
+some have reckoned them at a million to every square inch. At all
+events, they are so small that the naked eye can neither distinguish nor
+count them; and so numerous, that we cannot pierce the skin with the
+finest needle without hitting one or more of them.</p>
+
+<p>When we are in perfect health, and the skin clean, a gentle moisture or
+mist continually oozes through these pores. This process is called
+<i>perspiration</i>; and the moisture which thus escapes, the <i>matter</i> of
+perspiration.</p>
+
+<p>Perspiration may be checked in two ways. 1. by filth on the skin; 2. by
+what is commonly called taking cold&mdash;for taking cold essentially
+consists in chilling the skin to such a degree as to stop, for some
+time, the escape of this moisture. Most persons have doubtless observed,
+that in the first stages of a cold, they frequently have a very dry
+skin. Whereas, when we are in health, the skin usually feels moist.</p>
+
+<p>Our health is not only endangered, and a foundation laid for fevers,
+rheumatisms, and consumptions, by stopping the pores of the skin with
+dirt, or anything else, but there is also danger from another and a very
+different source.</p>
+
+<p>The blood, in its circulation through the body, is constantly becoming
+impure; and as it thus comes back impure to the heart, is as constantly
+sent to the lungs, where it comes in close contact with the air which we
+breathe, and is purified. But this same purifying process which goes on
+in the lungs, goes on, too, if the skin is in a pure, free, healthy
+condition, all over the surface of the body. If it is not&mdash;if the skin
+cannot do this part of the work&mdash;an additional burden is thus laid on
+the lungs, which in this way soon become so overworked, that they
+cannot perform their own proportion of the labor. And whenever this
+happens, the health must soon suffer.</p>
+
+<p>The strange belief, that &quot;dirt is healthy,&quot; has much influence on the
+daily practice of thousands of those who are ignorant of the human
+structure, and the laws which govern and regulate the animal economy. It
+has probably originated in the well-known fact, that those children who
+are allowed to play in the dirt, are often as healthy&mdash;and even <i>more</i>
+healthy&mdash;than those who are confined to the nursery or the parlor.</p>
+
+<p>Now, while it is admitted that this is a very common case, it is yet
+believed that the former class of children would be still more vigorous
+than they now are, if they were kept more cleanly, or were at least
+frequently washed. It is not the dirt which promotes their health, but
+their active exercise in the open air; the advantages of which are more
+than sufficient to compensate for the injury which they sustain from the
+dirt. That is to say, they retain, in spite of the dirt, better health
+than those who are denied the blessings of pure air and abundant
+exercise, and subjected to the opposite extreme of almost constant
+confinement.</p>
+
+<p>There is something deceitful, after all, in the ruddy, blooming
+appearance of those children who are left by the busy parent to play in
+the road or field, without attention to cleanliness. If this were not
+so, how comes it to pass that they suffer much more, not only from
+chronic, but from acute diseases, than children whose parents are in
+better circumstances?</p>
+
+<p>I am the more solicitous to combat a belief in the salutary tendency of
+an unclean skin, because I know it prevails to some extent; and because
+I know also, both from reason and from fact, that it is a gross error.</p>
+
+<p>It is, however, true, that years sometimes intervene, before the evil
+consequences of dirtiness appear. The office of the vessels of the skin
+being interrupted, an increase of action is imposed on other parts,
+especially on those internal organs commonly called glands, which action
+is apt to settle into obstinate disease. Hence, at least when aided by
+other causes, often arise, in later life, after the source of the evil
+is forgotten, if it were ever suspected, rheumatism, scrofula, jaundice,
+and even consumption.</p>
+
+<p>There is a strange notion abroad, that the <i>smell</i> of the earth is
+beneficial, especially to consumptive persons. I honestly believe,
+however, that it is more likely to create consumption than to cure it.
+Besides, in what does this smell consist? Do the silex, the alumine, and
+the other earths, with their compounds, emit any odor? Rarely, I
+believe, unless when mixed with vegetable matter. But no gases
+necessary to health are evolved during the decomposition of vegetable
+matter; on the contrary, it is well known that many of them tend to
+induce disease.</p>
+
+<p>I am thoroughly persuaded that too much attention cannot be paid to
+cleanliness; and the demand for such attention is equally imperious in
+the case of those who cultivate the earth, or labor in it, or on stone,
+during the intervals of their useful avocations, as in the case of those
+individuals who follow other employments.</p>
+
+<p>I must also protest against the doctrine, that the smell or taste of the
+earth, much less a coat of it spread over the surface, and closing up,
+for hours and days together, thousands and millions of those little
+pores with which the Author of this &quot;wondrous frame&quot; has pierced the
+skin, can have a salutary tendency.</p>
+
+<p>The opinion has been even maintained, that uncleanly habits are not only
+unfavorable to health, but to morality. There can be no doubt that he
+who neglects his person and dress will be found lower in the scale of
+morals, other things being equal, than he who pays a due regard to
+cleanliness.</p>
+
+<p>Some have supposed that a disposition to neglect personal cleanliness
+was indicative of genius. But this opinion is grossly erroneous, and
+has well nigh ruined many a young man.</p>
+
+<p>I am far from recommending any degree of fastidiousness on this subject.
+Truth and correct practice usually lie between extremes. But I do and
+must insist, that the connection between cleanliness of body and purity
+of moral character, is much more close and direct than has usually been
+supposed.</p>
+
+<p>But to return to the more immediate effects of cleanliness on health.
+There is one class of diseases in particular which, in an eminent
+degree, owe their origin to a neglect of cleanliness. I refer to the
+bowel complaints so common among children during summer and autumn.
+Except in case of teething, the use of unripe fruits, or the <i>abuse</i> of
+those which are in themselves excellent, it is probable that more than
+half of the bowel complaints of the young are either produced or greatly
+aggravated by a foul skin.</p>
+
+<p>The importance of washing the whole body in water will be insisted on in
+the chapter on Bathing; it is therefore unnecessary to say anything
+farther on that subject in this place, except to observe that whether
+the washings of the body be partial or general, they should be thorough,
+so far as they are carried. There are thousands of children who, in
+pretending to wash their hands and face, will do little more than wet
+the inside of their hands, and the tips of their noses and ears unless
+great care is taken.</p>
+
+<p>Few things are more important than suitable changes of dress. There are
+those, who, from principle, never wear the same under-garment but one
+day without washing, either in summer or winter; and there are others
+who, though they may wear an article without washing two or three
+successive days, take care to change their dress at night&mdash;never
+sleeping in a garment which they have worn during the day.</p>
+
+<p>It is a very common objection to suggestions like these, that they will
+do very well for those who have wealth, but not for the poor;&mdash;that
+<i>they</i> have neither the time nor the means of attending to them. How can
+they change their clothes every day? we are asked. And how can they
+afford to have a separate dress for the night?</p>
+
+<p>There must be retrenchment in some other matters, it is admitted. In
+order to find time for more washing, or money to pay others for the
+labor, the poor must deny themselves a few things which they now
+suppose, if they have ever thought at all on the subject, are conducive
+to their happiness&mdash;but which are in reality either useless or
+injurious. Something may be saved by a reasonable dress, as I have
+already shown. Other items of expense, which might be spared with great
+advantage to health and happiness, and applied to the purpose in
+question, will be mentioned in the chapter on Food and Drink.</p>
+
+
+
+<br><br><hr style="width: 65%;"><br><br>
+<a name="CHAPTER_VI."></a><h2>CHAPTER VI.</h2>
+
+<h3>ON BATHING.</h3>
+
+<blockquote class="small">Danger of savage practices. Rousseau. Cold water at birth. First washing
+of the child. Rules. Temperature. Bathing vessels. Unreasonable fears.
+Whims. Views of Dr. Dewees. Hardening. Rules for the cold bath. Securing
+a glow. Coming out of the bath. Local baths. Shower bath. Vapor bath.
+Sponging. Neglect of bathing. The Romans. Treatment of children compared
+with that of domestic animals.</blockquote>
+<br>
+
+<p>Some of the hardy nations of antiquity, as well as a few savage tribes
+of modern times, have been accustomed to plunge their new-born infants
+into cold water. This is done for the two-fold purpose of washing and
+hardening them.</p>
+
+<p>To all who reason but for a moment on this subject, the danger of such a
+practice must be obvious. So sudden a change from a temperature of
+nearly 100&deg; of Fahrenheit to one quite low, perhaps scarcely 40&deg;, must
+and does have a powerful effect on the nervous system even of an adult;
+but how much more on that of a tender infant? We may form some idea of
+this, by the suddenness and violence of its cries, by the sudden
+contractions and relaxations of its limbs and body, and by its
+palpitating heart and difficult breathing.</p>
+
+<p>Every one's experience may also remind him, that what produces at best a
+momentary pain to himself, cannot otherwise than be painful to the
+infant. In making a comparison between adults and infants, however, in
+this respect, we should remember that the lungs of the infant do not get
+into full and vigorous action until some time after birth; and that, on
+this account, the hold they have on life is so feeble, that any powerful
+shock, and especially that given by the cold bath, is ten times more
+dangerous to them than to adults, or even to infants themselves, after a
+few months have elapsed.</p>
+
+<p>It is surprising to me that so sensible a writer as Rousseau generally
+is on education, should have encouraged this dangerous practice; and
+still more so that many fathers even now, blinded by theory, should
+persist in it, notwithstanding the pleadings of the mother or the nurse,
+and the plainest dictates of common sense and common prudence.[Footnote:
+Nothing is intended to be said here, which shall encourage unthinking
+nurses or mothers in setting themselves against measures which have been
+prescribed by higher authority,&mdash;I mean the physician. There are cases
+of this kind, where it requires all the resolution which a father,
+uninterrupted, can summon to his aid, to administer a dose or perform a
+task, on which he knows the existence of his child may be depending: but
+when the thoughtless entreaties of the mother or nurse are interposed,
+it makes his condition most distressing. Mothers, in such cases, ought
+to encourage rather than remonstrate. They who <i>do not</i>, are guilty of
+cruelty, and&mdash;perhaps&mdash;of infanticide.]</p>
+
+<p>A child plunged into cold water at birth, by those whose theories carry
+them so far as to do it even in the coldest weather, has sometimes been
+twenty-four hours in recovering, notwithstanding the most active and
+judicious efforts to restore it. In other instances the results have
+been still more distressing. Dr. Dewees is persuaded that he has &quot;known
+death itself to follow the use of cold water,&quot; in this way&mdash;I believe he
+means <i>immediate</i> death&mdash;and adds, with great confidence, that he has
+&quot;repeatedly seen it require the lapse of several hours before reaction
+could establish itself; during which time the pale and sunken cheeks and
+livid lips declared the almost exhausted state&quot; of the infant's
+excitability.[Footnote: &quot;Dewees on children&quot; p. 72.]</p>
+
+<p>We need not hesitate to put very great confidence in the opinion here
+expressed; for besides being a close and just observer of human nature,
+Dr. D. has had the direction and management, in a greater or less
+degree, of several thousands of new-born infants.</p>
+
+<p>Nothing, indeed, in the whole range of physical education, seems better
+proved, than that while some few infants, whose constitutions are
+naturally very strong, are invigorated by the practice in question,
+others, in the proportion of hundreds for one, who are <i>less</i> robust,
+are injured for life; some of them seriously.</p>
+
+<p>Nor will spirits added to the water make any material difference. I am
+aware that there is a very general notion abroad, that the injurious
+effects of cold water, in its application both internally and
+externally, are greatly diminished by the addition of a little spirit;
+but it is not so. Does the addition of such a small quantity of spirit
+as is generally used in these cases, materially alter the temperature?
+Is it not the application of a cold liquid to a heated surface, still?
+Can we make anything else of it, either more or less?</p>
+
+<p>I do not undertake to say, that the cold bath may not be so managed in
+the progress of infancy, as to make it beneficial, especially to strong
+constitutions. It is its indiscriminate application to all new-born
+children, without regard to strength of constitution, or any other
+circumstances, that I most strenuously oppose. Of its occasional use,
+under the eye of a physician, and by parents who will discriminate, I
+shall say more presently.</p>
+
+<p>Our first duty on receiving a new inhabitant of the world is, to see
+that it is gently but thoroughly washed, in moderately warm soft water,
+with fine soap. Special attention should be paid to the folds of the
+joints, the neck, the arm pits, &amp;c. For rubbing the body, in order to
+disengage anything which might obstruct the pores, or irritate or fret
+the skin, nothing can be preferable to a piece of soft sponge or
+flannel. Though the operation should be thorough, and also as rapid as
+the nature of circumstances will permit, all harshness should be
+avoided. When finished, the child should be wiped perfectly dry with
+soft flannel.</p>
+
+<p>While the washing is performed, the temperature of the room should be
+but a few degrees lower than that of the water; and the child should not
+be exposed to currents of cold air. If the weather is severe, or if
+currents of air in the room cannot otherwise be avoided, the dressing,
+undressing, washing, &amp;c., may be done near the fire. And I repeat the
+rule, it should always be done with as much rapidity as is compatible
+with safety.</p>
+
+<p>Here will be seen one great advantage of simplicity in the form of
+dress. If the more rational suggestions of our chapter on that subject
+are attended to, it will greatly facilitate the process of washing, and
+the subsequent daily process of bathing, which I am about to recommend
+to my readers.</p>
+
+<p>This washing process is also an introduction to bathing. For it should
+be repeated every day; but with less and less attention to the washing,
+and more and more reference to the bathing. How long the child should
+stay in the bath, must be left to experience. If he is quiet, fifteen
+minutes can never be too long; and I should not object to twenty. If
+otherwise, and you are obliged to remove him in five minutes, or even in
+three, still the bathing will be of too much service to be dispensed
+with.</p>
+
+<p>Nothing should be mixed with the water, if the infant is healthy, except
+a little soap, as already mentioned. Some are fond of using salt; but it
+is by no means necessary, and may do harm.</p>
+
+<p>The proper hour for bathing is the early part of the day, or about the
+middle of the forenoon. This season is selected, because the process,
+manage it as carefully as we may, is at first a little exhausting. As
+the child grows older, however, and not only becomes stronger, but
+appears to be actually refreshed and invigorated by the bath, it will be
+advisable to defer it to a later and later hour. By the time the babe is
+three months old, particularly in the warm season, the hour of bathing
+may be at sunset.</p>
+
+<p>The degree of heat must be determined, in part, by observing its effect
+on the child; and in part by a thermometer. For this, and for other
+purposes, a thermometer, as I have already more than hinted, is
+indispensable in every nursery. Our own sensations are often at best a
+very unsafe guide. There is one rule which should always be
+observed&mdash;never to have the temperature of the bath below that of the
+air of the room. If the thermometer show the latter to be 70&deg;, the bath
+should be something like 80&deg; perhaps with feeble children, rather more.</p>
+
+<p>Great care ought always to be taken to proportion the air of the room
+and the water of the bath to each other. If, for example, the
+temperature of the room have been, for some time, unusually warm, that
+of the water must not be so low as if it had been otherwise. On the
+contrary, if the room have been, for a considerable time, rather cool,
+the bath may be made several degrees cooler than in other circumstances.
+But in no case and in no circumstances must a <i>warm</i> bath&mdash;intended as
+such, simply&mdash;be so warm or so cold, as to make the child uncomfortable;
+whether the temperature be 70&deg;, 80&deg;, or 90&deg;.</p>
+
+<p>It is hardly necessary to add, that in bathing a young child, the vessel
+used for the purpose should be large enough to give free scope to all
+the motions of its extremities. Most children are delighted to play and
+scramble about in the water. I know, indeed, that the contrary sometimes
+happens; but when it does, it is usually&mdash;I do not say <i>always</i>&mdash;because
+the countenances of those who are around express fear or apprehension;
+for it is surprising how early these little beings learn to decipher our
+feelings by our very countenances.</p>
+
+<p>Some of our readers may be surprised at the intimation that there are
+mothers and nurses who have fears or apprehensions in regard to the
+effects of the warm bath; but others&mdash;and it is for such that I write
+this paragraph&mdash;will fully understand me. I have been often surprised at
+the fact, but it is undoubted, that there is a strong prejudice against
+warm bathing, in many parts of the country. In endeavoring to trace the
+cause, I have usually found that it arose from having seen or heard of
+some child who died soon after its application. I have had many a parent
+remonstrate with me on the danger of the warm bath; and this, too, in
+circumstances when it appeared to me, that the child's existence
+depended, under God, on that very measure. Perhaps it is useless in such
+cases, however, to reason with parents on the subject. The medical
+practitioner must do his duty boldly and fearlessly, and risk the
+consequences.</p>
+
+<p>But as I am writing, not for persons under immediate excitement, but for
+those that may be reasoned with, it is proper to say, that in medicine,
+the warm bath is so often used in extreme cases, and as a last resort,
+even when death has already grasped, or is about to fix his grasp on the
+sufferer, that it would be very strange if many persons <i>did not</i> die,
+just after bathing. But that the bathing itself ever produced this
+result, in one case in a thousand, there is not the slightest reason for
+believing. [Footnote: Let me not be understood as intimating that, the
+general neglect of bathing, of which I complain so loudly, is <i>chiefly</i>
+owing to this unreasonable prejudice, though this no doubt has its sway.
+On the contrary, I believe it is much oftener owing to ignorance,
+indolence, and parsimony.]</p>
+
+<p>There are many more whims connected with bathing, as with almost
+everything else, which it were equally desirable to remove. Some nurses
+and mothers think that if the child's skin is wiped dry after bathing,
+it will impair, if not destroy, the good effects of the operation.
+Others still, shocking to relate, will even put it to bed in its wet
+clothes; this, too, from principle. Not unlike this, is the belief, very
+common among adults, that if we get our clothes wet&mdash;even our
+stockings&mdash;we must, by all means, suffer them to dry on us; a belief
+which, in its results, has sent thousands to a premature grave&mdash;and,
+what is still worse, made invalids, for life, of a still greater number.</p>
+
+<p>I am aware, that in rejecting the indiscriminate cold bathing of
+infants, I am treading on ground which is rather unpopular, even with
+medical men; a large proportion of whom seem to believe that the
+practice may be useful. But I am not <i>wholly</i> alone. Dr. Dewees&mdash;of
+whose large experience I have already spoken&mdash;and some others, do not
+hesitate to avow similar sentiments.</p>
+
+<p>The objections of Dr. Dewees to cold bathing are the following. 1. There
+often exists a predisposition to disease, which cold bathing is sure to
+rouse to action. Or if the disease have already begun to affect the
+system, the bath is sure to aggravate it. 2. Some children have such
+feeble constitutions that they are sure to be permanently weakened by
+it, rather than invigorated. 3. To those in whom there is the tendency
+of a large quantity of blood to the head, lungs, liver, &amp;c., it is
+injurious. 4. In some, the shock produces a species of syncope, or
+catalepsy. 5. The <i>reaction</i>, as shown by the heat which follows the
+cold bath, is, in some cases, so great as to produce a degree of fever,
+and consequent debility. 6. It never answers the purposes of
+cleanliness&mdash;one great object of bathing&mdash;so well as the warm bath. 7.
+It is always unpleasant or painful to the child; especially at first. 8.
+It sometimes produces severe pain in the bowels.</p>
+
+<p>This is a very formidable list of objections; and certainly deserves
+consideration. There is one statement made by Dr. D. in the progress of
+his remarks on this subject, in which I do not concur. He says&mdash;&quot;The
+object of all bathing is to remove impurities arising from dust,
+perspiration, &amp;c., from the surface; that the skin may not be obstructed
+in the performance of its proper offices.&quot;</p>
+
+<p>But the object of cold bathing, with many, is to <i>harden</i>; consequently
+it is not true that cleanliness is the <i>only object</i>. If he means, even,
+that cleanliness is the only <i>legitimate</i> object of all bathing, I shall
+still be compelled to dissent.</p>
+
+<p>If the cold bath could be used, always, by and with the direction of a
+skilful physician, I believe its occasional use might be rendered
+salutary. And although as it is now commonly used, I believe its effects
+are almost anything but salutary, I do not deny that if its use were
+cautiously and gradually begun, and judiciously conducted, it might be
+the means of making children who are already robust, still more hardy
+and healthy than before, and better able to resist those sudden changes
+of temperature so common in our climate, and so apt to produce cold,
+fever, and consumption.</p>
+
+<p>Cold bathing, in the hands of those who are ignorant of the laws of the
+human frame&mdash;and such unfortunately and unaccountably most fathers and
+mothers are&mdash;I cannot help regarding as a highly dangerous weapon; and
+therefore it is, that in view of the whole subject, I cannot recommend
+its general and indiscriminate use.</p>
+
+<p>If there are individuals, however, who are determined to employ it, in
+the case of their more vigorous children, and without the advice or
+direction of their family physician, I beg them to attend to the
+following rules or principles, expressed as briefly as possible.</p>
+
+<p>In no ordinary case whatever, is the cold bath useful, unless it is
+succeeded by that degree of warmth on the surface of the body which is
+usually called a <i>glow</i>. This is a leading and important principle. The
+contrary, that is, the injurious effects of cold bathing&mdash;its
+<i>immediate</i> bad effects, I mean&mdash;are shown by the skin remaining pale
+and shrivelled after coming out of the bath, by its blue appearance, and
+by its coldness, as well as by a sunken state of the eyes, and much
+general languor.</p>
+
+<p>To secure this point&mdash;I mean the GLOW&mdash;it is indispensably important to
+begin the use of cold water gradually; that is, to use it at first of
+so high a temperature as to produce only a slight sensation of cold, and
+to take special care that the skin be immediately wiped very dry, and
+the temperature of the room be quite as high as usual. Afterward the
+water may be cooled gradually, from week to week, though never more than
+a degree or two at once.</p>
+
+<p>It will probably be unsafe to commence this practice of cold
+bathing&mdash;even in the case of the most robust children&mdash;until they are at
+least six months of age.</p>
+
+<p>The appropriate season will be the middle of the forenoon, the hour when
+the system is usually the most vigorous, and at which we shall be most
+likely to secure a reaction. At first, twice or three times a week are
+as often as it will be safe to repeat it. Some writers recommend it
+twice a day; but once is enough, under any ordinary circumstances.</p>
+
+<p>The method at first is, to give the infant a single plunge. Afterward,
+when he becomes older, and more inured to it, he may be plunged several
+times in succession.</p>
+
+<p>On taking him out of the bath, the skin should be wiped perfectly dry,
+as in the case of the warm bath, and with the same or an increased
+degree of attention to other circumstances&mdash;the temperature of the
+room, the avoiding currents of air, &amp;c. He should next be put in a soft,
+warm blanket, and be kept for some time in a state of gentle motion; and
+after a little time, should be dressed.</p>
+
+<p>I have already mentioned the importance of avoiding the manifestation of
+fear, when we bathe a child; and the caution is particularly necessary
+in the administration of the cold bath. Some writers even recommend,
+that during the whole process of undressing, bathing, exercising, and
+dressing, singing should be employed. There is philosophy in this
+advice, and it is easily tried; but I cannot speak of it from
+experience.</p>
+
+<p>There is one thing which may serve to calm our apprehensions&mdash;if we have
+any&mdash;of danger; which is, that though the child's lungs are feeble at
+first, from their not having been, like the heart, accustomed to
+previous action, yet when they get fairly into motion and action, and
+the child is a few months old, they are probably as strong, if not
+stronger, in proportion, than those of adults.</p>
+
+<p>Bathing in cold water should never be performed immediately after a full
+meal. Neither is it desirable to go to the contrary extreme, and bathe
+when the stomach has been long empty; nor when the child's mental or
+bodily powers are more than usually exhausted by fatigue.</p>
+
+<p>Although I have given these rules for those who are determined to use
+the cold bath with their children, yet, for fear I shall be
+misunderstood, I must be suffered to repeat, in this place, that,
+uninformed as people generally are in regard to physiology, I cannot
+advise even its moderate use. On the contrary, I would gladly dissuade
+from it, as most likely, in the way it would inevitably be used, to do
+more harm than good.</p>
+
+<p>There is no sort of objection to what might be called local bathing with
+cold water. If the child's head is hot at any time, the temples, and
+indeed the whole upper part of the head, may be very properly wet with
+moderately cold water&mdash;taking care to avoid wetting the clothes. But
+avoid, by all means, the common but foolish practice of putting spirits
+in the water.</p>
+
+<p>A tea-spoonful of cold water cannot be too early put into the mouth of
+the infant. The object is to cleanse or rinse the mouth; and the process
+may be aided by wiping it out with a piece of soft linen rag. If a part
+or all of the water should be swallowed, no harm will be done. This
+practice, commenced almost as soon as children are born, has saved many
+a sore mouth.</p>
+
+<p>There are other forms of bathing besides those already mentioned; among
+which are the shower bath, the vapor bath, and the medicated bath. The
+shower bath&mdash;for which purpose the water is commonly used cold&mdash;is but
+poorly adapted to the wants of infants. The shock is much greater than
+the common cold bath, and more apt to frighten; and fear is unfavorable
+to reaction, or the production of a genial glow.</p>
+
+<p>The vapor bath is much better; and probably has quite as good an effect
+as the common warm bath. The trouble and expense of procuring the
+necessary apparatus is somewhat greater, however, as a mere bathing tub
+costs but little, and can be made by every father who possesses common
+ingenuity. But whatever may be the expense, it is indispensable in every
+family; and whenever the pores of the skin are obstructed, a vapor
+bathing apparatus is equally desirable.</p>
+
+<p>The medicated vapor bath is sometimes used; but I am not now treating of
+infants who are sick, but of those who are in a state of health.</p>
+
+<p>The common warm bath is sometimes medicated by putting in salt. This, of
+course, renders the water more stimulating to the skin; but except when
+the perspiration is checked, or the skin peculiarly inactive from some
+other cause&mdash;in other words, unless we are sick&mdash;it is seldom expedient
+to use it.</p>
+
+<p>There is one substitute for the bathing tub, in the case of the cold
+bath. I refer to the use of a wet cloth or sponge, applied rapidly to
+the whole surface of the body. When this is done, the skin should be
+wiped thoroughly dry immediately afterwards, as in the case of complete
+immersion.</p>
+
+<p>The application of either a cloth or a sponge, filled with warm water,
+to the skin, in this manner, even if continued for several minutes
+together, is less efficacious than a continuous immersion. I repeat
+it&mdash;no family ought to be without conveniences for bathing in warm water
+daily. I speak now of every member of the family, young and old, as well
+as the infant; and I refer particularly to the summer season: though I
+do not think the practice ought to be wholly discontinued during the
+winter.</p>
+
+<p>It will still be objected that this care of, and attention to the young,
+in reference to health&mdash;this provision for bathing daily, and care to
+see that it is performed&mdash;can never be afforded by the laboring portion
+of the community. But I shall as strenuously insist on the contrary; and
+trust I shall, in the sequel, produce reasons which will be
+satisfactory.</p>
+
+<p>The great difficulty is, to convince parents that these things are
+vastly more productive of health and happiness to their children&mdash;more
+truly necessaries&mdash;than a great many things for which they now expend
+their time and money. There is, and always has been&mdash;except, perhaps,
+among the Jews, in the earliest periods of the history of that wonderful
+nation&mdash;a strange disposition to overlook the happiness of the young. It
+is not necessary to represent this dereliction as peculiar to modern
+times, for we find traces of the same thing thousands of years ago.</p>
+
+<p>The Roman emperors&mdash;Dioclesian in particular&mdash;could make provision for
+bathing, to an extent which now astonishes us; but for whom? For whom, I
+repeat it, was incurred the enormous expense of fitting up and keeping
+in repair accommodations for bathing at once 18,000 people? For adults;
+and for adults alone. I do not say that children were not admitted, in
+any case; but I say they were not contemplated in these arrangements.
+Nothing was done&mdash;not a single thing&mdash;that would not have been done, had
+there been no child under ten years of age in the whole empire.</p>
+
+<p>And what better than this do WE, now? We make provision for the
+happiness of the adult. The most indigent person will find time and
+money to spend for the gratification of his own senses, his pride, or
+his curiosity; but his children&mdash;they may be overlooked! Or, if he has
+an eye to the future happiness of his child, he conceives that he is
+promoting it in the best possible degree, by endeavoring to lay up a few
+dollars for his use, after his character is formed&mdash;at a period, as it
+too often happens, when money will do him little good, since it can
+neither purchase health, peace of mind, nor reputation.</p>
+
+<p>Far be it from me to say, that the poor&mdash;ground into the dust as they
+are, by the force of circumstances operating with their own concurrence,
+to make them ignorant, vicious, or miserable&mdash;can do for their children
+all that is desirable. By no means. But they have it in their power to
+do much more than they are at present doing. They have it in their
+power, at least, to use the same good sense in the management of the
+human being that they do in that of a pig, a calf, or a colt, or even a
+young vegetable. No parent, let him be ever so poor, is found in the
+habit of neglecting either of these in proportion to its infancy, and of
+exerting himself only in proportion as it grows older. Common sense
+tells him that the contrary is the true course; that however poor he may
+be, he will be still poorer, if he do not take special pains with the
+young animal, to rear it and with the young vegetable, to give it the
+right direction, by keeping down the weeds, and pruning and watering it.
+And I say again, that however deserving of censure the wealthy of a
+Christian community may be in not directing the ignorant and vicious
+into the right path, and in not expending more of their wealth on those
+who are poor, in elevating their minds and their manners, and promoting
+their health, still the latter are inexcusable for their present neglect
+of their infant offspring, while they would not think of neglecting, on
+the same principle, the offspring of their domestic animals.</p>
+
+
+
+<br><br><hr style="width: 65%;"><br><br>
+<a name="CHAPTER_VII."></a><h2>CHAPTER VII.</h2>
+
+<h3>FOOD.</h3>
+
+<blockquote class="small">SEC. 1. General principles.&mdash;SEC. 2. Conduct of the mother.&mdash;SEC. 3.
+Nursing&mdash;rules in regard to it.&mdash;SEC. 4. Quantity of food. Errors.
+Over-feeding. Gluttony.&mdash;SEC. 5. How long should milk be the child's
+only food?&mdash;SEC. 6 Feeding before teething. Cow's milk. Sucking bottles.
+Cleanliness. Nurses.&mdash;SEC. 7. Treatment from teething to weaning.&mdash;SEC.
+8. Process of weaning-rules in regard to it.&mdash;SEC. 9. First food to be
+used after weaning. Importance of good bread. Other kinds of food.&mdash;SEC.
+10. Remarks on fruit.&mdash;SEC. 11. Evils and dangers of confectionary.&mdash;SEC.
+12. Mischiefs of pastry.&mdash;SEC. 13. Crude and raw substances.</blockquote>
+<br>
+
+<h4>SEC. 1. <i>General Principles.</i></h4>
+
+<p>The mother's milk, in suitable quantity, and under suitable regulations,
+is so obviously the appropriate food of an infant during the first
+months of its existence, that it seems almost unnecessary to repeat the
+fact. And yet the violations of this rule are so numerous and constant,
+as to require a few passing remarks.</p>
+
+<p>There are some mothers who seem to have a perfect hatred of children;
+and if they can find any plausible apology for neglecting to nurse them,
+they will. Few, indeed, will publicly acknowledge a state of feeling so
+unnatural; but there are some even of such. On the latter, all argument
+would, I fear, be utterly lost. Of the former, there may, be hope.</p>
+
+<p>They tell us&mdash;and they are often sustained by those around them&mdash;that it
+is very inconvenient to be so confined to a child that they cannot leave
+home for a little while. Can it be their duty&mdash;for in these days, when
+virtue and religion, and everything good, are so highly complimented, no
+people are more ready to talk of <i>duty</i> than they who have the least
+regard to it&mdash;can it be their duty, they ask, to exclude themselves from
+the pleasures and comforts of social life for half or two thirds of
+their most active and happy years? Ought they not to go abroad, at least
+occasionally? But if so, and their children have no other source of
+dependence, must they not suffer? Is it not better, therefore, that they
+should be early accustomed to other food, for a part of the time?
+Besides, they may be sick; and then the child must rely on others; and
+will it not be useful to accustom it early to do so?</p>
+
+<p>Perhaps few mothers are conscious that this train of reasoning passes
+through their minds. But that something like it is often made the
+occasion of substituting food which is less proper, for that furnished
+by Divine Providence, there cannot be a doubt. And the mischief is, that
+she who has gone so far, will not scruple, ere long, to go farther. And,
+strange and unnatural as it may seem, that mothers should turn over
+their children to be nursed wholly by others, in order to get rid of the
+inconvenience of nursing them at their own bosoms, it is only carrying
+out to its fullest extent, and reducing to practice, the train of
+reasoning mentioned above.</p>
+
+<p>Nor is it necessary that I should stop here to denounce a course of
+conduct so unchristian and savage. I know it is very common in some
+countries; and those American mothers who ape the other eastern
+fashions, or countenance their sons and daughters in doing it, will not
+be slow to imitate this also&mdash;especially as it is a very <i>convenient</i>
+fashion. And I question whether I shall succeed in reasoning them out of
+it. Habit, both of thought and action, is exceedingly powerful. I will,
+therefore, confine myself chiefly to those efforts at prevention, from
+which much more is to be hoped, in the present state of society, than
+from direct attempts at cure.</p>
+
+<p>It will be soon enough to leave a child with another person, when the
+mother is actually sick, or unavoidably absent; or when some other
+adequate cause is known to exist. We are to be governed, in these and
+similar cases, by general rules, and not by exceptions. The general
+rule, in the present case, is, that mothers can nurse their own
+children; and, if they have the proper disposition, that they can do it
+uninterruptedly.</p>
+
+<p>But those who are so ready to become counsellors on these occasions,
+will tell us, perhaps, that the child must be &quot;fed to spare the mother.&quot;
+That is to say, nursing weakens the mother, and the child must be taken
+away, a part of the time, to save her strength.</p>
+
+<p>Now it may safely be doubted whether the process of nursing, in itself
+considered, does weaken, at all. The Author of nature has made provision
+for the secretion (formation) of the milk, whether the child receives it
+or not. If it is not taken by the child, or drawn off in some other way,
+one of two things must follow;&mdash;either it must be taken up by what are
+called absorbent vessels, and carried into the circulation, and chiefly
+thrown out of the system as waste matter, or it will prove a source of
+irritation, if not of inflammation, to the organs themselves which
+secrete it. In both cases, the strength of the mother is quite as likely
+to be taxed, as if the child received the milk in the way that nature
+intended.</p>
+
+<p>Besides, on this very principle, the plan of saving a mother's strength
+by requiring another to nurse for her, is but saying that we will weaken
+one person to save another. Or if we feed the child, to &quot;spare its
+mother,&quot; what is this, in practice, but to say that the works of the
+Creator are very imperfect; and that he has thrown upon the mass of
+mankind a task to which they are not equal? For the mass of mankind are
+poor; and the poor, having neither the means nor the time to escape the
+duties in question, must submit to them, while their more wealthy
+neighbors escape.</p>
+
+<p>But it is idle to defend customs so monstrous. They admit of no defence
+that has the slightest claim to solidity. The general rule then is, that
+mothers should nurse their own children.</p>
+<br>
+
+<h4>SEC. 2. <i>Conduct of the Mother.</i></h4>
+
+<p>Originally it was not my intention to give directions, in this volume,
+in regard to the food, drink, &amp;c., of the mother while nursing; but
+repeated solicitations on this point, have led me to the conclusion that
+a few general principles may be very properly introduced.</p>
+
+<p>The future health, and even the moral well-being of the child, depend
+much more on the proper management of the mother herself than is usually
+supposed. How, indeed, can it be other wise? How can the mother's blood
+be constantly irritated with improper food and drink, without rendering
+the milk so? And how can a child draw, daily and hourly, from this
+feverish fountain, without being affected, not only in his physical
+frame, but in his very temper and feelings?</p>
+
+<p>It is not enough that we adopt the principles already insisted on by
+some of our wisest medical men, and even by one or two medical
+societies,[Footnote: Those of Connecticut and New Hampshire.] that
+children in this way often acquire a propensity for exciting drinks,
+that may end in their downright intemperance. What if it should not, in
+every case, proceed quite so far as to make the child a drunkard? If it
+but lays the foundation of a constitutional fondness for <i>excitements</i>,
+it tends to disease. Indeed that, in itself, is a disease; and one, too,
+which is destroying more persons every year than the cholera, or even
+the consumption. Consumption has at most only slain her tens of
+thousands [Footnote: About 40,000 a year, in the United States, as nearly
+as it can be estimated.] a year; but a fondness for exciting food and
+drink&mdash;innocent and harmless as it is often supposed to be, and
+therefore only the more dangerous a foe&mdash;does not fail to slay every
+year, directly or indirectly, its hundreds of thousands. At least this
+is my own opinion.</p>
+
+<p>Why, where can you find the individual who is not a slave to this
+perpetual rage within&mdash;this perpetual cry, &quot;Who will show us any&quot;
+physical &quot;good&quot;? Who, in this land of abundance, will eat or drink plain
+things? Who will eat simple bread, meat, potatoes, rice, pudding,
+apples, &amp;c. or drink simple water? A few instances may be found, of
+late, in which people confine themselves to simple water for drink; but
+they are rather rare. And no wonder. They <i>must</i> be rare so long as an
+unnatural thirst is kept up everywhere by the most exciting and most
+strange mixtures of food. Where, I again ask, is the person who will eat
+and relish plain bread, plain meat, plain puddings, &amp;c.? Certainly not
+in the nursery. No young mother&mdash;scarcely one I mean&mdash;will, for a single
+meal, confine herself to a piece of bread, the sweetest and best food in
+the whole world, unless it is hot, or toasted, or soaked, or buttered. A
+natural, healthy appetite, is as rare a thing on our planet, almost, as
+an inhabitant of the sun or moon.</p>
+
+<p>I have seen more than one mother made sick by using, while nursing,
+improper food and drink. I have known milk punch, taken by
+stealth&mdash;(because how could the mother, it was said, ever have a supply
+of food for her poor child without it!)&mdash;to kindle a fever that came
+very near burning up the mother and child both. And yet, if I have once
+or twice succeeded in convincing the mother that she was only suffering
+the natural punishment of her own transgressions, I have never, so far
+as I now recollect, succeeded in making her believe that her iniquities
+were visited upon her unoffending infant.</p>
+
+<p>There is everywhere the most painful apathy on this most painful
+subject. We see little children of all ages, everywhere, the victims of
+debility, and pain, and suffering, and disease and death, and yet we
+very seldom seem to search for one moment for the causes of this
+premature destruction. In fact most parents&mdash;even many intelligent
+mothers&mdash;at once stare, if you attempt to inquire into the causes of
+their child's death, as if it was either a kind of sacrilege, or an
+impeachment of their own parental affection. Diseases, even at this day,
+with the sun of science blazing in meridian splendor, they seem to
+regard as the judgments of heaven; and to think of tracing out the
+causes of the early death of half our race, is, in their estimation, not
+only idle, but wicked.</p>
+
+<p>Yet this is obviously one of the first steps, every, where, which
+philanthropy demands; to say nothing of the demands of christianity. It
+is the first step for the physician, the first step for the educator,
+the first step for the parent, and above all, the mother. Nay; more&mdash;we
+must not suppress so great and important a truth&mdash;it is the first step
+for the legislator and the minister. What sense is there in continuing,
+century after century, and age after age, to expend all our efforts in
+merely <i>mending</i> the diseased half of mankind, when those same efforts
+are amply sufficient, if early and properly applied, not only to
+continue the lives of the whole, but to make them <i>whole beings</i>,
+instead of passing through life mere <i>fragments</i> of humanity?</p>
+
+<p>But I must not forget that this is merely a small manual, not intended
+for those who make it their profession to teach the laws of God and man,
+but simply for young mothers. For the sake of erring humanity, would
+that I could, but for one moment, divest myself of the idea, that in
+writing for the young mother I am not writing for legislators and
+ministers! Would that I could banish from my mind the deep conviction
+that the mother is everywhere far more the law-giver to her infant&mdash;far
+more the arbiter of the present and eternal destiny of her child&mdash;than
+he who is more commonly regarded as such.</p>
+
+<p>Every mother owes it, not only to herself&mdash;for on this part she is not
+<i>wholly</i> forgetful&mdash;but to her offspring, to abstain, during the period
+of nursing at least, from all causes which tend to produce a feverish
+state of her fluids. Among these are every form of premature exertion,
+whether in sitting up, laboring, conversing, or even thinking. It is of
+very great importance that both the body and the mind should be kept
+quiet; and the more so, the better.</p>
+
+<p>Among the particular causes of fever to the young mother, Dr. Dewees
+enumerates spirits, wine, and other fermented liquors, a room too much
+heated, closed curtains, confined air, too much exposure, and too much
+company; and during the early period of confinement, broths and animal
+food.</p>
+
+<p>There is nothing which he insists on more strongly, than the importance
+of fresh air. Indeed, the practice of confining a nursing woman in a
+space scarcely six feet square, and excluding the air surrounding her by
+curtains and closed windows, and subjecting her to the necessity of
+breathing twenty times the air that has already been as often
+discharged, filled with poison, from her lungs, is not too strongly
+reprobated by Dr. Dewees, or anybody else. But I have spoken of these
+things in the chapter which treats on &quot;The Nursery.&quot; I would only
+observe, on this point, that if I were asked what one thing is most
+indispensable to the health of the nursing woman, I would reply, Fresh
+air; and if asked what were the second and third most important things,
+I would still repeat&mdash;in imitation of the orator of old, in regard to
+another subject&mdash;Fresh air, Fresh air.</p>
+
+<p>This important ingredient in human happiness, and especially in the
+happiness of the young mother and her tender infant, can usually be had
+within doors, if pains enough be taken. But if the weather is fine and
+in every respect favorable, a woman who is in tolerable health may
+venture abroad a little in about three weeks after her confinement, and
+sometimes even in two. Whether her exercise be without or within doors,
+however, she should be effectually protected against chills, and against
+the influence of currents of cold air.</p>
+
+<p>It has been incidentally stated, that Dr. Dewees objects to the mother's
+use, during her early period of nursing, of broths and animal food. This
+is about as much as we could reasonably expect from one who belongs to a
+profession whose members are, almost without exception, enslaved to the
+practice of flesh-eating. But even this advice of his, if duly followed,
+would be a great advance upon the practice which generally prevails.
+There is so universal a belief among females that they demand, at this
+period of their existence, not only a larger quantity of food than
+usual, but also that which is more stimulating in its quality, as almost
+to forbid the hopes of making much impression upon their minds. Many
+young mothers seem to consider themselves as licensed, during a part of
+their lives, not only to eat immoderately, and even to gluttony, but
+also to swallow almost every species of vile trash which a vile world
+affords.</p>
+
+<p>How long will it be, ere the mother can be induced to take as much pains
+to select the most appropriate and most healthy aliment for herself and
+her child, as she now does that which is demanded by a capricious
+appetite, without the smallest reference to fitness or digestibility!
+How long will it be ere the mother can be brought to believe and feel
+that, in every step she takes, she is forming the habitation of an
+immortal spirit&mdash;a spirit, too, whose character and destiny, both
+present and eternal, must depend, in no small degree, upon the character
+of the dwelling it occupies while passing through this stage of earthly
+existence! How long will it be, before mothers can be made to believe
+even these two simple truths, that the nourishment, which the human
+being actually receives, is not always in exact proportion to the
+quantity of nutritious food which he throws into his stomach, and that
+the diet is always best for both mother and child, which is least
+exciting.</p>
+
+<p>The Charleston Board of Health, during the existence of cholera in that
+city in 1836, publicly announced that the &quot;best food is the least
+exciting,&quot; and this great truth is just as true in all other places and
+circumstances on the globe as it was then in South Carolina. And though
+I am far from believing that health depends more on food and drink than
+on all other things put together, as many seem to suppose, yet I am
+entirely of opinion that he who should devote himself successfully to
+the work of applying this truth, in all its bearings, to the dietetic
+practice of all mankind, would do more for their reformation&mdash;yes, and
+their salvation too&mdash;than has yet been done by any merely <i>human</i> being,
+since the first day of the creation.</p>
+<br>
+
+<h4>SEC. 3. <i>Nursing&mdash;how often.</i></h4>
+
+<p>Many lay it down, as an invariable rule, that no system can be pursued
+with a child till it is six months old; and it must be admitted by all,
+that for several months after birth there are serious difficulties in
+the way of determining, with any degree of precision, how often a child
+should be nursed or fed. Still, there are a few rules of universal
+application; some of which are here presented.</p>
+
+<p>1. A child should never be nursed, merely to quiet it; for if this be
+done, it will soon learn to cry, whenever it feels the slightest
+uneasiness, not only from hunger, but from other causes; merely to be
+gratified with nursing. Besides, if its cries should happen to be from
+illness, it is ten to one but the reception of anything into the stomach
+will do harm instead of good.</p>
+
+<p>2. The stomach, like every other organ in the body which is muscular,
+must have time for rest; and this in the case of children as well as
+adults. But to nurse them too frequently is in opposition to this rule,
+and therefore of evil tendency.</p>
+
+<p>3. For reasons which may be seen by the last rule, there should be
+regular seasons for nursing, and these should be adhered to, especially
+by night. When very young, once in three hours may not be too frequent;
+I believe that it is seldom proper to nurse a child more frequently than
+this. But whenever three hours becomes a suitable period by day, once in
+four hours will be often enough by night. I will not undertake to say at
+what precise age children should be nursed at intervals of three and
+four hours each; because some children are older, <i>constitutionally</i>, at
+three months, than others are at four.</p>
+
+<p>There is one grand mistake, however, against which I must caution young
+mothers; which is, not to indulge the vain expectation that feeble
+infants will become robust, in proportion to their indulgence. On the
+contrary, it is the more necessary to be strict with feeble children,
+<i>because</i> they are feeble. To keep them hanging at the breast to
+invigorate them, is the very way to counteract our own intentions, and
+defeat our own purpose. Seasons of entire rest are even more important
+to their stomachs than to those of other persons.</p>
+
+<p>4. But in order to secure intervals of rest, both to the strong and the
+feeble, we must avoid the pernicious habit of giving infants pap, and
+other delicacies, &quot;between meals.&quot; Many a child's health is ruined by
+this practice. Nothing should be put into their stomachs for many
+months&mdash;if they are in health&mdash;but the mother's milk.</p>
+
+<p>&quot;This,&quot; says Dr. Dunglison, &quot;is the sole food of the infant, and is
+consequently sufficiently nutrient to maintain life, and to minister to
+the growth, during the earliest periods of existence.&quot; [Footnote:
+Elements of Hygiene, page 271.] In another place, he says, &quot;Milk is an
+appropriate nourishment at all ages, and is more so the nearer to
+birth.&quot;</p>
+<br>
+
+<h4>SEC. 4. <i>Quantity of Food.</i></h4>
+
+<p>&quot;We all know,&quot; says Dr. Dewees, &quot;how easily the stomach may be made to
+demand more food than is absolutely required; first, by the repetition
+of aliment, and secondly, by its variety;&mdash;therefore both of these
+causes must be avoided. The stomach, like every other part, can, and
+unfortunately does, acquire habits highly injurious to itself; and that
+of demanding an unnecessary quantity of aliment is not one of the least.
+It should, therefore, be constantly borne in mind, that it is not the
+quantity of food taken into the stomach, that is available to the proper
+purposes of the system; but the quantity which can be digested, and
+converted into nourishment fit to be applied to such purposes.&quot;</p>
+
+<p>There is a great deal of truth in these remarks; and especially in the
+closing one, that not all which is taken into the stomach is digested.
+It is highly probable, that the least quantity which is usually given to
+an infant is more than sufficient for the purposes of digestion; and
+that nearly every child in the arms of its mother, is over-fed.</p>
+
+<p>I know it has been said, by some physicians&mdash;and by those who are
+sensible men, in other respects, too&mdash;that the child's stomach is a
+pretty correct guide in regard to quantity. If we give it too much, say
+they, it will reject it;&mdash;as if that were an end of the matter.</p>
+
+<p>But it is not so. It is by no means harmless to fill the child's stomach
+as full as is possible without overflowing. Such a process, though it
+should not create disease directly, would produce a gluttonous habit.
+The stomach, being muscular, may be increased in size by use, like all
+other muscular organs. The hands, the arms, the legs, the feet, the
+fleshy portions of the face, even, may be disproportionally enlarged by
+constant use. Thus a sailor, who uses his hands and arms much more than
+his legs and feet, has the former unusually large; one who is much
+accustomed to walking, has large feet; and in a tailor, who from
+childhood uses his lower limbs comparatively little, they are both small
+and slender. On the same principle, the stomach, by inordinate use, and
+by carrying unreasonable loads, may be made nearly twice as large as
+nature intended, and may demand twice as much food. And I have no doubt
+that the bulk of mankind, young and old, eat about twice as much as
+nature, unperverted, would require.</p>
+
+<p>If the suggestions of our last section are duly attended to, one of the
+causes which lead the stomach to demand an unreasonable quantity of food
+will be avoided&mdash;I mean the too frequent &quot;repetition of aliment.&quot; And if
+we never depart from the general rule, already laid down, not to give
+the infant anything but its mother's milk, we shall escape the evils
+incident to variety.</p>
+<br>
+
+<h4>SEC. 5. <i>How long should milk be the only food.</i></h4>
+
+<p>On this point, there is a great diversity of opinion. Perhaps the most
+approved role, of universal application, is, that the first change
+should be made in the child's diet, when the teeth begin to appear.</p>
+
+<p>This period, it is well known, cannot be fixed to any particular age,
+but varies from the fifth to the twelfth month.</p>
+
+<p>Some mothers, who have borne with me patiently to this place, will
+probably here object. &quot;What child,&quot; they will ask, &quot;would ever have any
+strength, brought up so?&quot; Not only a little pap and gruel is, in their
+estimation, necessary, long before this period, but even many choice
+bits of meat.</p>
+
+<p>Now I am very sure, that these choice bits&mdash;whatever they may be&mdash;given
+to a child before it has teeth, not only do no good, but actually do
+mischief. Indeed, that which does no good in the stomach must do harm,
+of course; since it is not only in the way, but acts like a foreign body
+there, producing more or less of irritation.</p>
+
+<p>I ought to state, in this place, that many people&mdash;mothers among the
+rest&mdash;have very inadequate ideas of digestion. They appear to have no
+farther notion of the digestive process than that it consists in
+reducing to a pulp the substances which are swallowed; and hence,
+whatever is reduced to a pulp, they regard as being digested. Whereas
+nothing is better known to the anatomist and physiologist, than that
+this&mdash;the formation of <i>chyme</i> in the stomach&mdash;constitutes only a very
+small part of the digestive process. The chyme must pass into the
+duodenum and other portions of intestine beyond the stomach, and be
+retained there for some time, before it will form perfect chyle.</p>
+
+<p>This is a more important part of the work of digestion than even the
+former. For, suppose the chyme to be perfect, though even this may be
+mere pulp, rather than chyme, and suppose it pass quietly along into the
+duodenum and other small intestines. All this process, thus far, may go
+on naturally enough, and yet the chyle may not be well formed, and the
+chymous mass may find its way out of the system without answering any of
+the purposes of nutrition. For no matter how well the food is dissolved
+in the stomach, if it do not become good and proper chyle, the blood
+which is formed will not be good and perfect blood; or, lastly, if it
+<i>seem</i> to make good blood, it may still be faulty, so that the
+particles which should be applied to build up or repair the system, are
+either not used, or if used, answer the purpose but imperfectly.</p>
+
+<p>We hence see how little prepared a large proportion of the community,
+are, to judge of the digestibility or fitness of a substance for
+infants, by their own observation and experience merely; and how much
+more wisely they act, in contenting themselves with giving them&mdash;at
+least until they have teeth&mdash;such food only as the Author of nature
+seems to have assigned them; especially when thus course, is precisely
+that which is recommended or sanctioned by nearly every judicious
+physician, as well as by almost all our writers on health.</p>
+<br>
+
+<h4>SEC. 6. <i>On Feeding before Teething.</i></h4>
+
+<p>Having laid down the general rule, that until the appearance of teeth,
+the sole food of an infant should be the milk of its own mother, I
+proceed to speak of some of the more common exceptions to it.</p>
+
+<p>EXCEPTION 1.&mdash;The first of these is when the supply furnished by the
+mother is scanty. There may be two causes of the scantiness of this
+supply; 1st, the want of suitable nourishment by the mother; and, 2dly,
+a feeble constitution, or bad health. In the former case, it should be
+her first object, as it undoubtedly will be that of her physician, to
+improve the quality of her diet; and in the latter, to restore her
+health, or at least invigorate her constitution.</p>
+
+<p>In regard to the proper diet of a <i>mother</i>, as such, as well as the
+general management which her case requires, a volume might be written
+without exhausting the subject. But I have already said as much on this
+subject, in another place, as my limits will permit.</p>
+
+<p>But we cannot wait for the mother's health to improve, and allow the
+infant to suffer, in the mean time, for a due supply of food. The
+appropriate question now is, How shall such a supply be furnished?</p>
+
+<p>This should be done by means of an article resembling in its properties,
+as closely as possible, the mother's milk. For this purpose, we have
+only to mix with a suitable quantity of new cow's milk, one third of
+water, and sweeten it a little with loaf sugar. This is to be given to
+the child, at suitable intervals, and in proper quantities, by means of
+a common sucking bottle. It is, indeed, sometimes given with the spoon;
+but the bottle is better.</p>
+
+<p>To the question, whether the child should be confined to this, till the
+period of weaning, Dr. Dewees answers, No. I am surprised at this; and
+my surprise is increased, when I find him, almost in the very next
+breath, urging with all his might, numerous reasons against the very
+common notion, that children in early life require a variety of food. He
+even insists on the importance of confining the child to a single
+article of food when it is practicable. Yet he has not given us so much
+as one reason why it is not practicable in the case before us; but has
+gone on to speak of barley water, gum arabic water, rice water,
+arrowroot, &amp;c. I venture, therefore, to dissent from him, and to answer
+the foregoing question in the affirmative. When one good and substantial
+reason can be given for <i>change</i>, the decision will, however, be
+reconsidered.</p>
+
+<p>I have already stated the general rule for preparing this substitute for
+the mother's milk. But there are several minor directions, which may be
+useful to those who are wholly without experience on the subject.</p>
+
+<p>If possible, the milk used should not only be just taken from the cow,
+but should always be from the <i>same</i> cow; for it is well known, that the
+quality of milk often differs very materially, even among cows feeding
+in the same pasture, or from the same pile of hay; and the stomach
+becomes most easily reconciled to the mixture when it is uniform in its
+qualities. Great care should also be taken to see that the cow whose
+milk is used is young and healthy.</p>
+
+<p>The mixture should not be prepared any faster than it is wanted, and
+should always be prepared in vessels perfectly clean and sweet, and
+given as soon as possible after it is prepared, to prevent any degree of
+fermentation. It is never so well to heat it by the fire. If taken from
+the cow just before it is used, and if the water to be added is warm
+enough, the temperature will hardly need to be raised any higher.</p>
+
+<p>When it is impracticable, in all cases, to take milk for this purpose
+immediately from the cow, it should be kept, in winter, where it will
+not freeze; and in summer, where there will be no tendency to acidity.</p>
+
+<p>Some mothers and nurses are addicted to the practice of passing the food
+through their own mouths, before they give it to the child&mdash;with a view,
+no doubt, to see that it is at a proper temperature. This practice is
+not only wholly unnecessary, but altogether disgusting, and even
+ridiculous. A thermometer would answer every purpose; and save even the
+trouble of another disgusting practice&mdash;that of blowing it with the
+breath.</p>
+
+<p>The most proper season for giving the child this preparation, is
+immediately after it has been nursing. It is better for both mother and
+child, that the latter should nurse just as often as though the supply
+of food was adequate to his wants. And when his first supply is
+exhausted, then let him make up his meal from the sucking bottle. The
+great advantage of this plan is, that he will not be so likely in this
+way to be over-fed. If he is really needy, he will accept the bottle,
+even if he do not like it quite so well; if he refuse it, let him go
+without till he is hungry enough to receive it.</p>
+
+<p>In regard to the water used in the preparation, only one thing needs to
+be said; which is, that it should be pure. If it is not, it should by
+all means be boiled. The sugar used should be of the very best kind; and
+the quantity not large; since if the preparation be too sweet, it
+readily becomes acid in the stomach.</p>
+
+<p>There has been, and still is, a controversy going on among medical men,
+whether sugar is or is not hurtful to the young. &quot;Who shall decide, when
+doctors disagree?&quot; has often been asked. Without undertaking the task
+myself, I may perhaps be permitted to say, that I cannot see any reason
+why a substance so pure, and so highly nutritious as sugar&mdash;if given in
+very small quantity only&mdash;should prove injurious: though I do not regard
+the reasoning of Dr. Dewees as very conclusive on the subject, when, in
+reply to Dr. Cadogan, he has the following language&mdash;&quot;If sugar be
+improper, why does it so largely enter into the composition of the early
+food of all animals? It is in vain that physicians declaim against this
+article, since it forms between seven and eight per cent of the mother's
+milk.&quot;&mdash;Now with me, the fact that milk and almost all other kinds of
+food are furnished with a measure of this substance, is the strongest
+reason I am acquainted with for making no additions. I believe, however,
+that they may sometimes be made, but not for these reasons.</p>
+
+<p>EXCEPTION 2.&mdash;The second striking exception to the general rule that has
+been laid down, is when the mother is unable to nurse her own child from
+positive ill health, or when circumstances exist which render it
+obviously improper that she should do it. The following are some of the
+circumstances which render such a departure from nature indispensable.</p>
+
+<p>1. When the mother is affected strongly with a hereditary disease, such
+as consumption or scrofula; or when her constitution is tainted, as it
+were, with venereal disease, or other permanent affections.</p>
+
+<p>2. When nursing produces, uniformly, some very troublesome or dangerous
+disease in the mother; as cough, colic, &amp;c.</p>
+
+<p>3. There are a few instances in which the milk of the mother, owing to
+an unknown cause, has been found by experience to disagree with the
+child. In these circumstances, it is the unquestionable duty of the
+mother to resort wholly to feeding.</p>
+
+<p>4. Sometimes the milk, at first abundant, fails suddenly, owing to some
+accidental or constitutional defect; and this failure becomes habitual.
+In all these circumstances, the proper resort is to a sucking bottle, or
+a hired nurse. I generally prefer the latter. The cases which seem to me
+to admit of the former, will be pointed out in the next section.</p>
+
+<p>&quot;When the bottle is used,&quot; says Dr. Dewees, &quot;much care is requisite to
+preserve it sweet and free from all impurities, or the remains of the
+former food, by which the present may be rendered impure or sour; for
+which purpose a great deal of caution must be observed.&quot;</p>
+
+<p>The business of feeding a child, whether by the bottle or the spoon,
+should never be hurried: the slower it is, the better. We should stop
+from time to time, during the process. Nor should the nourishment be
+given while lying down; it is much more pleasant, as well as more safe,
+to sit up.</p>
+
+<p>A few thoughts more on the character and condition of the milk which we
+give to the young, will conclude the second division of this section.</p>
+
+<p>Some are fond of boiling milk for infants; but to this I am decidedly
+opposed, so long as they are in health. Boiling takes away, or appears
+to take away, some of the best properties of the milk.</p>
+
+<p>It is true that milk which is boiled does not turn sour so readily in
+hot weather; but it is quite unnecessary to boil milk in the common
+manner in order to present its changing, since such a result can be
+prevented by another process. You have only to put your milk in a
+kettle, cover it closely, and heat it quickly to the boiling point, and
+then remove and cool it as speedily as possible. This plan prevents the
+rising to the surface of that coat or pellicle which contains some of
+the most valuable properties of the milk.</p>
+
+<p>I have already said that it was as necessary that the stomach should
+have rest as any other muscular organ. Some writers say that the infant
+should be kept perfectly quiet, at least half an hour, after each meal.
+This is certainly necessary with feeble children, but I question its
+necessity in the case of those who are strong and robust. I would not
+recommend, however, nor even tolerate, for one moment, the absurd
+practice of <i>jolting</i>, so common with a few ignorant nurses and,
+mothers, as if they could jolt down the food in the stomach with just as
+much safety as they can shake down the contents of a farmer's bag of
+produce. Such mothers as these should go and reside among the native
+tribes of Indians in Guiana, in South America, where they make it a
+point not only to stuff their children's stomachs as long as they will
+hold, but actually to shake it down.</p>
+
+<p>Little less absurd than jolting is the custom of tossing a child high,
+in quick succession, which is practised not only after meals, but at
+other times. But on this point, I have treated elsewhere.</p>
+
+<p>Some give the sucking bottle to children as a plaything. This is just
+about as wise a practice as that of giving them books as playthings.
+Both are done, usually, to save the time and trouble of those whose
+office it is to devote their time to the very purpose of managing and
+educating their offspring. The evil, however, of suffering the child to
+have the bottle when it pleases is, that he will thus be tasting food so
+often as to interfere with and disturb the process of digestion, to his
+great and lasting injury. For in this way, a part of the food will pass
+from the stomach into the bowels unchanged, or at least but imperfectly
+digested, where it is liable to become sour, and cause disease. It is
+not to be doubted that many diarrhoeas, as well as, other bowel
+affections, are produced in this way. Children that are always eating
+are seldom healthy; and we may hence see the reason.</p>
+
+<p>In speaking of the importance of keeping the bottle, from which a child
+takes his food, perfectly clean and sweet, I ought to have extended the
+injunction much farther. There is a degree of slovenliness sometimes
+observable in those who manage children, both when they are sick and
+when they are in health, which even common sense cannot and ought not to
+tolerate. Every vessel which is used in preparing or administering
+anything for children, ought, after we have used it, to be immediately
+and effectually cleansed. How shocking is it to see dirty vessels
+standing in the nursery from hour to hour, becoming sour or impure! How
+much more so still, to see food in copper vessels, or in the red earthen
+ones, glazed with a poisonous oxyd! I speak now more particularly of
+vessels in which food is given; for with the administration of medicine,
+and nursing the sick, I do not intend in this volume to interfere.</p>
+
+<p>EXCEPTION 3.&mdash;We come now to the consideration of those cases&mdash;for such
+it will not be doubted there are&mdash;where a hired nurse is to be preferred
+to feeding by the hand.</p>
+
+<p>Before proceeding farther, however, it is important to say, that if a
+nurse could always be procured whose health, and temper, and habits were
+good, who had no infant of her own, and who would do as well for the
+infant, in every respect, as his own mother, it would be preferable to
+have no feeding by the hand at all.</p>
+
+<p>But such nurses are very scarce. Their temper, or habits, or general
+health, will often be such as no genuine parent would desire, and such
+as they ought to be sorry to see engrafted, in any degree, on the child.
+For even admitting what is claimed by some, that the temper of the nurse
+does <i>not</i> affect the properties of the milk, and thus injure the child
+both physically and morally, still much injury may and inevitably will
+result from the influence of her constant presence and example.</p>
+
+<p>Others have infants of their own, in which case either their own child
+or the adopted one will suffer; and in a majority of cases, it can
+scarcely be doubted <i>which</i> it will be. And I doubt the morality of
+requiring a nurse, in these cases, to give up her own child wholly. If
+<i>one</i> must be fed, why not our own, as well as that of another?</p>
+
+<p>The only cases, then, which seem to me to justify the employment of a
+nurse, are where she possesses at least the qualifications above
+mentioned; and as these are rare, not many nurses, of course, would on
+this principle be employed. But when employed, it is highly desirable
+that the following rules should be observed:</p>
+
+<p>1: The nurse should suckle the child at both breasts; otherwise he is
+liable to acquire a degree of crookedness in his form. There is another
+evil which sometimes results from the too common neglect of this rule,
+which is, that it endangers the deterioration of the quality of the
+milk.</p>
+
+<p>2. The milk which is thus substituted for that of the mother, should be
+as nearly as possible of the same age as the child who is to receive it.
+It should be remembered, however, that the milk is not so good after the
+twelfth or thirteenth month, nor <i>quite</i> so good under the third.</p>
+
+<p>3. When the parent or some trusty and confidential friend can, without
+the aid of interested spies and emissaries, have an eye to the general
+treatment, and especially to the moral management, it should be done;
+for even the best nurses may so differ in their principles, manners and
+habits from the parent, that the latter would deem it preferable to
+withdraw the child, and resort at once to feeding.</p>
+<br>
+
+<h4>SEC. 7. <i>From Teething to Weaning.</i></h4>
+
+<p>This period will, of course, be longer or shorter according as the teeth
+begin to appear earlier or later, and according to the time when it is
+thought proper to wean.</p>
+
+<p>On few points, perhaps, has there existed a greater diversity of opinion
+than in regard to the age most proper for weaning. The limits of this
+work do not permit a thorough discussion of the question; and I shall
+therefore be very brief in my remarks on the subject.</p>
+
+<p>Dr. Cullen, whose opinion on topics of this kind is certainly entitled
+to much respect, thought that less than seven, or more than eleven
+months of nursing was injurious. Yet in some countries, and even in some
+parts of our own, the period is extended by the mother, from choice, to
+two years. And although the milk is not so good after the thirteenth or
+fourteenth month, I have never either known or heard that any evil
+consequences followed from the practice.</p>
+
+<p>Dr. Loudon, a recent writer, observes, that the period of nursing has a
+great influence over the numbers of mankind in various countries, as is
+evinced by numerous facts. He adduces proofs of this, position. Thus, he
+says, in China, where the population is excessive, and the inhuman
+practice of infanticide is common, they wean a child as soon as it can
+put its hand to its mouth. On the other hand, the Indians of North
+America do not wean their children until they are old and strong enough
+to run about: generally they are suckled for a period of more than two
+years.</p>
+
+<p>He then enters into a physiological inquiry why it is that British
+mothers do not usually suckle their children longer than ten months. He
+seems&mdash;though he does not give us his precise opinion&mdash;to think that, in
+all ordinary cases, the period of nursing ought to be protracted to two
+or three years, and that perhaps it would be better still to extend it
+to four or five. His remarks are so excellent, and withal so curious,
+and their tendency so humane, that we venture to insert one or two of
+his paragraphs entire.</p>
+
+<p>&quot;Certain it is, that the milk does not diminish particularly at that
+time, (ten months,) so far as regards quantity; and from the health of
+children reared without spoon-meat beyond this time, it as certainly
+undergoes no change in its quality. Children are sometimes so old before
+weaning, as to be able to ask for the breast; and it has not been
+remarked that the health of mothers, thus suckling, was in any way worse
+than that of their neighbors. Altogether, then, it may be asserted, that
+a mother is likely to enjoy better health, and to be less liable to
+sickness and death during lactation, than during pregnancy.</p>
+
+<p>&quot;Many women believe, or affect to believe, that the weakness they labor
+under arises from some latent moral or physical cause; but this weakness
+is not attributed to lactation in the earlier months of suckling,
+because the mother then considers herself fulfilling a necessary duty,
+which her constitution, for so long, is well able to bear. So soon,
+however, as the period of lactation has passed over, as it is
+established by custom or fashion, she imagines she is exceeding the
+intentions of nature, and she forthwith concludes that the continuance
+of suckling is the cause of her uncomfortable sensations. This whim
+being entertained, the child is weaned, and too often becomes the victim
+of a most reprehensible delusion.</p>
+
+<p>&quot;Since nature has furnished the mother with milk for a longer period
+than custom demands, it is evident that some good purpose for the mother
+and child was intended in this arrangement. Had it been otherwise, the
+secretion of milk would stop at a definite time, in like manner as the
+period of gestation is definite. That a child, in comparison with the
+young of the lower animals, is so long unable to provide for itself,
+strongly tends to corroborate the proofs already advanced&mdash;that nature
+originally had in view a more protracted period for lactation than is
+now allowed.</p>
+
+<p>&quot;Some writers, following the laws of nature, as they interpreted them,
+fixed the period of weaning at fifteen months, when the infant has got
+its eight incisors and four canine teeth. There are well-authenticated
+instances of mothers having suckled their children for three, four,
+five, and even seven consecutive years; we ourselves have known cases
+of lactation being prolonged far three and for four years, with the
+happiest results.&quot;</p>
+
+<p>It appears to me better, therefore, that the child should be nursed, in
+all ordinary cases, from twelve to fifteen months; and when there are no
+special objections, about two years. As the change, whenever it is made,
+and however gradual it may be, is an important one, in its effects on
+the stomach and bowels, it is better to wean a little earlier or a
+little later, than to do so just at the close of summer or beginning of
+autumn, at which season bowel complaints are most common, most severe,
+and most dangerous. It is sufficiently unfortunate that teething should
+commence just at this period; but when we add another cause of irregular
+action, which we can control, to one which we <i>cannot</i>, we act very
+unwisely.</p>
+
+<p>I have already observed that we may begin to feed children when the
+teeth begin to appear. By this is not meant that we should do so while
+the system is under the irritation to which teething usually, or at
+least often, subjects it. But when this is over, and a few teeth have
+appeared, it is usually a proper time to commence our operations.</p>
+
+<p>The first food given should be precisely of the kind which has been
+recommended for those children who are fed by the hand. The rules and
+restrictions by which we are to be guided, are the same, except in one
+point, which is, that in the case we are now considering, the child
+should be fed <i>between nursing</i>.</p>
+
+<p>Let not parents be anxious about their healthy children under two years,
+who have a supply of good milk, either from the mother or from the cow.
+For those that are feeble, a physician may and ought to prescribe&mdash;not
+medicine, but appropriate food, drink, &amp;c.</p>
+
+<p>When the grinding teeth have cut through, if we have any doubts in
+regard to the nutritive qualities of the food we are giving, we may
+improve it by adding, instead of the one third of pure water, a similar
+quantity of gum arabic water, barley water, or rice water. Some use a
+little weak animal broth; but this is unnecessary, and I think, on the
+whole, injurious, except for purposes strictly medicinal.</p>
+
+<p>This course is so simple, and so far removed from that which is
+generally adopted, that few mothers will probably be willing to pursue
+it with perseverance, especially when the teeth appear very late. Those
+who are, however, will be richly rewarded, in the end, in the
+advantages; which will accrue to the child's health, and the vigor it
+will ensure to his constitution.</p>
+<br>
+
+<h4>SEC. 8. <i>During the process of Weaning.</i></h4>
+
+<p>It has already been shown that, in weaning, some regard should be had to
+the season of the year; and that the end of summer and beginning of fall
+are of all periods the most unfavorable. The best time, on every
+account, is in the spring&mdash;in March, April, May, or June; and the next
+best is during the months of October and November. But December, January
+and February are better than July, August and September.</p>
+
+<p>Weaning should never be sudden. We may safely and properly call upon
+those who are addicted to snuff or opium taking, tobacco chewing, rum
+drinking, and other habits which are purely artificial, to break
+off&mdash;<i>to wean themselves</i>&mdash;suddenly; since <i>they</i> can do so with
+considerable safety, and will seldom have the courage or the
+perseverance to do it otherwise. But with the child, in regard to his
+food, such a course will not be advisable. If we regard his future
+health or happiness, he must be weaned gradually.</p>
+
+<p>The first proper step will be to give the child a little larger quantity
+of the cow's milk and gum arabic mixture, between nursings, at the same
+time increasing very gradually the intervals of nursing. When the
+intervals become six hours distant from each other, it will be best to
+add a little good bread to the milk with which it is fed, about two or
+three times a day. Arrowroot jelly, if he can be made to relish it, will
+be highly useful; but if not, some boiled rice, into which a little
+arrowroot has been sprinkled while boiling, may be added to his milk.</p>
+
+<p>It may be worth the attempt to excite an aversion in the child to
+nursing his mother, so that be will refuse to nurse, if possible, of his
+own accord. This aversion may be excited by such an application of
+aloes, or some other offensive substance, as will cause him to withdraw
+himself from the breast as soon as he tastes it.</p>
+
+<p>A serious mistake is often made, in connection with weaning, in giving
+the child not only too much food, but that which is too solid, or too
+rich. This mistake has undoubtedly grown out of the belief that his
+feeble condition <i>requires</i> it; whereas the truth is, that he neither
+needs food at this period, nor is capable of digesting it. For let us be
+as judicious in the process of weaning as we may, the tone of the
+child's stomach will be somewhat reduced, or in other words, its powers
+of digestion will be weakened by it; and to give it strong food, or
+overload it with that which is weaker, is not only unreasonable and
+unphilosophical, but cruel. And if there should be a tendency in the
+child's constitution to rickets, scrofula, consumption, and other
+wasting diseases, such a course would be likely to bring them on, and
+destroy life.</p>
+
+<p>&quot;When milk will agree,&quot; says Dr. Dewees, &quot;there is no food so proper. It
+may be employed in any of its combinations, with good wheaten bread,
+rice, sago, &amp;c., only remembering that when either of these articles is
+found to agree, it should be continued perseveringly, until it may
+become offensive. In this case, some new combination may be required.&quot; I
+do not see the necessity of continuing one kind of food till it
+<i>offends</i>. Besides, I do not believe that these simple articles of food
+are apt to become offensive to stomachs that have not already been
+spoiled. But whether a single dish should or should not come to be
+offensive, I greatly prefer an occasional change.</p>
+
+<p>Buchan, in his Advice to Mothers, has recommended it to them to boil
+bread for their infants, in water. It should not, for this purpose&mdash;nor
+indeed for any other&mdash;be new; it is best at one or two days, old. It may
+be boiled in a small quantity of water, or what is still better, of
+milk; or it may be steamed till it becomes soft and light, almost like
+new bread, but without any of the objectionable properties of that which
+is wholly new. To bread, thus prepared, is to be added a suitable
+quantity of milk, fresh from the cow, and a little diluted with water,
+but not boiled.</p>
+
+<p>But as there may be, here and there, at any age, a stomach with which
+milk, with bread, or rice, or sago, will not agree&mdash;though I think they
+must be very rare cases&mdash;we may be allowed to substitute for it a
+solution of &quot;gum arabic, in the proportion of an ounce to a pint of
+water,&quot; to which may be added a little sugar; and if the child is old
+enough to observe the color, just milk enough to change the appearance.
+Another preparation for the same purpose consists of rennet whey, a
+little sweetened, and &quot;disguised, if necessary, as just stated.&quot;</p>
+
+<p>The health of the mother, too, during the period of weaning, often needs
+great attention. Let her avoid medicine, however, if possible. A due
+regard to food, drink, exercise, and rest of body and mind, &amp;c., will
+usually be found more effective, as well as more permanently
+efficacious.</p>
+<br>
+
+<h4>SEC. 9. <i>Food subsequently to Weaning.</i></h4>
+
+<p>You will allow me to introduce in this place, some of the sentiments of
+Dr. Cadogan, an English physician, from a little work on the management
+of children. [Footnote: Though Dr. C.'s remarks will apply more closely
+to England in 1750, they are by no means inapplicable to the United
+States in 1837.] I do it with the more pleasure because, though he wrote
+almost a century ago, he urges the same general principles on which I
+have all along been insisting: hence it will be seen that mine are no
+new-fangled notions. His remarks refer to the young of every age, but
+chiefly to early infancy and childhood. It will be found necessary, in
+some instances, to abridge, but I shall endeavor not to misrepresent the
+Doctor's views.</p>
+
+<br><hr style="width: 45%;"><br>
+
+<p>&quot;Look over the bills of mortality. Almost half of those who fill up that
+black list, die under five years of age; so that half the people that
+come into the world go out of it again, before they become of the least
+use to it or to themselves. To me, this seems to deserve serious
+consideration.</p>
+
+<p>&quot;It is ridiculous to charge it upon nature, and to suppose that infants
+are more subject to disease and death than grown persons; on the
+contrary, they bear pain and disease much better&mdash;fevers especially; and
+for the same reason that a twig is less hurt by a storm than an oak.</p>
+
+<p>&quot;In all the other productions of nature, we see the greatest vigor and
+luxuriancy of health, the nearer they are to the egg or bud. When was
+there a lamb, a bird, or a tree, that died because it was young? These
+are under the immediate nursing of unerring nature; and they thrive
+accordingly.</p>
+
+<p>&quot;Ought it not, therefore, to be the care of every nurse and every
+parent, not only to protect their nurslings from injury, but to be well
+assured that their own officious services be not the greatest evils the
+helpless creatures can suffer?</p>
+
+<p>&quot;In the lower class of mankind, especially in the country, disease and
+mortality are not so frequent, either among adults or their children.
+Health and posterity are the portion of the poor&mdash;I mean the laborious.
+The want of superfluity confines them more within the limits of nature;
+hence they enjoy the blessings they feel not, and are ignorant of their
+cause.</p>
+
+<p>&quot;In the course of my practice, I have had frequent occasion to be fully
+satisfied of this; and have often heard a mother anxiously say, 'the
+child has not been well ever since it has done puking and crying.'</p>
+
+<p>&quot;These complaints, though not attended to, point very plainly to the
+cause. Is it not very evident that when a child rids its stomach of its
+contents several times a day, it has been overloaded? While the natural
+strength lasts, (for every child is born with more health and strength
+than is generally imagined,) it cries at or rejects the superfluous
+load, and <i>thrives apace</i>; that is, grows very fat, bloated, and
+distended beyond measure, like a house lamb.</p>
+
+<p>&quot;But in time, the same oppressive cause continuing, the natural powers
+are overcome, being no longer able to throw off the unequal weight. The
+child, now unable to cry any more, languishes and is quiet.</p>
+
+<p>&quot;The misfortune is, that these complaints are not understood. The child
+is swaddled and crammed on, till, after gripes, purging, &amp;c., it sinks
+under both burdens into a convulsion fit, and escapes farther torture.
+This would be the case with the lamb, were it not killed, when full fat.</p>
+
+<p>&quot;That the present mode of nursing is wrong, one would think needed no
+other proof than the frequent miscarriages attending it, the death of
+many, and the ill health of those that survive. But what I am going to
+complain of is, that children, in general, are over-clothed and
+over-fed, and fed and clothed improperly. To these causes I attribute
+almost all their diseases.</p>
+
+<p>&quot;But the feeding of children is much more important to them than their
+clothing. Let us consider what nature directs in the case. If we follow
+nature, instead of leading or driving her, we cannot err. In the
+business of nursing, as well as physic, art, if it do not exactly copy
+this original, is ever destructive.</p>
+
+<p>&quot;If I could prevail, no child should ever be crammed with any unnatural
+mixture, till the provision of nature was ready for it; nor afterwards
+fed with any ungenial diet whatever, at least for the <i>first three
+months</i>; for it is not well able to digest and assimilate other elements
+sooner.</p>
+
+<p>&quot;I have seen very healthy children that never ate or drank anything
+whatever but their mother's milk, for the first ten or twelve months.
+Nature seems to direct to this, by giving them no teeth till about that
+time. The call of nature should be waited for to feed them with anything
+more substantial; and the appetite ought ever to precede the food&mdash;not
+only with regard to the daily meals, but those changes of diet which
+opening, increasing life requires. But this is never done, in either
+case; which is one of the greatest mistakes of all nurses.</p>
+
+<p>&quot;When the child requires more solid sustenance, we are to inquire what
+and how much is most proper to give it. We may be well assured there is
+a great mistake either in the quantity or quality of children's food, or
+both, as it is usually given them, because they are made sick by it; for
+to this mistake I cannot help imputing nine in ten of all their
+diseases.</p>
+
+<p>&quot;As to quantity, there is a most ridiculous error in the common
+practice; for it is generally supposed that whenever a child cries, it
+wants victuals: it is accordingly fed ten or twelve or more times in a
+day and night. This is so obvious a misapprehension, that I am surprised
+it should ever prevail.</p>
+
+<p>&quot;If a child's wants and motions be diligently and judiciously attended
+to, it will be found that it never cries, but from pain. Now the first
+sensations of hunger are not attended with pain; accordingly, a very
+young child that is hungry will make a hundred other signs of its want,
+before it will cry for food. If it be healthy, and quite easy in its
+dress, it will hardly ever cry at all. Indeed, these signs and motions I
+speak of are but rarely observed, because it seldom happens that
+children are ever suffered to be hungry.[Footnote: That which we
+commonly observe in them, in such cases, and call by the name of hunger,
+the Doctor, I suppose would regard as morbid or unnatural feeling,
+wholly unworthy of the name of HUNGER.]</p>
+
+<p>&quot;In a few, very few, whom I have had the pleasure to see reasonably
+nursed, that were not fed above two or three times in twenty-four hours,
+and yet were perfectly healthy, active, and happy, I have seen these
+signals, which were as intelligible as if they had spoken.</p>
+
+<p>&quot;There are many faults in the quality of children's food.</p>
+
+<p>&quot;1. It is not simple enough. Their paps, panadas, gruels, &amp;c. are
+generally enriched with sugar, spices, and other nice things, and
+sometimes a drop of wine&mdash;none of which they ought ever to take. Our
+bodies never want them; they are what luxury only has introduced, to the
+destruction of the health of mankind.</p>
+
+<p>&quot;2. It is not enough that their food should be simple; it should also be
+light. Many people, I find, are mistaken in their notions of what is
+light, and fancy that most kinds of pastry, puddings, custards, &amp;c. are
+light; that is, light of digestion. But there is nothing heavier, in
+this sense, than unfermented flour and eggs, boiled hard, which are the
+chief ingredients in some of these preparations.</p>
+
+<p>&quot;What I mean by light food&mdash;to give the best idea I can of it&mdash;is, any
+substance that is easily separated, and soluble in warm water. Good
+bread is the lightest thing I know, and the fittest food for young
+children. Cows' milk is also simple and light, and very good for them;
+but it is often injudiciously prepared. It should never be boiled; for
+boiling alters the taste and properties of it, destroys its sweetness,
+and makes it thicker, heavier, and less fit to mix and assimilate with
+the blood.&quot;</p>
+
+<br><hr style="width: 45%;"><br>
+
+<p>It is hardly necessary for me to repeat, that in these general views of
+Dr. C., with a few exceptions, I entirely concur; indeed some of them
+have already been presented. But I have expressed my doubts of the
+soundness of his conclusion in regard to sugar. Used with food, in very
+small quantity, by persons whose stomachs are already in a good
+condition, both sugar and molasses, especially the former, appear to me
+not only harmless, but wholesome and useful.</p>
+
+<p>On the subject of simplicity in children's food, I should be glad to
+enlarge. There is nothing more important in diet than simplicity, and
+yet I think there is nothing more rare. To suit the fashion, everything
+must be mixed and varied. I have no objection to variety at different
+meals, both for children and adults; indeed I am disposed to recommend
+it, as will be seen hereafter. But I am utterly opposed to any
+considerable variety at the same meal; and above all, in a single dish.
+The simpler a dish can be, the better.</p>
+
+<p>But let us look, for a moment, at the dishes of food which are often
+presented, even at what are called plain tables.</p>
+
+<p>Meats cannot be eaten&mdash;so many persons think&mdash;without being covered
+with mustard, or pepper, or gravy&mdash;or soaked in vinegar; and not a few
+regard them as insipid, unless several of these are combined. Few people
+think a piece of plain boiled or broiled muscle (lean flesh) with
+nothing on it but a little salt, is fit to be eaten. Everything, it is
+thought, must be rendered more stimulating, or acrid; or must be
+swimming in gravy, or melted fat or butter.</p>
+
+<p>Bread, though proverbially the staff of life, can scarcely be eaten in
+its simple state. It must be buttered, or honied, or toasted, or soaked
+in milk, or dipped in gravy. Puddings must have cherries or fruits of
+some sort, or spices in them, and must be sweetened largely. Or
+perhaps&mdash;more ridiculous still&mdash;they must have suet in them. And after
+all this is done, who can eat them without the addition of sauce, or
+butter, or molasses, or cream? Potatoes, boiled, steamed or roasted,
+delightful as they are to an unperverted appetite, are yet thought by
+many people hardly palatable till they are mashed, and buttered or
+gravied; or perhaps soaked in vinegar. In short, the plainest and
+simplest article for the table is deemed nearly unfit for the stomach,
+till it has been buttered, and peppered, and spiced, and perhaps
+<i>pearlashed</i>. Even bread and milk must be filled with berries or fruits.
+Where can you find many adults who would relish a meal which should
+consist entirely of plain bread, without any addition; of plain
+potatoes, without anything on them except a little salt; of a plain rice
+pudding, and nothing with it; or of plain baked or boiled apples or
+pears? And <i>could</i> such persons be found, how many of them would bring
+up their children to live on such plain dishes?</p>
+
+<p>It need not be wondered at, that a palate which has been so long tickled
+by variety, and by so many stimulating mixtures of food, should come to
+regard cold water for drink as insipid; and should feel dissatisfied
+with it, and desirous of boiling some narcotic or poisonous herb in it,
+or brewing it with something which will impart to it more or less of
+alcohol. The wonder is, not that some of our epicures become drunkards,
+but that all of them do not.</p>
+
+<p>Dr. Cadogan alludes to a sad mistake everywhere made about <i>light</i> food;
+and condemns, very justly, hard-boiled custards, pastry, &amp;c. It is very
+strange that these substances&mdash;for these are among the injurious
+articles which I call mixtures&mdash;should ever have obtained currency in
+the world, to the exclusion of bread, which, as the same writer justly
+says, is among the lightest articles of food which are known.</p>
+
+<p>It is strange, in particular, what views people have about bread.
+Judging from what I see, I am compelled to believe that there are few
+who regard it in any other light than as a kind of necessary evil. They
+appear to eat it, not because they are fond of it, by itself, but
+because they <i>must</i> eat it; or rather, because it is a fashionable
+article; and not to make believe they eat it, at the least, would be
+unfashionable. They will get rid of it, however, when they can. And when
+they must eat it, they soak it, or cover it with butter or milk, or
+something else which will render it tolerable&mdash;or toast it. And use it
+as they may, it must be hot from the oven. After it is once cold, very
+few will eat it. The idea, above all, of making a full meal of simple
+cold bread, twenty-four hours old, would be rejected by ninety-nine
+persons in a hundred; and by some with abhorrence.</p>
+
+<p>People not only dislike bread, but regard it as unnutritious. I have
+heard many a fond parent say to the child who ate no meat, and seemed to
+depend almost wholly on bread&mdash;&quot;Why, my dear child, you will starve if
+you eat no meat. Do at least put some butter on your bread or your
+potatoes.&quot; A thousand times have I been admonished, when eating my
+vegetable dinner during the hot and fatiguing days of summer&mdash;for I was
+bred to the farm, and ate little or no meat till I was fourteen years
+of age&mdash;to eat more butter, or cheese, or something that would give me
+strength; for I could not work, they said, without something more
+nourishing than bread and the other vegetables. And yet few if any boys
+of my age did more work, or performed it better, or with more ease, than
+myself. And I early observed the same thing in other vegetable eaters.</p>
+
+<p>The truth is, there is nothing in the world better adapted to the daily
+wants of the human stomach than good bread; and few things more
+nutritious. There may be a little more nutriment in eggs or jelly; but
+if the former are hard-boiled, the stomach cannot digest them; and fat
+meat of any kind is digested with great difficulty. Indeed it is
+doubtful whether stomachs in temperate climates digest fat at all. They
+may dissolve it, but that is not making good chyle of it. They may even
+reduce it to chyle; <i>but chyle is not blood</i>. Fat may slip through the
+system without much of it <i>adhering</i>; and I think it pretty evident that
+it usually does so.</p>
+
+<p>The muscle&mdash;the lean part of animals&mdash;may be nearly as nutritious as
+good bread, and is more easily digested. But it is very far from being
+proved that, for the healthy, those things are always best which are
+most easily digested. Nobody will pretend that potatoes are better for
+us than bread; and yet the experiments of Dr. Beaumont seem to prove
+that boiled or roasted potatoes are much more quick and easy of
+digestion than bread of the first and best quality. Even over-boiled
+eggs and raw cabbage, bad as they are, are dissolved in the stomach, and
+appear to be digested as quick, if not quicker, than good wheat bread.
+But nobody in the world will pretend they form more wholesome food.
+Neither is meat&mdash;even <i>lean</i> meat&mdash;necessarily more wholesome, or better
+calculated to give strength than bread, simply be cause it is more
+quickly and easily digested. It would be nearer the truth to say, that
+those substances which digest slowest (provided they do not irritate)
+are best adapted to the wants of the human stomach.</p>
+
+<p>The philosopher LOCKE&mdash;perhaps from his knowledge of medicine&mdash;gives
+some excellent directions on this subject. &quot;Great care should be used,&quot;
+be says, that the child &quot;eat bread plentifully, both alone and with
+everything else; and whatever he eats that is solid, make him chew it
+well.&quot; This writer, by the way, supposed that the teeth were made to be
+used in beating our food; and that we ought neither to swallow it
+without chewing, as is customary in our busy New England, nor to mash or
+soak it in order to save the labor of mastication&mdash;a practice almost
+equally universal. But let us hear his own words.</p>
+
+<blockquote class="small">&quot;As for his diet, it ought to be very plain and simple; and if I might
+advise, flesh should be forborne, at least till he is two or three years
+old. But of whatever advantage this may be to his future health and
+strength, I fear it will hardly be consented to by parents, misled by
+the custom of eating too much flesh themselves, who will be apt to think
+their children&mdash;as they do themselves&mdash;in danger to be starved; if they
+have not flesh at least twice a day. This I am sure, children would
+breed their teeth with much less danger, be freer from diseases while
+they were little, and lay the foundations of a healthy and strong
+constitution much surer, if they were not crammed so much as they are,
+by fond mothers and foolish servants, and were kept wholly from flesh
+the first three or four years of their lives.&quot;</blockquote>
+
+<p>Were Locke still living, I should like to interrogate him at this
+place. He first speaks of giving children no meat till they are two or
+three years old; and then afterwards extends the period to three or
+four. The question I would put is this: If the child is healthier
+without meat till he is three or four years old, why not till he is
+thirteen or fourteen; or even till thirty, or forty, or seventy? And is
+not Professor Stuart, of Andover&mdash;a meat eater himself, and an advocate
+for its moderate use by those who have already been trained to the use
+of it&mdash;is not the Professor, I say, more than half right when he
+asserts, as I have heard him, that it may be well to train all children,
+from the first, to the exclusive use of vegetable food?</p>
+
+<p>I have a few more extracts from Locke, particularly on the subject of
+bread.</p>
+
+<blockquote class="small">&quot;I should think that a good piece of well made and well baked brown
+bread would be often the best breakfast for my young master. I am sure
+it is as wholesome, and will make him as strong a man, as greater
+delicacies; and if he be used to it, it will be as pleasant to him.</blockquote>
+
+<blockquote class="small">&quot;If he, at any time, call for victuals between meals, use him to nothing
+but dry bread. If he be hungry more than wanton, bread will go down; and
+if he be not hungry, it is not fit that he should eat. By this you will
+obtain two good effects. First, that by custom he will come to be in
+love with bread; for, as I said, our palates and stomachs, too, are
+pleased with the things we are used to. Another good you will gain
+hereby is, that you will not teach him to eat more nor oftener than
+nature requires.</blockquote>
+
+<blockquote class="small">&quot;I do not think that all people's appetites are alike; some have
+naturally stronger and some weaker stomachs. But this I think, that
+many are made gormands and gluttons by custom, that were not so by
+nature. And I see, in some countries, men as lusty and strong, that eat
+but two meals a day, as those that have set their stomachs, by a
+constant usage, to call on them for four or five.</blockquote>
+
+<blockquote class="small">&quot;The Romans usually fasted till supper, the only set meal, even of those
+who ate more than once in a day; and those who used breakfasts, as some
+did at eight, same at ten, others at twelve of the clock, and some
+later, neither ate flesh nor had anything made ready for them.</blockquote>
+
+<blockquote class="small">&quot;Augustus, when the greatest monarch on the earth, tells us he took a
+piece of dry bread in his chariot; and Seneca, in his 83d epistle,
+giving an account how be managed himself when he was old, and his age
+permitted indulgence, says that he used to eat a piece of dry bread for
+his dinner, without the formality of sitting to it. Yet Seneca, as it is
+well known, was wealthy.</blockquote>
+
+<blockquote class="small">&quot;The masters of the world were brought up with this spare diet, and the
+young gentlemen of Rome felt no want of strength or spirit because they
+ate but once a day. Or if it happened by chance that any one could not
+fast so long as till supper, their only set meal, he took nothing but a
+bit of dry bread, or at most a few raisins or some such slight thing
+with it, to stay his stomach. And more than one set meal a day was
+thought so monstrous that it was a reproach, as low as Caesar's time, to
+make an entertainment, or sit down to a table, till towards sunset.
+Therefore I judge it most convenient that my young master should have
+nothing but bread for breakfast. I impute a great part of our diseases
+in England to our eating too much flesh, and too little bread. Dry
+bread, though the best nourishment, has the least temptation.&quot;</blockquote>
+
+<p>I shall not undertake to defend all the sentiments of Mr. Locke in these
+extracts; but in regard to the main point&mdash;the nutritive properties and
+wholesome tendency of bread, and the importance of making it a principal
+article of diet for children&mdash;I think his views are just. In short, they
+do not differ, substantially, from those of a large proportion of the
+best writers on this subject in every country, during the last three
+hundred years. As if with one voice, they dissuade from the use of too
+much animal food for the young, and encourage the use of a larger
+proportion of vegetable food&mdash;bread, plain puddings, rice, potatoes,
+turnips, beets, apples, pears, &amp;c., and milk.</p>
+
+<p>Yet they all, or nearly all, seem to write just as if they did not
+expect to be believed; or if believed, to be followed. They seem to
+regard mankind as so inveterately attached to old habits, and so much
+addicted to flesh eating, that there is little hope of reclaiming them.</p>
+
+<p>Now, though my opinions are no more entitled to respect than many of
+theirs, I hope for greater success than they appear to do. I expect that
+many young mothers who read this work, will be led to think and inquire
+further on the subject; and if they find that the views here advanced
+are in accordance with reason, and common sense, and higher authority, I
+am not without hope that they will reform, and do what they can to
+reform their neighbors.</p>
+
+<p>I have dwelt the longer, in this section, on the <i>general</i> principles of
+diet, because I am of opinion that whatever is true, on this subject, in
+regard to the diet of children, soon after weaning, is equally, or
+nearly equally applicable to the whole of childhood, youth, manhood and
+age. It is not true that one period of life, and one mode of employment,
+demands a diet essentially different from that which is demanded at
+another period, and in other circumstances; provided always, that the
+individual is in health. Occasional instances of the kind, there may be;
+but they are not numerous.</p>
+
+<p>The digestive powers of the young are more nearly as strong as those of
+the adult than is usually admitted, and they are much more active. They
+require a less quantity of food, undoubtedly; and they should be fed at
+shorter intervals. But as a general rule, what is best for them, as
+regards its quality, at three years old, is best for them at thirty; or,
+should they live so long, at ninety. I repeat it; there is very little
+difference in the nature of the food required ever after teething.</p>
+
+<p>Let me not be understood as saying that the strong, and the robust, and
+the active cannot digest food which the weak, and enervated, and
+indolent cannot. Undoubtedly they can. But this does not prove that they
+<i>ought</i> to do it. It does not prove that their strength and vigor were
+not given them for other purposes than to be expended on the poorer
+substances for food, when they might have better. Nor is it true, as
+often pretended, that the hard laborer needs either more food, or that
+which is of a stronger quality, just in proportion to the severity of
+his labor. The man or the child who labors moderately, just sufficient
+for the purposes of health, and labors with his hands in the open air,
+needs rather <i>more</i> food than the indolent or the sedentary, or those
+who labor to excess; but not that which is of a stronger quality. It is
+he who labors to excess&mdash;if any difference of quality were required at
+all&mdash;who should eat milder food, as well as less in quantity.</p>
+
+<p>Some physicians there are who tell us that all mankind would live
+longer, as well as be more healthful, if they ate nothing but bread, and
+drank nothing but water. It may be so, but I do not believe it. Water,
+as I shall show hereafter, is indeed the only appropriate drink; but I
+do not believe that bread, even after the second year, is in all cases
+and circumstances the best food. Besides that the experiments of
+Majendie and other physiologists go a little way&mdash;though not far, I
+confess&mdash;to prove that animals generally, (and if so, why not man, as
+well as the rest?) thrive best with some degree of variety in their
+food, it seems to me more in accordance with the general intentions of
+the Creator, so far as we can discover what they are.</p>
+
+<p>While, therefore, I deny that either milk or bread is better, in all
+cases, for human sustenance, than any other articles of food, I must, at
+the same time, be permitted to regard them as among the best, and as
+deserving more general attention. Every infant, after leaving the
+breast, should, as it seems to me, make bread, in some of its forms, a
+chief article of food.</p>
+
+<p>This article, so justly and emphatically called the staff of life, may
+be found in almost every country. Common sense seems to have dictated
+the propriety of its use; though fashion has often led us to overlook
+or despise it&mdash;like air, and fire, and water, and nearly every other
+common but indispensable blessing.</p>
+
+<p>The best kind of bread is made from wheat, the worst from bark,
+saw-dust, &amp;c. Wood and bark afford so little nutriment, that it is only
+in such countries as Norway, Sweden, Lapland. Iceland, Greenland, and
+Siberia, that the inhabitants can be induced to make use of them. Here
+they are often useful; either because people cannot get food which is
+better, or to blend with their fat or oily animal food. For it should
+never be forgotten, that healthy digestion requires a large proportion
+of innutritious matter along with the pure nutriment. In order to make
+bread from wheat, the meal should not be bolted. If it seems to contain
+particles which are too coarse, it may be well to pass it through a
+coarse family sieve; but the best bread I have ever eaten, as well as
+the cleanest and neatest, was not sifted at all.</p>
+
+<p>I know there is an almost universal prejudice against this sort of
+bread. Some complain that it scratches their throats; others, that it is
+tasteless; and others still, that it does not agree with them. With
+others there is another objection&mdash;which is that bread of this sort has
+sometimes been called <i>dyspepsia</i> bread; and with others still, that it
+has been called <i>Graham</i> bread. Either of these appellations seems
+sufficient to condemn it.</p>
+
+<p>Now as to the harshness, this is owing to its being made of bad
+materials, or to its being baked too hard, or kept too long. Much of
+what they call dyspepsia bread, in our cities, is evidently made by
+mixing the bran and flour of wheat after they have been once separated;
+besides which, in not a few cases, the finest of the flour appears to be
+taken away. Now bread made of such materials thus combined, will always
+be darker colored, as well as harsher, than when made from the wheat,
+simply ground without any bolting, and wet up in the usual manner. Such
+bread is best two or three days old. After four days, it becomes dry and
+somewhat harsh.</p>
+
+<p>They who complain that such bread is insipid, are persons whose
+appetites have been injured by food which is high-seasoned; and who, if
+they eat bread at all, must eat it hot, or soaked in butter. No wonder
+such persons do not like plain bread, and say it is tasteless. But it
+must not be denied that bakers often suffer this kind of bread to be
+over-risen, in order to make it sufficiently light and porous. This
+renders it less tasteful, and from the saleratus they use, less
+wholesome.</p>
+
+<p>No child who has been accustomed, from the first, to good wheaten bread,
+made of unbolted meal, and not less than one day old, will ever prefer
+any other, until he has been rendered capricious on this subject, and
+wishes to change for the sake of changing, or until he has been misled
+by surrounding example. I speak from observation when I say that
+infants, whose habits have not been depraved, will not prefer hot bread
+of any kind. &quot;It is hot, mother,&quot; I have heard them say, as an apology
+for refusing a piece of bread; but never, &quot;It is cold,&quot; or &quot;It is too
+old.&quot;</p>
+
+<p>It is the epicurean&mdash;it is he with whom it is a sufficient objection to
+any kind of food whatever, that he has used it for several successive
+meals or days&mdash;that is most ready to complain of good bread. He whose
+habits are correct, and who is the more unwilling to change any of his
+articles of diet, the longer he has been in the use of them, and who
+only changes them, or uses variety, from principle&mdash;he, I say, will
+never complain of harshness or want of taste in good wheat bread; nor
+will it be an objection of weight with him that <i>Mr. Graham</i> has
+recommended it, or that it has either prevented or cured <i>dyspepsia</i>.</p>
+
+<p>Nor will the epicurean himself complain that bread is insipid, after
+being confined to it for a month or six weeks. He will then find a
+sweetness in it, for which he had long sought in vain in the more
+delicate and costly viands of a luxurious, and expensive, and
+unchristian modern table.</p>
+
+<p>It is they only who observe simplicity, and confine themselves to very
+plain food, who truly enjoy pleasure in eating. The bulk of mankind
+benumb their sense of taste by their high-seasoned, over-stimulating
+food and drink, and by such constant variety and strange mixtures; and
+thus, in their eager cry, &quot;Who will show us any good?&quot; they actually
+enjoy less than he who eats plain food, and is contented with it.</p>
+
+<p>Bread of all kinds is greatly improved in whiteness and pleasantness by
+being wet with milk; though even when wet with nothing but water, there
+is a solid and rational sweetness to it, of which the despisers of
+bread, and devourers of much flesh and condiments never dreamed, and
+never will dream, till they reform their habits.</p>
+
+<p>If children are furnished with good bread, on the plan of Mr. Locke,
+there is no doubt that they will relish it most keenly; that their
+attachment to it will strengthen, and that unless we give them other
+food occasionally, from principle, or seduce them by depraving their
+tastes, they will continue it through life. &quot;Train up a child in the way
+he should go, and when he is old he will not depart from it,&quot; is a
+general rule, and has as few exceptions, when applied to the diet of a
+child, as when it is applied to his moral tastes and preferences.</p>
+
+<p>With those parents who, though convinced of the justness of the views
+here advanced, have already trained their children in the way they
+should <i>not</i> go, but are anxious to retrace their steps as far as
+possible, there will here be a difficulty. &quot;Our children,&quot; they will
+say, &quot;do not, at present, <i>relish</i> the kind of bread you speak of; and
+how shall we bring them to do so? or is the thing indeed possible?&quot;</p>
+
+<p>The answer to these inquiries is easy. Such parents have only to confine
+their children to the kinds of food which they deem proper for them, a
+few weeks or a few months, and they will soon relish them. If those who
+are old enough to be convinced can be brought to unite heartily in the
+change, and to endeavor to be pleased with it, the work of reformation
+will be more pleasant and probably more speedy. I have never found any
+difficulty of bringing myself to relish in a very short time an article
+of food for which I had no relish before, and to which I had even a
+dislike, provided I was thoroughly convinced it was best for me, and was
+earnest in the desire of change&mdash;except sweet oil, to which I was about
+six months in becoming reconciled.</p>
+
+<p>It is with physical, as with moral habits, in their formation. We
+should fix on what we believe, from experience, observation, and divine
+and human testimony, is best for us, and habit will soon render it
+agreeable. It is important, even to health, that food should be
+agreeable; but as I have already said, what we know to be best for us
+will soon become agreeable, if we confine ourselves to it; and to our
+children also, if we confine them to it, in like manner.</p>
+
+<p>Next to bread made of wheat&mdash;when that cannot be procured&mdash;is a mixture
+of wheat and Indian meal; but the proportion of the latter should be the
+smallest. Wheat, rye, and Indian, in the proportion of one third of
+each, make excellent bread, sometimes called <i>third</i> bread. Rye and
+Indian make a tolerable bread. Rye alone is not so good. The want, in
+the latter, of the vegetable principle called gluten, makes its general
+use of very questionable propriety.</p>
+
+<p>Indian meal alone, baked in cakes by the fire, if eaten only in small
+quantities, is a very nutritious and by no means unwholesome bread. But
+its sweetness, and the general fondness which people who are accustomed
+to its use have for it, lead them to eat it in too large proportions, if
+they use it while it is warm. In these circumstances, it proves itself
+too active for the stomach and bowels. If warm, six ounces is as much
+as a hearty adult ought to eat of it at once; and children should of
+course take much less. It is less active on the bowels, and scarcely
+less agreeable, as soon as we become accustomed to it, if eaten when it
+is cold&mdash;even if baked in loaves, in the oven.</p>
+
+<p>Potatoes, added to unbolted wheat flour, make excellent bread; and so,
+as I am informed, does rice. Of the latter, however, I have never eaten.
+Oats and barley, and many other grains and substances, will make bread;
+but it is of an inferior kind.</p>
+
+<p>The question may again recur, after this extended series of remarks,
+whether I intend to confine the young almost exclusively to bread, in
+one or another of its forms. We shall see how this is, presently.</p>
+
+<p>While bread, therefore, should constitute a part, at least, and
+sometimes the whole of a meal, a great variety of other articles are not
+only admissible, but desirable. Among these may be mentioned plain
+puddings.</p>
+
+<p>One of the most wholesome puddings is made of Indian meal, enclosed in a
+bag and boiled. Nearly allied to this is the common hasty pudding; but
+the last is less wholesome, because it requires less chewing; and it
+ought to have been observed, before now, that after weaning, any food
+is digested better which has undergone the process of thorough
+mastication.</p>
+
+<p>Boiled rice, though hardly to be regarded as a pudding, is very
+nutritious, and very easy of digestion. I am not without doubts,
+however, in regard to the utility of a large proportion of rice, as
+food. A dinner of it, two or three times a week, I believe to be
+wholesome; but used too frequently, it seems to me not active enough for
+the stomach and bowels; having in this respect precisely a contrary
+effect to that of warm Indian cakes. The common notion that rice has a
+tendency to make people blind, is entirely unfounded. Its worst effect
+is when eaten without being boiled through. In such cases, I have known
+it to do mischief; perhaps because it was swallowed without much
+chewing. Some grind it, and use the flour; but I cannot recommend it to
+be used in this manner.</p>
+
+<p>The best pudding in the world is a loaf of bread, (What!&mdash;you will
+say&mdash;bread again?) three or four or five days old, boiled, or rather
+<i>steamed</i>, in milk. All kinds of bread are excellent for this purpose,
+but wheat and Indian are the best. They are excellent even without
+milk&mdash;that is, simply steamed.</p>
+
+<p>Puddings made of the flour of wheat, rye, buckwheat, &amp;c., are less
+wholesome than those which have been already mentioned. And all sorts
+of puddings are less wholesome, when eaten as hot as our unreasonable
+fashions require, than when their temperature is quite below that of our
+bodies. I would not have them so cold as to chill us, for this would be
+to go to the other, though less dangerous extreme; but they ought to be
+cool. Too much heat is an unnatural stimulus, likely to leave more or
+less debility behind it. In addition to this, those who eat hot food are
+more exposed to take cold, in consequence of it.</p>
+
+<p>With none of these puddings ought we to mix any fruits, green or
+dried&mdash;not even raisins. Some of the more important properties of nearly
+every kind of fruit or berry are lost by boiling, unless we eat the
+water in which they are boiled, and save the vapor which would otherwise
+escape. I am not in favor of boiled fruit generally, especially if
+boiled in puddings.</p>
+
+<p>Puddings, like most other kinds of food&mdash;even bread&mdash;may be slightly
+salted: not that this is indispensable, but because the balance of human
+testimony is in its favor. The argument that we evidently need salt
+because the other animals require it, is without much weight. The other
+animals do not <i>generally</i> require or use it.[Footnote: Some
+considerable savage nations use no salt, and a few have a strong
+aversion to it.] The cases so often triumphantly mentioned, where
+animals appear to thrive better from the use of it, are only exceptions
+to the general rule, nor are they very numerous in comparison with the
+whole race of animals. Still I have no objections to its moderate use.
+It may be useful in preventing worms; though there are doubts even of
+that. In large quantities, it is unquestionably hurtful.</p>
+
+<p>But neither fruits nor berries&mdash;permit me to repeat the sentiment&mdash;no,
+nor any such thing as cinnamon or spices, nor even sugar or molasses in
+any considerable quantity, should go into the composition of any sort of
+pudding. If the puddings are not sweet enough without, it is better to
+add a little sugar or molasses on your plate. Nor should sauces, or
+cream, or butter, or suet be used in or upon them; though of all these
+substances, cream is least injurious. Nutmegs, grated cheese, &amp;c., are
+unnecessary and hurtful. Cheese should never be eaten, in any way.</p>
+
+<p>There is one thing, however, which may be eaten in moderate quantity
+with all sorts of puddings and with bread; I mean milk. I say eaten
+<i>with</i>, for it is better never to put these substances, nor indeed any
+other, <i>into</i> the milk. The bread, pudding, &amp;c., should be eaten by
+itself, and the milk by itself, also. In this way we shall not be liable
+to cheat the teeth out of what is justly their due, and then make the
+deranged stomach and general system pay for it.</p>
+
+<p>Potatoes are a good article of diet&mdash;to be used once a day&mdash;though they
+are not very nutritious. They are best either steamed or roasted in the
+ashes. They are also excellent when boiled. Turnips are also good.
+Onions are not so useful as is generally supposed, except for the
+purposes of medicine.</p>
+
+<p>Beets; in small quantity, and carrots and asparagus, and above all,
+beans and peas&mdash;but not their pods&mdash;are tolerable food once a day,
+during most of the year, except it be the middle of the winter. But
+neither these, nor potatoes, nor any other vegetables, ought to be
+cooked in any way with fat, or fat meat, or butter; or be mashed after
+they are cooked, or eaten with oil or butter.</p>
+
+<p>If there be an exception to this general rule&mdash;which may seem to be
+rather sweeping&mdash;it should be in favor of a little sweet oil on rice, or
+on bread puddings. But the common practice, founded upon the apparent
+belief that we can scarcely eat anything until it is well covered with
+lard or butter, is quite objectionable&mdash;nay, it is even disgusting. No
+pure stomach would ever prefer oily bread, or pudding, or beans, or
+peas; and most people would abhor the sight of such a strange
+combination, were not habit, in its power to change our very nature,
+almost omnipotent.</p>
+<br>
+
+<h4>SEC. 10. <i>Remarks on Fruit.</i></h4>
+
+<p>There is a very great diversity of opinion on the subject of fruit. Some
+maintain that all fruit, even in the most ripe and perfect state, is of
+doubtful utility, especially for children. Others say none is hurtful,
+if ripe, and eaten in moderate quantity. Some require care in making a
+proper selection; but here again, in regard to what constitutes a proper
+selection, there is a difference of opinion. Some consider fruits easy
+of digestion; others believe they are digested only with very great
+difficulty.</p>
+
+<p>When the cholera prevailed in the large cities of the United States, a
+majority of the physicians believed all fruits, even those which were
+ripe, to be injurious in their tendency. But it was insisted by the
+minority&mdash;I think very justly&mdash;that whenever fruit appeared to be
+injurious, it was accidental&mdash;that is, the disease, being prepared to
+make its attack just at that time, happened to do so immediately after
+the use of fruit, rather than something else, and especially in the
+<i>season</i> of fruits&mdash;or on account of excess; or (which was certainly
+the case in some instances) because the quality of the fruit was bad.</p>
+
+<p>At present, the <i>weight</i> of testimony on this subject&mdash;estimating
+according to talent, and not according to numbers&mdash;is in favor of good
+fruit, used with moderation&mdash;even in the face of the cholera. Dr.
+Dunglison&mdash;one of the last to adopt such an opinion&mdash;appears to be in
+its favor.</p>
+
+<p>On several points, in regard to fruit, I believe that among medical men
+there is no essential difference of opinion. As I always prefer, in
+controversies, to see in how many things antagonists agree, before
+proceeding to the points in which they differ, I will here endeavor to
+enumerate them.</p>
+
+<p>1. All unripe fruits, especially, if eaten raw and uncooked&mdash;let the
+season, or prevalent disease, or individual, be what or who it may&mdash;are
+unwholesome.</p>
+
+<p>2. Excess, in the use of the most wholesome fruits, under any
+circumstances, is also injurious.</p>
+
+<p>3. Fruits, eaten immediately after a full meal, when the stomach is in
+an improper condition for receiving anything more, contribute to
+overtask the digestive powers, and must hence produce more or less of
+injury.</p>
+
+<p>4. The skins and kernels of the larger fruits are unwholesome, because
+indigestible. The skins of fruits, if beaten or masticated finely; may
+appear to be digested, because dissolved; but I have already endeavored
+to show that solution is not always digestion.</p>
+
+<p>5. Fruits of all kinds are most wholesome in their own country, and in
+their own appropriate season.</p>
+
+<p>6. Dried fruits are less wholesome than fresh.</p>
+
+<p>7. Fruit of all kinds should be withheld from infants, until they have
+teeth.</p>
+
+<p>Thus far, as I have already said, all agree; at least so far as I know.
+There are several other points on which medical men are generally
+agreed, though not universally. One of these is, that fruits, if eaten
+at all, should usually form a part of a regular meal. Another is, that
+it is better not to eat them immediately before going to bed.</p>
+
+<p>There are contradictory opinions among the mass of the community,
+physicians as well as others, on the general intention of our summer
+fruits. From the fact that children's diseases prevail more at the
+season of the year when fruits are more abundant, many think the fruits
+are the immediate cause of them. Others, and with better reason, suppose
+that the latter are intended by the Author of nature to check or prevent
+the bowel diseases of summer.</p>
+
+<p>Nothing, certainly, is more unnatural than to suppose that at the very
+season of the year when so many other influences combine to awaken a
+tendency to disease in the human system, the Creator should place before
+our eyes an abundance of fruits, inviting us by all their cooling and
+tempting properties, only to do us mischief. On the contrary, it seems
+to me much more probable that many of them were designed for our
+moderate use. In what quantity, under what circumstances, and which are
+best, it is left to human experience to determine.</p>
+
+<p>Some say that fruit should never be eaten in the morning, before
+breakfast. Now everything I know of the human constitution, together
+with what I have learned from experience and observation, has been for
+years leading me to the contrary opinion. Indeed, I am most fully
+convinced, that of all periods for eating fruit, whether we use it alone
+or make it a part of our regular meals, the morning, soon after we rise,
+is the most favorable. [Footnote: I ought to remark, that as the morning
+is the best time for eating <i>good</i> fruit, so it is the very worst time
+for eating it if <i>not</i> good; and as a large proportion of that which is
+eaten is unripe, or otherwise bad, this may account for the general
+prejudice against eating it at this period.] My reasons are as follows:</p>
+
+<p>1. The rest and sleep of the preceding night has restored our general
+vigor, and consequently has invigorated the stomach, so that digestion
+will be more easily and perfectly accomplished.</p>
+
+<p>2. We have been, at our rising, so long without food on our stomachs,
+that they are not likely to be oppressed by a moderate quantity of good,
+ripe, wholesome fruit. In the course of our waking hours, meals follow
+each other in such quick succession, and there is so much variety, even
+at the plainest tables, to tempt us to excess, that there is more danger
+of injury from the addition of fruit than at our first rising.</p>
+
+<p>3. I have never known any one to receive injury from the use of fruit in
+this way, provided no other circumstance in relation to quantity,
+quality, &amp;c. had been disregarded. In my own case, the practice has, on
+the contrary, seemed beneficial.</p>
+
+<p>4. There is one reason in favor of this practice which perhaps would
+have less weight, if people rose as early in the morning as they ought;
+or, in the language of Dr. Franklin to the inhabitants of Paris, if they
+knew that the sun gives light as soon as he rises. I allude to the
+demand which I conceive that the stomach makes for something, after so
+long fasting, and the pernicious custom of late breakfasts. I am
+persuaded that it is advisable to eat something nearly as soon as we
+rise, be it never so early; and if we can get nothing else for
+breakfast, and have not accustomed ourselves to relish a piece of good
+bread, or some other simple thing, which requires no labor of
+preparation, I think it perfectly proper to eat a small quantity of
+fruit.</p>
+
+<p>We come now to the particular consideration of some of those fruits
+which universal experience has shown to be the most salutary.</p>
+
+<p>Of all these, none is more wholesome than the apple. There is indeed a
+great diversity in the quality even of this single article. Sweet apples
+are the most nutritious; but perhaps those which are gently acid, and at
+the same time mealy, are rather more cooling, and when eaten raw, and in
+the heat of summer, not less wholesome.</p>
+
+<p>Apples which come to maturity very early in the season appear, as a
+general rule, to be less rich, and even less perfect, than those which
+ripen later. In view of this fact, some writers have endeavored to
+dissuade us from their use; and among others, Mr. Locke. We may judge a
+little what his opinions were, from his concluding remarks on the
+subject:&mdash;&quot;I never knew apples hurt anybody,&quot; says he, &quot;after October.&quot;</p>
+
+<p>But although neither apples nor any other fruits which ripen uncommonly
+early are quite so good as those which come in a little later, yet I do
+not think they are to be wholly rejected, unless they have been raised
+in hot houses. Fruits, and indeed vegetables in general, whose maturity
+is hastened by artificial processes, must be less wholesome than when
+brought to perfection in nature's own appropriate time and manner. I
+ought to say, however, very distinctly, that of the fruits of any
+particular tree, those which first ripen are always the worst; for they
+are usually wormy, or otherwise defective.</p>
+
+<p>Most of the fruit, as well as other vegetables, brought to our city
+markets in this country, is utterly unfit to be eaten. Sometimes it is
+immature; sometimes it has a hot house maturity; sometimes it has been
+picked so long that it has begun to decay. Many fruits&mdash;berries
+especially&mdash;are in perfection for a very short period only. Mulberries,
+for example&mdash;one kind especially&mdash;are not in perfection long enough to
+carry to the market house, even though the distance were very small.
+Luckily, however, very few mulberries are eaten. But the raspberry and
+strawberry, if perfect when gathered, have usually begun to decay,
+before they are purchased. That this appears to be rather unfrequent, is
+because they are gathered before they are ripe.</p>
+
+<p>Dr. Dewees regards most fruits as difficult of digestion. I do not think
+they are so, if perfect and ripe. The experiments of Dr. Beaumont, so
+far as they prove any general principle, show conclusively that mellow
+sweet apples are more quickly digested than any kind of vegetable food
+whatever, except rice and sago. But even admitting they were slow of
+digestion, I do not think&mdash;as I have already shown in another
+place&mdash;that they ought on that account to be excluded. Besides, my
+opinion differs from that of Dr. D. in regard to the strength of the
+digestive powers of children. After teething, they seem to me to be able
+to digest any substances which adults can; and with as little
+difficulty.</p>
+
+<p>But to return:&mdash;No fruit is in perfection longer than the apple.
+Besides, no fruit appears to be less injured in its nature and
+properties by picking it a little before it is ripe, and preserving it
+during the winter. It is on this account, more perhaps than any other,
+that I value it more highly than all other fruits united.</p>
+
+<p>Apples may be used either raw or cooked. In either case, the skins and
+seeds should be avoided, as has been before suggested. I am not ignorant
+that WILLICH, in his &quot;Lectures on Diet and Regimen&quot;&mdash;an excellent work,
+in the main&mdash;says that the seeds ought to be eaten; but I believe few
+physiologists would comply with his injunction, especially when it is
+considered that he recommends, in the same connection, that we swallow
+the stones of cherries and plums. Strange how far our theories will
+sometimes carry us!</p>
+
+<p>The apple is excellent when roasted or baked, especially the sweet
+apple. It is very common, in some places, to eat baked sweet apples with
+milk; and the practice is by no means a bad one. Indeed, baked or raw
+apples might be advantageously made a part of at least one of our meals
+every day. There is said to be a miserly farmer&mdash;a single gentleman&mdash;in
+the western part of the state of Massachusetts, who has lived on nothing
+but apples for his food, and water for his drink, about forty years. And
+yet he is said to enjoy the most perfect health. I do not propose this
+as an example worthy of imitation; but it shows that apples maybe made
+to subserve an important purpose in diet. And though I have more than
+once expressed an opinion highly unfavorable to the exclusive use of any
+one article of diet, yet if I were to confine myself to any one thing, I
+know of nothing except bread that I should prefer to good apples. Still,
+however, I prefer a variety&mdash;sweet, sour, early, late, &amp;c.; and I should
+use them raw, roasted, baked, made into sauce with new or unfermented
+cider, and boiled. Good apples, eaten raw, with bread, form not only a
+very wholesome, but, to an unperverted appetite, a most delicious
+dinner.</p>
+
+<p>Much has been said about cutting down orchards; but the whole seems to
+me idle&mdash;for if the fruit is of a good quality, it may be used as food,
+either for man or beast. And if not good, the trees ought either to be
+destroyed or replaced by those that will produce fruit which is
+better&mdash;even if the object were to make it into cider. I have said that
+apples may be used both by man and beast. It is well known that most
+domestic animals thrive well on good apples, especially sweet ones. Very
+tolerable molasses is also sometimes made from sweet apples.</p>
+
+<p>Nearly everything which has been said above in regard to apples, will
+apply to pears. The best varieties of this excellent fruit are quite as
+nutritious and as wholesome as the apple; and as much improved for the
+table by baking. I believe, however, that no cheap process has yet been
+devised for keeping them as long in the winter. They may be preserved in
+the form of sauce, prepared in the same way with common apple sauce. The
+skins, of many kinds of pears are less injurious than those of apples;
+but even the skins of pears need not be eaten.</p>
+
+<p>Some kinds of peaches are tolerably wholesome; but the stringy character
+of their pulp appears to me to render them less so than apples and
+pears, though I am not confident on this point. But if used at all, they
+should be used in less quantity at one time. Tempting as their flavor
+is, I seldom eat them, when I can get apples and pears; holding myself
+in duty bound to use the <i>best</i>, even of the fruits.</p>
+
+<p>&quot;Fruit,&quot; says Mr. Locke, &quot;makes one of the most difficult chapters in
+the government of health, especially that of children. Our first parents
+ventured Paradise for it; and it is no wonder our children cannot stand
+the temptation, though it cost them their health. The regulation of this
+cannot come under any one general rule; for I am by no means of their
+mind who would keep children wholly from fruit, as a thing totally
+unwholesome for them, by which strict way they make them but the more
+ravenous after it, to eat good or bad, ripe or unripe, all that they can
+get, whenever they come at it.</p>
+
+<p>&quot;Melons, peaches, most sorts of plums, and all sorts of grapes, in
+<i>England</i>, I think children should be wholly kept from, as having a very
+tempting taste, in a very unwholesome juice, so that if it were
+possible, they should never so much as see them, or know that there was
+any such thing. But strawberries, cherries, gooseberries and currants,
+when thoroughly ripe, I think may be pretty safely allowed them.&quot;</p>
+
+<p>Excellent as these remarks are, in general, I do not like his entire
+interdiction of the use of melons, peaches, plums, and grapes, even in
+England. Peaches, to be sure, as they come at a season when apples or
+pears, or both of them&mdash;which are more wholesome than peaches&mdash;are
+abundant, may be better omitted, delicious as they are to the taste; and
+I do not think very highly of plums. But melons, in very moderate
+quantity, and grapes, if we eat nothing but the ripe pulp, rejecting
+both the husk and the interior hard part, including the seeds, are, I
+think, useful and wholesome. On the other hand, I should never place
+cherries and gooseberries in the same list with strawberries; for the
+latter are, if I may use the expression, infinitely the most wholesome.</p>
+
+<p>Many seem to think that not to eat all sorts of fruits is to despise, or
+at least to treat with neglect the gifts of God, intended for our
+reception; by which they mean, if they mean anything, that the use of
+all sorts of fruits is already found out, even in the present
+comparative infancy of the world. Now I do not suppose that God has made
+anything in vain&mdash;absolutely so&mdash;though I do not think we have found out
+the true uses of half the things which he has made and given us. And
+among those things of which we are yet ignorant, are some of the fruits.
+I do not believe it follows, necessarily, that because fruits are
+created, we are obliged to use them all.</p>
+
+<p>Besides, if this is a rule, it is one which nobody follows. Every one
+uses more of some sorts, and fewer of others; and a large proportion of
+the community entirely reject some kinds. Now if the statement commonly
+made, that all fruits are the gifts of God, and ought therefore to be
+used by all persons, is correct, those who make the statement ought to
+conform to it as a rule of their lives, and to eat all kinds of fruit
+which the season and country affords; and not only eat all kinds, but
+see that the whole of every kind is consumed; since to waste any portion
+is to slight the good gifts of God.</p>
+
+<p>The result then is, that we cannot obey such a rule; but are driven back
+to the mode which common sense dictates, which is, to make a selection,
+using some, and rejecting others. And the value of studying the nature
+of these fruits, by examining the experience of mankind in regard to
+them, consists in the aid thus afforded us in making our selection
+wisely.</p>
+
+<p>There is one very common error in the use of the smaller summer fruits,
+such as strawberries, whortleberries, currants, &amp;c., which is that of
+mixing cream, wine, spices, sugar, &amp;c., with them. We are thus tempted
+to eat too great a quantity at once. Besides&mdash;which is a worse evil&mdash;we
+change the proportions of the saccharine parts, and thus do all in our
+power, by increasing a similarity in all fruits, to destroy that
+agreeable variety which God has established, and which is probably
+salutary.</p>
+<br>
+
+<h4>SEC. 11. <i>Confectionary.</i></h4>
+
+<p>By confectionary we here mean the substances usually sold at those shops
+in our cities distinguished by the general name of confectionaries, and
+which consist either wholly of sugar, or of sugar and some other
+substances combined.</p>
+
+<p>As to the use of a moderate quantity of pure sugar at our meals, whether
+it is procured at a confectioner's shop or elsewhere, I do not know that
+there is any strong objection to it; though I believe that it cannot be
+regarded as indispensable to health&mdash;for were that the fact, it seems to
+me to imply something short of infinite wisdom in the creation of
+articles destined for our sustenance. But I have spoken on this subject
+elsewhere.</p>
+
+<p>A part, however, of the contents of the confectionary shop are actually
+poisonous. I refer to those things which are either frosted, as it is
+called, or colored. The substances applied to the sugar for this purpose
+are usually some mineral or vegetable poison; although the fact of its
+being a poison may not always be known to the manufacturer. The most
+unhappy consequences have occasionally followed the use of
+confectionary, when poisoned in this manner. A family of four persons,
+in New York, were made sick in this way in March of year before last,
+and some of them came very near losing their lives. The &quot;frosting&quot; which
+caused the mischief was pronounced by eminent chemists to be one fifth
+rank poison.[Footnote: It is to be remembered that those who eat
+confectionary so slightly poisoned that it does not make them sick at
+once, may nevertheless be as much injured in their constitutions as they
+who are poisoned outright. In the latter case, the poison is in part
+thrown out of the body; in the former, it remains in it much longer&mdash;and
+therefore more surely, though more slowly, accomplishes the work of
+destruction.] The coloring substances used are sometimes poisonous, as
+well as the frosting.</p>
+
+<p>Some of the articles sold at these shops consist of sugar mixed with
+paste. Others are called sweetmeats; that is, fruits, or rinds of
+fruits, preserved in sugar. All these substances, I believe, without
+exception, are injurious.</p>
+
+<p>The great evils of confectionary yet remain to be mentioned. These are
+of three kinds, physical, mental and moral.</p>
+
+<p>Some of the <i>physical</i> evils have, it is true, just been mentioned; but
+there is another evil of still greater magnitude. Young people who eat
+confectionary, commonly eat it between meals. This produces mischief in
+two ways. First, it keeps the stomach at work when it ought to rest; for
+this, like every other muscular organ, requires its seasons of repose.
+Secondly, it destroys gradually the appetite; so that when the regular
+meal arrives, the accustomed keenness of appetite does not come with it.
+And the consequence is, not so much that we do not eat enough, as that
+we are fastidious, and eat a little of this, then a little of that; and
+usually select the worst things. We are not hungry enough to make a meal
+of a single article of plain food. And this evil goes on increasing, as
+long as we have access to the confectionary shop. These statements
+describe the case of thousands of pupils, of both sexes, at our schools
+and seminaries.</p>
+
+<p>The <i>intellectual</i> evil resulting from the use of confectionary consists
+in the fondness for excitement which is produced. You will seldom find a
+person who depends daily and almost hourly on some excitement to his
+appetite and stomach, and is not satisfied with plain food, who will
+content himself to <i>study</i> without unnatural excitements of the mind.
+Duty to himself or to others will not move him. He must have before him
+the hope of reward, or the fear of punishment. He must be moved by
+emulation or ambition, or some other questionable or wicked motive or
+passion.</p>
+
+<p>But the <i>moral</i> results, to the young, of using confectionary, are still
+more dreadful. I do not here refer to the danger of meeting with bad
+company at the shops themselves, or of going from these places of
+pollution <i>directly</i> to the grog-shop, the gambling-house, or the
+brothel; though there is danger enough, even here. But I allude to the
+tendency which a habit of not resting satisfied with plain food, but of
+depending on exciting things, has, to make us dissatisfied with plain
+moral enjoyments&mdash;the society of friends, and the quiet discharge of our
+duty to God and our neighbor. Just in proportion as we gratify our
+propensity for excitement at the confectioner's shop, just in the same
+proportion do we expose ourselves to the, danger of yielding to
+temptation, should other gratifications present themselves. The young of
+both sexes who are in the use of confectionary, are on the high road to
+gluttony, drunkenness, or debauchery; perhaps to all three. I do not say
+they will certainly arrive there, for circumstances not quite miraculous
+may pluck them as &quot;brands from the burning;&quot; but I do not hesitate to
+say that such is the inevitable tendency; and I call on every mother and
+teacher who reads this section, to beware of confectionaries, and see,
+if possible, that the young never set foot in them. They are a road
+through which thousands pass to the chamber of death&mdash;death to the
+immortal spirit, as well as to the body, its vehicle.</p>
+
+<p>More might be added&mdash;for this is an important subject&mdash;but I trust I
+have said enough. Those who have read and believe what I have written,
+if they remain wholly unaffected and unmoved, would not be roused to
+effort were anything to be added.</p>
+<br>
+
+<h4>SEC. 12. <i>Pastry.</i></h4>
+
+<p>Dr. Paris, a distinguished British writer on diet, says that all pastry
+is &quot;an abomination.&quot; And yet, go where we will, we find it often on the
+table. Hardly any one, whether old or young, attempts to do without it.</p>
+
+<p>There are indeed some, who will not eat pie-crust, or high-seasoned
+cakes formed of paste; but yet will not hesitate to eat hot bread, or
+rolls, or biscuits made of wheat flour, bolted. Now what is this but
+paste? If we could see the contents of the stomach, an hour after the
+mass is swallowed, we should find it to be paste, and <i>mere</i> paste.</p>
+
+<p>And yet the evil is increasing everywhere. So generally is this true,
+that a person who refuses to eat hot bread, or cake, or biscuit, is
+deemed singular. He who ventures to lift his voice against it is deemed
+an ascetic or a visionary. But such a voice must be raised, and heard,
+too, whether its monitions are or are not regarded.</p>
+
+<p>Pastry is less objectionable, however, when used in the form of hot
+bread, &amp;c., than when butter or fat is mixed with it. Then it becomes
+one of the most indigestible substances in the world. Besides, it not
+only tries the patience of the stomach, but according to Willich, whose
+authority ranks high, it tends to produce diseases of the skin,
+especially a disease which he calls &quot;copper in the face,&quot; and which he
+pronounces incurable.</p>
+
+<p>I know not whether the eruptions so common on the faces of young people
+in this country, and especially of young men, are in every instance
+either produced or aggravated by pastry; but I am very sure of one
+thing, viz., that those who are in the use of pastry, and have eruptions
+of the skin of any kind, will not be apt to get well, as long as they
+continue the use of this objectionable substance.</p>
+
+<p>Physicians are often consulted about eruptions on the face. When they
+assign the real cause, which is undoubtedly connected with the improper
+gratification of some of the appetites, in one way or another, it is
+seldom that the patient has self-command enough to follow his
+prescription of temperance or abstinence. Mothers, it is yours to
+prevent this mischief;&mdash;first, by establishing correct physical habits;
+secondly, by teaching your children the great duty of self-denial&mdash;not
+only by precept, but by your own good example.</p>
+<br>
+
+<h4>SEC. 13. <i>Crude or Raw Substances.</i></h4>
+
+<p>I have reserved this section for remarks on certain articles used at our
+fashionable modern tables, of which I could not well find it convenient
+to speak elsewhere. And first, of SALADS, and HERBS used in cooking;
+such as asparagus, artichokes, spinage, plantain, cabbage, dock,
+lettuce, water-cresses, chives, &amp;c.</p>
+
+<p>Several of these substances are often eaten raw, in which state they are
+exceedingly indigestible, at the best; and they are rendered still more
+beyond the reach of the powers of the stomach, by the oil or vinegar
+which is added to them. Boiled, they are more tolerable; especially
+asparagus. In the midst, however, of such an abundance of excellent food
+as this country affords, it is most surprising that anybody should ever
+take it into their heads to eat such crude substances; and above all,
+that they should fill children's stomachs with them. What child, with an
+unperverted appetite, would not prefer a good ripe apple, or peach, or
+pear, to the most approved raw salads?&mdash;and a good baked one, to the
+best boiled asparagus?</p>
+
+<p>NUTS, in general, are probably made for other animals rather than man;
+though of this we cannot in the present infancy of human knowledge be
+quite certain. But if any of them were intended, by the Creator, for
+man, it is the chesnut; and this should be boiled. Boiled chesnuts are
+used as food, in many parts of southern Europe; and to a very
+considerable extent.</p>
+
+<p>SPICES, as they are sometimes called, such as nutmeg, mace, pepper,
+pimento; cubebs, cardamoms, juniper berries, ginger, calamus, cloves,
+cinnamon, caraway, coriander, fennel, parsley, dill, sage, marjoram,
+thyme, pennyroyal, lavender, hyssop, peppermint, &amp;c., are unfit for the
+human stomach&mdash;above all in infancy&mdash;except as medicines.</p>
+
+<p>There are several other vegetables equally objectionable with the last,
+though they cannot be classed under the same head. Such are mustard,
+horseradish, raw onions, garlic, cucumbers, and pickles. No appetite
+which has not been accustomed to these substances in early infancy, will
+ever require them. Not that they may not sometimes be useful in enabling
+the stomach&mdash;at every age&mdash;to get rid of certain substances with which
+it has been improperly or unreasonably loaded;&mdash;this is undoubtedly the
+fact; ardent spirits would do the same. And it is with a view to some
+such effect, generally, that medical writers have spoken in their favor.
+Some of them stimulate the stomach to get rid of a load of <i>green</i>
+fruit; others, of a load of <i>fat</i> or <i>salt</i> food; others, again,
+of too large a <i>quantity</i> of food which is naturally wholesome.</p>
+
+<p>But in all these cases, they should be considered, not as food, but as
+medicine; and we ought to call them by their right name. And if we
+withhold the cause of the disease, there will be no need of the
+medicine.</p>
+
+
+
+<br><br><hr style="width: 65%;"><br><br>
+<a name="CHAPTER_VIII."></a><h2>CHAPTER VIII.</h2>
+
+<h3>DRINKS.</h3>
+
+<blockquote class="small">Infants need little drink. Adults, even, generally drink to cool
+themselves. Simple water the best drink. Opinions of Dr. Oliver and Dr.
+Dewees. Animal food increases thirst. Only one real drink in the world.
+The true object of all drink. Tea, coffee, chocolate, beer, &amp;c. Milk and
+water, molasses and water, &amp;c. Cider, wine, and ardent spirits. Bad food
+and drink the most prolific sources of disease. Children naturally
+prefer water. Danger of hot drinks. Cold drinks. Mischief they produce.
+Caution to mothers. Extracts. Drinking cold water, while hot.</blockquote>
+<br>
+
+<p>Children need little if any drink, so long as their food is nothing but
+milk; nor indeed for some time afterward, unless they are indulged in
+the use of animal food. Adults, even, very seldom drink merely to quench
+natural thirst. In the summer, people usually drink either to cool
+themselves, or to gratify a thirst which is wholly artificial. Tea,
+coffee, beer, cider, and most other common drinks, when not used for the
+sake of their coolness, are drank, both in winter and summer, for this
+purpose.</p>
+
+<p>That this is the fact, we have the most abundant and unequivocal
+evidence. I know that much is said of the demand which a profuse
+perspiration creates among hard laborers in the summer. Such a sudden
+abstraction of a large amount of fluid requires, it is said, a
+proportional supply, or life would soon become extinct. Yet there are
+many old men who have perspired profusely at their labor all their days,
+and yet have drank nothing at all, except their tea, morning and
+evening; and perhaps have eaten, for one or two of their meals daily, in
+summer, a bowl of bread and milk. And some of them are among the most
+remarkable instances of longevity which the country affords.</p>
+
+<p>How the system acquires a sufficient supply of moisture to keep up good
+health, in these cases, I do not pretend to determine: perhaps it is
+through the medium of the lungs. But at any rate, it can obtain it
+without our drinking for that sole purpose, to the great danger of
+exciting liver complaints, diarrhoea, dyspepsia, colds, rheumatisms, and
+fevers.</p>
+
+<p>But if adults who perspire freely do not require much drink, children
+certainly do not; and above all, young children. And if they do require
+any thing, it is only simple water. The following remarks of Dr. Oliver,
+of Hanover, N.H., are extracted from Dr. Mussey's late Prize Essay on
+Ardent Spirits:</p>
+
+<blockquote class="small">&quot;Who has not observed the extreme satisfaction which children derive
+from quenching their thirst with pure water? And who that has perverted
+his appetite for drink, by stimulating his palate with bitter beer, sour
+cider, rum and water, and other beverages of human invention, but would
+be a gainer, even on the score of mere animal gratification, without any
+reference to health, if he could bring back his vitiated taste to the
+simple relish of nature?</blockquote>
+
+<blockquote class="small">&quot;Children drink because they are dry. Grown people drink, whether dry or
+not, because they have discovered a way of making drink pleasant.
+Children drink water because this is a beverage of nature's own brewing,
+which she has made for the purpose of quenching a natural thirst. Grown
+people drink anything but water, because this fluid is intended to
+quench only a natural thirst; and natural thirst is a thing which they
+seldom feel.&quot;</blockquote>
+
+<p>There is a great deal of truth, as well as of sound philosophy, in these
+two paragraphs, and little less of truth in the following paragraph from
+Dr. Dewees:</p>
+
+<blockquote class="small">&quot;We have witnessed very often, with sorrow, parents giving to their
+young children wine, or other stimulating liquors. Nature never intended
+anything stronger than water to be the drink for children. This they
+enjoy greatly; and much advantage is occasionally experienced from its
+use, especially after they have commenced the use of animal food.&quot;</blockquote>
+
+<p>Two things are to be observed in the last remarks, which are, that
+children demand drink of any kind but seldom, and that even this
+occasional demand is often the special result of the use of animal food.
+Here comes out an important secret. It is the use of animal food, to a
+very great degree, in adults and children both, that creates so much of
+that unnatural thirst which prevails in the community. When we shall
+come to lay aside animal food, in childhood, youth, manhood and age,
+much that is now <i>called</i> thirst will be banished; and much of the
+intemperance and other kinds of sensuality which follow in its train.</p>
+
+<p>It has been sometimes said that there is but one kind of drink in the
+world&mdash;and that is water. This is strictly, or rather <i>physiologically</i>
+true. For, though many mixtures are <i>called</i> drinks, it is only the
+water which they contain that answers any of the legitimate purposes for
+which drink was intended by the Creator.</p>
+
+<p>The object of drink, besides quenching our thirst, or rather <i>while</i> it
+quenches it, is, not to be digested, like food, but to pass directly
+from the stomach into the blood-vessels, and dilute and temper the
+blood, rendering it more fit to answer the great purpose of sustaining
+life and health. Now, there is nothing that can do this but water.
+Alcohol cannot do it, nor can turpentine, oil, quicksilver, melted lead,
+or any other liquid.</p>
+
+<p>Tea, coffee, chocolate, small beer, soda water, lemonade, &amp;c., which are
+nearly all water, quench the thirst very well, it is true; but not quite
+so well as water alone would. The narcotic principle of the first two,
+the alcoholic principle of the fourth, and the mucilage, nutriment,
+acid, and alkali of the rest, are in the way; for thirst would be
+quenched still better without them, even when it is of an unnatural
+kind.</p>
+
+<p>Indeed, the same or similar remarks may be made in regard to all other
+mixtures which are usually proposed as drinks. Even milk and water,
+molasses and water, &amp;c., in favor of which so much is said, are
+objectionable, as mere drinks. Not that they contain anything poisonous,
+but they evidently contain nutriment; and even this, except as a part or
+the whole of a regular meal, does harm; for it sets the stomach at work
+when it needs repose. Mere drink, as I have already said, is never
+digested.</p>
+
+<p>But if the drinks above mentioned, and even milk and water, are
+objectionable, what shall we say of cider, wine, and ardent
+spirits?&mdash;substances which contain, the latter one half, and the two
+former from one twentieth to one fourth alcohol. Surely, nobody will
+deny that these substances ought, at all events, to be banished from the
+nursery. And yet we occasionally find them there, not only for the use
+of the mother, to the ruin of the child, indirectly&mdash;but also, in some
+of their smoother forms, for the use of the child itself.</p>
+
+<p>I would not lay too much stress on food and drink; for, as I have
+already observed, more than once, the causes of infantile ill health and
+mortality are numerous. Still I must insist that, of all the sources of
+disease, these are the most prolific. Much is done towards ruining the
+health of children by the improper food and drink of the mother. But
+when, in addition to all this, the children themselves are early fed
+with animal food, and with stimulating drinks&mdash;punch, coffee, tea,
+&amp;c.&mdash;and an artificial thirst is early excited and rendered habitual,
+their destruction, for time and eternity, is almost inevitable.</p>
+
+<p>Very few children relish any drink but water, or sweetened water, at
+first; and where they do, it is probably hereditary. I have been struck
+with their tastes and preferences; nor less with the folly of those
+around them, in endeavoring to change them, by requiring them&mdash;almost
+always against their will&mdash;to sip a little coffee, or a little tea, or
+a little lemonade; or, it may be, a little toddy. Such children <i>may</i>
+escape the death of the drunkard or the debauchee; but if they do, it
+will not be through the instrumentality of the parents.</p>
+
+<p>I am very much opposed to giving children hot drinks of any kind. If
+they are to drink substances which are injurious, as tea or coffee, let
+them be cool. I do not say <i>cold</i>, for that would be going to the other
+extreme. But no drink, in any ordinary case, should be above the heat of
+our bodies; that is, about 98 degrees of Fahrenheit's thermometer. Yet
+the precautions of this paragraph will be almost unnecessary, if
+children are confined&mdash;as they ought to be, and would be, did we not go
+out of our way to teach them otherwise&mdash;to water, as their only drink.
+Cold water is almost always preferred. Not one child in a thousand would
+ever prefer it hot, until his taste had been perverted. No writer has
+inveighed more against hot drinks of every kind, than the late William
+Cobbett&mdash;and, as I think, with more justice.</p>
+
+<p>But, in avoiding one rock, we must not, as has already been intimated,
+make shipwreck on another. Hot drinks, though they injure the powers of
+the stomach, and by that means and through that medium, are one
+principal cause of the almost universal early decay of teeth, are yet
+less injurious, or at least less dangerous, immediately, than cold ones.
+Mr. Locke, in speaking of the sports of a child, in the open air, has
+the following quaint, but judicious remarks:</p>
+
+<blockquote class="small">&quot;Playing in the open air has but this one danger in it, that I know; and
+that is, that when he is hot with running up and down, he should sit or
+lie down on the cold or moist earth. This, I grant, and drinking cold
+drink, when they are hot with labor or exercise, brings more people to
+the grave, or to the brink of it, by fevers and other diseases, than
+anything I know. These mischiefs are easily enough prevented when he is
+little, being then seldom out of sight. And if, during his childhood, he
+be constantly and rigorously kept from sitting on the ground, or
+drinking any cold liquor, while he is hot, the custom of forbearing,
+grown into <i>habit</i>, will help much to preserve him, when he is no longer
+under his maid's or tutor's eye.</blockquote>
+
+<blockquote class="small">&quot;More fevers and surfeits are got by people's drinking when they are
+hot, than by any one thing I know. If he (the child) be very hot, he
+should by no means <i>drink</i>; at least a good piece of bread, first to be
+eaten, will gain time to warm his drink <i>blood hot</i>, which then he may
+drink safely. If he be very dry, it will go down so warmed, and quench
+his thirst better; and if he will not drink it so warmed, abstaining
+will not hurt him. Besides, this will teach him to forbear, which is a
+habit of the greatest use for health of mind and body too.&quot;</blockquote>
+
+<p>The last remarks are full of wisdom. Mothers may depend upon it, that
+every indulgence to which they accustom their children paves the way for
+<i>habitual</i> indulgence; and has a tendency to lead, indirectly, to
+indulgence in other matters; and, on the contrary, every self-denial
+which they can lead children to exercise, voluntarily&mdash;even in these
+every-day matters of food, drink, exercise, &amp;c. is so much gained in the
+great work of self-denial and the resisting of temptation in matters of
+higher importance. But I must not moralize too long; having dwelt on
+this same point under the head Confectionary. I proceed, therefore, to
+make a few more extracts from Mr. Locke:</p>
+
+<blockquote class="small">&quot;Not being permitted to <i>drink</i> without eating, will prevent the custom
+of having the cup often at his nose; a dangerous beginning.&quot;</blockquote>
+
+<blockquote class="small">&quot;Men often bring habitual hunger and thirst on themselves by custom.&quot;</blockquote>
+
+<blockquote class="small">&quot;You may, if you please, bring any one to be thirsty every hour.&quot;</blockquote>
+
+<blockquote class="small">&quot;I once lived in a house, where, to appease a froward child, they gave
+him <i>drink</i> as often as he cried, so that he was constantly bibbing.
+And though he could not speak, yet he drank more in twenty-four hours
+than I did.&quot;</blockquote>
+
+<blockquote class="small">&quot;It is convenient, for health and sobriety, to drink no more than
+natural thirst requires; and he that eats not salt meats, nor drinks
+strong drink, will seldom thirst between meals.&quot;</blockquote>
+
+<p>Great mischief is often done to their health by children at school; and
+one instance of this is, in getting violently heated with exercise, and
+then pouring down large quantities of cold water to cool themselves. I
+once made it a habitual rule for pupils, that they must drink water, if
+they drank it at all, on leaving their seats to go to their plays, but
+not afterwards: and I was so situated that I could prevent the law from
+being broken, as there was no spring or well to which they could have
+access, privately. And though they thought the rule rather severe, I
+have no doubt it saved them from much injury, and perhaps sometimes from
+sickness.</p>
+
+
+
+<br><br><hr style="width: 65%;"><br><br>
+<a name="CHAPTER_IX."></a><h2>CHAPTER IX.</h2>
+
+<h3>GIVING MEDICINE.</h3>
+
+<blockquote class="small">&quot;Prevention&quot; better than &quot;cure.&quot; Nine in ten infantile diseases caused
+by errors in diet and drink. Signs of failing health. Causes of a bad
+breath. Flesh eaters. Gormandizers. General rule for preventing disease.
+When to call a physician.</blockquote>
+<br>
+
+<p>So much error prevails in regard to the medical management of the young,
+that a volume might be written without exhausting the subject.[Footnote:
+Such a volume is in preparation. It is intended as a companion to the
+present.] My present limits and plan allow of only a few remarks, and
+those must be general.</p>
+
+<p>That &quot;an ounce of prevention is worth a pound of cure,&quot; has so long ago
+become a proverb, that it seems almost idle to repeat the sentiment. And
+yet it is to be feared that very few receive it as a practical truth, in
+the management of children. Now nothing is more certain than that it is
+easier, as well as more humane, to prevent diseases than to cure them.</p>
+
+<p>I have elsewhere mentioned the opinion of a very eminent physician,
+that nine in ten of children's diseases may be imputed to error with
+regard to the quantity or the quality of their food. For myself, I am by
+no means certain that nine out of ten is the exact proportion, though I
+think the number is, at all events, very large. Few children, or even
+grown persons, are seized with disease suddenly. Their progress towards
+it is always gradual, and sometimes imperceptible. To a physician of any
+tolerable degree of skill, however, there is no difficulty in observing
+and pointing out the first steps towards illness; in those whose habits
+of life are well known to him; and of foretelling the consequence.</p>
+
+<p>But since parents and nurses are not so well qualified as physicians to
+make these observations, I will endeavor to point out a few certain
+signs and symptoms by which they may know a child's health to be
+declining, even before be appears to be sick.&mdash;For if these are
+neglected, the evil increases, goes on from bad to worse, and more
+violent and apparent complaints will follow, and perhaps end in
+incurable diseases, which a timely remedy, or a slight change in the
+diet and manner of life, would have infallibly prevented.</p>
+
+<p>&quot;The first tendency to disease,&quot; says Dr. Cadogan, &quot;may be observed in a
+child's breath. It is not enough that the breath is not offensive; it
+should be sweet and fragrant, like a nosegay of fresh flowers, or a pail
+of new milk from a young cow that feeds upon the sweetest grass of the
+spring; and this as well at first waking in the morning, as all day
+long.&quot; [Footnote: Buchan's &quot;Advice to Mothers,&quot; pages 337, 388]</p>
+
+<p>There is much of truth in these remarks; but if they are wholly true,
+then very few children are perfectly healthy. For no child that eats
+much animal food of any sort, or, what amounts to nearly the same thing,
+much butter or gravy, will long retain the fragrant breath here alluded
+to. Who has not observed the difference in this respect, between animals
+in general which feed on flesh, and those which feed on grass? And
+whether it is the character of their respective food that makes the
+difference or not, it is also true that there is nearly as much
+difference of breath between <i>men</i> who use animal food and those who do
+not, as between other animals. The breath of some of our enormous meat
+eaters would almost remind one of a slaughter house.</p>
+
+<p>Nor is it the quality of food alone, that will induce a foul breath,
+either in adults or infants. He who swallows such enormous quantities,
+even of plain food, as by overloading and fatiguing the stomach, tend
+gradually to debilitate it, will produce the same effect. The enormous
+feeders of this full feeding country, whether they are young or old,
+whether they inhabit the mountain or the vale, and whether they feed on
+animal food or not, have generally a bad breath; and if they seldom
+offend, it is because few feed otherwise. And it is not too much&mdash;in my
+own opinion&mdash;to say of this whole class of gormandizers, no less than of
+the flesh eaters, that they have laid for themselves the foundation of
+future disease.</p>
+
+<p>One general rule may here be distinctly laid down. As a child's breath
+becomes hot and feverish, or strong, or acid, we may be certain that
+&quot;digestion and surfeit have fouled and disturbed the blood; and now is
+the time to apply a proper remedy, and prevent a train of impending
+evils. Let the child be restrained in its food. Let it eat less, live
+upon milk or thin broth for a day or two, and be carried (or walk if it
+is able) a little more than usual in the open air.&quot; [Footnote: Advice to
+Mothers, page 338]</p>
+
+<p>This rule is the more important, because, if duly persevered in, it will
+generally prevent disease, and save the trouble and evil consequences of
+taking medicine at all. Meanwhile it will be advisable to call in a
+physician&mdash;not to give drugs, but to prevent the necessity of giving
+them. There is a foolish fear abroad that physicians, if called before a
+person is violently sick, will dose him with their drugs, as a matter of
+course, till they <i>make</i> him sick. But this, no judicious physician will
+ever do. It may <i>have been</i> done, though I believe it has been seldom.
+The more general course is to defer calling for medical advice, till it
+is too late to use preventive means; and medicine is then resorted to by
+the physician as a sort of necessary evil.</p>
+
+<p>A judicious physician, seasonably called in, would in many instances
+save a severe fit of sickness, besides a great deal of expense, both of
+time and money.</p>
+
+<p>But if the first symptoms of approaching disease are overlooked&mdash;if the
+child is fed, or rather crammed; with solid food as much as ever&mdash;and if
+no medical advice is sought, his sleep will soon become disturbed; he
+will be talking, starting, and tumbling about, and will have frightful
+dreams; or he will at other times be found smiling and laughing. To
+these, in the end, may be added, loss of appetite, paleness, emaciation,
+weakness, cough, and consumption; or colics, worms, and convulsions.</p>
+
+<p>I do not undertake to say that the most judicious parental management,
+aided by the greatest medical skill, will always prevent disease; far
+from it. The child may and undoubtedly sometimes does inherit a tendency
+to a particular disease; or he may be made sick by error in regard to
+dress, exercise, &amp;c. But so long as nine tenths of the disease and early
+mortality of the young might be prevented by due attention to all these
+means combined, so long will it be necessary to reiterate the sentiments
+of the present section.</p>
+
+
+
+<br><br><hr style="width: 65%;"><br><br>
+<a name="CHAPTER_X."></a><h2>CHAPTER X.</h2>
+
+<h3>EXERCISE.</h3>
+
+<blockquote class="small">SEC. 1. Objections to the use of cradles.&mdash;SEC. 2. Carrying in the
+arms&mdash;its uses and abuses.&mdash;SEC. 3. Creeping&mdash;why useful&mdash;to be
+encouraged.&mdash;SEC. 4. Walking&mdash;general directions about it.&mdash;SEC. 5.
+Riding abroad in carriages.&mdash;SEC. 6. Riding on horseback&mdash;objections.
+Riding schools.</blockquote>
+<br>
+
+<p>This subject may be considered under the following heads: ROCKING IN THE
+CRADLE; CARRYING IN THE ARMS; CREEPING; WALKING; RIDING IN A CARRIAGE;
+AND RIDING ON HORSEBACK. These I shall consider in their order.</p>
+
+
+<h4>SEC. 1. <i>Rocking in the Cradle.</i></h4>
+
+<p>There are two opinions in regard to the use of the cradle in the
+nursery. Some condemn it altogether; others think its occasional use
+highly proper. Those who condemn it, do it chiefly on the ground that it
+produces a whirling motion of the brain, which, while it inclines to
+giddiness and lulls to sleep, disturbs, in some degree, the process of
+digestion.</p>
+
+<p>It seems to me that there is weight to this objection; and although the
+cradle has been extensively used without producing any obviously evil
+effects, I should greatly prefer to have it universally laid aside. As
+far as mere amusement is demanded, it is quite unnecessary, since there
+are so many amusements which are far better. As a means of inducing
+sleep, I am still more strongly opposed to it; for if a child be
+rationally treated in every other respect, it will never need artificial
+means to induce it to sleep. Nature will then be the most appropriate
+directress in this matter.</p>
+
+<p>If there is a cradle in a nursery, it is almost always full of clothes
+loaded with air more or less impure, and the child is buried in it more
+than is compatible with health, even in the judgment of the mother or
+the nurse; for so convenient is its use, and so great the temptation to
+keep the child in it, that he will often be found soaking there a large
+proportion of his time. Every one knows that the air has not so free
+access to a child in the cradle as elsewhere, especially if it have a
+kind of covering or hood to it, as we often see. Besides, the cradle is
+a piece of furniture which takes up a great deal of space in the
+nursery; and every one who has made the trial effectually, will, it
+seems to me, greatly prefer its room to its company.</p>
+
+<p>If any cradle is to be used, those are best which are suspended by
+cords, and are swung, rather than rocked. And this swinging should be in
+a line with the body of the child as much as possible; as this motion is
+less likely to produce injury than its opposite.</p>
+<br>
+
+<h4>SEC. 2. <i>Carrying in the Arms.</i></h4>
+
+<p>This is the most appropriate exercise for the first two months of
+existence; and indeed, one of the best for some time afterward.</p>
+
+<p>Although a healthy, thriving child ought to sleep, for some time after
+birth, from two thirds to three fourths of his time, yet it should never
+be forgotten that the demand for proper exercise during the rest of the
+time, is not the less imperious on this account; but probably the more
+so.</p>
+
+<p>I have already mentioned the importance of bathing, which is one form of
+exercise, and of gentle motion in the arms, immediately afterward. The
+same gentle motion should be often repeated during the day; care being
+taken to hold the child in such a position as will be easy to him, and
+favorable to the free exercise of all his limbs and muscles.</p>
+
+<p>There are many mothers and nurses, who not only rejoice that the infant
+inclines to sleep a great deal, since it gives them more liberty, but
+who take pains to prolong these hours beyond what nature requires, by
+artificial means. I refer not only to the use of the cradle, but to
+means still more artificial&mdash;the use of cordials and opiates, to which I
+have already adverted. But whatever the means used may be, they defeat
+the purposes of nature, and are in the highest degree reprehensible.
+Nothing but the most chilling poverty should prevent the mother from
+having the child&mdash;for a few weeks of its first existence at least&mdash;in
+her own arms, nearly all the time which is not absolutely demanded for
+repose. She should even invite it to wakefulness, rather than encourage
+sleep.</p>
+
+<p>Attention to exercise ought to be commenced before the child is more
+than ten days old. For this purpose he should be placed on his back, on
+a pillow, in order that the body may rest at as many points as possible.
+In this position he has the opportunity to move his limbs with the most
+perfect freedom, and to exercise his numerous muscles. There is nothing
+more important to the infant&mdash;not even sleep itself&mdash;than the action of
+all his muscles; and nothing contributes more to his rapid growth.</p>
+
+<p>At first, the body should be kept, while on the arm, in nearly a
+horizontal position, with the head perhaps a very little elevated; but
+after a few weeks, it will be proper to change the position for a small
+part of the time; placing the body so that it may form an angle of a few
+degrees with the horizon. When this is done, however, it should always
+be by placing the hand against the shoulders and head, in such a manner
+as to support well the back; for it is extremely injurious to suffer the
+feeble spine to sustain, at this early period, any considerable weight.</p>
+
+<p>Still more erroneous is the practice of some careless nurses, of
+carrying the child quite upright a part of the time, almost without any
+support at all. There can be no doubt that the spinal column of many a
+child is injured for life in this way. There can be no apology for such
+things.</p>
+
+<p>But it is not sufficient to denounce, merely, the custom of holding the
+infant's body in an erect position. Every inquiring mother&mdash;and it is
+for such, and no other, that I write&mdash;will naturally and properly ask
+the reason why.</p>
+
+<p>The child is not born with all its bones solid. Some are mere cartilage
+for a considerable time. This is the case with the bones of the back.
+Now every person must see that the weight of the child's head and
+shoulders, resting for a considerable time on the slender cartilaginous
+spinal column, may easily bend it. And a curvature, thus given, may, and
+often does, deform children for life.</p>
+
+<p>Dr. Dewees mentions a nurse who, from a foolish fondness for displaying
+them, made the children consigned to her charge sit perfectly upright
+before they were a month old. It is truly ludicrous, he says, to see the
+little creatures sitting as straight as if they were stiffened by a back
+board. It is truly <i>horrible</i>, I should say, rather than ludicrous.
+Crooked spines must be the inevitable consequence, if nothing worse.</p>
+
+<p>The practice of bracing children, as it is called, by straps, back
+boards, corsets, &amp;c., where it has produced any effect at all, has
+always had a tendency to crook the spine. This may be seen first, by
+observing one shoulder to be lower than the other, and next by a
+projection of the part of the shoulder blades next to the spine.
+Whenever these changes begin to appear, it is time to send for a
+physician, though it may often be too late to effect a cure. But on the
+general subject of bracing and corseting, I have treated at sufficient
+length elsewhere.</p>
+
+<p>There is another error committed in carrying children in the arms. The
+head of the infant is often permitted either to hang constantly on one
+side, or to roll about loosely; as if it hardly belonged to the body.
+In the former case there is danger of producing a habit of holding the
+head upon one side, which it will be very difficult to overcome; in the
+latter, the spinal marrow itself may be injured&mdash;which would produce
+alarming and perhaps fatal consequences.</p>
+
+<p>But all these evils, as has already been said, may be prevented, if the
+hand is placed so as to support the head and shoulders. Let not the
+mother, however, who reads this work, trust the matter wholly to a
+nurse; she must see to it herself; else she incurs a most fearful
+responsibility. The suggestions I have made are the more important in
+the case of children either very fleshy or very feeble, and of those
+disposed to rickets or scrofula; but they are important to all.</p>
+
+<p>I have said that the motion of the child, on the arm, should be gentle.
+Many are in the habit of tossing infants about. There can be no
+objection to a slight and slow movement up and down, for a minute or so
+at a time; indeed, it is rather to be recommended, as likely to give
+strength and vigor no less than pleasure to the child. But when such
+movements are carried to excess, so as to frighten the child, they are
+highly reprehensible. The shock thus produced to the nervous system has
+sometimes been so great as to produce sudden death. Nor is it safe to
+run, jump, or descend stairs hastily or violently, with a child in our
+arms; and for similar reasons.</p>
+
+<p>Infants should not be carried always on the same arm, for there is
+danger of contracting a habit of leaning to one side, and thus of
+becoming crooked. On this account, the arm on which they rest should be
+often changed. Nor should they be grasped too firmly. A skilful mother
+will hold a child quite loosely, with the most perfect safety; while an
+inexperienced one will grasp him so hard as to expose the soft bones to
+be bent out of their place, and yet be quite as liable to let him fall
+as she who handles him with more ease and freedom.</p>
+<br>
+
+<h4>SEC. 3. <i>Creeping.</i></h4>
+
+<p>&quot;Mankind must creep before they can walk,&quot; is an old adage often used to
+remind us of that patient application which is so indispensable to
+secure any highly important or valuable end. But it is as true
+literally, as it is figuratively. The act of creeping exercises in a
+remarkable degree nearly all the muscles of the body; and this, too,
+without much fatigue.</p>
+
+<p>Some mothers there indeed are, who think it a happy circumstance if a
+child can be taught to walk without this intermediate step. But such
+mothers must have strange ideas of the animal economy. They must never
+have thought of the pleasure which creeping affords the mind, or of the
+vigor it imparts to the body.</p>
+
+<p>Children are wonderfully pleased with their own voluntary efforts. What
+they can do themselves, yields them ten-fold greater pleasure than if
+done by the mother or the nurse. Yet the latter are exceedingly prone to
+forget or overlook all this&mdash;and to say, at least practically, that the
+only proper efforts are those to which themselves give direction.</p>
+
+<p>They are moreover exceedingly fond of display. Some mothers seem to
+act&mdash;in all they do with and for children&mdash;as if all the latter were
+good for, was display and amusement. They feed them, indeed, and strive
+to prolong their existence; but it appears to be for similar reasons to
+those which would lead them to take kind care of a pet lamb.</p>
+
+<p>It is on this account that they dress them out in the manner they do,
+strive to make them sit up straight, and prohibit their creeping. It is
+on this account too, as much perhaps as any other, that go-carts and
+leading strings are put in such early requisition. The contrary would be
+far the safer extreme; and the parent who keeps his child scrambling
+about upon the back as long as possible, and when he cannot prevent
+longer an inversion of this position, retains him at creeping as long
+as is in his power, is as much wiser, in comparison with him who urges
+him forward to make a prodigy of him, as he is who, instead of making
+his child a prodigy in mind or morals at premature age, holds him back,
+and endeavors to have his mental and moral nature developed no faster
+than his physical frame.</p>
+
+<p>I wish young mothers would settle it in their minds at once, that the
+longer their children creep the better. They need have no fears that the
+force of habit will retain them on their knees after nature has given
+them strength to rise and walk; for their incessant activity and
+incontrollable restlessness will be sure to rouse them as early as it
+ought. Least of all ought the difficulty of keeping them clean, to move
+them from the path of duty.</p>
+
+<p>Children who are allowed to crawl, will soon be anxious to do more. We
+shall presently see them taking hold of a chair or a table, and
+endeavoring to raise themselves up by it. If they fail in a dozen
+attempts, they do not give up the point; but persevere till their
+efforts are crowned with success.</p>
+
+<p>Having succeeded in raising themselves from the floor, they soon learn
+to stand, by holding to the object by which they have raised themselves.
+Soon, they acquire the art of standing without holding; [Footnote: The
+art of standing, which consists in balancing one's self, by means of the
+muscles of the body and lower limb&mdash;simple as it may seem to those who
+have never reflected on the subject&mdash;is really an important acquisition
+for a child of twelve or fifteen months. No wonder they feel a conscious
+pride, when they find themselves able to stand erect, like the world
+around them.] ere long they venture to put forward one foot&mdash;they then
+repeat the effort and walk a little, holding at the same time by a
+chair; and lastly they acquire, with joy to them inexpressible and to us
+inconceivable, the art of &quot;trudging&quot; alone.</p>
+
+<p>When children learn to walk in nature's own way, it is seldom indeed
+that we find them with curved legs, or crooked or clubbed feet. These
+deformities are almost universally owing either to the mother or the
+nurse.</p>
+
+<p>Let me be distinctly understood as utterly opposed, not only to
+go-carts, leading strings, and every other <i>mechanical</i> contrivance, to
+induce children to walk before their legs are fit for it, but to efforts
+of every kind, whose main object is the same. Teaching them to walk by
+taking hold of one of their hands, is in some respects quite as bad as
+any other mode; for if the child should fall while we have hold of his
+hand, there is some danger of dislocating or otherwise injuring the
+limb.</p>
+
+<p>Falls we must expect; but if a child is left to his own voluntary
+efforts as much as possible, these falls will be fewer, and probably
+less serious, than under any other circumstances.</p>
+<br>
+
+<h4>SEC. 4. <i>Walking.</i></h4>
+
+<p>&quot;The way to learn how to write without ruled lines, is <i>to rule</i>,&quot; was
+the frequent saying of an old schoolmaster whom I once knew; and I may
+say with as much confidence and with more truth, that &quot;the way for a
+child to learn to walk alone, is to hold by things.&quot;</p>
+
+<p>I have anticipated, in previous pages, much of what might have otherwise
+been contained in this section. A few additional remarks are all that
+will be necessary.</p>
+
+<p>At first, the nursery will be quite large enough for our young
+pedestrian. Much time should elapse before he is permitted to go abroad,
+upon the green grass;&mdash;not lest the air should reach him, or the sun
+shine upon his face and hands, but because the surface of the ground is
+so much less firm and regular than the floor, that he ought to be quite
+familiar with walking on the latter, in the first place.</p>
+
+<p>But when he can walk well in the play ground, garden, fields, and
+roads, it is highly desirable that he should go out more or less every
+day, when the weather will possibly admit; nor would I be so fearful as
+many are of a drop of rain or dew, or a breath of wind. For say what
+they will in favor of riding, sailing, and other modes of exercise,
+there is none equal to walking, as soon as a child is able;&mdash;none so
+natural&mdash;none, in ordinary cases, so salutary. I know it is unpopular,
+and therefore our young master or young miss must be hoisted into a
+carriage, or upon the back of a horse, to the manifest danger of health
+or limbs, or both.</p>
+
+<p>Who of us ever knew a herdsman or a shepherd who found it for the health
+and well-being of the young calf or lamb to hoist it into a carriage,
+and carry it through the streets, instead of suffering it to walk? Such
+a thing would excite astonishment; and the man who should do it would be
+deemed insane. The health and growth of our young domestic animals is
+best promoted by suffering them to walk, run, and skip in their own way.
+They ask no artificial legs, or horses, or carriages. But would it not
+be difficult to find arguments in favor of carrying children about, when
+they are able to walk, which would not be equally strong in favor of
+carrying about lambs and calves and pigs.</p>
+
+<p>This is the more remarkable from the consideration, elsewhere urged,
+that in general we take more rational pains about the physical
+well-being of domestic animals, than of children. However, it will be
+seen, on a little reflection, that the number of those who carry
+children about, is, after all, very inconsiderable. The greater portion
+of the community regard it as too troublesome or costly; and if poverty
+brought with it no other evils than a permit to children to walk on the
+legs which the Creator gave them, it could hardly be deemed a
+misfortune.</p>
+
+<p>It is scarcely necessary to add that there will be nothing gained to the
+young&mdash;or to persons of any age&mdash;from walks which are very long and
+fatiguing. Walking should refresh and invigorate: when it is carried
+beyond this, especially with the young child, we have passed the line of
+safety.</p>
+<br>
+
+<h4>SEC. 5. <i>Riding in Carriages.</i></h4>
+
+<p>It will be seen by the foregoing section, that I am not very friendly to
+the use of carriages for the young, after they can walk. Before this
+period, however, I think they may be often serviceable; and there are
+occasional instances which may render them useful afterward. On this
+account, I have thought it might be well to give the following general
+directions.</p>
+
+<p>Carriages for children should be so constructed as not to be liable to
+overset. To this end, the wheels must be low, and the axle unusually
+extended. The body should be long enough to allow the child to lie down
+when necessary; and so deep that he may not be likely to fall out.
+Everything should be made secure and firm, to avoid, if possible, the
+danger of accidents.</p>
+
+<p>The carriage should be drawn steadily and slowly; not violently, or with
+a jerking motion. Such a place should be selected as will secure the
+child&mdash;if necessary&mdash;from the full blaze of a hot sun. This point might
+indeed be secured by having the carriage covered; but I am opposed to
+covered carriages, for children or adults, unless we are compelled to
+ride in the rain.</p>
+
+<p>While the child is unable to sit up without injury, and even for some
+months afterwards, he ought by all means to lie down in a carriage,
+because it requires more strength to sit in a seat which is moving, than
+in a place where he is stationary. In assuming the horizontal position,
+in a carriage, a pillow is needed, and such other arrangements as will
+prevent too much rolling.</p>
+
+<p>After the child's strength will fairly permit, he may sit up in the
+carriage, but he ought still to be secured against too much motion. As
+his strength increases, however, the latter direction will be less and
+less necessary. I need not repeat in this place, (had I not witnessed so
+many accidents from neglect,) the caution recently given, that great
+care should be taken to prevent the child from falling out of the
+carriage.</p>
+
+<p>While children are riding abroad in cold weather, much pains should be
+taken to see that they are suitably clothed. It is well to keep them in
+motion, while they are in the carriage, and especially to guard against
+their falling asleep in the open air, until they have become very much
+accustomed to being out in it.</p>
+
+<p>It has been said by some writers, that a ride ought never to exceed the
+length of half an hour; but no positive rule can be given, except to
+avoid over-fatigue.</p>
+<br>
+
+<h4>SEC. 6. <i>Riding on Horseback.</i></h4>
+
+<p>While children are very young, I think it both improper and unsafe to
+take them abroad on horseback; I mean so long as they are in health. In
+case of disease, this mode of exercise is sometimes one of the most
+salutary in the world. But after boys are six or seven years old, and
+girls ten, if they are ever to practise horsemanship, it is time for
+them to begin; both because they are less apt to be unreasonably timid
+at this age, and because they learn much more rapidly.</p>
+
+<p>So few parents are good horsemen, that if there is a riding school at
+hand, I should prefer placing a child in it at once. But I wish to be
+distinctly understood, that I do not consider it a matter of importance,
+especially to females, that they should ever learn to ride at all.</p>
+
+<p>Some of the principal objections to riding on horseback, by boys, as an
+ordinary exercise, are the following:</p>
+
+<p>1. Walking, as I have already intimated, is one of the most HEALTHY
+modes of exercise in the world. It is nature's exercise; and was
+unquestionably in exclusive use long before universal dominion was given
+to man, if not for many centuries afterward; and I believe it would be
+very difficult to prove that it interfered at all with human longevity;
+for the first of our race lived almost a thousand years.</p>
+
+<p>2. Young children, in riding on horseback, are rather apt to acquire,
+rapidly, the habit of domineering over animals. It seems almost needless
+to say how easy the transition is, in such cases, should opportunity
+offer, from tyranny over the brute slave, to tyranny over the human
+being. There are slave-holders in the family and in the school, as well
+as elsewhere. It is the SPIRIT of a person which makes him either a
+tyrant or slave-holder. And let us beware how we foster this spirit in
+the children whom God has given us.</p>
+
+
+
+<br><br><hr style="width: 65%;"><br><br>
+<a name="CHAPTER_XI."></a><h2>CHAPTER XI.</h2>
+
+<h3>AMUSEMENTS.</h3>
+
+<blockquote class="small">Universal need of amusements. Why so necessary. Error of schools. Error
+of families. Infant schools, as often conducted, particularly injurious.
+Lessons, or tasks, should be short. Mistakes of some manual labor
+schools. Of particular amusements in the nursery. With small wooden
+cubes&mdash;pictures&mdash;shuttlecock&mdash;the rocking horse&mdash;tops and
+marbles&mdash;backgammon&mdash;checkers&mdash;morrice&mdash;dice&mdash;nine-pins&mdash;skipping the
+rope&mdash;trundling the hoop&mdash;playing at ball&mdash;kites&mdash;skating and
+swimming&mdash;dissected maps&mdash;black boards&mdash;elements of letters&mdash;dissected
+pictures.</blockquote>
+<br>
+
+<p>However heterodox the concession may be, I am one of those who believe
+amusements of some sort or other to be universally necessary. Indeed I
+cannot possibly conceive of an individual in health, whatever may be the
+age, sex, condition, or employment, who does not need them, in a greater
+or less degree.</p>
+
+<p>Now if by the term amusement, I merely meant employment, nobody would
+probably differ from me&mdash;at least in theory. Every one is ready to admit
+the importance of being constantly employed. A mind unemployed is a
+VACANT mind. And a vacant or idle mind is &quot;the devil's work-shop;&quot; so
+says the proverb.</p>
+
+<p>By amusement, however, I mean something more than mere employment; for
+the more constantly an adult individual is employed, the greater,
+generally, is his demand for amusement. Indolent persons have less need
+of being amused than others; but perhaps there are few if any persons to
+be found, who are so indolent as not to think continually, on one
+subject or another. And it is this constant thinking, more than anything
+else, that creates the necessity of which I am speaking. The mere
+drudge, whether biped or quadruped&mdash;he, I mean, whose thinking powers
+are scarcely alive&mdash;has little need of the relief which is afforded by
+amusement.</p>
+
+<p>The young of all animals&mdash;man among the rest&mdash;appear to have such an
+instinctive fondness for amusement, that so long as they are
+unrestrained, they seldom need any urging on this point. In regard to
+<i>quality</i>, the case is somewhat different. In this respect, most
+children require attention and restraint; and some of them a great deal
+of it.</p>
+
+<p>But what is the nature of the amusement which adults&mdash;nay, mankind
+generally&mdash;require? I answer, it is relief from the employment of
+thinking. For it is not that mankind do not really think at all, that
+moralists complain so loudly. When they tell us that men will not
+think, they mean that they will not think as rational beings. They
+think, indeed; and so do the ox, and the horse, and the dog, and the
+elephant&mdash;but not as rational men ought to do; and this it is that
+constitutes the burden of complaint. But you will probably find few
+persons belonging to the human species who do not think constantly, at
+least while awake; and whose mental powers do not become fatigued, and
+demand relief in amusement.</p>
+
+<p>Children's minds are so soon wearied by a continuous train of thinking,
+even on topics which are pleasing to them, that they can seldom he
+brought to give their attention to a single subject long at once. They
+require almost incessant change; both for the sake of relief, and to
+amuse for the <i>sake</i> of amusement. And it is, to my own mind, one of
+the most striking proofs of Infinite Wisdom in the creation of the human
+mind, that it has, during infancy, such an irresistible tendency to
+amusement.</p>
+
+<p>How greatly do they err, who grudge children, especially very young
+children, the time which, in obedience to the dictates of their nature,
+they are so fond of spending in sports and gambols! How much more
+rational would it be to encourage and direct them in their amusements!
+And how exceedingly unwise is the practice, whenever and wherever it
+exists, of confining them to school rooms and benches, not only for
+hours, but for whole half days at once.</p>
+
+<p>If individuals and circumstances were everywhere combined, with the
+special purpose to oppose the intentions of nature respecting the human
+being, at every step of his progress from the cradle to maturity, and
+from maturity to the grave, I hardly know how they could contrive to
+accomplish such a purpose more effectually than it is at present
+accomplished. But it is proper that I should here explain a little.</p>
+
+<p>All our family arrangements tend to repress amusement. Everything is
+contrived to facilitate business&mdash;especially the business or employments
+of adults. The child is hardly regarded as a human being,&mdash;certainly not
+as a <i>perfect</i> being. He is considered as a mere fragment; or to change
+the figure, as a plant too young to be of any real service to mankind,
+because too young to bear any of its appropriate fruits. Whereas, in my
+opinion, both infancy and childhood, at every stage, should bring forth
+their appropriate fruits. In other words, the child of the most tender
+years should be regarded as a whole, and not as the mere fragment of a
+being; as a perfect member of a family&mdash;occupying a full and complete,
+only a more limited sphere than older members: and all the rules and
+regulations and arrangements of the family should have a reference to
+this point. So long as a child is reckoned to be a mere cipher in
+creation, or at most, as of no more practical importance, till the
+arrival of his twenty-first birth day, or some other equally arbitrary
+period, than our domestic animals&mdash;that is, of just sufficient
+consequence to be fed, and caressed, and fondled, and made a pet of&mdash;so
+long will our arrangements be made with reference to the comfort and
+happiness of adults. There may indeed be here and there a child's chair,
+or a child's carriage, or newspaper, or book; but there will seldom be,
+except by stealth, any free juvenile conversation at the table or the
+fireside. Here the child must sit as a blank or cypher, to ruminate on
+the past, or to receive half formed and passive impressions from the
+present.</p>
+
+<p>The arrangements of the infant school, also, seem designed for the same
+purpose&mdash;to repress as much as possible the infantile desire for
+amusement. Not that this was their original, nor that it now is their
+legitimate intention. Their legitimate object is, or should be, not to
+develope the intellect by over-working the tender brain, but to promote
+cheerfulness and health and love and happiness, by well contrived
+amusements, conducted as much as possible in the open air; and by
+unremitting efforts to elicit and direct the affections.</p>
+
+<p>Infant schools should repress rather than encourage the hard study of
+books. Lessons at this age should be drawn chiefly from objects in the
+garden, the field, and the grove; from the flower, the plant, the tree,
+the brook, the bird, the beast, the worm, the fly, the human body&mdash;the
+sun, or the visible heavens. These lessons, whether given by the parent,
+as constituting a part of the family arrangements, or by the infant or
+primary school teacher, should, it is true, be regarded for the time
+being as study, but they should never be long; and they should be
+frequently relieved by the most free and unrestrained pastimes and
+gambols of the young on the green grass, or beside the rippling stream,
+uninfluenced, or at least unrepressed, by those who are set over them.</p>
+
+<p>The public or common school, overlooking as it does any direct attempts
+to make provision for the amusement of the pupils, even during the
+scanty recess that is afforded them once in three hours, would appear to
+a stranger on this planet, at first sight, to be designed as much as
+possible to defeat every intention of nature with reference to the
+growth of the human frame. For we may often travel many hundred miles
+and not see so much as an enclosed play ground; and never perhaps any
+direct provision for particular and more favorable amusements.</p>
+
+<p>I might speak of other schools and places of resort for children, and
+proceed to show how all our arrangements appear to be the offspring of a
+species of utilitarianism which rejects every sport whose value cannot
+be estimated in dollars and cents. I might even refer to those schools
+of our country where these ultra utilitarian notions are carried to an
+extent which excludes amusing conversation or reading even during
+meal-time; and devotes the hours which were formerly spent in
+recreation, to manual labor of some productive kind or other.&mdash;But I
+forbear. Enough has been said to illustrate the position I have taken,
+that there is in vogue a system which bears the marks of having been
+contrived, if not by the enemies of our race, either openly or covertly,
+at least by those whom ignorance renders scarcely less at war with the
+general happiness.</p>
+
+<p>Now I would not deny nor attempt to deny that change of occupation of
+body or mind is of itself an amusement, and one too of great value.
+Undoubtedly it is so. To some children, studies of every kind are an
+amusement; and there are few indeed to whom none are so. Labor, with
+many, when alternated with study, is amusing. And yet, after all, unless
+such labors are performed in company, where light and cheerful
+conversation is sure to keep the mind away from the subjects about
+which it has just been engaged, I am afraid that the purposes for which
+amusements were designed, are very far from being <i>all</i> secured.</p>
+
+<p>But perhaps I am dwelling too long on the general principle that people
+of every age, and children in particular, need, and must have
+amusements, whether they are of a productive kind or not; and that it is
+very far from being sufficient, were it either practicable or desirable,
+to turn all study and labor into amusement. [Footnote: I will even say,
+more distinctly than I have already done, that however popular the
+contrary opinion may be, neither study nor work ought to be regarded as
+mere amusement. I would, it is true, take every possible pains to render
+both work and study agreeable; but I would at the same time have it
+distinctly understood, that one of them is by no means the other; that,
+on the contrary, work is <i>work</i>&mdash;study, <i>study</i>&mdash;and amusement,
+<i>amusement</i>.] My business is with those who direct the first dawnings
+of affection and intellect. Principles are by no means of less importance
+on this account; but the limits of a work for young mothers do not admit
+of anything more than a brief discussion of their importance.</p>
+
+<p>I will now proceed to speak of some of the more common amusements of the
+nursery.</p>
+
+<p>I have seen very young children sit on the floor and amuse themselves
+for nearly half an hour together, with piling up and taking down small
+wooden cubes, of different sizes. Some of them, instead of being cubes,
+however, may be of the shape of bricks. Their ingenuity, while they are
+scarcely a year or two old, in erecting houses, temples, churches, &amp;c.,
+is sometimes surprising. Girls as well as boys seem to be greatly amused
+with this form of exercise; and both seem to be little less gratified in
+destroying than in rearing their lilliputian edifices.</p>
+
+<p>Next to the latter kind of amusement, is the viewing of pictures. It is
+surprising at what an early age children may be taught to notice
+miniature representations of objects; living objects especially.
+Representations of the works of art should come in a little later than
+those of things in nature. I know a father who prepares volumes of
+pictures, solely for this purpose; though he usually regards them not
+only as a source of amusement to children, but as a medium of
+instruction.</p>
+
+<p>Battledoor or shuttlecock may be taught to children of both sexes very
+early; and it affords a healthy and almost untiring source of amusement.
+It gives activity as well as strength to the muscles or moving powers,
+and has many other important advantages. There is some danger, according
+to Dr. Pierson [Footnote: See his Lecture before the American Institute
+of Instruction] of distorting the spine by playing at shuttlecock too
+frequently and too long; but this will seldom be the case with little
+children in the nursery. Neither shuttlecock nor any other amusement
+will secure their attention long enough to injure them very much.</p>
+
+<p>Perhaps this exercise comes nearer to my ideas of a perfect amusement
+than almost any which could be named. The mind is agreeably occupied,
+without being fatigued; and if the amusements are proportioned to the
+age and strength of the child, there is very little fatigue of the body.
+It gives, moreover, great practical accuracy to the eye and to the hand.</p>
+
+<p>A rocking-horse is much recommended for the nursery. I have had no
+opportunity for observing the effects of this kind of amusement; but if
+it is one half as valuable as some suppose, I should be inclined to
+recommend it. But I am opposed to fostering in the rider lessons of
+cruelty, by arming him with whips and spurs. If the young are ever to
+learn to ride, on a living horse, the exercises of the rocking-horse
+will, most certainly, be a sort of preparation for the purpose.</p>
+
+<p>Tops and marbles afford a great deal of rational amusement to the young;
+and of a very useful kind, too. Spinning a top is second to no exercise
+which I have yet mentioned, unless it is playing at shuttlecock.</p>
+
+<p>Dr. Dewees recommends a small backgammon table, with men, but without
+dice. He says, also, that &quot;children, as soon as they are capable of
+comprehending the subject, should be taught draughts or checkers. This
+game is not only highly amusing, but also very instructive.&quot; In another
+place he heaps additional encomiums upon the game of checkers. &quot;It
+becomes a source of endless amusement,&quot; he says, &quot;as it never tires, but
+always instructs.&quot; Of exercises which instruct, however, as well as
+amuse, I shall speak presently.</p>
+
+<p>The amusements called &quot;morrice,&quot; &quot;fox and geese,&quot; &amp;c., with which some
+of the children of almost every neighborhood are more or less
+acquainted, are of the same general character and tendency as checkers.
+So is a play, sometimes, but very improperly, called dice, in which two
+parties play with a small bundle of wooden pins, not unlike knitting
+pins in shape, but shorter.</p>
+
+<p>The writer to whom I have referred above recommends nine-pins and balls
+of proper size, as highly useful both for diversion and exercise. If
+they can be used without leading to bad habits and bad associations, I
+think they may be useful.</p>
+
+<p>For girls, who demand a great deal more of exercise, both within doors
+and without, skipping the rope is an excellent amusement. So also is
+swinging. Both of these exercises may be used either out of doors, or
+in the nursery.</p>
+
+<p>Trundling a hoop I have always regarded as an amusing out-of-door
+exercise; and I am not sorry when I sometimes see girls, as well as
+boys, engaged in it, under the eye of their mothers and teachers.</p>
+
+<p>Playing ball, of which there are many different games, and flying kites,
+employ a large proportion if not all of the muscles of the body, in such
+a manner as is likely to confirm the strength, and greatly improve the
+health. The same may be said of skating in the winter, and swimming in
+the summer. But these last are exercises over which the mother cannot,
+ordinarily, have very much control.</p>
+
+<p>Under the head of amusements, it only remains for me to speak of a few
+juvenile employments of a mixed nature. Of these I shall treat very
+briefly, as they are a branch of the subject which does not necessarily
+come within the compass of my present plan. They are exercises, too,
+which should more properly come under the head of Infantile Instruction.</p>
+
+<p>Dissected maps afford children of every age a great fund of amusement;
+but much caution is necessary, with those that are very young, not to
+discourage or confound them by showing them too many at once. Thus if
+we cut in pieces the map of one of the smaller United States, at the
+county lines, or the whole United States, at the state lines, it is
+quite as many divisions as they can manage. Cut up as large a state,
+even, as Pennsylvania or New York is, into counties, and try to lead
+them to amuse themselves by putting together so large a number, many of
+which must inevitably very closely resemble each other, and it is ten to
+one but you bewilder, and even perplex and discourage them. The same
+results would follow from cutting up even the whole of a large county,
+or a small state, into towns. I have usually begun with little children,
+by requiring them to put together the eight counties of the small state
+of Connecticut. In this case the counties are not only few, but there is
+a very striking difference in their shape.</p>
+
+<p>A black board and a piece of chalk, along with a little ingenuity on the
+part of the mother, will furnish the child with an almost endless
+variety of amusement. Let him attempt to imitate almost any object which
+interests him, whether among the works of nature or art. However rude
+his pictures may be, do not laugh at, but on the contrary, endeavor to
+encourage him. He may also be permitted to imitate letters and figures.
+The elements of letters, too, both printed and written, may be given
+him, and he may be required to put them together. Dissected pictures, as
+well as dissected maps and letters, are useful, and to most children,
+very acceptable.</p>
+
+<p>In short, the devices of an ingenious, thinking mother, for the
+amusement of her very young children, are almost endless; and the great
+danger is, that when a mother once enters deeply into the spirit of
+these exercises, she will substitute them for those much more healthy
+ones which have been already mentioned, such as require muscular
+activity, or may be performed in the open air.</p>
+
+
+
+<br><br><hr style="width: 65%;"><br><br>
+<a name="CHAPTER_XII."></a><h2>CHAPTER XII.</h2>
+
+<h3>CRYING.</h3>
+
+<blockquote class="small">Its importance. Danger of repressing a tendency to cry. Anecdote from
+Dr. Rush. Physiology of crying. Folly of attempting wholly to suppress
+it.</blockquote>
+<br>
+
+<p>&quot;Crying,&quot; says Dr. Dewees, &quot;should be looked upon as an exercise of much
+importance;&quot; and he is sustained in this view by many eminent medical
+writers.</p>
+
+<p>But people generally think otherwise. Nothing is more common than the
+idea that to cry is unbecoming; and children are everywhere taught, when
+they suffer pain, to brave it out, and <i>not cry</i>. Such a direction&mdash;to
+say nothing of its tendency to encourage hypocrisy&mdash;is wholly
+unphilosophical. The following anecdote may serve in part to illustrate
+my meaning. It is said to have been related by Dr. Rush.</p>
+
+<p>A gentleman in South Carolina was about to undergo a very painful
+surgical operation. He had imbibed the idea that it was beneath the
+dignity of a man ever to say or do anything expressive of pain. He
+therefore refused to submit to the usual precaution of securing the
+hands and feet by bandages, declaring to his surgeon that he had nothing
+to fear from his being untied, for he would not move a muscle of his
+body. He kept his word, it is true; but he died instantly after the
+operation, from apoplexy.</p>
+
+<p>There is very little doubt, in the mind of any physiologist, in regard
+to the cause of apoplexy in this case; and that it might have been
+prevented by the relief which is always afforded by groans and tears.</p>
+
+<p>It is, I believe, very generally known, that in the profoundest grief,
+people do not, and cannot shed tears; and that when the <i>latter</i> begin
+to flow, it affords immediate relief.</p>
+
+<p>I do not undertake to argue from this, that crying is so important,
+either to the young or the old, that it is ever worth while to excite or
+continue it by artificial means; or that a habit of crying, so easily
+and readily acquired by the young, is not to be guarded against as a
+serious, evil. My object was first to show the folly of those who
+denounce all crying, and secondly, to point out some of its
+advantages&mdash;in the hope of preventing parents from going to that extreme
+which borders upon stoicism.</p>
+
+<p>One of the most intelligent men I ever knew, frequently made it his
+boast that he neither laughed nor cried on any occasion; and on being
+told that both laughing and crying were physiologically useful, he only
+ridiculed the sentiment.</p>
+
+<p>Crying is useful to very young infants, because it favors the passage of
+blood in their lungs, where it had not before been accustomed to travel,
+and where its motion is now indispensable. And it not only promotes the
+circulation of the blood, but expands the air-cells of the lungs, and
+thus helps forward that great change, by which the dark-colored impure
+blood of the veins is changed at once into pure blood, and thus rendered
+fit to nourish the system, and sustain life.</p>
+
+<p>But this is not all. Crying strengthens the lungs themselves. It does
+this by expanding the little air-cells of which I have just spoken, and
+not only accustoms them to being stretched, at a period, of all others,
+the most favorable for this purpose, but frees them at the same time
+from mucus, and other injurious accumulations.</p>
+
+<p>They, therefore, who oppose an infant's crying, know not what they do.
+So far is it from being hurtful to the child, that its occasional
+recurrence is, as we have already seen, positively useful. Some
+practitioners of medicine, in some of the more trying situations in
+which human nature can be placed, even encourage their patients to
+suffer tears to flow, as a means of relief.</p>
+
+<p>Infants, it should also be recollected, have no other language by which
+to express their wants and feelings, than sighs and tears. Crying is not
+always an expression of positive pain; it sometimes indicates hunger and
+thirst, and sometimes the want of a change of posture. This last
+consideration deserves great attention, and all the inconveniences of
+crying ought to be borne cheerfully, for the sake of having the little
+sufferer remind us when nature demands a change of position. No child
+ought to be permitted to remain in one position longer than two hours,
+even while sleeping; nor half that time, while awake; and if nurses and
+mothers will overlook this matter, as they often do, it is a favorable
+circumstance that the child should remind them of it.</p>
+
+<p>Crying has been called the &quot;waste gate&quot; of the human system; the door of
+escape to that excess of excitability which sometimes prevails,
+especially among children and nervous adults. To all such persons it is
+healthy&mdash;most undoubtedly so; nor do I know that its occasional
+recurrence is injurious to any adult&mdash;a fastidious public sentiment to
+the contrary notwithstanding.</p>
+
+<p>Some have supposed, that what is here said will be construed by the
+young mother into a license to suffer her child to cry unnecessarily.
+Perhaps, say they, she is a laboring woman, and wishes to be at work.
+Well, she lays down her child in the cradle, or on the bed, and goes to
+her work. Presently the child, becoming wet perhaps, begins to cry, as
+well he might. But, instead of going to him and taking care of him, she
+continues at her employment; and when one remonstrates against her
+conduct as cruelty, she pleads the authority of the author of the &quot;Young
+Mother.&quot;</p>
+
+<p>All this may happen; but if it should, I am not answerable for it. I
+have insisted strongly on guarding the child against wet clothing, and
+on watching him with the utmost care to prevent all real suffering.
+Mothers, like the specimen here given, if they happen to have a little
+sensibility to suffering, and not much love of their offspring,
+generally know of a shorter way to quiet their infants and procure time
+to work, than that which is here mentioned. They have nothing to do but
+to give them some cordial or elixir, whose basis is opium. Startle not,
+reader, at the statement;&mdash;this abominable practice is followed by many
+a female who claims the sacred name of mother. And many a wretch has
+thus, in her ignorance, indolence or avarice, slowly destroyed her
+children!</p>
+
+<p>I repeat, therefore, that I do not think my remarks on crying are
+necessarily liable to abuse; though I am not sure that there are not a
+few individuals to be found who may apply them in the manner above
+mentioned&mdash;an application, however, which is as far removed from the
+original intention of the author, as can possibly be conceived.</p>
+
+
+
+<br><br><hr style="width: 65%;"><br><br>
+<a name="CHAPTER_XIII."></a><h2>CHAPTER XIII.</h2>
+
+<h3>LAUGHING.</h3>
+
+<blockquote class="small">&quot;Laugh and be fat.&quot; Laughing is healthy. A common error. Monastic
+notions yet too prevalent on this subject.</blockquote>
+<br>
+
+<p>Laughing, like crying, has a good effect on the infantile lungs; nor is
+it less salutary in other respects. &quot;Laugh and be fat,&quot; an old adage,
+has its meaning, and also its philosophy.</p>
+
+<p>There is an excess, however, to which laughing, no less than crying, may
+be carried, and which we cannot too carefully avoid. But how little to
+be envied&mdash;how much to be pitied&mdash;are they who consider it a weakness
+and a sin to laugh, and in the plenitude of their wisdom, tell us that
+<i>the Saviour of mankind never laughed</i>. When I hear this last assertion,
+I am always ready to ask, whether the individual who makes it has read a
+new revelation or a new gospel; for certainly none of the sacred books
+which I have seen give us any such information.</p>
+
+<p>But I will not dwell here. The common notion on this subject, if not
+ridiculous, is certainly strange. I will only add, that, come into vogue
+as it might have done, there is no opinion more unfounded than the very
+general one among adults, that children should be uniformly grave; and
+that just in proportion as they laugh and appear frolicsome, just in the
+same proportion are they out of the way, and deserving of reprehension.</p>
+
+<p>It is strange that it should be so, but I have seen many parents who
+were miserable because their children were sportive and joyful. Oh, when
+will the days of monkish sadness and austerity be over; and the public
+sentiment in the christian world get right on this subject!</p>
+
+
+
+<br><br><hr style="width: 65%;"><br><br>
+<a name="CHAPTER_XIV."></a><h2>CHAPTER XIV.</h2>
+
+<h3>SLEEP.</h3>
+
+<blockquote class="small">General remarks. Hints to fathers.&mdash;SEC. 1. Proper hours for repose.
+Dark rooms. Noise.&mdash;SEC. 2. Place for sleeping. Sleeping
+alone&mdash;reasons.&mdash;SEC. 3. Purity of the air in sleeping rooms.&mdash;SEC. 4.
+The bed. Objections to feathers. Other materials.&mdash;SEC. 5. The covering
+of beds. Covering the head.&mdash;SEC. 6. Night Dresses. Robes.&mdash;SEC. 7.
+Posture of the body in sleep.&mdash;SEC. 8. State of the mind.&mdash;SEC. 9.
+Quality of sleep.&mdash;SEC. 10. Quantity of sleep.</blockquote>
+<br>
+
+<p>Not a few persons consider all rules relative to sleep as utterly
+futile. They regard it as so much of a natural or animal process, that
+if we are let alone we shall seldom err, at any age, respecting it.
+Rules on the subject, above all, they regard as wholly misplaced.</p>
+
+<p>Those who entertain such views, would do well, in order to be
+consistent, to go a little farther; and as breathing and eating and
+drinking&mdash;nay, even <i>thinking</i>&mdash;are natural processes, deny the utility
+of all rules respecting <i>them</i> also. Perhaps they would do well,
+moreover, to deny that rules of any sort are valuable. But would not
+this have the effect to bar the door perpetually against all human
+improvement? Would it not be equivalent to saying, to a half-civilized,
+because only half-christianized community&mdash;Go on with your barbarous
+customs, and your uncleanly and unthinking habits, forever?</p>
+
+<p>But I have not so learned human nature. I regard man as susceptible of
+endless progression. And I know of no way in which more rapid progress
+can be made, than by enlightening young mothers on subjects which
+pertain to our physical nature, and the means of physical improvement.
+Not for the <i>sake</i> of that perishable part of man, the frame, but
+because it is nearly in vain to attempt to improve the mind and heart,
+without due attention to the frame-work, to which mind and heart, for
+the present, are appended, and most intimately related.</p>
+
+<p>Let it be left to fathers to study the improvement of hounds and horses
+and cattle, and at the same time to think themselves above the concerns
+of the nursery. We may, indeed, read of a Cato once in three thousand
+years, who was in the habit of quitting all other business in order to
+be present when the nurse washed and rubbed his child. But our passion
+for gain, in the present age, is so much more absorbing and
+soul-destroying than the passion for military glory, that we cannot
+expect many Catos. Oh no. All, or nearly all, must devolve on the
+mother. The father has no time to attend to his children! What belongs
+to the mother, if she can be duly awakened, may be at least <i>half</i> done;
+what belongs to the father, must, I fear, be left undone.</p>
+
+<p>I am accustomed to regard every day&mdash;even of the infant&mdash;as a miniature
+life. I am, moreover, accustomed to consider mental and bodily vigor,
+not only for each separate day, but for life's whole day, as greatly
+influenced by the circumstances of sleep; the HOUR, PLACE, PURITY OF THE
+AIR, THE BED, THE COVERING, DRESS, POSTURE, STATE OF THE MIND, QUALITY,
+QUANTITY, AND DURATION.</p>
+<br>
+
+<h4>SEC. 1. <i>Hour for Repose.</i></h4>
+
+<p>Generally speaking, the night is the appropriate season for repose; but
+in early infancy, it is <i>every</i> hour. I have already spoken of the vast
+amount of sleep which the new-born infant requires, as well as of many
+other circumstances connected with it, requiring our attention. Suffer
+me, however, to enlarge, at the risk of a little repetition.</p>
+
+<p>What time the infant is awake, should be during the day. It is of very
+great importance, in the formation of good habits, that he should be
+undressed and put to bed, at evening, with as much regularity as if be
+had not slept during the day for a single moment. It is also important
+that he be permitted to sleep during the whole night, as uninterruptedly
+as possible; and that when he is aroused, to have his position or
+diapers changed, or to receive food, it should be done with little
+parade and noise, and with as little light as possible. All persons, old
+as well as young, sleep more quietly in a dark room, than in one where a
+light is burning.</p>
+
+<p>I am well aware that the course here recommended, may be carried to an
+excess which will utterly defeat the object intended, since there are
+children to be found, who are so trained in this respect, that the
+lightest tread upon the floor will awake, and perhaps frighten them. But
+this is an excess which is not required. All that is necessary during
+the night, is a reasonable degree of silence, in order to induce the
+habit of continued rest, if possible. In the day time, on the contrary,
+fatigue will impel a child to sleep occasionally, even in the midst of
+noise. I am not sure that the habit of sleeping in the midst of noise is
+not worth a little pains on the part of the mother. Nor is it improbable
+that a habit of this kind, once acquired by the infant, might ultimately
+be extended to the night, so that over-caution, even in regard to that
+season, might gradually be laid aside.</p>
+
+<p>Dr. North, a distinguished medical practitioner in Hartford, Conn.,
+confirms the foregoing sentiments; and adds, that he deems it an
+imperious duty of those parents who wish well to their infants, to form
+in them the habit of sleeping when fatigued, whether the room be quiet
+or noisy. With his children, no cradles or opiates are needed or used.</p>
+<br>
+
+<h4>SEC. 2. <i>Place.</i></h4>
+
+<p>For some time after its birth, the infant should sleep near its mother,
+though not in the same bed. The bedstead should be of the usual height
+of bedsteads, and should be enclosed with a railing sufficient to secure
+the infant from falling out, but not of such a structure as to hinder,
+in any degree, a free circulation of the air.</p>
+
+<p>The reasons why a child ought to sleep alone, and not with the mother or
+nurse, are numerous; but the following are the principal;</p>
+
+<p>1. The heat accumulated by the bodies of the mother and child both, is
+often too great for health.</p>
+
+<p>2. The air is too impure. I have already spoken of the change in the
+purity of the air which is produced by breathing in it. It is bad
+enough for two adults to sleep in the same bed, breathing over and over
+again the impure air, as they must do more or less, even if the bed is
+very large;&mdash;but it is still worse for infants. Their lungs demand
+atmospheric air in its utmost purity; and if denied it, they must
+eventually suffer.</p>
+
+<p>3. But besides the change of the air by breathing, the surface of the
+body is perpetually changing it in the same manner, as was stated in the
+chapter on Ventilation. Now a child will almost inevitably breathe a
+stream of this bad air, as it issues from the bed; and what is still
+worse, it is very apt, in spite of every precaution, to get its head
+covered up with the clothes, where it can hardly breathe anything else.
+This, if frequently repeated, is slow but certain death;&mdash;as much so as
+if the child were to drink poison in moderate quantities.</p>
+
+<p>Let me not be told that this is an exaggeration; that thousands of
+mothers make it a point to cover up the beads of their infants; and that
+notwithstanding this, they are as healthy as the infants of their
+neighbors. I have not said that they would droop and die while infants.
+The fumes of lead, which is a certain poison, may be inhaled, and yet
+the child or adult who inhales them may live on, in tolerable health,
+for many years. But suffer he must, in the end, in spite of every effort
+and every hope. So must the child, whose head is covered habitually
+with the bed clothing, where it is compelled to breathe not only the air
+spoiled by its own skin, but also that which is spoiled by the much
+larger surface of body of the mother or nurse.</p>
+
+<p>But I have proof on this subject. Friedlander, in his &quot;Physical
+Education,&quot; says expressly, that in Great Britain alone, between the
+years 1686 and 1800, no less than 40,000 children died in consequence of
+this practice of allowing them to sleep near their nurses. I was at
+first disposed to doubt the accuracy of this most remarkable statement.
+But when I consider the respectability of the authority from which it
+emanated, and that it is only about 350 a year for that great empire, I
+cannot doubt that the estimate is substantially correct. What a
+sacrifice at the shrine of ignorance and folly!</p>
+
+<p>It should be added, in this place, both to confirm the foregoing
+sentiment, and to show that British mothers and nurses are not alone,
+that Dr. Dewees has witnessed, in the circle of his practice, four
+deaths from the same cause. If every physician in the United States has
+met with as many cases of the kind, in proportion to his practice, as
+Dr. D., the evil is about as great in this country as Dr. F. says it is
+in Great Britain.</p>
+
+<p>If a child sleeps alone, it cannot of course be liable to as much
+suffering of this kind as if it slept with another person; though much
+precaution will still be necessary to keep its head uncovered, and
+prevent its inhaling air spoiled by its own lungs and skin.</p>
+
+<p>4. There is one more evil which will be avoided by having a child sleep
+alone. Many a mother has seriously injured her child by pressure. I do
+not here allude to those monsters in human nature, whose besotted habits
+have been the frequent cause of the suffocation and death of their
+offspring, but to the more careful and tender mother, who would sooner
+injure herself than her own child. Such mothers, even, have been known
+to dislocate or fracture a limb![Footnote: There may be instances where
+the debility of an infant will be so great that the mother or a nurse
+must sleep with it, to keep it warm. But such cases of disease are very
+rare.]</p>
+
+<p>To cap the climax of error in this matter, some mothers allow their
+infants to lie on their arm, as a pillow. This practice not only exposes
+them to all or nearly all the evils which have been mentioned, but to
+one more; viz. the danger of being thrown from the bed.</p>
+
+<p>A young mother, with whom I was well acquainted, was sleeping one night
+with her infant on her arm, when she made a sudden and rather violent
+effort to turn in the bed, in doing which she threw the child upon the
+floor with such violence as to fracture its little skull, and cause its
+death.</p>
+
+<p>Enough, I trust, has now been said to convince every reasonable young
+mother, where absolute poverty does not preclude comfort and health,
+that her child ought never to be permitted to sleep in the same bed with
+her; but that it should be placed on a bedstead by itself at a short
+distance from her, and properly guarded from accidents&mdash;and above all,
+from inhaling impure air.</p>
+
+<p>At a suitable age, a child may be removed from the nursery to a separate
+chamber. Here, if the circumstances permit, it should still sleep by
+itself; and if the bedstead be somewhat lower than ordinary, and the
+room be not too small, it will need no watching.</p>
+
+<p>Perhaps this may be the proper place to say that there are more reasons
+than one&mdash;and some of them are of a moral nature, too&mdash;why a child
+should continue to sleep alone, after it leaves the nursery. Nor is it
+sufficient to prohibit its sleeping with younger persons, and yet crowd
+it into the bed with an aged grandfather or grandmother, or with both.
+There is no excuse for a course like this, except the iron hand of
+necessity. And even then, I should prefer to have a child of mine sleep
+on the hard floor, at least during the summer season, rather than with
+an aged person.</p>
+
+<p>Let it not be supposed I have imbibed the fashionable idea that it is
+<i>peculiarly</i> unhealthy for the young to sleep with the old. I know this
+doctrine has many learned advocates. And yet I doubt its correctness. I
+believe that the manners and habits of the old may injure the young who
+sleep with them, and I know that they render the air impure, like other
+people. But I cannot see why the mere circumstance of their being <i>old</i>
+should be a source of unhealthiness to their younger bed-fellows. Still
+I say, that there are reasons enough against the practice I am opposing,
+without this.</p>
+
+<p>Some parents allow dogs and cats to sleep with children. Others have a
+prejudice against cats, but not against dogs. The truth is, that they
+both contaminate the air by respiration and perspiration, in the same
+manner that adults do. And aside from the fact that they are often
+infested by lice and other insects, and addicted to uncleanly habits,
+they ought always to be excluded, and with iron bars and bolts, if
+necessary, from the beds of children. But of this, too, I have treated
+elsewhere.</p>
+<br>
+
+<h4>SEC. 3. <i>Purity of the Air.</i></h4>
+
+<p>The general importance of pure air has been mentioned. I have spoken of
+the elements of the atmosphere in which we live, of the manner in
+which it may be vitiated, and the consequences to health. I have
+shown&mdash;perhaps at sufficient length&mdash;the impropriety of washing, drying,
+and ironing clothes in the room where a child is kept; of cooking in the
+room, especially on a stove; of suffering the floor or clothes,
+particularly those of the child, to remain long wet, in the room; of
+smoking tobacco, using spirits, burning oil with too long a wick, &amp;c.</p>
+
+<p>All which has thus been said of the purity of the air of the nursery
+generally, is applicable to that of all sleeping rooms. It is an
+important point gained, when we can secure a nursery with folding doors
+in the centre, so as, when we please, to make two rooms of it. In that
+case, the division in which the bed is, can be completely ventilated a
+little before night, and thus be comparatively pure for the reception of
+both the mother and the child.</p>
+
+<p>Shall the windows and doors where a child sleeps, be kept closed; or
+shall they be suffered to remain open a part or the whole of the night?
+This must be determined by circumstances. If there are no doors but
+such as communicate with apartments whose air is equally impure with
+that in which the child is, it is preferable to keep them closed. If the
+windows cannot be opened without exposing the child to a current of air,
+it is perhaps the less of two evils, not to open them.</p>
+
+<p>But we are not usually driven to such extremities. In some instances,
+windows are constructed&mdash;and all of them ought to be&mdash;so that they can
+be lowered from the top. When this is not the case, something can be
+placed before the window to break the current, so that it need not fall
+directly upon the child. Closing the blinds will partially effect this,
+where blinds exist.</p>
+
+<p>I have known many an individual who was in the habit of sleeping with
+his windows open during the whole year, and without any obvious evil
+consequences. Dr. Gregory was of this habit. But if adults&mdash;not trained
+to it&mdash;can acquire such a habit with impunity, with how much more safety
+could children be trained to it from the very first year. Macnish says,
+&quot;there can be no doubt that a gentle current pervading our sleeping
+apartments, is in the highest degree ESSENTIAL TO HEALTH.&quot;</p>
+
+<p>This consideration&mdash;I mean the impurity of sleeping rooms, even after
+every precaution has been used to keep them ventilated&mdash;affords one
+of the strongest inducements to going abroad early in the morning
+(especially when there is no other room which either adults or children
+can occupy) while the nursery or chamber is aired and ventilated. The
+utility of <i>rising</i> early, I hope no one can doubt; but some have doubts
+of the propriety of going abroad, till the dew has &quot;passed away.&quot; Such
+should be reminded, by the foregoing train of remarks, that early
+walking may be a choice of evils; and that if it <i>is</i> on the whole
+advantageous to adults, it cannot be less so to children. And as soon as
+the sun has chased away the vapors of the night, if the weather is
+tolerable, most children should be carried abroad.</p>
+<br>
+
+<h4>SEC. 4. <i>The Bed.</i></h4>
+
+<p>This should never be of feathers. There are many reasons for this
+prohibition, especially to the feeble.</p>
+
+<p>1. They are too warm. Infants should by all means be kept warm enough,
+as I have all along insisted. But excess of heat excites or stimulates
+the skin, causing an unnatural degree of perspiration, and thus inducing
+weakness or debility.</p>
+
+<p>2. When we first enter a room in which there is a feather bed which has
+been occupied during the night, we are struck with the offensive smell
+of the air. This is owing to a variety of causes; one of which probably
+is, that beds of this kind are better adapted to absorb and retain the
+effluvia of our bodies. But let the causes be what they may, the effects
+ought, if possible, to be avoided; for both experience and authority
+combine to pronounce them very injurious.</p>
+
+<p>3. Feather beds&mdash;if used in the nursery&mdash;will inevitably discharge more
+or less of dust and down; both of which are injurious to the tender
+lungs of the infant.</p>
+
+<p>Mattresses are better for persons of every age, than soft feather beds.
+They may be made of horse hair or moss; but hair is the best. If the
+mattress does not appear to be warm enough for the very young infant, a
+blanket may be spread over it. Dr. Dewees says that in case mattresses
+cannot be had, &quot;the sacking bottom&quot; may be substituted, or &quot;even the
+floor;&quot; at least in warm weather: &quot;for almost anything,&quot; he adds, &quot;is
+preferable to feathers.&quot;</p>
+
+<p>Macnish, in his &quot;Philosophy of Sleep,&quot; objects strongly to air beds, and
+says that he can assert &quot;from experience,&quot; that they are the very worst
+that can possibly be employed. My theories&mdash;for I have had no experience
+on the subject&mdash;would lead me to a similar conclusion. A British
+writer of eminence assures us that the higher classes in Ireland, to a
+considerable extent, accustom themselves and their infants to sleep on
+bags of cut straw, overspread with blankets and a light coverlid; and
+that the custom is rapidly finding favor. I have slept on straw, both in
+winter and summer, for many years, yet I am always warm; and those who
+know my habits say I use less <i>covering</i> on my bed than almost any
+individual whom they have ever known.</p>
+
+<p>I have no hostility to soft beds, especially for young children and feeble
+adults, could softness be secured without much heat and relaxation
+of the system. On the contrary, it is certainly desirable, in itself,
+to have the bed so soft that as large a proportion of the surface of
+the body may rest on it as possible. But I consider hardness as a
+much smaller evil than feathers.</p>
+
+<p>It is worthy of remark how generally physicians, for the last hundred
+years, have recommended hard beds, especially straw beds or hair
+mattresses, to their more feeble and delicate patients. This fact might
+at least quiet our apprehensions in regard to their tendency on those
+who are accustomed to them in early infancy.</p>
+
+<p>Some writers on these subjects appear to doubt whether, after all that
+they say, they shall have much influence on mothers in inducing them to
+give up feather beds for their infants. But they need not be so
+faithless. Multitudes have already been reformed by their writings; and
+multitudes larger still would be so, could they gain access to them. It
+is a most serious evil that they are often so written and published that
+comparatively few mothers will ever possess them.</p>
+
+<p>The pillow, as well as the bed, should be rather hard; and its thickness
+should be much less than is usual, or we shall do mischief by bending
+the neck, and thus compressing the vessels, and obstructing the
+circulation of the blood. But on this subject I will say more, when I
+come to treat on &quot;Posture.&quot;</p>
+
+<p>The child's bed should not be placed near the wall, on account of
+dampness. There is also, during the summer, another reason. Should
+lightning strike the house, it will be much more apt to injure those who
+are near the wall than other persons; as it seldom leaves the wall to
+pass over the central part of the room.</p>
+
+<p>Curtains are not only useless, but injurious. They prevent a free
+circulation of the air. Everything which has this tendency must be
+studiously guarded against, in the management of infants.</p>
+
+<p>Nothing is more injurious to the old or the young than damp beds and
+damp covering. It behoves, especially, all those who have the care of
+infants, to see that everything about their beds is thoroughly dry. The
+walls and clothes should also be dry; and wet clothes should never be
+hung up in the room. By neglecting these precautions, colds,
+rheumatisms, inflammations, fevers, consumptions, and death, may ensue.
+Many a person loses his health, and not a few their lives, in this way.
+The author of this work was once thrown into a fever from such a cause.</p>
+
+<p>Warming the bed is, in all cases, a bad practice. While in the nursery,
+if the air be kept at a proper temperature, there will be no need of it;
+after the child is assigned to a separate chamber, its enervating
+tendency would result in more evil than good. It is better to let the
+bed became gradually heated by the body, in a natural and healthy way.</p>
+
+<p>No person, and above all, no infant, should be suffered to sleep in a
+bed that has been recently occupied by the sick. The bed and all the
+clothes should first be thoroughly aired. Could we see with our eyes at
+once, how rapidly these bodies of ours fill the air, and even the beds
+we sleep in, with carbonic acid and other hurtful gases and impurities,
+even while in health, but much more so in sickness, we should be
+cautious of exposing the lungs of the tender infant, in such an
+atmosphere, until everything had been properly cleansed, and the
+apartments properly ventilated.</p>
+<br>
+
+<h4>SEC. 5. <i>The Covering.</i></h4>
+
+<p>The covering of the bed should be sufficiently warm, but never any
+warmer than is absolutely necessary to protect the child from
+chilliness. The lightest covering which will secure this object is the
+best. Perhaps there is nothing in use that, with so little weight,
+secures so much heat as what are called &quot;comfortables.&quot;</p>
+
+<p>The clothes should not be &quot;tucked up&quot; at the sides and foot of the bed
+with too much care and exactness. For when the bed is once warmed
+thoroughly with the child's body, the admission of a little fresh air
+into it, when he elevates or otherwise moves his limbs, can do no harm,
+but <i>may</i> do much of good, in the way of ventilation. I deem it
+important, moreover, to inure children very early to little partial
+exposures of this kind.</p>
+
+<p>Those mothers who, from over-tenderness, and want of correct information
+on the subject, pursue a contrary course, and consider it as almost
+certain death to have a particle of fresh air reach the bodies of their
+infants during their slumbers, are generally sure to outwit themselves,
+and defeat their very intentions. For by being thus tender of their
+children, it often turns out that whenever the mother is ill, or when on
+any other account she ceases to watch over them&mdash;and such times must,
+in general, sooner or later come&mdash;they are much more liable to take cold
+or sustain other injury, should they be exposed, than if they had been
+treated more rationally.</p>
+
+<p>I knew a mother who would not trust her children to take care of their
+own beds on retiring to rest, as long as they remained in her house,
+even though they were twenty or thirty years old. But they had no better
+or firmer constitutions than the other children of the same
+neighborhood.</p>
+
+<p>Hardly anything can be more injurious than covering the head with the
+bed clothes; and yet some mothers and nurses cover, in this way, not
+only their own heads, but those of their children. I have elsewhere
+shown how impure the air is, which is imprisoned under the bed clothes.
+I hope those mothers who are willing to destroy <i>themselves</i> by covering
+up their heads while they sleep, will at least have mercy on their
+unoffending infants.</p>
+<br>
+
+<h4>SEC. 6. <i>Night Dresses.</i></h4>
+
+<p>The grand rule on this point is, to wear as little dress during sleep as
+possible. Some mothers not only suffer their infants to sleep in the
+same shirt, cap, and stockings that they have worn during the day, but
+add a night gown to the rest. No cap should be worn during the night,
+any more than in the day time. Or if the foolish practice has been
+adopted for the day, it should be discontinued at night. It is enough
+for those adults whose long hair would otherwise be dishevelled, to wear
+night caps, and subject themselves, as they inevitably do, to catarrh
+and periodical headache. Children's heads should have nothing on them by
+night; nor even by day, except to defend them from the rain or the hot
+rays of the sun.</p>
+
+<p>The stockings, too, should be wholly laid aside at night, unless in the
+case of those who are feeble, apt to have their feet cold, or
+particularly liable to bowel complaints. Such may be allowed to sleep in
+their stockings, but not in those which have been worn all the day.</p>
+
+<p>Indeed, neither children nor adults should ever wear a single garment in
+the night which they have worn during the day. The reason is, that there
+are too many causes of impurity in operation while we sleep, without our
+wearing the clothes in which we have been perspiring during the
+day-time&mdash;and which must be already more or less filled with the
+effluvia of our bodies.</p>
+
+<p>It is a very easy thing to have a loose night gown to supply the place
+of the shirt we have worn during the day; and if nothing else is
+convenient, a spare shirt will answer. But both a night gown and shirt
+should never be admitted, especially in warm weather. The garment to
+supply the place of the shirt during the night, may be of calico in the
+summer, and of flannel in the winter.</p>
+
+<p>The collar and wristbands of this night dress should be loose; and the
+whole garment should be large and long. No article of dress should ever
+press upon our bodies, so as in the least to impede the circulation; and
+for this reason it is, that writers on physical education have inveighed
+so much against cravats, straps, garters, &amp;c. This caution, so important
+to all, is doubly so to young mothers, on whom devolves the management
+of the tender infant.</p>
+
+<p>When the child has been perspiring freely during the evening, just
+before he is undressed, or when he has just been subjected to the warm
+bath, it may be well to use a little care in undressing and exchanging
+clothes, to prevent taking cold;&mdash;though it should ever be remembered,
+that those children who are managed on a rational system will bear
+slight exposures with far more safety, than they who have been managed
+at random&mdash;sometimes, indeed, with great tenderness, but at others,
+wholly neglected.</p>
+<br>
+
+<h4>SEC. 7. <i>Posture of the Body.</i></h4>
+
+<p>In early infancy, children who are not stuffed rather than fed, may
+occasionally be permitted to sleep on their backs, especially if they
+incline to do so. But it will be well to encourage them to sleep on one
+side, as soon as you can without great inconvenience.</p>
+
+<p>The right side, as a general rule, is preferable; because the stomach,
+which lies towards the left side, is thus left uncompressed, and
+digestion undisturbed. I would not, however, require a child to lie
+always on the right side, but would occasionally change his position,
+lest he should become unable to sleep at all, except in a particular
+manner.</p>
+
+<p>I have said elsewhere, that the head ought to be a little raised,
+especially if the child is liable to diseases of the brain. But this
+remark, rather hastily thrown out, requires explanation.</p>
+
+<p>There is so much blood sent by the heart to the head and upper parts of
+the system of infants, as to predispose those parts, especially the
+brain, to disease. In a horizontal position of the body, there is more
+blood sent to the brain than when the body is erect. This will show the
+reader, at once, that if the infant is peculiarly exposed to diseases
+of the brain&mdash;and it certainly is so&mdash;he ought to remain in a horizontal
+posture as little as possible, except during sleep; and that even then
+it is desirable to make his bed in such a manner as to elevate the head
+and shoulders as much as we can without compressing the lungs, or
+obstructing the circulation in the neck.</p>
+
+<p>I recommend, therefore, to raise the head of an infant's bedstead a
+little higher than the foot; though not so much as to incline him to
+slide downwards into the bed, for that would be to produce one evil in
+curing another.</p>
+
+<p>Sir Charles Bell thinks that the common disease of infants called
+<i>diabetes</i>, arises from their being permitted to sleep on their backs;
+and that by breaking up the habit of lying in this position, and
+accustoming them to lie on their sides, we shall prevent it. I doubt
+whether the effect here referred to, is ever the result of such a cause.
+Still I am as much opposed to the <i>habit</i> of sleeping on the back, as
+Sir Charles Bell. It is quite injurious to free respiration.</p>
+
+<p>Closely allied to the subject of bodily position in general, is the
+state of particular organs; especially the stomach and the senses. I
+have already intimated that in order to have an infant sleep quietly, it
+is desirable to darken the room. This is the more necessary, where
+infants are unnaturally wakeful. In such cases, not only light should
+be excluded from the eye, but sounds from the ear, odors from the
+nostrils, &amp;c. A remarkably full stomach is in the way of going quietly
+to sleep, whether the person be old or young. Neither infants nor adults
+ought to take food for some time previous to their going to sleep for
+the night. Great bodily heat, as well as too great cold, is also
+unfavorable. If too hot, the temperature of the infant should be
+somewhat reduced by exposure to the air; if too cold, it should be
+raised in a natural, healthy, and appropriate manner.</p>
+<br>
+
+<h4>SEC. 8. <i>State of the Mind.</i></h4>
+
+<p>In giving directions how to procure pleasant dreams, Dr. Franklin
+mentions as a highly important requisition, the possession of a quiet
+conscience. A wise prescription, no doubt.</p>
+
+<p>But infants, as well as adults, in order to sleep quietly, should have
+their minds and feelings in a state of tranquillity. The youngest child
+has its &quot;troubles;&quot; and it is highly important, if not indispensable, to
+<i>healthy</i> sleep, that the mother take all reasonable pains to remove
+them before sleep is induced.</p>
+
+<p>We sometimes hear about children crying themselves to sleep, as if it
+were a matter of no consequence; and sometimes, as if it were, on the
+contrary, rather desirable. But is the sleep of an adult satisfying, who
+goes to bed in trouble, and only sleeps because nature is so exhausted
+that she cannot bear the protracted watchfulness any longer? Why then
+should we expect it, in the case of the infant?</p>
+
+<p>I know an excellent father who is so far from believing this doctrine,
+that he silences the cries of his child by the word of command&mdash;and
+believes that in so doing, he promotes both his health and his
+happiness. He would no more let him cry himself to sleep than he would
+let him cough himself to sleep; though both crying and coughing, in
+their places, may be and undoubtedly are salutary.</p>
+
+<p>Whatever may be the age and circumstances of an individual, he ought to
+retire for rest with a cheerful mind. All anxiety about the future, all
+regret about the past, all plans even, in regard to the business or
+amusement of the morrow, should be kept wholly out of the mind. We
+should yield ourselves up to the arms of sleep with the same quietude as
+if life were finished, and we had nothing more to do or think of.</p>
+<br>
+
+<h4>SEC. 9. <i>Quality of Sleep.</i></h4>
+
+<p>The soundness, as well as other qualities, of sleep, differs greatly in
+different individuals; and even in the same night, with the same
+individual in different circumstances. The first four or five hours of
+sleep are usually more sound than the remainder. Hardly anything will
+interrupt the repose of some persons during the early part of the night,
+while they awake afterwards at the slightest noise or movement&mdash;the
+chirping of a cricket, or the playing of a kitten.</p>
+
+<p>In profound sleep, we probably dream very little, if at all; but in
+other circumstances, we are constantly disturbed by dreaming, and
+sometimes start and wake in the greatest anxiety or horror.</p>
+
+<p>Nightmare is generally accompanied by dreams of the most distressing
+kind. We imagine a wild beast, or a serpent in pursuit of us; or a rock
+is detached from some neighboring cliff, and is about to roll upon and
+crush us; and yet all our efforts to fly are unavailing. We seem chained
+to the spot; but while in the very jaws of destruction, perhaps we
+awake, trembling, and palpitating, and weary, as if something of a
+serious nature had really happened.</p>
+
+<p>In the case of nightmare, it is more than probable that we fall asleep
+with our stomachs too heavily loaded with food, or with a smaller
+quantity of that which is highly indigestible. Or it may sometimes arise
+from an improper position of the body, such as disturbs the action of
+the stomach or lungs, or of both these organs. Lying on the back, when
+we first go to sleep, is very apt to produce nightmare.</p>
+
+<p>But distressing dreams often follow an evening of anxious cares,
+especially if those cares preyed upon us for the last half hour; and
+also after late suppers, even if they are light&mdash;and late reading. Hence
+the injunctions of the last section. Hence, too, the importance of
+taking our last meal two or three hours before sleep, and of engaging,
+during these hours, in cheerful conversation, and in the social and
+private duties of religion. Family and private worship, in the evening,
+are enjoined no less by philosophy than they are by christianity; and
+every young mother will do well to understand this matter, and train her
+offspring accordingly.</p>
+
+<p>&quot;That sleep from which we are easily roused, is the healthiest,&quot; says
+Macnish. &quot;Very profound slumber partakes of the nature of apoplexy.&quot; I
+should say, rather, that a medium between the two extremes is
+healthiest. Profound apoplectic sleep,
+I am sure, is injurious; but that from which we are too easily roused
+cannot, it seems to me, be less so. Thus, I have often gone to sleep
+with a resolution to wake at a certain hour, or at the striking of the
+clock; and have found myself able to wake at the proposed time, almost
+without one failure in twenty instances where I have made the trial. But
+my sleep was obviously unsound, and certainly unsatisfying. The desire
+to awake at a certain moment or period, seemed to buoy me above the
+usual state of healthy sleep, and render me liable to awake at the
+slightest disturbance. Were it not for sacrificing the ease of others,
+it would be far better, in such cases, to rely upon some person to wake
+us, instead of charging our own minds with it.</p>
+
+<p>The quality of our sleep will be greatly affected by the quantity. But
+this thought, if extended, would anticipate the subject of our next
+section; so easily does one thing, especially in physical education, run
+into or involve another. I will therefore, for the present, only say
+that if we confine ourselves to a smaller number of hours than is really
+required, our sleep becomes too sound to be quite healthy, as if nature
+endeavored to make up in quality, for want of due quantity. On the
+contrary, if we attempt to sleep longer than is really necessary to
+restore us, the quality of our sleep is not what it ought to be; for we
+do not sleep soundly enough.</p>
+
+<p>The silence and darkness of the night tend to induce sleep of a better
+quality than the noise and activity of day. It is unquestionably
+desirable that children should be able to sleep, at least occasionally,
+without absolute quiet. And yet such sleep cannot be sufficiently sound
+to answer the purposes of health, if frequently repeated.</p>
+
+<p>Hence it is, perhaps&mdash;at least in part&mdash;that the maxim has obtained
+currency, that one hour of sleep before midnight is worth two afterward.
+The comparison has probably been made between the quiet and darksome
+hours of evening and those which followed daybreak, when light, and
+music, and bustle conspire, as they should, to make us wakeful. No
+person can sleep as soundly and as effectually, when light reaches his
+closed eyes, and sounds strike his ears, as in darkness and silence. He
+may sleep, indeed, under almost any circumstances, when fatigue and
+exhaustion demand it; but never so profoundly as when in absolute
+abstraction of light, and complete quiet.</p>
+<br>
+
+<h4>SEC. 10. <i>Quantity.</i></h4>
+
+<p>On this point much might be said, without exhausting the subject. But I
+have already observed that infants, when first born, require to sleep
+nearly their whole time. As they advance in years, the necessity for
+sleep; however, diminishes, until they come to maturity, when it remains
+for many years nearly stationary. In advanced age, the necessity for
+sleep again increases, till we reach the extremest old age, or what is
+usually called second childhood, when we again sometimes sleep nearly
+the whole time.</p>
+
+<p>I have already remarked that much might be said on this subject; but I
+do not think that the present occasion requires it. If the suggestions
+which are made in the chapter on &quot;Early Rising&quot; should receive the
+attention I flatter myself they merit, I do not believe children would
+often sleep too long. If, on the contrary, they are suffered to lie late
+in the morning, and then sit up late in the evening, all healthful
+habits and tendencies will he so deranged or broken up, that nature, in
+her indications, will by no means prove the unerring guide which she is
+wont to do in other circumstances.</p>
+
+<p>A few thoughts here, on the quantity of sleep required by the young
+after they approach maturity, may not be misplaced.</p>
+
+<p>Jeremy Taylor thought that for a healthy adult, three hours in
+twenty-four were enough for all the purposes of sleep. Baxter thought
+four hours about a reasonable time; Wesley, six; Lord Coke and Sir Wm.
+Jones, seven; and Sir John Sinclair, eight. These were the <i>theories</i> of
+men who were all eminent for their learning, and most of them for their
+piety. How far their <i>practice</i> corresponded with their theories, we are
+not, in every instance, told.</p>
+
+<p>But to come to the practice of several persons who have been
+distinguished in the world. General Elliot, one of the most vigorous men
+of his age, though living for his whole life on nothing but vegetables
+and water, and who at sixty-four had scarcely begun to feel the
+infirmities of old age, slept but four hours in twenty-four. Frederick
+the Great of Prussia, and the illustrious British surgeon, John Hunter,
+slept but five hours a day. Napoleon Bonaparte, for a great part of his
+life, slept only four hours; and Lord Brougham is said to require no
+more. Others, in numerous instances, require but six hours. But there
+are others still, who consume eight.</p>
+
+<p>The conclusion&mdash;in my own mind&mdash;is, that with a good constitution and
+active habits, men may habituate themselves to very different quantities
+of sleep. Still I think that six hours are little enough for most
+persons; and if a child, on arriving at maturity, is not inclined to
+sleep much longer than that, I should not regard him as wasting time.
+Most persons, it appears to me, require six hours of sound sleep in
+twenty-four;&mdash;I mean between the ages of twenty and seventy.</p>
+
+<p>Macnish is the most liberal modern writer I am acquainted with, in his
+allowance of time for sleep. Speaking of the wants of adults he
+says&mdash;&quot;No person who passes only eight hours in bed can be said to waste
+his time in sleep.&quot; Yet he obviously contradicts himself on the very
+same page; for he says expressly, that when a person is young, strong
+and healthy, an hour or two less may be sufficient. But an hour or two
+less than eight hours reduces the amount to seven or six hours. And
+taking the whole period of life, to which he probably refers&mdash;say from
+eighteen to forty&mdash;into consideration, there is a very considerable
+difference between six hours and eight hours a day. If six hours are
+&quot;sufficient,&quot; it cannot be right to sleep eight hours.</p>
+
+<p>Let us here make a few estimates. If six hours are sufficient for sleep
+between the ages of eighteen and forty, he who sleeps eight hours a day,
+actually loses 16,060 hours&mdash;equal to nearly two whole years of life, or
+about two years and three quarters of time in which we are usually
+awake. This, in the meridian of life, is not a small waste. Permit it to
+every person now in the United States, and the sum total of wasted time
+to a single generation, would be 25,649,098 years&mdash;equal to the average
+duration of the lives of 854,970 persons. The value of this time, as a
+commodity in the market, at a low estimate&mdash;only forty dollars a
+year&mdash;would be over A THOUSAND MILLIONS of DOLLARS! And its value, for
+the purposes of mental and moral improvement, cannot be estimated except
+in ETERNITY!</p>
+
+<p>Every young mother must derive from these considerations a motive to
+discourage all unnecessary waste of time in sleep; while no one, as I
+trust, will forget that to sleep too little is also dangerous to health,
+and prejudicial to the general happiness.</p>
+
+
+
+<br><br><hr style="width: 65%;"><br><br>
+<a name="CHAPTER_XV."></a><h2>CHAPTER XV.</h2>
+
+<h3>EARLY RISING.</h3>
+
+<blockquote class="small">All children naturally early risers. Evils of sitting up late at night.
+Excitements in the evening. The morning, by its beauties, invites us
+abroad. Example of parents. Forbidding children to rise early. Keeping
+them out of the way. How many are burnt up by parental neglect.
+&quot;Lecturing&quot; them. What is an early hour?</blockquote>
+<br>
+
+<p>Some writer&mdash;I do not recollect who&mdash;has said that all children are
+naturally early risers. And I cannot help coming to the same conclusion.
+That they are not so, is no more proved from the fact that as things now
+are they are generally found addicted to the contrary habit, than the
+very general neglect of milk among the higher classes of our citizens,
+proves that they have not a natural relish for it&mdash;when every one knows
+that at our first setting out in life, milk is, almost without
+exception, the sole article of human sustenance.</p>
+
+<p>One of the great difficulties in the way of early rising, as I have
+already had occasion to say, is late sitting up. If children are not
+accustomed to retire till nine or ten o'clock, nor then until they have
+been subjected to all the excitements pertaining to fashionable
+life&mdash;company, heated and impure air, stimulating drink, fruits,
+high-seasoned food, and perhaps music&mdash;and are become actually feverish,
+no one but an ignorant person or a brute ought to expect them to rise
+early. Indeed, whatever may have been the cause, and whether it have
+operated on high or low life, late retiring will inevitably result in
+late rising. The current may be turned out of its course a little while,
+it is true, but not always. It will ere long return to its accustomed
+channel; perhaps to renew its course with increased pertinacity.</p>
+
+<p>Everything, in the morning, naturally invites to early rising. The
+pleasant light, the music, at certain seasons, of some of the animated
+tribes, and the joy which we feel in activity, and in the society of
+those whom we love, all conspire to rouse us. If we have retired late,
+however, and especially in a feverish condition, so that when we wake we
+feel wretched, and, as sometimes happens, more fatigued than when we lay
+down, other collateral motives may be needed.</p>
+
+<p>I have said that everything invites us, in the morning, to rise early;
+but it was upon the presumption that our parents, and brothers, and
+sisters set us a good example. If parents and other friends lie in bed
+late themselves, can anything else be, expected of children? Admitting,
+even, that they rise early themselves, if they never speak of early
+rising as a pleasure, and connect along with it, in their children's
+minds, pleasant associations, they would be unreasonable to expect
+otherwise than that their children should cling to the morning couch,
+till they are fairly compelled to rise as a relief from pain and
+uneasiness.</p>
+
+<p>But when parents go farther than this, and actually discourage their
+children from rising early, and use every means in their power short of
+actual punishment&mdash;and sometimes even that&mdash;to make them lie still till
+breakfast, in order that they may be out of the way, what shall we say?
+And what is to be expected as the result?</p>
+
+<p>There is hope, however, under the last circumstances. People sometimes
+carry things to an extreme that defeats their very purposes. Thus it
+occasionally is, in the case before us. This forbidding children to rise
+early, and threatening them if they do, sometimes excites their
+curiosity, and leads them to the forbidden course of conduct, simply
+<i>because</i> it is forbidden. Not a few persons among us possess the
+disposition to be governed by what has sometimes been called the &quot;rule
+of contrary.&quot;</p>
+
+<p>I might stop here to show that there is nothing so well calculated to
+develope and improve the mind and heart, even of parents themselves, as
+the society of those whom God gives them to train for Him and their
+country. I might show that not a few of those traits of character which
+render the company of many old persons rather irksome, especially to the
+young, have their origin in their neglect of the young, and of keeping
+up, as long as circumstances will possibly admit, juvenile feelings,
+actions, and habits.</p>
+
+<p>And yet what do we too often witness in life? Is not every effort made
+to induce the young to lie in bed late that they may be out of the way?
+Are they not placed, as soon as possible after they are up, with the
+servants&mdash;if unfortunately there are any in the family&mdash;that they may be
+out of the way? Are they not required to breakfast, and dine, and sup
+elsewhere, if possible, that they may be out of the way? Do we not send
+them to school, even the Sabbath school, to get them out of the way? Do
+not some mothers even dose their infants with stupifying medicines to
+lull them to sleep, in order to have them out of the way? And to crown
+all, though they are quite too often permitted to sit up late in the
+evening, to enjoy that society which they are denied so great a part of
+the day-time, are they not occasionally put to bed early that they may
+be out of the way, and that the parents may attend late parties, to
+indulge in immoral or unhealthy habits?</p>
+
+<p>In the last instance, they are indeed sometimes put out of the way, in
+the result&mdash;and with a vengeance. Many a child, nay, many thousands of
+children, are burnt up yearly, while their parents are gone abroad in
+the evening in quest of that enjoyment which ought to be found in the
+bosom of their families. &quot;In Westminster, a part of London, containing
+less than two hundred thousand inhabitants, one hundred children were
+thus destroyed, during a single year.&quot; And the moral results which
+occasionally happen are a thousand times worse than burning. But enough
+of this.</p>
+
+<p>The common practice of lecturing the young on the importance of early
+rising, may have a good effect on a few; but in general, it is believed
+to produce the contrary result. It is, in short, to sum up the whole
+matter, the influence of parental example, and the speaking often of the
+happiness which early rising affords, with perhaps the occasional
+indulgence of the child in a pleasant morning walk, which, if he retires
+early enough, are almost certain to produce in him the valuable habit of
+early rising.</p>
+
+<p>But what is an early hour? Some call it early, when the sun is one hour
+high; some at sunrise; others, when they hear of an early riser,
+suppose he must be one who rises at least by daybreak.</p>
+
+<p>Midnight is, of course, as near the middle of the night as any hour; and
+he who goes to bed four or five hours before midnight, will never
+complain of those who insist that <i>he</i> is not an early riser who is not
+up by four or five o'clock. In summer, no adult ought to lie in bed
+after four o'clock, and no child, except the mere infant, after five.</p>
+
+<p>Much is said by a few writers, especially Macnish, of the danger of
+rising before the sun has attained a sufficient height above the horizon
+to chase away the vapors, and remove the dampness. But I must insist
+upon earlier rising than this, though we should not choose to venture
+abroad. Invigorated and restored as we are by sleep, I cannot think that
+the dampness of the morning air is more injurious than the foul air of
+some of our sleeping rooms.</p>
+
+
+
+<br><br><hr style="width: 65%;"><br><br>
+<a name="CHAPTER_XVI."></a><h2>CHAPTER XVI.</h2>
+
+<h3>HARDENING THE CONSTITUTION.</h3>
+
+<blockquote class="small">Mistakes about hardening children. Their clothing. Much cold enfeebles.
+The Scotch Highlanders. The two extremes equally fatal&mdash;over-tenderness
+and neglect. An interesting anecdote from Dr. Dewees.</blockquote>
+<br>
+
+<p>While I have been very particular in enjoining on my readers the
+importance of thoroughly ventilating their dwellings, I have also
+insisted upon the necessity of taking children abroad, as much as
+possible. Not, however, to harden them, so much as to give them a more
+free access to air and light than they can have at home; and also&mdash;when
+they are old enough&mdash;to cultivate the faculties of attention,
+comparison, &amp;c.</p>
+
+<p>The practice of attempting to harden children by frequent exposure to
+air much colder than that to which they have been accustomed, without
+sufficient additional clothing, is open to the same objections which
+have been brought against cold bathing. Under the management of a
+judicious medical practitioner, it may do great good to a few
+constitutions; but its indiscriminate use would injure a thousand
+infants for one who was benefited.</p>
+
+<p>True it is that if the child is protected against cold, no harm, but on
+the contrary much good may result, from carrying him abroad into the
+fresh air, even in very cold weather. But what can be more painful than
+to see the little sufferers carried along when their limbs are purple,
+or benumbed with cold? And how idle it is to hope that such exposure
+hardens or improves the constitution!</p>
+
+<p>It is on the same mistaken principle that many adults go thinly clad,
+late in the fall. I have seen men in November and December beating and
+rubbing their hands, who, on being asked why they did not wear mittens,
+replied, that if they should wear one pair of mittens so early in the
+season, they should want two in the winter.</p>
+
+<p>Now I cheerfully admit that to put on additional clothing before the
+severity of the weather demands it, actually produces the effect here
+supposed; but to endure severe cold, on the contrary, never hardens
+anybody. Nay, more, it enfeebles. Cold, when combined with the evils of
+<i>poverty</i>, produces more mischief and destroys more lives than any one
+disease in the whole catalogue of human maladies.</p>
+
+<p>Adam Smith says that it is not uncommon for mothers in the Highlands of
+Scotland, who have borne twenty children, to have only two of them
+alive.</p>
+
+<p>It may be difficult to say whether children are oftener destroyed by
+over-tenderness than by neglect, and the evils incident to poverty. Both
+extremes are common; while the happy medium&mdash;that of conducting a
+child's education upon the principles of physiology, is rarely known,
+and still more rarely followed.</p>
+
+<p>I have been much amused, and not a little instructed, by the following
+anecdote on this point, from Dr. Dewees:</p>
+
+<p>We were speaking with a lady who had lost three or four children with
+&quot;croup,&quot; who informed us she was convinced, from absolute experiment,
+that there was nothing like exposure to all kinds of weather to protect
+and harden the system. By her first plan of managing her children, which
+was by keeping them very warmly clad, she said she lost several by the
+croup; but since she had adopted the opposite scheme, her children had
+been perfectly healthy, and never had betrayed the slightest disposition
+to that terrible disease which had robbed her of her children.</p>
+
+<p>Perhaps, madam, we observed, you did not, in making your first
+experiments, attend to a number of details which might be thought
+essential to the plan. You did not probably take the proper precautions
+when you sent them into the cold air, or observe what was important for
+them when they returned from it.</p>
+
+<p>&quot;Oh, yes,&quot; she replied, &quot;I took every possible care when they, were
+going out. I always made them wear a very warm great coat, well lined
+with baize, and a fur cape or collar. I always made them wear a
+'comfortable' round their necks, made of soft woollen yarn. And as for
+their feet, they were always protected by socks or over-shoes lined with
+wool or fur, as the weather might be wet or dry.&quot;</p>
+
+<p>Do you believe, madam, they were kept at a proper degree of warmth by
+these means?</p>
+
+<p>&quot;Oh, certainly. Indeed, rather too warm; for they would often be in a
+state of perspiration, they told me, when in the open air; especially if
+they ran, slid, or skated.&quot;</p>
+
+<p>And what was done when they were thus heated?</p>
+
+<p>&quot;Oh, they got cool enough before they reached home.&quot;</p>
+
+<p>And would they receive no injury in passing from this state of
+perspiration to that of chill?</p>
+
+<p>&quot;Not at all; for when this happened, I always made them take a little
+warm brandy, or wine and water, and made them toast their feet well by
+the fire.&quot; [Footnote: This absurd custom is a fruitful source of that
+distressing condition of the hands and feet, in winter, called
+&quot;chilblains.&quot;]</p>
+
+<p>Did they sleep in a cold or warm room?</p>
+
+<p>&quot;In a warm room. A good fire was always made in the stove before they
+went to bed, which kept them quite warm all night.&quot;</p>
+
+<p>Would they never complain of being cold towards morning, when the stove
+had become cold?</p>
+
+<p>&quot;Yes, certainly; but then there were always at hand additional
+bed-clothes, with which they could cover themselves.&quot;</p>
+
+<p>And did they always do it?</p>
+
+<p>&quot;Oh, I suppose so.&quot;</p>
+
+<p>Well, madam, how did you carry your second plan into execution, which
+you say was attended with such happy results?</p>
+
+<p>&quot;I began by not letting them put on their great coats, except when the
+weather was so cold as to require this additional covering, and did not
+permit them to wear a 'comfortable' or fur round their necks. I took
+away their over-shoes, and if their feet chanced to get wet, (for they
+were always provided with good sound shoes,) the shoes were immediately
+changed, if they were at home. If the weather was wet, or unusually
+cold, they were permitted to wear their great coats, but not without.
+If they came home very cold, they were not allowed to approach the fire
+too soon. I gave them no warm, heating drinks, and accustomed them to
+sleep in rooms without fire.&quot;</p>
+
+<p>Who does not recognize, in this second plan for the enjoyment of air and
+exercise, as judicious a plan of physical education, so far as it goes,
+as can well be pointed out? We were so successful as to convince this
+lady, in a very short time, that our own plan of exposing the body was
+precisely the one she had pursued with so much success.</p>
+
+<p>We also inquired of her what plan she pursued with her children, when
+too young to be submitted to the rules just mentioned. She informed us
+that it was the same system throughout, only the details varied as
+circumstances of age, &amp;c. made it necessary. That is, she sent her
+children into the open air at very early periods of their lives,
+provided in summer it was neither too wet nor too warm; in winter, when
+the air was mild, dry and clear&mdash;but always carefully wrapped up, that
+their little extremities might not suffer from cold. She never suffered
+them to sleep in the open air, if it could be avoided; to prevent which,
+as much as possible, she constantly charged the nurse to bring the
+children home, as soon as she found them disposed to sleep, unless it
+was when they were very young, at which time it was impossible to guard
+against it.</p>
+
+<p>And when her children were sufficiently old to walk, she took care to
+prepare them properly for it, whether it might be in warm, cold, or
+moderate weather. She never sent them abroad for pleasure at the risk of
+encountering a storm of any kind; nor permitted them to walk at the
+hazard of getting wet or very muddy feet.</p>
+
+<p>Were the constitutions of your children pretty much the same? we
+demanded of this lady.</p>
+
+<p>&quot;No; one of my boys was extremely feeble, from his very birth.&quot;</p>
+
+<p>Did you treat him precisely as you did the others?</p>
+
+<p>&quot;Yes, as far as regarded principles; that is, I permitted him to bear as
+much of cold, heat or wet as his constitution would endure without pain
+or injury. The degrees, however, were very different from those his
+brothers bore, had they been determined by the measurement of the
+thermometer, but precisely the same in effect, as far as could be
+ascertained by consequences. Thus, if he were exposed to the same
+temperature as his brothers, he experienced no more inconvenience from
+it, when it was very low, than they, because he had additional covering
+to protect him.&quot;</p>
+
+
+
+<br><br><hr style="width: 65%;"><br><br>
+<a name="CHAPTER_XVII."></a><h2>CHAPTER XVII.</h2>
+
+<h3>SOCIETY.</h3>
+
+<blockquote class="small">Duty of mothers in this matter. Children prefer the society of parents.
+Importance of other society. Necessity of society illustrated. Early
+diffidence. Selecting companions for children. Moral effects of society
+on the young. Parents should play with their children.</blockquote>
+<br>
+
+<p>Every mother is unquestionably as much bound to have an eye to the
+society of her child, as to his food, drink or clothing. And if the
+quality, amount and general character of the latter are important, those
+of the former are by no means less so.</p>
+
+<p>It is indeed true that many a child has been happy, in a degree, in the
+society of its mother alone, where the father was seldom seen, and the
+brothers and sisters never. And it is equally true; that a few children
+have so far preferred the society of their parents alone, as to become
+disinclined to other society. But cases of this kind are only as
+exceptions to the general rule; and are probably monstrous formations
+of character. I cannot believe that any child, rightly educated, would
+prefer the society of none but its parents, or even its parents and
+brothers and sisters.</p>
+
+<p>A French author has written a considerable volume on the importance of
+what he calls <i>gaiety</i>, but which he should prefer to call cheerfulness.
+Among the rest, he maintains that it is indispensable to the best
+health. But if so&mdash;and I do not doubt it&mdash;then it ought to be encouraged
+in children, and the earlier the better. Now there is no way to
+encourage cheerfulness in the young so effectually as by indulging them
+with considerable society.</p>
+
+<p>That the thing may be carried to excess, I have no doubt. I have seen
+mothers who permitted their children to play with their mates till they
+became excited, and were thus led to continue their sports, not only
+farther than cheerfulness and health demanded, but until they were
+excessively fatigued, and almost made sick. And I believe that the
+excitement of numbers, in infant and other schools, may be so great as
+to be injurious, rather than salutary. Still I think these are rare
+cases.</p>
+
+<p>Truth usually lies somewhere between extremes. To keep a child,
+especially a boy, always in the nursery, or even in the parlor with his
+mother, is one extreme; and to let him go abroad continually, till his
+home and its smaller circle become insipid, is the other. A child
+properly trained will <i>usually</i> prefer home, and only desire to go
+abroad occasionally. He will rather need urging in the matter than
+require restraint.</p>
+
+<p>But he must, at any rate, be taught to be sociable, not only for the
+salve of cheerfulness and the consequent health, but for the sake of his
+manners, his mind, and his morals.</p>
+
+<p>If it is a matter of indifference, in the formation of human character,
+whether we mix in society or not, then, for anything I can see, an
+improvement might be proposed in the construction of the material
+universe. Instead of forming the planets so large&mdash;and this earth among
+the rest&mdash;each might have been divided into hundreds of millions; and
+every human being might have had a little planet, and an immortality,
+exclusively his own. Such an arrangement would certainly prevent a great
+many evils; and, among the rest, a great deal of quarrelling and
+bloodshed.</p>
+
+<p>But divine wisdom is higher than human wisdom, and one world to hundreds
+of millions of human beings has been made, instead of giving to each
+individual of the universe a little world of his own, in which he might
+have reigned sole monarch, and only wept, with Alexander, because none
+of the other worlds were within his grasp. Where a family is already
+large, other society will be unnecessary for some time; but where it
+consists of a mother only, although her society is always to be
+considered of the <i>first</i> importance, I cannot but think she ought to
+take great pains to introduce her child occasionally to the company of
+other children.</p>
+
+<p>That diffidence, which almost destroys the influence and the happiness
+of many individuals, is often cherished, if not created, by too much
+seclusion. Where there is a natural constitution which predisposes the
+child to timidity and diffidence, the danger is greatly increased; and
+parents should take unwearied pains to guard against it.</p>
+
+<p>It is hardly necessary for me to say, that great care should also be
+used in selecting the companions of children. Their character will be
+greatly influenced for life by their earlier associates. Friendships
+between children are sometimes formed, while playing together, which are
+interrupted only by death. Those parents who are so fond of controlling
+the choice of their sons and daughters in regard to a companion for
+life, at a period when control is generally resisted, would do well to
+take a hint from what has here been suggested. There is no doubt but
+they might often&mdash;very often&mdash;give such a direction to the embryo
+affections of their infants and children, as would terminate only with
+their existence.</p>
+
+<p>It is still less necessary to advert, in a work like this, to the effect
+which much observation and experience shows good society to have on
+purity, both physical and moral. Every one must have observed its
+tendency to form habits of cleanliness, not to say neatness. There may
+be excess, even in this. Young persons, of both sexes, often spend too
+much time in preparing their dress for the reception or the visiting of
+their friends. Still this is only the abuse of a good thing. Nor is it
+less true, though it may be less obvious, that moral purity is more
+likely to be secured where children and youth of both sexes associate a
+great deal, from the earliest infancy. [Footnote: If this principle be
+correct, what is the tendency of our numerous schools, which are
+exclusively for one sex? Must there not be latent evil to counterbalance
+some of the seeming good? For myself, I doubt whether moral character
+can ever be formed in due proportion and harmony, where this separation
+long exists.] There are tremendous cases of declension on record, which
+establish this point beyond the possibility of debate.</p>
+
+<p>To say that the mother&mdash;and indeed both parents&mdash;ought to form a part of
+the playing circle of the youngest children, in order to watch their
+opening dispositions, to check what may be improper, and encourage what
+ought to be encouraged, would be only to repeat what has often been
+recommended by the best writers on education&mdash;but which must be
+repeated, again and again, till it leaves an impression, especially on
+CHRISTIAN parents. It is strange that many regard this matter as they
+do, and appear not only ashamed to be seen sporting with their children,
+but almost ashamed to have their children thus occupied. They might as
+well be ashamed of the gambols of the kitten or the lamb; or of the
+grave mother, as she turns aside occasionally to join in its frolics.
+When will parents be willing to take lessons in education from that
+brute world which they have been so long accustomed to overlook or
+despise?</p>
+
+
+
+<br><br><hr style="width: 65%;"><br><br>
+<a name="CHAPTER_XVIII."></a><h2>CHAPTER XVIII.</h2>
+
+<h3>EMPLOYMENTS.</h3>
+
+<blockquote class="small">Influence of mothers over daughters. Anecdote of Benjamin West. Anecdote
+of a poor mother. Of set lessons and lectures. Daughters under the
+mother's eye. Why young ladies, now-a-days, dislike domestic
+employments. Miserable housewives&mdash;not to be wondered at. Mistake of one
+class of men. Mr. Flint's opinion.</blockquote>
+<br>
+
+<p>One important and never-to-be-forgotten employment of the young is the
+cultivation of their minds; and another, that of their morals. But my
+present purpose is only to speak of those employments denominated
+manual, or physical.</p>
+
+<p>It is obvious, at the first glance, that the influence of the mother, in
+our own country, at least, will be less over boys than over girls. We
+leave it to savages and semi-savages to employ their females, and even
+their mothers, in hard manual labor. Here, in America, what I should say
+on the employment of boys would be more properly addressed to the YOUNG
+FATHER.</p>
+
+<p>There are some exceptions to the general truth contained in the last
+paragraph. Many a mother has&mdash;unconsciously at the time, but with no
+less certainty than if she had done it intentionally&mdash;given a direction
+to the whole current of her son's life; and this, too, at a very early
+period. The mother of Benjamin West, the painter, if she did not give
+the first tendency to his favorite pursuit, while he was yet a mere
+child, at the least greatly confirmed him in it, by the manner of
+expressing her surprise at one of his early performances. &quot;My mother's
+kiss,&quot; on that occasion, said he, &quot;made me a painter.&quot; Nor are facts of
+the same general character by any means uncommon.</p>
+
+<p>I know a poor mother who, in the absence of her husband at his weekly
+or monthly labors, used to detain her eldest boy, then almost an
+infant, from going to bed in the evening till her day's work was
+finished&mdash;because, in her loneliness, she wanted his company&mdash;by telling
+stories of eminent men, and especially of distinguished philanthropists,
+until she had unconsciously kindled in him a philanthropic spirit, which
+will not cease to burn till his death.</p>
+
+<p>But it is in forming the predilections of daughters for their destined
+employments, that mothers are especially influential. Not so much by
+their set lessons or lectures, however, as by the force of continued
+example. No mother who sends her child away to be nursed, and
+subsequently to her return seizes on every possible opportunity to keep
+her out of the way and out of her sight, will be likely to give her any
+choice of employment, or indeed any fondness for employment at all.</p>
+
+<p>Nor is it sufficient that she keep her daughter constantly under her
+eye, with a view to qualify her for the duties of a housewife, if the
+daughter see as plainly as in the light of mid-day, that the mother
+dislikes the employment herself. She must love what she would have her
+daughter love, and even what she would have her understand. Nor is it
+sufficient that she <i>affect</i> a fondness for the employment; her love for
+it must be real. Little girls have keener eyes and better judgments than
+some mothers seem willing to believe or to admit.</p>
+
+<p>Many persons seem greatly surprised that the young ladies of modern days
+have so little fondness for domestic life and domestic duties. How few,
+it is often said, will do their own housework, if they can possibly get
+a train of domestics around them; even though the care and oversight of
+the domestics themselves gear them out more rapidly than bodily labor
+would.</p>
+
+<p>But there is a reason for this hostility to domestic employments. It is
+because mothers, almost universally, consider their occupations as mere
+drudgery, and bring up their children in the same spirit. And what else
+could be expected as the result? It would be an anomaly in the history,
+of human nature, if the female members of families were to grow up in
+love with ordinary domestic avocations, when they have been accustomed
+to see their mothers, and nurses, and elder sisters complaining and
+fretting while engaged in them; and showing by their actions, no less
+than by their words, that they regarded themselves as miserable and
+wretched.</p>
+
+<p>No wonder so many girls, of the present day, make miserable housewives.
+No wonder a factory, a book-bindery, or a shoemaker's shop, is
+considered preferable to the kitchen. No wonder the world degenerates,
+because females, no longer healthfully employed, become pale and sickly,
+spreading gloom and misery all around them, and transmitting the same
+ills which themselves suffer to those who come after them.</p>
+
+<p>It is true, the guilt of this dereliction must not be charged wholly on
+mothers; though they ought, unquestionably, to bear a large share of it.
+Those who have, and ought to have, much influence in society,
+erroneously, and I suppose thoughtlessly, help mothers along in their
+evil ways. If there were a universal combination between certain classes
+of mankind and the whole race of mothers, to ruin, rather than be
+instrumental of reforming mankind, and of saving their deathless souls,
+I hardly know how they could invent a much better, or at least a much
+more certain plan, than that now in operation. So long as those who take
+the lead in society, and govern the fashion in this matter, as others
+govern it in the matter of dress, refuse, as a general rule, to form
+alliances for life, except with those who practically despise house-hold
+concerns&mdash;and so long as our houses are filled with domestics, whose
+object is to aid these spoiled mothers, but whose real effect is to
+complete their ruin, and accelerate the ruin of mankind&mdash;just so long
+will human progress towards perfection be retarded.</p>
+
+<p>If mothers were in love with their occupations, and their daughters knew
+it, then to the influence of a good example they could add many lessons
+of instruction. These might be given in the way of natural, unstudied
+conversation, and thus be not only heard with attention, but sink deep.
+If the world is ever to be reformed, says Mr. Flint, in his Western
+Review, woman, sensible, enlightened, well educated and principled, must
+be the original mover in the great work. Every one who has considered
+well the extent and nature of female influence, will concur in the
+sentiment; and if he have one remaining particle of devotion to the
+Father of spirits, he will send up the most fervent petitions to his
+throne of mercy in behalf of this often depressed or enslaved half of
+the human race, that they may speedily be emancipated, and become as
+conspicuous in human redemption, as they have sometimes been in human
+condemnation.</p>
+
+
+
+<br><br><hr style="width: 65%;"><br><br>
+<a name="CHAPTER_XIX."></a><h2>CHAPTER XIX.</h2>
+
+<h3>EDUCATION OF THE SENSES.</h3>
+
+<blockquote class="small">Improving the senses. Examples of improvement. SEC. 1. Hearing&mdash;how
+injured&mdash;how improved.&mdash;SEC. 2. Seeing&mdash;how injured.&mdash;SEC. 3. Tasting
+and smelling&mdash;how benumbed&mdash;how preserved.&mdash;SEC. 4. Feeling. The blind.
+Hints to parents. Education of both hands.</blockquote>
+<br>
+
+<p>Man is much less useful and happy in this world than he would be, if
+more pains were taken by parents and teachers, as well as by himself, to
+cultivate his senses&mdash;hearing, seeing, feeling; tasting, and
+smelling&mdash;and to preserve their rectitude.</p>
+
+<p>The extent to which the senses can be improved or exalted, can best be
+understood by observing how perfect they become when we are compelled to
+cultivate them. Thus the blind, who are obliged to cultivate hearing,
+feeling, and smelling, often astonish us by the keenness of these
+senses. They will distinguish sounds&mdash;especially voices&mdash;which others
+cannot; and with so much accuracy, as to remember for several years the
+voice of a person in a large company, which they hear but once. They
+will also distinguish small pieces of money, different fabrics and
+qualities of cloth, &amp;c.; and, in walking, often ascertain, by the
+feeling of the air, or by other sensations, when they approach a
+building, or any other considerable body. So the North American Indian,
+whose habits of life seem to require it, can hear the footsteps of an
+approaching enemy at distances which astonish us. So also the deaf and
+dumb are very keen-sighted, and generally make very accurate
+observations. Any reader who is sceptical in regard to the cultivation
+of the senses, would do well to consult the account of Julia Brace, the
+deaf and dumb and blind girl, as published in some of the early volumes
+of the &quot;Annals of Education.&quot;</p>
+
+<p>But it is hardly necessary to resort to the blind, or to savages, or to
+the deaf and dumb, in order to prove man's susceptibility in this
+respect. We may be reminded of the same fact by observing with what
+accuracy the merchant tailor can distinguish, by feeling, the quality of
+his goods; how quick a painter, an engraver, or a printer, will discover
+errors in painting or printing, which wholly escape ordinary readers or
+observers; and how quick the ear of a good musician will discover the
+existence and origin of a discordant sound in his choir.</p>
+
+<p>Now I do not undertake to say or prove, that mankind would be better or
+happier for having their senses all cultivated in the highest possible
+degree; though I am not sure that this would not be the case. But so
+long as a large proportion of our ideas enter our minds through the
+medium of the five senses, it is desirable that something should be done
+to perfect them, instead of overlooking the whole subject. What mothers
+ought to do in this matter, deserves, therefore, a brief consideration.</p>
+<br>
+
+<h4>SEC. 1. <i>Hearing.</i></h4>
+
+<p>The suggestion, in another place, to keep away caps from the child's
+head, if duly attended to, is one means of perfecting, or at least of
+preserving, the sense of hearing. For caps, by the heat they produce to
+a part which cannot safely endure an increase of temperature, greatly
+expose children to catarrhal affections; and many a catarrh has laid the
+foundation for dulness of hearing, if not of actual deafness.</p>
+
+<p>The ears should be kept clean. If washed sufficiently often, and
+syringed once a week with warm milk and water, or with very weak
+soap-suds, gently warmed, the cerumen or ear wax will hardly be found
+accumulated in such masses as to produce deafness. And yet such
+accumulations, with such consequences, are by no means uncommon. It is
+not long since a young man with whom I am acquainted, applied to an
+eminent surgeon of Boston, on account of deafness in one ear, which had
+become quite troublesome, and as it was feared, incurable. Syringing
+with a large and strong syringe disengaged a large mass of cerumen, and
+hearing was immediately restored.</p>
+
+<p>Children should be taught to distinguish sounds with closed eyes, or
+blindfolded. We may strike on various objects, and ask them to tell what
+we struck, &amp;c. This will lead them to <i>observe</i> sounds; and will perfect
+their hearing in a remarkable degree.</p>
+
+<p>There are also advantages to be derived from accustoming a child to a
+great variety of sounds; both as regards their strength and character.
+But this must only be occasional; for if the ear be constantly
+accustomed to sounds of any kind, and more especially those which are
+harsh or loud, the organ of hearing is liable to sustain injury. Music,
+as it is now beginning to be taught to children in our schools, will do
+much, I think, to improve the faculty of hearing.</p>
+<br>
+
+<h4>SEC. 2. <i>Seeing.</i></h4>
+
+<p>The sight, says Addison, is the most perfect of all our senses; and this
+is unquestionably true. But it is more or less perfect, in different
+individuals, according to the early education they have received.
+Sometimes, it is true, we are born near-or dim-sighted; but such cases
+are comparatively rare.</p>
+
+<p>The question is sometimes asked why there are so many persons,
+now-a-days, who lose their sight, become near-sighted, &amp;c. very young.
+It may be difficult to answer this question fully; yet I cannot help
+thinking that the following are some of the causes.</p>
+
+<p>1. The great heat of our apartments, which, together with late hours and
+much lamp light, affects the eyes unpleasantly, is believed to be among
+the more prominent causes of early decay of sight. Formerly, our
+apartments were neither so steadily nor so generally heated; and we rose
+earlier, and consequently went to bed earlier.</p>
+
+<p>2. The fine print of a large proportion of our books, especially our
+school books, has done immense injury. I do not believe that reading
+fine print, occasionally, for a few moments at a time, or reading by a
+very strong or very weak light in the same way, does harm. On the
+contrary, I think it may strengthen and improve the sight. It is the
+long continuance of these things that does the mischief; and the
+mischief thus done is immense. I rejoice that printers and publishers
+are beginning of late to use much larger type than they have done for
+some years past.</p>
+
+<p>3. The early use of spectacles does mischief&mdash;I mean before they are
+needed. After they begin to be needed, there is no advantage in delaying
+to use them, as some do, for fear they shall wear them too soon. This is
+about as wise as the practice of going cold to harden ourselves.</p>
+
+<p>4. Reading when we are fatigued, or ill, or have a very full stomach, is
+another way to injure the sight.</p>
+
+<p>5. Rubbing the eyes with the fingers, or with anything else, does
+inevitable mischief. The Germans have a proverb which says&mdash;&quot;Never touch
+your eye, except with your elbow.&quot; There is much of good sense in it.</p>
+
+<p>In short, there are a thousand ways in which that delicate organ, the
+human eye, may sustain injury; and nearly as many in which it may be
+strengthened, cultivated, and improved. But my limits merely permit me
+to add, that the frequent but gentle application of water to the eye,
+several times a day, at such a temperature as is most agreeable&mdash;but
+cold, when it can be borne&mdash;is one of the best preservatives of sight
+which the world affords.</p>
+
+<p>Connected alike with physical and intellectual education, is the
+practice of measuring by the eye heights, distances, superfices,
+weights, and solids. It is not difficult to train the eye to an accuracy
+in this matter which would astonish the uninstructed.</p>
+<br>
+
+<h4>SEC. 3. <i>Tasting and Smelling.</i></h4>
+
+<p>I do not know that it is worth our while to take pains, by any direct
+methods, to cultivate the organs of taste or smell; but I think it
+proper, at the least, to preserve their original rectitude.</p>
+
+<p>Many, I know, undertake to say, that were it not for our errors in
+regard to food and drink, and were it not, in particular, for the
+multitude of strange mixtures which tend to benumb those two senses, we
+might determine the qualities of food and drink&mdash;whether they are
+favorable or adverse&mdash;by means of taste and smell, like the animals. But
+I do not believe this. The Creator has substituted reason, in us, for
+instinct in the brute animals. It is not necessary that we should
+possess the latter, when the former is so manifestly superior to it; and
+accordingly I do not believe that it is given us, or any of that
+acuteness of sensation which exists in the dog, the tiger, the vulture,
+&amp;c.&mdash;and which so closely resembles it.</p>
+
+<p>There can be no doubt&mdash;no reasonable doubt, certainly&mdash;that the wretched
+customs of modern cookery benumb the senses of taste and smell, more or
+less, and that high-seasoned food, condiments, and stimulating drinks do
+the same; and should for this reason, were it for no other, be
+studiously avoided.</p>
+
+<p>Closely connected with the organ of taste are the TEETH. A volume might
+profitably be written on these&mdash;as on the eye. But I will only say that
+they should be kept perfectly clean, either by rinsing or brushing, or
+both, especially after eating; that they should be permitted to chew all
+our food, instead of merely standing by as silent spectators to the
+passage of that which is mashed, soaked, chopped, &amp;c.; that they should
+not be picked or cleaned with pins, or other equally hard instruments;
+that they should not be used to crack nuts or other hard, indigestible
+substances; and that the stomach, with which they are apt to sympathize
+very strongly, should also be kept in a good and healthy condition.</p>
+<br>
+
+<h4>SEC. 4. <i>Feeling.</i></h4>
+
+<p>Corpulence and slovenliness are generally among the more prolific
+sources of a want of acuteness in feeling. The first is a disease, and
+may be avoided by a proper diet, and by active mental and bodily
+employment. Slovenliness we may of course avoid, whenever there is a
+wish to do so, and an abundance of water.</p>
+
+<p>But the sense of feeling, or especially that accumulation of it which we
+call TOUCH, and which seems to be specially located in the balls of the
+fingers and on the palm of the hand, is susceptible of a degree of
+improvement far beyond what would be the natural result of cleanliness,
+and freedom from plethora or corpulence.</p>
+
+<p>I have already alluded, in my general remarks at the head of this
+chapter, to the acuteness of this sense in the blind, as well as in the
+dealer in cloths. I might add many more illustrations, but a single one,
+in relation to the blind, which was accidentally omitted in that place,
+will be sufficient.</p>
+
+<p>The blind at the Institution in this city, as well as in other similar
+institutions, are now taught to read and write with considerable
+facility. But how? Most of my readers may have heard how they read, but
+I will describe the process as well as I can. A description of their
+method of writing is more difficult.</p>
+
+<p>The letters are formed by pressing the paper, while quite moist, upon
+rather large type, which raises a ridge in the line of every letter, and
+which remains prominent after the paper is dry. In order to read, the
+pupil has to feel out these ridges. A circular ridge on the paper he is
+told is O; a perpendicular one, I; a crooked one, S; &amp;c. They read music
+and arithmetic printed in a similar manner. A few months of practice, in
+this way, will enable an ingenious youth to read with considerable ease
+and despatch.</p>
+
+<p>Now if nothing is wanting but a little training to render the touch so
+accurate, would it not be useful to train every child to judge
+frequently of the properties of bodies by this sense? And cannot every
+one recall to his mind a thousand situations in which a greater accuracy
+of this sense would have saved him much inconvenience, as well as
+afforded him no little pleasure?</p>
+
+<p>I shall conclude this section with a few remarks on the HAND. The custom
+of neglecting, or almost neglecting the left hand, though nearly
+universal, in this country at least, appears to me to be
+wrong&mdash;decidedly so. For although more blood may be sent to the right
+arm than to the left, as physiologists say, yet the difference is not as
+great at birth as it is afterward; so that education either weakens the
+one or strengthens the other.</p>
+
+<p>Besides this, we occasionally find a person who is left-handed, as it is
+called; that is, his left hand and arm are as much larger and stronger
+than the right, as the right is usually stronger than the left. How is
+this? Do we find a corresponding change in the internal structure? But
+suppose it could be ascertained that such a change did exist, which I
+believe has never been done, the question would still arise whether the
+difference was the same at birth, or whether the more frequent use of
+the left hand has not, in part, produced it.</p>
+
+<p>I do not mean, here, to intimate that a more frequent use of the left
+hand than the right would make new blood-vessels grow where there were
+none before. But it would certainly do one thing; it would make the same
+vessels carry more blood than they did before, which is, in effect,
+nearly the same thing:&mdash;for the more blood in the limb, as a general
+rule, the more strength&mdash;provided the limb is in due health and
+exercise.</p>
+
+<p>The inference which I wish the reader to make from all this is, that
+since the left hand and arm, by due cultivation, and without essential
+difference or change of structure to begin with, can occasionally be
+made stronger than the right, it is fair to conclude that it may, if
+found desirable, be always rendered more nearly equal to it than, in
+adult years, we usually find it.</p>
+
+<p>The question is now fairly before us&mdash;Is such a result desirable? I
+maintain that it is; and shall endeavor to show my reasons.</p>
+
+<p>How often is one hand injured by an accident, or rendered nearly useless
+by disease? But if it should be the right, how helpless it makes us! The
+man who is accustomed to shave himself, must now resort to a barber. If
+he is a barber himself, or almost any other mechanic, his business must
+be discontinued. Or if he is a clerk, he cannot use his left hand, and
+must consequently lose his time. Or if amputation chances to be
+performed on a favorite arm, how entirely useless to society we are,
+till we have learned to use the other! It not only takes up a great deal
+of valuable time to acquire a facility of using it, but if we are
+already arrived at maturity, we can never use it so well as the other,
+during our whole lives; because it is too late in life to increase its
+size and strength much by constant exercise. Whereas in youth, it might
+have been done easily.</p>
+
+<p>Is it not then important&mdash;for these and many more reasons&mdash;to teach a
+child to use with nearly equal readiness, both of his hands? But if so,
+who can do it better than the mother? And when can it be better done
+than in the earliest infancy? When is the time which would be devoted to
+it worth less than at this period?</p>
+
+
+
+<br><br><hr style="width: 65%;"><br><br>
+<a name="CHAPTER_XX."></a><h2>CHAPTER XX.</h2>
+
+<h3>ABUSES.</h3>
+
+<blockquote class="small">Bad seats for children at table and elsewhere. Why children hate Sunday.
+Seats at Sabbath school&mdash;at church&mdash;at district schools. Suspending
+children between the heavens and the earth. Cushions to sit on. Seats
+with backs. Children in factories. Evils produced. Bodily punishment.
+Striking the heads of children very injurious. Beating across the middle
+of the body. Anecdote of a teacher. Concluding advice to mothers.</blockquote>
+<br>
+
+<p>It is difficult to determine, in regard to many things which concern the
+management of the young, whether they belong most properly to moral or
+physical education; so close is the connection between the two, and so
+decidedly does everything, or nearly everything which relates to the
+management of the body, have a bearing upon the formation of moral
+character. This work might be extended very much farther, did it comport
+with my original plan. But I hasten to close the volume, with a few
+thoughts on certain abuses of the body, which prevail to a greater or
+less extent in families and schools; and to which I have not adverted
+elsewhere.</p>
+
+<p>The seats of children are usually bad, both at table and elsewhere. It
+seems not enough that we condemn them to the use of knives, forks,
+spoons, &amp;c., of the same size with those of adults. We go farther; and
+give them chairs of the same height and proportion with our own. There
+are a few exceptions to the truth of this remark. Here and there we see
+a child's chair, it is true&mdash;but not often.</p>
+
+<p>But how unreasonable is it to seat a child in a chair so high that his
+feet cannot reach the floor; and so constructed that there is no outer
+place on which the feet can rest. What adult would be willing to sit in
+so painful a posture, with his legs dangling? No wonder children dislike
+to sit much, in such circumstances. And it is a great blessing to both
+parent and child that they do. No wonder children hate the Sabbath,
+especially in those families where they are compelled to keep the day
+holy by sitting motionless! Sabbath schools, though they bring with them
+some evil along with a great deal of good, are a relief to the young in
+this particular&mdash;especially if their seats are more comfortable
+elsewhere than at home. They consider it much more tolerable to spend
+the morning and intermission of the day in going and returning from
+Sabbath school, than in constant and close confinement. They prefer
+variety, and the occasional light and air of heaven, to monotony and
+seclusion and silence.</p>
+
+<p>It happens, however, that the seats at the Sabbath school and at church,
+are not always what they should be; nor, so far as church is concerned,
+do I see that this evil can be wholly avoided. Children usually sit with
+their parents, in the sanctuary&mdash;and they ought to do so: and the height
+of the seats cannot, of course, accommodate both. If there is a building
+erected solely for the use of the Sabbath school, the seats may be
+constructed accordingly, without seriously incommoding anybody; but in
+the church, I do not see, as I have once before observed, how the evil
+can be remedied.</p>
+
+<p>The greatest trouble in regard to seats, however, is at the day school;
+especially in our district or common schools. There, it is usual for
+children to be confined six hours a day&mdash;and sometimes two in
+succession&mdash;to hard, narrow, plank seats, a large proportion of which
+are without backs, and raised so high that the feet of most of the
+pupils cannot possibly touch the floor. There, &quot;suspended,&quot; as I have
+said in another work, [Footnote: See a &quot;Prize Essay,&quot; on School Houses,
+page 7.] &quot;between the heavens and the earth, they are compelled to
+remain motionless for an hour or an hour and a half together.&quot;</p>
+
+<p>I have also shown, in the same essay, that in regard to the desks, and
+indeed many other things which pertain to, or are connected with the
+school, very little pains is taken to provide for the physical welfare
+or even comfort of the pupils; and that a thorough reform on the subject
+appears to be indispensable.</p>
+
+<p>When I speak of hard plank seats, let me not be understood as hinting at
+the necessity of cushions. When I wrote the essay above mentioned, I did
+indeed believe that they were desirable. But I am now opposed to their
+use, either by children or adults, even where a laborious employment
+would seem to demand a long confinement to this awkward and unnatural
+position. If our seats are cushioned, we shall sit too easily. I believe
+that our health requires a hard seat; because its very hardness inclines
+us to change, frequently, our position.</p>
+
+<p>But if we must sit, be it ever so short a time, our seats should always
+have backs; and those which are designed for children, should not be so
+high as to render them uncomfortable. Nor should the backs of seats be
+so high as they usually are, either for children or adults. They should
+never come much higher than the middle of the body. If they reach the
+shoulders, they either favor a crouching forward, or interfere with the
+free action of the lungs.</p>
+
+<p>This might be deemed a proper place for saying something on the position
+of children in manufactories. But here a world of abuse opens upon my
+view, the full development of which demands a large volume. How many
+crooked spines, emaciated bodies, decaying lungs, as well as scrofulas,
+fevers, and consumptions, are either induced or accelerated by these
+unnatural employments! I mean they are unnatural for the <i>young</i>. As to
+employing adults in them, I have nothing at present to say. But when I
+think of the cruel custom of placing children in these places, whose
+bodies&mdash;and were this the place, I might add, <i>minds</i>&mdash;are immature, and
+especially girls, I am compelled, by the voice of conscience, and, as I
+trust, by a regard to those laws which God has established in our
+physical frames, but which are yet so strangely violated, to protest
+against it. Better that no factories should exist, than that children
+should be ruined in them as they now are. Better by far that we should
+return, were it possible, to the primitive habits of New England&mdash;to
+those by-gone days when mothers and daughters made the wearing apparel
+of themselves and their families&mdash;when, if there was less of
+intellectual cultivation, and less money expended for luxuries and
+extravagances, there was much more of health and happiness.</p>
+
+<p>There is one more species of abuse to which, in closing, I wish to
+direct maternal attention. I allude to injudicious modes of inflicting
+corporal punishment.</p>
+
+<p>Let me not be understood to appear, in this place, as the advocate of
+bodily punishments of any kind; for if they are even admissible under
+some circumstances, I am fully convinced that in the way in which they
+are commonly administered, they do much more harm than good.</p>
+
+<p>But leaving the question of their utility, in the abstract, wholly
+untouched, and taking it for granted, for the present, that they are&mdash;as
+is undoubtedly the fact&mdash;sometimes employed, and will continue to be so
+for a great while to come, I proceed to speak of their more flagrant
+abuses.</p>
+
+<p>Among these, none are more reprehensible than blows of any kind on the
+head. Even the rod is objectionable for this purpose, since it exposes
+the eyes. But the hand&mdash;in boxing the ears or striking in any way&mdash;is
+more so. The bones of the head, in young children, are not yet firmly
+knit together, and these concussions may injure the tender brain. I
+know of whole families, whose mental faculties are dull, as the
+consequence&mdash;I believe&mdash;of a perpetual boxing and striking of the head.
+Some individuals are made almost idiots, in this very manner.&mdash;But the
+worst is not yet told. Many teachers are in the habit of striking their
+pupils' heads with thick heavy books; and with wooden rules. I have seen
+one of the latter, of considerable size and thickness, broken in two
+across the head of a very small boy; and this, too&mdash;such is the public
+mind&mdash;in the presence of a mother who was paying a visit to the school.
+I have seen parents and masters strike the heads of their children with
+pieces of wood, of much larger size;&mdash;in one instance with a common
+sized tailor's press-board; in another with the heavy end of a wooden
+whip-handle, about an inch in diameter.</p>
+
+<p>Children are sometimes severely beaten across the middle of the
+body&mdash;the region where lie the vital organs&mdash;the lungs, the heart, the
+liver, &amp;c. They are sometimes beaten too, across the joints, or in any
+place that the excited, perhaps passionate teacher or parent can reach.
+Rules and books are thrown with violence at pupils in school. There is a
+story in the &quot;Annals of Education,&quot; Vol. IV. at page 28, of a teacher
+who threw a rule at a little boy, six years old, which struck him with
+great force, within an inch of one of his eyes. Had it struck a little
+nearer to his nose, it would, in all probability, have destroyed his
+left eye.</p>
+
+<br><hr style="width: 45%;"><br>
+
+<p>But without extending these remarks any farther, every intelligent
+mother who reads what I have already written, will see, as I trust, the
+necessity of properly informing herself on the great subject of physical
+education; and of being better prepared than she has hitherto been for
+acquitting herself, with satisfaction, of those high and sacred
+responsibilities which, in the wise arrangements of Nature and
+Providence, devolve upon her.</p>
+<br>
+
+<div>*** END OF THE PROJECT GUTENBERG EBOOK 10482 ***</div>
+</body>
+</html>
diff --git a/LICENSE.txt b/LICENSE.txt
new file mode 100644
index 0000000..6312041
--- /dev/null
+++ b/LICENSE.txt
@@ -0,0 +1,11 @@
+This eBook, including all associated images, markup, improvements,
+metadata, and any other content or labor, has been confirmed to be
+in the PUBLIC DOMAIN IN THE UNITED STATES.
+
+Procedures for determining public domain status are described in
+the "Copyright How-To" at https://www.gutenberg.org.
+
+No investigation has been made concerning possible copyrights in
+jurisdictions other than the United States. Anyone seeking to utilize
+this eBook outside of the United States should confirm copyright
+status under the laws that apply to them.
diff --git a/README.md b/README.md
new file mode 100644
index 0000000..505fb8e
--- /dev/null
+++ b/README.md
@@ -0,0 +1,2 @@
+Project Gutenberg (https://www.gutenberg.org) public repository for
+eBook #10482 (https://www.gutenberg.org/ebooks/10482)
diff --git a/old/10482-8.txt b/old/10482-8.txt
new file mode 100644
index 0000000..01634fe
--- /dev/null
+++ b/old/10482-8.txt
@@ -0,0 +1,8028 @@
+The Project Gutenberg EBook of The Young Mother, by William A. Alcott
+
+This eBook is for the use of anyone anywhere at no cost and with
+almost no restrictions whatsoever.  You may copy it, give it away or
+re-use it under the terms of the Project Gutenberg License included
+with this eBook or online at www.gutenberg.org
+
+
+Title: The Young Mother
+       Management of Children in Regard to Health
+
+Author: William A. Alcott
+
+Release Date: December 17, 2003 [EBook #10482]
+
+Language: English
+
+Character set encoding: ISO-8859-1
+
+*** START OF THIS PROJECT GUTENBERG EBOOK THE YOUNG MOTHER ***
+
+
+
+
+Produced by Stan Goodman and PG Distributed Proofreaders
+
+
+
+
+THE YOUNG MOTHER, OR
+
+MANAGEMENT OF CHILDREN IN REGARD TO HEALTH.
+
+BY WM. A. ALCOTT
+
+
+1836
+
+
+
+ADVERTISEMENT TO THE THIRD EDITION.
+
+The present edition has been much enlarged. The author has added a
+section on the conduct and management of the mother herself, besides
+several other important amendments and additions. The whole has also
+been carefully revised, and we cannot but indulge the hope that no
+popular work of the kind will be found more perfect, or more worthy of
+the public confidence.
+
+
+
+
+CONTENTS.
+
+
+CHAPTER I. THE NURSERY.
+
+General remarks. Importance of a Nursery--generally overlooked. Its
+walls--ceiling--windows--chimney. Two apartments. Sliding partition.
+Reasons for this arrangement. Objections to carpets. Furniture, &c.
+Feather beds. Holes or crevices. Currents of air. Cats and dogs.
+"Sucking the child's breath." Brilliant objects. Squinting. Causes of
+blindness.
+
+
+CHAPTER II. TEMPERATURE.
+
+General principle--"Keep cool." Our own sensations not always to be
+trusted. Thermometer. Why infants require more external heat than
+adults. Means of warmth. Air heated in other apartments. Clothes taking
+fire. Stove--railing around it. Excess of heat--its dangers.
+
+
+CHAPTER III. VENTILATION.
+
+General ignorance of the constitution of the atmosphere. The subject
+briefly explained. Oxygen gas. Nitrogen. Carbonic acid. Fires, candles,
+and breathing dependent on oxygen. Danger from carbonic acid. How it
+destroys people. Impurity of the air arising from lamps and candles.
+Other sources of impurity. Experiment of putting the candle under the
+bed-clothes. Covering the heads of infants while sleeping--its dangers.
+Proportions of oxygen and nitrogen in pure and impure air. No wonder
+children become sickly. Particular means of ventilating rooms. Caution
+in regard to lamps. Washing, ironing, cooking, &c., in a nursery. Their
+evil tendency. Fumigation--camphor, vinegar.
+
+
+CHAPTER IV. THE CHILD'S DRESS.
+
+General principles--1. To cover us; 2. To defend us from cold; 3. from
+injury.
+
+SEC. 1. _Swathing the Body._
+
+Buffon's remarks. Transforming children into mummies. Use of a belly-band.
+Evils produced by having it too tight. Cripples sometimes made. Absurdity
+of confining the arms. Infants should be made happy.
+
+SEC. 2. _Form of the Dress._
+
+Curious suggestion of a London writer. Advantages of his plan. Killing
+with kindness. Dr. Buchan's opinion. Conformity to fashion. Tight-lacing
+the chest. Its effects--dangerous. Physiology of the chest. Its motions.
+An attempt to make the subject intelligible. Serious mistakes of some
+writers. Appeal to facts. Color of females. Their breathing. Their
+diseases. Customs of Tunis. Our own customs little less ridiculous.
+
+SEC. 3. _Material._
+
+Flannel in cold weather. Its use--1. As a kind
+of flesh brush; 2. As a protection against taking cold; 3. As means of
+equalizing the temperature. Clothing should be kept clean--often
+changed--color--lightness--softness. Cotton apt to take fire. Silk
+expensive. Linen not warm enough. Flannel under-clothes.
+
+SEC. 4. _Quantity._
+
+The power of habit, in this respect. Opinion that no clothing is
+necessary. Anecdote of Alexander and the Scythian. Argument from
+analogy. Begin right, in early life. We generally use too much
+clothing. Should clothing be often varied?--objections to it. Avoid
+dampness.
+
+SEC. 5. _Caps._
+
+How caps produce disease. Nature's head-dress. Miserable apology for
+caps. What diseases are avoided by going with the head bare. Judicious
+remarks of a foreign writer. Covering the "open of the head." Wetting
+the head with spirits.
+
+SEC. 6. _Hats and Bonnets._
+
+Hats usually too warm. No covering needed in the house; and but little
+in the sun or rain. Is it dangerous to go with the head always bare?
+
+SEC. 7. _Covering for the Feet._
+
+The feet should be well covered. Why. Rule of medical men. No garters.
+Objections to covering the feet considered. Shoes useful. Not too thick.
+Thick soles. Mr. Locke's opinion.
+
+SEC. 8. _Pins._
+
+These ought not to be used. Why. Substitutes. Practice of Dr. Dewees.
+Needles--their danger. Shocking anecdote.
+
+SEC. 9. _Remaining Wet._
+
+Changing wet clothing. Monstrous error--its evils. Clean as well as dry.
+A lame excuse for negligence. No excuse sufficient but poverty.
+
+SEC. 10. _Remarks on the Dress of Boys._
+
+Every restraint of body or limb injurious. Tight jackets. Stiff stocks
+and thick cravats. Boots. Evils of having them too tight. A painful
+sight.
+
+SEC. 11. _On the Dress of Girls._
+
+Clothing should be loose for girls or boys. Girls to be kept warmer than
+boys. Few girls comfortable, at home or abroad. Going out of warm rooms
+into the night air. How it promotes disease.
+
+
+CHAPTER V. CLEANLINESS.
+
+Physiology of the human skin. Of checking perspiration. Diseases thus
+produced. "Dirt" not "healthy." How the mistake originated. "Smell of
+the earth." Effect of uncleanliness on the morals. Filthiness produces
+bowel complaints. Changing dress for the sake of cleanliness.
+
+
+CHAPTER VI. BATHING.
+
+Practice of savage nations. Rather dangerous. Mistake of Rousseau.
+Plunging into cold water at birth may produce immediate death. Hundreds
+injured where one is benefited. Spirits added to the water. First
+washings of the child--should be thorough. Rules in regard to the
+temperature of both the water and the air. Washing an introduction to
+bathing. Hour for bathing changes with age. Temperature of the water.
+Size of a bathing vessel. Unreasonable fears of the warm bath. How they
+arose. A list of common whims. Apology for opposing cold baths. Dr
+Dewees' eight objections to them. Does cold water harden? Cold bath
+sometimes useful under the care of a skilful physician. Its danger in other
+cases. Rules for using the cold bath, if used at all. Securing a glow after
+it. General management. Proper hour. Coming out of the bath. Dressing.
+Singing. Bathing after a meal. Local bathing. Tea-spoonful of water in the
+mouth. Its use. The shower bath. Vapor bath. Medicated bath. Sponging.
+Conveniences for bathing indispensable to every family. General neglect
+of bathing. Attention of the Romans to this subject. We treat domestic
+animals better than children.
+
+
+CHAPTER VII. FOOD.
+
+SEC. 1. _General Principles._
+
+The mother's milk the only appropriate food of infants. Unreasonableness
+of some mothers. The tendency to ape foreign fashions. Nursing does not
+weaken the mother.
+
+SEC. 2. _Conduct of the Mother._
+
+Much depends on the mother. Opinions of medical societies. Mothers
+sometimes make children drunkards. The general fondness for excitements.
+Hints to those whom it concerns. Caution to mothers. Opinions of Dr.
+Dewees. Slavery of mothers to strong drink and exciting food. Opinions
+of the Charleston Board of Health.
+
+SEC. 3. _Nursing, how often._
+
+Children should never be nursed to quiet them. Stomach must have time
+for rest. Regular seasons for nursing. Once in three hours. Difference
+of constitution. Indulgence does not strengthen. Feeble children require
+the strictest management. Nothing should be given between meals.
+
+SEC. 4. _Quantity of Food._
+
+Errors. Repetition of aliment. Variety. Children over-fed. Appetite not
+a safe guide. Training to gluttony. Illustrations of the principle.
+Mankind eat twice as much as is necessary.
+
+SEC. 5. _How long should Milk be the only Food?_
+
+First change in diet. Objections of mothers. Choice bits. Ignorance of
+the nature of digestion. What digestion is. Food which the author of
+nature assigned.
+
+SEC. 6. _On Feeding before Teething._
+
+When feeding before teething is necessary. Diet of mothers. Substitute
+for the mother's milk. How prepared. Variety not necessary to the
+infant. Milk best from the same cow. Vessels in which it is used should
+be clean. Sweet milk not heated too much. Not frozen. Disgusting
+practices. Pure water. If not pure, boil it. Best of sugar. Is sugar
+injurious? When the state of the mother's health forbids nursing. Use of
+sucking-bottles. Feeding should in all cases be slow. Jolting children
+after eating. Tossing. Sucking-bottle as a plaything. Evils of using it
+as such. Dirty vessels. Poisonous ones. Character of nurses. Nursing at
+both breasts. Age of the nurse. Parents should have the oversight, even
+of a nurse.
+
+SEC. 7. _From Teething to Weaning._
+
+Proper age for weaning. Cullen's opinion. Proper season of the year.
+When the teeth have fairly protruded. First food given. New forms of
+food. Animal broth.
+
+SEC. 8. _During the Process of Weaning._
+
+The spring the best time for weaning. Should not be too sudden. The
+process--how managed. Exciting an aversion to the breast. What solid
+food should first be given. Buchan's opinion. Health of the mother. She
+should--if possible--avoid medicine.
+
+SEC. 9. _Food subsequently to Weaning._
+
+Views of Dr. Cadogan. Half the children that come into the world go out
+of it before they are good for anything. Why? Owing chiefly to errors in
+nursing, feeding, and clothing. Simplicity of children's food. Picture
+of a modern table. Every dish tortured till it is spoiled. Plain, simple
+food, generally despised. How bread is now regarded. How it ought to be.
+Mr. Locke's opinion in favor of bread for young children, and against
+the use of animal food. Does not differ materially from that of most
+medical writers. Vegetable food generally preferred to animal. What is
+true of youth, in this respect, is true of every age, with slight
+exceptions. Who require most food. Mere bread and water not best. Bread
+the staple article of diet. Best kind of bread. Objections to it. How
+groundless they are. Fondness, for hot, new bread not natural. Fondness
+of change. What it indicates. How it is caused. Train up a child in the
+way he should go. We can like what food we please. Second best kind of
+bread. Other kinds. Plain puddings. Indian cakes. Salt may be used, in
+moderate quantity, but no other condiments. Of butter, cheese, milk, &c.
+Potatoes, turnips, onions, beets, and other roots. Beans, peas, and
+asparagus. No fat or gravies should be used.
+
+SEC. 10. _Remarks on Fruit._
+
+Diversity of opinion. The cholera. Fruits useful. Seven plain rules in
+regard to them. Other rules. A mistake corrected. Fruit before
+breakfast. Four arguments in its favor. Particular fruits. Apples. Why
+fruits brought to market are generally unfit to be eaten. Are good, ripe
+fruits difficult of digestion? Cooking the apple? A man who lives
+entirely on apples. Cutting down orchards. Pears, peaches, melons,
+grapes. Mixing improper substances with summer fruits.
+
+SEC. 11. _Confectionary._
+
+Confectionary sometimes poisonous. Case in New York. All, or nearly
+all confectionaries injurious. Physical evils attending their use.
+Intellectual evils. Moral evils. The last most to be dreaded. Slaves
+to confectionary are on the road to gluttony, drunkenness, or
+debauchery--perhaps all three.
+
+SEC. 12. _Pastry._
+
+Dr. Paris's opinion of pastry. Various forms of it. Hot flour bread a
+species of it. Produces, among other evils, eruptions on the face.
+Appeal to mothers.
+
+SEC. 13. _Crude, or Raw Substances._
+
+Salads, herbs, &c.--raw--cooked. Nuts, spices, mustard, horseradish,
+onions, cucumbers, pickles, &c. None of these should be used, except as
+medicine.
+
+
+CHAPTER VIII. DRINKS.
+
+Infants need little drink. Adults, even, generally drink to cool
+themselves. Simple water the best drink. Opinions of Dr. Oliver and Dr.
+Dewees. Animal food increases thirst. Only one real drink in the world.
+The true object of all drink. Tea, coffee, chocolate, beer, &c. Milk
+and water, molasses and water, &c. Cider, wine, and ardent spirits. Bad
+food and drink the most prolific sources of disease. Children naturally
+prefer water. Danger of hot drinks. Cold drinks. Mischiefs they produce.
+Caution to mothers. Extracts. Drinking cold water, while hot.
+
+
+CHAPTER IX. GIVING MEDICINE.
+
+"Prevention" better than "cure." Nine in ten infantile diseases caused
+by errors in diet and drink. Signs of failing health. Causes of a bad
+breath. Flesh eaters. Gormandizers. General rule for preventing disease.
+When to call a physician.
+
+
+CHAPTER X. EXERCISE.
+
+SEC. 1. _Rocking in the Cradle._
+
+Objections to the use of cradles. Under what circumstances they are
+least objectionable.
+
+SEC. 2. _Carrying in the Arms._
+
+Carrying in the arms a suitable exercise for the first two months of
+life. Danger of too early sitting up. Improper position in the arms.
+Mothers must see to this themselves. Motion in the arms should be
+gentle. No tossing, running, or jumping. Infants should not always be
+carried on the same arm.
+
+SEC. 3. _Creeping._
+
+Creeping useful to health. Why. Go-carts and leading strings prohibited.
+The longer children creep, the better. Their progress in learning to
+stand. Let it be slow and natural. Let it be, as much as possible, by
+their own voluntary efforts.
+
+SEC. 4. _Walking._
+
+Walking in the nursery. Walking abroad. Hoisting children into carriages.
+Walks should not become fatiguing.
+
+SEC. 5. _Riding in Carriages._
+
+Carriages useful before children can walk. Their construction. Should be
+drawn steadily. Position of the child in them: Falling asleep. How long
+this exercise should be continued.
+
+SEC. 6 _Riding on Horseback._
+
+Never safe for infants. Riding schools. Objections to riding on
+horseback, while very young. Tends to cruelty and tyranny.
+
+
+CHAPTER XI. AMUSEMENTS.
+
+Universal need of amusements. Why so necessary. Error of schools. Error
+of families. Infant schools, as often conducted, particularly injurious.
+Lessons, or tasks, should be short. Mistakes of some manual labor
+schools. Of particular amusements in the nursery. With small wooden
+cubes--pictures--shuttlecock--the rocking horse--tops and
+marbles--backgammon--checkers--morrice--dice--nine-pins--skipping the
+rope--trundling the hoop--playing at ball--kites--skating and
+swimming--dissected maps--black boards--elements of letters--dissected
+pictures.
+
+
+CHAPTER XII. CRYING.
+
+Its importance. Danger of repressing a tendency to cry. Anecdote from
+Dr. Rush. Physiology of crying. Folly of attempting wholly to suppress
+it.
+
+
+CHAPTER XIII. LAUGHING.
+
+"Laugh and be fat." Laughing is healthy. A common error. Monastic
+notions yet too prevalent on this subject.
+
+
+CHAPTER XIV. SLEEP.
+
+General remarks. A prevalent mistake. A hint to fathers. Few Catos.
+Everything left to mothers.
+
+SEC. 1. _Hour for Repose._
+
+Night the season of repose, generally. Infants require all hours.
+Sleeping in dark rooms. Excess of caution. Habit of sleeping amid noise.
+
+SEC. 2. _Place._
+
+Where the infant should sleep. Why alone. Poisoning by impure air.
+Illustration. Proofs. Friedlander. Dr. Dewees. Destruction of children
+by mothers. Anecdote. Moral reasons for having children sleep alone.
+Sleeping with the aged. Sleeping with cats and dogs.
+
+SEC. 3 _Purity of the Air._
+
+Nurseries. Windows open during the night. Lowering them from the top.
+Habit of Dr. Gregory. Going abroad in the open air.
+
+SEC. 4. _The Bed._
+
+No feathers should be used. They are too warm. Their effluvia
+oppressive. Other objections to their use. Mattresses. Air beds. Beds of
+cut straw. Soft beds. Testimony of physicians. The pillow. Dampness.
+Curtains. Warming the bed. Beds recently occupied by the sick.
+
+SEC. 5. _The Covering._
+
+Light covering. Mistakes of some mothers. Covering the head with bed
+clothes.
+
+SEC. 6. _Night Dresses._
+
+As little dress during sleep as possible. No caps. No stockings. Loose
+night shirt. No tight articles of nightdress. Frequent exchanging of
+clothes.
+
+SEC. 7. _Posture of the Body._
+
+Sleeping on the back--on the sides. Position of the head. The infant's
+bedstead. Sir Charles Bell. Darkening the room.
+
+SEC. 8. _State of the Mind._
+
+Mental quiet favorable to sleep. Crying to sleep. A good father. All
+anxiety should be avoided.
+
+SEC. 9. _Quality of Sleep._
+
+Soundness of our sleep. Nightmare. How produced. Late reading. Late
+suppers. Influence of religion on sleep. Different opinions about sleep.
+Truth midway between extremes. Effect of silence and darkness on our
+sleep. Of sleep before midnight. Light unfavorable to sleep.
+
+SEC. 10. _Quantity._
+
+Infants need to sleep nearly the whole time. Number of hours required
+for sleep. Opinions of eminent men. The author's own opinion. Statements
+of Macnish. Estimates on the loss of time by over-sleeping. Hint to
+young mothers.
+
+
+CHAPTER XV. EARLY RISING.
+
+All children naturally early risers. Evils of sitting up late at night.
+Excitements in the evening. The morning, by its beauties, invites us
+abroad. Example of parents. Forbidding children to rise early. Keeping
+them out of the way. Burning them up. "Lecturing" them. What is an early
+hour?
+
+
+CHAPTER XVI. HARDENING THE CONSTITUTION.
+
+Mistakes about hardening children. Their clothing. Much cold enfeebles.
+The Scotch Highlanders. The two extremes equally fatal--over-tenderness
+and neglect. An interesting anecdote from Dr. Dewees.
+
+
+CHAPTER XVII. SOCIETY.
+
+Duty of mothers in this matter. Children prefer the society of parents.
+Importance of other society. Necessity of society. Early diffidence.
+Selecting companions. Moral effects of society on the young. Parents
+should play with their children.
+
+
+CHAPTER XVIII. EMPLOYMENTS.
+
+Influence of mothers over daughters. Anecdote of Benjamin West. Anecdote
+of a poor mother. Of set lessons and lectures. Daughters under the
+mother's eye. Disliking domestic employments. Miserable housewives--not
+to be wondered at. Mistake of one class of men. Mr. Flint's opinion.
+
+
+CHAPTER XIX. EDUCATION OF THE SENSES.
+
+Extent to which the senses can be improved. Case of the blind. The
+Indians. Julia Brace. Tailors, painters, &c.
+
+SEC. 1. _Hearing._
+
+Injury done by caps. Syringing the ears. Anecdote of deafness from
+neglect. Means of improving the hearing.
+
+SEC. 2. _Seeing._
+
+Importance of seeing. Near-sighted people--why so common. Heat of our
+rooms. Very fine print. Spectacles. Reading when tired. Rubbing the
+eyes. Cold water to the eyes.
+
+SEC. 3. _Tasting and Smelling._
+
+Benumbing the senses. How this has often been done. The teeth. How to
+preserve them.
+
+SEC. 4. _Feeling._
+
+Corpulence and slovenliness. Sense of touch. The blind--how taught to
+read. Hint to parents. The hand. Neglecting the left hand. Physiology of
+the hand and arm. Evils of being able to use but one hand. Both should
+be educated.
+
+
+CHAPTER XX. ABUSES.
+
+Bad seats for children at table and elsewhere. Why children hate Sunday.
+Seats at Sabbath school--at church--at district schools. Suspending
+children between the heavens and the earth. Cushions to sit on. Seats
+with backs. Children in factories. Evils produced. Bodily punishment.
+Striking the heads of children very injurious. Beating across the middle
+of the body. Anecdote of a teacher. Concluding advice to mothers.
+
+
+       *       *       *       *       *
+
+
+PREFACE.
+
+There is a prejudice abroad, to some extent, against agitating the
+questions--"What shall we eat? What shall we drink? and Wherewithal
+shall we be clothed?"--not so much because the Scriptures have charged
+us not to be over "anxious" on the subject, as because those who pay the
+least attention to what they eat and drink, are supposed to be, after
+all, the most healthy.
+
+It is not difficult to ascertain how this opinion originated. There are
+a few individuals who are perpetually thinking and talking on this
+subject, and who would fain comply with appropriate rules, if they knew
+what they were, and if a certain definite course, pursued a few days
+only, would change their whole condition, and completely restore a
+shattered or ruined constitution. But their ignorance of the laws which
+govern the human frame, both in sickness and in health, and their
+indisposition to pursue any proposed plan for their improvement long
+enough to receive much permanent benefit from it, keep them,
+notwithstanding all they say or do, always deteriorating.
+
+Then, on the other hand, there are a few who, in consequence of
+possessing by nature very strong constitutions, and laboring at some
+active and peculiarly healthy employment, are able for a few, and
+perhaps even for many years, to set all the rules of health at defiance.
+
+Now, strange as it may seem, these cases, though they are only
+exceptions (and those more apparent than real) to the general rule, are
+always dwelt upon, by those who are determined to live as they please,
+and to put no restraint either upon themselves or their appetites. For
+nothing can be plainer--so it seems to me--than that, taking mankind by
+families, or what is still better, by larger portions, they are most
+free from pain and disease, as well as most healthy and happy, who pay
+the most attention to the laws of human health, that is, those laws or
+rules by whose observance alone, that health can be certainly and
+permanently secured.
+
+But these families and communities are most healthy and happy, not
+because they live in a proper manner, by fits and starts, but because
+they have, from some cause or other, adopted and persevered in HABITS
+which, compared with the habits of other families, or other communities,
+are preferable; that is, more in obedience to the laws which govern the
+human constitution. Not that even _they_ are "without sin" or error on
+this subject--gross error too--but because their errors are fewer or
+less destructive than those of their neighbors.
+
+Now is it possible that any intelligent father or mother of a family,
+whose diet, clothing, exercise, &c. are thus comparatively well
+regulated, would derive no benefit from the perusal of works which treat
+candidly, rationally, and dispassionately, on these points? Is there a
+mother in the community who is so destitute of reason and common sense
+as not to desire the light of a broader experience in regard to the
+tendency of things than she has had, or possibly can have, in her own
+family? Is there one who will not be aided by understanding not only
+that a certain thing or course is better than another, but also WHY it
+is so?
+
+It is by no means the object of this little work to set people to
+watching their stomachs from meal to meal, in regard to the effects of
+food, drink, &c.; for nothing in the world is better calculated to make
+dyspeptics than this. It is true, indeed, that some things may be
+obviously and greatly injurious, taken only once; and when they are so,
+they should be avoided. But in general, it is the effect of a habitual
+use of certain things for a long time together--and the longer the
+experiment the better--which we are to observe.
+
+A book to guide mothers in the formation of early good habits in their
+offspring, should be the result of long observation and much experiment
+on these points, but more especially of a thorough understanding of
+human physiology. It should not consist so much of the conceits of a
+single brain--perhaps half turned--as of the logical deductions of
+severe science, and facts gleaned from the world's history.
+
+Here is a nation, or tribe of men, bringing up children to certain
+habits, from generation to generation--and such and such is their
+character. Here, again, is another large portion of our race, who, under
+similar circumstances of climate, &c. &c., have, for several hundred
+years, educated their children very differently, and with different
+results. A comparison of things on a large scale, together with a close
+attention to the constitution and relations of the human system, affords
+ground for drawing conclusions which are or may be useful. If this book
+shall not afford light derived from such sources, it were far better
+that it had never been written. If it only sets people to watching over
+the effects of things taken or used only for a single day, instead of
+leading them from early infancy to form in their children such habits as
+will preclude, in a great measure, the necessity of watching ourselves
+daily, then let the day perish from the memory of the writer, in which
+the plan of bringing it forth to the world was conceived. But he is
+confident of better things. He does not believe that a work which, to
+such an extent, GIVES THE REASON WHY, will be productive of more evil
+than good. On the contrary, it must, if read, have the opposite effect.
+
+I do not deny that even after the formation of the best habits, there
+will be a necessity of paying some attention to what we eat and what we
+drink, from day to day, and from hour to hour; but only that the
+tendency of this work is not to increase this necessity, but on the
+contrary, to diminish it. In my own view; these occasions of inquiry in
+regard to what is right, _physically_ as well as _morally_, are one part
+of our trials in this world--one means of forming our characters. We are
+constantly tempted to excess and to error, in spite of the most firm
+habits of self-denial which can be formed. If we resist temptation, our
+characters are improved. And it is by self-denial and self-government in
+these smaller matters, that we are to hope for nearly all the progress
+we can ever make in the great work of self-education. Great trials of
+character come but seldom; and when they come, we are often armed
+against them; but these little trials and temptations, coming upon us
+every hour--these it is, after all, that give shape to our characters,
+and make us constantly growing either better or worse, both in the sight
+of God and man. But, as I have repeatedly said, the object of this work
+is to diminish rather than to increase the frequency of these trials,
+useful though they may be, if duly improved, in the formation of
+virtuous, and even of holy character.
+
+There is a sense in which every infant may be said to be born healthy,
+so that we may not only adopt the language of the poet, Bowring, and
+say
+
+                   --"a child is born;
+  Take it, and make it a bud of _moral_ beauty,"
+
+but we may also add--Take it and make it beautiful _physically_. For
+though a hereditary predisposition undoubtedly renders some individuals
+more susceptible than others to particular diseases, yet when the bodily
+organization of an infant is complete, and the degree of vitality which
+nature gives it is sufficient to propel the machinery of the frame, it
+can scarcely be regarded as in any other state than that of health.
+
+Now if it be the intention of divine Providence (and who will doubt that
+it is?) that the animal body should be capable of resisting with
+impunity the impressions of heat, cold, light, air, and the various
+external influences to which, at birth, it is subjected, it may be
+properly asked why this primitive state of health cannot be maintained,
+and diseases, and medicines, and even PREVENTIVES wholly avoided.
+
+But the reason is obvious. Civilized society has placed the human race
+in artificial circumstances. Instead of listening to the dictates of
+reason, making ourselves acquainted with the nature of the human
+constitution, and studying to preserve it in health and vigor, we yield
+to the government of ignorance and presumption. The first moment, even,
+in which we draw breath, sees us placed under the control of individuals
+who are totally inadequate to the important charge of preserving the
+infant constitution in its original state, and aiding its progress to
+maturity. And thus it is that though infants, as a general rule, may be
+said to be born healthy, few actually remain so. Seldom, indeed, do we
+find a person who has arrived at maturity wholly free from disease, even
+in those parts of our country which are reckoned to have the most
+healthy climate.
+
+It is indeed commonly said, that a large proportion, both of children
+and adults, among the agricultural portion of our population, are
+healthy. But it is not so. There is room for doubt whether, on the
+whole, the farmers of this country are healthier than the mechanics, or
+much more so than the manufacturers; or the whole mass of the country
+population healthier than that of the crowded city. The causes of
+disease are sufficiently numerous, in all places and conditions; and
+this will continue to be the fact, not merely until parents and teachers
+shall become more enlightened, but until many generations have been
+trained under their enlightened influence.
+
+If the children and adults among our agricultural population derive from
+their employments in the open air a more ruddy appearance than those
+either of the city or country who are confined more to their rooms; or
+to a vitiated atmosphere, and to numerous other sources of disease, and
+if they _appear_ more favored with health, I have learned, by accurate
+observation, that these appearances are somewhat deceptive. Their active
+sports and employments in the open air give them a stronger appetite
+than any other class of people; and the indulgence of this appetite, not
+only with articles which are heating or indigestible in their nature,
+but with an unreasonable quantity even of those which are considered
+highly proper, is almost in an exact proportion. And it is hence
+scarcely possible for the causes of disease and premature death to be
+more operative in factories and in cities than in farm houses and the
+country. Indeed it may be questioned whether the abuses of the ANIMAL
+part of man--more common in some of their forms in country than in
+city--though they may be less conspicuous, are not more certainly and
+even more immediately destructive than those abuses which, in city life,
+and bustle, and competition, affect more the MORAL nature.
+
+Be that as it may, however--for this is not the place for the grave
+discussion of so broad a question--one thing, to my mind, is perfectly
+clear, namely, that until physical education shall receive more
+attention from all those who hold the sacred office of instructors of
+the young, humanity can neither be much elevated nor improved. Mothers
+and schoolmasters especially--they who, as Dr. Rush says, plant the
+seeds of nearly all the good or evil in the world--must understand, most
+deeply and thoroughly, the laws which regulate the various provinces of
+the little world in which the soul resides, and which, like so many
+states of a great confederacy, have not only their separate interests
+and rights, but certain common and general ones; as well as those laws
+by which the human constitution is related to and connected with the
+objects which everywhere surround, and influence, and limit, and extend
+it.
+
+This book contains little, if anything, new to those who are already
+familiar with anatomy and physiology. Indeed, whatever may be its
+claims, its merits or its demerits, it disclaims novelty. It is, indeed,
+in one point of view, _original_;--I mean in its form, manner, and
+arrangement. What I have written is chiefly from my own resources--the
+results of patient study and observation, and careful reflection; but
+that study and observation of human nature, and this reflection, have
+been greatly aided by reading the writings of others.
+
+In the prosecution of the task which I had assigned myself, no work has
+been of more service to me than an octavo volume of 548 pages, by Dr.
+Wm. P. Dewees, of Philadelphia, entitled, "A Treatise on the Physical
+and Medical Treatment of Children." It is one of the most valuable works
+on Physical Education in the English language, as is evident from the
+fact that notwithstanding its expense--three or four dollars--it has, in
+nine years, gone through five editions. If it were written in such a
+style, and published at such a price as would bring it within reach of
+the minds and purses of the mass of the community, its sale would have
+been, I think, much greater still; and the good which it has
+accomplished would have been increased ten-fold.
+
+If the "YOUNG MOTHER" should be favorably received by the American
+community, and prove extensively useful, it will undoubtedly be owing to
+the fact that it presents so large a collection of facts and principles
+on the great subject of physical education, in a manner so practical,
+and at a price which is very low. To accomplish an object so desirable
+is by no means an easy task. It was once said by the author of a huge
+volume, that he wrote so large a work because he had not time to prepare
+a smaller one. And however unaccountable it may be to those who have not
+made the trial, it may be safely asserted, that to present, within
+limits so small, anything like a system of Physical Education for the
+guidance of young mothers, requires much more time, and labor, and
+patience, than to prepare a work on the same subject twice as large.
+
+Nor is it to be expected, after all, that the work is, in all respects,
+perfect. I have indeed done what I could to render it so; but am
+conscious that future inquiries may lead to the discovery of errors.
+Should such discoveries be made, they will be cheerfully acknowledged
+and corrected; truth being, as it should be, the leading object.
+
+
+       *       *       *       *       *
+
+
+THE YOUNG MOTHER.
+
+
+
+CHAPTER I.
+
+THE NURSERY.
+
+General remarks. Importance of a Nursery--generally overlooked. Its
+walls--ceiling--windows--chimney. Two apartments. Sliding partition.
+Reasons for this arrangement. Objections to carpets. Furniture, &c.
+Feather beds. Holes or crevices. Currents of air. Cats and dogs.
+"Sucking the child's breath." Brilliant objects. Squinting. Causes of
+blindness.
+
+
+It is far from being in the power of every young mother to procure a
+suitable room for a nursery. In the present state of society, the
+majority must be contented with such places as they can get. Still there
+are various reasons for saying what a nursery should be. 1. It may be of
+service to those who _have_ the power of selection. 2. Information
+cannot injure those who _have not_. 3. It may lead those who have wealth
+to extend the hand of charity in this important direction; for there
+are not a few who have little sympathy with the wants and distresses of
+the adult poor, who will yet open their hearts and unfold their hands
+for the relief of suffering _infancy_.
+
+Among those who have what is called a nursery, few select for this
+purpose the most appropriate part of the building. It is not
+unfrequently the one that can best be spared, is most retired, or most
+convenient. Whether it is most favorable to the health and happiness of
+its occupants, is usually at best a secondary consideration.
+
+But this ought not so to be. A nursery should never, for example, be on
+a ground floor, or in a shaded situation, or in any circumstances which
+expose it to dampness, or hinder the occasional approach of the light of
+the sun. It should be spacious, with dry walls, high ceiling, and tight
+windows. The latter should always be so constructed that the upper sash
+can be lowered when we wish to admit or exclude air. It should have a
+chimney, if possible; but if not, there should be suitable holes in the
+ceiling, for the purposes of ventilation.
+
+The windows should have shutters, so that the room, when necessary, can
+be darkened--and green curtains. Some writers say that the windows
+should have cross bars before them; but if they do not descend within
+three feet of the floor, such an arrangement can hardly be required.
+
+It is highly desirable that every nursery should consist of two rooms,
+opening into each other; or what is still better, of one large room,
+with a sliding or swinging partition in the middle. The use of this is,
+that the mother and child may retire to one, while the other is being
+swept or ventilated. They would thus avoid damp air, currents, and dust.
+Such an arrangement would also give the occupants a room, fresh, clean
+and sweet, in the morning, (which is a very great advantage,) after
+having rendered the air of the other foul by sleeping in it.
+
+In winter, and while there is an infant in the nursery, just beginning
+to walk, it is recommended by many to cover the floor with a carpet. The
+only advantage which they mention is, that it secures the child from
+injury if it falls. But I have seldom seen lasting injury inflicted by
+simple falls on the hard floor; and there are so many objections to
+carpeting a nursery, since it favors an accumulation of dust, bad air,
+damp, grease, and other impurities, that it seems to me preferable to
+omit it. Many physicians, I must own, recommend carpets during winter,
+though not in summer; and in no case, unless they are well shaken and
+aired, at least once a week.
+
+No furniture should be admissible, except the beds for the mother and
+child, a table, and a few chairs. With the best writers and highest
+authorities on the subject, I am decidedly of opinion that all feather
+beds ought effectually and forever to be excluded from nurseries. The
+reasons for this prohibition will appear hereafter.
+
+Every nursery should, if possible, be free from holes or crevices;
+otherwise the occupants will be exposed to currents of air, and their
+sometimes terrible and always injurious consequences. The room may, in
+this way, be kept at a lower medium temperature--a point of very great
+importance.
+
+Cats and dogs, I believe, are usually excluded from the nursery; if not,
+they ought to be. For though the apprehension of cats "sucking the
+child's breath," is wholly groundless, yet they may be provoked by the
+rude attacks of a child to inflict upon it a lasting injury. Besides,
+they assist, by respiration, in contaminating the air, like all other
+animals.
+
+If there are, in the nursery, objects which, from the vivacity or
+brilliancy of their colors, attract the attention of the child, they
+should never be presented to them sideways, or immediately over their
+heads. The reason for this caution is, that children seek, and pursue
+almost instinctively, bright objects; and are thus liable to contract a
+habit of moving their eyes in an oblique direction, which _may_
+terminate in squinting.
+
+Many parents seem to take great pleasure in indulging the young infant
+in looking at these bright objects; especially a lamp or a candle. If
+the child is naturally strong and vigorous, no immediate perceptible
+injury may arise; but I am confident in the opinion that the result is
+often quite otherwise. For many weeks, if not many months of their early
+existence, they should not be permitted to sit or lie and gaze at any
+bright object, be it ever so weak or distant, unless placed exactly
+before their eyes; and even in the latter case, it were better to avoid
+it.
+
+Heat is also injurious to the eyes of all, and of course not less so to
+children than to adults. But when a strong light and heat are conjoined,
+as is the case of sitting around a large blazing fire--the former custom
+of New England--it is no wonder if the infantile eyes become early
+injured. No wonder that the generation now on the stage, early subjected
+to these abuses, should be found almost universally in the use of
+spectacles.
+
+This may be the most proper place for observing that great care ought to
+be taken, at the birth of the child, to prevent a too sudden exposure of
+the tender organ of vision to the light. We believe this caution is
+generally omitted by the American physician, though it is one which
+accords with the plainest dictates of common sense. Who of us has not
+experienced the pain of emerging suddenly from the darkness of a cellar
+to the ordinary light of day? The strongest eyes of the adult are
+scarcely able to bear the transition. How much more painful to the
+tender organs of the new-born infant must be the change to which it is
+so frequently subjected? And how easy it is to prevent the pain and
+danger of the change, by more effectually darkening the room into which
+it is introduced!
+
+But we have testimony on this point. A distinguished German physician
+states that he has known many cases of permanent blindness from this
+very cause to which we have referred. The Principal of the Institution
+for the Blind, at Vienna, says he is confident that most children who
+appear to be born blind, are actually made blind by neglecting this same
+precaution.
+
+
+
+
+CHAPTER II.
+
+TEMPERATURE.
+
+General principle--"Keep cool." Our own sensations not always to be
+trusted. Thermometer. Why infants require more external heat than
+adults. Means of warmth. Air heated in other apartments. Clothes taking
+fire. Stove--railing around it. Excess of heat--its dangers.
+
+
+There is one general principle, on this subject, which is alike
+applicable to all persons and circumstances. It is, to keep a little too
+cool, rather than in the slightest degree too warm. In other words, the
+lowest temperature which is compatible with comfort, is, in all cases,
+best adapted to health; and a slight degree of coldness, provided it
+amount not to a chill, and is not long continued, is more safe than the
+smallest unnecessary degree of warmth.
+
+But the application of this rule to those over whom we have control, is
+not without its difficulties. Our own sensations are so variable,
+independently of external and obvious causes, that we cannot at all
+times judge for others, especially for infants. The absolute and real
+state of temperature in a room can only be ascertained by the aid of a
+thermometer; and no nursery should ever be without one. It should be
+placed, however, in such a situation as to indicate the real temperature
+of the atmosphere, and not where it will give a false result.
+
+No mother should forget that the infant, at birth, has not the power of
+generating heat, internally, to the extent which it possesses afterward.
+The lungs have as yet but a feeble, inefficient action. The purification
+of the blood, through their agency, is not only incomplete, but the heat
+evolved is as yet inconsiderable. In the absence of internal heat, then,
+there is an increased demand externally. If 60º be deemed suitable for
+most other persons, the new-born infant may, for a few days, require 65º
+or even 70º.
+
+Much may and should be done in preserving the child in a proper
+temperature by means of its clothing. On this point I shall speak at
+length, in another part of this work. My present purpose is simply to
+treat of the temperature of the nursery.
+
+The best way of warming a nursery--or indeed any other room, where MERE
+warmth is demanded--is by means of air heated in other apartments, and
+admitted through openings in the floor or fire-place. The air is not
+only thus made more pure, but every possibility of accidents, such as
+having the clothes take fire, is precluded. This last consideration is
+one of very great importance, and I hope will not be much longer
+overlooked in infantile education.
+
+Next to that, in point of usefulness and safety, is a stove, placed near
+or IN the fire-place, and defended by an iron railing. Most people
+prefer an open stove; and on some accounts it is indeed preferable,
+especially where it is desirable to burn coal. Still I think that the
+direct rays of the heat, and the glare of light from open stoves and
+fire-places, particularly for the young, form a very serious objection
+to their use.
+
+One of the strongest objections to open stoves and fire-places in the
+nursery is, the increased exposure to accidents. I know it is said that
+this evil may be avoided by laying aside the use of cotton, and wearing
+nothing but worsted or flannel. This is indeed true; but I do not like
+the idea of being compelled to dress children in flannel or worsted, at
+all times when the least particle of fire is demanded; for this would be
+to wear this stimulating kind of clothing, in our climate, the greater
+part of the year.
+
+Besides, I write for many mothers who are compelled to use cotton, on
+account of the expense of flannel. And if the stove be a close one, and
+well defended by a railing, cotton will seldom expose to danger. Still,
+as has been already said, the introduction of heated air from another
+apartment, whenever it can possibly be afforded, is incomparably better
+than either stoves or fire-places.
+
+Dr. Dewees is fully persuaded that the excessive heat of nurseries has
+occasioned a great mortality among very young children. "In the first
+place," he says, "it over-stimulates them; and in the second, it renders
+them so susceptible of cold, that any draught of cold air endangers
+their lives. They are in a constant perspiration, which is frequently
+checked by an exposure to even an atmosphere of moderate temperature."
+If this is but to repeat what has been already said, the importance of
+the subject seems to be a sufficient apology.
+
+
+
+
+CHAPTER III.
+
+VENTILATION.
+
+General ignorance of the constitution of the atmosphere. The subject
+briefly explained. Oxygen gas. Nitrogen. Carbonic acid. Fires, candles,
+and breathing dependent on oxygen. Danger from carbonic acid. How it
+destroys people. Impurity of the air by means of lamps and candles.
+Other sources of impurity. Experiment of putting the candle under the
+bed-clothes. Covering the heads of infants while sleeping--its dangers.
+Proportions of oxygen and nitrogen in pure and impure air. No wonder
+children become sickly. Particular means of ventilating rooms. Caution
+in regard to lamps. Washing, ironing, cooking, &c., in a nursery. Their
+evil tendency. Fumigation--camphor, vinegar.
+
+
+Few people take sufficient pains to preserve the air in any of their
+apartments pure; for few know what the constitution of our atmosphere
+is, and in how many ways and with what ease it is rendered impure.
+
+It is not my purpose to go into a learned, scientific account in this
+place, or even in this work, of the constitution of the atmosphere. A
+few plain statements are all that are indispensable. The atmosphere
+which we breathe is composed of two different airs or gases. One of
+these is called oxygen, [Footnote: Oxygen gas is the chief supporter of
+combustion, as well as of respiration. It is the vital part, as it were,
+of the air. No animal or vegetable could long exist without it. And yet
+if alone, unmixed, it is too pure and too refined for animals to
+breathe. Nitrogen gas, on the contrary, while alone, will not support
+either respiration or combustion; mixed, however, with oxygen, it
+dilutes it, and in the most happy manner fits it for reception into the
+lungs.] and the other nitrogen. There is another gas usually found with
+these two, in smaller quantity, called carbonic acid gas; but whether it
+is necessary, in a very small quantity, to health, chemists, I believe,
+are not agreed. One thing, however, is certain--that if any portion of
+it is healthful, it must be very little--not more, certainly, than
+one-fiftieth or one-hundredth of the whole mass.
+
+It is by means of the oxygen it contains, that air sustains life and
+combustion. Were it not for this, neither fires nor candles would burn,
+and no animal could breathe a single moment. Breathing consumes this
+oxygen of the air very rapidly. When the oxygen is present in about a
+certain proportion, combustion and respiration go on well, but when its
+natural proportion is diminished, the fire does not burn so well,
+neither does the candle; and no one can breathe so freely.
+
+Not only are breathing and combustion impeded or disturbed by the
+diminution of oxygen in the atmosphere, but just in proportion as oxygen
+is diminished by these two processes, or either of them, carbonic acid
+is formed, which is not only bad for combustion, but much worse for
+health. If any considerable quantity of it is inhaled, it appears to be
+an absolute poison to the human system; and if in _very large quantity_,
+will often cause immediate death.
+
+It is this gas, accumulated in large quantities, that destroys so many
+people in close rooms, where there is no chimney, nor any other place
+for the bad air to escape. But it not only kills people outright--it
+partly kills, that is, it poisons, more or less, hundreds of thousands.
+
+In a nursery there is the mother and child, and perhaps the nurse, to
+render the air impure by breathing, the fire and the lamp or candle to
+contribute to the same result, besides several other causes not yet
+mentioned. One of these is nearly related to the former. I allude to the
+fact that our skins, by perspiration and by other means, are a source of
+much impurity to the atmosphere; a fact which will be more fully
+explained and illustrated in the chapter on Bathing and Cleanliness. It
+is only necessary to say, in this place, that it is not the matter of
+perspiration alone which, issuing from the skin, renders the air
+impure; there are other exhalations more or less constantly going off
+from every living body, especially from the lungs; and carbonic acid gas
+is even formed all over the surface of the skin, as well as by means of
+the lungs.
+
+One needs no better proof that carbonic acid is formed on the surface of
+the body, than the fact that after the body has been closely covered all
+night, if you introduce a candle under the bed-clothes into this
+confined air, it will be quickly extinguished, because there is too
+much carbonic acid gas there, and too little oxygen.
+
+We may hence see at once the evil of covering the heads of infants when
+they lie down--a very common practice. The air, when pure, contains a
+little more than 20 parts of oxygen, and a little less than 80 of
+nitrogen. Breathing this air, as I have already shown, consumes the
+oxygen, which is so necessary to life and health, and leaves in its
+place an increase of nitrogen and carbonic acid gas, which are not
+necessary to health, and the latter of which is even positively
+injurious. But when the oxygen, instead of forming 20 or more parts in
+100 of the atmosphere of the nursery, is reduced to 15 or 18 parts only,
+and the carbonic acid gas is increased from 1 or 2 parts in 100, to 5,
+6, 8 or 10--when to this is added the other noxious exhalations from the
+body, and from the lamp or candle, fire-place, feather bed, stagnant
+fluids in the room, &c., &c.--is it any wonder that children, in the
+end, become sickly? What else could be expected but that the seeds of
+disease, thus early sown, should in due time spring up, and produce
+their appropriate fruits?
+
+It is sometimes said that fire in a room purifies it. It undoubtedly
+does so, to a certain extent, if fresh air be often admitted; but not
+otherwise.
+
+I have classed feather beds among the common causes of impurity. Dr.
+Dewees also condemns them, most decidedly; and gives substantial reasons
+for "driving them out of the nursery."
+
+In speaking of the structure of the room used for a nursery, I have
+adverted to the importance of having a large or double room, with
+sliding doors between, in order that the occupants may go into one of
+them, while the other is being ventilated. But whatever may be the
+structure of the room, the circumstances of the occupants, or the state
+of the weather, every nursery ought to be most thoroughly ventilated,
+once a day, at least; and when the weather is tolerable, twice a day. If
+there is but one apartment, and fear is entertained of the dampness of
+the fresh air introduced, or of currents, and if the mother and babe
+cannot retire, there is a last resort, which is for them to get into
+bed, and cover themselves a short time with the clothing. For though I
+have prohibited the covering of the face with the bed-clothes for any
+considerable length of time together, yet to do so for some fifteen or
+twenty minutes is an evil of far less magnitude than to suffer an
+apartment to remain without being ventilated, for twenty-four hours
+together--a very common occurrence.
+
+When a lamp is kept burning in a nursery during the night, it should
+always be placed at the door of the stove, or in the chimney place, that
+its smoke, and the bad airs or gases which are formed, may escape. But
+it is better, in general, to avoid burning lamps or candles during the
+night. By means of common matches, a light may be produced, when
+necessary, almost instantly; especially if you have a spirit lamp in the
+nursery, or what is still better, one of spirit gas--that is, a mixture
+of alcohol and turpentine.
+
+It is highly desirable that all washing, ironing, and cooking should be
+avoided in the nursery. They load the air with noxious effluvia or
+vapor, or with particles of dust; none of which ought ever to enter the
+delicate lungs of an infant.
+
+Fumigations with camphor, vinegar, and other similar substances, have
+long been in reputation as a means of purifying the air in sick-rooms
+and nurseries; but they are of very little consequence. Fresh air, if it
+can be had, is always better.
+
+
+
+
+CHAPTER IV.
+
+THE CHILD'S DRESS
+
+General principles. SEC. 1. Swathing the body--its numerous evils.--SEC.
+2. Form of the dress. Fashion. Tight lacing--its dangers. Structure and
+motion of the chest. Diseases from tight lacing.--SEC. 3. Material of
+dress. Flannel--its uses. Cleanliness. Cotton--silk--linen.--SEC. 4.
+Quantity of dress. Power of habit. Anecdote. Begin right. Change.
+Dampness.--SEC. 5. Caps--their evils. Going bare-headed.--SEC. 6. Hats
+and bonnets.--SEC. 7. Covering for the feet. Stockings. Garters.
+Shoes--thick soles.--SEC. 8. Pins--their danger. Shocking
+anecdote.--SEC. 9. Remaining wet.--SEC. 10. Dress of boys. Tight
+jackets. Stocks and cravats. Boots.--SEC. 11. Dress of girls--should be
+loose. Temperature. Exposure to the night air.
+
+
+Dress serves three important purposes:--1. To cover us; 2. To defend us
+against cold; 3. To defend our bodies and limbs from injury. There is
+one more purpose of dress; in case of deformity, it seems to improve the
+appearance.
+
+In all our arrangements in regard to dress, whether of children or of
+adults, we should ever keep in mind the above principles. The form,
+fashion, material, application, and quantity of all clothing,
+especially for infants, ought to be regulated by these three or four
+rules.
+
+The subject of this chapter is one of so much importance, and embraces
+such a variety of items, that it will be more convenient, both to the
+reader and myself, to consider it under several minor heads.
+
+
+SEC. 1. _Swathing the Body._
+
+Buffon, in his "Natural History," says that in France, an infant has
+hardly enjoyed the liberty of moving and stretching its limbs, before it
+is put into confinement. "It is swathed," says he, "its head is fixed,
+its legs are stretched out at full length, and its arms placed straight
+down by the side of its body. In this manner it is bound tight with
+cloths and bandages, so that it cannot stir a limb; indeed it is
+fortunate that the poor thing is not muffled up so as to be unable to
+breathe."
+
+All swathing, except with a single bandage around the abdomen, is
+decidedly unreasonable, injurious and cruel. I do not pretend that the
+remarks of M. Buffon are fully applicable to the condition of infants in
+the United States. The good sense of the community nowhere permits us to
+transform a beautiful babe quite into an Egyptian mummy. Still there
+are many considerable errors on the subject of infantile dress, which,
+in the progress of my remarks, I shall find it necessary to expose.
+
+The use of a simple band cannot be objected to. It affords a general
+support to the abdomen, and a particular one to the _umbilicus_. The
+last point is one of great importance, where there is any tendency to a
+rupture at this part of the body--a tendency which very often exists in
+feeble children. And without some support of this kind, crying,
+coughing, sneezing, and straining in any way, might greatly aggravate
+the evil, if not produce serious consequences.
+
+But, in order to afford a support to the abdomen in the best manner, it
+is by no means necessary that the bandage should be drawn very tight.
+Two thirds of the nurses in this country greatly err in this respect,
+and suppose that the more tightly a bandage is drawn, the better. It
+should be firm, but yet gently yielding; and therefore a piece of
+flannel cut "bias," as it is termed, or, obliquely with respect to the
+threads of which it is composed, is the most appropriate material.
+
+If the attention of the mother were necessary nowhere else, it would be
+indispensable in the application of this article. If she do not take
+special pains to prevent it, the erring though well meaning nurse may
+so compress the body with the bandage as to produce pain and uneasiness,
+and sometimes severe colic. Nay, worse evils than even this have been
+known to arise. When a child sneezes, or coughs, or cries, the abdomen
+should naturally yield gently; but if it is so confined that it cannot
+yield where the band is applied, it will yield in an unnatural
+proportion below, to the great danger of producing a species of rupture,
+no less troublesome than the one which such tight swathing is designed
+to prevent.
+
+But besides the bandage already mentioned, no other restraint of the
+body and limbs of a child is at all admissible. The Creator has kindly
+ordained that the human body and limbs, and especially its muscles, or
+moving powers, shall be developed by exercise. Confine an arm or a leg,
+even in a child of ten years of age, and the limb will not increase
+either in strength or size as it otherwise would, because its muscles
+are not exercised; and the fact is still more obvious in infancy.
+
+There is a still deeper evil. On all the limbs are fixed two sets of
+muscles; one to extend, the other to draw up or bend the limb. If you
+keep a limb extended for a considerable time, you weaken the one set of
+muscles; if you keep it bent, you weaken the other. This weakness may
+become so great that the limb will be rendered useless. There are cases
+on record--well authenticated--where children, by being obliged to sit
+in one place on a hard floor, have been made cripples for life. Hundreds
+of others are injured, though they may not become absolutely crippled.
+
+I repeat it, therefore, their dress should be so free and loose that
+they may use their little limbs, their neck and their bodies, as much as
+they please; and in every desired direction. The practices of confining
+their arms while they lie down, for fear they should scratch themselves
+with their nails, and of pinning the clothes round their feet, are
+therefore highly reprehensible. Better that they should even
+occasionally scratch themselves with their nails, than that they should
+be made the victims of injurious restraint. Who would think of tying up
+or muffling the young lamb or kid? And even the young plant--what think
+you would be the effect, if its leaves and branches could not move
+gently with the soft breezes? Would the fluids circulate, and health be
+promoted: or would they stagnate, and a morbid, sickly and dwarfish
+state be the consequence?
+
+Those whose object is to make infancy, as well as any other period of
+existence, a season of happiness, will not fail to find an additional
+motive for giving the little stranger entire freedom in the land
+whither he has so recently arrived, especially when he seems to enjoy
+it so much. Who can be so hardened as to confine him, unless compelled
+by the most pressing necessity?
+
+
+SEC. 2. _Form of the Dress._
+
+On this subject a writer in the London Literary Gazette of some eight or
+ten years ago, lays down the following general directions, to which, in
+cold weather, there can be but one possible objection, which is, they
+are not _alamode_, and are not, therefore, likely to be followed.
+
+"All that a child requires, so far as regards clothing, in the first
+month of its existence, is a simple covering for the trunk and
+extremities of the body, made of a material soft and agreeable to the
+skin, and which can retain, in an equable degree, the animal
+temperature. These qualities are to be found in perfection in fine
+flannel; and I recommend that the only clothing, for the first month or
+six weeks, be a square piece of flannel, large enough to involve fully
+and overlap the whole of the babe, with the exception of the head, which
+should be left totally uncovered. This wrapper should be fixed by a
+button near the breast, and left so loose as to permit the arms and legs
+to be freely stretched, and moved in every direction. It should be
+succeeded by a loose flannel gown with sleeves, which should be worn
+till the end of the second month; after which it may be changed to the
+common clothing used by children of this age."
+
+The advantages of such a dress are, that the movements of the infant
+will be, as we have already seen, free and unrestrained, and we shall
+escape the misery of hearing the screams which now so frequently
+accompany the dressing and undressing of almost every child. No chafings
+from friction, moreover, can occur; and as the insensible perspiration
+is in this way promoted over the whole surface of the body, the sympathy
+between the stomach and skin is happily maintained. A healthy sympathy
+of this kind, duly kept up, does much towards preserving the stomach in
+a good state, and the skin from eruptions and sores.
+
+But as I apprehend that christianity is not yet very deeply rooted in
+the minds and hearts of parents, I have already expressed my doubts
+whether they are prepared to receive and profit by advice at once
+rational and physiological. Still I cannot help hoping that I shall
+succeed in persuading mothers to have every part of a child's dress
+perfectly loose, except the band already referred to; and that should be
+but moderately tight.
+
+Common humanity ought to teach us better than to put the body of a
+helpless infant into a _vise_, and press it to death, as the first mark
+of our attention. Who has not been struck with a strange inconsistency
+in the conduct of mothers and nurses, who, while they are so exceedingly
+tender towards the infant in some points as to injure it by their
+kindness, are yet almost insensible to its cries of distress while
+dressing it? So far, indeed, are they from feeling emotions of pity,
+that they often make light of its cries, regarding them as signs of
+health and vigor.
+
+There can be no doubt, I confess, that the first cries of an infant, if
+strong, both indicate and promote a healthy state of the lungs, to a
+certain extent; but there will always be unavoidable occasions enough
+for crying to promote health, even after we have done all we can in the
+way of avoiding pain. They who only draw the child's dress the tighter,
+the more it cries, are guilty of a crime of little less enormity than
+murder.
+
+"Think," says Dr. Buchan, "of the immense number of children that die of
+convulsions soon after birth; and be assured that these (its cries) are
+much oftener owing to galling pressure, or some external injury, than to
+any inward cause." This same writer adds, that he has known a child
+which was "seized with convulsion fits" soon after being "swaddled,"
+immediately relieved by taking off the rollers and bandages; and he says
+that a loose dress prevented the return of the disease.
+
+I think it is obvious that the utmost extent to which we ought to go, in
+yielding to the fashion, as it regards form, is to use three pieces of
+clothing--the shirt, the petticoat and the frock; all of which must be
+as loose as possible; and before the infant begins to crawl about much,
+the latter should be long, for the salve of covering the feet and legs.
+At four or five years of age, loose trowsers, with boys, may be
+substituted for the petticoat; but it is a question whether something
+like the frock might not, with every individual, be usefully retained
+through life.
+
+I wish it were unnecessary, in a book like this, to join in the general
+complaint against tight lacing any part of the body, but especially the
+chest. But as this work of torture is sometimes begun almost from the
+cradle, and as prevention is better than cure, the hope of preventing
+that for which no cure appears yet to have been found, leads me to make
+a few remarks on the subject.
+
+As it has long been my opinion that one reason why mothers continue to
+overlook the subject is, that they do not understand the structure and
+motion of the chest, I have attempted the following explanation and
+illustration.
+
+I have already said, that if we bandage tightly, for a considerable
+time, any part of the human frame, it is apt to become weaker. The more
+a portion of the frame which is furnished with muscles, those curious
+instruments of motion, is used, provided it is not _over_-exerted, the
+more vigorous it is. Bind up an arm, or a hand, or a foot, and keep it
+bound for twelve hours of the day for many years, and think you it will
+be as strong as it otherwise would have been? Facts prove the contrary.
+The Chinese swathe the feet of their infant females; and they are not
+only small, but weak.
+
+I have said their feet are smaller for being bandaged. So is a hand or
+an arm. Action--healthy, constant action--is indispensable to the
+perfect development of the body and limbs. Why it is so, is another
+thing. But so it is; and it is a principle or law of the great Creator
+which cannot be evaded. More than this; if you bind some parts of the
+body tightly, so as to compress them as much as you can without
+producing actual pain, you will find that the part not only ceases to
+grow, but actually dwindles away. I have seen this tried again and
+again. Even the solid parts perish under pressure. When a person first
+wears a false head of hair, the clasp which rests upon the head, at the
+upper part of the forehead, being new and elastic, and pressing rather
+closely, will, in a few months, often make quite an indentation in the
+cranium or bone of the head.
+
+Now is it probable--nay, is it possible--that the lungs, especially
+those of young persons, can expand and come to their full and natural
+size under pressure, even though the pressure should be slight? Must
+they not be weakened? And if the pressure be strong, as it sometimes is,
+must they not dwindle away?
+
+We know, too, from the nature and structure of the lungs themselves,
+that tight lacing must injure them. Many mothers have very imperfect
+notions of what physicians mean, when they say that corsets impede the
+circulation, by preventing the full and undisturbed action of the lungs.
+They get no higher ideas of the _motion_ of the _chest_, than what is
+connected with bending the body forward and backward, from right to
+left, &c. They know that, if dressed too tightly, _this_ motion is not
+so free as it otherwise would be; but if they are not so closely laced
+as to prevent that free bending of the body of which I have been
+speaking, they think there can be no danger; or at least, none of
+consequence.
+
+Now it happens that this sort of motion is not that to which physicians
+refer, when they complain of corsets. Strictly speaking, this bending of
+the whole body is performed by the muscles of the back, and not those
+of the chest. The latter have very little to do with it. It is true,
+that even _this_ motion ought not to be hindered; but if it is, the evil
+is one of little comparative magnitude.
+
+Every time we breathe naturally, all the ribs, together with the breast
+bone, have motion. The ribs rise, and spread a little outward,
+especially towards the fore part. The breast bone not only rises, but
+swings forward a little, like a pendulum. But the moment the chest is
+swathed or bandaged, this motion must be hindered; and the more, in
+proportion to the tightness.
+
+On this point, those persons make a sad mistake, who say that "a busk
+not too wide nor too rigid seems to correspond to the supporting spine,
+and to assist, rather than impede the efforts of nature, to keep the
+body erect."
+
+Can we seriously compare the offices of the spine with those of the
+ribs, and suppose that because the former is fixed like a post, at the
+back part of the lungs, therefore an artificial post in front would be
+useful? Why, we might just as well argue in favor of hanging weights to
+a door, or a clog to a pendulum, in order to make it swing backwards and
+forwards more easily. We might almost as well say that the elbow ought
+to be made firm, to correspond with the shoulders, and thus become
+advocates for letting the stays or bandages enclose the arm above the
+elbow, and fasten it firmly to the side. Indeed, the consequences in the
+latter case, aside from a little inconvenience, would not be half so
+destructive to health as in the former. The ribs, where they join to the
+back bone, form hinges; and hinges are made for motion. But if you
+fasten them to a post in front, of what value are the hinges?
+
+If mothers ask, of what use this motion of the lungs is, it is only
+necessary to refer them to the chapter on Ventilation, in which I trust
+the subject is made intelligible, and a satisfactory answer afforded.
+
+But I might appeal to facts. Let us look at females around us generally.
+Do their countenances indicate that they enjoy as good health as they
+did when dress was worn more loosely? Have they not oftener a leaden
+hue, as if the blood in them was darker? Are they not oftener
+short-breathed than formerly? As they advance in life, have they not
+more chronic diseases? Are not their chests smaller and weaker? And as
+the doctrine that if one member suffers, all the other members suffer
+with it, is not less true in physiology than in morals, do we not find
+other organs besides the lungs weakened? Surgeons and physicians, who,
+like faithful sentinels, have watched at their post half a century,
+tell us, moreover, that if these foolish and injurious practices to
+which I refer are tolerated two centuries longer, every female will be
+deformed, and the whole race greatly degenerated, physically and
+morally.
+
+Those with whom no arguments will avail, are recommended to read the
+following remarks from the first volume of the Library of Health, p.
+119:
+
+"It is related, on the authority of Macgill, that in Tunis, after a girl
+is engaged, or betrothed, she is then _fattened_. For this purpose, she
+is cooped up in a small room, and shackles of gold and silver are placed
+upon her ancles and wrists, as a piece of dress. If she is to be married
+to a man who has discharged, despatched, or lost a former wife, the
+shackles which the former wife wore are put on the new bride's limbs,
+and she is fed till they are filled up to a proper thickness. The food
+used for this custom worthy of the barbarians is called _drough_, which
+is of an extraordinary fattening quality, and also famous for rendering
+the milk of the nurse rich and abundant. With this and their national
+dish, _cuscasoo_, the bride is literally crammed, and many actually die
+under the spoon."
+
+We laugh at all this, and well we may; but there are customs not very
+far from home, no less ridiculous.
+
+"There is a country four or five thousand miles westward of Tunis,
+where the females, to a very great extent, are emaciated for marriage,
+instead being fattened. This process is begun, in part, by shackles--not
+of gold and silver, perhaps, but of wood--but instead of being put on
+loosely, and causing the body or limbs to fill them, they are made to
+compress the body in the outset; and as the size of the latter
+diminishes, the shackles are contracted or tightened. As with the
+eastern, so with the western females, many of them die under the
+process; though a far greater number die at a remote period, as the
+consequence of it."
+
+
+SEC. 3. _Material._
+
+I have already committed myself to the reader as favoring the use of
+soft flannel in cold weather, especially for children who are not yet
+able to run about freely in the open air. The advantages of an early use
+of this material, at least for under-clothes, are numerous. The
+following are a few of them.
+
+1. Flannel, next to the skin, is a pleasant flesh brush; keeping up a
+gentle and equable irritation, and promoting perspiration and every
+other function which it is the office of the skin to perform, or assist
+in performing.
+
+2. It guards the body against the cooling effects of evaporation, when
+in a state of profuse perspiration.
+
+3. By preventing the heat of the body from escaping too rapidly, it
+keeps up a steadier temperature on the surface than any other known
+substance. The importance of the last consideration is greater, in a
+climate like our own, than elsewhere.
+
+But there are limits to the use of this article of clothing. Whenever
+the temperature of the atmosphere is so great, even without artificial
+heat, that we no longer wish to retain the heat of the body by the
+clothing, then all flannel should be removed at once, and linen should
+be substituted; taking care to replace the flannel whenever the
+temperature of the atmosphere, as indicated by the thermometer, or by
+the child's feelings, may seem to require it.
+
+It should also be kept clean. There is a very general mistake abroad on
+this subject. Many suppose that flannel can be worn longer without
+washing than other kinds of cloth. On the contrary, it should be changed
+oftener than cotton, or even linen, because it will absorb a great deal
+of fluid, especially the matter of perspiration, which, if long
+retained, is believed to ferment, and produce unhealthy, if not
+poisonous gases. For this reason, too, flannel for children's clothing
+should be white, that it may show dirt the more readily, and obtain the
+more frequent washing; although it is for this very reason--its
+liability to exhibit the least particles of dirt--that it is commonly
+rejected.
+
+One caution more in regard to the use of flannel may be necessary. With
+some children, owing to a peculiarity of constitution, flannel will
+produce eruptions on the skin, which are very troublesome. Whenever this
+is the case, the flannel should be immediately laid aside; upon which
+the eruptions usually disappear.
+
+If parents would take proper pains to get the lighter, softer kinds of
+flannel for this purpose, and be particular about its looseness and
+quantity, I should prefer, as I have already intimated, to have very
+young children, in our climate, wear this material the greater part of
+the year, excepting perhaps July and August.
+
+My reasons for this course would be, first, that I like the stimulus of
+soft flannel on the skin, if changed sufficiently often, better than
+that of any other kind of clothing. Secondly, cotton is so liable to
+take fire, that its use in the nursery and among little children seems
+very hazardous. Thirdly, silk is not quite the appropriate material, as
+a general thing, besides being too expensive; and fourthly, linen is
+not warm enough, except in mid-summer.
+
+Except, therefore, in July and August, and in cases of idiosyncracy,
+such as have just been alluded to, I would use flannel for the
+under-clothes of young children, throughout the year. But whenever they
+acquire sufficient strength to walk and run, and play much in the open
+air, I would gradually lay aside the use of all flannel, even in winter.
+Great attention, however, must be paid to the _quantity_. The parent
+who, guided by this rule, should keep on her child the same amount of
+flannel, and of the same thickness, from January to June 30th, and then,
+on the first of July, should suddenly exchange it for thin linen, in
+moderate quantity, might find trouble from it. It is better to make the
+changes more gradually; otherwise, whatever may be the material of the
+dress, the child will be likely to suffer.
+
+
+SEC. 4. _Quantity._
+
+The quantity of clothing used by different individuals of the same age,
+in the same climate, possessing constitutions nearly alike, and
+following similar occupations, is so different as to strike us with
+surprise when we first observe the fact.
+
+One will wear nothing but a coarse linen or cotton shirt, coarse coat,
+waistcoat, and pantaloons, and boots, in the coldest weather. He never,
+unless it be on the Sabbath, puts on even a cravat, and never in any
+case stockings or mittens.
+
+Another, in similar circumstances in all respects, constantly wears his
+thick stockings, flannel wrapper and drawers, and cravat; and seldom
+goes out, in cold weather, without mittens and an overcoat. He is not a
+whit warmer: indeed he often suffers more from the cold, than his
+neighbor who dresses in the manner just described.
+
+Why all this difference? It is no doubt the result of habit. Any
+individual may accustom himself to much or little clothing. And the
+earlier the habit is begun, the greater is its influence.
+
+Some persons, observing how little clothing one may accustom himself to
+use and yet be comfortable, have told us, that so far as mere
+temperature is concerned, we need no clothing at all. They relate the
+story of the Scythian and Alexander. Alexander asked the former how he
+could go without clothes in such a cold climate. He replied, by asking
+Alexander how he could go with his face naked. "Habit reconciles us to
+this;" was the reply. "Think me, then, _all_ face," said the Scythian.
+
+But admitting that certain individuals, and even a few rude tribes,
+have gone without clothing; did they therefore follow, in this respect,
+the intentions of nature? The greatest stickler for adhering to nature's
+plan, cannot prove this. Analogy is against it. Most of the other
+animals, even in hot climates, are furnished with a hairy covering from
+the first; and in cold climates, the Author of their being has even
+provided them with an increase of clothing for the winter. Their fur, on
+the approach of cold weather, not only becomes whiter, and therefore
+conducts the heat away from the body more slowly, but, as every dealer
+in furs well understands, it becomes softer and thicker. And yet the
+blood of the furred animals of cold countries is as warm as ours, if not
+warmer.
+
+The inferences which it seems to me we ought to make from this are, that
+if other animals require clothing, and even a change of clothing, so
+does man; and that as the Creator has left him to provide, by his own
+ingenuity, for a great many of his wants, instead of furnishing him with
+instinct to direct him, so in relation to dress. And even if it could be
+proved that dress were naturally unnecessary, with reference to
+temperature, I should still defend its use on other principles. The few
+speculative minds, therefore, that in the vagaries of their fancy, but
+never in their practice, reject it, are not to be regarded.
+
+The principle laid down in the commencement of the chapter on
+Temperature, is the great principle which should guide us in regard to
+dress. But although we should always keep a little too cool rather than
+a little too warm, it is by no means desirable to be cold. Any degree of
+chilliness, long continued, interrupts the functions which the skin
+ought to perform, and thus produces mischief.
+
+The same rules, in this respect, apply to eating, as well as to dress.
+It is better to eat a little less than nature requires, than a little
+more. It is a generally received opinion, however, that mankind
+frequently, at least in this country, eat about twice as much as health
+requires. This is owing to habit; and perhaps the power of the latter is
+as great in this respect as in regard to dress.
+
+The great point in regard to food or dress is, to _begin_ right, and,
+observing what nature requires--studying at the same time the testimony
+of others--to endeavor to keep within the bounds she has assigned. It
+has already been more than intimated, that if the nursery be kept in a
+proper temperature, a single loose piece of dress is, for some time, all
+that is required. In pursuance of this principle, through life, I
+believe few persons would be found who would need more at one time than
+a single suit of woollen clothes, even in the severest winters of our
+northern climate.
+
+I have always observed that they who wear the greatest amount of
+clothing, are most subject to colds. There are obvious reasons why it
+should be so. This, then, if a fact, is one of the strongest reasons in
+favor of acquiring a habit of going as thinly clad as we possibly can,
+and not at the same time feel any inconvenience.
+
+But after all, whether it be winter or summer, we must vary our clothing
+with the variations of the weather, as indicated by the thermometer, and
+our own feelings. Sometimes, in our ever-changing and ever-changeable
+climate, it may be necessary to vary our dress three or four times a
+day. Some cry out against this practice as dangerous, but I have never
+found it so. I have known persons who made it a constant practice; and I
+never found that they sustained any injury from it, except the loss of a
+little time; and the increase of comfort was more than enough to
+compensate for that. There is one thing to be avoided, however, whether
+we change our clothing--our linen especially--twice a day, or only twice
+a week--which is, _dampness_.
+
+
+SEC. 5. _Caps._
+
+The practice of putting caps on infants is happily going by; and perhaps
+it may be thought unnecessary for me to dwell a single moment on the
+subject. But as the practice still prevails in some parts of the
+country, it may be well to bestow upon it a few passing remarks.
+
+Many mothers have not considered that the circulation of the blood in
+young infants is peculiarly active; that a large amount of blood is at
+that period carried to the head; that in consequence of this, the head
+is proportionably hotter than in adults; and that from this source
+arises the tendency of very young children to brain-fever, dropsy in the
+head, and other diseases of this part of the system. But these are most
+undoubted facts.
+
+Hence one reason why the heads of infants should be kept as cool as
+possible; and though a thin cap confines less heat than a thick head of
+hair does when they are older, yet they are less able to bear it. The
+truth is, that nature furnishes a covering for the head, just about as
+fast as a covering is required, and the child's safety will permit.
+
+At the present day, few persons will probably be found, who will defend
+the utility of caps, any longer than till the hair is grown. The
+general apology for their use after this period, and indeed in most
+instances before, is, that they look pretty. "What would people say to
+see my darling without a cap?"
+
+But when the head is kept, from the first, totally uncovered, the hair
+grows more rapidly, dandruff and other scurfy diseases rarely attack the
+scalp; catarrh, snuffles, and other similar complaints, and above all,
+dropsy in the head, seldom show themselves; and the period of cutting
+teeth, that most dangerous period in the life of an infant, is passed
+over with much more safety.
+
+"Nothing but custom," says a foreign writer, "can reconcile us to the
+cap, with all its lace and trumpery ornaments, on the beautiful head of
+a child; and I would ask any one to say candidly, whether he thinks the
+children in the pictures of Titian and Raffaelle would be improved by
+having their heads covered with caps, instead of the silken curls--the
+adornment of nature--which cluster round their smiling faces. If there
+were no other reason for disusing caps for infants, but the improvement
+which it produces in the _appearance_ of the child, I would maintain
+that this is a sufficient inducement." And I concur with him fully.
+
+As to the notion--now I hope nearly exploded--that it is necessary to
+cover up the "open of the head," as it is called, nothing can be more
+idle. This part of the head requires no more covering than any other
+part; and if it did, all the dress in the world could not affect it in
+the least, except to retard the growth of the bones, which, in due time,
+ought to close up the space; and this effect, anything which keeps the
+head too hot might help to produce. Of the folly of wetting the head
+with spirits, or any other medicated lotions, and of making daily
+efforts to bring it into shape, it is unnecessary to speak in the
+present chapter.
+
+
+SEC. 6. _Hats and Bonnets._
+
+The hats worn in this country are almost universally too warm. But if it
+is a great mistake in adults to wear thick, heavy hats, it is much more
+so in the case of children.
+
+The infant in the nursery, as we have already seen, needs no covering of
+the kind. It is absolutely necessary that the head should be kept as
+cool as possible; and absolutely dangerous to cover it too warmly. At a
+later period, however, the danger greatly diminishes, because the
+circulation of the blood becomes more equal, and does not tend so much
+towards the brain.
+
+Still, however, the head is hotter than the limbs, especially the hands
+and feet; and I cannot help thinking that the hair is the only covering
+which is perfectly safe, either in childhood or age; except in the
+sunshine or in the storm. There may be--there probably is--some danger
+in going without hat or bonnet in the hot sun; though I have known many
+children, and some grown persons, who were constantly exposed in this
+way, and yet appeared not to suffer from it.
+
+But this may be the proper place to state that we are ever in great
+danger of deceiving ourselves on this subject. If the individuals who
+follow practices usually regarded as pernicious, while their habits in
+other respects are just like those of other persons around them who have
+similar strength, &c. of constitution,--if these individuals, I say,
+were wholly to escape disease, through life, or if they were to be so
+much more free from it, and live to an age so much greater than others
+as to constitute a striking and obvious difference in their favor, we
+might then safely argue that the practices which they follow are at
+least without dangers, if not of obvious advantage. But when we see them
+beset with ills, like other people, it is not safe to pronounce their
+habits favorable to health, since it is impossible to know whether some
+of the ills which they suffer are not produced by them.
+
+These remarks are applicable to the disuse of any covering for the head
+in the sun and in the rain. For you will find those who adopt this
+practice from early infancy,[Footnote: I say, from early infancy;
+because we may adopt the best habits in mature years, after our
+constitutions have been broken up by error and vice, without effecting
+anything more than to keep us from actually sinking at once. Indeed, in
+most cases we ought not to expect more.] subject to as many diseases as
+those around them with similar constitutions, but with habits somewhat
+different; and as our diseases are generally the consequences of our
+errors in one way or another, it is impossible to say with certainty
+that some of them might not have arisen from exposure of the head.
+
+I should not hesitate, therefore, to advise all mothers to put a light
+hat or bonnet on the heads of their children, whenever they are to be
+exposed to the direct rays of the summer sun, or to the rain. And as we
+cannot always foresee when and where these exposures will arise, and as
+it is believed that these coverings, if light, will never be productive
+of much injury while we are abroad in the open air, it will follow that
+it is better to wear than to omit them.
+
+But while I contend for their use as consistent with health and sound
+philosophy, I must not be understood as admitting the use of such hats
+as are worn at present, even by children. They are, as I have said
+before, too hot. What should be substituted, I am unable to determine;
+but until something can be supplied, which would not be half so
+oppressive as our common wool hats, I should regard it as the lesser
+evil to omit them entirely. The danger of going bare-headed, if the
+practice is commenced early, we know from the customs of some savage
+nations, can never be very great.
+
+
+SEC. 7. _Covering for the Feet._
+
+The same reason for avoiding the use of any covering for the head, in
+early infancy, is a sufficient reason for covering the feet well. For
+just in proportion as the blood is sent to the head in superabundance,
+and keeps up in it an undue degree of heat, just in the same proportion
+is it sent to the feet in too _small_ a quantity, leaving these parts
+liable to cold. Now it is a fundamental law with medical men, that the
+feet ought to be kept warmer than the head, if possible; especially
+while the child is very young, and exposed to brain diseases.
+
+So long, therefore, as children are young, and unable to exercise their
+feet, stockings ought to be used, both in summer and winter; but I
+prefer to have them short, unless long ones can be used without garters.
+Everything in the shape of a garter or ligature round the limbs, body,
+or neck of a child, except a single body-band, already mentioned in
+another chapter, ought forever to be banished.
+
+It has often been objected, I know, that stockings will make the feet
+tender. But as no child was ever hardened by _continued_ and severe cold
+applied to any part of the body, but the contrary, so no one was ever
+made more tender by being kept moderately warm. Excess of heat, like
+excess of cold, will alike weaken either children or adults; but there
+is little danger of heating the feet and legs of infants too much during
+the first year of infancy.
+
+It is also said that stockings are apt to receive and retain wet. But as
+I shall show in another place that wet clothes should be frequently
+changed, this objection would be equally strong against wearing coats
+and diapers.
+
+As to shoes, there is some variety of opinion among medical men. A few
+hold that they cramp the feet, and prevent children from learning to
+walk as early as they otherwise would. If it were best for children
+that they should learn to walk as early as possible, the last objection
+might have weight. But it seems to me not at all desirable to be in
+haste about their walking. Indeed, I greatly prefer to retard their
+progress, in this respect, rather than to hasten it.
+
+As to the first objection, that shoes cramp the feet too much, nearly
+its whole force turns upon the question whether they are made of proper
+materials or not. There is no need of making them of cow-hide, or any
+other thick leather. The soles are the most important part. These will
+defend the feet against pins, needles, and such other sharp substances
+as are usually found on the floor; and the upper part of the shoe, so
+long as the wearer remains in the nursery, may be made of the softest
+and most yielding material--even of cloth. Infants' shoes should always
+be made on two lasts, one for each foot.
+
+The philosopher Locke held, that in order to harden the young, their
+shoes ought to be "so that they might leak and let in water, whenever
+they came near it." There may be and probably is, no harm in having a
+child wet his feet occasionally, provided he is soon supplied with dry
+stockings again; but it is hazardous for either children or adults to go
+too long in wet stockings, and especially to sit long in them, after
+they have been using much active exercise. I am in favor of good,
+substantial shoes and stockings for people of all ages and conditions,
+and at all seasons; and believe it entirely in accordance with sound
+economy and the laws of the human constitution.
+
+
+SEC. 8. _Pins._
+
+The custom of using ten or a dozen pins in the dressing of children,
+ought by all means to be set aside. They not only often wound the skin,
+but they have occasionally been known to penetrate the body and the
+joints of the limbs. So many of these dreadful accidents occur, and
+where no accident happens, so much pain is occasionally given by their
+sharp points to the little sufferer, who cannot tell what the matter is,
+that it is quite time the practice were abolished.
+
+Do you ask what can be substituted?--The following mode is adopted by
+Dr. Dewees in his own family, as mentioned in his work on the "Physical
+and Medical Treatment of Children," at page 86.
+
+"The belly-band and the petticoat have strings; and not a single pin is
+used in their adjustment. The little shirt, which is always made much
+larger than the infant's body, is folded on the back and bosom, and
+these folds kept in their places by properly adjusting the body of the
+petticoat: so far not a pin is used. The diaper requires one, but this
+should be of a large size, and made to serve the double purpose of
+holding the folds of this article, as well as keeping the belly-band in
+its proper place; the latter having a small tag of double linen
+depending from its lower margin, by which it is secured to the diaper,
+by the same pin.
+
+"Should an extraordinary display of best 'bib and tucker' be required
+upon any special occasion, a third pin may be admitted to ensure the
+well-sitting of the 'frock' waist in front;--this last pin, however, is
+applied externally; so that the risk of its getting into the child's
+body is very small, even if it should become displaced."
+
+The writer from whom the last two paragraphs are taken, says be has seen
+needles substituted for pins; and relates a long story of a child whose
+life was well nigh destroyed in this manner. It underwent months of ill
+health, and many moments of excruciating agony, before the cause of its
+trouble was suspected. Sometimes its distress was so great that nothing
+but large doses of laudanum, sufficient to stupify it, could afford the
+least relief. At last a tumor was discovered by the attending physician,
+near one of the bones on which we sit, and a needle was extracted two
+inches long. The needle had been put in its clothes, and, by slipping
+into the folds of the skin, had insinuated itself, unperceived, into the
+child's body. It is pleasing to add, that, although the little sufferer
+had now been ill seven or eight months, and had endured almost
+everything but death,--fever, diarrhoea, and the most excruciating
+pain,--it soon recovered.
+
+This shocking circumstance is enough, one would think, to deter every
+mother or nurse, who becomes acquainted with it, from using needles in
+infants' clothes. Happy would it be, if, in banishing needles, they
+would contrive to banish pins also, and adopt either the plan of Dr.
+Dewees, or one still more rational.
+
+
+SEC. 9. _Remaining Wet._
+
+On the subject of changing the wet clothing of a child, there is a
+strange and monstrous error abroad; which is, that by suffering them to
+remain wet and cold, we harden the constitution. The filthiness of this
+practice is enough to condemn it, were there nothing else to be said
+against it.
+
+It is insisted on by many, I know, that as water which is salt, when it
+is applied to the skin, and suffered to remain long, while it secures
+the point of hardening the child, prevents all possibility of its taking
+cold, it hence follows, that wet diapers are not injurious. But this is
+a mistake. Every time an infant is allowed to remain wet, we not only
+endanger its taking cold, but expose it to excoriations of the skin, if
+not to serious and dangerous inflammation. In short, if frequent changes
+are not made, whatever some mothers and nurses may think, they may rest
+assured, that the health of the child must sooner or later suffer as the
+consequence.
+
+Nor is it enough to hang up a diaper by the fire, and, as soon as it is
+dry, apply it again. It should be clean, as well as dry. Let us not be
+told, that it is troublesome to wash so often. Everything is in a
+certain sense troublesome. Everything in this world, which is worth
+having, is the result of toil. Nothing but absolute poverty affords the
+shadow of an excuse for neglecting anything which will promote the
+health, or even the comfort of the tender infant.
+
+Of the impropriety and danger of suffering wet clothes to dry upon us, I
+shall speak elsewhere; as well as of the evil of suffering children to
+remain dirty,--their skins or their clothing.
+
+
+SEC. 10. _Remarks on the Dress of Boys._
+
+Whatever tends to disturb the growth of the body, or hinder the free
+exercise of the limbs, during the infancy and childhood of both sexes
+is injurious. And as every mother has the control of these things, I
+have thought it desirable to append to this chapter a few thoughts on
+the particular dress of each sex. I begin with that of boys.
+
+"Nothing can be more injurious to health," says a foreign writer, "than
+the tight jacket, buttoned up to the throat, the well-fitted boots, and
+the stiff stock." And his remarks are nearly as applicable to this
+country as to England. The consequences of this preposterous method of
+dressing boys, are diminutive manhood, deformity of person, and a
+constitution either already imbued with disease, or highly susceptible
+of its impression.
+
+No part of the modern dress of boys is more absurd, than the stiff
+stock, or thick cravat. It is not only injurious by pressing on the
+_jugular_ veins, and preventing the blood from freely passing out of the
+head, but, by constantly pressing on the numerous and complex muscles of
+the neck, at this period of life, it prevents their development; because
+whatever hinders the action of the muscular parts, hinders their growth,
+and makes them even appear as if wasted.
+
+It would be a great improvement, if this part of dress were wholly
+discarded; and when is there so appropriate a time for setting it aside,
+as _before we began to use it_; or rather while we are under the more
+immediate care of our mothers?
+
+The use of jackets buttoned up to the throat, except in cold weather, is
+objectionable; but this is very fortunately going out of fashion.
+
+Boots, if used at all, should fit well; to this there can be no possible
+objection. What the writer, whom I have quoted, referred to, was
+probably the tight boot, worn to prevent the foot from being large and
+unseemly; but producing, as tight boots inevitably do, an injurious
+effect upon the muscles, a constrained walk, and corns.
+
+What can be more painful, than to see little boys--yes, _little_
+boys--boys neither fifteen, nor twenty, nor twenty-five, walk as if they
+were fettered and trussed up for the spit; unable to look down, or turn
+their heads, on account of a thick stock, or two or three cravats piled
+on the top of each other--and only capable of using their arms to dangle
+a cane, or carry an umbrella, as they hobble along, perhaps on a hot
+sun-shiny day in July or August?
+
+But this evil, you who are mothers, have it very generally in your power
+to prevent, if you are only wise enough to secure that ascendancy over
+your children's minds which the Author of their nature designed. At the
+least, you can prevent it for a time--the most important period, too--by
+your own authority. This you will not need any urging to induce you to
+do, if you ever become thoroughly convinced of its pre-eminent folly.
+
+
+SEC. 11. _On the Dress of Girls._
+
+The same general principles which should guide the young mother in
+regard to the dress of boys, are equally important and applicable in the
+management of girls. The whole dress should, as much as possible, hang
+loosely from the shoulders, without pressing on the body, or any part of
+it. This, I say, is the grand point to be aimed at; and this is the only
+great principle, whatever some mothers may think, which will lead to
+true beauty of person, and gracefulness of gesture.
+
+There is, however, a slight difference to be made between the dress of
+girls and that of boys. The greater delicacy of the female frame
+requires that the surface of the body should be kept rather warmer, as
+well as better protected from the vicissitudes of the atmosphere.
+
+But is this the fact? Is not the contrary true? While boys in the winter
+are clad in warm woollen vestments, covering every part of their trunk,
+many portions of the female frame, and especially many parts of their
+limbs, are left so much exposed, that in cold weather you scarcely find
+a girl abroad, who appears to be comfortable.
+
+Nay, they are not only uncomfortable abroad, but at home; and if I were
+to present to mothers in detail, a tenth of the evils which their
+daughters suffer from not adopting a warmer method of clothing, I should
+probably be stared at by some, and laughed at by others. All this, too,
+without speaking of going out of warm concert rooms, theatres, ball
+rooms and lecture rooms, into the night air, or out of school rooms and
+churches, to walk home with measured and stiffened pace, lest the sin
+unpardonable of walking swiftly or RUNNING,--that active exercise which
+health requires, which youthful feeling prompts, and which duty ought to
+inspire,--should unwarily be committed.
+
+The tremendous evils of confining the lungs have been adverted to at
+sufficient length. In reference to that general subject, I need only
+add, that if the chest be not duly exercised and expanded, the liver,
+the lungs, the stomach, digestion, absorption, circulation and
+perspiration, are all hindered. And even so far as the various internal
+organs of the body _are_ active, they act at a great disadvantage. The
+blood which they "work up," is bad blood, and must be so, as long as the
+lungs do not have free play. Hence may and do arise all sorts of
+diseases; especially diseases of OBSTRUCTION; and such as are often very
+difficult of removal.
+
+What can be a more pitiable sight than some modern girls going home from
+school or church in winter? Thinly clad, the blood is all driven from
+the surface upon the internal organs, and what remains is so loaded with
+carbon, which the lungs ought but cannot discharge, that her skin has a
+leaden hue; her teeth chatter; her very heart is chilled in her panting,
+frozen bosom; she cannot run, and if she could, she must not, for it
+would be vulgar! Every mother should shrink from the sight of such a
+picture.
+
+
+
+
+CHAPTER V.
+
+CLEANLINESS.
+
+Physiology of the human skin. Of checking perspiration. Diseases thus
+produced. "Dirt" not "healthy." How the mistake originated. "Smell of
+the earth." Effect of uncleanliness on the morals. Filthiness produces
+bowel complaints. Changing dress for the sake of cleanliness.
+
+
+No mother will ever pay that attention to cleanliness which its
+importance to health and happiness demands, till she perceives its
+necessity. And she will never perceive that necessity till she has
+studied attentively the machinery of the human frame--and especially its
+wonderful covering.
+
+The skin is pierced with little openings or _pores_, so numerous that
+some have reckoned them at a million to every square inch. At all
+events, they are so small that the naked eye can neither distinguish nor
+count them; and so numerous, that we cannot pierce the skin with the
+finest needle without hitting one or more of them.
+
+When we are in perfect health, and the skin clean, a gentle moisture or
+mist continually oozes through these pores. This process is called
+_perspiration_; and the moisture which thus escapes, the _matter_ of
+perspiration.
+
+Perspiration may be checked in two ways. 1. by filth on the skin; 2. by
+what is commonly called taking cold--for taking cold essentially
+consists in chilling the skin to such a degree as to stop, for some
+time, the escape of this moisture. Most persons have doubtless observed,
+that in the first stages of a cold, they frequently have a very dry
+skin. Whereas, when we are in health, the skin usually feels moist.
+
+Our health is not only endangered, and a foundation laid for fevers,
+rheumatisms, and consumptions, by stopping the pores of the skin with
+dirt, or anything else, but there is also danger from another and a very
+different source.
+
+The blood, in its circulation through the body, is constantly becoming
+impure; and as it thus comes back impure to the heart, is as constantly
+sent to the lungs, where it comes in close contact with the air which we
+breathe, and is purified. But this same purifying process which goes on
+in the lungs, goes on, too, if the skin is in a pure, free, healthy
+condition, all over the surface of the body. If it is not--if the skin
+cannot do this part of the work--an additional burden is thus laid on
+the lungs, which in this way soon become so overworked, that they
+cannot perform their own proportion of the labor. And whenever this
+happens, the health must soon suffer.
+
+The strange belief, that "dirt is healthy," has much influence on the
+daily practice of thousands of those who are ignorant of the human
+structure, and the laws which govern and regulate the animal economy. It
+has probably originated in the well-known fact, that those children who
+are allowed to play in the dirt, are often as healthy--and even _more_
+healthy--than those who are confined to the nursery or the parlor.
+
+Now, while it is admitted that this is a very common case, it is yet
+believed that the former class of children would be still more vigorous
+than they now are, if they were kept more cleanly, or were at least
+frequently washed. It is not the dirt which promotes their health, but
+their active exercise in the open air; the advantages of which are more
+than sufficient to compensate for the injury which they sustain from the
+dirt. That is to say, they retain, in spite of the dirt, better health
+than those who are denied the blessings of pure air and abundant
+exercise, and subjected to the opposite extreme of almost constant
+confinement.
+
+There is something deceitful, after all, in the ruddy, blooming
+appearance of those children who are left by the busy parent to play in
+the road or field, without attention to cleanliness. If this were not
+so, how comes it to pass that they suffer much more, not only from
+chronic, but from acute diseases, than children whose parents are in
+better circumstances?
+
+I am the more solicitous to combat a belief in the salutary tendency of
+an unclean skin, because I know it prevails to some extent; and because
+I know also, both from reason and from fact, that it is a gross error.
+
+It is, however, true, that years sometimes intervene, before the evil
+consequences of dirtiness appear. The office of the vessels of the skin
+being interrupted, an increase of action is imposed on other parts,
+especially on those internal organs commonly called glands, which action
+is apt to settle into obstinate disease. Hence, at least when aided by
+other causes, often arise, in later life, after the source of the evil
+is forgotten, if it were ever suspected, rheumatism, scrofula, jaundice,
+and even consumption.
+
+There is a strange notion abroad, that the _smell_ of the earth is
+beneficial, especially to consumptive persons. I honestly believe,
+however, that it is more likely to create consumption than to cure it.
+Besides, in what does this smell consist? Do the silex, the alumine, and
+the other earths, with their compounds, emit any odor? Rarely, I
+believe, unless when mixed with vegetable matter. But no gases
+necessary to health are evolved during the decomposition of vegetable
+matter; on the contrary, it is well known that many of them tend to
+induce disease.
+
+I am thoroughly persuaded that too much attention cannot be paid to
+cleanliness; and the demand for such attention is equally imperious in
+the case of those who cultivate the earth, or labor in it, or on stone,
+during the intervals of their useful avocations, as in the case of those
+individuals who follow other employments.
+
+I must also protest against the doctrine, that the smell or taste of the
+earth, much less a coat of it spread over the surface, and closing up,
+for hours and days together, thousands and millions of those little
+pores with which the Author of this "wondrous frame" has pierced the
+skin, can have a salutary tendency.
+
+The opinion has been even maintained, that uncleanly habits are not only
+unfavorable to health, but to morality. There can be no doubt that he
+who neglects his person and dress will be found lower in the scale of
+morals, other things being equal, than he who pays a due regard to
+cleanliness.
+
+Some have supposed that a disposition to neglect personal cleanliness
+was indicative of genius. But this opinion is grossly erroneous, and
+has well nigh ruined many a young man.
+
+I am far from recommending any degree of fastidiousness on this subject.
+Truth and correct practice usually lie between extremes. But I do and
+must insist, that the connection between cleanliness of body and purity
+of moral character, is much more close and direct than has usually been
+supposed.
+
+But to return to the more immediate effects of cleanliness on health.
+There is one class of diseases in particular which, in an eminent
+degree, owe their origin to a neglect of cleanliness. I refer to the
+bowel complaints so common among children during summer and autumn.
+Except in case of teething, the use of unripe fruits, or the _abuse_ of
+those which are in themselves excellent, it is probable that more than
+half of the bowel complaints of the young are either produced or greatly
+aggravated by a foul skin.
+
+The importance of washing the whole body in water will be insisted on in
+the chapter on Bathing; it is therefore unnecessary to say anything
+farther on that subject in this place, except to observe that whether
+the washings of the body be partial or general, they should be thorough,
+so far as they are carried. There are thousands of children who, in
+pretending to wash their hands and face, will do little more than wet
+the inside of their hands, and the tips of their noses and ears unless
+great care is taken.
+
+Few things are more important than suitable changes of dress. There are
+those, who, from principle, never wear the same under-garment but one
+day without washing, either in summer or winter; and there are others
+who, though they may wear an article without washing two or three
+successive days, take care to change their dress at night--never
+sleeping in a garment which they have worn during the day.
+
+It is a very common objection to suggestions like these, that they will
+do very well for those who have wealth, but not for the poor;--that
+_they_ have neither the time nor the means of attending to them. How can
+they change their clothes every day? we are asked. And how can they
+afford to have a separate dress for the night?
+
+There must be retrenchment in some other matters, it is admitted. In
+order to find time for more washing, or money to pay others for the
+labor, the poor must deny themselves a few things which they now
+suppose, if they have ever thought at all on the subject, are conducive
+to their happiness--but which are in reality either useless or
+injurious. Something may be saved by a reasonable dress, as I have
+already shown. Other items of expense, which might be spared with great
+advantage to health and happiness, and applied to the purpose in
+question, will be mentioned in the chapter on Food and Drink.
+
+
+
+
+CHAPTER VI.
+
+ON BATHING.
+
+Danger of savage practices. Rousseau. Cold water at birth. First washing
+of the child. Rules. Temperature. Bathing vessels. Unreasonable fears.
+Whims. Views of Dr. Dewees. Hardening. Rules for the cold bath. Securing
+a glow. Coming out of the bath. Local baths. Shower bath. Vapor bath.
+Sponging. Neglect of bathing. The Romans. Treatment of children compared
+with that of domestic animals.
+
+
+Some of the hardy nations of antiquity, as well as a few savage tribes
+of modern times, have been accustomed to plunge their new-born infants
+into cold water. This is done for the two-fold purpose of washing and
+hardening them.
+
+To all who reason but for a moment on this subject, the danger of such a
+practice must be obvious. So sudden a change from a temperature of
+nearly 100º of Fahrenheit to one quite low, perhaps scarcely 40º, must
+and does have a powerful effect on the nervous system even of an adult;
+but how much more on that of a tender infant? We may form some idea of
+this, by the suddenness and violence of its cries, by the sudden
+contractions and relaxations of its limbs and body, and by its
+palpitating heart and difficult breathing.
+
+Every one's experience may also remind him, that what produces at best a
+momentary pain to himself, cannot otherwise than be painful to the
+infant. In making a comparison between adults and infants, however, in
+this respect, we should remember that the lungs of the infant do not get
+into full and vigorous action until some time after birth; and that, on
+this account, the hold they have on life is so feeble, that any powerful
+shock, and especially that given by the cold bath, is ten times more
+dangerous to them than to adults, or even to infants themselves, after a
+few months have elapsed.
+
+It is surprising to me that so sensible a writer as Rousseau generally
+is on education, should have encouraged this dangerous practice; and
+still more so that many fathers even now, blinded by theory, should
+persist in it, notwithstanding the pleadings of the mother or the nurse,
+and the plainest dictates of common sense and common prudence.[Footnote:
+Nothing is intended to be said here, which shall encourage unthinking
+nurses or mothers in setting themselves against measures which have been
+prescribed by higher authority,--I mean the physician. There are cases
+of this kind, where it requires all the resolution which a father,
+uninterrupted, can summon to his aid, to administer a dose or perform a
+task, on which he knows the existence of his child may be depending: but
+when the thoughtless entreaties of the mother or nurse are interposed,
+it makes his condition most distressing. Mothers, in such cases, ought
+to encourage rather than remonstrate. They who _do not_, are guilty of
+cruelty, and--perhaps--of infanticide.]
+
+A child plunged into cold water at birth, by those whose theories carry
+them so far as to do it even in the coldest weather, has sometimes been
+twenty-four hours in recovering, notwithstanding the most active and
+judicious efforts to restore it. In other instances the results have
+been still more distressing. Dr. Dewees is persuaded that he has "known
+death itself to follow the use of cold water," in this way--I believe he
+means _immediate_ death--and adds, with great confidence, that he has
+"repeatedly seen it require the lapse of several hours before reaction
+could establish itself; during which time the pale and sunken cheeks and
+livid lips declared the almost exhausted state" of the infant's
+excitability.[Footnote: "Dewees on children" p. 72.]
+
+We need not hesitate to put very great confidence in the opinion here
+expressed; for besides being a close and just observer of human nature,
+Dr. D. has had the direction and management, in a greater or less
+degree, of several thousands of new-born infants.
+
+Nothing, indeed, in the whole range of physical education, seems better
+proved, than that while some few infants, whose constitutions are
+naturally very strong, are invigorated by the practice in question,
+others, in the proportion of hundreds for one, who are _less_ robust,
+are injured for life; some of them seriously.
+
+Nor will spirits added to the water make any material difference. I am
+aware that there is a very general notion abroad, that the injurious
+effects of cold water, in its application both internally and
+externally, are greatly diminished by the addition of a little spirit;
+but it is not so. Does the addition of such a small quantity of spirit
+as is generally used in these cases, materially alter the temperature?
+Is it not the application of a cold liquid to a heated surface, still?
+Can we make anything else of it, either more or less?
+
+I do not undertake to say, that the cold bath may not be so managed in
+the progress of infancy, as to make it beneficial, especially to strong
+constitutions. It is its indiscriminate application to all new-born
+children, without regard to strength of constitution, or any other
+circumstances, that I most strenuously oppose. Of its occasional use,
+under the eye of a physician, and by parents who will discriminate, I
+shall say more presently.
+
+Our first duty on receiving a new inhabitant of the world is, to see
+that it is gently but thoroughly washed, in moderately warm soft water,
+with fine soap. Special attention should be paid to the folds of the
+joints, the neck, the arm pits, &c. For rubbing the body, in order to
+disengage anything which might obstruct the pores, or irritate or fret
+the skin, nothing can be preferable to a piece of soft sponge or
+flannel. Though the operation should be thorough, and also as rapid as
+the nature of circumstances will permit, all harshness should be
+avoided. When finished, the child should be wiped perfectly dry with
+soft flannel.
+
+While the washing is performed, the temperature of the room should be
+but a few degrees lower than that of the water; and the child should not
+be exposed to currents of cold air. If the weather is severe, or if
+currents of air in the room cannot otherwise be avoided, the dressing,
+undressing, washing, &c., may be done near the fire. And I repeat the
+rule, it should always be done with as much rapidity as is compatible
+with safety.
+
+Here will be seen one great advantage of simplicity in the form of
+dress. If the more rational suggestions of our chapter on that subject
+are attended to, it will greatly facilitate the process of washing, and
+the subsequent daily process of bathing, which I am about to recommend
+to my readers.
+
+This washing process is also an introduction to bathing. For it should
+be repeated every day; but with less and less attention to the washing,
+and more and more reference to the bathing. How long the child should
+stay in the bath, must be left to experience. If he is quiet, fifteen
+minutes can never be too long; and I should not object to twenty. If
+otherwise, and you are obliged to remove him in five minutes, or even in
+three, still the bathing will be of too much service to be dispensed
+with.
+
+Nothing should be mixed with the water, if the infant is healthy, except
+a little soap, as already mentioned. Some are fond of using salt; but it
+is by no means necessary, and may do harm.
+
+The proper hour for bathing is the early part of the day, or about the
+middle of the forenoon. This season is selected, because the process,
+manage it as carefully as we may, is at first a little exhausting. As
+the child grows older, however, and not only becomes stronger, but
+appears to be actually refreshed and invigorated by the bath, it will be
+advisable to defer it to a later and later hour. By the time the babe is
+three months old, particularly in the warm season, the hour of bathing
+may be at sunset.
+
+The degree of heat must be determined, in part, by observing its effect
+on the child; and in part by a thermometer. For this, and for other
+purposes, a thermometer, as I have already more than hinted, is
+indispensable in every nursery. Our own sensations are often at best a
+very unsafe guide. There is one rule which should always be
+observed--never to have the temperature of the bath below that of the
+air of the room. If the thermometer show the latter to be 70º, the bath
+should be something like 80º; perhaps with feeble children, rather more.
+
+Great care ought always to be taken to proportion the air of the room
+and the water of the bath to each other. If, for example, the
+temperature of the room have been, for some time, unusually warm, that
+of the water must not be so low as if it had been otherwise. On the
+contrary, if the room have been, for a considerable time, rather cool,
+the bath may be made several degrees cooler than in other circumstances.
+But in no case and in no circumstances must a _warm_ bath--intended as
+such, simply--be so warm or so cold, as to make the child uncomfortable;
+whether the temperature be 70º, 80º, or 90º.
+
+It is hardly necessary to add, that in bathing a young child, the vessel
+used for the purpose should be large enough to give free scope to all
+the motions of its extremities. Most children are delighted to play and
+scramble about in the water. I know, indeed, that the contrary sometimes
+happens; but when it does, it is usually--I do not say _always_--because
+the countenances of those who are around express fear or apprehension;
+for it is surprising how early these little beings learn to decipher our
+feelings by our very countenances.
+
+Some of our readers may be surprised at the intimation that there are
+mothers and nurses who have fears or apprehensions in regard to the
+effects of the warm bath; but others--and it is for such that I write
+this paragraph--will fully understand me. I have been often surprised at
+the fact, but it is undoubted, that there is a strong prejudice against
+warm bathing, in many parts of the country. In endeavoring to trace the
+cause, I have usually found that it arose from having seen or heard of
+some child who died soon after its application. I have had many a parent
+remonstrate with me on the danger of the warm bath; and this, too, in
+circumstances when it appeared to me, that the child's existence
+depended, under God, on that very measure. Perhaps it is useless in such
+cases, however, to reason with parents on the subject. The medical
+practitioner must do his duty boldly and fearlessly, and risk the
+consequences.
+
+But as I am writing, not for persons under immediate excitement, but for
+those that may be reasoned with, it is proper to say, that in medicine,
+the warm bath is so often used in extreme cases, and as a last resort,
+even when death has already grasped, or is about to fix his grasp on the
+sufferer, that it would be very strange if many persons _did not_ die,
+just after bathing. But that the bathing itself ever produced this
+result, in one case in a thousand, there is not the slightest reason for
+believing. [Footnote: Let me not be understood as intimating that, the
+general neglect of bathing, of which I complain so loudly, is _chiefly_
+owing to this unreasonable prejudice, though this no doubt has its sway.
+On the contrary, I believe it is much oftener owing to ignorance,
+indolence, and parsimony.]
+
+There are many more whims connected with bathing, as with almost
+everything else, which it were equally desirable to remove. Some nurses
+and mothers think that if the child's skin is wiped dry after bathing,
+it will impair, if not destroy, the good effects of the operation.
+Others still, shocking to relate, will even put it to bed in its wet
+clothes; this, too, from principle. Not unlike this, is the belief, very
+common among adults, that if we get our clothes wet--even our
+stockings--we must, by all means, suffer them to dry on us; a belief
+which, in its results, has sent thousands to a premature grave--and,
+what is still worse, made invalids, for life, of a still greater number.
+
+I am aware, that in rejecting the indiscriminate cold bathing of
+infants, I am treading on ground which is rather unpopular, even with
+medical men; a large proportion of whom seem to believe that the
+practice may be useful. But I am not _wholly_ alone. Dr. Dewees--of
+whose large experience I have already spoken--and some others, do not
+hesitate to avow similar sentiments.
+
+The objections of Dr. Dewees to cold bathing are the following. 1. There
+often exists a predisposition to disease, which cold bathing is sure to
+rouse to action. Or if the disease have already begun to affect the
+system, the bath is sure to aggravate it. 2. Some children have such
+feeble constitutions that they are sure to be permanently weakened by
+it, rather than invigorated. 3. To those in whom there is the tendency
+of a large quantity of blood to the head, lungs, liver, &c., it is
+injurious. 4. In some, the shock produces a species of syncope, or
+catalepsy. 5. The _reaction_, as shown by the heat which follows the
+cold bath, is, in some cases, so great as to produce a degree of fever,
+and consequent debility. 6. It never answers the purposes of
+cleanliness--one great object of bathing--so well as the warm bath. 7.
+It is always unpleasant or painful to the child; especially at first. 8.
+It sometimes produces severe pain in the bowels.
+
+This is a very formidable list of objections; and certainly deserves
+consideration. There is one statement made by Dr. D. in the progress of
+his remarks on this subject, in which I do not concur. He says--"The
+object of all bathing is to remove impurities arising from dust,
+perspiration, &c., from the surface; that the skin may not be obstructed
+in the performance of its proper offices."
+
+But the object of cold bathing, with many, is to _harden_; consequently
+it is not true that cleanliness is the _only object_. If he means, even,
+that cleanliness is the only _legitimate_ object of all bathing, I shall
+still be compelled to dissent.
+
+If the cold bath could be used, always, by and with the direction of a
+skilful physician, I believe its occasional use might be rendered
+salutary. And although as it is now commonly used, I believe its effects
+are almost anything but salutary, I do not deny that if its use were
+cautiously and gradually begun, and judiciously conducted, it might be
+the means of making children who are already robust, still more hardy
+and healthy than before, and better able to resist those sudden changes
+of temperature so common in our climate, and so apt to produce cold,
+fever, and consumption.
+
+Cold bathing, in the hands of those who are ignorant of the laws of the
+human frame--and such unfortunately and unaccountably most fathers and
+mothers are--I cannot help regarding as a highly dangerous weapon; and
+therefore it is, that in view of the whole subject, I cannot recommend
+its general and indiscriminate use.
+
+If there are individuals, however, who are determined to employ it, in
+the case of their more vigorous children, and without the advice or
+direction of their family physician, I beg them to attend to the
+following rules or principles, expressed as briefly as possible.
+
+In no ordinary case whatever, is the cold bath useful, unless it is
+succeeded by that degree of warmth on the surface of the body which is
+usually called a _glow_. This is a leading and important principle. The
+contrary, that is, the injurious effects of cold bathing--its
+_immediate_ bad effects, I mean--are shown by the skin remaining pale
+and shrivelled after coming out of the bath, by its blue appearance, and
+by its coldness, as well as by a sunken state of the eyes, and much
+general languor.
+
+To secure this point--I mean the GLOW--it is indispensably important to
+begin the use of cold water gradually; that is, to use it at first of
+so high a temperature as to produce only a slight sensation of cold, and
+to take special care that the skin be immediately wiped very dry, and
+the temperature of the room be quite as high as usual. Afterward the
+water may be cooled gradually, from week to week, though never more than
+a degree or two at once.
+
+It will probably be unsafe to commence this practice of cold
+bathing--even in the case of the most robust children--until they are at
+least six months of age.
+
+The appropriate season will be the middle of the forenoon, the hour when
+the system is usually the most vigorous, and at which we shall be most
+likely to secure a reaction. At first, twice or three times a week are
+as often as it will be safe to repeat it. Some writers recommend it
+twice a day; but once is enough, under any ordinary circumstances.
+
+The method at first is, to give the infant a single plunge. Afterward,
+when he becomes older, and more inured to it, he may be plunged several
+times in succession.
+
+On taking him out of the bath, the skin should be wiped perfectly dry,
+as in the case of the warm bath, and with the same or an increased
+degree of attention to other circumstances--the temperature of the
+room, the avoiding currents of air, &c. He should next be put in a soft,
+warm blanket, and be kept for some time in a state of gentle motion; and
+after a little time, should be dressed.
+
+I have already mentioned the importance of avoiding the manifestation of
+fear, when we bathe a child; and the caution is particularly necessary
+in the administration of the cold bath. Some writers even recommend,
+that during the whole process of undressing, bathing, exercising, and
+dressing, singing should be employed. There is philosophy in this
+advice, and it is easily tried; but I cannot speak of it from
+experience.
+
+There is one thing which may serve to calm our apprehensions--if we have
+any--of danger; which is, that though the child's lungs are feeble at
+first, from their not having been, like the heart, accustomed to
+previous action, yet when they get fairly into motion and action, and
+the child is a few months old, they are probably as strong, if not
+stronger, in proportion, than those of adults.
+
+Bathing in cold water should never be performed immediately after a full
+meal. Neither is it desirable to go to the contrary extreme, and bathe
+when the stomach has been long empty; nor when the child's mental or
+bodily powers are more than usually exhausted by fatigue.
+
+Although I have given these rules for those who are determined to use
+the cold bath with their children, yet, for fear I shall be
+misunderstood, I must be suffered to repeat, in this place, that,
+uninformed as people generally are in regard to physiology, I cannot
+advise even its moderate use. On the contrary, I would gladly dissuade
+from it, as most likely, in the way it would inevitably be used, to do
+more harm than good.
+
+There is no sort of objection to what might be called local bathing with
+cold water. If the child's head is hot at any time, the temples, and
+indeed the whole upper part of the head, may be very properly wet with
+moderately cold water--taking care to avoid wetting the clothes. But
+avoid, by all means, the common but foolish practice of putting spirits
+in the water.
+
+A tea-spoonful of cold water cannot be too early put into the mouth of
+the infant. The object is to cleanse or rinse the mouth; and the process
+may be aided by wiping it out with a piece of soft linen rag. If a part
+or all of the water should be swallowed, no harm will be done. This
+practice, commenced almost as soon as children are born, has saved many
+a sore mouth.
+
+There are other forms of bathing besides those already mentioned; among
+which are the shower bath, the vapor bath, and the medicated bath. The
+shower bath--for which purpose the water is commonly used cold--is but
+poorly adapted to the wants of infants. The shock is much greater than
+the common cold bath, and more apt to frighten; and fear is unfavorable
+to reaction, or the production of a genial glow.
+
+The vapor bath is much better; and probably has quite as good an effect
+as the common warm bath. The trouble and expense of procuring the
+necessary apparatus is somewhat greater, however, as a mere bathing tub
+costs but little, and can be made by every father who possesses common
+ingenuity. But whatever may be the expense, it is indispensable in every
+family; and whenever the pores of the skin are obstructed, a vapor
+bathing apparatus is equally desirable.
+
+The medicated vapor bath is sometimes used; but I am not now treating of
+infants who are sick, but of those who are in a state of health.
+
+The common warm bath is sometimes medicated by putting in salt. This, of
+course, renders the water more stimulating to the skin; but except when
+the perspiration is checked, or the skin peculiarly inactive from some
+other cause--in other words, unless we are sick--it is seldom expedient
+to use it.
+
+There is one substitute for the bathing tub, in the case of the cold
+bath. I refer to the use of a wet cloth or sponge, applied rapidly to
+the whole surface of the body. When this is done, the skin should be
+wiped thoroughly dry immediately afterwards, as in the case of complete
+immersion.
+
+The application of either a cloth or a sponge, filled with warm water,
+to the skin, in this manner, even if continued for several minutes
+together, is less efficacious than a continuous immersion. I repeat
+it--no family ought to be without conveniences for bathing in warm water
+daily. I speak now of every member of the family, young and old, as well
+as the infant; and I refer particularly to the summer season: though I
+do not think the practice ought to be wholly discontinued during the
+winter.
+
+It will still be objected that this care of, and attention to the young,
+in reference to health--this provision for bathing daily, and care to
+see that it is performed--can never be afforded by the laboring portion
+of the community. But I shall as strenuously insist on the contrary; and
+trust I shall, in the sequel, produce reasons which will be
+satisfactory.
+
+The great difficulty is, to convince parents that these things are
+vastly more productive of health and happiness to their children--more
+truly necessaries--than a great many things for which they now expend
+their time and money. There is, and always has been--except, perhaps,
+among the Jews, in the earliest periods of the history of that wonderful
+nation--a strange disposition to overlook the happiness of the young. It
+is not necessary to represent this dereliction as peculiar to modern
+times, for we find traces of the same thing thousands of years ago.
+
+The Roman emperors--Dioclesian in particular--could make provision for
+bathing, to an extent which now astonishes us; but for whom? For whom, I
+repeat it, was incurred the enormous expense of fitting up and keeping
+in repair accommodations for bathing at once 18,000 people? For adults;
+and for adults alone. I do not say that children were not admitted, in
+any case; but I say they were not contemplated in these arrangements.
+Nothing was done--not a single thing--that would not have been done, had
+there been no child under ten years of age in the whole empire.
+
+And what better than this do WE, now? We make provision for the
+happiness of the adult. The most indigent person will find time and
+money to spend for the gratification of his own senses, his pride, or
+his curiosity; but his children--they may be overlooked! Or, if he has
+an eye to the future happiness of his child, he conceives that he is
+promoting it in the best possible degree, by endeavoring to lay up a few
+dollars for his use, after his character is formed--at a period, as it
+too often happens, when money will do him little good, since it can
+neither purchase health, peace of mind, nor reputation.
+
+Far be it from me to say, that the poor--ground into the dust as they
+are, by the force of circumstances operating with their own concurrence,
+to make them ignorant, vicious, or miserable--can do for their children
+all that is desirable. By no means. But they have it in their power to
+do much more than they are at present doing. They have it in their
+power, at least, to use the same good sense in the management of the
+human being that they do in that of a pig, a calf, or a colt, or even a
+young vegetable. No parent, let him be ever so poor, is found in the
+habit of neglecting either of these in proportion to its infancy, and of
+exerting himself only in proportion as it grows older. Common sense
+tells him that the contrary is the true course; that however poor he may
+be, he will be still poorer, if he do not take special pains with the
+young animal, to rear it and with the young vegetable, to give it the
+right direction, by keeping down the weeds, and pruning and watering it.
+And I say again, that however deserving of censure the wealthy of a
+Christian community may be in not directing the ignorant and vicious
+into the right path, and in not expending more of their wealth on those
+who are poor, in elevating their minds and their manners, and promoting
+their health, still the latter are inexcusable for their present neglect
+of their infant offspring, while they would not think of neglecting, on
+the same principle, the offspring of their domestic animals.
+
+
+
+
+CHAPTER VII.
+
+FOOD.
+
+SEC. 1. General principles.--SEC. 2. Conduct of the mother.--SEC. 3.
+Nursing--rules in regard to it.--SEC. 4. Quantity of food. Errors.
+Over-feeding. Gluttony.--SEC. 5. How long should milk be the child's
+only food?--SEC. 6 Feeding before teething. Cow's milk. Sucking bottles.
+Cleanliness. Nurses.--SEC. 7. Treatment from teething to weaning.--SEC.
+8. Process of weaning-rules in regard to it.--SEC. 9. First food to be
+used after weaning. Importance of good bread. Other kinds of food.--SEC.
+10. Remarks on fruit.--SEC. 11. Evils and dangers of confectionary.--SEC.
+12. Mischiefs of pastry.--SEC. 13. Crude and raw substances.
+
+
+SEC. 1. _General Principles._
+
+The mother's milk, in suitable quantity, and under suitable regulations,
+is so obviously the appropriate food of an infant during the first
+months of its existence, that it seems almost unnecessary to repeat the
+fact. And yet the violations of this rule are so numerous and constant,
+as to require a few passing remarks.
+
+There are some mothers who seem to have a perfect hatred of children;
+and if they can find any plausible apology for neglecting to nurse them,
+they will. Few, indeed, will publicly acknowledge a state of feeling so
+unnatural; but there are some even of such. On the latter, all argument
+would, I fear, be utterly lost. Of the former, there may, be hope.
+
+They tell us--and they are often sustained by those around them--that it
+is very inconvenient to be so confined to a child that they cannot leave
+home for a little while. Can it be their duty--for in these days, when
+virtue and religion, and everything good, are so highly complimented, no
+people are more ready to talk of _duty_ than they who have the least
+regard to it--can it be their duty, they ask, to exclude themselves from
+the pleasures and comforts of social life for half or two thirds of
+their most active and happy years? Ought they not to go abroad, at least
+occasionally? But if so, and their children have no other source of
+dependence, must they not suffer? Is it not better, therefore, that they
+should be early accustomed to other food, for a part of the time?
+Besides, they may be sick; and then the child must rely on others; and
+will it not be useful to accustom it early to do so?
+
+Perhaps few mothers are conscious that this train of reasoning passes
+through their minds. But that something like it is often made the
+occasion of substituting food which is less proper, for that furnished
+by Divine Providence, there cannot be a doubt. And the mischief is, that
+she who has gone so far, will not scruple, ere long, to go farther. And,
+strange and unnatural as it may seem, that mothers should turn over
+their children to be nursed wholly by others, in order to get rid of the
+inconvenience of nursing them at their own bosoms, it is only carrying
+out to its fullest extent, and reducing to practice, the train of
+reasoning mentioned above.
+
+Nor is it necessary that I should stop here to denounce a course of
+conduct so unchristian and savage. I know it is very common in some
+countries; and those American mothers who ape the other eastern
+fashions, or countenance their sons and daughters in doing it, will not
+be slow to imitate this also--especially as it is a very _convenient_
+fashion. And I question whether I shall succeed in reasoning them out of
+it. Habit, both of thought and action, is exceedingly powerful. I will,
+therefore, confine myself chiefly to those efforts at prevention, from
+which much more is to be hoped, in the present state of society, than
+from direct attempts at cure.
+
+It will be soon enough to leave a child with another person, when the
+mother is actually sick, or unavoidably absent; or when some other
+adequate cause is known to exist. We are to be governed, in these and
+similar cases, by general rules, and not by exceptions. The general
+rule, in the present case, is, that mothers can nurse their own
+children; and, if they have the proper disposition, that they can do it
+uninterruptedly.
+
+But those who are so ready to become counsellors on these occasions,
+will tell us, perhaps, that the child must be "fed to spare the mother."
+That is to say, nursing weakens the mother, and the child must be taken
+away, a part of the time, to save her strength.
+
+Now it may safely be doubted whether the process of nursing, in itself
+considered, does weaken, at all. The Author of nature has made provision
+for the secretion (formation) of the milk, whether the child receives it
+or not. If it is not taken by the child, or drawn off in some other way,
+one of two things must follow;--either it must be taken up by what are
+called absorbent vessels, and carried into the circulation, and chiefly
+thrown out of the system as waste matter, or it will prove a source of
+irritation, if not of inflammation, to the organs themselves which
+secrete it. In both cases, the strength of the mother is quite as likely
+to be taxed, as if the child received the milk in the way that nature
+intended.
+
+Besides, on this very principle, the plan of saving a mother's strength
+by requiring another to nurse for her, is but saying that we will weaken
+one person to save another. Or if we feed the child, to "spare its
+mother," what is this, in practice, but to say that the works of the
+Creator are very imperfect; and that he has thrown upon the mass of
+mankind a task to which they are not equal? For the mass of mankind are
+poor; and the poor, having neither the means nor the time to escape the
+duties in question, must submit to them, while their more wealthy
+neighbors escape.
+
+But it is idle to defend customs so monstrous. They admit of no defence
+that has the slightest claim to solidity. The general rule then is, that
+mothers should nurse their own children.
+
+
+SEC. 2. _Conduct of the Mother._
+
+Originally it was not my intention to give directions, in this volume,
+in regard to the food, drink, &c., of the mother while nursing; but
+repeated solicitations on this point, have led me to the conclusion that
+a few general principles may be very properly introduced.
+
+The future health, and even the moral well-being of the child, depend
+much more on the proper management of the mother herself than is usually
+supposed. How, indeed, can it be other wise? How can the mother's blood
+be constantly irritated with improper food and drink, without rendering
+the milk so? And how can a child draw, daily and hourly, from this
+feverish fountain, without being affected, not only in his physical
+frame, but in his very temper and feelings?
+
+It is not enough that we adopt the principles already insisted on by
+some of our wisest medical men, and even by one or two medical
+societies,[Footnote: Those of Connecticut and New Hampshire.] that
+children in this way often acquire a propensity for exciting drinks,
+that may end in their downright intemperance. What if it should not, in
+every case, proceed quite so far as to make the child a drunkard? If it
+but lays the foundation of a constitutional fondness for _excitements_,
+it tends to disease. Indeed that, in itself, is a disease; and one, too,
+which is destroying more persons every year than the cholera, or even
+the consumption. Consumption has at most only slain her tens of
+thousands [Footnote: About 40,000 a year, in the United States, as nearly
+as it can be estimated.] a year; but a fondness for exciting food and
+drink--innocent and harmless as it is often supposed to be, and
+therefore only the more dangerous a foe--does not fail to slay every
+year, directly or indirectly, its hundreds of thousands. At least this
+is my own opinion.
+
+Why, where can you find the individual who is not a slave to this
+perpetual rage within--this perpetual cry, "Who will show us any"
+physical "good"? Who, in this land of abundance, will eat or drink plain
+things? Who will eat simple bread, meat, potatoes, rice, pudding,
+apples, &c. or drink simple water? A few instances may be found, of
+late, in which people confine themselves to simple water for drink; but
+they are rather rare. And no wonder. They _must_ be rare so long as an
+unnatural thirst is kept up everywhere by the most exciting and most
+strange mixtures of food. Where, I again ask, is the person who will eat
+and relish plain bread, plain meat, plain puddings, &c.? Certainly not
+in the nursery. No young mother--scarcely one I mean--will, for a single
+meal, confine herself to a piece of bread, the sweetest and best food in
+the whole world, unless it is hot, or toasted, or soaked, or buttered. A
+natural, healthy appetite, is as rare a thing on our planet, almost, as
+an inhabitant of the sun or moon.
+
+I have seen more than one mother made sick by using, while nursing,
+improper food and drink. I have known milk punch, taken by
+stealth--(because how could the mother, it was said, ever have a supply
+of food for her poor child without it!)--to kindle a fever that came
+very near burning up the mother and child both. And yet, if I have once
+or twice succeeded in convincing the mother that she was only suffering
+the natural punishment of her own transgressions, I have never, so far
+as I now recollect, succeeded in making her believe that her iniquities
+were visited upon her unoffending infant.
+
+There is everywhere the most painful apathy on this most painful
+subject. We see little children of all ages, everywhere, the victims of
+debility, and pain, and suffering, and disease and death, and yet we
+very seldom seem to search for one moment for the causes of this
+premature destruction. In fact most parents--even many intelligent
+mothers--at once stare, if you attempt to inquire into the causes of
+their child's death, as if it was either a kind of sacrilege, or an
+impeachment of their own parental affection. Diseases, even at this day,
+with the sun of science blazing in meridian splendor, they seem to
+regard as the judgments of heaven; and to think of tracing out the
+causes of the early death of half our race, is, in their estimation, not
+only idle, but wicked.
+
+Yet this is obviously one of the first steps, every, where, which
+philanthropy demands; to say nothing of the demands of christianity. It
+is the first step for the physician, the first step for the educator,
+the first step for the parent, and above all, the mother. Nay; more--we
+must not suppress so great and important a truth--it is the first step
+for the legislator and the minister. What sense is there in continuing,
+century after century, and age after age, to expend all our efforts in
+merely _mending_ the diseased half of mankind, when those same efforts
+are amply sufficient, if early and properly applied, not only to
+continue the lives of the whole, but to make them _whole beings_,
+instead of passing through life mere _fragments_ of humanity?
+
+But I must not forget that this is merely a small manual, not intended
+for those who make it their profession to teach the laws of God and man,
+but simply for young mothers. For the sake of erring humanity, would
+that I could, but for one moment, divest myself of the idea, that in
+writing for the young mother I am not writing for legislators and
+ministers! Would that I could banish from my mind the deep conviction
+that the mother is everywhere far more the law-giver to her infant--far
+more the arbiter of the present and eternal destiny of her child--than
+he who is more commonly regarded as such.
+
+Every mother owes it, not only to herself--for on this part she is not
+_wholly_ forgetful--but to her offspring, to abstain, during the period
+of nursing at least, from all causes which tend to produce a feverish
+state of her fluids. Among these are every form of premature exertion,
+whether in sitting up, laboring, conversing, or even thinking. It is of
+very great importance that both the body and the mind should be kept
+quiet; and the more so, the better.
+
+Among the particular causes of fever to the young mother, Dr. Dewees
+enumerates spirits, wine, and other fermented liquors, a room too much
+heated, closed curtains, confined air, too much exposure, and too much
+company; and during the early period of confinement, broths and animal
+food.
+
+There is nothing which he insists on more strongly, than the importance
+of fresh air. Indeed, the practice of confining a nursing woman in a
+space scarcely six feet square, and excluding the air surrounding her by
+curtains and closed windows, and subjecting her to the necessity of
+breathing twenty times the air that has already been as often
+discharged, filled with poison, from her lungs, is not too strongly
+reprobated by Dr. Dewees, or anybody else. But I have spoken of these
+things in the chapter which treats on "The Nursery." I would only
+observe, on this point, that if I were asked what one thing is most
+indispensable to the health of the nursing woman, I would reply, Fresh
+air; and if asked what were the second and third most important things,
+I would still repeat--in imitation of the orator of old, in regard to
+another subject--Fresh air, Fresh air.
+
+This important ingredient in human happiness, and especially in the
+happiness of the young mother and her tender infant, can usually be had
+within doors, if pains enough be taken. But if the weather is fine and
+in every respect favorable, a woman who is in tolerable health may
+venture abroad a little in about three weeks after her confinement, and
+sometimes even in two. Whether her exercise be without or within doors,
+however, she should be effectually protected against chills, and against
+the influence of currents of cold air.
+
+It has been incidentally stated, that Dr. Dewees objects to the mother's
+use, during her early period of nursing, of broths and animal food. This
+is about as much as we could reasonably expect from one who belongs to a
+profession whose members are, almost without exception, enslaved to the
+practice of flesh-eating. But even this advice of his, if duly followed,
+would be a great advance upon the practice which generally prevails.
+There is so universal a belief among females that they demand, at this
+period of their existence, not only a larger quantity of food than
+usual, but also that which is more stimulating in its quality, as almost
+to forbid the hopes of making much impression upon their minds. Many
+young mothers seem to consider themselves as licensed, during a part of
+their lives, not only to eat immoderately, and even to gluttony, but
+also to swallow almost every species of vile trash which a vile world
+affords.
+
+How long will it be, ere the mother can be induced to take as much pains
+to select the most appropriate and most healthy aliment for herself and
+her child, as she now does that which is demanded by a capricious
+appetite, without the smallest reference to fitness or digestibility!
+How long will it be ere the mother can be brought to believe and feel
+that, in every step she takes, she is forming the habitation of an
+immortal spirit--a spirit, too, whose character and destiny, both
+present and eternal, must depend, in no small degree, upon the character
+of the dwelling it occupies while passing through this stage of earthly
+existence! How long will it be, before mothers can be made to believe
+even these two simple truths, that the nourishment, which the human
+being actually receives, is not always in exact proportion to the
+quantity of nutritious food which he throws into his stomach, and that
+the diet is always best for both mother and child, which is least
+exciting.
+
+The Charleston Board of Health, during the existence of cholera in that
+city in 1836, publicly announced that the "best food is the least
+exciting," and this great truth is just as true in all other places and
+circumstances on the globe as it was then in South Carolina. And though
+I am far from believing that health depends more on food and drink than
+on all other things put together, as many seem to suppose, yet I am
+entirely of opinion that he who should devote himself successfully to
+the work of applying this truth, in all its bearings, to the dietetic
+practice of all mankind, would do more for their reformation--yes, and
+their salvation too--than has yet been done by any merely _human_ being,
+since the first day of the creation.
+
+
+SEC. 3. _Nursing--how often._
+
+Many lay it down, as an invariable rule, that no system can be pursued
+with a child till it is six months old; and it must be admitted by all,
+that for several months after birth there are serious difficulties in
+the way of determining, with any degree of precision, how often a child
+should be nursed or fed. Still, there are a few rules of universal
+application; some of which are here presented.
+
+1. A child should never be nursed, merely to quiet it; for if this be
+done, it will soon learn to cry, whenever it feels the slightest
+uneasiness, not only from hunger, but from other causes; merely to be
+gratified with nursing. Besides, if its cries should happen to be from
+illness, it is ten to one but the reception of anything into the stomach
+will do harm instead of good.
+
+2. The stomach, like every other organ in the body which is muscular,
+must have time for rest; and this in the case of children as well as
+adults. But to nurse them too frequently is in opposition to this rule,
+and therefore of evil tendency.
+
+3. For reasons which may be seen by the last rule, there should be
+regular seasons for nursing, and these should be adhered to, especially
+by night. When very young, once in three hours may not be too frequent;
+I believe that it is seldom proper to nurse a child more frequently than
+this. But whenever three hours becomes a suitable period by day, once in
+four hours will be often enough by night. I will not undertake to say at
+what precise age children should be nursed at intervals of three and
+four hours each; because some children are older, _constitutionally_, at
+three months, than others are at four.
+
+There is one grand mistake, however, against which I must caution young
+mothers; which is, not to indulge the vain expectation that feeble
+infants will become robust, in proportion to their indulgence. On the
+contrary, it is the more necessary to be strict with feeble children,
+_because_ they are feeble. To keep them hanging at the breast to
+invigorate them, is the very way to counteract our own intentions, and
+defeat our own purpose. Seasons of entire rest are even more important
+to their stomachs than to those of other persons.
+
+4. But in order to secure intervals of rest, both to the strong and the
+feeble, we must avoid the pernicious habit of giving infants pap, and
+other delicacies, "between meals." Many a child's health is ruined by
+this practice. Nothing should be put into their stomachs for many
+months--if they are in health--but the mother's milk.
+
+"This," says Dr. Dunglison, "is the sole food of the infant, and is
+consequently sufficiently nutrient to maintain life, and to minister to
+the growth, during the earliest periods of existence." [Footnote:
+Elements of Hygiene, page 271.] In another place, he says, "Milk is an
+appropriate nourishment at all ages, and is more so the nearer to
+birth."
+
+
+SEC. 4. _Quantity of Food._
+
+"We all know," says Dr. Dewees, "how easily the stomach may be made to
+demand more food than is absolutely required; first, by the repetition
+of aliment, and secondly, by its variety;--therefore both of these
+causes must be avoided. The stomach, like every other part, can, and
+unfortunately does, acquire habits highly injurious to itself; and that
+of demanding an unnecessary quantity of aliment is not one of the least.
+It should, therefore, be constantly borne in mind, that it is not the
+quantity of food taken into the stomach, that is available to the proper
+purposes of the system; but the quantity which can be digested, and
+converted into nourishment fit to be applied to such purposes."
+
+There is a great deal of truth in these remarks; and especially in the
+closing one, that not all which is taken into the stomach is digested.
+It is highly probable, that the least quantity which is usually given to
+an infant is more than sufficient for the purposes of digestion; and
+that nearly every child in the arms of its mother, is over-fed.
+
+I know it has been said, by some physicians--and by those who are
+sensible men, in other respects, too--that the child's stomach is a
+pretty correct guide in regard to quantity. If we give it too much, say
+they, it will reject it;--as if that were an end of the matter.
+
+But it is not so. It is by no means harmless to fill the child's stomach
+as full as is possible without overflowing. Such a process, though it
+should not create disease directly, would produce a gluttonous habit.
+The stomach, being muscular, may be increased in size by use, like all
+other muscular organs. The hands, the arms, the legs, the feet, the
+fleshy portions of the face, even, may be disproportionally enlarged by
+constant use. Thus a sailor, who uses his hands and arms much more than
+his legs and feet, has the former unusually large; one who is much
+accustomed to walking, has large feet; and in a tailor, who from
+childhood uses his lower limbs comparatively little, they are both small
+and slender. On the same principle, the stomach, by inordinate use, and
+by carrying unreasonable loads, may be made nearly twice as large as
+nature intended, and may demand twice as much food. And I have no doubt
+that the bulk of mankind, young and old, eat about twice as much as
+nature, unperverted, would require.
+
+If the suggestions of our last section are duly attended to, one of the
+causes which lead the stomach to demand an unreasonable quantity of food
+will be avoided--I mean the too frequent "repetition of aliment." And if
+we never depart from the general rule, already laid down, not to give
+the infant anything but its mother's milk, we shall escape the evils
+incident to variety.
+
+
+SEC. 5. _How long should milk be the only food._
+
+On this point, there is a great diversity of opinion. Perhaps the most
+approved role, of universal application, is, that the first change
+should be made in the child's diet, when the teeth begin to appear.
+
+This period, it is well known, cannot be fixed to any particular age,
+but varies from the fifth to the twelfth month.
+
+Some mothers, who have borne with me patiently to this place, will
+probably here object. "What child," they will ask, "would ever have any
+strength, brought up so?" Not only a little pap and gruel is, in their
+estimation, necessary, long before this period, but even many choice
+bits of meat.
+
+Now I am very sure, that these choice bits--whatever they may be--given
+to a child before it has teeth, not only do no good, but actually do
+mischief. Indeed, that which does no good in the stomach must do harm,
+of course; since it is not only in the way, but acts like a foreign body
+there, producing more or less of irritation.
+
+I ought to state, in this place, that many people--mothers among the
+rest--have very inadequate ideas of digestion. They appear to have no
+farther notion of the digestive process than that it consists in
+reducing to a pulp the substances which are swallowed; and hence,
+whatever is reduced to a pulp, they regard as being digested. Whereas
+nothing is better known to the anatomist and physiologist, than that
+this--the formation of _chyme_ in the stomach--constitutes only a very
+small part of the digestive process. The chyme must pass into the
+duodenum and other portions of intestine beyond the stomach, and be
+retained there for some time, before it will form perfect chyle.
+
+This is a more important part of the work of digestion than even the
+former. For, suppose the chyme to be perfect, though even this may be
+mere pulp, rather than chyme, and suppose it pass quietly along into the
+duodenum and other small intestines. All this process, thus far, may go
+on naturally enough, and yet the chyle may not be well formed, and the
+chymous mass may find its way out of the system without answering any of
+the purposes of nutrition. For no matter how well the food is dissolved
+in the stomach, if it do not become good and proper chyle, the blood
+which is formed will not be good and perfect blood; or, lastly, if it
+_seem_ to make good blood, it may still be faulty, so that the
+particles which should be applied to build up or repair the system, are
+either not used, or if used, answer the purpose but imperfectly.
+
+We hence see how little prepared a large proportion of the community,
+are, to judge of the digestibility or fitness of a substance for
+infants, by their own observation and experience merely; and how much
+more wisely they act, in contenting themselves with giving them--at
+least until they have teeth--such food only as the Author of nature
+seems to have assigned them; especially when thus course, is precisely
+that which is recommended or sanctioned by nearly every judicious
+physician, as well as by almost all our writers on health.
+
+
+SEC. 6. _On Feeding before Teething._
+
+Having laid down the general rule, that until the appearance of teeth,
+the sole food of an infant should be the milk of its own mother, I
+proceed to speak of some of the more common exceptions to it.
+
+EXCEPTION 1.--The first of these is when the supply furnished by the
+mother is scanty. There may be two causes of the scantiness of this
+supply; 1st, the want of suitable nourishment by the mother; and, 2dly,
+a feeble constitution, or bad health. In the former case, it should be
+her first object, as it undoubtedly will be that of her physician, to
+improve the quality of her diet; and in the latter, to restore her
+health, or at least invigorate her constitution.
+
+In regard to the proper diet of a _mother_, as such, as well as the
+general management which her case requires, a volume might be written
+without exhausting the subject. But I have already said as much on this
+subject, in another place, as my limits will permit.
+
+But we cannot wait for the mother's health to improve, and allow the
+infant to suffer, in the mean time, for a due supply of food. The
+appropriate question now is, How shall such a supply be furnished?
+
+This should be done by means of an article resembling in its properties,
+as closely as possible, the mother's milk. For this purpose, we have
+only to mix with a suitable quantity of new cow's milk, one third of
+water, and sweeten it a little with loaf sugar. This is to be given to
+the child, at suitable intervals, and in proper quantities, by means of
+a common sucking bottle. It is, indeed, sometimes given with the spoon;
+but the bottle is better.
+
+To the question, whether the child should be confined to this, till the
+period of weaning, Dr. Dewees answers, No. I am surprised at this; and
+my surprise is increased, when I find him, almost in the very next
+breath, urging with all his might, numerous reasons against the very
+common notion, that children in early life require a variety of food. He
+even insists on the importance of confining the child to a single
+article of food when it is practicable. Yet he has not given us so much
+as one reason why it is not practicable in the case before us; but has
+gone on to speak of barley water, gum arabic water, rice water,
+arrowroot, &c. I venture, therefore, to dissent from him, and to answer
+the foregoing question in the affirmative. When one good and substantial
+reason can be given for _change_, the decision will, however, be
+reconsidered.
+
+I have already stated the general rule for preparing this substitute for
+the mother's milk. But there are several minor directions, which may be
+useful to those who are wholly without experience on the subject.
+
+If possible, the milk used should not only be just taken from the cow,
+but should always be from the _same_ cow; for it is well known, that the
+quality of milk often differs very materially, even among cows feeding
+in the same pasture, or from the same pile of hay; and the stomach
+becomes most easily reconciled to the mixture when it is uniform in its
+qualities. Great care should also be taken to see that the cow whose
+milk is used is young and healthy.
+
+The mixture should not be prepared any faster than it is wanted, and
+should always be prepared in vessels perfectly clean and sweet, and
+given as soon as possible after it is prepared, to prevent any degree of
+fermentation. It is never so well to heat it by the fire. If taken from
+the cow just before it is used, and if the water to be added is warm
+enough, the temperature will hardly need to be raised any higher.
+
+When it is impracticable, in all cases, to take milk for this purpose
+immediately from the cow, it should be kept, in winter, where it will
+not freeze; and in summer, where there will be no tendency to acidity.
+
+Some mothers and nurses are addicted to the practice of passing the food
+through their own mouths, before they give it to the child--with a view,
+no doubt, to see that it is at a proper temperature. This practice is
+not only wholly unnecessary, but altogether disgusting, and even
+ridiculous. A thermometer would answer every purpose; and save even the
+trouble of another disgusting practice--that of blowing it with the
+breath.
+
+The most proper season for giving the child this preparation, is
+immediately after it has been nursing. It is better for both mother and
+child, that the latter should nurse just as often as though the supply
+of food was adequate to his wants. And when his first supply is
+exhausted, then let him make up his meal from the sucking bottle. The
+great advantage of this plan is, that he will not be so likely in this
+way to be over-fed. If he is really needy, he will accept the bottle,
+even if he do not like it quite so well; if he refuse it, let him go
+without till he is hungry enough to receive it.
+
+In regard to the water used in the preparation, only one thing needs to
+be said; which is, that it should be pure. If it is not, it should by
+all means be boiled. The sugar used should be of the very best kind; and
+the quantity not large; since if the preparation be too sweet, it
+readily becomes acid in the stomach.
+
+There has been, and still is, a controversy going on among medical men,
+whether sugar is or is not hurtful to the young. "Who shall decide, when
+doctors disagree?" has often been asked. Without undertaking the task
+myself, I may perhaps be permitted to say, that I cannot see any reason
+why a substance so pure, and so highly nutritious as sugar--if given in
+very small quantity only--should prove injurious: though I do not regard
+the reasoning of Dr. Dewees as very conclusive on the subject, when, in
+reply to Dr. Cadogan, he has the following language--"If sugar be
+improper, why does it so largely enter into the composition of the early
+food of all animals? It is in vain that physicians declaim against this
+article, since it forms between seven and eight per cent of the mother's
+milk."--Now with me, the fact that milk and almost all other kinds of
+food are furnished with a measure of this substance, is the strongest
+reason I am acquainted with for making no additions. I believe, however,
+that they may sometimes be made, but not for these reasons.
+
+EXCEPTION 2.--The second striking exception to the general rule that has
+been laid down, is when the mother is unable to nurse her own child from
+positive ill health, or when circumstances exist which render it
+obviously improper that she should do it. The following are some of the
+circumstances which render such a departure from nature indispensable.
+
+1. When the mother is affected strongly with a hereditary disease, such
+as consumption or scrofula; or when her constitution is tainted, as it
+were, with venereal disease, or other permanent affections.
+
+2. When nursing produces, uniformly, some very troublesome or dangerous
+disease in the mother; as cough, colic, &c.
+
+3. There are a few instances in which the milk of the mother, owing to
+an unknown cause, has been found by experience to disagree with the
+child. In these circumstances, it is the unquestionable duty of the
+mother to resort wholly to feeding.
+
+4. Sometimes the milk, at first abundant, fails suddenly, owing to some
+accidental or constitutional defect; and this failure becomes habitual.
+In all these circumstances, the proper resort is to a sucking bottle, or
+a hired nurse. I generally prefer the latter. The cases which seem to me
+to admit of the former, will be pointed out in the next section.
+
+"When the bottle is used," says Dr. Dewees, "much care is requisite to
+preserve it sweet and free from all impurities, or the remains of the
+former food, by which the present may be rendered impure or sour; for
+which purpose a great deal of caution must be observed."
+
+The business of feeding a child, whether by the bottle or the spoon,
+should never be hurried: the slower it is, the better. We should stop
+from time to time, during the process. Nor should the nourishment be
+given while lying down; it is much more pleasant, as well as more safe,
+to sit up.
+
+A few thoughts more on the character and condition of the milk which we
+give to the young, will conclude the second division of this section.
+
+Some are fond of boiling milk for infants; but to this I am decidedly
+opposed, so long as they are in health. Boiling takes away, or appears
+to take away, some of the best properties of the milk.
+
+It is true that milk which is boiled does not turn sour so readily in
+hot weather; but it is quite unnecessary to boil milk in the common
+manner in order to present its changing, since such a result can be
+prevented by another process. You have only to put your milk in a
+kettle, cover it closely, and heat it quickly to the boiling point, and
+then remove and cool it as speedily as possible. This plan prevents the
+rising to the surface of that coat or pellicle which contains some of
+the most valuable properties of the milk.
+
+I have already said that it was as necessary that the stomach should
+have rest as any other muscular organ. Some writers say that the infant
+should be kept perfectly quiet, at least half an hour, after each meal.
+This is certainly necessary with feeble children, but I question its
+necessity in the case of those who are strong and robust. I would not
+recommend, however, nor even tolerate, for one moment, the absurd
+practice of _jolting_, so common with a few ignorant nurses and,
+mothers, as if they could jolt down the food in the stomach with just as
+much safety as they can shake down the contents of a farmer's bag of
+produce. Such mothers as these should go and reside among the native
+tribes of Indians in Guiana, in South America, where they make it a
+point not only to stuff their children's stomachs as long as they will
+hold, but actually to shake it down.
+
+Little less absurd than jolting is the custom of tossing a child high,
+in quick succession, which is practised not only after meals, but at
+other times. But on this point, I have treated elsewhere.
+
+Some give the sucking bottle to children as a plaything. This is just
+about as wise a practice as that of giving them books as playthings.
+Both are done, usually, to save the time and trouble of those whose
+office it is to devote their time to the very purpose of managing and
+educating their offspring. The evil, however, of suffering the child to
+have the bottle when it pleases is, that he will thus be tasting food so
+often as to interfere with and disturb the process of digestion, to his
+great and lasting injury. For in this way, a part of the food will pass
+from the stomach into the bowels unchanged, or at least but imperfectly
+digested, where it is liable to become sour, and cause disease. It is
+not to be doubted that many diarrhoeas, as well as, other bowel
+affections, are produced in this way. Children that are always eating
+are seldom healthy; and we may hence see the reason.
+
+In speaking of the importance of keeping the bottle, from which a child
+takes his food, perfectly clean and sweet, I ought to have extended the
+injunction much farther. There is a degree of slovenliness sometimes
+observable in those who manage children, both when they are sick and
+when they are in health, which even common sense cannot and ought not to
+tolerate. Every vessel which is used in preparing or administering
+anything for children, ought, after we have used it, to be immediately
+and effectually cleansed. How shocking is it to see dirty vessels
+standing in the nursery from hour to hour, becoming sour or impure! How
+much more so still, to see food in copper vessels, or in the red earthen
+ones, glazed with a poisonous oxyd! I speak now more particularly of
+vessels in which food is given; for with the administration of medicine,
+and nursing the sick, I do not intend in this volume to interfere.
+
+EXCEPTION 3.--We come now to the consideration of those cases--for such
+it will not be doubted there are--where a hired nurse is to be preferred
+to feeding by the hand.
+
+Before proceeding farther, however, it is important to say, that if a
+nurse could always be procured whose health, and temper, and habits were
+good, who had no infant of her own, and who would do as well for the
+infant, in every respect, as his own mother, it would be preferable to
+have no feeding by the hand at all.
+
+But such nurses are very scarce. Their temper, or habits, or general
+health, will often be such as no genuine parent would desire, and such
+as they ought to be sorry to see engrafted, in any degree, on the child.
+For even admitting what is claimed by some, that the temper of the nurse
+does _not_ affect the properties of the milk, and thus injure the child
+both physically and morally, still much injury may and inevitably will
+result from the influence of her constant presence and example.
+
+Others have infants of their own, in which case either their own child
+or the adopted one will suffer; and in a majority of cases, it can
+scarcely be doubted _which_ it will be. And I doubt the morality of
+requiring a nurse, in these cases, to give up her own child wholly. If
+_one_ must be fed, why not our own, as well as that of another?
+
+The only cases, then, which seem to me to justify the employment of a
+nurse, are where she possesses at least the qualifications above
+mentioned; and as these are rare, not many nurses, of course, would on
+this principle be employed. But when employed, it is highly desirable
+that the following rules should be observed:
+
+1: The nurse should suckle the child at both breasts; otherwise he is
+liable to acquire a degree of crookedness in his form. There is another
+evil which sometimes results from the too common neglect of this rule,
+which is, that it endangers the deterioration of the quality of the
+milk.
+
+2. The milk which is thus substituted for that of the mother, should be
+as nearly as possible of the same age as the child who is to receive it.
+It should be remembered, however, that the milk is not so good after the
+twelfth or thirteenth month, nor _quite_ so good under the third.
+
+3. When the parent or some trusty and confidential friend can, without
+the aid of interested spies and emissaries, have an eye to the general
+treatment, and especially to the moral management, it should be done;
+for even the best nurses may so differ in their principles, manners and
+habits from the parent, that the latter would deem it preferable to
+withdraw the child, and resort at once to feeding.
+
+
+SEC. 7. _From Teething to Weaning._
+
+This period will, of course, be longer or shorter according as the teeth
+begin to appear earlier or later, and according to the time when it is
+thought proper to wean.
+
+On few points, perhaps, has there existed a greater diversity of opinion
+than in regard to the age most proper for weaning. The limits of this
+work do not permit a thorough discussion of the question; and I shall
+therefore be very brief in my remarks on the subject.
+
+Dr. Cullen, whose opinion on topics of this kind is certainly entitled
+to much respect, thought that less than seven, or more than eleven
+months of nursing was injurious. Yet in some countries, and even in some
+parts of our own, the period is extended by the mother, from choice, to
+two years. And although the milk is not so good after the thirteenth or
+fourteenth month, I have never either known or heard that any evil
+consequences followed from the practice.
+
+Dr. Loudon, a recent writer, observes, that the period of nursing has a
+great influence over the numbers of mankind in various countries, as is
+evinced by numerous facts. He adduces proofs of this, position. Thus, he
+says, in China, where the population is excessive, and the inhuman
+practice of infanticide is common, they wean a child as soon as it can
+put its hand to its mouth. On the other hand, the Indians of North
+America do not wean their children until they are old and strong enough
+to run about: generally they are suckled for a period of more than two
+years.
+
+He then enters into a physiological inquiry why it is that British
+mothers do not usually suckle their children longer than ten months. He
+seems--though he does not give us his precise opinion--to think that, in
+all ordinary cases, the period of nursing ought to be protracted to two
+or three years, and that perhaps it would be better still to extend it
+to four or five. His remarks are so excellent, and withal so curious,
+and their tendency so humane, that we venture to insert one or two of
+his paragraphs entire.
+
+"Certain it is, that the milk does not diminish particularly at that
+time, (ten months,) so far as regards quantity; and from the health of
+children reared without spoon-meat beyond this time, it as certainly
+undergoes no change in its quality. Children are sometimes so old before
+weaning, as to be able to ask for the breast; and it has not been
+remarked that the health of mothers, thus suckling, was in any way worse
+than that of their neighbors. Altogether, then, it may be asserted, that
+a mother is likely to enjoy better health, and to be less liable to
+sickness and death during lactation, than during pregnancy.
+
+"Many women believe, or affect to believe, that the weakness they labor
+under arises from some latent moral or physical cause; but this weakness
+is not attributed to lactation in the earlier months of suckling,
+because the mother then considers herself fulfilling a necessary duty,
+which her constitution, for so long, is well able to bear. So soon,
+however, as the period of lactation has passed over, as it is
+established by custom or fashion, she imagines she is exceeding the
+intentions of nature, and she forthwith concludes that the continuance
+of suckling is the cause of her uncomfortable sensations. This whim
+being entertained, the child is weaned, and too often becomes the victim
+of a most reprehensible delusion.
+
+"Since nature has furnished the mother with milk for a longer period
+than custom demands, it is evident that some good purpose for the mother
+and child was intended in this arrangement. Had it been otherwise, the
+secretion of milk would stop at a definite time, in like manner as the
+period of gestation is definite. That a child, in comparison with the
+young of the lower animals, is so long unable to provide for itself,
+strongly tends to corroborate the proofs already advanced--that nature
+originally had in view a more protracted period for lactation than is
+now allowed.
+
+"Some writers, following the laws of nature, as they interpreted them,
+fixed the period of weaning at fifteen months, when the infant has got
+its eight incisors and four canine teeth. There are well-authenticated
+instances of mothers having suckled their children for three, four,
+five, and even seven consecutive years; we ourselves have known cases
+of lactation being prolonged far three and for four years, with the
+happiest results."
+
+It appears to me better, therefore, that the child should be nursed, in
+all ordinary cases, from twelve to fifteen months; and when there are no
+special objections, about two years. As the change, whenever it is made,
+and however gradual it may be, is an important one, in its effects on
+the stomach and bowels, it is better to wean a little earlier or a
+little later, than to do so just at the close of summer or beginning of
+autumn, at which season bowel complaints are most common, most severe,
+and most dangerous. It is sufficiently unfortunate that teething should
+commence just at this period; but when we add another cause of irregular
+action, which we can control, to one which we _cannot_, we act very
+unwisely.
+
+I have already observed that we may begin to feed children when the
+teeth begin to appear. By this is not meant that we should do so while
+the system is under the irritation to which teething usually, or at
+least often, subjects it. But when this is over, and a few teeth have
+appeared, it is usually a proper time to commence our operations.
+
+The first food given should be precisely of the kind which has been
+recommended for those children who are fed by the hand. The rules and
+restrictions by which we are to be guided, are the same, except in one
+point, which is, that in the case we are now considering, the child
+should be fed _between nursing_.
+
+Let not parents be anxious about their healthy children under two years,
+who have a supply of good milk, either from the mother or from the cow.
+For those that are feeble, a physician may and ought to prescribe--not
+medicine, but appropriate food, drink, &c.
+
+When the grinding teeth have cut through, if we have any doubts in
+regard to the nutritive qualities of the food we are giving, we may
+improve it by adding, instead of the one third of pure water, a similar
+quantity of gum arabic water, barley water, or rice water. Some use a
+little weak animal broth; but this is unnecessary, and I think, on the
+whole, injurious, except for purposes strictly medicinal.
+
+This course is so simple, and so far removed from that which is
+generally adopted, that few mothers will probably be willing to pursue
+it with perseverance, especially when the teeth appear very late. Those
+who are, however, will be richly rewarded, in the end, in the
+advantages; which will accrue to the child's health, and the vigor it
+will ensure to his constitution.
+
+
+SEC. 8. _During the process of Weaning._
+
+It has already been shown that, in weaning, some regard should be had to
+the season of the year; and that the end of summer and beginning of fall
+are of all periods the most unfavorable. The best time, on every
+account, is in the spring--in March, April, May, or June; and the next
+best is during the months of October and November. But December, January
+and February are better than July, August and September.
+
+Weaning should never be sudden. We may safely and properly call upon
+those who are addicted to snuff or opium taking, tobacco chewing, rum
+drinking, and other habits which are purely artificial, to break
+off--_to wean themselves_--suddenly; since _they_ can do so with
+considerable safety, and will seldom have the courage or the
+perseverance to do it otherwise. But with the child, in regard to his
+food, such a course will not be advisable. If we regard his future
+health or happiness, he must be weaned gradually.
+
+The first proper step will be to give the child a little larger quantity
+of the cow's milk and gum arabic mixture, between nursings, at the same
+time increasing very gradually the intervals of nursing. When the
+intervals become six hours distant from each other, it will be best to
+add a little good bread to the milk with which it is fed, about two or
+three times a day. Arrowroot jelly, if he can be made to relish it, will
+be highly useful; but if not, some boiled rice, into which a little
+arrowroot has been sprinkled while boiling, may be added to his milk.
+
+It may be worth the attempt to excite an aversion in the child to
+nursing his mother, so that be will refuse to nurse, if possible, of his
+own accord. This aversion may be excited by such an application of
+aloes, or some other offensive substance, as will cause him to withdraw
+himself from the breast as soon as he tastes it.
+
+A serious mistake is often made, in connection with weaning, in giving
+the child not only too much food, but that which is too solid, or too
+rich. This mistake has undoubtedly grown out of the belief that his
+feeble condition _requires_ it; whereas the truth is, that he neither
+needs food at this period, nor is capable of digesting it. For let us be
+as judicious in the process of weaning as we may, the tone of the
+child's stomach will be somewhat reduced, or in other words, its powers
+of digestion will be weakened by it; and to give it strong food, or
+overload it with that which is weaker, is not only unreasonable and
+unphilosophical, but cruel. And if there should be a tendency in the
+child's constitution to rickets, scrofula, consumption, and other
+wasting diseases, such a course would be likely to bring them on, and
+destroy life.
+
+"When milk will agree," says Dr. Dewees, "there is no food so proper. It
+may be employed in any of its combinations, with good wheaten bread,
+rice, sago, &c., only remembering that when either of these articles is
+found to agree, it should be continued perseveringly, until it may
+become offensive. In this case, some new combination may be required." I
+do not see the necessity of continuing one kind of food till it
+_offends_. Besides, I do not believe that these simple articles of food
+are apt to become offensive to stomachs that have not already been
+spoiled. But whether a single dish should or should not come to be
+offensive, I greatly prefer an occasional change.
+
+Buchan, in his Advice to Mothers, has recommended it to them to boil
+bread for their infants, in water. It should not, for this purpose--nor
+indeed for any other--be new; it is best at one or two days, old. It may
+be boiled in a small quantity of water, or what is still better, of
+milk; or it may be steamed till it becomes soft and light, almost like
+new bread, but without any of the objectionable properties of that which
+is wholly new. To bread, thus prepared, is to be added a suitable
+quantity of milk, fresh from the cow, and a little diluted with water,
+but not boiled.
+
+But as there may be, here and there, at any age, a stomach with which
+milk, with bread, or rice, or sago, will not agree--though I think they
+must be very rare cases--we may be allowed to substitute for it a
+solution of "gum arabic, in the proportion of an ounce to a pint of
+water," to which may be added a little sugar; and if the child is old
+enough to observe the color, just milk enough to change the appearance.
+Another preparation for the same purpose consists of rennet whey, a
+little sweetened, and "disguised, if necessary, as just stated."
+
+The health of the mother, too, during the period of weaning, often needs
+great attention. Let her avoid medicine, however, if possible. A due
+regard to food, drink, exercise, and rest of body and mind, &c., will
+usually be found more effective, as well as more permanently
+efficacious.
+
+
+SEC. 9. _Food subsequently to Weaning._
+
+You will allow me to introduce in this place, some of the sentiments of
+Dr. Cadogan, an English physician, from a little work on the management
+of children. [Footnote: Though Dr. C.'s remarks will apply more closely
+to England in 1750, they are by no means inapplicable to the United
+States in 1837.] I do it with the more pleasure because, though he wrote
+almost a century ago, he urges the same general principles on which I
+have all along been insisting: hence it will be seen that mine are no
+new-fangled notions. His remarks refer to the young of every age, but
+chiefly to early infancy and childhood. It will be found necessary, in
+some instances, to abridge, but I shall endeavor not to misrepresent the
+Doctor's views.
+
+       *       *       *       *       *
+
+"Look over the bills of mortality. Almost half of those who fill up that
+black list, die under five years of age; so that half the people that
+come into the world go out of it again, before they become of the least
+use to it or to themselves. To me, this seems to deserve serious
+consideration.
+
+"It is ridiculous to charge it upon nature, and to suppose that infants
+are more subject to disease and death than grown persons; on the
+contrary, they bear pain and disease much better--fevers especially; and
+for the same reason that a twig is less hurt by a storm than an oak.
+
+"In all the other productions of nature, we see the greatest vigor and
+luxuriancy of health, the nearer they are to the egg or bud. When was
+there a lamb, a bird, or a tree, that died because it was young? These
+are under the immediate nursing of unerring nature; and they thrive
+accordingly.
+
+"Ought it not, therefore, to be the care of every nurse and every
+parent, not only to protect their nurslings from injury, but to be well
+assured that their own officious services be not the greatest evils the
+helpless creatures can suffer?
+
+"In the lower class of mankind, especially in the country, disease and
+mortality are not so frequent, either among adults or their children.
+Health and posterity are the portion of the poor--I mean the laborious.
+The want of superfluity confines them more within the limits of nature;
+hence they enjoy the blessings they feel not, and are ignorant of their
+cause.
+
+"In the course of my practice, I have had frequent occasion to be fully
+satisfied of this; and have often heard a mother anxiously say, 'the
+child has not been well ever since it has done puking and crying.'
+
+"These complaints, though not attended to, point very plainly to the
+cause. Is it not very evident that when a child rids its stomach of its
+contents several times a day, it has been overloaded? While the natural
+strength lasts, (for every child is born with more health and strength
+than is generally imagined,) it cries at or rejects the superfluous
+load, and _thrives apace_; that is, grows very fat, bloated, and
+distended beyond measure, like a house lamb.
+
+"But in time, the same oppressive cause continuing, the natural powers
+are overcome, being no longer able to throw off the unequal weight. The
+child, now unable to cry any more, languishes and is quiet.
+
+"The misfortune is, that these complaints are not understood. The child
+is swaddled and crammed on, till, after gripes, purging, &c., it sinks
+under both burdens into a convulsion fit, and escapes farther torture.
+This would be the case with the lamb, were it not killed, when full fat.
+
+"That the present mode of nursing is wrong, one would think needed no
+other proof than the frequent miscarriages attending it, the death of
+many, and the ill health of those that survive. But what I am going to
+complain of is, that children, in general, are over-clothed and
+over-fed, and fed and clothed improperly. To these causes I attribute
+almost all their diseases.
+
+"But the feeding of children is much more important to them than their
+clothing. Let us consider what nature directs in the case. If we follow
+nature, instead of leading or driving her, we cannot err. In the
+business of nursing, as well as physic, art, if it do not exactly copy
+this original, is ever destructive.
+
+"If I could prevail, no child should ever be crammed with any unnatural
+mixture, till the provision of nature was ready for it; nor afterwards
+fed with any ungenial diet whatever, at least for the _first three
+months_; for it is not well able to digest and assimilate other elements
+sooner.
+
+"I have seen very healthy children that never ate or drank anything
+whatever but their mother's milk, for the first ten or twelve months.
+Nature seems to direct to this, by giving them no teeth till about that
+time. The call of nature should be waited for to feed them with anything
+more substantial; and the appetite ought ever to precede the food--not
+only with regard to the daily meals, but those changes of diet which
+opening, increasing life requires. But this is never done, in either
+case; which is one of the greatest mistakes of all nurses.
+
+"When the child requires more solid sustenance, we are to inquire what
+and how much is most proper to give it. We may be well assured there is
+a great mistake either in the quantity or quality of children's food, or
+both, as it is usually given them, because they are made sick by it; for
+to this mistake I cannot help imputing nine in ten of all their
+diseases.
+
+"As to quantity, there is a most ridiculous error in the common
+practice; for it is generally supposed that whenever a child cries, it
+wants victuals: it is accordingly fed ten or twelve or more times in a
+day and night. This is so obvious a misapprehension, that I am surprised
+it should ever prevail.
+
+"If a child's wants and motions be diligently and judiciously attended
+to, it will be found that it never cries, but from pain. Now the first
+sensations of hunger are not attended with pain; accordingly, a very
+young child that is hungry will make a hundred other signs of its want,
+before it will cry for food. If it be healthy, and quite easy in its
+dress, it will hardly ever cry at all. Indeed, these signs and motions I
+speak of are but rarely observed, because it seldom happens that
+children are ever suffered to be hungry.[Footnote: That which we
+commonly observe in them, in such cases, and call by the name of hunger,
+the Doctor, I suppose would regard as morbid or unnatural feeling,
+wholly unworthy of the name of HUNGER.]
+
+"In a few, very few, whom I have had the pleasure to see reasonably
+nursed, that were not fed above two or three times in twenty-four hours,
+and yet were perfectly healthy, active, and happy, I have seen these
+signals, which were as intelligible as if they had spoken.
+
+"There are many faults in the quality of children's food.
+
+"1. It is not simple enough. Their paps, panadas, gruels, &c. are
+generally enriched with sugar, spices, and other nice things, and
+sometimes a drop of wine--none of which they ought ever to take. Our
+bodies never want them; they are what luxury only has introduced, to the
+destruction of the health of mankind.
+
+"2. It is not enough that their food should be simple; it should also be
+light. Many people, I find, are mistaken in their notions of what is
+light, and fancy that most kinds of pastry, puddings, custards, &c. are
+light; that is, light of digestion. But there is nothing heavier, in
+this sense, than unfermented flour and eggs, boiled hard, which are the
+chief ingredients in some of these preparations.
+
+"What I mean by light food--to give the best idea I can of it--is, any
+substance that is easily separated, and soluble in warm water. Good
+bread is the lightest thing I know, and the fittest food for young
+children. Cows' milk is also simple and light, and very good for them;
+but it is often injudiciously prepared. It should never be boiled; for
+boiling alters the taste and properties of it, destroys its sweetness,
+and makes it thicker, heavier, and less fit to mix and assimilate with
+the blood."
+
+       *       *       *       *       *
+
+It is hardly necessary for me to repeat, that in these general views of
+Dr. C., with a few exceptions, I entirely concur; indeed some of them
+have already been presented. But I have expressed my doubts of the
+soundness of his conclusion in regard to sugar. Used with food, in very
+small quantity, by persons whose stomachs are already in a good
+condition, both sugar and molasses, especially the former, appear to me
+not only harmless, but wholesome and useful.
+
+On the subject of simplicity in children's food, I should be glad to
+enlarge. There is nothing more important in diet than simplicity, and
+yet I think there is nothing more rare. To suit the fashion, everything
+must be mixed and varied. I have no objection to variety at different
+meals, both for children and adults; indeed I am disposed to recommend
+it, as will be seen hereafter. But I am utterly opposed to any
+considerable variety at the same meal; and above all, in a single dish.
+The simpler a dish can be, the better.
+
+But let us look, for a moment, at the dishes of food which are often
+presented, even at what are called plain tables.
+
+Meats cannot be eaten--so many persons think--without being covered
+with mustard, or pepper, or gravy--or soaked in vinegar; and not a few
+regard them as insipid, unless several of these are combined. Few people
+think a piece of plain boiled or broiled muscle (lean flesh) with
+nothing on it but a little salt, is fit to be eaten. Everything, it is
+thought, must be rendered more stimulating, or acrid; or must be
+swimming in gravy, or melted fat or butter.
+
+Bread, though proverbially the staff of life, can scarcely be eaten in
+its simple state. It must be buttered, or honied, or toasted, or soaked
+in milk, or dipped in gravy. Puddings must have cherries or fruits of
+some sort, or spices in them, and must be sweetened largely. Or
+perhaps--more ridiculous still--they must have suet in them. And after
+all this is done, who can eat them without the addition of sauce, or
+butter, or molasses, or cream? Potatoes, boiled, steamed or roasted,
+delightful as they are to an unperverted appetite, are yet thought by
+many people hardly palatable till they are mashed, and buttered or
+gravied; or perhaps soaked in vinegar. In short, the plainest and
+simplest article for the table is deemed nearly unfit for the stomach,
+till it has been buttered, and peppered, and spiced, and perhaps
+_pearlashed_. Even bread and milk must be filled with berries or fruits.
+Where can you find many adults who would relish a meal which should
+consist entirely of plain bread, without any addition; of plain
+potatoes, without anything on them except a little salt; of a plain rice
+pudding, and nothing with it; or of plain baked or boiled apples or
+pears? And _could_ such persons be found, how many of them would bring
+up their children to live on such plain dishes?
+
+It need not be wondered at, that a palate which has been so long tickled
+by variety, and by so many stimulating mixtures of food, should come to
+regard cold water for drink as insipid; and should feel dissatisfied
+with it, and desirous of boiling some narcotic or poisonous herb in it,
+or brewing it with something which will impart to it more or less of
+alcohol. The wonder is, not that some of our epicures become drunkards,
+but that all of them do not.
+
+Dr. Cadogan alludes to a sad mistake everywhere made about _light_ food;
+and condemns, very justly, hard-boiled custards, pastry, &c. It is very
+strange that these substances--for these are among the injurious
+articles which I call mixtures--should ever have obtained currency in
+the world, to the exclusion of bread, which, as the same writer justly
+says, is among the lightest articles of food which are known.
+
+It is strange, in particular, what views people have about bread.
+Judging from what I see, I am compelled to believe that there are few
+who regard it in any other light than as a kind of necessary evil. They
+appear to eat it, not because they are fond of it, by itself, but
+because they _must_ eat it; or rather, because it is a fashionable
+article; and not to make believe they eat it, at the least, would be
+unfashionable. They will get rid of it, however, when they can. And when
+they must eat it, they soak it, or cover it with butter or milk, or
+something else which will render it tolerable--or toast it. And use it
+as they may, it must be hot from the oven. After it is once cold, very
+few will eat it. The idea, above all, of making a full meal of simple
+cold bread, twenty-four hours old, would be rejected by ninety-nine
+persons in a hundred; and by some with abhorrence.
+
+People not only dislike bread, but regard it as unnutritious. I have
+heard many a fond parent say to the child who ate no meat, and seemed to
+depend almost wholly on bread--"Why, my dear child, you will starve if
+you eat no meat. Do at least put some butter on your bread or your
+potatoes." A thousand times have I been admonished, when eating my
+vegetable dinner during the hot and fatiguing days of summer--for I was
+bred to the farm, and ate little or no meat till I was fourteen years
+of age--to eat more butter, or cheese, or something that would give me
+strength; for I could not work, they said, without something more
+nourishing than bread and the other vegetables. And yet few if any boys
+of my age did more work, or performed it better, or with more ease, than
+myself. And I early observed the same thing in other vegetable eaters.
+
+The truth is, there is nothing in the world better adapted to the daily
+wants of the human stomach than good bread; and few things more
+nutritious. There may be a little more nutriment in eggs or jelly; but
+if the former are hard-boiled, the stomach cannot digest them; and fat
+meat of any kind is digested with great difficulty. Indeed it is
+doubtful whether stomachs in temperate climates digest fat at all. They
+may dissolve it, but that is not making good chyle of it. They may even
+reduce it to chyle; _but chyle is not blood_. Fat may slip through the
+system without much of it _adhering_; and I think it pretty evident that
+it usually does so.
+
+The muscle--the lean part of animals--may be nearly as nutritious as
+good bread, and is more easily digested. But it is very far from being
+proved that, for the healthy, those things are always best which are
+most easily digested. Nobody will pretend that potatoes are better for
+us than bread; and yet the experiments of Dr. Beaumont seem to prove
+that boiled or roasted potatoes are much more quick and easy of
+digestion than bread of the first and best quality. Even over-boiled
+eggs and raw cabbage, bad as they are, are dissolved in the stomach, and
+appear to be digested as quick, if not quicker, than good wheat bread.
+But nobody in the world will pretend they form more wholesome food.
+Neither is meat--even _lean_ meat--necessarily more wholesome, or better
+calculated to give strength than bread, simply be cause it is more
+quickly and easily digested. It would be nearer the truth to say, that
+those substances which digest slowest (provided they do not irritate)
+are best adapted to the wants of the human stomach.
+
+The philosopher LOCKE--perhaps from his knowledge of medicine--gives
+some excellent directions on this subject. "Great care should be used,"
+be says, that the child "eat bread plentifully, both alone and with
+everything else; and whatever he eats that is solid, make him chew it
+well." This writer, by the way, supposed that the teeth were made to be
+used in beating our food; and that we ought neither to swallow it
+without chewing, as is customary in our busy New England, nor to mash or
+soak it in order to save the labor of mastication--a practice almost
+equally universal. But let us hear his own words.
+
+"As for his diet, it ought to be very plain and simple; and if I might
+advise, flesh should be forborne, at least till he is two or three years
+old. But of whatever advantage this may be to his future health and
+strength, I fear it will hardly be consented to by parents, misled by
+the custom of eating too much flesh themselves, who will be apt to think
+their children--as they do themselves--in danger to be starved; if they
+have not flesh at least twice a day. This I am sure, children would
+breed their teeth with much less danger, be freer from diseases while
+they were little, and lay the foundations of a healthy and strong
+constitution much surer, if they were not crammed so much as they are,
+by fond mothers and foolish servants, and were kept wholly from flesh
+the first three or four years of their lives."
+
+Were Locke still living, I should like to interrogate him at this
+place. He first speaks of giving children no meat till they are two or
+three years old; and then afterwards extends the period to three or
+four. The question I would put is this: If the child is healthier
+without meat till he is three or four years old, why not till he is
+thirteen or fourteen; or even till thirty, or forty, or seventy? And is
+not Professor Stuart, of Andover--a meat eater himself, and an advocate
+for its moderate use by those who have already been trained to the use
+of it--is not the Professor, I say, more than half right when he
+asserts, as I have heard him, that it may be well to train all children,
+from the first, to the exclusive use of vegetable food?
+
+I have a few more extracts from Locke, particularly on the subject of
+bread.
+
+"I should think that a good piece of well made and well baked brown
+bread would be often the best breakfast for my young master. I am sure
+it is as wholesome, and will make him as strong a man, as greater
+delicacies; and if he be used to it, it will be as pleasant to him.
+
+"If he, at any time, call for victuals between meals, use him to nothing
+but dry bread. If he be hungry more than wanton, bread will go down; and
+if he be not hungry, it is not fit that he should eat. By this you will
+obtain two good effects. First, that by custom he will come to be in
+love with bread; for, as I said, our palates and stomachs, too, are
+pleased with the things we are used to. Another good you will gain
+hereby is, that you will not teach him to eat more nor oftener than
+nature requires.
+
+"I do not think that all people's appetites are alike; some have
+naturally stronger and some weaker stomachs. But this I think, that
+many are made gormands and gluttons by custom, that were not so by
+nature. And I see, in some countries, men as lusty and strong, that eat
+but two meals a day, as those that have set their stomachs, by a
+constant usage, to call on them for four or five.
+
+"The Romans usually fasted till supper, the only set meal, even of those
+who ate more than once in a day; and those who used breakfasts, as some
+did at eight, same at ten, others at twelve of the clock, and some
+later, neither ate flesh nor had anything made ready for them.
+
+"Augustus, when the greatest monarch on the earth, tells us he took a
+piece of dry bread in his chariot; and Seneca, in his 83d epistle,
+giving an account how be managed himself when he was old, and his age
+permitted indulgence, says that he used to eat a piece of dry bread for
+his dinner, without the formality of sitting to it. Yet Seneca, as it is
+well known, was wealthy.
+
+"The masters of the world were brought up with this spare diet, and the
+young gentlemen of Rome felt no want of strength or spirit because they
+ate but once a day. Or if it happened by chance that any one could not
+fast so long as till supper, their only set meal, he took nothing but a
+bit of dry bread, or at most a few raisins or some such slight thing
+with it, to stay his stomach. And more than one set meal a day was
+thought so monstrous that it was a reproach, as low as Caesar's time, to
+make an entertainment, or sit down to a table, till towards sunset.
+Therefore I judge it most convenient that my young master should have
+nothing but bread for breakfast. I impute a great part of our diseases
+in England to our eating too much flesh, and too little bread. Dry
+bread, though the best nourishment, has the least temptation."
+
+I shall not undertake to defend all the sentiments of Mr. Locke in these
+extracts; but in regard to the main point--the nutritive properties and
+wholesome tendency of bread, and the importance of making it a principal
+article of diet for children--I think his views are just. In short, they
+do not differ, substantially, from those of a large proportion of the
+best writers on this subject in every country, during the last three
+hundred years. As if with one voice, they dissuade from the use of too
+much animal food for the young, and encourage the use of a larger
+proportion of vegetable food--bread, plain puddings, rice, potatoes,
+turnips, beets, apples, pears, &c., and milk.
+
+Yet they all, or nearly all, seem to write just as if they did not
+expect to be believed; or if believed, to be followed. They seem to
+regard mankind as so inveterately attached to old habits, and so much
+addicted to flesh eating, that there is little hope of reclaiming them.
+
+Now, though my opinions are no more entitled to respect than many of
+theirs, I hope for greater success than they appear to do. I expect that
+many young mothers who read this work, will be led to think and inquire
+further on the subject; and if they find that the views here advanced
+are in accordance with reason, and common sense, and higher authority, I
+am not without hope that they will reform, and do what they can to
+reform their neighbors.
+
+I have dwelt the longer, in this section, on the _general_ principles of
+diet, because I am of opinion that whatever is true, on this subject, in
+regard to the diet of children, soon after weaning, is equally, or
+nearly equally applicable to the whole of childhood, youth, manhood and
+age. It is not true that one period of life, and one mode of employment,
+demands a diet essentially different from that which is demanded at
+another period, and in other circumstances; provided always, that the
+individual is in health. Occasional instances of the kind, there may be;
+but they are not numerous.
+
+The digestive powers of the young are more nearly as strong as those of
+the adult than is usually admitted, and they are much more active. They
+require a less quantity of food, undoubtedly; and they should be fed at
+shorter intervals. But as a general rule, what is best for them, as
+regards its quality, at three years old, is best for them at thirty; or,
+should they live so long, at ninety. I repeat it; there is very little
+difference in the nature of the food required ever after teething.
+
+Let me not be understood as saying that the strong, and the robust, and
+the active cannot digest food which the weak, and enervated, and
+indolent cannot. Undoubtedly they can. But this does not prove that they
+_ought_ to do it. It does not prove that their strength and vigor were
+not given them for other purposes than to be expended on the poorer
+substances for food, when they might have better. Nor is it true, as
+often pretended, that the hard laborer needs either more food, or that
+which is of a stronger quality, just in proportion to the severity of
+his labor. The man or the child who labors moderately, just sufficient
+for the purposes of health, and labors with his hands in the open air,
+needs rather _more_ food than the indolent or the sedentary, or those
+who labor to excess; but not that which is of a stronger quality. It is
+he who labors to excess--if any difference of quality were required at
+all--who should eat milder food, as well as less in quantity.
+
+Some physicians there are who tell us that all mankind would live
+longer, as well as be more healthful, if they ate nothing but bread, and
+drank nothing but water. It may be so, but I do not believe it. Water,
+as I shall show hereafter, is indeed the only appropriate drink; but I
+do not believe that bread, even after the second year, is in all cases
+and circumstances the best food. Besides that the experiments of
+Majendie and other physiologists go a little way--though not far, I
+confess--to prove that animals generally, (and if so, why not man, as
+well as the rest?) thrive best with some degree of variety in their
+food, it seems to me more in accordance with the general intentions of
+the Creator, so far as we can discover what they are.
+
+While, therefore, I deny that either milk or bread is better, in all
+cases, for human sustenance, than any other articles of food, I must, at
+the same time, be permitted to regard them as among the best, and as
+deserving more general attention. Every infant, after leaving the
+breast, should, as it seems to me, make bread, in some of its forms, a
+chief article of food.
+
+This article, so justly and emphatically called the staff of life, may
+be found in almost every country. Common sense seems to have dictated
+the propriety of its use; though fashion has often led us to overlook
+or despise it--like air, and fire, and water, and nearly every other
+common but indispensable blessing.
+
+The best kind of bread is made from wheat, the worst from bark,
+saw-dust, &c. Wood and bark afford so little nutriment, that it is only
+in such countries as Norway, Sweden, Lapland. Iceland, Greenland, and
+Siberia, that the inhabitants can be induced to make use of them. Here
+they are often useful; either because people cannot get food which is
+better, or to blend with their fat or oily animal food. For it should
+never be forgotten, that healthy digestion requires a large proportion
+of innutritious matter along with the pure nutriment. In order to make
+bread from wheat, the meal should not be bolted. If it seems to contain
+particles which are too coarse, it may be well to pass it through a
+coarse family sieve; but the best bread I have ever eaten, as well as
+the cleanest and neatest, was not sifted at all.
+
+I know there is an almost universal prejudice against this sort of
+bread. Some complain that it scratches their throats; others, that it is
+tasteless; and others still, that it does not agree with them. With
+others there is another objection--which is that bread of this sort has
+sometimes been called _dyspepsia_ bread; and with others still, that it
+has been called _Graham_ bread. Either of these appellations seems
+sufficient to condemn it.
+
+Now as to the harshness, this is owing to its being made of bad
+materials, or to its being baked too hard, or kept too long. Much of
+what they call dyspepsia bread, in our cities, is evidently made by
+mixing the bran and flour of wheat after they have been once separated;
+besides which, in not a few cases, the finest of the flour appears to be
+taken away. Now bread made of such materials thus combined, will always
+be darker colored, as well as harsher, than when made from the wheat,
+simply ground without any bolting, and wet up in the usual manner. Such
+bread is best two or three days old. After four days, it becomes dry and
+somewhat harsh.
+
+They who complain that such bread is insipid, are persons whose
+appetites have been injured by food which is high-seasoned; and who, if
+they eat bread at all, must eat it hot, or soaked in butter. No wonder
+such persons do not like plain bread, and say it is tasteless. But it
+must not be denied that bakers often suffer this kind of bread to be
+over-risen, in order to make it sufficiently light and porous. This
+renders it less tasteful, and from the saleratus they use, less
+wholesome.
+
+No child who has been accustomed, from the first, to good wheaten bread,
+made of unbolted meal, and not less than one day old, will ever prefer
+any other, until he has been rendered capricious on this subject, and
+wishes to change for the sake of changing, or until he has been misled
+by surrounding example. I speak from observation when I say that
+infants, whose habits have not been depraved, will not prefer hot bread
+of any kind. "It is hot, mother," I have heard them say, as an apology
+for refusing a piece of bread; but never, "It is cold," or "It is too
+old."
+
+It is the epicurean--it is he with whom it is a sufficient objection to
+any kind of food whatever, that he has used it for several successive
+meals or days--that is most ready to complain of good bread. He whose
+habits are correct, and who is the more unwilling to change any of his
+articles of diet, the longer he has been in the use of them, and who
+only changes them, or uses variety, from principle--he, I say, will
+never complain of harshness or want of taste in good wheat bread; nor
+will it be an objection of weight with him that _Mr. Graham_ has
+recommended it, or that it has either prevented or cured _dyspepsia_.
+
+Nor will the epicurean himself complain that bread is insipid, after
+being confined to it for a month or six weeks. He will then find a
+sweetness in it, for which he had long sought in vain in the more
+delicate and costly viands of a luxurious, and expensive, and
+unchristian modern table.
+
+It is they only who observe simplicity, and confine themselves to very
+plain food, who truly enjoy pleasure in eating. The bulk of mankind
+benumb their sense of taste by their high-seasoned, over-stimulating
+food and drink, and by such constant variety and strange mixtures; and
+thus, in their eager cry, "Who will show us any good?" they actually
+enjoy less than he who eats plain food, and is contented with it.
+
+Bread of all kinds is greatly improved in whiteness and pleasantness by
+being wet with milk; though even when wet with nothing but water, there
+is a solid and rational sweetness to it, of which the despisers of
+bread, and devourers of much flesh and condiments never dreamed, and
+never will dream, till they reform their habits.
+
+If children are furnished with good bread, on the plan of Mr. Locke,
+there is no doubt that they will relish it most keenly; that their
+attachment to it will strengthen, and that unless we give them other
+food occasionally, from principle, or seduce them by depraving their
+tastes, they will continue it through life. "Train up a child in the way
+he should go, and when he is old he will not depart from it," is a
+general rule, and has as few exceptions, when applied to the diet of a
+child, as when it is applied to his moral tastes and preferences.
+
+With those parents who, though convinced of the justness of the views
+here advanced, have already trained their children in the way they
+should _not_ go, but are anxious to retrace their steps as far as
+possible, there will here be a difficulty. "Our children," they will
+say, "do not, at present, _relish_ the kind of bread you speak of; and
+how shall we bring them to do so? or is the thing indeed possible?"
+
+The answer to these inquiries is easy. Such parents have only to confine
+their children to the kinds of food which they deem proper for them, a
+few weeks or a few months, and they will soon relish them. If those who
+are old enough to be convinced can be brought to unite heartily in the
+change, and to endeavor to be pleased with it, the work of reformation
+will be more pleasant and probably more speedy. I have never found any
+difficulty of bringing myself to relish in a very short time an article
+of food for which I had no relish before, and to which I had even a
+dislike, provided I was thoroughly convinced it was best for me, and was
+earnest in the desire of change--except sweet oil, to which I was about
+six months in becoming reconciled.
+
+It is with physical, as with moral habits, in their formation. We
+should fix on what we believe, from experience, observation, and divine
+and human testimony, is best for us, and habit will soon render it
+agreeable. It is important, even to health, that food should be
+agreeable; but as I have already said, what we know to be best for us
+will soon become agreeable, if we confine ourselves to it; and to our
+children also, if we confine them to it, in like manner.
+
+Next to bread made of wheat--when that cannot be procured--is a mixture
+of wheat and Indian meal; but the proportion of the latter should be the
+smallest. Wheat, rye, and Indian, in the proportion of one third of
+each, make excellent bread, sometimes called _third_ bread. Rye and
+Indian make a tolerable bread. Rye alone is not so good. The want, in
+the latter, of the vegetable principle called gluten, makes its general
+use of very questionable propriety.
+
+Indian meal alone, baked in cakes by the fire, if eaten only in small
+quantities, is a very nutritious and by no means unwholesome bread. But
+its sweetness, and the general fondness which people who are accustomed
+to its use have for it, lead them to eat it in too large proportions, if
+they use it while it is warm. In these circumstances, it proves itself
+too active for the stomach and bowels. If warm, six ounces is as much
+as a hearty adult ought to eat of it at once; and children should of
+course take much less. It is less active on the bowels, and scarcely
+less agreeable, as soon as we become accustomed to it, if eaten when it
+is cold--even if baked in loaves, in the oven.
+
+Potatoes, added to unbolted wheat flour, make excellent bread; and so,
+as I am informed, does rice. Of the latter, however, I have never eaten.
+Oats and barley, and many other grains and substances, will make bread;
+but it is of an inferior kind.
+
+The question may again recur, after this extended series of remarks,
+whether I intend to confine the young almost exclusively to bread, in
+one or another of its forms. We shall see how this is, presently.
+
+While bread, therefore, should constitute a part, at least, and
+sometimes the whole of a meal, a great variety of other articles are not
+only admissible, but desirable. Among these may be mentioned plain
+puddings.
+
+One of the most wholesome puddings is made of Indian meal, enclosed in a
+bag and boiled. Nearly allied to this is the common hasty pudding; but
+the last is less wholesome, because it requires less chewing; and it
+ought to have been observed, before now, that after weaning, any food
+is digested better which has undergone the process of thorough
+mastication.
+
+Boiled rice, though hardly to be regarded as a pudding, is very
+nutritious, and very easy of digestion. I am not without doubts,
+however, in regard to the utility of a large proportion of rice, as
+food. A dinner of it, two or three times a week, I believe to be
+wholesome; but used too frequently, it seems to me not active enough for
+the stomach and bowels; having in this respect precisely a contrary
+effect to that of warm Indian cakes. The common notion that rice has a
+tendency to make people blind, is entirely unfounded. Its worst effect
+is when eaten without being boiled through. In such cases, I have known
+it to do mischief; perhaps because it was swallowed without much
+chewing. Some grind it, and use the flour; but I cannot recommend it to
+be used in this manner.
+
+The best pudding in the world is a loaf of bread, (What!--you will
+say--bread again?) three or four or five days old, boiled, or rather
+_steamed_, in milk. All kinds of bread are excellent for this purpose,
+but wheat and Indian are the best. They are excellent even without
+milk--that is, simply steamed.
+
+Puddings made of the flour of wheat, rye, buckwheat, &c., are less
+wholesome than those which have been already mentioned. And all sorts
+of puddings are less wholesome, when eaten as hot as our unreasonable
+fashions require, than when their temperature is quite below that of our
+bodies. I would not have them so cold as to chill us, for this would be
+to go to the other, though less dangerous extreme; but they ought to be
+cool. Too much heat is an unnatural stimulus, likely to leave more or
+less debility behind it. In addition to this, those who eat hot food are
+more exposed to take cold, in consequence of it.
+
+With none of these puddings ought we to mix any fruits, green or
+dried--not even raisins. Some of the more important properties of nearly
+every kind of fruit or berry are lost by boiling, unless we eat the
+water in which they are boiled, and save the vapor which would otherwise
+escape. I am not in favor of boiled fruit generally, especially if
+boiled in puddings.
+
+Puddings, like most other kinds of food--even bread--may be slightly
+salted: not that this is indispensable, but because the balance of human
+testimony is in its favor. The argument that we evidently need salt
+because the other animals require it, is without much weight. The other
+animals do not _generally_ require or use it.[Footnote: Some
+considerable savage nations use no salt, and a few have a strong
+aversion to it.] The cases so often triumphantly mentioned, where
+animals appear to thrive better from the use of it, are only exceptions
+to the general rule, nor are they very numerous in comparison with the
+whole race of animals. Still I have no objections to its moderate use.
+It may be useful in preventing worms; though there are doubts even of
+that. In large quantities, it is unquestionably hurtful.
+
+But neither fruits nor berries--permit me to repeat the sentiment--no,
+nor any such thing as cinnamon or spices, nor even sugar or molasses in
+any considerable quantity, should go into the composition of any sort of
+pudding. If the puddings are not sweet enough without, it is better to
+add a little sugar or molasses on your plate. Nor should sauces, or
+cream, or butter, or suet be used in or upon them; though of all these
+substances, cream is least injurious. Nutmegs, grated cheese, &c., are
+unnecessary and hurtful. Cheese should never be eaten, in any way.
+
+There is one thing, however, which may be eaten in moderate quantity
+with all sorts of puddings and with bread; I mean milk. I say eaten
+_with_, for it is better never to put these substances, nor indeed any
+other, _into_ the milk. The bread, pudding, &c., should be eaten by
+itself, and the milk by itself, also. In this way we shall not be liable
+to cheat the teeth out of what is justly their due, and then make the
+deranged stomach and general system pay for it.
+
+Potatoes are a good article of diet--to be used once a day--though they
+are not very nutritious. They are best either steamed or roasted in the
+ashes. They are also excellent when boiled. Turnips are also good.
+Onions are not so useful as is generally supposed, except for the
+purposes of medicine.
+
+Beets; in small quantity, and carrots and asparagus, and above all,
+beans and peas--but not their pods--are tolerable food once a day,
+during most of the year, except it be the middle of the winter. But
+neither these, nor potatoes, nor any other vegetables, ought to be
+cooked in any way with fat, or fat meat, or butter; or be mashed after
+they are cooked, or eaten with oil or butter.
+
+If there be an exception to this general rule--which may seem to be
+rather sweeping--it should be in favor of a little sweet oil on rice, or
+on bread puddings. But the common practice, founded upon the apparent
+belief that we can scarcely eat anything until it is well covered with
+lard or butter, is quite objectionable--nay, it is even disgusting. No
+pure stomach would ever prefer oily bread, or pudding, or beans, or
+peas; and most people would abhor the sight of such a strange
+combination, were not habit, in its power to change our very nature,
+almost omnipotent.
+
+
+SEC. 10. _Remarks on Fruit._
+
+There is a very great diversity of opinion on the subject of fruit. Some
+maintain that all fruit, even in the most ripe and perfect state, is of
+doubtful utility, especially for children. Others say none is hurtful,
+if ripe, and eaten in moderate quantity. Some require care in making a
+proper selection; but here again, in regard to what constitutes a proper
+selection, there is a difference of opinion. Some consider fruits easy
+of digestion; others believe they are digested only with very great
+difficulty.
+
+When the cholera prevailed in the large cities of the United States, a
+majority of the physicians believed all fruits, even those which were
+ripe, to be injurious in their tendency. But it was insisted by the
+minority--I think very justly--that whenever fruit appeared to be
+injurious, it was accidental--that is, the disease, being prepared to
+make its attack just at that time, happened to do so immediately after
+the use of fruit, rather than something else, and especially in the
+_season_ of fruits--or on account of excess; or (which was certainly
+the case in some instances) because the quality of the fruit was bad.
+
+At present, the _weight_ of testimony on this subject--estimating
+according to talent, and not according to numbers--is in favor of good
+fruit, used with moderation--even in the face of the cholera. Dr.
+Dunglison--one of the last to adopt such an opinion--appears to be in
+its favor.
+
+On several points, in regard to fruit, I believe that among medical men
+there is no essential difference of opinion. As I always prefer, in
+controversies, to see in how many things antagonists agree, before
+proceeding to the points in which they differ, I will here endeavor to
+enumerate them.
+
+1. All unripe fruits, especially, if eaten raw and uncooked--let the
+season, or prevalent disease, or individual, be what or who it may--are
+unwholesome.
+
+2. Excess, in the use of the most wholesome fruits, under any
+circumstances, is also injurious.
+
+3. Fruits, eaten immediately after a full meal, when the stomach is in
+an improper condition for receiving anything more, contribute to
+overtask the digestive powers, and must hence produce more or less of
+injury.
+
+4. The skins and kernels of the larger fruits are unwholesome, because
+indigestible. The skins of fruits, if beaten or masticated finely; may
+appear to be digested, because dissolved; but I have already endeavored
+to show that solution is not always digestion.
+
+5. Fruits of all kinds are most wholesome in their own country, and in
+their own appropriate season.
+
+6. Dried fruits are less wholesome than fresh.
+
+7. Fruit of all kinds should be withheld from infants, until they have
+teeth.
+
+Thus far, as I have already said, all agree; at least so far as I know.
+There are several other points on which medical men are generally
+agreed, though not universally. One of these is, that fruits, if eaten
+at all, should usually form a part of a regular meal. Another is, that
+it is better not to eat them immediately before going to bed.
+
+There are contradictory opinions among the mass of the community,
+physicians as well as others, on the general intention of our summer
+fruits. From the fact that children's diseases prevail more at the
+season of the year when fruits are more abundant, many think the fruits
+are the immediate cause of them. Others, and with better reason, suppose
+that the latter are intended by the Author of nature to check or prevent
+the bowel diseases of summer.
+
+Nothing, certainly, is more unnatural than to suppose that at the very
+season of the year when so many other influences combine to awaken a
+tendency to disease in the human system, the Creator should place before
+our eyes an abundance of fruits, inviting us by all their cooling and
+tempting properties, only to do us mischief. On the contrary, it seems
+to me much more probable that many of them were designed for our
+moderate use. In what quantity, under what circumstances, and which are
+best, it is left to human experience to determine.
+
+Some say that fruit should never be eaten in the morning, before
+breakfast. Now everything I know of the human constitution, together
+with what I have learned from experience and observation, has been for
+years leading me to the contrary opinion. Indeed, I am most fully
+convinced, that of all periods for eating fruit, whether we use it alone
+or make it a part of our regular meals, the morning, soon after we rise,
+is the most favorable. [Footnote: I ought to remark, that as the morning
+is the best time for eating _good_ fruit, so it is the very worst time
+for eating it if _not_ good; and as a large proportion of that which is
+eaten is unripe, or otherwise bad, this may account for the general
+prejudice against eating it at this period.] My reasons are as follows:
+
+1. The rest and sleep of the preceding night has restored our general
+vigor, and consequently has invigorated the stomach, so that digestion
+will be more easily and perfectly accomplished.
+
+2. We have been, at our rising, so long without food on our stomachs,
+that they are not likely to be oppressed by a moderate quantity of good,
+ripe, wholesome fruit. In the course of our waking hours, meals follow
+each other in such quick succession, and there is so much variety, even
+at the plainest tables, to tempt us to excess, that there is more danger
+of injury from the addition of fruit than at our first rising.
+
+3. I have never known any one to receive injury from the use of fruit in
+this way, provided no other circumstance in relation to quantity,
+quality, &c. had been disregarded. In my own case, the practice has, on
+the contrary, seemed beneficial.
+
+4. There is one reason in favor of this practice which perhaps would
+have less weight, if people rose as early in the morning as they ought;
+or, in the language of Dr. Franklin to the inhabitants of Paris, if they
+knew that the sun gives light as soon as he rises. I allude to the
+demand which I conceive that the stomach makes for something, after so
+long fasting, and the pernicious custom of late breakfasts. I am
+persuaded that it is advisable to eat something nearly as soon as we
+rise, be it never so early; and if we can get nothing else for
+breakfast, and have not accustomed ourselves to relish a piece of good
+bread, or some other simple thing, which requires no labor of
+preparation, I think it perfectly proper to eat a small quantity of
+fruit.
+
+We come now to the particular consideration of some of those fruits
+which universal experience has shown to be the most salutary.
+
+Of all these, none is more wholesome than the apple. There is indeed a
+great diversity in the quality even of this single article. Sweet apples
+are the most nutritious; but perhaps those which are gently acid, and at
+the same time mealy, are rather more cooling, and when eaten raw, and in
+the heat of summer, not less wholesome.
+
+Apples which come to maturity very early in the season appear, as a
+general rule, to be less rich, and even less perfect, than those which
+ripen later. In view of this fact, some writers have endeavored to
+dissuade us from their use; and among others, Mr. Locke. We may judge a
+little what his opinions were, from his concluding remarks on the
+subject:--"I never knew apples hurt anybody," says he, "after October."
+
+But although neither apples nor any other fruits which ripen uncommonly
+early are quite so good as those which come in a little later, yet I do
+not think they are to be wholly rejected, unless they have been raised
+in hot houses. Fruits, and indeed vegetables in general, whose maturity
+is hastened by artificial processes, must be less wholesome than when
+brought to perfection in nature's own appropriate time and manner. I
+ought to say, however, very distinctly, that of the fruits of any
+particular tree, those which first ripen are always the worst; for they
+are usually wormy, or otherwise defective.
+
+Most of the fruit, as well as other vegetables, brought to our city
+markets in this country, is utterly unfit to be eaten. Sometimes it is
+immature; sometimes it has a hot house maturity; sometimes it has been
+picked so long that it has begun to decay. Many fruits--berries
+especially--are in perfection for a very short period only. Mulberries,
+for example--one kind especially--are not in perfection long enough to
+carry to the market house, even though the distance were very small.
+Luckily, however, very few mulberries are eaten. But the raspberry and
+strawberry, if perfect when gathered, have usually begun to decay,
+before they are purchased. That this appears to be rather unfrequent, is
+because they are gathered before they are ripe.
+
+Dr. Dewees regards most fruits as difficult of digestion. I do not think
+they are so, if perfect and ripe. The experiments of Dr. Beaumont, so
+far as they prove any general principle, show conclusively that mellow
+sweet apples are more quickly digested than any kind of vegetable food
+whatever, except rice and sago. But even admitting they were slow of
+digestion, I do not think--as I have already shown in another
+place--that they ought on that account to be excluded. Besides, my
+opinion differs from that of Dr. D. in regard to the strength of the
+digestive powers of children. After teething, they seem to me to be able
+to digest any substances which adults can; and with as little
+difficulty.
+
+But to return:--No fruit is in perfection longer than the apple.
+Besides, no fruit appears to be less injured in its nature and
+properties by picking it a little before it is ripe, and preserving it
+during the winter. It is on this account, more perhaps than any other,
+that I value it more highly than all other fruits united.
+
+Apples may be used either raw or cooked. In either case, the skins and
+seeds should be avoided, as has been before suggested. I am not ignorant
+that WILLICH, in his "Lectures on Diet and Regimen"--an excellent work,
+in the main--says that the seeds ought to be eaten; but I believe few
+physiologists would comply with his injunction, especially when it is
+considered that he recommends, in the same connection, that we swallow
+the stones of cherries and plums. Strange how far our theories will
+sometimes carry us!
+
+The apple is excellent when roasted or baked, especially the sweet
+apple. It is very common, in some places, to eat baked sweet apples with
+milk; and the practice is by no means a bad one. Indeed, baked or raw
+apples might be advantageously made a part of at least one of our meals
+every day. There is said to be a miserly farmer--a single gentleman--in
+the western part of the state of Massachusetts, who has lived on nothing
+but apples for his food, and water for his drink, about forty years. And
+yet he is said to enjoy the most perfect health. I do not propose this
+as an example worthy of imitation; but it shows that apples maybe made
+to subserve an important purpose in diet. And though I have more than
+once expressed an opinion highly unfavorable to the exclusive use of any
+one article of diet, yet if I were to confine myself to any one thing, I
+know of nothing except bread that I should prefer to good apples. Still,
+however, I prefer a variety--sweet, sour, early, late, &c.; and I should
+use them raw, roasted, baked, made into sauce with new or unfermented
+cider, and boiled. Good apples, eaten raw, with bread, form not only a
+very wholesome, but, to an unperverted appetite, a most delicious
+dinner.
+
+Much has been said about cutting down orchards; but the whole seems to
+me idle--for if the fruit is of a good quality, it may be used as food,
+either for man or beast. And if not good, the trees ought either to be
+destroyed or replaced by those that will produce fruit which is
+better--even if the object were to make it into cider. I have said that
+apples may be used both by man and beast. It is well known that most
+domestic animals thrive well on good apples, especially sweet ones. Very
+tolerable molasses is also sometimes made from sweet apples.
+
+Nearly everything which has been said above in regard to apples, will
+apply to pears. The best varieties of this excellent fruit are quite as
+nutritious and as wholesome as the apple; and as much improved for the
+table by baking. I believe, however, that no cheap process has yet been
+devised for keeping them as long in the winter. They may be preserved in
+the form of sauce, prepared in the same way with common apple sauce. The
+skins, of many kinds of pears are less injurious than those of apples;
+but even the skins of pears need not be eaten.
+
+Some kinds of peaches are tolerably wholesome; but the stringy character
+of their pulp appears to me to render them less so than apples and
+pears, though I am not confident on this point. But if used at all, they
+should be used in less quantity at one time. Tempting as their flavor
+is, I seldom eat them, when I can get apples and pears; holding myself
+in duty bound to use the _best_, even of the fruits.
+
+"Fruit," says Mr. Locke, "makes one of the most difficult chapters in
+the government of health, especially that of children. Our first parents
+ventured Paradise for it; and it is no wonder our children cannot stand
+the temptation, though it cost them their health. The regulation of this
+cannot come under any one general rule; for I am by no means of their
+mind who would keep children wholly from fruit, as a thing totally
+unwholesome for them, by which strict way they make them but the more
+ravenous after it, to eat good or bad, ripe or unripe, all that they can
+get, whenever they come at it.
+
+"Melons, peaches, most sorts of plums, and all sorts of grapes, in
+_England_, I think children should be wholly kept from, as having a very
+tempting taste, in a very unwholesome juice, so that if it were
+possible, they should never so much as see them, or know that there was
+any such thing. But strawberries, cherries, gooseberries and currants,
+when thoroughly ripe, I think may be pretty safely allowed them."
+
+Excellent as these remarks are, in general, I do not like his entire
+interdiction of the use of melons, peaches, plums, and grapes, even in
+England. Peaches, to be sure, as they come at a season when apples or
+pears, or both of them--which are more wholesome than peaches--are
+abundant, may be better omitted, delicious as they are to the taste; and
+I do not think very highly of plums. But melons, in very moderate
+quantity, and grapes, if we eat nothing but the ripe pulp, rejecting
+both the husk and the interior hard part, including the seeds, are, I
+think, useful and wholesome. On the other hand, I should never place
+cherries and gooseberries in the same list with strawberries; for the
+latter are, if I may use the expression, infinitely the most wholesome.
+
+Many seem to think that not to eat all sorts of fruits is to despise, or
+at least to treat with neglect the gifts of God, intended for our
+reception; by which they mean, if they mean anything, that the use of
+all sorts of fruits is already found out, even in the present
+comparative infancy of the world. Now I do not suppose that God has made
+anything in vain--absolutely so--though I do not think we have found out
+the true uses of half the things which he has made and given us. And
+among those things of which we are yet ignorant, are some of the fruits.
+I do not believe it follows, necessarily, that because fruits are
+created, we are obliged to use them all.
+
+Besides, if this is a rule, it is one which nobody follows. Every one
+uses more of some sorts, and fewer of others; and a large proportion of
+the community entirely reject some kinds. Now if the statement commonly
+made, that all fruits are the gifts of God, and ought therefore to be
+used by all persons, is correct, those who make the statement ought to
+conform to it as a rule of their lives, and to eat all kinds of fruit
+which the season and country affords; and not only eat all kinds, but
+see that the whole of every kind is consumed; since to waste any portion
+is to slight the good gifts of God.
+
+The result then is, that we cannot obey such a rule; but are driven back
+to the mode which common sense dictates, which is, to make a selection,
+using some, and rejecting others. And the value of studying the nature
+of these fruits, by examining the experience of mankind in regard to
+them, consists in the aid thus afforded us in making our selection
+wisely.
+
+There is one very common error in the use of the smaller summer fruits,
+such as strawberries, whortleberries, currants, &c., which is that of
+mixing cream, wine, spices, sugar, &c., with them. We are thus tempted
+to eat too great a quantity at once. Besides--which is a worse evil--we
+change the proportions of the saccharine parts, and thus do all in our
+power, by increasing a similarity in all fruits, to destroy that
+agreeable variety which God has established, and which is probably
+salutary.
+
+
+SEC. 11. _Confectionary._
+
+By confectionary we here mean the substances usually sold at those shops
+in our cities distinguished by the general name of confectionaries, and
+which consist either wholly of sugar, or of sugar and some other
+substances combined.
+
+As to the use of a moderate quantity of pure sugar at our meals, whether
+it is procured at a confectioner's shop or elsewhere, I do not know that
+there is any strong objection to it; though I believe that it cannot be
+regarded as indispensable to health--for were that the fact, it seems to
+me to imply something short of infinite wisdom in the creation of
+articles destined for our sustenance. But I have spoken on this subject
+elsewhere.
+
+A part, however, of the contents of the confectionary shop are actually
+poisonous. I refer to those things which are either frosted, as it is
+called, or colored. The substances applied to the sugar for this purpose
+are usually some mineral or vegetable poison; although the fact of its
+being a poison may not always be known to the manufacturer. The most
+unhappy consequences have occasionally followed the use of
+confectionary, when poisoned in this manner. A family of four persons,
+in New York, were made sick in this way in March of year before last,
+and some of them came very near losing their lives. The "frosting" which
+caused the mischief was pronounced by eminent chemists to be one fifth
+rank poison.[Footnote: It is to be remembered that those who eat
+confectionary so slightly poisoned that it does not make them sick at
+once, may nevertheless be as much injured in their constitutions as they
+who are poisoned outright. In the latter case, the poison is in part
+thrown out of the body; in the former, it remains in it much longer--and
+therefore more surely, though more slowly, accomplishes the work of
+destruction.] The coloring substances used are sometimes poisonous, as
+well as the frosting.
+
+Some of the articles sold at these shops consist of sugar mixed with
+paste. Others are called sweetmeats; that is, fruits, or rinds of
+fruits, preserved in sugar. All these substances, I believe, without
+exception, are injurious.
+
+The great evils of confectionary yet remain to be mentioned. These are
+of three kinds, physical, mental and moral.
+
+Some of the _physical_ evils have, it is true, just been mentioned; but
+there is another evil of still greater magnitude. Young people who eat
+confectionary, commonly eat it between meals. This produces mischief in
+two ways. First, it keeps the stomach at work when it ought to rest; for
+this, like every other muscular organ, requires its seasons of repose.
+Secondly, it destroys gradually the appetite; so that when the regular
+meal arrives, the accustomed keenness of appetite does not come with it.
+And the consequence is, not so much that we do not eat enough, as that
+we are fastidious, and eat a little of this, then a little of that; and
+usually select the worst things. We are not hungry enough to make a meal
+of a single article of plain food. And this evil goes on increasing, as
+long as we have access to the confectionary shop. These statements
+describe the case of thousands of pupils, of both sexes, at our schools
+and seminaries.
+
+The _intellectual_ evil resulting from the use of confectionary consists
+in the fondness for excitement which is produced. You will seldom find a
+person who depends daily and almost hourly on some excitement to his
+appetite and stomach, and is not satisfied with plain food, who will
+content himself to _study_ without unnatural excitements of the mind.
+Duty to himself or to others will not move him. He must have before him
+the hope of reward, or the fear of punishment. He must be moved by
+emulation or ambition, or some other questionable or wicked motive or
+passion.
+
+But the _moral_ results, to the young, of using confectionary, are still
+more dreadful. I do not here refer to the danger of meeting with bad
+company at the shops themselves, or of going from these places of
+pollution _directly_ to the grog-shop, the gambling-house, or the
+brothel; though there is danger enough, even here. But I allude to the
+tendency which a habit of not resting satisfied with plain food, but of
+depending on exciting things, has, to make us dissatisfied with plain
+moral enjoyments--the society of friends, and the quiet discharge of our
+duty to God and our neighbor. Just in proportion as we gratify our
+propensity for excitement at the confectioner's shop, just in the same
+proportion do we expose ourselves to the, danger of yielding to
+temptation, should other gratifications present themselves. The young of
+both sexes who are in the use of confectionary, are on the high road to
+gluttony, drunkenness, or debauchery; perhaps to all three. I do not say
+they will certainly arrive there, for circumstances not quite miraculous
+may pluck them as "brands from the burning;" but I do not hesitate to
+say that such is the inevitable tendency; and I call on every mother and
+teacher who reads this section, to beware of confectionaries, and see,
+if possible, that the young never set foot in them. They are a road
+through which thousands pass to the chamber of death--death to the
+immortal spirit, as well as to the body, its vehicle.
+
+More might be added--for this is an important subject--but I trust I
+have said enough. Those who have read and believe what I have written,
+if they remain wholly unaffected and unmoved, would not be roused to
+effort were anything to be added.
+
+
+SEC. 12. _Pastry._
+
+Dr. Paris, a distinguished British writer on diet, says that all pastry
+is "an abomination." And yet, go where we will, we find it often on the
+table. Hardly any one, whether old or young, attempts to do without it.
+
+There are indeed some, who will not eat pie-crust, or high-seasoned
+cakes formed of paste; but yet will not hesitate to eat hot bread, or
+rolls, or biscuits made of wheat flour, bolted. Now what is this but
+paste? If we could see the contents of the stomach, an hour after the
+mass is swallowed, we should find it to be paste, and _mere_ paste.
+
+And yet the evil is increasing everywhere. So generally is this true,
+that a person who refuses to eat hot bread, or cake, or biscuit, is
+deemed singular. He who ventures to lift his voice against it is deemed
+an ascetic or a visionary. But such a voice must be raised, and heard,
+too, whether its monitions are or are not regarded.
+
+Pastry is less objectionable, however, when used in the form of hot
+bread, &c., than when butter or fat is mixed with it. Then it becomes
+one of the most indigestible substances in the world. Besides, it not
+only tries the patience of the stomach, but according to Willich, whose
+authority ranks high, it tends to produce diseases of the skin,
+especially a disease which he calls "copper in the face," and which he
+pronounces incurable.
+
+I know not whether the eruptions so common on the faces of young people
+in this country, and especially of young men, are in every instance
+either produced or aggravated by pastry; but I am very sure of one
+thing, viz., that those who are in the use of pastry, and have eruptions
+of the skin of any kind, will not be apt to get well, as long as they
+continue the use of this objectionable substance.
+
+Physicians are often consulted about eruptions on the face. When they
+assign the real cause, which is undoubtedly connected with the improper
+gratification of some of the appetites, in one way or another, it is
+seldom that the patient has self-command enough to follow his
+prescription of temperance or abstinence. Mothers, it is yours to
+prevent this mischief;--first, by establishing correct physical habits;
+secondly, by teaching your children the great duty of self-denial--not
+only by precept, but by your own good example.
+
+
+SEC. 13. _Crude or Raw Substances._
+
+I have reserved this section for remarks on certain articles used at our
+fashionable modern tables, of which I could not well find it convenient
+to speak elsewhere. And first, of SALADS, and HERBS used in cooking;
+such as asparagus, artichokes, spinage, plantain, cabbage, dock,
+lettuce, water-cresses, chives, &c.
+
+Several of these substances are often eaten raw, in which state they are
+exceedingly indigestible, at the best; and they are rendered still more
+beyond the reach of the powers of the stomach, by the oil or vinegar
+which is added to them. Boiled, they are more tolerable; especially
+asparagus. In the midst, however, of such an abundance of excellent food
+as this country affords, it is most surprising that anybody should ever
+take it into their heads to eat such crude substances; and above all,
+that they should fill children's stomachs with them. What child, with an
+unperverted appetite, would not prefer a good ripe apple, or peach, or
+pear, to the most approved raw salads?--and a good baked one, to the
+best boiled asparagus?
+
+NUTS, in general, are probably made for other animals rather than man;
+though of this we cannot in the present infancy of human knowledge be
+quite certain. But if any of them were intended, by the Creator, for
+man, it is the chesnut; and this should be boiled. Boiled chesnuts are
+used as food, in many parts of southern Europe; and to a very
+considerable extent.
+
+SPICES, as they are sometimes called, such as nutmeg, mace, pepper,
+pimento; cubebs, cardamoms, juniper berries, ginger, calamus, cloves,
+cinnamon, caraway, coriander, fennel, parsley, dill, sage, marjoram,
+thyme, pennyroyal, lavender, hyssop, peppermint, &c., are unfit for the
+human stomach--above all in infancy--except as medicines.
+
+There are several other vegetables equally objectionable with the last,
+though they cannot be classed under the same head. Such are mustard,
+horseradish, raw onions, garlic, cucumbers, and pickles. No appetite
+which has not been accustomed to these substances in early infancy, will
+ever require them. Not that they may not sometimes be useful in enabling
+the stomach--at every age--to get rid of certain substances with which
+it has been improperly or unreasonably loaded;--this is undoubtedly the
+fact; ardent spirits would do the same. And it is with a view to some
+such effect, generally, that medical writers have spoken in their favor.
+Some of them stimulate the stomach to get rid of a load of _green_
+fruit; others, of a load of _fat_ or _salt_ food; others, again,
+of too large a _quantity_ of food which is naturally wholesome.
+
+But in all these cases, they should be considered, not as food, but as
+medicine; and we ought to call them by their right name. And if we
+withhold the cause of the disease, there will be no need of the
+medicine.
+
+
+
+
+CHAPTER VIII.
+
+DRINKS.
+
+Infants need little drink. Adults, even, generally drink to cool
+themselves. Simple water the best drink. Opinions of Dr. Oliver and Dr.
+Dewees. Animal food increases thirst. Only one real drink in the world.
+The true object of all drink. Tea, coffee, chocolate, beer, &c. Milk and
+water, molasses and water, &c. Cider, wine, and ardent spirits. Bad food
+and drink the most prolific sources of disease. Children naturally
+prefer water. Danger of hot drinks. Cold drinks. Mischief they produce.
+Caution to mothers. Extracts. Drinking cold water, while hot.
+
+
+Children need little if any drink, so long as their food is nothing but
+milk; nor indeed for some time afterward, unless they are indulged in
+the use of animal food. Adults, even, very seldom drink merely to quench
+natural thirst. In the summer, people usually drink either to cool
+themselves, or to gratify a thirst which is wholly artificial. Tea,
+coffee, beer, cider, and most other common drinks, when not used for the
+sake of their coolness, are drank, both in winter and summer, for this
+purpose.
+
+That this is the fact, we have the most abundant and unequivocal
+evidence. I know that much is said of the demand which a profuse
+perspiration creates among hard laborers in the summer. Such a sudden
+abstraction of a large amount of fluid requires, it is said, a
+proportional supply, or life would soon become extinct. Yet there are
+many old men who have perspired profusely at their labor all their days,
+and yet have drank nothing at all, except their tea, morning and
+evening; and perhaps have eaten, for one or two of their meals daily, in
+summer, a bowl of bread and milk. And some of them are among the most
+remarkable instances of longevity which the country affords.
+
+How the system acquires a sufficient supply of moisture to keep up good
+health, in these cases, I do not pretend to determine: perhaps it is
+through the medium of the lungs. But at any rate, it can obtain it
+without our drinking for that sole purpose, to the great danger of
+exciting liver complaints, diarrhoea, dyspepsia, colds, rheumatisms, and
+fevers.
+
+But if adults who perspire freely do not require much drink, children
+certainly do not; and above all, young children. And if they do require
+any thing, it is only simple water. The following remarks of Dr. Oliver,
+of Hanover, N.H., are extracted from Dr. Mussey's late Prize Essay on
+Ardent Spirits:
+
+"Who has not observed the extreme satisfaction which children derive
+from quenching their thirst with pure water? And who that has perverted
+his appetite for drink, by stimulating his palate with bitter beer, sour
+cider, rum and water, and other beverages of human invention, but would
+be a gainer, even on the score of mere animal gratification, without any
+reference to health, if he could bring back his vitiated taste to the
+simple relish of nature?
+
+"Children drink because they are dry. Grown people drink, whether dry or
+not, because they have discovered a way of making drink pleasant.
+Children drink water because this is a beverage of nature's own brewing,
+which she has made for the purpose of quenching a natural thirst. Grown
+people drink anything but water, because this fluid is intended to
+quench only a natural thirst; and natural thirst is a thing which they
+seldom feel."
+
+There is a great deal of truth, as well as of sound philosophy, in these
+two paragraphs, and little less of truth in the following paragraph from
+Dr. Dewees:
+
+"We have witnessed very often, with sorrow, parents giving to their
+young children wine, or other stimulating liquors. Nature never intended
+anything stronger than water to be the drink for children. This they
+enjoy greatly; and much advantage is occasionally experienced from its
+use, especially after they have commenced the use of animal food."
+
+Two things are to be observed in the last remarks, which are, that
+children demand drink of any kind but seldom, and that even this
+occasional demand is often the special result of the use of animal food.
+Here comes out an important secret. It is the use of animal food, to a
+very great degree, in adults and children both, that creates so much of
+that unnatural thirst which prevails in the community. When we shall
+come to lay aside animal food, in childhood, youth, manhood and age,
+much that is now _called_ thirst will be banished; and much of the
+intemperance and other kinds of sensuality which follow in its train.
+
+It has been sometimes said that there is but one kind of drink in the
+world--and that is water. This is strictly, or rather _physiologically_
+true. For, though many mixtures are _called_ drinks, it is only the
+water which they contain that answers any of the legitimate purposes for
+which drink was intended by the Creator.
+
+The object of drink, besides quenching our thirst, or rather _while_ it
+quenches it, is, not to be digested, like food, but to pass directly
+from the stomach into the blood-vessels, and dilute and temper the
+blood, rendering it more fit to answer the great purpose of sustaining
+life and health. Now, there is nothing that can do this but water.
+Alcohol cannot do it, nor can turpentine, oil, quicksilver, melted lead,
+or any other liquid.
+
+Tea, coffee, chocolate, small beer, soda water, lemonade, &c., which are
+nearly all water, quench the thirst very well, it is true; but not quite
+so well as water alone would. The narcotic principle of the first two,
+the alcoholic principle of the fourth, and the mucilage, nutriment,
+acid, and alkali of the rest, are in the way; for thirst would be
+quenched still better without them, even when it is of an unnatural
+kind.
+
+Indeed, the same or similar remarks may be made in regard to all other
+mixtures which are usually proposed as drinks. Even milk and water,
+molasses and water, &c., in favor of which so much is said, are
+objectionable, as mere drinks. Not that they contain anything poisonous,
+but they evidently contain nutriment; and even this, except as a part or
+the whole of a regular meal, does harm; for it sets the stomach at work
+when it needs repose. Mere drink, as I have already said, is never
+digested.
+
+But if the drinks above mentioned, and even milk and water, are
+objectionable, what shall we say of cider, wine, and ardent
+spirits?--substances which contain, the latter one half, and the two
+former from one twentieth to one fourth alcohol. Surely, nobody will
+deny that these substances ought, at all events, to be banished from the
+nursery. And yet we occasionally find them there, not only for the use
+of the mother, to the ruin of the child, indirectly--but also, in some
+of their smoother forms, for the use of the child itself.
+
+I would not lay too much stress on food and drink; for, as I have
+already observed, more than once, the causes of infantile ill health and
+mortality are numerous. Still I must insist that, of all the sources of
+disease, these are the most prolific. Much is done towards ruining the
+health of children by the improper food and drink of the mother. But
+when, in addition to all this, the children themselves are early fed
+with animal food, and with stimulating drinks--punch, coffee, tea,
+&c.--and an artificial thirst is early excited and rendered habitual,
+their destruction, for time and eternity, is almost inevitable.
+
+Very few children relish any drink but water, or sweetened water, at
+first; and where they do, it is probably hereditary. I have been struck
+with their tastes and preferences; nor less with the folly of those
+around them, in endeavoring to change them, by requiring them--almost
+always against their will--to sip a little coffee, or a little tea, or
+a little lemonade; or, it may be, a little toddy. Such children _may_
+escape the death of the drunkard or the debauchee; but if they do, it
+will not be through the instrumentality of the parents.
+
+I am very much opposed to giving children hot drinks of any kind. If
+they are to drink substances which are injurious, as tea or coffee, let
+them be cool. I do not say _cold_, for that would be going to the other
+extreme. But no drink, in any ordinary case, should be above the heat of
+our bodies; that is, about 98 degrees of Fahrenheit's thermometer. Yet
+the precautions of this paragraph will be almost unnecessary, if
+children are confined--as they ought to be, and would be, did we not go
+out of our way to teach them otherwise--to water, as their only drink.
+Cold water is almost always preferred. Not one child in a thousand would
+ever prefer it hot, until his taste had been perverted. No writer has
+inveighed more against hot drinks of every kind, than the late William
+Cobbett--and, as I think, with more justice.
+
+But, in avoiding one rock, we must not, as has already been intimated,
+make shipwreck on another. Hot drinks, though they injure the powers of
+the stomach, and by that means and through that medium, are one
+principal cause of the almost universal early decay of teeth, are yet
+less injurious, or at least less dangerous, immediately, than cold ones.
+Mr. Locke, in speaking of the sports of a child, in the open air, has
+the following quaint, but judicious remarks:
+
+"Playing in the open air has but this one danger in it, that I know; and
+that is, that when he is hot with running up and down, he should sit or
+lie down on the cold or moist earth. This, I grant, and drinking cold
+drink, when they are hot with labor or exercise, brings more people to
+the grave, or to the brink of it, by fevers and other diseases, than
+anything I know. These mischiefs are easily enough prevented when he is
+little, being then seldom out of sight. And if, during his childhood, he
+be constantly and rigorously kept from sitting on the ground, or
+drinking any cold liquor, while he is hot, the custom of forbearing,
+grown into _habit_, will help much to preserve him, when he is no longer
+under his maid's or tutor's eye.
+
+"More fevers and surfeits are got by people's drinking when they are
+hot, than by any one thing I know. If he (the child) be very hot, he
+should by no means _drink_; at least a good piece of bread, first to be
+eaten, will gain time to warm his drink _blood hot_, which then he may
+drink safely. If he be very dry, it will go down so warmed, and quench
+his thirst better; and if he will not drink it so warmed, abstaining
+will not hurt him. Besides, this will teach him to forbear, which is a
+habit of the greatest use for health of mind and body too."
+
+The last remarks are full of wisdom. Mothers may depend upon it, that
+every indulgence to which they accustom their children paves the way for
+_habitual_ indulgence; and has a tendency to lead, indirectly, to
+indulgence in other matters; and, on the contrary, every self-denial
+which they can lead children to exercise, voluntarily--even in these
+every-day matters of food, drink, exercise, &c. is so much gained in the
+great work of self-denial and the resisting of temptation in matters of
+higher importance. But I must not moralize too long; having dwelt on
+this same point under the head Confectionary. I proceed, therefore, to
+make a few more extracts from Mr. Locke:
+
+"Not being permitted to _drink_ without eating, will prevent the custom
+of having the cup often at his nose; a dangerous beginning."
+
+"Men often bring habitual hunger and thirst on themselves by custom."
+
+"You may, if you please, bring any one to be thirsty every hour."
+
+"I once lived in a house, where, to appease a froward child, they gave
+him _drink_ as often as he cried, so that he was constantly bibbing.
+And though he could not speak, yet he drank more in twenty-four hours
+than I did."
+
+"It is convenient, for health and sobriety, to drink no more than
+natural thirst requires; and he that eats not salt meats, nor drinks
+strong drink, will seldom thirst between meals."
+
+Great mischief is often done to their health by children at school; and
+one instance of this is, in getting violently heated with exercise, and
+then pouring down large quantities of cold water to cool themselves. I
+once made it a habitual rule for pupils, that they must drink water, if
+they drank it at all, on leaving their seats to go to their plays, but
+not afterwards: and I was so situated that I could prevent the law from
+being broken, as there was no spring or well to which they could have
+access, privately. And though they thought the rule rather severe, I
+have no doubt it saved them from much injury, and perhaps sometimes from
+sickness.
+
+
+
+
+CHAPTER IX.
+
+GIVING MEDICINE.
+
+"Prevention" better than "cure." Nine in ten infantile diseases caused
+by errors in diet and drink. Signs of failing health. Causes of a bad
+breath. Flesh eaters. Gormandizers. General rule for preventing disease.
+When to call a physician.
+
+
+So much error prevails in regard to the medical management of the young,
+that a volume might be written without exhausting the subject.[Footnote:
+Such a volume is in preparation. It is intended as a companion to the
+present.] My present limits and plan allow of only a few remarks, and
+those must be general.
+
+That "an ounce of prevention is worth a pound of cure," has so long ago
+become a proverb, that it seems almost idle to repeat the sentiment. And
+yet it is to be feared that very few receive it as a practical truth, in
+the management of children. Now nothing is more certain than that it is
+easier, as well as more humane, to prevent diseases than to cure them.
+
+I have elsewhere mentioned the opinion of a very eminent physician,
+that nine in ten of children's diseases may be imputed to error with
+regard to the quantity or the quality of their food. For myself, I am by
+no means certain that nine out of ten is the exact proportion, though I
+think the number is, at all events, very large. Few children, or even
+grown persons, are seized with disease suddenly. Their progress towards
+it is always gradual, and sometimes imperceptible. To a physician of any
+tolerable degree of skill, however, there is no difficulty in observing
+and pointing out the first steps towards illness; in those whose habits
+of life are well known to him; and of foretelling the consequence.
+
+But since parents and nurses are not so well qualified as physicians to
+make these observations, I will endeavor to point out a few certain
+signs and symptoms by which they may know a child's health to be
+declining, even before be appears to be sick.--For if these are
+neglected, the evil increases, goes on from bad to worse, and more
+violent and apparent complaints will follow, and perhaps end in
+incurable diseases, which a timely remedy, or a slight change in the
+diet and manner of life, would have infallibly prevented.
+
+"The first tendency to disease," says Dr. Cadogan, "may be observed in a
+child's breath. It is not enough that the breath is not offensive; it
+should be sweet and fragrant, like a nosegay of fresh flowers, or a pail
+of new milk from a young cow that feeds upon the sweetest grass of the
+spring; and this as well at first waking in the morning, as all day
+long." [Footnote: Buchan's "Advice to Mothers," pages 337, 388]
+
+There is much of truth in these remarks; but if they are wholly true,
+then very few children are perfectly healthy. For no child that eats
+much animal food of any sort, or, what amounts to nearly the same thing,
+much butter or gravy, will long retain the fragrant breath here alluded
+to. Who has not observed the difference in this respect, between animals
+in general which feed on flesh, and those which feed on grass? And
+whether it is the character of their respective food that makes the
+difference or not, it is also true that there is nearly as much
+difference of breath between _men_ who use animal food and those who do
+not, as between other animals. The breath of some of our enormous meat
+eaters would almost remind one of a slaughter house.
+
+Nor is it the quality of food alone, that will induce a foul breath,
+either in adults or infants. He who swallows such enormous quantities,
+even of plain food, as by overloading and fatiguing the stomach, tend
+gradually to debilitate it, will produce the same effect. The enormous
+feeders of this full feeding country, whether they are young or old,
+whether they inhabit the mountain or the vale, and whether they feed on
+animal food or not, have generally a bad breath; and if they seldom
+offend, it is because few feed otherwise. And it is not too much--in my
+own opinion--to say of this whole class of gormandizers, no less than of
+the flesh eaters, that they have laid for themselves the foundation of
+future disease.
+
+One general rule may here be distinctly laid down. As a child's breath
+becomes hot and feverish, or strong, or acid, we may be certain that
+"digestion and surfeit have fouled and disturbed the blood; and now is
+the time to apply a proper remedy, and prevent a train of impending
+evils. Let the child be restrained in its food. Let it eat less, live
+upon milk or thin broth for a day or two, and be carried (or walk if it
+is able) a little more than usual in the open air." [Footnote: Advice to
+Mothers, page 338]
+
+This rule is the more important, because, if duly persevered in, it will
+generally prevent disease, and save the trouble and evil consequences of
+taking medicine at all. Meanwhile it will be advisable to call in a
+physician--not to give drugs, but to prevent the necessity of giving
+them. There is a foolish fear abroad that physicians, if called before a
+person is violently sick, will dose him with their drugs, as a matter of
+course, till they _make_ him sick. But this, no judicious physician will
+ever do. It may _have been_ done, though I believe it has been seldom.
+The more general course is to defer calling for medical advice, till it
+is too late to use preventive means; and medicine is then resorted to by
+the physician as a sort of necessary evil.
+
+A judicious physician, seasonably called in, would in many instances
+save a severe fit of sickness, besides a great deal of expense, both of
+time and money.
+
+But if the first symptoms of approaching disease are overlooked--if the
+child is fed, or rather crammed; with solid food as much as ever--and if
+no medical advice is sought, his sleep will soon become disturbed; he
+will be talking, starting, and tumbling about, and will have frightful
+dreams; or he will at other times be found smiling and laughing. To
+these, in the end, may be added, loss of appetite, paleness, emaciation,
+weakness, cough, and consumption; or colics, worms, and convulsions.
+
+I do not undertake to say that the most judicious parental management,
+aided by the greatest medical skill, will always prevent disease; far
+from it. The child may and undoubtedly sometimes does inherit a tendency
+to a particular disease; or he may be made sick by error in regard to
+dress, exercise, &c. But so long as nine tenths of the disease and early
+mortality of the young might be prevented by due attention to all these
+means combined, so long will it be necessary to reiterate the sentiments
+of the present section.
+
+
+
+
+CHAPTER X
+
+EXERCISE.
+
+SEC. 1. Objections to the use of cradles.--SEC. 2. Carrying in the
+arms--its uses and abuses.--SEC. 3. Creeping--why useful--to be
+encouraged.--SEC. 4. Walking--general directions about it.--SEC. 5.
+Riding abroad in carriages.--SEC. 6. Riding on horseback--objections.
+Riding schools.
+
+
+This subject may be considered under the following heads: ROCKING IN THE
+CRADLE; CARRYING IN THE ARMS; CREEPING; WALKING; RIDING IN A CARRIAGE;
+AND RIDING ON HORSEBACK. These I shall consider in their order.
+
+
+
+SEC. 1. _Rocking in the Cradle._
+
+There are two opinions in regard to the use of the cradle in the
+nursery. Some condemn it altogether; others think its occasional use
+highly proper. Those who condemn it, do it chiefly on the ground that it
+produces a whirling motion of the brain, which, while it inclines to
+giddiness and lulls to sleep, disturbs, in some degree, the process of
+digestion.
+
+It seems to me that there is weight to this objection; and although the
+cradle has been extensively used without producing any obviously evil
+effects, I should greatly prefer to have it universally laid aside. As
+far as mere amusement is demanded, it is quite unnecessary, since there
+are so many amusements which are far better. As a means of inducing
+sleep, I am still more strongly opposed to it; for if a child be
+rationally treated in every other respect, it will never need artificial
+means to induce it to sleep. Nature will then be the most appropriate
+directress in this matter.
+
+If there is a cradle in a nursery, it is almost always full of clothes
+loaded with air more or less impure, and the child is buried in it more
+than is compatible with health, even in the judgment of the mother or
+the nurse; for so convenient is its use, and so great the temptation to
+keep the child in it, that he will often be found soaking there a large
+proportion of his time. Every one knows that the air has not so free
+access to a child in the cradle as elsewhere, especially if it have a
+kind of covering or hood to it, as we often see. Besides, the cradle is
+a piece of furniture which takes up a great deal of space in the
+nursery; and every one who has made the trial effectually, will, it
+seems to me, greatly prefer its room to its company.
+
+If any cradle is to be used, those are best which are suspended by
+cords, and are swung, rather than rocked. And this swinging should be in
+a line with the body of the child as much as possible; as this motion is
+less likely to produce injury than its opposite.
+
+
+SEC. 2. _Carrying in the Arms._
+
+This is the most appropriate exercise for the first two months of
+existence; and indeed, one of the best for some time afterward.
+
+Although a healthy, thriving child ought to sleep, for some time after
+birth, from two thirds to three fourths of his time, yet it should never
+be forgotten that the demand for proper exercise during the rest of the
+time, is not the less imperious on this account; but probably the more
+so.
+
+I have already mentioned the importance of bathing, which is one form of
+exercise, and of gentle motion in the arms, immediately afterward. The
+same gentle motion should be often repeated during the day; care being
+taken to hold the child in such a position as will be easy to him, and
+favorable to the free exercise of all his limbs and muscles.
+
+There are many mothers and nurses, who not only rejoice that the infant
+inclines to sleep a great deal, since it gives them more liberty, but
+who take pains to prolong these hours beyond what nature requires, by
+artificial means. I refer not only to the use of the cradle, but to
+means still more artificial--the use of cordials and opiates, to which I
+have already adverted. But whatever the means used may be, they defeat
+the purposes of nature, and are in the highest degree reprehensible.
+Nothing but the most chilling poverty should prevent the mother from
+having the child--for a few weeks of its first existence at least--in
+her own arms, nearly all the time which is not absolutely demanded for
+repose. She should even invite it to wakefulness, rather than encourage
+sleep.
+
+Attention to exercise ought to be commenced before the child is more
+than ten days old. For this purpose he should be placed on his back, on
+a pillow, in order that the body may rest at as many points as possible.
+In this position he has the opportunity to move his limbs with the most
+perfect freedom, and to exercise his numerous muscles. There is nothing
+more important to the infant--not even sleep itself--than the action of
+all his muscles; and nothing contributes more to his rapid growth.
+
+At first, the body should be kept, while on the arm, in nearly a
+horizontal position, with the head perhaps a very little elevated; but
+after a few weeks, it will be proper to change the position for a small
+part of the time; placing the body so that it may form an angle of a few
+degrees with the horizon. When this is done, however, it should always
+be by placing the hand against the shoulders and head, in such a manner
+as to support well the back; for it is extremely injurious to suffer the
+feeble spine to sustain, at this early period, any considerable weight.
+
+Still more erroneous is the practice of some careless nurses, of
+carrying the child quite upright a part of the time, almost without any
+support at all. There can be no doubt that the spinal column of many a
+child is injured for life in this way. There can be no apology for such
+things.
+
+But it is not sufficient to denounce, merely, the custom of holding the
+infant's body in an erect position. Every inquiring mother--and it is
+for such, and no other, that I write--will naturally and properly ask
+the reason why.
+
+The child is not born with all its bones solid. Some are mere cartilage
+for a considerable time. This is the case with the bones of the back.
+Now every person must see that the weight of the child's head and
+shoulders, resting for a considerable time on the slender cartilaginous
+spinal column, may easily bend it. And a curvature, thus given, may, and
+often does, deform children for life.
+
+Dr. Dewees mentions a nurse who, from a foolish fondness for displaying
+them, made the children consigned to her charge sit perfectly upright
+before they were a month old. It is truly ludicrous, he says, to see the
+little creatures sitting as straight as if they were stiffened by a back
+board. It is truly _horrible_, I should say, rather than ludicrous.
+Crooked spines must be the inevitable consequence, if nothing worse.
+
+The practice of bracing children, as it is called, by straps, back
+boards, corsets, &c., where it has produced any effect at all, has
+always had a tendency to crook the spine. This may be seen first, by
+observing one shoulder to be lower than the other, and next by a
+projection of the part of the shoulder blades next to the spine.
+Whenever these changes begin to appear, it is time to send for a
+physician, though it may often be too late to effect a cure. But on the
+general subject of bracing and corseting, I have treated at sufficient
+length elsewhere.
+
+There is another error committed in carrying children in the arms. The
+head of the infant is often permitted either to hang constantly on one
+side, or to roll about loosely; as if it hardly belonged to the body.
+In the former case there is danger of producing a habit of holding the
+head upon one side, which it will be very difficult to overcome; in the
+latter, the spinal marrow itself may be injured--which would produce
+alarming and perhaps fatal consequences.
+
+But all these evils, as has already been said, may be prevented, if the
+hand is placed so as to support the head and shoulders. Let not the
+mother, however, who reads this work, trust the matter wholly to a
+nurse; she must see to it herself; else she incurs a most fearful
+responsibility. The suggestions I have made are the more important in
+the case of children either very fleshy or very feeble, and of those
+disposed to rickets or scrofula; but they are important to all.
+
+I have said that the motion of the child, on the arm, should be gentle.
+Many are in the habit of tossing infants about. There can be no
+objection to a slight and slow movement up and down, for a minute or so
+at a time; indeed, it is rather to be recommended, as likely to give
+strength and vigor no less than pleasure to the child. But when such
+movements are carried to excess, so as to frighten the child, they are
+highly reprehensible. The shock thus produced to the nervous system has
+sometimes been so great as to produce sudden death. Nor is it safe to
+run, jump, or descend stairs hastily or violently, with a child in our
+arms; and for similar reasons.
+
+Infants should not be carried always on the same arm, for there is
+danger of contracting a habit of leaning to one side, and thus of
+becoming crooked. On this account, the arm on which they rest should be
+often changed. Nor should they be grasped too firmly. A skilful mother
+will hold a child quite loosely, with the most perfect safety; while an
+inexperienced one will grasp him so hard as to expose the soft bones to
+be bent out of their place, and yet be quite as liable to let him fall
+as she who handles him with more ease and freedom.
+
+
+SEC. 3. _Creeping._
+
+"Mankind must creep before they can walk," is an old adage often used to
+remind us of that patient application which is so indispensable to
+secure any highly important or valuable end. But it is as true
+literally, as it is figuratively. The act of creeping exercises in a
+remarkable degree nearly all the muscles of the body; and this, too,
+without much fatigue.
+
+Some mothers there indeed are, who think it a happy circumstance if a
+child can be taught to walk without this intermediate step. But such
+mothers must have strange ideas of the animal economy. They must never
+have thought of the pleasure which creeping affords the mind, or of the
+vigor it imparts to the body.
+
+Children are wonderfully pleased with their own voluntary efforts. What
+they can do themselves, yields them ten-fold greater pleasure than if
+done by the mother or the nurse. Yet the latter are exceedingly prone to
+forget or overlook all this--and to say, at least practically, that the
+only proper efforts are those to which themselves give direction.
+
+They are moreover exceedingly fond of display. Some mothers seem to
+act--in all they do with and for children--as if all the latter were
+good for, was display and amusement. They feed them, indeed, and strive
+to prolong their existence; but it appears to be for similar reasons to
+those which would lead them to take kind care of a pet lamb.
+
+It is on this account that they dress them out in the manner they do,
+strive to make them sit up straight, and prohibit their creeping. It is
+on this account too, as much perhaps as any other, that go-carts and
+leading strings are put in such early requisition. The contrary would be
+far the safer extreme; and the parent who keeps his child scrambling
+about upon the back as long as possible, and when he cannot prevent
+longer an inversion of this position, retains him at creeping as long
+as is in his power, is as much wiser, in comparison with him who urges
+him forward to make a prodigy of him, as he is who, instead of making
+his child a prodigy in mind or morals at premature age, holds him back,
+and endeavors to have his mental and moral nature developed no faster
+than his physical frame.
+
+I wish young mothers would settle it in their minds at once, that the
+longer their children creep the better. They need have no fears that the
+force of habit will retain them on their knees after nature has given
+them strength to rise and walk; for their incessant activity and
+incontrollable restlessness will be sure to rouse them as early as it
+ought. Least of all ought the difficulty of keeping them clean, to move
+them from the path of duty.
+
+Children who are allowed to crawl, will soon be anxious to do more. We
+shall presently see them taking hold of a chair or a table, and
+endeavoring to raise themselves up by it. If they fail in a dozen
+attempts, they do not give up the point; but persevere till their
+efforts are crowned with success.
+
+Having succeeded in raising themselves from the floor, they soon learn
+to stand, by holding to the object by which they have raised themselves.
+Soon, they acquire the art of standing without holding; [Footnote: The
+art of standing, which consists in balancing one's self, by means of the
+muscles of the body and lower limb--simple as it may seem to those who
+have never reflected on the subject--is really an important acquisition
+for a child of twelve or fifteen months. No wonder they feel a conscious
+pride, when they find themselves able to stand erect, like the world
+around them.] ere long they venture to put forward one foot--they then
+repeat the effort and walk a little, holding at the same time by a
+chair; and lastly they acquire, with joy to them inexpressible and to us
+inconceivable, the art of "trudging" alone.
+
+When children learn to walk in nature's own way, it is seldom indeed
+that we find them with curved legs, or crooked or clubbed feet. These
+deformities are almost universally owing either to the mother or the
+nurse.
+
+Let me be distinctly understood as utterly opposed, not only to
+go-carts, leading strings, and every other _mechanical_ contrivance, to
+induce children to walk before their legs are fit for it, but to efforts
+of every kind, whose main object is the same. Teaching them to walk by
+taking hold of one of their hands, is in some respects quite as bad as
+any other mode; for if the child should fall while we have hold of his
+hand, there is some danger of dislocating or otherwise injuring the
+limb.
+
+Falls we must expect; but if a child is left to his own voluntary
+efforts as much as possible, these falls will be fewer, and probably
+less serious, than under any other circumstances.
+
+
+SEC. 4. _Walking._
+
+"The way to learn how to write without ruled lines, is _to rule_," was
+the frequent saying of an old schoolmaster whom I once knew; and I may
+say with as much confidence and with more truth, that "the way for a
+child to learn to walk alone, is to hold by things."
+
+I have anticipated, in previous pages, much of what might have otherwise
+been contained in this section. A few additional remarks are all that
+will be necessary.
+
+At first, the nursery will be quite large enough for our young
+pedestrian. Much time should elapse before he is permitted to go abroad,
+upon the green grass;--not lest the air should reach him, or the sun
+shine upon his face and hands, but because the surface of the ground is
+so much less firm and regular than the floor, that he ought to be quite
+familiar with walking on the latter, in the first place.
+
+But when he can walk well in the play ground, garden, fields, and
+roads, it is highly desirable that he should go out more or less every
+day, when the weather will possibly admit; nor would I be so fearful as
+many are of a drop of rain or dew, or a breath of wind. For say what
+they will in favor of riding, sailing, and other modes of exercise,
+there is none equal to walking, as soon as a child is able;--none so
+natural--none, in ordinary cases, so salutary. I know it is unpopular,
+and therefore our young master or young miss must be hoisted into a
+carriage, or upon the back of a horse, to the manifest danger of health
+or limbs, or both.
+
+Who of us ever knew a herdsman or a shepherd who found it for the health
+and well-being of the young calf or lamb to hoist it into a carriage,
+and carry it through the streets, instead of suffering it to walk? Such
+a thing would excite astonishment; and the man who should do it would be
+deemed insane. The health and growth of our young domestic animals is
+best promoted by suffering them to walk, run, and skip in their own way.
+They ask no artificial legs, or horses, or carriages. But would it not
+be difficult to find arguments in favor of carrying children about, when
+they are able to walk, which would not be equally strong in favor of
+carrying about lambs and calves and pigs.
+
+This is the more remarkable from the consideration, elsewhere urged,
+that in general we take more rational pains about the physical
+well-being of domestic animals, than of children. However, it will be
+seen, on a little reflection, that the number of those who carry
+children about, is, after all, very inconsiderable. The greater portion
+of the community regard it as too troublesome or costly; and if poverty
+brought with it no other evils than a permit to children to walk on the
+legs which the Creator gave them, it could hardly be deemed a
+misfortune.
+
+It is scarcely necessary to add that there will be nothing gained to the
+young--or to persons of any age--from walks which are very long and
+fatiguing. Walking should refresh and invigorate: when it is carried
+beyond this, especially with the young child, we have passed the line of
+safety.
+
+
+SEC. 5. _Riding in Carriages._
+
+It will be seen by the foregoing section, that I am not very friendly to
+the use of carriages for the young, after they can walk. Before this
+period, however, I think they may be often serviceable; and there are
+occasional instances which may render them useful afterward. On this
+account, I have thought it might be well to give the following general
+directions.
+
+Carriages for children should be so constructed as not to be liable to
+overset. To this end, the wheels must be low, and the axle unusually
+extended. The body should be long enough to allow the child to lie down
+when necessary; and so deep that he may not be likely to fall out.
+Everything should be made secure and firm, to avoid, if possible, the
+danger of accidents.
+
+The carriage should be drawn steadily and slowly; not violently, or with
+a jerking motion. Such a place should be selected as will secure the
+child--if necessary--from the full blaze of a hot sun. This point might
+indeed be secured by having the carriage covered; but I am opposed to
+covered carriages, for children or adults, unless we are compelled to
+ride in the rain.
+
+While the child is unable to sit up without injury, and even for some
+months afterwards, he ought by all means to lie down in a carriage,
+because it requires more strength to sit in a seat which is moving, than
+in a place where he is stationary. In assuming the horizontal position,
+in a carriage, a pillow is needed, and such other arrangements as will
+prevent too much rolling.
+
+After the child's strength will fairly permit, he may sit up in the
+carriage, but he ought still to be secured against too much motion. As
+his strength increases, however, the latter direction will be less and
+less necessary. I need not repeat in this place, (had I not witnessed so
+many accidents from neglect,) the caution recently given, that great
+care should be taken to prevent the child from falling out of the
+carriage.
+
+While children are riding abroad in cold weather, much pains should be
+taken to see that they are suitably clothed. It is well to keep them in
+motion, while they are in the carriage, and especially to guard against
+their falling asleep in the open air, until they have become very much
+accustomed to being out in it.
+
+It has been said by some writers, that a ride ought never to exceed the
+length of half an hour; but no positive rule can be given, except to
+avoid over-fatigue.
+
+
+SEC. 6. _Riding on Horseback._
+
+While children are very young, I think it both improper and unsafe to
+take them abroad on horseback; I mean so long as they are in health. In
+case of disease, this mode of exercise is sometimes one of the most
+salutary in the world. But after boys are six or seven years old, and
+girls ten, if they are ever to practise horsemanship, it is time for
+them to begin; both because they are less apt to be unreasonably timid
+at this age, and because they learn much more rapidly.
+
+So few parents are good horsemen, that if there is a riding school at
+hand, I should prefer placing a child in it at once. But I wish to be
+distinctly understood, that I do not consider it a matter of importance,
+especially to females, that they should ever learn to ride at all.
+
+Some of the principal objections to riding on horseback, by boys, as an
+ordinary exercise, are the following:
+
+1. Walking, as I have already intimated, is one of the most HEALTHY
+modes of exercise in the world. It is nature's exercise; and was
+unquestionably in exclusive use long before universal dominion was given
+to man, if not for many centuries afterward; and I believe it would be
+very difficult to prove that it interfered at all with human longevity;
+for the first of our race lived almost a thousand years.
+
+2. Young children, in riding on horseback, are rather apt to acquire,
+rapidly, the habit of domineering over animals. It seems almost needless
+to say how easy the transition is, in such cases, should opportunity
+offer, from tyranny over the brute slave, to tyranny over the human
+being. There are slave-holders in the family and in the school, as well
+as elsewhere. It is the SPIRIT of a person which makes him either a
+tyrant or slave-holder. And let us beware how we foster this spirit in
+the children whom God has given us.
+
+
+
+
+CHAPTER XI.
+
+AMUSEMENTS.
+
+Universal need of amusements. Why so necessary. Error of schools. Error
+of families. Infant schools, as often conducted, particularly injurious.
+Lessons, or tasks, should be short. Mistakes of some manual labor
+schools. Of particular amusements in the nursery. With small wooden
+cubes--pictures--shuttlecock--the rocking horse--tops and
+marbles--backgammon--checkers--morrice--dice--nine-pins--skipping the
+rope--trundling the hoop--playing at ball--kites--skating and
+swimming--dissected maps--black boards--elements of letters--dissected
+pictures.
+
+
+However heterodox the concession may be, I am one of those who believe
+amusements of some sort or other to be universally necessary. Indeed I
+cannot possibly conceive of an individual in health, whatever may be the
+age, sex, condition, or employment, who does not need them, in a greater
+or less degree.
+
+Now if by the term amusement, I merely meant employment, nobody would
+probably differ from me--at least in theory. Every one is ready to admit
+the importance of being constantly employed. A mind unemployed is a
+VACANT mind. And a vacant or idle mind is "the devil's work-shop;" so
+says the proverb.
+
+By amusement, however, I mean something more than mere employment; for
+the more constantly an adult individual is employed, the greater,
+generally, is his demand for amusement. Indolent persons have less need
+of being amused than others; but perhaps there are few if any persons to
+be found, who are so indolent as not to think continually, on one
+subject or another. And it is this constant thinking, more than anything
+else, that creates the necessity of which I am speaking. The mere
+drudge, whether biped or quadruped--he, I mean, whose thinking powers
+are scarcely alive--has little need of the relief which is afforded by
+amusement.
+
+The young of all animals--man among the rest--appear to have such an
+instinctive fondness for amusement, that so long as they are
+unrestrained, they seldom need any urging on this point. In regard to
+_quality_, the case is somewhat different. In this respect, most
+children require attention and restraint; and some of them a great deal
+of it.
+
+But what is the nature of the amusement which adults--nay, mankind
+generally--require? I answer, it is relief from the employment of
+thinking. For it is not that mankind do not really think at all, that
+moralists complain so loudly. When they tell us that men will not
+think, they mean that they will not think as rational beings. They
+think, indeed; and so do the ox, and the horse, and the dog, and the
+elephant--but not as rational men ought to do; and this it is that
+constitutes the burden of complaint. But you will probably find few
+persons belonging to the human species who do not think constantly, at
+least while awake; and whose mental powers do not become fatigued, and
+demand relief in amusement.
+
+Children's minds are so soon wearied by a continuous train of thinking,
+even on topics which are pleasing to them, that they can seldom he
+brought to give their attention to a single subject long at once. They
+require almost incessant change; both for the sake of relief, and to
+amuse for the _sake_ of amusement. And it is, to my own mind, one of
+the most striking proofs of Infinite Wisdom in the creation of the human
+mind, that it has, during infancy, such an irresistible tendency to
+amusement.
+
+How greatly do they err, who grudge children, especially very young
+children, the time which, in obedience to the dictates of their nature,
+they are so fond of spending in sports and gambols! How much more
+rational would it be to encourage and direct them in their amusements!
+And how exceedingly unwise is the practice, whenever and wherever it
+exists, of confining them to school rooms and benches, not only for
+hours, but for whole half days at once.
+
+If individuals and circumstances were everywhere combined, with the
+special purpose to oppose the intentions of nature respecting the human
+being, at every step of his progress from the cradle to maturity, and
+from maturity to the grave, I hardly know how they could contrive to
+accomplish such a purpose more effectually than it is at present
+accomplished. But it is proper that I should here explain a little.
+
+All our family arrangements tend to repress amusement. Everything is
+contrived to facilitate business--especially the business or employments
+of adults. The child is hardly regarded as a human being,--certainly not
+as a _perfect_ being. He is considered as a mere fragment; or to change
+the figure, as a plant too young to be of any real service to mankind,
+because too young to bear any of its appropriate fruits. Whereas, in my
+opinion, both infancy and childhood, at every stage, should bring forth
+their appropriate fruits. In other words, the child of the most tender
+years should be regarded as a whole, and not as the mere fragment of a
+being; as a perfect member of a family--occupying a full and complete,
+only a more limited sphere than older members: and all the rules and
+regulations and arrangements of the family should have a reference to
+this point. So long as a child is reckoned to be a mere cipher in
+creation, or at most, as of no more practical importance, till the
+arrival of his twenty-first birth day, or some other equally arbitrary
+period, than our domestic animals--that is, of just sufficient
+consequence to be fed, and caressed, and fondled, and made a pet of--so
+long will our arrangements be made with reference to the comfort and
+happiness of adults. There may indeed be here and there a child's chair,
+or a child's carriage, or newspaper, or book; but there will seldom be,
+except by stealth, any free juvenile conversation at the table or the
+fireside. Here the child must sit as a blank or cypher, to ruminate on
+the past, or to receive half formed and passive impressions from the
+present.
+
+The arrangements of the infant school, also, seem designed for the same
+purpose--to repress as much as possible the infantile desire for
+amusement. Not that this was their original, nor that it now is their
+legitimate intention. Their legitimate object is, or should be, not to
+develope the intellect by over-working the tender brain, but to promote
+cheerfulness and health and love and happiness, by well contrived
+amusements, conducted as much as possible in the open air; and by
+unremitting efforts to elicit and direct the affections.
+
+Infant schools should repress rather than encourage the hard study of
+books. Lessons at this age should be drawn chiefly from objects in the
+garden, the field, and the grove; from the flower, the plant, the tree,
+the brook, the bird, the beast, the worm, the fly, the human body--the
+sun, or the visible heavens. These lessons, whether given by the parent,
+as constituting a part of the family arrangements, or by the infant or
+primary school teacher, should, it is true, be regarded for the time
+being as study, but they should never be long; and they should be
+frequently relieved by the most free and unrestrained pastimes and
+gambols of the young on the green grass, or beside the rippling stream,
+uninfluenced, or at least unrepressed, by those who are set over them.
+
+The public or common school, overlooking as it does any direct attempts
+to make provision for the amusement of the pupils, even during the
+scanty recess that is afforded them once in three hours, would appear to
+a stranger on this planet, at first sight, to be designed as much as
+possible to defeat every intention of nature with reference to the
+growth of the human frame. For we may often travel many hundred miles
+and not see so much as an enclosed play ground; and never perhaps any
+direct provision for particular and more favorable amusements.
+
+I might speak of other schools and places of resort for children, and
+proceed to show how all our arrangements appear to be the offspring of a
+species of utilitarianism which rejects every sport whose value cannot
+be estimated in dollars and cents. I might even refer to those schools
+of our country where these ultra utilitarian notions are carried to an
+extent which excludes amusing conversation or reading even during
+meal-time; and devotes the hours which were formerly spent in
+recreation, to manual labor of some productive kind or other.--But I
+forbear. Enough has been said to illustrate the position I have taken,
+that there is in vogue a system which bears the marks of having been
+contrived, if not by the enemies of our race, either openly or covertly,
+at least by those whom ignorance renders scarcely less at war with the
+general happiness.
+
+Now I would not deny nor attempt to deny that change of occupation of
+body or mind is of itself an amusement, and one too of great value.
+Undoubtedly it is so. To some children, studies of every kind are an
+amusement; and there are few indeed to whom none are so. Labor, with
+many, when alternated with study, is amusing. And yet, after all, unless
+such labors are performed in company, where light and cheerful
+conversation is sure to keep the mind away from the subjects about
+which it has just been engaged, I am afraid that the purposes for which
+amusements were designed, are very far from being _all_ secured.
+
+But perhaps I am dwelling too long on the general principle that people
+of every age, and children in particular, need, and must have
+amusements, whether they are of a productive kind or not; and that it is
+very far from being sufficient, were it either practicable or desirable,
+to turn all study and labor into amusement. [Footnote: I will even say,
+more distinctly than I have already done, that however popular the
+contrary opinion may be, neither study nor work ought to be regarded as
+mere amusement. I would, it is true, take every possible pains to render
+both work and study agreeable; but I would at the same time have it
+distinctly understood, that one of them is by no means the other; that,
+on the contrary, work is _work_--study, _study_--and amusement,
+_amusement_.] My business is with those who direct the first dawnings
+of affection and intellect. Principles are by no means of less importance
+on this account; but the limits of a work for young mothers do not admit
+of anything more than a brief discussion of their importance.
+
+I will now proceed to speak of some of the more common amusements of the
+nursery.
+
+I have seen very young children sit on the floor and amuse themselves
+for nearly half an hour together, with piling up and taking down small
+wooden cubes, of different sizes. Some of them, instead of being cubes,
+however, may be of the shape of bricks. Their ingenuity, while they are
+scarcely a year or two old, in erecting houses, temples, churches, &c.,
+is sometimes surprising. Girls as well as boys seem to be greatly amused
+with this form of exercise; and both seem to be little less gratified in
+destroying than in rearing their lilliputian edifices.
+
+Next to the latter kind of amusement, is the viewing of pictures. It is
+surprising at what an early age children may be taught to notice
+miniature representations of objects; living objects especially.
+Representations of the works of art should come in a little later than
+those of things in nature. I know a father who prepares volumes of
+pictures, solely for this purpose; though he usually regards them not
+only as a source of amusement to children, but as a medium of
+instruction.
+
+Battledoor or shuttlecock may be taught to children of both sexes very
+early; and it affords a healthy and almost untiring source of amusement.
+It gives activity as well as strength to the muscles or moving powers,
+and has many other important advantages. There is some danger, according
+to Dr. Pierson [Footnote: See his Lecture before the American Institute
+of Instruction] of distorting the spine by playing at shuttlecock too
+frequently and too long; but this will seldom be the case with little
+children in the nursery. Neither shuttlecock nor any other amusement
+will secure their attention long enough to injure them very much.
+
+Perhaps this exercise comes nearer to my ideas of a perfect amusement
+than almost any which could be named. The mind is agreeably occupied,
+without being fatigued; and if the amusements are proportioned to the
+age and strength of the child, there is very little fatigue of the body.
+It gives, moreover, great practical accuracy to the eye and to the hand.
+
+A rocking-horse is much recommended for the nursery. I have had no
+opportunity for observing the effects of this kind of amusement; but if
+it is one half as valuable as some suppose, I should be inclined to
+recommend it. But I am opposed to fostering in the rider lessons of
+cruelty, by arming him with whips and spurs. If the young are ever to
+learn to ride, on a living horse, the exercises of the rocking-horse
+will, most certainly, be a sort of preparation for the purpose.
+
+Tops and marbles afford a great deal of rational amusement to the young;
+and of a very useful kind, too. Spinning a top is second to no exercise
+which I have yet mentioned, unless it is playing at shuttlecock.
+
+Dr. Dewees recommends a small backgammon table, with men, but without
+dice. He says, also, that "children, as soon as they are capable of
+comprehending the subject, should be taught draughts or checkers. This
+game is not only highly amusing, but also very instructive." In another
+place he heaps additional encomiums upon the game of checkers. "It
+becomes a source of endless amusement," he says, "as it never tires, but
+always instructs." Of exercises which instruct, however, as well as
+amuse, I shall speak presently.
+
+The amusements called "morrice," "fox and geese," &c., with which some
+of the children of almost every neighborhood are more or less
+acquainted, are of the same general character and tendency as checkers.
+So is a play, sometimes, but very improperly, called dice, in which two
+parties play with a small bundle of wooden pins, not unlike knitting
+pins in shape, but shorter.
+
+The writer to whom I have referred above recommends nine-pins and balls
+of proper size, as highly useful both for diversion and exercise. If
+they can be used without leading to bad habits and bad associations, I
+think they may be useful.
+
+For girls, who demand a great deal more of exercise, both within doors
+and without, skipping the rope is an excellent amusement. So also is
+swinging. Both of these exercises may be used either out of doors, or
+in the nursery.
+
+Trundling a hoop I have always regarded as an amusing out-of-door
+exercise; and I am not sorry when I sometimes see girls, as well as
+boys, engaged in it, under the eye of their mothers and teachers.
+
+Playing ball, of which there are many different games, and flying kites,
+employ a large proportion if not all of the muscles of the body, in such
+a manner as is likely to confirm the strength, and greatly improve the
+health. The same may be said of skating in the winter, and swimming in
+the summer. But these last are exercises over which the mother cannot,
+ordinarily, have very much control.
+
+Under the head of amusements, it only remains for me to speak of a few
+juvenile employments of a mixed nature. Of these I shall treat very
+briefly, as they are a branch of the subject which does not necessarily
+come within the compass of my present plan. They are exercises, too,
+which should more properly come under the head of Infantile Instruction.
+
+Dissected maps afford children of every age a great fund of amusement;
+but much caution is necessary, with those that are very young, not to
+discourage or confound them by showing them too many at once. Thus if
+we cut in pieces the map of one of the smaller United States, at the
+county lines, or the whole United States, at the state lines, it is
+quite as many divisions as they can manage. Cut up as large a state,
+even, as Pennsylvania or New York is, into counties, and try to lead
+them to amuse themselves by putting together so large a number, many of
+which must inevitably very closely resemble each other, and it is ten to
+one but you bewilder, and even perplex and discourage them. The same
+results would follow from cutting up even the whole of a large county,
+or a small state, into towns. I have usually begun with little children,
+by requiring them to put together the eight counties of the small state
+of Connecticut. In this case the counties are not only few, but there is
+a very striking difference in their shape.
+
+A black board and a piece of chalk, along with a little ingenuity on the
+part of the mother, will furnish the child with an almost endless
+variety of amusement. Let him attempt to imitate almost any object which
+interests him, whether among the works of nature or art. However rude
+his pictures may be, do not laugh at, but on the contrary, endeavor to
+encourage him. He may also be permitted to imitate letters and figures.
+The elements of letters, too, both printed and written, may be given
+him, and he may be required to put them together. Dissected pictures, as
+well as dissected maps and letters, are useful, and to most children,
+very acceptable.
+
+In short, the devices of an ingenious, thinking mother, for the
+amusement of her very young children, are almost endless; and the great
+danger is, that when a mother once enters deeply into the spirit of
+these exercises, she will substitute them for those much more healthy
+ones which have been already mentioned, such as require muscular
+activity, or may be performed in the open air.
+
+
+
+
+CHAPTER XII.
+
+CRYING.
+
+Its importance. Danger of repressing a tendency to cry. Anecdote from
+Dr. Rush. Physiology of crying. Folly of attempting wholly to suppress
+it.
+
+
+"Crying," says Dr. Dewees, "should be looked upon as an exercise of much
+importance;" and he is sustained in this view by many eminent medical
+writers.
+
+But people generally think otherwise. Nothing is more common than the
+idea that to cry is unbecoming; and children are everywhere taught, when
+they suffer pain, to brave it out, and _not cry_. Such a direction--to
+say nothing of its tendency to encourage hypocrisy--is wholly
+unphilosophical. The following anecdote may serve in part to illustrate
+my meaning. It is said to have been related by Dr. Rush.
+
+A gentleman in South Carolina was about to undergo a very painful
+surgical operation. He had imbibed the idea that it was beneath the
+dignity of a man ever to say or do anything expressive of pain. He
+therefore refused to submit to the usual precaution of securing the
+hands and feet by bandages, declaring to his surgeon that he had nothing
+to fear from his being untied, for he would not move a muscle of his
+body. He kept his word, it is true; but he died instantly after the
+operation, from apoplexy.
+
+There is very little doubt, in the mind of any physiologist, in regard
+to the cause of apoplexy in this case; and that it might have been
+prevented by the relief which is always afforded by groans and tears.
+
+It is, I believe, very generally known, that in the profoundest grief,
+people do not, and cannot shed tears; and that when the _latter_ begin
+to flow, it affords immediate relief.
+
+I do not undertake to argue from this, that crying is so important,
+either to the young or the old, that it is ever worth while to excite or
+continue it by artificial means; or that a habit of crying, so easily
+and readily acquired by the young, is not to be guarded against as a
+serious, evil. My object was first to show the folly of those who
+denounce all crying, and secondly, to point out some of its
+advantages--in the hope of preventing parents from going to that extreme
+which borders upon stoicism.
+
+One of the most intelligent men I ever knew, frequently made it his
+boast that he neither laughed nor cried on any occasion; and on being
+told that both laughing and crying were physiologically useful, he only
+ridiculed the sentiment.
+
+Crying is useful to very young infants, because it favors the passage of
+blood in their lungs, where it had not before been accustomed to travel,
+and where its motion is now indispensable. And it not only promotes the
+circulation of the blood, but expands the air-cells of the lungs, and
+thus helps forward that great change, by which the dark-colored impure
+blood of the veins is changed at once into pure blood, and thus rendered
+fit to nourish the system, and sustain life.
+
+But this is not all. Crying strengthens the lungs themselves. It does
+this by expanding the little air-cells of which I have just spoken, and
+not only accustoms them to being stretched, at a period, of all others,
+the most favorable for this purpose, but frees them at the same time
+from mucus, and other injurious accumulations.
+
+They, therefore, who oppose an infant's crying, know not what they do.
+So far is it from being hurtful to the child, that its occasional
+recurrence is, as we have already seen, positively useful. Some
+practitioners of medicine, in some of the more trying situations in
+which human nature can be placed, even encourage their patients to
+suffer tears to flow, as a means of relief.
+
+Infants, it should also be recollected, have no other language by which
+to express their wants and feelings, than sighs and tears. Crying is not
+always an expression of positive pain; it sometimes indicates hunger and
+thirst, and sometimes the want of a change of posture. This last
+consideration deserves great attention, and all the inconveniences of
+crying ought to be borne cheerfully, for the sake of having the little
+sufferer remind us when nature demands a change of position. No child
+ought to be permitted to remain in one position longer than two hours,
+even while sleeping; nor half that time, while awake; and if nurses and
+mothers will overlook this matter, as they often do, it is a favorable
+circumstance that the child should remind them of it.
+
+Crying has been called the "waste gate" of the human system; the door of
+escape to that excess of excitability which sometimes prevails,
+especially among children and nervous adults. To all such persons it is
+healthy--most undoubtedly so; nor do I know that its occasional
+recurrence is injurious to any adult--a fastidious public sentiment to
+the contrary notwithstanding.
+
+Some have supposed, that what is here said will be construed by the
+young mother into a license to suffer her child to cry unnecessarily.
+Perhaps, say they, she is a laboring woman, and wishes to be at work.
+Well, she lays down her child in the cradle, or on the bed, and goes to
+her work. Presently the child, becoming wet perhaps, begins to cry, as
+well he might. But, instead of going to him and taking care of him, she
+continues at her employment; and when one remonstrates against her
+conduct as cruelty, she pleads the authority of the author of the "Young
+Mother."
+
+All this may happen; but if it should, I am not answerable for it. I
+have insisted strongly on guarding the child against wet clothing, and
+on watching him with the utmost care to prevent all real suffering.
+Mothers, like the specimen here given, if they happen to have a little
+sensibility to suffering, and not much love of their offspring,
+generally know of a shorter way to quiet their infants and procure time
+to work, than that which is here mentioned. They have nothing to do but
+to give them some cordial or elixir, whose basis is opium. Startle not,
+reader, at the statement;--this abominable practice is followed by many
+a female who claims the sacred name of mother. And many a wretch has
+thus, in her ignorance, indolence or avarice, slowly destroyed her
+children!
+
+I repeat, therefore, that I do not think my remarks on crying are
+necessarily liable to abuse; though I am not sure that there are not a
+few individuals to be found who may apply them in the manner above
+mentioned--an application, however, which is as far removed from the
+original intention of the author, as can possibly be conceived.
+
+
+
+
+CHAPTER XIII.
+
+LAUGHING.
+
+"Laugh and be fat." Laughing is healthy. A common error. Monastic
+notions yet too prevalent on this subject.
+
+
+Laughing, like crying, has a good effect on the infantile lungs; nor is
+it less salutary in other respects. "Laugh and be fat," an old adage,
+has its meaning, and also its philosophy.
+
+There is an excess, however, to which laughing, no less than crying, may
+be carried, and which we cannot too carefully avoid. But how little to
+be envied--how much to be pitied--are they who consider it a weakness
+and a sin to laugh, and in the plenitude of their wisdom, tell us that
+_the Saviour of mankind never laughed_. When I hear this last assertion,
+I am always ready to ask, whether the individual who makes it has read a
+new revelation or a new gospel; for certainly none of the sacred books
+which I have seen give us any such information.
+
+But I will not dwell here. The common notion on this subject, if not
+ridiculous, is certainly strange. I will only add, that, come into vogue
+as it might have done, there is no opinion more unfounded than the very
+general one among adults, that children should be uniformly grave; and
+that just in proportion as they laugh and appear frolicsome, just in the
+same proportion are they out of the way, and deserving of reprehension.
+
+It is strange that it should be so, but I have seen many parents who
+were miserable because their children were sportive and joyful. Oh, when
+will the days of monkish sadness and austerity be over; and the public
+sentiment in the christian world get right on this subject!
+
+
+
+
+CHAPTER XIV
+
+SLEEP.
+
+General remarks. Hints to fathers.--SEC. 1. Proper hours for repose.
+Dark rooms. Noise.--SEC. 2. Place for sleeping. Sleeping
+alone--reasons.--SEC. 3. Purity of the air in sleeping rooms.--SEC. 4.
+The bed. Objections to feathers. Other materials.--SEC. 5. The covering
+of beds. Covering the head.--SEC. 6. Night Dresses. Robes.--SEC. 7.
+Posture of the body in sleep.--SEC. 8. State of the mind.--SEC. 9.
+Quality of sleep.--SEC. 10. Quantity of sleep.
+
+
+Not a few persons consider all rules relative to sleep as utterly
+futile. They regard it as so much of a natural or animal process, that
+if we are let alone we shall seldom err, at any age, respecting it.
+Rules on the subject, above all, they regard as wholly misplaced.
+
+Those who entertain such views, would do well, in order to be
+consistent, to go a little farther; and as breathing and eating and
+drinking--nay, even _thinking_--are natural processes, deny the utility
+of all rules respecting _them_ also. Perhaps they would do well,
+moreover, to deny that rules of any sort are valuable. But would not
+this have the effect to bar the door perpetually against all human
+improvement? Would it not be equivalent to saying, to a half-civilized,
+because only half-christianized community--Go on with your barbarous
+customs, and your uncleanly and unthinking habits, forever?
+
+But I have not so learned human nature. I regard man as susceptible of
+endless progression. And I know of no way in which more rapid progress
+can be made, than by enlightening young mothers on subjects which
+pertain to our physical nature, and the means of physical improvement.
+Not for the _sake_ of that perishable part of man, the frame, but
+because it is nearly in vain to attempt to improve the mind and heart,
+without due attention to the frame-work, to which mind and heart, for
+the present, are appended, and most intimately related.
+
+Let it be left to fathers to study the improvement of hounds and horses
+and cattle, and at the same time to think themselves above the concerns
+of the nursery. We may, indeed, read of a Cato once in three thousand
+years, who was in the habit of quitting all other business in order to
+be present when the nurse washed and rubbed his child. But our passion
+for gain, in the present age, is so much more absorbing and
+soul-destroying than the passion for military glory, that we cannot
+expect many Catos. Oh no. All, or nearly all, must devolve on the
+mother. The father has no time to attend to his children! What belongs
+to the mother, if she can be duly awakened, may be at least _half_ done;
+what belongs to the father, must, I fear, be left undone.
+
+I am accustomed to regard every day--even of the infant--as a miniature
+life. I am, moreover, accustomed to consider mental and bodily vigor,
+not only for each separate day, but for life's whole day, as greatly
+influenced by the circumstances of sleep; the HOUR, PLACE, PURITY OF THE
+AIR, THE BED, THE COVERING, DRESS, POSTURE, STATE OF THE MIND, QUALITY,
+QUANTITY, AND DURATION.
+
+
+SEC. 1. _Hour for Repose._
+
+Generally speaking, the night is the appropriate season for repose; but
+in early infancy, it is _every_ hour. I have already spoken of the vast
+amount of sleep which the new-born infant requires, as well as of many
+other circumstances connected with it, requiring our attention. Suffer
+me, however, to enlarge, at the risk of a little repetition.
+
+What time the infant is awake, should be during the day. It is of very
+great importance, in the formation of good habits, that he should be
+undressed and put to bed, at evening, with as much regularity as if be
+had not slept during the day for a single moment. It is also important
+that he be permitted to sleep during the whole night, as uninterruptedly
+as possible; and that when he is aroused, to have his position or
+diapers changed, or to receive food, it should be done with little
+parade and noise, and with as little light as possible. All persons, old
+as well as young, sleep more quietly in a dark room, than in one where a
+light is burning.
+
+I am well aware that the course here recommended, may be carried to an
+excess which will utterly defeat the object intended, since there are
+children to be found, who are so trained in this respect, that the
+lightest tread upon the floor will awake, and perhaps frighten them. But
+this is an excess which is not required. All that is necessary during
+the night, is a reasonable degree of silence, in order to induce the
+habit of continued rest, if possible. In the day time, on the contrary,
+fatigue will impel a child to sleep occasionally, even in the midst of
+noise. I am not sure that the habit of sleeping in the midst of noise is
+not worth a little pains on the part of the mother. Nor is it improbable
+that a habit of this kind, once acquired by the infant, might ultimately
+be extended to the night, so that over-caution, even in regard to that
+season, might gradually be laid aside.
+
+Dr. North, a distinguished medical practitioner in Hartford, Conn.,
+confirms the foregoing sentiments; and adds, that he deems it an
+imperious duty of those parents who wish well to their infants, to form
+in them the habit of sleeping when fatigued, whether the room be quiet
+or noisy. With his children, no cradles or opiates are needed or used.
+
+
+SEC. 2. _Place._
+
+For some time after its birth, the infant should sleep near its mother,
+though not in the same bed. The bedstead should be of the usual height
+of bedsteads, and should be enclosed with a railing sufficient to secure
+the infant from falling out, but not of such a structure as to hinder,
+in any degree, a free circulation of the air.
+
+The reasons why a child ought to sleep alone, and not with the mother or
+nurse, are numerous; but the following are the principal;
+
+1. The heat accumulated by the bodies of the mother and child both, is
+often too great for health.
+
+2. The air is too impure. I have already spoken of the change in the
+purity of the air which is produced by breathing in it. It is bad
+enough for two adults to sleep in the same bed, breathing over and over
+again the impure air, as they must do more or less, even if the bed is
+very large;--but it is still worse for infants. Their lungs demand
+atmospheric air in its utmost purity; and if denied it, they must
+eventually suffer.
+
+3. But besides the change of the air by breathing, the surface of the
+body is perpetually changing it in the same manner, as was stated in the
+chapter on Ventilation. Now a child will almost inevitably breathe a
+stream of this bad air, as it issues from the bed; and what is still
+worse, it is very apt, in spite of every precaution, to get its head
+covered up with the clothes, where it can hardly breathe anything else.
+This, if frequently repeated, is slow but certain death;--as much so as
+if the child were to drink poison in moderate quantities.
+
+Let me not be told that this is an exaggeration; that thousands of
+mothers make it a point to cover up the beads of their infants; and that
+notwithstanding this, they are as healthy as the infants of their
+neighbors. I have not said that they would droop and die while infants.
+The fumes of lead, which is a certain poison, may be inhaled, and yet
+the child or adult who inhales them may live on, in tolerable health,
+for many years. But suffer he must, in the end, in spite of every effort
+and every hope. So must the child, whose head is covered habitually
+with the bed clothing, where it is compelled to breathe not only the air
+spoiled by its own skin, but also that which is spoiled by the much
+larger surface of body of the mother or nurse.
+
+But I have proof on this subject. Friedlander, in his "Physical
+Education," says expressly, that in Great Britain alone, between the
+years 1686 and 1800, no less than 40,000 children died in consequence of
+this practice of allowing them to sleep near their nurses. I was at
+first disposed to doubt the accuracy of this most remarkable statement.
+But when I consider the respectability of the authority from which it
+emanated, and that it is only about 350 a year for that great empire, I
+cannot doubt that the estimate is substantially correct. What a
+sacrifice at the shrine of ignorance and folly!
+
+It should be added, in this place, both to confirm the foregoing
+sentiment, and to show that British mothers and nurses are not alone,
+that Dr. Dewees has witnessed, in the circle of his practice, four
+deaths from the same cause. If every physician in the United States has
+met with as many cases of the kind, in proportion to his practice, as
+Dr. D., the evil is about as great in this country as Dr. F. says it is
+in Great Britain.
+
+If a child sleeps alone, it cannot of course be liable to as much
+suffering of this kind as if it slept with another person; though much
+precaution will still be necessary to keep its head uncovered, and
+prevent its inhaling air spoiled by its own lungs and skin.
+
+4. There is one more evil which will be avoided by having a child sleep
+alone. Many a mother has seriously injured her child by pressure. I do
+not here allude to those monsters in human nature, whose besotted habits
+have been the frequent cause of the suffocation and death of their
+offspring, but to the more careful and tender mother, who would sooner
+injure herself than her own child. Such mothers, even, have been known
+to dislocate or fracture a limb![Footnote: There may be instances where
+the debility of an infant will be so great that the mother or a nurse
+must sleep with it, to keep it warm. But such cases of disease are very
+rare.]
+
+To cap the climax of error in this matter, some mothers allow their
+infants to lie on their arm, as a pillow. This practice not only exposes
+them to all or nearly all the evils which have been mentioned, but to
+one more; viz. the danger of being thrown from the bed.
+
+A young mother, with whom I was well acquainted, was sleeping one night
+with her infant on her arm, when she made a sudden and rather violent
+effort to turn in the bed, in doing which she threw the child upon the
+floor with such violence as to fracture its little skull, and cause its
+death.
+
+Enough, I trust, has now been said to convince every reasonable young
+mother, where absolute poverty does not preclude comfort and health,
+that her child ought never to be permitted to sleep in the same bed with
+her; but that it should be placed on a bedstead by itself at a short
+distance from her, and properly guarded from accidents--and above all,
+from inhaling impure air.
+
+At a suitable age, a child may be removed from the nursery to a separate
+chamber. Here, if the circumstances permit, it should still sleep by
+itself; and if the bedstead be somewhat lower than ordinary, and the
+room be not too small, it will need no watching.
+
+Perhaps this may be the proper place to say that there are more reasons
+than one--and some of them are of a moral nature, too--why a child
+should continue to sleep alone, after it leaves the nursery. Nor is it
+sufficient to prohibit its sleeping with younger persons, and yet crowd
+it into the bed with an aged grandfather or grandmother, or with both.
+There is no excuse for a course like this, except the iron hand of
+necessity. And even then, I should prefer to have a child of mine sleep
+on the hard floor, at least during the summer season, rather than with
+an aged person.
+
+Let it not be supposed I have imbibed the fashionable idea that it is
+_peculiarly_ unhealthy for the young to sleep with the old. I know this
+doctrine has many learned advocates. And yet I doubt its correctness. I
+believe that the manners and habits of the old may injure the young who
+sleep with them, and I know that they render the air impure, like other
+people. But I cannot see why the mere circumstance of their being _old_
+should be a source of unhealthiness to their younger bed-fellows. Still
+I say, that there are reasons enough against the practice I am opposing,
+without this.
+
+Some parents allow dogs and cats to sleep with children. Others have a
+prejudice against cats, but not against dogs. The truth is, that they
+both contaminate the air by respiration and perspiration, in the same
+manner that adults do. And aside from the fact that they are often
+infested by lice and other insects, and addicted to uncleanly habits,
+they ought always to be excluded, and with iron bars and bolts, if
+necessary, from the beds of children. But of this, too, I have treated
+elsewhere.
+
+
+SEC. 3. _Purity of the Air._
+
+The general importance of pure air has been mentioned. I have spoken of
+the elements of the atmosphere in which we live, of the manner in
+which it may be vitiated, and the consequences to health. I have
+shown--perhaps at sufficient length--the impropriety of washing, drying,
+and ironing clothes in the room where a child is kept; of cooking in the
+room, especially on a stove; of suffering the floor or clothes,
+particularly those of the child, to remain long wet, in the room; of
+smoking tobacco, using spirits, burning oil with too long a wick, &c.
+
+All which has thus been said of the purity of the air of the nursery
+generally, is applicable to that of all sleeping rooms. It is an
+important point gained, when we can secure a nursery with folding doors
+in the centre, so as, when we please, to make two rooms of it. In that
+case, the division in which the bed is, can be completely ventilated a
+little before night, and thus be comparatively pure for the reception of
+both the mother and the child.
+
+Shall the windows and doors where a child sleeps, be kept closed; or
+shall they be suffered to remain open a part or the whole of the night?
+This must be determined by circumstances. If there are no doors but
+such as communicate with apartments whose air is equally impure with
+that in which the child is, it is preferable to keep them closed. If the
+windows cannot be opened without exposing the child to a current of air,
+it is perhaps the less of two evils, not to open them.
+
+But we are not usually driven to such extremities. In some instances,
+windows are constructed--and all of them ought to be--so that they can
+be lowered from the top. When this is not the case, something can be
+placed before the window to break the current, so that it need not fall
+directly upon the child. Closing the blinds will partially effect this,
+where blinds exist.
+
+I have known many an individual who was in the habit of sleeping with
+his windows open during the whole year, and without any obvious evil
+consequences. Dr. Gregory was of this habit. But if adults--not trained
+to it--can acquire such a habit with impunity, with how much more safety
+could children be trained to it from the very first year. Macnish says,
+"there can be no doubt that a gentle current pervading our sleeping
+apartments, is in the highest degree ESSENTIAL TO HEALTH."
+
+This consideration--I mean the impurity of sleeping rooms, even after
+every precaution has been used to keep them ventilated--affords one
+of the strongest inducements to going abroad early in the morning
+(especially when there is no other room which either adults or children
+can occupy) while the nursery or chamber is aired and ventilated. The
+utility of _rising_ early, I hope no one can doubt; but some have doubts
+of the propriety of going abroad, till the dew has "passed away." Such
+should be reminded, by the foregoing train of remarks, that early
+walking may be a choice of evils; and that if it _is_ on the whole
+advantageous to adults, it cannot be less so to children. And as soon as
+the sun has chased away the vapors of the night, if the weather is
+tolerable, most children should be carried abroad.
+
+
+SEC. 4. _The Bed._
+
+This should never be of feathers. There are many reasons for this
+prohibition, especially to the feeble.
+
+1. They are too warm. Infants should by all means be kept warm enough,
+as I have all along insisted. But excess of heat excites or stimulates
+the skin, causing an unnatural degree of perspiration, and thus inducing
+weakness or debility.
+
+2. When we first enter a room in which there is a feather bed which has
+been occupied during the night, we are struck with the offensive smell
+of the air. This is owing to a variety of causes; one of which probably
+is, that beds of this kind are better adapted to absorb and retain the
+effluvia of our bodies. But let the causes be what they may, the effects
+ought, if possible, to be avoided; for both experience and authority
+combine to pronounce them very injurious.
+
+3. Feather beds--if used in the nursery--will inevitably discharge more
+or less of dust and down; both of which are injurious to the tender
+lungs of the infant.
+
+Mattresses are better for persons of every age, than soft feather beds.
+They may be made of horse hair or moss; but hair is the best. If the
+mattress does not appear to be warm enough for the very young infant, a
+blanket may be spread over it. Dr. Dewees says that in case mattresses
+cannot be had, "the sacking bottom" may be substituted, or "even the
+floor;" at least in warm weather: "for almost anything," he adds, "is
+preferable to feathers."
+
+Macnish, in his "Philosophy of Sleep," objects strongly to air beds, and
+says that he can assert "from experience," that they are the very worst
+that can possibly be employed. My theories--for I have had no experience
+on the subject--would lead me to a similar conclusion. A British
+writer of eminence assures us that the higher classes in Ireland, to a
+considerable extent, accustom themselves and their infants to sleep on
+bags of cut straw, overspread with blankets and a light coverlid; and
+that the custom is rapidly finding favor. I have slept on straw, both in
+winter and summer, for many years, yet I am always warm; and those who
+know my habits say I use less _covering_ on my bed than almost any
+individual whom they have ever known.
+
+I have no hostility to soft beds, especially for young children and feeble
+adults, could softness be secured without much heat and relaxation
+of the system. On the contrary, it is certainly desirable, in itself,
+to have the bed so soft that as large a proportion of the surface of
+the body may rest on it as possible. But I consider hardness as a
+much smaller evil than feathers.
+
+It is worthy of remark how generally physicians, for the last hundred
+years, have recommended hard beds, especially straw beds or hair
+mattresses, to their more feeble and delicate patients. This fact might
+at least quiet our apprehensions in regard to their tendency on those
+who are accustomed to them in early infancy.
+
+Some writers on these subjects appear to doubt whether, after all that
+they say, they shall have much influence on mothers in inducing them to
+give up feather beds for their infants. But they need not be so
+faithless. Multitudes have already been reformed by their writings; and
+multitudes larger still would be so, could they gain access to them. It
+is a most serious evil that they are often so written and published that
+comparatively few mothers will ever possess them.
+
+The pillow, as well as the bed, should be rather hard; and its thickness
+should be much less than is usual, or we shall do mischief by bending
+the neck, and thus compressing the vessels, and obstructing the
+circulation of the blood. But on this subject I will say more, when I
+come to treat on "Posture."
+
+The child's bed should not be placed near the wall, on account of
+dampness. There is also, during the summer, another reason. Should
+lightning strike the house, it will be much more apt to injure those who
+are near the wall than other persons; as it seldom leaves the wall to
+pass over the central part of the room.
+
+Curtains are not only useless, but injurious. They prevent a free
+circulation of the air. Everything which has this tendency must be
+studiously guarded against, in the management of infants.
+
+Nothing is more injurious to the old or the young than damp beds and
+damp covering. It behoves, especially, all those who have the care of
+infants, to see that everything about their beds is thoroughly dry. The
+walls and clothes should also be dry; and wet clothes should never be
+hung up in the room. By neglecting these precautions, colds,
+rheumatisms, inflammations, fevers, consumptions, and death, may ensue.
+Many a person loses his health, and not a few their lives, in this way.
+The author of this work was once thrown into a fever from such a cause.
+
+Warming the bed is, in all cases, a bad practice. While in the nursery,
+if the air be kept at a proper temperature, there will be no need of it;
+after the child is assigned to a separate chamber, its enervating
+tendency would result in more evil than good. It is better to let the
+bed became gradually heated by the body, in a natural and healthy way.
+
+No person, and above all, no infant, should be suffered to sleep in a
+bed that has been recently occupied by the sick. The bed and all the
+clothes should first be thoroughly aired. Could we see with our eyes at
+once, how rapidly these bodies of ours fill the air, and even the beds
+we sleep in, with carbonic acid and other hurtful gases and impurities,
+even while in health, but much more so in sickness, we should be
+cautious of exposing the lungs of the tender infant, in such an
+atmosphere, until everything had been properly cleansed, and the
+apartments properly ventilated.
+
+
+SEC. 5. _The Covering._
+
+The covering of the bed should be sufficiently warm, but never any
+warmer than is absolutely necessary to protect the child from
+chilliness. The lightest covering which will secure this object is the
+best. Perhaps there is nothing in use that, with so little weight,
+secures so much heat as what are called "comfortables."
+
+The clothes should not be "tucked up" at the sides and foot of the bed
+with too much care and exactness. For when the bed is once warmed
+thoroughly with the child's body, the admission of a little fresh air
+into it, when he elevates or otherwise moves his limbs, can do no harm,
+but _may_ do much of good, in the way of ventilation. I deem it
+important, moreover, to inure children very early to little partial
+exposures of this kind.
+
+Those mothers who, from over-tenderness, and want of correct information
+on the subject, pursue a contrary course, and consider it as almost
+certain death to have a particle of fresh air reach the bodies of their
+infants during their slumbers, are generally sure to outwit themselves,
+and defeat their very intentions. For by being thus tender of their
+children, it often turns out that whenever the mother is ill, or when on
+any other account she ceases to watch over them--and such times must,
+in general, sooner or later come--they are much more liable to take cold
+or sustain other injury, should they be exposed, than if they had been
+treated more rationally.
+
+I knew a mother who would not trust her children to take care of their
+own beds on retiring to rest, as long as they remained in her house,
+even though they were twenty or thirty years old. But they had no better
+or firmer constitutions than the other children of the same
+neighborhood.
+
+Hardly anything can be more injurious than covering the head with the
+bed clothes; and yet some mothers and nurses cover, in this way, not
+only their own heads, but those of their children. I have elsewhere
+shown how impure the air is, which is imprisoned under the bed clothes.
+I hope those mothers who are willing to destroy _themselves_ by covering
+up their heads while they sleep, will at least have mercy on their
+unoffending infants.
+
+
+SEC. 6. _Night Dresses._
+
+The grand rule on this point is, to wear as little dress during sleep as
+possible. Some mothers not only suffer their infants to sleep in the
+same shirt, cap, and stockings that they have worn during the day, but
+add a night gown to the rest. No cap should be worn during the night,
+any more than in the day time. Or if the foolish practice has been
+adopted for the day, it should be discontinued at night. It is enough
+for those adults whose long hair would otherwise be dishevelled, to wear
+night caps, and subject themselves, as they inevitably do, to catarrh
+and periodical headache. Children's heads should have nothing on them by
+night; nor even by day, except to defend them from the rain or the hot
+rays of the sun.
+
+The stockings, too, should be wholly laid aside at night, unless in the
+case of those who are feeble, apt to have their feet cold, or
+particularly liable to bowel complaints. Such may be allowed to sleep in
+their stockings, but not in those which have been worn all the day.
+
+Indeed, neither children nor adults should ever wear a single garment in
+the night which they have worn during the day. The reason is, that there
+are too many causes of impurity in operation while we sleep, without our
+wearing the clothes in which we have been perspiring during the
+day-time--and which must be already more or less filled with the
+effluvia of our bodies.
+
+It is a very easy thing to have a loose night gown to supply the place
+of the shirt we have worn during the day; and if nothing else is
+convenient, a spare shirt will answer. But both a night gown and shirt
+should never be admitted, especially in warm weather. The garment to
+supply the place of the shirt during the night, may be of calico in the
+summer, and of flannel in the winter.
+
+The collar and wristbands of this night dress should be loose; and the
+whole garment should be large and long. No article of dress should ever
+press upon our bodies, so as in the least to impede the circulation; and
+for this reason it is, that writers on physical education have inveighed
+so much against cravats, straps, garters, &c. This caution, so important
+to all, is doubly so to young mothers, on whom devolves the management
+of the tender infant.
+
+When the child has been perspiring freely during the evening, just
+before he is undressed, or when he has just been subjected to the warm
+bath, it may be well to use a little care in undressing and exchanging
+clothes, to prevent taking cold;--though it should ever be remembered,
+that those children who are managed on a rational system will bear
+slight exposures with far more safety, than they who have been managed
+at random--sometimes, indeed, with great tenderness, but at others,
+wholly neglected.
+
+
+SEC. 7. _Posture of the Body._
+
+In early infancy, children who are not stuffed rather than fed, may
+occasionally be permitted to sleep on their backs, especially if they
+incline to do so. But it will be well to encourage them to sleep on one
+side, as soon as you can without great inconvenience.
+
+The right side, as a general rule, is preferable; because the stomach,
+which lies towards the left side, is thus left uncompressed, and
+digestion undisturbed. I would not, however, require a child to lie
+always on the right side, but would occasionally change his position,
+lest he should become unable to sleep at all, except in a particular
+manner.
+
+I have said elsewhere, that the head ought to be a little raised,
+especially if the child is liable to diseases of the brain. But this
+remark, rather hastily thrown out, requires explanation.
+
+There is so much blood sent by the heart to the head and upper parts of
+the system of infants, as to predispose those parts, especially the
+brain, to disease. In a horizontal position of the body, there is more
+blood sent to the brain than when the body is erect. This will show the
+reader, at once, that if the infant is peculiarly exposed to diseases
+of the brain--and it certainly is so--he ought to remain in a horizontal
+posture as little as possible, except during sleep; and that even then
+it is desirable to make his bed in such a manner as to elevate the head
+and shoulders as much as we can without compressing the lungs, or
+obstructing the circulation in the neck.
+
+I recommend, therefore, to raise the head of an infant's bedstead a
+little higher than the foot; though not so much as to incline him to
+slide downwards into the bed, for that would be to produce one evil in
+curing another.
+
+Sir Charles Bell thinks that the common disease of infants called
+_diabetes_, arises from their being permitted to sleep on their backs;
+and that by breaking up the habit of lying in this position, and
+accustoming them to lie on their sides, we shall prevent it. I doubt
+whether the effect here referred to, is ever the result of such a cause.
+Still I am as much opposed to the _habit_ of sleeping on the back, as
+Sir Charles Bell. It is quite injurious to free respiration.
+
+Closely allied to the subject of bodily position in general, is the
+state of particular organs; especially the stomach and the senses. I
+have already intimated that in order to have an infant sleep quietly, it
+is desirable to darken the room. This is the more necessary, where
+infants are unnaturally wakeful. In such cases, not only light should
+be excluded from the eye, but sounds from the ear, odors from the
+nostrils, &c. A remarkably full stomach is in the way of going quietly
+to sleep, whether the person be old or young. Neither infants nor adults
+ought to take food for some time previous to their going to sleep for
+the night. Great bodily heat, as well as too great cold, is also
+unfavorable. If too hot, the temperature of the infant should be
+somewhat reduced by exposure to the air; if too cold, it should be
+raised in a natural, healthy, and appropriate manner.
+
+
+SEC. 8. _State of the Mind._
+
+In giving directions how to procure pleasant dreams, Dr. Franklin
+mentions as a highly important requisition, the possession of a quiet
+conscience. A wise prescription, no doubt.
+
+But infants, as well as adults, in order to sleep quietly, should have
+their minds and feelings in a state of tranquillity. The youngest child
+has its "troubles;" and it is highly important, if not indispensable, to
+_healthy_ sleep, that the mother take all reasonable pains to remove
+them before sleep is induced.
+
+We sometimes hear about children crying themselves to sleep, as if it
+were a matter of no consequence; and sometimes, as if it were, on the
+contrary, rather desirable. But is the sleep of an adult satisfying, who
+goes to bed in trouble, and only sleeps because nature is so exhausted
+that she cannot bear the protracted watchfulness any longer? Why then
+should we expect it, in the case of the infant?
+
+I know an excellent father who is so far from believing this doctrine,
+that he silences the cries of his child by the word of command--and
+believes that in so doing, he promotes both his health and his
+happiness. He would no more let him cry himself to sleep than he would
+let him cough himself to sleep; though both crying and coughing, in
+their places, may be and undoubtedly are salutary.
+
+Whatever may be the age and circumstances of an individual, he ought to
+retire for rest with a cheerful mind. All anxiety about the future, all
+regret about the past, all plans even, in regard to the business or
+amusement of the morrow, should be kept wholly out of the mind. We
+should yield ourselves up to the arms of sleep with the same quietude as
+if life were finished, and we had nothing more to do or think of.
+
+
+SEC. 9. _Quality of Sleep._
+
+The soundness, as well as other qualities, of sleep, differs greatly in
+different individuals; and even in the same night, with the same
+individual in different circumstances. The first four or five hours of
+sleep are usually more sound than the remainder. Hardly anything will
+interrupt the repose of some persons during the early part of the night,
+while they awake afterwards at the slightest noise or movement--the
+chirping of a cricket, or the playing of a kitten.
+
+In profound sleep, we probably dream very little, if at all; but in
+other circumstances, we are constantly disturbed by dreaming, and
+sometimes start and wake in the greatest anxiety or horror.
+
+Nightmare is generally accompanied by dreams of the most distressing
+kind. We imagine a wild beast, or a serpent in pursuit of us; or a rock
+is detached from some neighboring cliff, and is about to roll upon and
+crush us; and yet all our efforts to fly are unavailing. We seem chained
+to the spot; but while in the very jaws of destruction, perhaps we
+awake, trembling, and palpitating, and weary, as if something of a
+serious nature had really happened.
+
+In the case of nightmare, it is more than probable that we fall asleep
+with our stomachs too heavily loaded with food, or with a smaller
+quantity of that which is highly indigestible. Or it may sometimes arise
+from an improper position of the body, such as disturbs the action of
+the stomach or lungs, or of both these organs. Lying on the back, when
+we first go to sleep, is very apt to produce nightmare.
+
+But distressing dreams often follow an evening of anxious cares,
+especially if those cares preyed upon us for the last half hour; and
+also after late suppers, even if they are light--and late reading. Hence
+the injunctions of the last section. Hence, too, the importance of
+taking our last meal two or three hours before sleep, and of engaging,
+during these hours, in cheerful conversation, and in the social and
+private duties of religion. Family and private worship, in the evening,
+are enjoined no less by philosophy than they are by christianity; and
+every young mother will do well to understand this matter, and train her
+offspring accordingly.
+
+"That sleep from which we are easily roused, is the healthiest," says
+Macnish. "Very profound slumber partakes of the nature of apoplexy." I
+should say, rather, that a medium between the two extremes is
+healthiest. Profound apoplectic sleep, I am sure, is injurious; but
+that from which we are too easily roused cannot, it seems to me,
+be less so. Thus, I have often gone to sleep with a resolution
+to wake at a certain hour, or at the striking of the clock;
+and have found myself able to wake at the proposed time, almost
+without one failure in twenty instances where I have made the trial. But
+my sleep was obviously unsound, and certainly unsatisfying. The desire
+to awake at a certain moment or period, seemed to buoy me above the
+usual state of healthy sleep, and render me liable to awake at the
+slightest disturbance. Were it not for sacrificing the ease of others,
+it would be far better, in such cases, to rely upon some person to wake
+us, instead of charging our own minds with it.
+
+The quality of our sleep will be greatly affected by the quantity. But
+this thought, if extended, would anticipate the subject of our next
+section; so easily does one thing, especially in physical education, run
+into or involve another. I will therefore, for the present, only say
+that if we confine ourselves to a smaller number of hours than is really
+required, our sleep becomes too sound to be quite healthy, as if nature
+endeavored to make up in quality, for want of due quantity. On the
+contrary, if we attempt to sleep longer than is really necessary to
+restore us, the quality of our sleep is not what it ought to be; for we
+do not sleep soundly enough.
+
+The silence and darkness of the night tend to induce sleep of a better
+quality than the noise and activity of day. It is unquestionably
+desirable that children should be able to sleep, at least occasionally,
+without absolute quiet. And yet such sleep cannot be sufficiently sound
+to answer the purposes of health, if frequently repeated.
+
+Hence it is, perhaps--at least in part--that the maxim has obtained
+currency, that one hour of sleep before midnight is worth two afterward.
+The comparison has probably been made between the quiet and darksome
+hours of evening and those which followed daybreak, when light, and
+music, and bustle conspire, as they should, to make us wakeful. No
+person can sleep as soundly and as effectually, when light reaches his
+closed eyes, and sounds strike his ears, as in darkness and silence. He
+may sleep, indeed, under almost any circumstances, when fatigue and
+exhaustion demand it; but never so profoundly as when in absolute
+abstraction of light, and complete quiet.
+
+
+SEC. 10. _Quantity._
+
+On this point much might be said, without exhausting the subject. But I
+have already observed that infants, when first born, require to sleep
+nearly their whole time. As they advance in years, the necessity for
+sleep; however, diminishes, until they come to maturity, when it remains
+for many years nearly stationary. In advanced age, the necessity for
+sleep again increases, till we reach the extremest old age, or what is
+usually called second childhood, when we again sometimes sleep nearly
+the whole time.
+
+I have already remarked that much might be said on this subject; but I
+do not think that the present occasion requires it. If the suggestions
+which are made in the chapter on "Early Rising" should receive the
+attention I flatter myself they merit, I do not believe children would
+often sleep too long. If, on the contrary, they are suffered to lie late
+in the morning, and then sit up late in the evening, all healthful
+habits and tendencies will he so deranged or broken up, that nature, in
+her indications, will by no means prove the unerring guide which she is
+wont to do in other circumstances.
+
+A few thoughts here, on the quantity of sleep required by the young
+after they approach maturity, may not be misplaced.
+
+Jeremy Taylor thought that for a healthy adult, three hours in
+twenty-four were enough for all the purposes of sleep. Baxter thought
+four hours about a reasonable time; Wesley, six; Lord Coke and Sir Wm.
+Jones, seven; and Sir John Sinclair, eight. These were the _theories_ of
+men who were all eminent for their learning, and most of them for their
+piety. How far their _practice_ corresponded with their theories, we are
+not, in every instance, told.
+
+But to come to the practice of several persons who have been
+distinguished in the world. General Elliot, one of the most vigorous men
+of his age, though living for his whole life on nothing but vegetables
+and water, and who at sixty-four had scarcely begun to feel the
+infirmities of old age, slept but four hours in twenty-four. Frederick
+the Great of Prussia, and the illustrious British surgeon, John Hunter,
+slept but five hours a day. Napoleon Bonaparte, for a great part of his
+life, slept only four hours; and Lord Brougham is said to require no
+more. Others, in numerous instances, require but six hours. But there
+are others still, who consume eight.
+
+The conclusion--in my own mind--is, that with a good constitution and
+active habits, men may habituate themselves to very different quantities
+of sleep. Still I think that six hours are little enough for most
+persons; and if a child, on arriving at maturity, is not inclined to
+sleep much longer than that, I should not regard him as wasting time.
+Most persons, it appears to me, require six hours of sound sleep in
+twenty-four;--I mean between the ages of twenty and seventy.
+
+Macnish is the most liberal modern writer I am acquainted with, in his
+allowance of time for sleep. Speaking of the wants of adults he
+says--"No person who passes only eight hours in bed can be said to waste
+his time in sleep." Yet he obviously contradicts himself on the very
+same page; for he says expressly, that when a person is young, strong
+and healthy, an hour or two less may be sufficient. But an hour or two
+less than eight hours reduces the amount to seven or six hours. And
+taking the whole period of life, to which he probably refers--say from
+eighteen to forty--into consideration, there is a very considerable
+difference between six hours and eight hours a day. If six hours are
+"sufficient," it cannot be right to sleep eight hours.
+
+Let us here make a few estimates. If six hours are sufficient for sleep
+between the ages of eighteen and forty, he who sleeps eight hours a day,
+actually loses 16,060 hours--equal to nearly two whole years of life, or
+about two years and three quarters of time in which we are usually
+awake. This, in the meridian of life, is not a small waste. Permit it to
+every person now in the United States, and the sum total of wasted time
+to a single generation, would be 25,649,098 years--equal to the average
+duration of the lives of 854,970 persons. The value of this time, as a
+commodity in the market, at a low estimate--only forty dollars a
+year--would be over A THOUSAND MILLIONS of DOLLARS! And its value, for
+the purposes of mental and moral improvement, cannot be estimated except
+in ETERNITY!
+
+Every young mother must derive from these considerations a motive to
+discourage all unnecessary waste of time in sleep; while no one, as I
+trust, will forget that to sleep too little is also dangerous to health,
+and prejudicial to the general happiness.
+
+
+
+
+CHAPTER XV.
+
+EARLY RISING.
+
+All children naturally early risers. Evils of sitting up late at night.
+Excitements in the evening. The morning, by its beauties, invites us
+abroad. Example of parents. Forbidding children to rise early. Keeping
+them out of the way. How many are burnt up by parental neglect.
+"Lecturing" them. What is an early hour?
+
+
+Some writer--I do not recollect who--has said that all children are
+naturally early risers. And I cannot help coming to the same conclusion.
+That they are not so, is no more proved from the fact that as things now
+are they are generally found addicted to the contrary habit, than the
+very general neglect of milk among the higher classes of our citizens,
+proves that they have not a natural relish for it--when every one knows
+that at our first setting out in life, milk is, almost without
+exception, the sole article of human sustenance.
+
+One of the great difficulties in the way of early rising, as I have
+already had occasion to say, is late sitting up. If children are not
+accustomed to retire till nine or ten o'clock, nor then until they have
+been subjected to all the excitements pertaining to fashionable
+life--company, heated and impure air, stimulating drink, fruits,
+high-seasoned food, and perhaps music--and are become actually feverish,
+no one but an ignorant person or a brute ought to expect them to rise
+early. Indeed, whatever may have been the cause, and whether it have
+operated on high or low life, late retiring will inevitably result in
+late rising. The current may be turned out of its course a little while,
+it is true, but not always. It will ere long return to its accustomed
+channel; perhaps to renew its course with increased pertinacity.
+
+Everything, in the morning, naturally invites to early rising. The
+pleasant light, the music, at certain seasons, of some of the animated
+tribes, and the joy which we feel in activity, and in the society of
+those whom we love, all conspire to rouse us. If we have retired late,
+however, and especially in a feverish condition, so that when we wake we
+feel wretched, and, as sometimes happens, more fatigued than when we lay
+down, other collateral motives may be needed.
+
+I have said that everything invites us, in the morning, to rise early;
+but it was upon the presumption that our parents, and brothers, and
+sisters set us a good example. If parents and other friends lie in bed
+late themselves, can anything else be, expected of children? Admitting,
+even, that they rise early themselves, if they never speak of early
+rising as a pleasure, and connect along with it, in their children's
+minds, pleasant associations, they would be unreasonable to expect
+otherwise than that their children should cling to the morning couch,
+till they are fairly compelled to rise as a relief from pain and
+uneasiness.
+
+But when parents go farther than this, and actually discourage their
+children from rising early, and use every means in their power short of
+actual punishment--and sometimes even that--to make them lie still till
+breakfast, in order that they may be out of the way, what shall we say?
+And what is to be expected as the result?
+
+There is hope, however, under the last circumstances. People sometimes
+carry things to an extreme that defeats their very purposes. Thus it
+occasionally is, in the case before us. This forbidding children to rise
+early, and threatening them if they do, sometimes excites their
+curiosity, and leads them to the forbidden course of conduct, simply
+_because_ it is forbidden. Not a few persons among us possess the
+disposition to be governed by what has sometimes been called the "rule
+of contrary."
+
+I might stop here to show that there is nothing so well calculated to
+develope and improve the mind and heart, even of parents themselves, as
+the society of those whom God gives them to train for Him and their
+country. I might show that not a few of those traits of character which
+render the company of many old persons rather irksome, especially to the
+young, have their origin in their neglect of the young, and of keeping
+up, as long as circumstances will possibly admit, juvenile feelings,
+actions, and habits.
+
+And yet what do we too often witness in life? Is not every effort made
+to induce the young to lie in bed late that they may be out of the way?
+Are they not placed, as soon as possible after they are up, with the
+servants--if unfortunately there are any in the family--that they may be
+out of the way? Are they not required to breakfast, and dine, and sup
+elsewhere, if possible, that they may be out of the way? Do we not send
+them to school, even the Sabbath school, to get them out of the way? Do
+not some mothers even dose their infants with stupifying medicines to
+lull them to sleep, in order to have them out of the way? And to crown
+all, though they are quite too often permitted to sit up late in the
+evening, to enjoy that society which they are denied so great a part of
+the day-time, are they not occasionally put to bed early that they may
+be out of the way, and that the parents may attend late parties, to
+indulge in immoral or unhealthy habits?
+
+In the last instance, they are indeed sometimes put out of the way, in
+the result--and with a vengeance. Many a child, nay, many thousands of
+children, are burnt up yearly, while their parents are gone abroad in
+the evening in quest of that enjoyment which ought to be found in the
+bosom of their families. "In Westminster, a part of London, containing
+less than two hundred thousand inhabitants, one hundred children were
+thus destroyed, during a single year." And the moral results which
+occasionally happen are a thousand times worse than burning. But enough
+of this.
+
+The common practice of lecturing the young on the importance of early
+rising, may have a good effect on a few; but in general, it is believed
+to produce the contrary result. It is, in short, to sum up the whole
+matter, the influence of parental example, and the speaking often of the
+happiness which early rising affords, with perhaps the occasional
+indulgence of the child in a pleasant morning walk, which, if he retires
+early enough, are almost certain to produce in him the valuable habit of
+early rising.
+
+But what is an early hour? Some call it early, when the sun is one hour
+high; some at sunrise; others, when they hear of an early riser,
+suppose he must be one who rises at least by daybreak.
+
+Midnight is, of course, as near the middle of the night as any hour; and
+he who goes to bed four or five hours before midnight, will never
+complain of those who insist that _he_ is not an early riser who is not
+up by four or five o'clock. In summer, no adult ought to lie in bed
+after four o'clock, and no child, except the mere infant, after five.
+
+Much is said by a few writers, especially Macnish, of the danger of
+rising before the sun has attained a sufficient height above the horizon
+to chase away the vapors, and remove the dampness. But I must insist
+upon earlier rising than this, though we should not choose to venture
+abroad. Invigorated and restored as we are by sleep, I cannot think that
+the dampness of the morning air is more injurious than the foul air of
+some of our sleeping rooms.
+
+
+
+
+CHAPTER XVI.
+
+HARDENING THE CONSTITUTION.
+
+Mistakes about hardening children. Their clothing. Much cold enfeebles.
+The Scotch Highlanders. The two extremes equally fatal--over-tenderness
+and neglect. An interesting anecdote from Dr. Dewees.
+
+
+While I have been very particular in enjoining on my readers the
+importance of thoroughly ventilating their dwellings, I have also
+insisted upon the necessity of taking children abroad, as much as
+possible. Not, however, to harden them, so much as to give them a more
+free access to air and light than they can have at home; and also--when
+they are old enough--to cultivate the faculties of attention,
+comparison, &c.
+
+The practice of attempting to harden children by frequent exposure to
+air much colder than that to which they have been accustomed, without
+sufficient additional clothing, is open to the same objections which
+have been brought against cold bathing. Under the management of a
+judicious medical practitioner, it may do great good to a few
+constitutions; but its indiscriminate use would injure a thousand
+infants for one who was benefited.
+
+True it is that if the child is protected against cold, no harm, but on
+the contrary much good may result, from carrying him abroad into the
+fresh air, even in very cold weather. But what can be more painful than
+to see the little sufferers carried along when their limbs are purple,
+or benumbed with cold? And how idle it is to hope that such exposure
+hardens or improves the constitution!
+
+It is on the same mistaken principle that many adults go thinly clad,
+late in the fall. I have seen men in November and December beating and
+rubbing their hands, who, on being asked why they did not wear mittens,
+replied, that if they should wear one pair of mittens so early in the
+season, they should want two in the winter.
+
+Now I cheerfully admit that to put on additional clothing before the
+severity of the weather demands it, actually produces the effect here
+supposed; but to endure severe cold, on the contrary, never hardens
+anybody. Nay, more, it enfeebles. Cold, when combined with the evils of
+_poverty_, produces more mischief and destroys more lives than any one
+disease in the whole catalogue of human maladies.
+
+Adam Smith says that it is not uncommon for mothers in the Highlands of
+Scotland, who have borne twenty children, to have only two of them
+alive.
+
+It may be difficult to say whether children are oftener destroyed by
+over-tenderness than by neglect, and the evils incident to poverty. Both
+extremes are common; while the happy medium--that of conducting a
+child's education upon the principles of physiology, is rarely known,
+and still more rarely followed.
+
+I have been much amused, and not a little instructed, by the following
+anecdote on this point, from Dr. Dewees:
+
+We were speaking with a lady who had lost three or four children with
+"croup," who informed us she was convinced, from absolute experiment,
+that there was nothing like exposure to all kinds of weather to protect
+and harden the system. By her first plan of managing her children, which
+was by keeping them very warmly clad, she said she lost several by the
+croup; but since she had adopted the opposite scheme, her children had
+been perfectly healthy, and never had betrayed the slightest disposition
+to that terrible disease which had robbed her of her children.
+
+Perhaps, madam, we observed, you did not, in making your first
+experiments, attend to a number of details which might be thought
+essential to the plan. You did not probably take the proper precautions
+when you sent them into the cold air, or observe what was important for
+them when they returned from it.
+
+"Oh, yes," she replied, "I took every possible care when they, were
+going out. I always made them wear a very warm great coat, well lined
+with baize, and a fur cape or collar. I always made them wear a
+'comfortable' round their necks, made of soft woollen yarn. And as for
+their feet, they were always protected by socks or over-shoes lined with
+wool or fur, as the weather might be wet or dry."
+
+Do you believe, madam, they were kept at a proper degree of warmth by
+these means?
+
+"Oh, certainly. Indeed, rather too warm; for they would often be in a
+state of perspiration, they told me, when in the open air; especially if
+they ran, slid, or skated."
+
+And what was done when they were thus heated?
+
+"Oh, they got cool enough before they reached home."
+
+And would they receive no injury in passing from this state of
+perspiration to that of chill?
+
+"Not at all; for when this happened, I always made them take a little
+warm brandy, or wine and water, and made them toast their feet well by
+the fire." [Footnote: This absurd custom is a fruitful source of that
+distressing condition of the hands and feet, in winter, called
+"chilblains."]
+
+Did they sleep in a cold or warm room?
+
+"In a warm room. A good fire was always made in the stove before they
+went to bed, which kept them quite warm all night."
+
+Would they never complain of being cold towards morning, when the stove
+had become cold?
+
+"Yes, certainly; but then there were always at hand additional
+bed-clothes, with which they could cover themselves."
+
+And did they always do it?
+
+"Oh, I suppose so."
+
+Well, madam, how did you carry your second plan into execution, which
+you say was attended with such happy results?
+
+"I began by not letting them put on their great coats, except when the
+weather was so cold as to require this additional covering, and did not
+permit them to wear a 'comfortable' or fur round their necks. I took
+away their over-shoes, and if their feet chanced to get wet, (for they
+were always provided with good sound shoes,) the shoes were immediately
+changed, if they were at home. If the weather was wet, or unusually
+cold, they were permitted to wear their great coats, but not without.
+If they came home very cold, they were not allowed to approach the fire
+too soon. I gave them no warm, heating drinks, and accustomed them to
+sleep in rooms without fire."
+
+Who does not recognize, in this second plan for the enjoyment of air and
+exercise, as judicious a plan of physical education, so far as it goes,
+as can well be pointed out? We were so successful as to convince this
+lady, in a very short time, that our own plan of exposing the body was
+precisely the one she had pursued with so much success.
+
+We also inquired of her what plan she pursued with her children, when
+too young to be submitted to the rules just mentioned. She informed us
+that it was the same system throughout, only the details varied as
+circumstances of age, &c. made it necessary. That is, she sent her
+children into the open air at very early periods of their lives,
+provided in summer it was neither too wet nor too warm; in winter, when
+the air was mild, dry and clear--but always carefully wrapped up, that
+their little extremities might not suffer from cold. She never suffered
+them to sleep in the open air, if it could be avoided; to prevent which,
+as much as possible, she constantly charged the nurse to bring the
+children home, as soon as she found them disposed to sleep, unless it
+was when they were very young, at which time it was impossible to guard
+against it.
+
+And when her children were sufficiently old to walk, she took care to
+prepare them properly for it, whether it might be in warm, cold, or
+moderate weather. She never sent them abroad for pleasure at the risk of
+encountering a storm of any kind; nor permitted them to walk at the
+hazard of getting wet or very muddy feet.
+
+Were the constitutions of your children pretty much the same? we
+demanded of this lady.
+
+"No; one of my boys was extremely feeble, from his very birth."
+
+Did you treat him precisely as you did the others?
+
+"Yes, as far as regarded principles; that is, I permitted him to bear as
+much of cold, heat or wet as his constitution would endure without pain
+or injury. The degrees, however, were very different from those his
+brothers bore, had they been determined by the measurement of the
+thermometer, but precisely the same in effect, as far as could be
+ascertained by consequences. Thus, if he were exposed to the same
+temperature as his brothers, he experienced no more inconvenience from
+it, when it was very low, than they, because he had additional covering
+to protect him."
+
+
+
+
+CHAPTER XVII.
+
+SOCIETY.
+
+Duty of mothers in this matter. Children prefer the society of parents.
+Importance of other society. Necessity of society illustrated. Early
+diffidence. Selecting companions for children. Moral effects of society
+on the young. Parents should play with their children.
+
+
+Every mother is unquestionably as much bound to have an eye to the
+society of her child, as to his food, drink or clothing. And if the
+quality, amount and general character of the latter are important, those
+of the former are by no means less so.
+
+It is indeed true that many a child has been happy, in a degree, in the
+society of its mother alone, where the father was seldom seen, and the
+brothers and sisters never. And it is equally true; that a few children
+have so far preferred the society of their parents alone, as to become
+disinclined to other society. But cases of this kind are only as
+exceptions to the general rule; and are probably monstrous formations
+of character. I cannot believe that any child, rightly educated, would
+prefer the society of none but its parents, or even its parents and
+brothers and sisters.
+
+A French author has written a considerable volume on the importance of
+what he calls _gaiety_, but which he should prefer to call cheerfulness.
+Among the rest, he maintains that it is indispensable to the best
+health. But if so--and I do not doubt it--then it ought to be encouraged
+in children, and the earlier the better. Now there is no way to
+encourage cheerfulness in the young so effectually as by indulging them
+with considerable society.
+
+That the thing may be carried to excess, I have no doubt. I have seen
+mothers who permitted their children to play with their mates till they
+became excited, and were thus led to continue their sports, not only
+farther than cheerfulness and health demanded, but until they were
+excessively fatigued, and almost made sick. And I believe that the
+excitement of numbers, in infant and other schools, may be so great as
+to be injurious, rather than salutary. Still I think these are rare
+cases.
+
+Truth usually lies somewhere between extremes. To keep a child,
+especially a boy, always in the nursery, or even in the parlor with his
+mother, is one extreme; and to let him go abroad continually, till his
+home and its smaller circle become insipid, is the other. A child
+properly trained will _usually_ prefer home, and only desire to go
+abroad occasionally. He will rather need urging in the matter than
+require restraint.
+
+But he must, at any rate, be taught to be sociable, not only for the
+salve of cheerfulness and the consequent health, but for the sake of his
+manners, his mind, and his morals.
+
+If it is a matter of indifference, in the formation of human character,
+whether we mix in society or not, then, for anything I can see, an
+improvement might be proposed in the construction of the material
+universe. Instead of forming the planets so large--and this earth among
+the rest--each might have been divided into hundreds of millions; and
+every human being might have had a little planet, and an immortality,
+exclusively his own. Such an arrangement would certainly prevent a great
+many evils; and, among the rest, a great deal of quarrelling and
+bloodshed.
+
+But divine wisdom is higher than human wisdom, and one world to hundreds
+of millions of human beings has been made, instead of giving to each
+individual of the universe a little world of his own, in which he might
+have reigned sole monarch, and only wept, with Alexander, because none
+of the other worlds were within his grasp. Where a family is already
+large, other society will be unnecessary for some time; but where it
+consists of a mother only, although her society is always to be
+considered of the _first_ importance, I cannot but think she ought to
+take great pains to introduce her child occasionally to the company of
+other children.
+
+That diffidence, which almost destroys the influence and the happiness
+of many individuals, is often cherished, if not created, by too much
+seclusion. Where there is a natural constitution which predisposes the
+child to timidity and diffidence, the danger is greatly increased; and
+parents should take unwearied pains to guard against it.
+
+It is hardly necessary for me to say, that great care should also be
+used in selecting the companions of children. Their character will be
+greatly influenced for life by their earlier associates. Friendships
+between children are sometimes formed, while playing together, which are
+interrupted only by death. Those parents who are so fond of controlling
+the choice of their sons and daughters in regard to a companion for
+life, at a period when control is generally resisted, would do well to
+take a hint from what has here been suggested. There is no doubt but
+they might often--very often--give such a direction to the embryo
+affections of their infants and children, as would terminate only with
+their existence.
+
+It is still less necessary to advert, in a work like this, to the effect
+which much observation and experience shows good society to have on
+purity, both physical and moral. Every one must have observed its
+tendency to form habits of cleanliness, not to say neatness. There may
+be excess, even in this. Young persons, of both sexes, often spend too
+much time in preparing their dress for the reception or the visiting of
+their friends. Still this is only the abuse of a good thing. Nor is it
+less true, though it may be less obvious, that moral purity is more
+likely to be secured where children and youth of both sexes associate a
+great deal, from the earliest infancy. [Footnote: If this principle be
+correct, what is the tendency of our numerous schools, which are
+exclusively for one sex? Must there not be latent evil to counterbalance
+some of the seeming good? For myself, I doubt whether moral character
+can ever be formed in due proportion and harmony, where this separation
+long exists.] There are tremendous cases of declension on record, which
+establish this point beyond the possibility of debate.
+
+To say that the mother--and indeed both parents--ought to form a part of
+the playing circle of the youngest children, in order to watch their
+opening dispositions, to check what may be improper, and encourage what
+ought to be encouraged, would be only to repeat what has often been
+recommended by the best writers on education--but which must be
+repeated, again and again, till it leaves an impression, especially on
+CHRISTIAN parents. It is strange that many regard this matter as they
+do, and appear not only ashamed to be seen sporting with their children,
+but almost ashamed to have their children thus occupied. They might as
+well be ashamed of the gambols of the kitten or the lamb; or of the
+grave mother, as she turns aside occasionally to join in its frolics.
+When will parents be willing to take lessons in education from that
+brute world which they have been so long accustomed to overlook or
+despise?
+
+
+
+
+CHAPTER XVIII.
+
+EMPLOYMENTS.
+
+Influence of mothers over daughters. Anecdote of Benjamin West. Anecdote
+of a poor mother. Of set lessons and lectures. Daughters under the
+mother's eye. Why young ladies, now-a-days, dislike domestic
+employments. Miserable housewives--not to be wondered at. Mistake of one
+class of men. Mr. Flint's opinion.
+
+
+One important and never-to-be-forgotten employment of the young is the
+cultivation of their minds; and another, that of their morals. But my
+present purpose is only to speak of those employments denominated
+manual, or physical.
+
+It is obvious, at the first glance, that the influence of the mother, in
+our own country, at least, will be less over boys than over girls. We
+leave it to savages and semi-savages to employ their females, and even
+their mothers, in hard manual labor. Here, in America, what I should say
+on the employment of boys would be more properly addressed to the YOUNG
+FATHER.
+
+There are some exceptions to the general truth contained in the last
+paragraph. Many a mother has--unconsciously at the time, but with no
+less certainty than if she had done it intentionally--given a direction
+to the whole current of her son's life; and this, too, at a very early
+period. The mother of Benjamin West, the painter, if she did not give
+the first tendency to his favorite pursuit, while he was yet a mere
+child, at the least greatly confirmed him in it, by the manner of
+expressing her surprise at one of his early performances. "My mother's
+kiss," on that occasion, said he, "made me a painter." Nor are facts of
+the same general character by any means uncommon.
+
+I know a poor mother who, in the absence of her husband at his weekly
+or monthly labors, used to detain her eldest boy, then almost an
+infant, from going to bed in the evening till her day's work was
+finished--because, in her loneliness, she wanted his company--by telling
+stories of eminent men, and especially of distinguished philanthropists,
+until she had unconsciously kindled in him a philanthropic spirit, which
+will not cease to burn till his death.
+
+But it is in forming the predilections of daughters for their destined
+employments, that mothers are especially influential. Not so much by
+their set lessons or lectures, however, as by the force of continued
+example. No mother who sends her child away to be nursed, and
+subsequently to her return seizes on every possible opportunity to keep
+her out of the way and out of her sight, will be likely to give her any
+choice of employment, or indeed any fondness for employment at all.
+
+Nor is it sufficient that she keep her daughter constantly under her
+eye, with a view to qualify her for the duties of a housewife, if the
+daughter see as plainly as in the light of mid-day, that the mother
+dislikes the employment herself. She must love what she would have her
+daughter love, and even what she would have her understand. Nor is it
+sufficient that she _affect_ a fondness for the employment; her love for
+it must be real. Little girls have keener eyes and better judgments than
+some mothers seem willing to believe or to admit.
+
+Many persons seem greatly surprised that the young ladies of modern days
+have so little fondness for domestic life and domestic duties. How few,
+it is often said, will do their own housework, if they can possibly get
+a train of domestics around them; even though the care and oversight of
+the domestics themselves gear them out more rapidly than bodily labor
+would.
+
+But there is a reason for this hostility to domestic employments. It is
+because mothers, almost universally, consider their occupations as mere
+drudgery, and bring up their children in the same spirit. And what else
+could be expected as the result? It would be an anomaly in the history,
+of human nature, if the female members of families were to grow up in
+love with ordinary domestic avocations, when they have been accustomed
+to see their mothers, and nurses, and elder sisters complaining and
+fretting while engaged in them; and showing by their actions, no less
+than by their words, that they regarded themselves as miserable and
+wretched.
+
+No wonder so many girls, of the present day, make miserable housewives.
+No wonder a factory, a book-bindery, or a shoemaker's shop, is
+considered preferable to the kitchen. No wonder the world degenerates,
+because females, no longer healthfully employed, become pale and sickly,
+spreading gloom and misery all around them, and transmitting the same
+ills which themselves suffer to those who come after them.
+
+It is true, the guilt of this dereliction must not be charged wholly on
+mothers; though they ought, unquestionably, to bear a large share of it.
+Those who have, and ought to have, much influence in society,
+erroneously, and I suppose thoughtlessly, help mothers along in their
+evil ways. If there were a universal combination between certain classes
+of mankind and the whole race of mothers, to ruin, rather than be
+instrumental of reforming mankind, and of saving their deathless souls,
+I hardly know how they could invent a much better, or at least a much
+more certain plan, than that now in operation. So long as those who take
+the lead in society, and govern the fashion in this matter, as others
+govern it in the matter of dress, refuse, as a general rule, to form
+alliances for life, except with those who practically despise house-hold
+concerns--and so long as our houses are filled with domestics, whose
+object is to aid these spoiled mothers, but whose real effect is to
+complete their ruin, and accelerate the ruin of mankind--just so long
+will human progress towards perfection be retarded.
+
+If mothers were in love with their occupations, and their daughters knew
+it, then to the influence of a good example they could add many lessons
+of instruction. These might be given in the way of natural, unstudied
+conversation, and thus be not only heard with attention, but sink deep.
+If the world is ever to be reformed, says Mr. Flint, in his Western
+Review, woman, sensible, enlightened, well educated and principled, must
+be the original mover in the great work. Every one who has considered
+well the extent and nature of female influence, will concur in the
+sentiment; and if he have one remaining particle of devotion to the
+Father of spirits, he will send up the most fervent petitions to his
+throne of mercy in behalf of this often depressed or enslaved half of
+the human race, that they may speedily be emancipated, and become as
+conspicuous in human redemption, as they have sometimes been in human
+condemnation.
+
+
+
+
+CHAPTER XIX.
+
+EDUCATION OF THE SENSES.
+
+Improving the senses. Examples of improvement. SEC. 1. Hearing--how
+injured--how improved.--SEC. 2. Seeing--how injured.--SEC. 3. Tasting
+and smelling--how benumbed--how preserved.--SEC. 4. Feeling. The blind.
+Hints to parents. Education of both hands.
+
+
+Man is much less useful and happy in this world than he would be, if
+more pains were taken by parents and teachers, as well as by himself, to
+cultivate his senses--hearing, seeing, feeling; tasting, and
+smelling--and to preserve their rectitude.
+
+The extent to which the senses can be improved or exalted, can best be
+understood by observing how perfect they become when we are compelled to
+cultivate them. Thus the blind, who are obliged to cultivate hearing,
+feeling, and smelling, often astonish us by the keenness of these
+senses. They will distinguish sounds--especially voices--which others
+cannot; and with so much accuracy, as to remember for several years the
+voice of a person in a large company, which they hear but once. They
+will also distinguish small pieces of money, different fabrics and
+qualities of cloth, &c.; and, in walking, often ascertain, by the
+feeling of the air, or by other sensations, when they approach a
+building, or any other considerable body. So the North American Indian,
+whose habits of life seem to require it, can hear the footsteps of an
+approaching enemy at distances which astonish us. So also the deaf and
+dumb are very keen-sighted, and generally make very accurate
+observations. Any reader who is sceptical in regard to the cultivation
+of the senses, would do well to consult the account of Julia Brace, the
+deaf and dumb and blind girl, as published in some of the early volumes
+of the "Annals of Education."
+
+But it is hardly necessary to resort to the blind, or to savages, or to
+the deaf and dumb, in order to prove man's susceptibility in this
+respect. We may be reminded of the same fact by observing with what
+accuracy the merchant tailor can distinguish, by feeling, the quality of
+his goods; how quick a painter, an engraver, or a printer, will discover
+errors in painting or printing, which wholly escape ordinary readers or
+observers; and how quick the ear of a good musician will discover the
+existence and origin of a discordant sound in his choir.
+
+Now I do not undertake to say or prove, that mankind would be better or
+happier for having their senses all cultivated in the highest possible
+degree; though I am not sure that this would not be the case. But so
+long as a large proportion of our ideas enter our minds through the
+medium of the five senses, it is desirable that something should be done
+to perfect them, instead of overlooking the whole subject. What mothers
+ought to do in this matter, deserves, therefore, a brief consideration.
+
+
+SEC. 1. _Hearing._
+
+The suggestion, in another place, to keep away caps from the child's
+head, if duly attended to, is one means of perfecting, or at least of
+preserving, the sense of hearing. For caps, by the heat they produce to
+a part which cannot safely endure an increase of temperature, greatly
+expose children to catarrhal affections; and many a catarrh has laid the
+foundation for dulness of hearing, if not of actual deafness.
+
+The ears should be kept clean. If washed sufficiently often, and
+syringed once a week with warm milk and water, or with very weak
+soap-suds, gently warmed, the cerumen or ear wax will hardly be found
+accumulated in such masses as to produce deafness. And yet such
+accumulations, with such consequences, are by no means uncommon. It is
+not long since a young man with whom I am acquainted, applied to an
+eminent surgeon of Boston, on account of deafness in one ear, which had
+become quite troublesome, and as it was feared, incurable. Syringing
+with a large and strong syringe disengaged a large mass of cerumen, and
+hearing was immediately restored.
+
+Children should be taught to distinguish sounds with closed eyes, or
+blindfolded. We may strike on various objects, and ask them to tell what
+we struck, &c. This will lead them to _observe_ sounds; and will perfect
+their hearing in a remarkable degree.
+
+There are also advantages to be derived from accustoming a child to a
+great variety of sounds; both as regards their strength and character.
+But this must only be occasional; for if the ear be constantly
+accustomed to sounds of any kind, and more especially those which are
+harsh or loud, the organ of hearing is liable to sustain injury. Music,
+as it is now beginning to be taught to children in our schools, will do
+much, I think, to improve the faculty of hearing.
+
+
+SEC. 2. _Seeing._
+
+The sight, says Addison, is the most perfect of all our senses; and this
+is unquestionably true. But it is more or less perfect, in different
+individuals, according to the early education they have received.
+Sometimes, it is true, we are born near-or dim-sighted; but such cases
+are comparatively rare.
+
+The question is sometimes asked why there are so many persons,
+now-a-days, who lose their sight, become near-sighted, &c. very young.
+It may be difficult to answer this question fully; yet I cannot help
+thinking that the following are some of the causes.
+
+1. The great heat of our apartments, which, together with late hours and
+much lamp light, affects the eyes unpleasantly, is believed to be among
+the more prominent causes of early decay of sight. Formerly, our
+apartments were neither so steadily nor so generally heated; and we rose
+earlier, and consequently went to bed earlier.
+
+2. The fine print of a large proportion of our books, especially our
+school books, has done immense injury. I do not believe that reading
+fine print, occasionally, for a few moments at a time, or reading by a
+very strong or very weak light in the same way, does harm. On the
+contrary, I think it may strengthen and improve the sight. It is the
+long continuance of these things that does the mischief; and the
+mischief thus done is immense. I rejoice that printers and publishers
+are beginning of late to use much larger type than they have done for
+some years past.
+
+3. The early use of spectacles does mischief--I mean before they are
+needed. After they begin to be needed, there is no advantage in delaying
+to use them, as some do, for fear they shall wear them too soon. This is
+about as wise as the practice of going cold to harden ourselves.
+
+4. Reading when we are fatigued, or ill, or have a very full stomach, is
+another way to injure the sight.
+
+5. Rubbing the eyes with the fingers, or with anything else, does
+inevitable mischief. The Germans have a proverb which says--"Never touch
+your eye, except with your elbow." There is much of good sense in it.
+
+In short, there are a thousand ways in which that delicate organ, the
+human eye, may sustain injury; and nearly as many in which it may be
+strengthened, cultivated, and improved. But my limits merely permit me
+to add, that the frequent but gentle application of water to the eye,
+several times a day, at such a temperature as is most agreeable--but
+cold, when it can be borne--is one of the best preservatives of sight
+which the world affords.
+
+Connected alike with physical and intellectual education, is the
+practice of measuring by the eye heights, distances, superfices,
+weights, and solids. It is not difficult to train the eye to an accuracy
+in this matter which would astonish the uninstructed.
+
+
+SEC. 3. _Tasting and Smelling._
+
+I do not know that it is worth our while to take pains, by any direct
+methods, to cultivate the organs of taste or smell; but I think it
+proper, at the least, to preserve their original rectitude.
+
+Many, I know, undertake to say, that were it not for our errors in
+regard to food and drink, and were it not, in particular, for the
+multitude of strange mixtures which tend to benumb those two senses, we
+might determine the qualities of food and drink--whether they are
+favorable or adverse--by means of taste and smell, like the animals. But
+I do not believe this. The Creator has substituted reason, in us, for
+instinct in the brute animals. It is not necessary that we should
+possess the latter, when the former is so manifestly superior to it; and
+accordingly I do not believe that it is given us, or any of that
+acuteness of sensation which exists in the dog, the tiger, the vulture,
+&c.--and which so closely resembles it.
+
+There can be no doubt--no reasonable doubt, certainly--that the wretched
+customs of modern cookery benumb the senses of taste and smell, more or
+less, and that high-seasoned food, condiments, and stimulating drinks do
+the same; and should for this reason, were it for no other, be
+studiously avoided.
+
+Closely connected with the organ of taste are the TEETH. A volume might
+profitably be written on these--as on the eye. But I will only say that
+they should be kept perfectly clean, either by rinsing or brushing, or
+both, especially after eating; that they should be permitted to chew all
+our food, instead of merely standing by as silent spectators to the
+passage of that which is mashed, soaked, chopped, &c.; that they should
+not be picked or cleaned with pins, or other equally hard instruments;
+that they should not be used to crack nuts or other hard, indigestible
+substances; and that the stomach, with which they are apt to sympathize
+very strongly, should also be kept in a good and healthy condition.
+
+
+SEC. 4. _Feeling._
+
+Corpulence and slovenliness are generally among the more prolific
+sources of a want of acuteness in feeling. The first is a disease, and
+may be avoided by a proper diet, and by active mental and bodily
+employment. Slovenliness we may of course avoid, whenever there is a
+wish to do so, and an abundance of water.
+
+But the sense of feeling, or especially that accumulation of it which we
+call TOUCH, and which seems to be specially located in the balls of the
+fingers and on the palm of the hand, is susceptible of a degree of
+improvement far beyond what would be the natural result of cleanliness,
+and freedom from plethora or corpulence.
+
+I have already alluded, in my general remarks at the head of this
+chapter, to the acuteness of this sense in the blind, as well as in the
+dealer in cloths. I might add many more illustrations, but a single one,
+in relation to the blind, which was accidentally omitted in that place,
+will be sufficient.
+
+The blind at the Institution in this city, as well as in other similar
+institutions, are now taught to read and write with considerable
+facility. But how? Most of my readers may have heard how they read, but
+I will describe the process as well as I can. A description of their
+method of writing is more difficult.
+
+The letters are formed by pressing the paper, while quite moist, upon
+rather large type, which raises a ridge in the line of every letter, and
+which remains prominent after the paper is dry. In order to read, the
+pupil has to feel out these ridges. A circular ridge on the paper he is
+told is O; a perpendicular one, I; a crooked one, S; &c. They read music
+and arithmetic printed in a similar manner. A few months of practice, in
+this way, will enable an ingenious youth to read with considerable ease
+and despatch.
+
+Now if nothing is wanting but a little training to render the touch so
+accurate, would it not be useful to train every child to judge
+frequently of the properties of bodies by this sense? And cannot every
+one recall to his mind a thousand situations in which a greater accuracy
+of this sense would have saved him much inconvenience, as well as
+afforded him no little pleasure?
+
+I shall conclude this section with a few remarks on the HAND. The custom
+of neglecting, or almost neglecting the left hand, though nearly
+universal, in this country at least, appears to me to be
+wrong--decidedly so. For although more blood may be sent to the right
+arm than to the left, as physiologists say, yet the difference is not as
+great at birth as it is afterward; so that education either weakens the
+one or strengthens the other.
+
+Besides this, we occasionally find a person who is left-handed, as it is
+called; that is, his left hand and arm are as much larger and stronger
+than the right, as the right is usually stronger than the left. How is
+this? Do we find a corresponding change in the internal structure? But
+suppose it could be ascertained that such a change did exist, which I
+believe has never been done, the question would still arise whether the
+difference was the same at birth, or whether the more frequent use of
+the left hand has not, in part, produced it.
+
+I do not mean, here, to intimate that a more frequent use of the left
+hand than the right would make new blood-vessels grow where there were
+none before. But it would certainly do one thing; it would make the same
+vessels carry more blood than they did before, which is, in effect,
+nearly the same thing:--for the more blood in the limb, as a general
+rule, the more strength--provided the limb is in due health and
+exercise.
+
+The inference which I wish the reader to make from all this is, that
+since the left hand and arm, by due cultivation, and without essential
+difference or change of structure to begin with, can occasionally be
+made stronger than the right, it is fair to conclude that it may, if
+found desirable, be always rendered more nearly equal to it than, in
+adult years, we usually find it.
+
+The question is now fairly before us--Is such a result desirable? I
+maintain that it is; and shall endeavor to show my reasons.
+
+How often is one hand injured by an accident, or rendered nearly useless
+by disease? But if it should be the right, how helpless it makes us! The
+man who is accustomed to shave himself, must now resort to a barber. If
+he is a barber himself, or almost any other mechanic, his business must
+be discontinued. Or if he is a clerk, he cannot use his left hand, and
+must consequently lose his time. Or if amputation chances to be
+performed on a favorite arm, how entirely useless to society we are,
+till we have learned to use the other! It not only takes up a great deal
+of valuable time to acquire a facility of using it, but if we are
+already arrived at maturity, we can never use it so well as the other,
+during our whole lives; because it is too late in life to increase its
+size and strength much by constant exercise. Whereas in youth, it might
+have been done easily.
+
+Is it not then important--for these and many more reasons--to teach a
+child to use with nearly equal readiness, both of his hands? But if so,
+who can do it better than the mother? And when can it be better done
+than in the earliest infancy? When is the time which would be devoted to
+it worth less than at this period?
+
+
+
+
+CHAPTER XX.
+
+ABUSES.
+
+Bad seats for children at table and elsewhere. Why children hate Sunday.
+Seats at Sabbath school--at church--at district schools. Suspending
+children between the heavens and the earth. Cushions to sit on. Seats
+with backs. Children in factories. Evils produced. Bodily punishment.
+Striking the heads of children very injurious. Beating across the middle
+of the body. Anecdote of a teacher. Concluding advice to mothers.
+
+
+It is difficult to determine, in regard to many things which concern the
+management of the young, whether they belong most properly to moral or
+physical education; so close is the connection between the two, and so
+decidedly does everything, or nearly everything which relates to the
+management of the body, have a bearing upon the formation of moral
+character. This work might be extended very much farther, did it comport
+with my original plan. But I hasten to close the volume, with a few
+thoughts on certain abuses of the body, which prevail to a greater or
+less extent in families and schools; and to which I have not adverted
+elsewhere.
+
+The seats of children are usually bad, both at table and elsewhere. It
+seems not enough that we condemn them to the use of knives, forks,
+spoons, &c., of the same size with those of adults. We go farther; and
+give them chairs of the same height and proportion with our own. There
+are a few exceptions to the truth of this remark. Here and there we see
+a child's chair, it is true--but not often.
+
+But how unreasonable is it to seat a child in a chair so high that his
+feet cannot reach the floor; and so constructed that there is no outer
+place on which the feet can rest. What adult would be willing to sit in
+so painful a posture, with his legs dangling? No wonder children dislike
+to sit much, in such circumstances. And it is a great blessing to both
+parent and child that they do. No wonder children hate the Sabbath,
+especially in those families where they are compelled to keep the day
+holy by sitting motionless! Sabbath schools, though they bring with them
+some evil along with a great deal of good, are a relief to the young in
+this particular--especially if their seats are more comfortable
+elsewhere than at home. They consider it much more tolerable to spend
+the morning and intermission of the day in going and returning from
+Sabbath school, than in constant and close confinement. They prefer
+variety, and the occasional light and air of heaven, to monotony and
+seclusion and silence.
+
+It happens, however, that the seats at the Sabbath school and at church,
+are not always what they should be; nor, so far as church is concerned,
+do I see that this evil can be wholly avoided. Children usually sit with
+their parents, in the sanctuary--and they ought to do so: and the height
+of the seats cannot, of course, accommodate both. If there is a building
+erected solely for the use of the Sabbath school, the seats may be
+constructed accordingly, without seriously incommoding anybody; but in
+the church, I do not see, as I have once before observed, how the evil
+can be remedied.
+
+The greatest trouble in regard to seats, however, is at the day school;
+especially in our district or common schools. There, it is usual for
+children to be confined six hours a day--and sometimes two in
+succession--to hard, narrow, plank seats, a large proportion of which
+are without backs, and raised so high that the feet of most of the
+pupils cannot possibly touch the floor. There, "suspended," as I have
+said in another work, [Footnote: See a "Prize Essay," on School Houses,
+page 7.] "between the heavens and the earth, they are compelled to
+remain motionless for an hour or an hour and a half together."
+
+I have also shown, in the same essay, that in regard to the desks, and
+indeed many other things which pertain to, or are connected with the
+school, very little pains is taken to provide for the physical welfare
+or even comfort of the pupils; and that a thorough reform on the subject
+appears to be indispensable.
+
+When I speak of hard plank seats, let me not be understood as hinting at
+the necessity of cushions. When I wrote the essay above mentioned, I did
+indeed believe that they were desirable. But I am now opposed to their
+use, either by children or adults, even where a laborious employment
+would seem to demand a long confinement to this awkward and unnatural
+position. If our seats are cushioned, we shall sit too easily. I believe
+that our health requires a hard seat; because its very hardness inclines
+us to change, frequently, our position.
+
+But if we must sit, be it ever so short a time, our seats should always
+have backs; and those which are designed for children, should not be so
+high as to render them uncomfortable. Nor should the backs of seats be
+so high as they usually are, either for children or adults. They should
+never come much higher than the middle of the body. If they reach the
+shoulders, they either favor a crouching forward, or interfere with the
+free action of the lungs.
+
+This might be deemed a proper place for saying something on the position
+of children in manufactories. But here a world of abuse opens upon my
+view, the full development of which demands a large volume. How many
+crooked spines, emaciated bodies, decaying lungs, as well as scrofulas,
+fevers, and consumptions, are either induced or accelerated by these
+unnatural employments! I mean they are unnatural for the _young_. As to
+employing adults in them, I have nothing at present to say. But when I
+think of the cruel custom of placing children in these places, whose
+bodies--and were this the place, I might add, _minds_--are immature, and
+especially girls, I am compelled, by the voice of conscience, and, as I
+trust, by a regard to those laws which God has established in our
+physical frames, but which are yet so strangely violated, to protest
+against it. Better that no factories should exist, than that children
+should be ruined in them as they now are. Better by far that we should
+return, were it possible, to the primitive habits of New England--to
+those by-gone days when mothers and daughters made the wearing apparel
+of themselves and their families--when, if there was less of
+intellectual cultivation, and less money expended for luxuries and
+extravagances, there was much more of health and happiness.
+
+There is one more species of abuse to which, in closing, I wish to
+direct maternal attention. I allude to injudicious modes of inflicting
+corporal punishment.
+
+Let me not be understood to appear, in this place, as the advocate of
+bodily punishments of any kind; for if they are even admissible under
+some circumstances, I am fully convinced that in the way in which they
+are commonly administered, they do much more harm than good.
+
+But leaving the question of their utility, in the abstract, wholly
+untouched, and taking it for granted, for the present, that they are--as
+is undoubtedly the fact--sometimes employed, and will continue to be so
+for a great while to come, I proceed to speak of their more flagrant
+abuses.
+
+Among these, none are more reprehensible than blows of any kind on the
+head. Even the rod is objectionable for this purpose, since it exposes
+the eyes. But the hand--in boxing the ears or striking in any way--is
+more so. The bones of the head, in young children, are not yet firmly
+knit together, and these concussions may injure the tender brain. I
+know of whole families, whose mental faculties are dull, as the
+consequence--I believe--of a perpetual boxing and striking of the head.
+Some individuals are made almost idiots, in this very manner.--But the
+worst is not yet told. Many teachers are in the habit of striking their
+pupils' heads with thick heavy books; and with wooden rules. I have seen
+one of the latter, of considerable size and thickness, broken in two
+across the head of a very small boy; and this, too--such is the public
+mind--in the presence of a mother who was paying a visit to the school.
+I have seen parents and masters strike the heads of their children with
+pieces of wood, of much larger size;--in one instance with a common
+sized tailor's press-board; in another with the heavy end of a wooden
+whip-handle, about an inch in diameter.
+
+Children are sometimes severely beaten across the middle of the
+body--the region where lie the vital organs--the lungs, the heart, the
+liver, &c. They are sometimes beaten too, across the joints, or in any
+place that the excited, perhaps passionate teacher or parent can reach.
+Rules and books are thrown with violence at pupils in school. There is a
+story in the "Annals of Education," Vol. IV. at page 28, of a teacher
+who threw a rule at a little boy, six years old, which struck him with
+great force, within an inch of one of his eyes. Had it struck a little
+nearer to his nose, it would, in all probability, have destroyed his
+left eye.
+
+       *       *       *       *       *
+
+But without extending these remarks any farther, every intelligent
+mother who reads what I have already written, will see, as I trust, the
+necessity of properly informing herself on the great subject of physical
+education; and of being better prepared than she has hitherto been for
+acquitting herself, with satisfaction, of those high and sacred
+responsibilities which, in the wise arrangements of Nature and
+Providence, devolve upon her.
+
+
+
+
+
+End of the Project Gutenberg EBook of The Young Mother, by William A. Alcott
+
+*** END OF THIS PROJECT GUTENBERG EBOOK THE YOUNG MOTHER ***
+
+***** This file should be named 10482-8.txt or 10482-8.zip *****
+This and all associated files of various formats will be found in:
+        https://www.gutenberg.org/1/0/4/8/10482/
+
+Produced by Stan Goodman and PG Distributed Proofreaders
+
+Updated editions will replace the previous one--the old editions
+will be renamed.
+
+Creating the works from public domain print editions means that no
+one owns a United States copyright in these works, so the Foundation
+(and you!) can copy and distribute it in the United States without
+permission and without paying copyright royalties.  Special rules,
+set forth in the General Terms of Use part of this license, apply to
+copying and distributing Project Gutenberg-tm electronic works to
+protect the PROJECT GUTENBERG-tm concept and trademark.  Project
+Gutenberg is a registered trademark, and may not be used if you
+charge for the eBooks, unless you receive specific permission.  If you
+do not charge anything for copies of this eBook, complying with the
+rules is very easy.  You may use this eBook for nearly any purpose
+such as creation of derivative works, reports, performances and
+research.  They may be modified and printed and given away--you may do
+practically ANYTHING with public domain eBooks.  Redistribution is
+subject to the trademark license, especially commercial
+redistribution.
+
+
+
+*** START: FULL LICENSE ***
+
+THE FULL PROJECT GUTENBERG LICENSE
+PLEASE READ THIS BEFORE YOU DISTRIBUTE OR USE THIS WORK
+
+To protect the Project Gutenberg-tm mission of promoting the free
+distribution of electronic works, by using or distributing this work
+(or any other work associated in any way with the phrase "Project
+Gutenberg"), you agree to comply with all the terms of the Full Project
+Gutenberg-tm License (available with this file or online at
+https://gutenberg.org/license).
+
+
+Section 1.  General Terms of Use and Redistributing Project Gutenberg-tm
+electronic works
+
+1.A.  By reading or using any part of this Project Gutenberg-tm
+electronic work, you indicate that you have read, understand, agree to
+and accept all the terms of this license and intellectual property
+(trademark/copyright) agreement.  If you do not agree to abide by all
+the terms of this agreement, you must cease using and return or destroy
+all copies of Project Gutenberg-tm electronic works in your possession.
+If you paid a fee for obtaining a copy of or access to a Project
+Gutenberg-tm electronic work and you do not agree to be bound by the
+terms of this agreement, you may obtain a refund from the person or
+entity to whom you paid the fee as set forth in paragraph 1.E.8.
+
+1.B.  "Project Gutenberg" is a registered trademark.  It may only be
+used on or associated in any way with an electronic work by people who
+agree to be bound by the terms of this agreement.  There are a few
+things that you can do with most Project Gutenberg-tm electronic works
+even without complying with the full terms of this agreement.  See
+paragraph 1.C below.  There are a lot of things you can do with Project
+Gutenberg-tm electronic works if you follow the terms of this agreement
+and help preserve free future access to Project Gutenberg-tm electronic
+works.  See paragraph 1.E below.
+
+1.C.  The Project Gutenberg Literary Archive Foundation ("the Foundation"
+or PGLAF), owns a compilation copyright in the collection of Project
+Gutenberg-tm electronic works.  Nearly all the individual works in the
+collection are in the public domain in the United States.  If an
+individual work is in the public domain in the United States and you are
+located in the United States, we do not claim a right to prevent you from
+copying, distributing, performing, displaying or creating derivative
+works based on the work as long as all references to Project Gutenberg
+are removed.  Of course, we hope that you will support the Project
+Gutenberg-tm mission of promoting free access to electronic works by
+freely sharing Project Gutenberg-tm works in compliance with the terms of
+this agreement for keeping the Project Gutenberg-tm name associated with
+the work.  You can easily comply with the terms of this agreement by
+keeping this work in the same format with its attached full Project
+Gutenberg-tm License when you share it without charge with others.
+
+1.D.  The copyright laws of the place where you are located also govern
+what you can do with this work.  Copyright laws in most countries are in
+a constant state of change.  If you are outside the United States, check
+the laws of your country in addition to the terms of this agreement
+before downloading, copying, displaying, performing, distributing or
+creating derivative works based on this work or any other Project
+Gutenberg-tm work.  The Foundation makes no representations concerning
+the copyright status of any work in any country outside the United
+States.
+
+1.E.  Unless you have removed all references to Project Gutenberg:
+
+1.E.1.  The following sentence, with active links to, or other immediate
+access to, the full Project Gutenberg-tm License must appear prominently
+whenever any copy of a Project Gutenberg-tm work (any work on which the
+phrase "Project Gutenberg" appears, or with which the phrase "Project
+Gutenberg" is associated) is accessed, displayed, performed, viewed,
+copied or distributed:
+
+This eBook is for the use of anyone anywhere at no cost and with
+almost no restrictions whatsoever.  You may copy it, give it away or
+re-use it under the terms of the Project Gutenberg License included
+with this eBook or online at www.gutenberg.org
+
+1.E.2.  If an individual Project Gutenberg-tm electronic work is derived
+from the public domain (does not contain a notice indicating that it is
+posted with permission of the copyright holder), the work can be copied
+and distributed to anyone in the United States without paying any fees
+or charges.  If you are redistributing or providing access to a work
+with the phrase "Project Gutenberg" associated with or appearing on the
+work, you must comply either with the requirements of paragraphs 1.E.1
+through 1.E.7 or obtain permission for the use of the work and the
+Project Gutenberg-tm trademark as set forth in paragraphs 1.E.8 or
+1.E.9.
+
+1.E.3.  If an individual Project Gutenberg-tm electronic work is posted
+with the permission of the copyright holder, your use and distribution
+must comply with both paragraphs 1.E.1 through 1.E.7 and any additional
+terms imposed by the copyright holder.  Additional terms will be linked
+to the Project Gutenberg-tm License for all works posted with the
+permission of the copyright holder found at the beginning of this work.
+
+1.E.4.  Do not unlink or detach or remove the full Project Gutenberg-tm
+License terms from this work, or any files containing a part of this
+work or any other work associated with Project Gutenberg-tm.
+
+1.E.5.  Do not copy, display, perform, distribute or redistribute this
+electronic work, or any part of this electronic work, without
+prominently displaying the sentence set forth in paragraph 1.E.1 with
+active links or immediate access to the full terms of the Project
+Gutenberg-tm License.
+
+1.E.6.  You may convert to and distribute this work in any binary,
+compressed, marked up, nonproprietary or proprietary form, including any
+word processing or hypertext form.  However, if you provide access to or
+distribute copies of a Project Gutenberg-tm work in a format other than
+"Plain Vanilla ASCII" or other format used in the official version
+posted on the official Project Gutenberg-tm web site (www.gutenberg.org),
+you must, at no additional cost, fee or expense to the user, provide a
+copy, a means of exporting a copy, or a means of obtaining a copy upon
+request, of the work in its original "Plain Vanilla ASCII" or other
+form.  Any alternate format must include the full Project Gutenberg-tm
+License as specified in paragraph 1.E.1.
+
+1.E.7.  Do not charge a fee for access to, viewing, displaying,
+performing, copying or distributing any Project Gutenberg-tm works
+unless you comply with paragraph 1.E.8 or 1.E.9.
+
+1.E.8.  You may charge a reasonable fee for copies of or providing
+access to or distributing Project Gutenberg-tm electronic works provided
+that
+
+- You pay a royalty fee of 20% of the gross profits you derive from
+     the use of Project Gutenberg-tm works calculated using the method
+     you already use to calculate your applicable taxes.  The fee is
+     owed to the owner of the Project Gutenberg-tm trademark, but he
+     has agreed to donate royalties under this paragraph to the
+     Project Gutenberg Literary Archive Foundation.  Royalty payments
+     must be paid within 60 days following each date on which you
+     prepare (or are legally required to prepare) your periodic tax
+     returns.  Royalty payments should be clearly marked as such and
+     sent to the Project Gutenberg Literary Archive Foundation at the
+     address specified in Section 4, "Information about donations to
+     the Project Gutenberg Literary Archive Foundation."
+
+- You provide a full refund of any money paid by a user who notifies
+     you in writing (or by e-mail) within 30 days of receipt that s/he
+     does not agree to the terms of the full Project Gutenberg-tm
+     License.  You must require such a user to return or
+     destroy all copies of the works possessed in a physical medium
+     and discontinue all use of and all access to other copies of
+     Project Gutenberg-tm works.
+
+- You provide, in accordance with paragraph 1.F.3, a full refund of any
+     money paid for a work or a replacement copy, if a defect in the
+     electronic work is discovered and reported to you within 90 days
+     of receipt of the work.
+
+- You comply with all other terms of this agreement for free
+     distribution of Project Gutenberg-tm works.
+
+1.E.9.  If you wish to charge a fee or distribute a Project Gutenberg-tm
+electronic work or group of works on different terms than are set
+forth in this agreement, you must obtain permission in writing from
+both the Project Gutenberg Literary Archive Foundation and Michael
+Hart, the owner of the Project Gutenberg-tm trademark.  Contact the
+Foundation as set forth in Section 3 below.
+
+1.F.
+
+1.F.1.  Project Gutenberg volunteers and employees expend considerable
+effort to identify, do copyright research on, transcribe and proofread
+public domain works in creating the Project Gutenberg-tm
+collection.  Despite these efforts, Project Gutenberg-tm electronic
+works, and the medium on which they may be stored, may contain
+"Defects," such as, but not limited to, incomplete, inaccurate or
+corrupt data, transcription errors, a copyright or other intellectual
+property infringement, a defective or damaged disk or other medium, a
+computer virus, or computer codes that damage or cannot be read by
+your equipment.
+
+1.F.2.  LIMITED WARRANTY, DISCLAIMER OF DAMAGES - Except for the "Right
+of Replacement or Refund" described in paragraph 1.F.3, the Project
+Gutenberg Literary Archive Foundation, the owner of the Project
+Gutenberg-tm trademark, and any other party distributing a Project
+Gutenberg-tm electronic work under this agreement, disclaim all
+liability to you for damages, costs and expenses, including legal
+fees.  YOU AGREE THAT YOU HAVE NO REMEDIES FOR NEGLIGENCE, STRICT
+LIABILITY, BREACH OF WARRANTY OR BREACH OF CONTRACT EXCEPT THOSE
+PROVIDED IN PARAGRAPH F3.  YOU AGREE THAT THE FOUNDATION, THE
+TRADEMARK OWNER, AND ANY DISTRIBUTOR UNDER THIS AGREEMENT WILL NOT BE
+LIABLE TO YOU FOR ACTUAL, DIRECT, INDIRECT, CONSEQUENTIAL, PUNITIVE OR
+INCIDENTAL DAMAGES EVEN IF YOU GIVE NOTICE OF THE POSSIBILITY OF SUCH
+DAMAGE.
+
+1.F.3.  LIMITED RIGHT OF REPLACEMENT OR REFUND - If you discover a
+defect in this electronic work within 90 days of receiving it, you can
+receive a refund of the money (if any) you paid for it by sending a
+written explanation to the person you received the work from.  If you
+received the work on a physical medium, you must return the medium with
+your written explanation.  The person or entity that provided you with
+the defective work may elect to provide a replacement copy in lieu of a
+refund.  If you received the work electronically, the person or entity
+providing it to you may choose to give you a second opportunity to
+receive the work electronically in lieu of a refund.  If the second copy
+is also defective, you may demand a refund in writing without further
+opportunities to fix the problem.
+
+1.F.4.  Except for the limited right of replacement or refund set forth
+in paragraph 1.F.3, this work is provided to you 'AS-IS," WITH NO OTHER
+WARRANTIES OF ANY KIND, EXPRESS OR IMPLIED, INCLUDING BUT NOT LIMITED TO
+WARRANTIES OF MERCHANTIBILITY OR FITNESS FOR ANY PURPOSE.
+
+1.F.5.  Some states do not allow disclaimers of certain implied
+warranties or the exclusion or limitation of certain types of damages.
+If any disclaimer or limitation set forth in this agreement violates the
+law of the state applicable to this agreement, the agreement shall be
+interpreted to make the maximum disclaimer or limitation permitted by
+the applicable state law.  The invalidity or unenforceability of any
+provision of this agreement shall not void the remaining provisions.
+
+1.F.6.  INDEMNITY - You agree to indemnify and hold the Foundation, the
+trademark owner, any agent or employee of the Foundation, anyone
+providing copies of Project Gutenberg-tm electronic works in accordance
+with this agreement, and any volunteers associated with the production,
+promotion and distribution of Project Gutenberg-tm electronic works,
+harmless from all liability, costs and expenses, including legal fees,
+that arise directly or indirectly from any of the following which you do
+or cause to occur: (a) distribution of this or any Project Gutenberg-tm
+work, (b) alteration, modification, or additions or deletions to any
+Project Gutenberg-tm work, and (c) any Defect you cause.
+
+
+Section  2.  Information about the Mission of Project Gutenberg-tm
+
+Project Gutenberg-tm is synonymous with the free distribution of
+electronic works in formats readable by the widest variety of computers
+including obsolete, old, middle-aged and new computers.  It exists
+because of the efforts of hundreds of volunteers and donations from
+people in all walks of life.
+
+Volunteers and financial support to provide volunteers with the
+assistance they need, is critical to reaching Project Gutenberg-tm's
+goals and ensuring that the Project Gutenberg-tm collection will
+remain freely available for generations to come.  In 2001, the Project
+Gutenberg Literary Archive Foundation was created to provide a secure
+and permanent future for Project Gutenberg-tm and future generations.
+To learn more about the Project Gutenberg Literary Archive Foundation
+and how your efforts and donations can help, see Sections 3 and 4
+and the Foundation web page at https://www.pglaf.org.
+
+
+Section 3.  Information about the Project Gutenberg Literary Archive
+Foundation
+
+The Project Gutenberg Literary Archive Foundation is a non profit
+501(c)(3) educational corporation organized under the laws of the
+state of Mississippi and granted tax exempt status by the Internal
+Revenue Service.  The Foundation's EIN or federal tax identification
+number is 64-6221541.  Its 501(c)(3) letter is posted at
+https://pglaf.org/fundraising.  Contributions to the Project Gutenberg
+Literary Archive Foundation are tax deductible to the full extent
+permitted by U.S. federal laws and your state's laws.
+
+The Foundation's principal office is located at 4557 Melan Dr. S.
+Fairbanks, AK, 99712., but its volunteers and employees are scattered
+throughout numerous locations.  Its business office is located at
+809 North 1500 West, Salt Lake City, UT 84116, (801) 596-1887, email
+business@pglaf.org.  Email contact links and up to date contact
+information can be found at the Foundation's web site and official
+page at https://pglaf.org
+
+For additional contact information:
+     Dr. Gregory B. Newby
+     Chief Executive and Director
+     gbnewby@pglaf.org
+
+Section 4.  Information about Donations to the Project Gutenberg
+Literary Archive Foundation
+
+Project Gutenberg-tm depends upon and cannot survive without wide
+spread public support and donations to carry out its mission of
+increasing the number of public domain and licensed works that can be
+freely distributed in machine readable form accessible by the widest
+array of equipment including outdated equipment.  Many small donations
+($1 to $5,000) are particularly important to maintaining tax exempt
+status with the IRS.
+
+The Foundation is committed to complying with the laws regulating
+charities and charitable donations in all 50 states of the United
+States.  Compliance requirements are not uniform and it takes a
+considerable effort, much paperwork and many fees to meet and keep up
+with these requirements.  We do not solicit donations in locations
+where we have not received written confirmation of compliance.  To
+SEND DONATIONS or determine the status of compliance for any
+particular state visit https://pglaf.org
+
+While we cannot and do not solicit contributions from states where we
+have not met the solicitation requirements, we know of no prohibition
+against accepting unsolicited donations from donors in such states who
+approach us with offers to donate.
+
+International donations are gratefully accepted, but we cannot make
+any statements concerning tax treatment of donations received from
+outside the United States.  U.S. laws alone swamp our small staff.
+
+Please check the Project Gutenberg Web pages for current donation
+methods and addresses.  Donations are accepted in a number of other
+ways including including checks, online payments and credit card
+donations.  To donate, please visit: https://pglaf.org/donate
+
+
+Section 5.  General Information About Project Gutenberg-tm electronic
+works.
+
+Professor Michael S. Hart was the originator of the Project Gutenberg-tm
+concept of a library of electronic works that could be freely shared
+with anyone.  For thirty years, he produced and distributed Project
+Gutenberg-tm eBooks with only a loose network of volunteer support.
+
+Project Gutenberg-tm eBooks are often created from several printed
+editions, all of which are confirmed as Public Domain in the U.S.
+unless a copyright notice is included.  Thus, we do not necessarily
+keep eBooks in compliance with any particular paper edition.
+
+Each eBook is in a subdirectory of the same number as the eBook's
+eBook number, often in several formats including plain vanilla ASCII,
+compressed (zipped), HTML and others.
+
+Corrected EDITIONS of our eBooks replace the old file and take over
+the old filename and etext number.  The replaced older file is renamed.
+VERSIONS based on separate sources are treated as new eBooks receiving
+new filenames and etext numbers.
+
+Most people start at our Web site which has the main PG search facility:
+
+     https://www.gutenberg.org
+
+This Web site includes information about Project Gutenberg-tm,
+including how to make donations to the Project Gutenberg Literary
+Archive Foundation, how to help produce our new eBooks, and how to
+subscribe to our email newsletter to hear about new eBooks.
+
+EBooks posted prior to November 2003, with eBook numbers BELOW #10000,
+are filed in directories based on their release date.  If you want to
+download any of these eBooks directly, rather than using the regular
+search system you may utilize the following addresses and just
+download by the etext year.
+
+     https://www.gutenberg.org/etext06
+
+    (Or /etext 05, 04, 03, 02, 01, 00, 99,
+     98, 97, 96, 95, 94, 93, 92, 92, 91 or 90)
+
+EBooks posted since November 2003, with etext numbers OVER #10000, are
+filed in a different way.  The year of a release date is no longer part
+of the directory path.  The path is based on the etext number (which is
+identical to the filename).  The path to the file is made up of single
+digits corresponding to all but the last digit in the filename.  For
+example an eBook of filename 10234 would be found at:
+
+     https://www.gutenberg.org/1/0/2/3/10234
+
+or filename 24689 would be found at:
+     https://www.gutenberg.org/2/4/6/8/24689
+
+An alternative method of locating eBooks:
+     https://www.gutenberg.org/GUTINDEX.ALL
+
+
diff --git a/old/10482-8.zip b/old/10482-8.zip
new file mode 100644
index 0000000..cd62ec9
--- /dev/null
+++ b/old/10482-8.zip
diff --git a/old/10482-h.zip b/old/10482-h.zip
new file mode 100644
index 0000000..e440d99
--- /dev/null
+++ b/old/10482-h.zip
diff --git a/old/10482-h/10482-h.htm b/old/10482-h/10482-h.htm
new file mode 100644
index 0000000..ce0e18f
--- /dev/null
+++ b/old/10482-h/10482-h.htm
@@ -0,0 +1,8113 @@
+<!DOCTYPE HTML PUBLIC "-//W3C//DTD HTML 4.01 Transitional//EN">
+<html>
+  <head>
+    <meta http-equiv="Content-Type" content=
+    "text/html; charset=iso-8859-1">
+    <title>
+      The Project Gutenberg eBook of THE YOUNG MOTHER, by WM. A. ALCOTT.
+    </title>
+    <style type="text/css">
+    <!--
+    * {  font-family: Times;}
+    P {  text-indent: 1em;
+         margin-top: .75em;
+         margin-left: 2em;
+         margin-right: 2em;
+         text-align: justify;
+         margin-bottom: .75em; }
+    P.sec {  margin-top: .75em;
+         margin-left: 1em;
+         margin-right: 2em;
+         text-align: justify;
+         margin-bottom: .75em; }
+
+    blockquote {  margin-left: 4em;
+         margin-right: 4em; }
+    blockquote.small { font-size: 90%;
+         margin-left: 4em;
+         margin-right: 4em; }
+    H1,H2,H3,H4,H5,H6 {     text-align: center; }
+    H4.ind {  text-align: left;
+          margin-left: 1em; }
+    HR { width: 65%; }
+    hr.chapterEnd { width: 65%; margin-top: 1em; margin-bottom: 1em;}
+
+    -->
+    </style>
+
+   </head>
+	 <body>
+
+
+<pre>
+
+The Project Gutenberg EBook of The Young Mother, by William A. Alcott
+
+This eBook is for the use of anyone anywhere at no cost and with
+almost no restrictions whatsoever.  You may copy it, give it away or
+re-use it under the terms of the Project Gutenberg License included
+with this eBook or online at www.gutenberg.org
+
+
+Title: The Young Mother
+       Management of Children in Regard to Health
+
+Author: William A. Alcott
+
+Release Date: December 17, 2003 [EBook #10482]
+
+Language: English
+
+Character set encoding: ISO-8859-1
+
+*** START OF THIS PROJECT GUTENBERG EBOOK THE YOUNG MOTHER ***
+
+
+
+
+Produced by Stan Goodman and PG Distributed Proofreaders
+
+
+
+
+
+</pre>
+
+
+<H1>THE YOUNG MOTHER</H1>
+
+<h2>or</h2>
+
+<h1>Management of Children in Regard to Health.</H1>
+
+<H2>BY WM. A. ALCOTT</H2>
+
+<br><hr style="width: 45%;"><br>
+
+<center>1836.</center>
+
+<br><hr style="width: 45%;"><br>
+
+
+
+<h5>ADVERTISEMENT TO THE THIRD EDITION.</h5>
+
+<p>The present edition has been much enlarged. The author has added a
+section on the conduct and management of the mother herself, besides
+several other important amendments and additions. The whole has also
+been carefully revised, and we cannot but indulge the hope that no
+popular work of the kind will be found more perfect, or more worthy of
+the public confidence.</p>
+
+<br><hr style="width: 45%;"><br>
+
+<h3>CONTENTS.</h3>
+<br>
+
+<h4 class="ind"><a href="#CHAPTER_I.">CHAPTER I. THE NURSERY.</a></h4>
+
+<blockquote class="small">General remarks. Importance of a Nursery&mdash;generally overlooked. Its
+walls&mdash;ceiling&mdash;windows&mdash;chimney. Two apartments. Sliding partition.
+Reasons for this arrangement. Objections to carpets. Furniture, &amp;c.
+Feather beds. Holes or crevices. Currents of air. Cats and dogs.
+&quot;Sucking the child's breath.&quot; Brilliant objects. Squinting. Causes of
+blindness.</blockquote>
+<br>
+
+<h4 class="ind"><a href="#CHAPTER_II.">
+CHAPTER II. TEMPERATURE.</a></h4>
+
+<blockquote class="small">General principle&mdash;&quot;Keep cool.&quot; Our own sensations not always to be
+trusted. Thermometer. Why infants require more external heat than
+adults. Means of warmth. Air heated in other apartments. Clothes taking
+fire. Stove&mdash;railing around it. Excess of heat&mdash;its dangers.</blockquote>
+<br>
+
+<h4 class="ind"><a href="#CHAPTER_III.">
+CHAPTER III. VENTILATION.</a></h4>
+
+<blockquote class="small">General ignorance of the constitution of the atmosphere. The subject
+briefly explained. Oxygen gas. Nitrogen. Carbonic acid. Fires, candles,
+and breathing dependent on oxygen. Danger from carbonic acid. How it
+destroys people. Impurity of the air arising from lamps and candles.
+Other sources of impurity. Experiment of putting the candle under the
+bed-clothes. Covering the heads of infants while sleeping&mdash;its dangers.
+Proportions of oxygen and nitrogen in pure and impure air. No wonder
+children become sickly. Particular means of ventilating rooms. Caution
+in regard to lamps. Washing, ironing, cooking, &amp;c., in a nursery. Their
+evil tendency. Fumigation&mdash;camphor, vinegar.</blockquote>
+<br>
+
+<h4 class="ind"><a href="#CHAPTER_IV.">
+CHAPTER IV. THE CHILD'S DRESS.</a></h4>
+
+<blockquote class="small">General principles&mdash;1. To cover us; 2. To defend us from cold; 3. from
+injury.</blockquote>
+
+<p class="sec">SEC. 1. <i>Swathing the Body.</i></p>
+
+<blockquote class="small">Buffon's remarks. Transforming children into mummies. Use of a belly-band.
+Evils produced by having it too tight. Cripples sometimes made. Absurdity
+of confining the arms. Infants should be made happy.</blockquote>
+
+<p class="sec">SEC. 2. <i>Form of the Dress.</i></p>
+
+<blockquote class="small">Curious suggestion of a London writer. Advantages of his plan. Killing
+with kindness. Dr. Buchan's opinion. Conformity to fashion. Tight-lacing
+the chest. Its effects&mdash;dangerous. Physiology of the chest. Its motions.
+An attempt to make the subject intelligible. Serious mistakes of some
+writers. Appeal to facts. Color of females. Their breathing. Their
+diseases. Customs of Tunis. Our own customs little less ridiculous.</blockquote>
+
+<p class="sec">SEC. 3. <i>Material.</i></p>
+
+<blockquote class="small">Flannel in cold weather. Its use&mdash;1. As a kind
+of flesh brush; 2. As a protection against taking cold; 3. As means of
+equalizing the temperature. Clothing should be kept clean&mdash;often
+changed&mdash;color&mdash;lightness&mdash;softness. Cotton apt to take fire. Silk
+expensive. Linen not warm enough. Flannel under-clothes.</blockquote>
+
+<p class="sec">SEC. 4. <i>Quantity.</i></p>
+
+<blockquote class="small">The power of habit, in this respect. Opinion that no clothing is
+necessary. Anecdote of Alexander and the Scythian. Argument from
+analogy. Begin right, in early life. We generally use too much
+clothing. Should clothing be often varied?&mdash;objections to it. Avoid
+dampness.</blockquote>
+
+<p class="sec">SEC. 5. <i>Caps.</i></p>
+
+<blockquote class="small">How caps produce disease. Nature's head-dress. Miserable apology for
+caps. What diseases are avoided by going with the head bare. Judicious
+remarks of a foreign writer. Covering the &quot;open of the head.&quot; Wetting
+the head with spirits.</blockquote>
+
+<p class="sec">SEC. 6. <i>Hats and Bonnets.</i></p>
+
+<blockquote class="small">Hats usually too warm. No covering needed in the house; and but little
+in the sun or rain. Is it dangerous to go with the head always bare?</blockquote>
+
+<p class="sec">SEC. 7. <i>Covering for the Feet.</i></p>
+
+<blockquote class="small">The feet should be well covered. Why. Rule of medical men. No garters.
+Objections to covering the feet considered. Shoes useful. Not too thick.
+Thick soles. Mr. Locke's opinion.</blockquote>
+
+<p class="sec">SEC. 8. <i>Pins.</i></p>
+
+<blockquote class="small">These ought not to be used. Why. Substitutes. Practice of Dr. Dewees.
+Needles&mdash;their danger. Shocking anecdote.</blockquote>
+
+<p class="sec">SEC. 9. <i>Remaining Wet.</i></p>
+
+<blockquote class="small">Changing wet clothing. Monstrous error&mdash;its evils. Clean as well as dry.
+A lame excuse for negligence. No excuse sufficient but poverty.</blockquote>
+
+<p class="sec">SEC. 10. <i>Remarks on the Dress of Boys.</i></p>
+
+<blockquote class="small">Every restraint of body or limb injurious. Tight jackets. Stiff stocks
+and thick cravats. Boots. Evils of having them too tight. A painful
+sight.</blockquote>
+
+<p class="sec">SEC. 11. <i>On the Dress of Girls.</i></p>
+
+<blockquote class="small">Clothing should be loose for girls or boys. Girls to be kept warmer than
+boys. Few girls comfortable, at home or abroad. Going out of warm rooms
+into the night air. How it promotes disease.</blockquote>
+<br>
+
+<h4 class="ind"><a href="#CHAPTER_V.">
+CHAPTER V. CLEANLINESS.</a></h4>
+
+<blockquote class="small">Physiology of the human skin. Of checking perspiration. Diseases thus
+produced. &quot;Dirt&quot; not &quot;healthy.&quot; How the mistake originated. &quot;Smell of
+the earth.&quot; Effect of uncleanliness on the morals. Filthiness produces
+bowel complaints. Changing dress for the sake of cleanliness.</blockquote>
+<br>
+
+<h4 class="ind"><a href="#CHAPTER_VI.">
+CHAPTER VI. BATHING.</a></h4>
+
+<blockquote class="small">Practice of savage nations. Rather dangerous. Mistake of Rousseau.
+Plunging into cold water at birth may produce immediate death. Hundreds
+injured where one is benefited. Spirits added to the water. First
+washings of the child&mdash;should be thorough. Rules in regard to the
+temperature of both the water and the air. Washing an introduction to
+bathing. Hour for bathing changes with age. Temperature of the water.
+Size of a bathing vessel. Unreasonable fears of the warm bath. How they
+arose. A list of common whims. Apology for opposing cold baths. Dr
+Dewees' eight objections to them. Does cold water harden? Cold bath
+sometimes useful under the care of a skilful physician. Its danger in other
+cases. Rules for using the cold bath, if used at all. Securing a glow after
+it. General management. Proper hour. Coming out of the bath. Dressing.
+Singing. Bathing after a meal. Local bathing. Tea-spoonful of water in the
+mouth. Its use. The shower bath. Vapor bath. Medicated bath. Sponging.
+Conveniences for bathing indispensable to every family. General neglect
+of bathing. Attention of the Romans to this subject. We treat domestic
+animals better than children.</blockquote>
+<br>
+
+<h4 class="ind"><a href="#CHAPTER_VII.">
+CHAPTER VII. FOOD.</a></h4>
+
+<p class="sec">SEC. 1. <i>General Principles.</i></p>
+
+<blockquote class="small">The mother's milk the only appropriate food of infants. Unreasonableness
+of some mothers. The tendency to ape foreign fashions. Nursing does not
+weaken the mother.</blockquote>
+
+<p class="sec">SEC. 2. <i>Conduct of the Mother.</i></p>
+
+<blockquote class="small">Much depends on the mother. Opinions of medical societies. Mothers
+sometimes make children drunkards. The general fondness for excitements.
+Hints to those whom it concerns. Caution to mothers. Opinions of Dr.
+Dewees. Slavery of mothers to strong drink and exciting food. Opinions
+of the Charleston Board of Health.</blockquote>
+
+<p class="sec">SEC. 3. <i>Nursing, how often.</i></p>
+
+<blockquote class="small">Children should never be nursed to quiet them. Stomach must have time
+for rest. Regular seasons for nursing. Once in three hours. Difference
+of constitution. Indulgence does not strengthen. Feeble children require
+the strictest management. Nothing should be given between meals.</blockquote>
+
+<p class="sec">SEC. 4. <i>Quantity of Food.</i></p>
+
+<blockquote class="small">Errors. Repetition of aliment. Variety. Children over-fed. Appetite not
+a safe guide. Training to gluttony. Illustrations of the principle.
+Mankind eat twice as much as is necessary.</blockquote>
+
+<p class="sec">SEC. 5. <i>How long should Milk be the only Food?</i></p>
+
+<blockquote class="small">First change in diet. Objections of mothers. Choice bits. Ignorance of
+the nature of digestion. What digestion is. Food which the author of
+nature assigned.</blockquote>
+
+<p class="sec">SEC. 6. <i>On Feeding before Teething.</i></p>
+
+<blockquote class="small">When feeding before teething is necessary. Diet of mothers. Substitute
+for the mother's milk. How prepared. Variety not necessary to the
+infant. Milk best from the same cow. Vessels in which it is used should
+be clean. Sweet milk not heated too much. Not frozen. Disgusting
+practices. Pure water. If not pure, boil it. Best of sugar. Is sugar
+injurious? When the state of the mother's health forbids nursing. Use of
+sucking-bottles. Feeding should in all cases be slow. Jolting children
+after eating. Tossing. Sucking-bottle as a plaything. Evils of using it
+as such. Dirty vessels. Poisonous ones. Character of nurses. Nursing at
+both breasts. Age of the nurse. Parents should have the oversight, even
+of a nurse.</blockquote>
+
+<p class="sec">SEC. 7. <i>From Teething to Weaning.</i></p>
+
+<blockquote class="small">Proper age for weaning. Cullen's opinion. Proper season of the year.
+When the teeth have fairly protruded. First food given. New forms of
+food. Animal broth.</blockquote>
+
+<p class="sec">SEC. 8. <i>During the Process of Weaning.</i></p>
+
+<blockquote class="small">The spring the best time for weaning. Should not be too sudden. The
+process&mdash;how managed. Exciting an aversion to the breast. What solid
+food should first be given. Buchan's opinion. Health of the mother. She
+should&mdash;if possible&mdash;avoid medicine.</blockquote>
+
+<p class="sec">SEC. 9. <i>Food subsequently to Weaning.</i></p>
+
+<blockquote class="small">Views of Dr. Cadogan. Half the children that come into the world go out
+of it before they are good for anything. Why? Owing chiefly to errors in
+nursing, feeding, and clothing. Simplicity of children's food. Picture
+of a modern table. Every dish tortured till it is spoiled. Plain, simple
+food, generally despised. How bread is now regarded. How it ought to be.
+Mr. Locke's opinion in favor of bread for young children, and against
+the use of animal food. Does not differ materially from that of most
+medical writers. Vegetable food generally preferred to animal. What is
+true of youth, in this respect, is true of every age, with slight
+exceptions. Who require most food. Mere bread and water not best. Bread
+the staple article of diet. Best kind of bread. Objections to it. How
+groundless they are. Fondness, for hot, new bread not natural. Fondness
+of change. What it indicates. How it is caused. Train up a child in the
+way he should go. We can like what food we please. Second best kind of
+bread. Other kinds. Plain puddings. Indian cakes. Salt may be used, in
+moderate quantity, but no other condiments. Of butter, cheese, milk, &amp;c.
+Potatoes, turnips, onions, beets, and other roots. Beans, peas, and
+asparagus. No fat or gravies should be used.</blockquote>
+
+<p class="sec">SEC. 10. <i>Remarks on Fruit.</i></p>
+
+<blockquote class="small">Diversity of opinion. The cholera. Fruits useful. Seven plain rules in
+regard to them. Other rules. A mistake corrected. Fruit before
+breakfast. Four arguments in its favor. Particular fruits. Apples. Why
+fruits brought to market are generally unfit to be eaten. Are good, ripe
+fruits difficult of digestion? Cooking the apple? A man who lives
+entirely on apples. Cutting down orchards. Pears, peaches, melons,
+grapes. Mixing improper substances with summer fruits.</blockquote>
+
+<p class="sec">SEC. 11. <i>Confectionary.</i></p>
+
+<blockquote class="small">Confectionary sometimes poisonous. Case in New York. All, or nearly
+all confectionaries injurious. Physical evils attending their use.
+Intellectual evils. Moral evils. The last most to be dreaded. Slaves
+to confectionary are on the road to gluttony, drunkenness, or
+debauchery&mdash;perhaps all three.</blockquote>
+
+<p class="sec">SEC. 12. <i>Pastry.</i></p>
+
+<blockquote class="small">Dr. Paris's opinion of pastry. Various forms of it. Hot flour bread a
+species of it. Produces, among other evils, eruptions on the face.
+Appeal to mothers.</blockquote>
+
+<p class="sec">SEC. 13. <i>Crude, or Raw Substances.</i></p>
+
+<blockquote class="small">Salads, herbs, &amp;c.&mdash;raw&mdash;cooked. Nuts, spices, mustard, horseradish,
+onions, cucumbers, pickles, &amp;c. None of these should be used, except as
+medicine.</blockquote>
+<br>
+
+<h4 class="ind"><a href="#CHAPTER_VIII.">
+CHAPTER VIII. DRINKS.</a></h4>
+
+<blockquote class="small">Infants need little drink. Adults, even, generally drink to cool
+themselves. Simple water the best drink. Opinions of Dr. Oliver and Dr.
+Dewees. Animal food increases thirst. Only one real drink in the world.
+The true object of all drink. Tea, coffee, chocolate, beer, &amp;c. Milk
+and water, molasses and water, &amp;c. Cider, wine, and ardent spirits. Bad
+food and drink the most prolific sources of disease. Children naturally
+prefer water. Danger of hot drinks. Cold drinks. Mischiefs they produce.
+Caution to mothers. Extracts. Drinking cold water, while hot.</blockquote>
+<br>
+
+<h4 class="ind"><a href="#CHAPTER_IX.">
+CHAPTER IX. GIVING MEDICINE.</a></h4>
+
+<blockquote class="small">&quot;Prevention&quot; better than &quot;cure.&quot; Nine in ten infantile diseases caused
+by errors in diet and drink. Signs of failing health. Causes of a bad
+breath. Flesh eaters. Gormandizers. General rule for preventing disease.
+When to call a physician.</blockquote>
+<br>
+
+<h4 class="ind"><a href="#CHAPTER_X.">
+CHAPTER X. EXERCISE.</a></h4>
+
+<p class="sec">SEC. 1. <i>Rocking in the Cradle.</i></p>
+
+<blockquote class="small">Objections to the use of cradles. Under what circumstances they are
+least objectionable.</blockquote>
+
+<p class="sec">SEC. 2. <i>Carrying in the Arms.</i></p>
+
+<blockquote class="small">Carrying in the arms a suitable exercise for the first two months of
+life. Danger of too early sitting up. Improper position in the arms.
+Mothers must see to this themselves. Motion in the arms should be
+gentle. No tossing, running, or jumping. Infants should not always be
+carried on the same arm.</blockquote>
+
+<p class="sec">SEC. 3. <i>Creeping.</i></p>
+
+<blockquote class="small">Creeping useful to health. Why. Go-carts and leading strings prohibited.
+The longer children creep, the better. Their progress in learning to
+stand. Let it be slow and natural. Let it be, as much as possible, by
+their own voluntary efforts.</blockquote>
+
+<p class="sec">SEC. 4. <i>Walking.</i></p>
+
+<blockquote class="small">Walking in the nursery. Walking abroad. Hoisting children into carriages.
+Walks should not become fatiguing.</blockquote>
+
+<p class="sec">SEC. 5. <i>Riding in Carriages.</i></p>
+
+<blockquote class="small">Carriages useful before children can walk. Their construction. Should be
+drawn steadily. Position of the child in them: Falling asleep. How long
+this exercise should be continued.</blockquote>
+
+<p class="sec">SEC. 6. <i>Riding on Horseback.</i></p>
+
+<blockquote class="small">Never safe for infants. Riding schools. Objections to riding on
+horseback, while very young. Tends to cruelty and tyranny.</blockquote>
+<br>
+
+<h4 class="ind"><a href="#CHAPTER_XI.">
+CHAPTER XI. AMUSEMENTS.</a></h4>
+
+<blockquote class="small">Universal need of amusements. Why so necessary. Error of schools. Error
+of families. Infant schools, as often conducted, particularly injurious.
+Lessons, or tasks, should be short. Mistakes of some manual labor
+schools. Of particular amusements in the nursery. With small wooden
+cubes&mdash;pictures&mdash;shuttlecock&mdash;the rocking horse&mdash;tops and
+marbles&mdash;backgammon&mdash;checkers&mdash;morrice&mdash;dice&mdash;nine-pins&mdash;skipping the
+rope&mdash;trundling the hoop&mdash;playing at ball&mdash;kites&mdash;skating and
+swimming&mdash;dissected maps&mdash;black boards&mdash;elements of letters&mdash;dissected
+pictures.</blockquote>
+<br>
+
+<h4 class="ind"><a href="#CHAPTER_XII.">
+CHAPTER XII. CRYING.</a></h4>
+
+<blockquote class="small">Its importance. Danger of repressing a tendency to cry. Anecdote from
+Dr. Rush. Physiology of crying. Folly of attempting wholly to suppress
+it.</blockquote>
+<br>
+
+<h4 class="ind"><a href="#CHAPTER_XIII.">
+CHAPTER XIII. LAUGHING.</a></h4>
+
+<blockquote class="small">&quot;Laugh and be fat.&quot; Laughing is healthy. A common error. Monastic
+notions yet too prevalent on this subject.</blockquote>
+<br>
+
+<h4 class="ind"><a href="#CHAPTER_XIV.">
+CHAPTER XIV. SLEEP.</a></h4>
+
+<blockquote class="small">General remarks. A prevalent mistake. A hint to fathers. Few Catos.
+Everything left to mothers.</blockquote>
+
+<p class="sec">SEC. 1. <i>Hour for Repose.</i></p>
+
+<blockquote class="small">Night the season of repose, generally. Infants require all hours.
+Sleeping in dark rooms. Excess of caution. Habit of sleeping amid noise.</blockquote>
+
+<p class="sec">SEC. 2. <i>Place.</i></p>
+
+<blockquote class="small">Where the infant should sleep. Why alone. Poisoning by impure air.
+Illustration. Proofs. Friedlander. Dr. Dewees. Destruction of children
+by mothers. Anecdote. Moral reasons for having children sleep alone.
+Sleeping with the aged. Sleeping with cats and dogs.</blockquote>
+
+<p class="sec">SEC. 3 <i>Purity of the Air.</i></p>
+
+<blockquote class="small">Nurseries. Windows open during the night. Lowering them from the top.
+Habit of Dr. Gregory. Going abroad in the open air.</blockquote>
+
+<p class="sec">SEC. 4. <i>The Bed.</i></p>
+
+<blockquote class="small">No feathers should be used. They are too warm. Their effluvia
+oppressive. Other objections to their use. Mattresses. Air beds. Beds of
+cut straw. Soft beds. Testimony of physicians. The pillow. Dampness.
+Curtains. Warming the bed. Beds recently occupied by the sick.</blockquote>
+
+<p class="sec">SEC. 5. <i>The Covering.</i></p>
+
+<blockquote class="small">Light covering. Mistakes of some mothers. Covering the head with bed
+clothes.</blockquote>
+
+<p class="sec">SEC. 6. <i>Night Dresses.</i></p>
+
+<blockquote class="small">As little dress during sleep as possible. No caps. No stockings. Loose
+night shirt. No tight articles of nightdress. Frequent exchanging of
+clothes.</blockquote>
+
+<p class="sec">SEC. 7. <i>Posture of the Body.</i></p>
+
+<blockquote class="small">Sleeping on the back&mdash;on the sides. Position of the head. The infant's
+bedstead. Sir Charles Bell. Darkening the room.</blockquote>
+
+<p class="sec">SEC. 8. <i>State of the Mind.</i></p>
+
+<blockquote class="small">Mental quiet favorable to sleep. Crying to sleep. A good father. All
+anxiety should be avoided.</blockquote>
+
+<p class="sec">SEC. 9. <i>Quality of Sleep.</i></p>
+
+<blockquote class="small">Soundness of our sleep. Nightmare. How produced. Late reading. Late
+suppers. Influence of religion on sleep. Different opinions about sleep.
+Truth midway between extremes. Effect of silence and darkness on our
+sleep. Of sleep before midnight. Light unfavorable to sleep.</blockquote>
+
+<p class="sec">SEC. 10. <i>Quantity.</i></p>
+
+<blockquote class="small">Infants need to sleep nearly the whole time. Number of hours required
+for sleep. Opinions of eminent men. The author's own opinion. Statements
+of Macnish. Estimates on the loss of time by over-sleeping. Hint to
+young mothers.</blockquote>
+<br>
+
+<h4 class="ind"><a href="#CHAPTER_XV.">
+CHAPTER XV. EARLY RISING.</a></h4>
+
+<blockquote class="small">All children naturally early risers. Evils of sitting up late at night.
+Excitements in the evening. The morning, by its beauties, invites us
+abroad. Example of parents. Forbidding children to rise early. Keeping
+them out of the way. Burning them up. &quot;Lecturing&quot; them. What is an early
+hour?</blockquote>
+<br>
+
+<h4 class="ind"><a href="#CHAPTER_XVI.">
+CHAPTER XVI. HARDENING THE CONSTITUTION.</a></h4>
+
+<blockquote class="small">Mistakes about hardening children. Their clothing. Much cold enfeebles.
+The Scotch Highlanders. The two extremes equally fatal&mdash;over-tenderness
+and neglect. An interesting anecdote from Dr. Dewees.</blockquote>
+<br>
+
+<h4 class="ind"><a href="#CHAPTER_XVII.">
+CHAPTER XVII. SOCIETY.</a></h4>
+
+<blockquote class="small">Duty of mothers in this matter. Children prefer the society of parents.
+Importance of other society. Necessity of society. Early diffidence.
+Selecting companions. Moral effects of society on the young. Parents
+should play with their children.</blockquote>
+<br>
+
+<h4 class="ind"><a href="#CHAPTER_XVIII.">
+CHAPTER XVIII. EMPLOYMENTS.</a></h4>
+
+<blockquote class="small">Influence of mothers over daughters. Anecdote of Benjamin West. Anecdote
+of a poor mother. Of set lessons and lectures. Daughters under the
+mother's eye. Disliking domestic employments. Miserable housewives&mdash;not
+to be wondered at. Mistake of one class of men. Mr. Flint's opinion.</blockquote>
+<br>
+
+<h4 class="ind"><a href="#CHAPTER_XIX.">
+CHAPTER XIX. EDUCATION OF THE SENSES.</a></h4>
+
+<blockquote class="small">Extent to which the senses can be improved. Case of the blind. The
+Indians. Julia Brace. Tailors, painters, &amp;c.</blockquote>
+
+<p class="sec">SEC. 1. <i>Hearing.</i></p>
+
+<blockquote class="small">Injury done by caps. Syringing the ears. Anecdote of deafness from
+neglect. Means of improving the hearing.</blockquote>
+
+<p class="sec">SEC. 2. <i>Seeing.</i></p>
+
+<blockquote class="small">Importance of seeing. Near-sighted people&mdash;why so common. Heat of our
+rooms. Very fine print. Spectacles. Reading when tired. Rubbing the
+eyes. Cold water to the eyes.</blockquote>
+
+<p class="sec">SEC. 3. <i>Tasting and Smelling.</i></p>
+
+<blockquote class="small">Benumbing the senses. How this has often been done. The teeth. How to
+preserve them.</blockquote>
+
+<p class="sec">SEC. 4. <i>Feeling.</i></p>
+
+<blockquote class="small">Corpulence and slovenliness. Sense of touch. The blind&mdash;how taught to
+read. Hint to parents. The hand. Neglecting the left hand. Physiology of
+the hand and arm. Evils of being able to use but one hand. Both should
+be educated.</blockquote>
+<br>
+
+<h4 class="ind"><a href="#CHAPTER_XX.">
+CHAPTER XX. ABUSES.</a></h4>
+
+<blockquote class="small">Bad seats for children at table and elsewhere. Why children hate Sunday.
+Seats at Sabbath school&mdash;at church&mdash;at district schools. Suspending
+children between the heavens and the earth. Cushions to sit on. Seats
+with backs. Children in factories. Evils produced. Bodily punishment.
+Striking the heads of children very injurious. Beating across the middle
+of the body. Anecdote of a teacher. Concluding advice to mothers.</blockquote>
+
+
+<br><hr style="width: 45%;"><br>
+<br>
+
+<h3>PREFACE.</h3>
+
+<p>There is a prejudice abroad, to some extent, against agitating the
+questions&mdash;&quot;What shall we eat? What shall we drink? and Wherewithal
+shall we be clothed?&quot;&mdash;not so much because the Scriptures have charged
+us not to be over &quot;anxious&quot; on the subject, as because those who pay the
+least attention to what they eat and drink, are supposed to be, after
+all, the most healthy.</p>
+
+<p>It is not difficult to ascertain how this opinion originated. There are
+a few individuals who are perpetually thinking and talking on this
+subject, and who would fain comply with appropriate rules, if they knew
+what they were, and if a certain definite course, pursued a few days
+only, would change their whole condition, and completely restore a
+shattered or ruined constitution. But their ignorance of the laws which
+govern the human frame, both in sickness and in health, and their
+indisposition to pursue any proposed plan for their improvement long
+enough to receive much permanent benefit from it, keep them,
+notwithstanding all they say or do, always deteriorating.</p>
+
+<p>Then, on the other hand, there are a few who, in consequence of
+possessing by nature very strong constitutions, and laboring at some
+active and peculiarly healthy employment, are able for a few, and
+perhaps even for many years, to set all the rules of health at defiance.</p>
+
+<p>Now, strange as it may seem, these cases, though they are only
+exceptions (and those more apparent than real) to the general rule, are
+always dwelt upon, by those who are determined to live as they please,
+and to put no restraint either upon themselves or their appetites. For
+nothing can be plainer&mdash;so it seems to me&mdash;than that, taking mankind by
+families, or what is still better, by larger portions, they are most
+free from pain and disease, as well as most healthy and happy, who pay
+the most attention to the laws of human health, that is, those laws or
+rules by whose observance alone, that health can be certainly and
+permanently secured.</p>
+
+<p>But these families and communities are most healthy and happy, not
+because they live in a proper manner, by fits and starts, but because
+they have, from some cause or other, adopted and persevered in HABITS
+which, compared with the habits of other families, or other communities,
+are preferable; that is, more in obedience to the laws which govern the
+human constitution. Not that even <i>they</i> are &quot;without sin&quot; or error on
+this subject&mdash;gross error too&mdash;but because their errors are fewer or
+less destructive than those of their neighbors.</p>
+
+<p>Now is it possible that any intelligent father or mother of a family,
+whose diet, clothing, exercise, &amp;c. are thus comparatively well
+regulated, would derive no benefit from the perusal of works which treat
+candidly, rationally, and dispassionately, on these points? Is there a
+mother in the community who is so destitute of reason and common sense
+as not to desire the light of a broader experience in regard to the
+tendency of things than she has had, or possibly can have, in her own
+family? Is there one who will not be aided by understanding not only
+that a certain thing or course is better than another, but also WHY it
+is so?</p>
+
+<p>It is by no means the object of this little work to set people to
+watching their stomachs from meal to meal, in regard to the effects of
+food, drink, &amp;c.; for nothing in the world is better calculated to make
+dyspeptics than this. It is true, indeed, that some things may be
+obviously and greatly injurious, taken only once; and when they are so,
+they should be avoided. But in general, it is the effect of a habitual
+use of certain things for a long time together&mdash;and the longer the
+experiment the better&mdash;which we are to observe.</p>
+
+<p>A book to guide mothers in the formation of early good habits in their
+offspring, should be the result of long observation and much experiment
+on these points, but more especially of a thorough understanding of
+human physiology. It should not consist so much of the conceits of a
+single brain&mdash;perhaps half turned&mdash;as of the logical deductions of
+severe science, and facts gleaned from the world's history.</p>
+
+<p>Here is a nation, or tribe of men, bringing up children to certain
+habits, from generation to generation&mdash;and such and such is their
+character. Here, again, is another large portion of our race, who, under
+similar circumstances of climate, &amp;c. &amp;c., have, for several hundred
+years, educated their children very differently, and with different
+results. A comparison of things on a large scale, together with a close
+attention to the constitution and relations of the human system, affords
+ground for drawing conclusions which are or may be useful. If this book
+shall not afford light derived from such sources, it were far better
+that it had never been written. If it only sets people to watching over
+the effects of things taken or used only for a single day, instead of
+leading them from early infancy to form in their children such habits as
+will preclude, in a great measure, the necessity of watching ourselves
+daily, then let the day perish from the memory of the writer, in which
+the plan of bringing it forth to the world was conceived. But he is
+confident of better things. He does not believe that a work which, to
+such an extent, GIVES THE REASON WHY, will be productive of more evil
+than good. On the contrary, it must, if read, have the opposite effect.</p>
+
+<p>I do not deny that even after the formation of the best habits, there
+will be a necessity of paying some attention to what we eat and what we
+drink, from day to day, and from hour to hour; but only that the
+tendency of this work is not to increase this necessity, but on the
+contrary, to diminish it. In my own view; these occasions of inquiry in
+regard to what is right, <i>physically</i> as well as <i>morally</i>, are one part
+of our trials in this world&mdash;one means of forming our characters. We are
+constantly tempted to excess and to error, in spite of the most firm
+habits of self-denial which can be formed. If we resist temptation, our
+characters are improved. And it is by self-denial and self-government in
+these smaller matters, that we are to hope for nearly all the progress
+we can ever make in the great work of self-education. Great trials of
+character come but seldom; and when they come, we are often armed
+against them; but these little trials and temptations, coming upon us
+every hour&mdash;these it is, after all, that give shape to our characters,
+and make us constantly growing either better or worse, both in the sight
+of God and man. But, as I have repeatedly said, the object of this work
+is to diminish rather than to increase the frequency of these trials,
+useful though they may be, if duly improved, in the formation of
+virtuous, and even of holy character.</p>
+
+<p>There is a sense in which every infant may be said to be born healthy,
+so that we may not only adopt the language of the poet, Bowring, and
+say</p>
+
+<span style="layout-flow: horizontal; margin-left: 8em;">&mdash;"a child is born;</span><br>
+<span style="layout-flow: horizontal; margin-left: 6em;">Take it, and make it a bud of <i>moral</i> beauty,"</span><br>
+
+<p>but we may also add&mdash;Take it and make it beautiful <i>physically</i>. For
+though a hereditary predisposition undoubtedly renders some individuals
+more susceptible than others to particular diseases, yet when the bodily
+organization of an infant is complete, and the degree of vitality which
+nature gives it is sufficient to propel the machinery of the frame, it
+can scarcely be regarded as in any other state than that of health.</p>
+
+<p>Now if it be the intention of divine Providence (and who will doubt that
+it is?) that the animal body should be capable of resisting with
+impunity the impressions of heat, cold, light, air, and the various
+external influences to which, at birth, it is subjected, it may be
+properly asked why this primitive state of health cannot be maintained,
+and diseases, and medicines, and even PREVENTIVES wholly avoided.</p>
+
+<p>But the reason is obvious. Civilized society has placed the human race
+in artificial circumstances. Instead of listening to the dictates of
+reason, making ourselves acquainted with the nature of the human
+constitution, and studying to preserve it in health and vigor, we yield
+to the government of ignorance and presumption. The first moment, even,
+in which we draw breath, sees us placed under the control of individuals
+who are totally inadequate to the important charge of preserving the
+infant constitution in its original state, and aiding its progress to
+maturity. And thus it is that though infants, as a general rule, may be
+said to be born healthy, few actually remain so. Seldom, indeed, do we
+find a person who has arrived at maturity wholly free from disease, even
+in those parts of our country which are reckoned to have the most
+healthy climate.</p>
+
+<p>It is indeed commonly said, that a large proportion, both of children
+and adults, among the agricultural portion of our population, are
+healthy. But it is not so. There is room for doubt whether, on the
+whole, the farmers of this country are healthier than the mechanics, or
+much more so than the manufacturers; or the whole mass of the country
+population healthier than that of the crowded city. The causes of
+disease are sufficiently numerous, in all places and conditions; and
+this will continue to be the fact, not merely until parents and teachers
+shall become more enlightened, but until many generations have been
+trained under their enlightened influence.</p>
+
+<p>If the children and adults among our agricultural population derive from
+their employments in the open air a more ruddy appearance than those
+either of the city or country who are confined more to their rooms; or
+to a vitiated atmosphere, and to numerous other sources of disease, and
+if they <i>appear</i> more favored with health, I have learned, by accurate
+observation, that these appearances are somewhat deceptive. Their active
+sports and employments in the open air give them a stronger appetite
+than any other class of people; and the indulgence of this appetite, not
+only with articles which are heating or indigestible in their nature,
+but with an unreasonable quantity even of those which are considered
+highly proper, is almost in an exact proportion. And it is hence
+scarcely possible for the causes of disease and premature death to be
+more operative in factories and in cities than in farm houses and the
+country. Indeed it may be questioned whether the abuses of the ANIMAL
+part of man&mdash;more common in some of their forms in country than in
+city&mdash;though they may be less conspicuous, are not more certainly and
+even more immediately destructive than those abuses which, in city life,
+and bustle, and competition, affect more the MORAL nature.</p>
+
+<p>Be that as it may, however&mdash;for this is not the place for the grave
+discussion of so broad a question&mdash;one thing, to my mind, is perfectly
+clear, namely, that until physical education shall receive more
+attention from all those who hold the sacred office of instructors of
+the young, humanity can neither be much elevated nor improved. Mothers
+and schoolmasters especially&mdash;they who, as Dr. Rush says, plant the
+seeds of nearly all the good or evil in the world&mdash;must understand, most
+deeply and thoroughly, the laws which regulate the various provinces of
+the little world in which the soul resides, and which, like so many
+states of a great confederacy, have not only their separate interests
+and rights, but certain common and general ones; as well as those laws
+by which the human constitution is related to and connected with the
+objects which everywhere surround, and influence, and limit, and extend
+it.</p>
+
+<p>This book contains little, if anything, new to those who are already
+familiar with anatomy and physiology. Indeed, whatever may be its
+claims, its merits or its demerits, it disclaims novelty. It is, indeed,
+in one point of view, <i>original</i>;&mdash;I mean in its form, manner, and
+arrangement. What I have written is chiefly from my own resources&mdash;the
+results of patient study and observation, and careful reflection; but
+that study and observation of human nature, and this reflection, have
+been greatly aided by reading the writings of others.</p>
+
+<p>In the prosecution of the task which I had assigned myself, no work has
+been of more service to me than an octavo volume of 548 pages, by Dr.
+Wm. P. Dewees, of Philadelphia, entitled, &quot;A Treatise on the Physical
+and Medical Treatment of Children.&quot; It is one of the most valuable works
+on Physical Education in the English language, as is evident from the
+fact that notwithstanding its expense&mdash;three or four dollars&mdash;it has, in
+nine years, gone through five editions. If it were written in such a
+style, and published at such a price as would bring it within reach of
+the minds and purses of the mass of the community, its sale would have
+been, I think, much greater still; and the good which it has
+accomplished would have been increased ten-fold.</p>
+
+<p>If the &quot;YOUNG MOTHER&quot; should be favorably received by the American
+community, and prove extensively useful, it will undoubtedly be owing to
+the fact that it presents so large a collection of facts and principles
+on the great subject of physical education, in a manner so practical,
+and at a price which is very low. To accomplish an object so desirable
+is by no means an easy task. It was once said by the author of a huge
+volume, that he wrote so large a work because he had not time to prepare
+a smaller one. And however unaccountable it may be to those who have not
+made the trial, it may be safely asserted, that to present, within
+limits so small, anything like a system of Physical Education for the
+guidance of young mothers, requires much more time, and labor, and
+patience, than to prepare a work on the same subject twice as large.</p>
+
+<p>Nor is it to be expected, after all, that the work is, in all respects,
+perfect. I have indeed done what I could to render it so; but am
+conscious that future inquiries may lead to the discovery of errors.
+Should such discoveries be made, they will be cheerfully acknowledged
+and corrected; truth being, as it should be, the leading object.</p>
+
+
+<br><hr style="width: 65%;"><br>
+<br>
+
+<h2>THE YOUNG MOTHER.</h2>
+
+<hr class="chapterEnd" />
+
+<h2><a name="CHAPTER_I.">CHAPTER I.</a></h2>
+
+<h3>THE NURSERY.</h3>
+
+<blockquote class="small">General remarks. Importance of a Nursery&mdash;generally overlooked. Its
+walls&mdash;ceiling&mdash;windows&mdash;chimney. Two apartments. Sliding partition.
+Reasons for this arrangement. Objections to carpets. Furniture, &amp;c.
+Feather beds. Holes or crevices. Currents of air. Cats and dogs.
+&quot;Sucking the child's breath.&quot; Brilliant objects. Squinting. Causes of
+blindness.</blockquote>
+<br>
+
+<p>It is far from being in the power of every young mother to procure a
+suitable room for a nursery. In the present state of society, the
+majority must be contented with such places as they can get. Still there
+are various reasons for saying what a nursery should be. 1. It may be of
+service to those who <i>have</i> the power of selection. 2. Information
+cannot injure those who <i>have not</i>. 3. It may lead those who have wealth
+to extend the hand of charity in this important direction; for there
+are not a few who have little sympathy with the wants and distresses of
+the adult poor, who will yet open their hearts and unfold their hands
+for the relief of suffering <i>infancy</i>.</p>
+
+<p>Among those who have what is called a nursery, few select for this
+purpose the most appropriate part of the building. It is not
+unfrequently the one that can best be spared, is most retired, or most
+convenient. Whether it is most favorable to the health and happiness of
+its occupants, is usually at best a secondary consideration.</p>
+
+<p>But this ought not so to be. A nursery should never, for example, be on
+a ground floor, or in a shaded situation, or in any circumstances which
+expose it to dampness, or hinder the occasional approach of the light of
+the sun. It should be spacious, with dry walls, high ceiling, and tight
+windows. The latter should always be so constructed that the upper sash
+can be lowered when we wish to admit or exclude air. It should have a
+chimney, if possible; but if not, there should be suitable holes in the
+ceiling, for the purposes of ventilation.</p>
+
+<p>The windows should have shutters, so that the room, when necessary, can
+be darkened&mdash;and green curtains. Some writers say that the windows
+should have cross bars before them; but if they do not descend within
+three feet of the floor, such an arrangement can hardly be required.</p>
+
+<p>It is highly desirable that every nursery should consist of two rooms,
+opening into each other; or what is still better, of one large room,
+with a sliding or swinging partition in the middle. The use of this is,
+that the mother and child may retire to one, while the other is being
+swept or ventilated. They would thus avoid damp air, currents, and dust.
+Such an arrangement would also give the occupants a room, fresh, clean
+and sweet, in the morning, (which is a very great advantage,) after
+having rendered the air of the other foul by sleeping in it.</p>
+
+<p>In winter, and while there is an infant in the nursery, just beginning
+to walk, it is recommended by many to cover the floor with a carpet. The
+only advantage which they mention is, that it secures the child from
+injury if it falls. But I have seldom seen lasting injury inflicted by
+simple falls on the hard floor; and there are so many objections to
+carpeting a nursery, since it favors an accumulation of dust, bad air,
+damp, grease, and other impurities, that it seems to me preferable to
+omit it. Many physicians, I must own, recommend carpets during winter,
+though not in summer; and in no case, unless they are well shaken and
+aired, at least once a week.</p>
+
+<p>No furniture should be admissible, except the beds for the mother and
+child, a table, and a few chairs. With the best writers and highest
+authorities on the subject, I am decidedly of opinion that all feather
+beds ought effectually and forever to be excluded from nurseries. The
+reasons for this prohibition will appear hereafter.</p>
+
+<p>Every nursery should, if possible, be free from holes or crevices;
+otherwise the occupants will be exposed to currents of air, and their
+sometimes terrible and always injurious consequences. The room may, in
+this way, be kept at a lower medium temperature&mdash;a point of very great
+importance.</p>
+
+<p>Cats and dogs, I believe, are usually excluded from the nursery; if not,
+they ought to be. For though the apprehension of cats &quot;sucking the
+child's breath,&quot; is wholly groundless, yet they may be provoked by the
+rude attacks of a child to inflict upon it a lasting injury. Besides,
+they assist, by respiration, in contaminating the air, like all other
+animals.</p>
+
+<p>If there are, in the nursery, objects which, from the vivacity or
+brilliancy of their colors, attract the attention of the child, they
+should never be presented to them sideways, or immediately over their
+heads. The reason for this caution is, that children seek, and pursue
+almost instinctively, bright objects; and are thus liable to contract a
+habit of moving their eyes in an oblique direction, which <i>may</i>
+terminate in squinting.</p>
+
+<p>Many parents seem to take great pleasure in indulging the young infant
+in looking at these bright objects; especially a lamp or a candle. If
+the child is naturally strong and vigorous, no immediate perceptible
+injury may arise; but I am confident in the opinion that the result is
+often quite otherwise. For many weeks, if not many months of their early
+existence, they should not be permitted to sit or lie and gaze at any
+bright object, be it ever so weak or distant, unless placed exactly
+before their eyes; and even in the latter case, it were better to avoid
+it.</p>
+
+<p>Heat is also injurious to the eyes of all, and of course not less so to
+children than to adults. But when a strong light and heat are conjoined,
+as is the case of sitting around a large blazing fire&mdash;the former custom
+of New England&mdash;it is no wonder if the infantile eyes become early
+injured. No wonder that the generation now on the stage, early subjected
+to these abuses, should be found almost universally in the use of
+spectacles.</p>
+
+<p>This may be the most proper place for observing that great care ought to
+be taken, at the birth of the child, to prevent a too sudden exposure of
+the tender organ of vision to the light. We believe this caution is
+generally omitted by the American physician, though it is one which
+accords with the plainest dictates of common sense. Who of us has not
+experienced the pain of emerging suddenly from the darkness of a cellar
+to the ordinary light of day? The strongest eyes of the adult are
+scarcely able to bear the transition. How much more painful to the
+tender organs of the new-born infant must be the change to which it is
+so frequently subjected? And how easy it is to prevent the pain and
+danger of the change, by more effectually darkening the room into which
+it is introduced!</p>
+
+<p>But we have testimony on this point. A distinguished German physician
+states that he has known many cases of permanent blindness from this
+very cause to which we have referred. The Principal of the Institution
+for the Blind, at Vienna, says he is confident that most children who
+appear to be born blind, are actually made blind by neglecting this same
+precaution.</p>
+
+
+
+<br><br><hr style="width: 65%;"><br><br>
+<h2><a name="CHAPTER_II.">CHAPTER II.</a></h2>
+
+<h3>TEMPERATURE.</h3>
+
+<blockquote class="small">General principle&mdash;&quot;Keep cool.&quot; Our own sensations not always to be
+trusted. Thermometer. Why infants require more external heat than
+adults. Means of warmth. Air heated in other apartments. Clothes taking
+fire. Stove&mdash;railing around it. Excess of heat&mdash;its dangers.</blockquote>
+<br>
+
+<p>There is one general principle, on this subject, which is alike
+applicable to all persons and circumstances. It is, to keep a little too
+cool, rather than in the slightest degree too warm. In other words, the
+lowest temperature which is compatible with comfort, is, in all cases,
+best adapted to health; and a slight degree of coldness, provided it
+amount not to a chill, and is not long continued, is more safe than the
+smallest unnecessary degree of warmth.</p>
+
+<p>But the application of this rule to those over whom we have control, is
+not without its difficulties. Our own sensations are so variable,
+independently of external and obvious causes, that we cannot at all
+times judge for others, especially for infants. The absolute and real
+state of temperature in a room can only be ascertained by the aid of a
+thermometer; and no nursery should ever be without one. It should be
+placed, however, in such a situation as to indicate the real temperature
+of the atmosphere, and not where it will give a false result.</p>
+
+<p>No mother should forget that the infant, at birth, has not the power of
+generating heat, internally, to the extent which it possesses afterward.
+The lungs have as yet but a feeble, inefficient action. The purification
+of the blood, through their agency, is not only incomplete, but the heat
+evolved is as yet inconsiderable. In the absence of internal heat, then,
+there is an increased demand externally. If 60&deg; be deemed suitable for
+most other persons, the new-born infant may, for a few days, require 65&deg;
+or even 70&deg;.</p>
+
+<p>Much may and should be done in preserving the child in a proper
+temperature by means of its clothing. On this point I shall speak at
+length, in another part of this work. My present purpose is simply to
+treat of the temperature of the nursery.</p>
+
+<p>The best way of warming a nursery&mdash;or indeed any other room, where MERE
+warmth is demanded&mdash;is by means of air heated in other apartments, and
+admitted through openings in the floor or fire-place. The air is not
+only thus made more pure, but every possibility of accidents, such as
+having the clothes take fire, is precluded. This last consideration is
+one of very great importance, and I hope will not be much longer
+overlooked in infantile education.</p>
+
+<p>Next to that, in point of usefulness and safety, is a stove, placed near
+or IN the fire-place, and defended by an iron railing. Most people
+prefer an open stove; and on some accounts it is indeed preferable,
+especially where it is desirable to burn coal. Still I think that the
+direct rays of the heat, and the glare of light from open stoves and
+fire-places, particularly for the young, form a very serious objection
+to their use.</p>
+
+<p>One of the strongest objections to open stoves and fire-places in the
+nursery is, the increased exposure to accidents. I know it is said that
+this evil may be avoided by laying aside the use of cotton, and wearing
+nothing but worsted or flannel. This is indeed true; but I do not like
+the idea of being compelled to dress children in flannel or worsted, at
+all times when the least particle of fire is demanded; for this would be
+to wear this stimulating kind of clothing, in our climate, the greater
+part of the year.</p>
+
+<p>Besides, I write for many mothers who are compelled to use cotton, on
+account of the expense of flannel. And if the stove be a close one, and
+well defended by a railing, cotton will seldom expose to danger. Still,
+as has been already said, the introduction of heated air from another
+apartment, whenever it can possibly be afforded, is incomparably better
+than either stoves or fire-places.</p>
+
+<p>Dr. Dewees is fully persuaded that the excessive heat of nurseries has
+occasioned a great mortality among very young children. &quot;In the first
+place,&quot; he says, &quot;it over-stimulates them; and in the second, it renders
+them so susceptible of cold, that any draught of cold air endangers
+their lives. They are in a constant perspiration, which is frequently
+checked by an exposure to even an atmosphere of moderate temperature.&quot;
+If this is but to repeat what has been already said, the importance of
+the subject seems to be a sufficient apology.</p>
+
+
+
+<br><br><hr style="width: 65%;"><br><br>
+<h2><a name="CHAPTER_III.">CHAPTER III.</a></h2>
+
+<h3>VENTILATION.</h3>
+
+<blockquote class="small">General ignorance of the constitution of the atmosphere. The subject
+briefly explained. Oxygen gas. Nitrogen. Carbonic acid. Fires, candles,
+and breathing dependent on oxygen. Danger from carbonic acid. How it
+destroys people. Impurity of the air by means of lamps and candles.
+Other sources of impurity. Experiment of putting the candle under the
+bed-clothes. Covering the heads of infants while sleeping&mdash;its dangers.
+Proportions of oxygen and nitrogen in pure and impure air. No wonder
+children become sickly. Particular means of ventilating rooms. Caution
+in regard to lamps. Washing, ironing, cooking, &amp;c., in a nursery. Their
+evil tendency. Fumigation&mdash;camphor, vinegar.</blockquote>
+<br>
+
+<p>Few people take sufficient pains to preserve the air in any of their
+apartments pure; for few know what the constitution of our atmosphere
+is, and in how many ways and with what ease it is rendered impure.</p>
+
+<p>It is not my purpose to go into a learned, scientific account in this
+place, or even in this work, of the constitution of the atmosphere. A
+few plain statements are all that are indispensable. The atmosphere
+which we breathe is composed of two different airs or gases. One of
+these is called oxygen, [Footnote: Oxygen gas is the chief supporter of
+combustion, as well as of respiration. It is the vital part, as it were,
+of the air. No animal or vegetable could long exist without it. And yet
+if alone, unmixed, it is too pure and too refined for animals to
+breathe. Nitrogen gas, on the contrary, while alone, will not support
+either respiration or combustion; mixed, however, with oxygen, it
+dilutes it, and in the most happy manner fits it for reception into the
+lungs.] and the other nitrogen. There is another gas usually found with
+these two, in smaller quantity, called carbonic acid gas; but whether it
+is necessary, in a very small quantity, to health, chemists, I believe,
+are not agreed. One thing, however, is certain&mdash;that if any portion of
+it is healthful, it must be very little&mdash;not more, certainly, than
+one-fiftieth or one-hundredth of the whole mass.</p>
+
+<p>It is by means of the oxygen it contains, that air sustains life and
+combustion. Were it not for this, neither fires nor candles would burn,
+and no animal could breathe a single moment. Breathing consumes this
+oxygen of the air very rapidly. When the oxygen is present in about a
+certain proportion, combustion and respiration go on well, but when its
+natural proportion is diminished, the fire does not burn so well,
+neither does the candle; and no one can breathe so freely.</p>
+
+<p>Not only are breathing and combustion impeded or disturbed by the
+diminution of oxygen in the atmosphere, but just in proportion as oxygen
+is diminished by these two processes, or either of them, carbonic acid
+is formed, which is not only bad for combustion, but much worse for
+health. If any considerable quantity of it is inhaled, it appears to be
+an absolute poison to the human system; and if in <i>very large quantity</i>,
+will often cause immediate death.</p>
+
+<p>It is this gas, accumulated in large quantities, that destroys so many
+people in close rooms, where there is no chimney, nor any other place
+for the bad air to escape. But it not only kills people outright&mdash;it
+partly kills, that is, it poisons, more or less, hundreds of thousands.</p>
+
+<p>In a nursery there is the mother and child, and perhaps the nurse, to
+render the air impure by breathing, the fire and the lamp or candle to
+contribute to the same result, besides several other causes not yet
+mentioned. One of these is nearly related to the former. I allude to the
+fact that our skins, by perspiration and by other means, are a source of
+much impurity to the atmosphere; a fact which will be more fully
+explained and illustrated in the chapter on Bathing and Cleanliness. It
+is only necessary to say, in this place, that it is not the matter of
+perspiration alone which, issuing from the skin, renders the air
+impure; there are other exhalations more or less constantly going off
+from every living body, especially from the lungs; and carbonic acid gas
+is even formed all over the surface of the skin, as well as by means of
+the lungs.</p>
+
+<p>One needs no better proof that carbonic acid is formed on the surface of
+the body, than the fact that after the body has been closely covered all
+night, if you introduce a candle under the bed-clothes into this
+confined air, it will be quickly extinguished, because there is too
+much carbonic acid gas there, and too little oxygen.</p>
+
+<p>We may hence see at once the evil of covering the heads of infants when
+they lie down&mdash;a very common practice. The air, when pure, contains a
+little more than 20 parts of oxygen, and a little less than 80 of
+nitrogen. Breathing this air, as I have already shown, consumes the
+oxygen, which is so necessary to life and health, and leaves in its
+place an increase of nitrogen and carbonic acid gas, which are not
+necessary to health, and the latter of which is even positively
+injurious. But when the oxygen, instead of forming 20 or more parts in
+100 of the atmosphere of the nursery, is reduced to 15 or 18 parts only,
+and the carbonic acid gas is increased from 1 or 2 parts in 100, to 5,
+6, 8 or 10&mdash;when to this is added the other noxious exhalations from the
+body, and from the lamp or candle, fire-place, feather bed, stagnant
+fluids in the room, &amp;c., &amp;c.&mdash;is it any wonder that children, in the
+end, become sickly? What else could be expected but that the seeds of
+disease, thus early sown, should in due time spring up, and produce
+their appropriate fruits?</p>
+
+<p>It is sometimes said that fire in a room purifies it. It undoubtedly
+does so, to a certain extent, if fresh air be often admitted; but not
+otherwise.</p>
+
+<p>I have classed feather beds among the common causes of impurity. Dr.
+Dewees also condemns them, most decidedly; and gives substantial reasons
+for &quot;driving them out of the nursery.&quot;</p>
+
+<p>In speaking of the structure of the room used for a nursery, I have
+adverted to the importance of having a large or double room, with
+sliding doors between, in order that the occupants may go into one of
+them, while the other is being ventilated. But whatever may be the
+structure of the room, the circumstances of the occupants, or the state
+of the weather, every nursery ought to be most thoroughly ventilated,
+once a day, at least; and when the weather is tolerable, twice a day. If
+there is but one apartment, and fear is entertained of the dampness of
+the fresh air introduced, or of currents, and if the mother and babe
+cannot retire, there is a last resort, which is for them to get into
+bed, and cover themselves a short time with the clothing. For though I
+have prohibited the covering of the face with the bed-clothes for any
+considerable length of time together, yet to do so for some fifteen or
+twenty minutes is an evil of far less magnitude than to suffer an
+apartment to remain without being ventilated, for twenty-four hours
+together&mdash;a very common occurrence.</p>
+
+<p>When a lamp is kept burning in a nursery during the night, it should
+always be placed at the door of the stove, or in the chimney place, that
+its smoke, and the bad airs or gases which are formed, may escape. But
+it is better, in general, to avoid burning lamps or candles during the
+night. By means of common matches, a light may be produced, when
+necessary, almost instantly; especially if you have a spirit lamp in the
+nursery, or what is still better, one of spirit gas&mdash;that is, a mixture
+of alcohol and turpentine.</p>
+
+<p>It is highly desirable that all washing, ironing, and cooking should be
+avoided in the nursery. They load the air with noxious effluvia or
+vapor, or with particles of dust; none of which ought ever to enter the
+delicate lungs of an infant.</p>
+
+<p>Fumigations with camphor, vinegar, and other similar substances, have
+long been in reputation as a means of purifying the air in sick-rooms
+and nurseries; but they are of very little consequence. Fresh air, if it
+can be had, is always better.</p>
+
+
+
+<br><br><hr style="width: 65%;"><br><br>
+<h2><a name="CHAPTER_IV."></a>CHAPTER IV.</h2>
+
+<h3>THE CHILD'S DRESS</h3>
+
+<blockquote class="small">General principles. SEC. 1. Swathing the body&mdash;its numerous evils.&mdash;SEC.
+2. Form of the dress. Fashion. Tight lacing&mdash;its dangers. Structure and
+motion of the chest. Diseases from tight lacing.&mdash;SEC. 3. Material of
+dress. Flannel&mdash;its uses. Cleanliness. Cotton&mdash;silk&mdash;linen.&mdash;SEC. 4.
+Quantity of dress. Power of habit. Anecdote. Begin right. Change.
+Dampness.&mdash;SEC. 5. Caps&mdash;their evils. Going bare-headed.&mdash;SEC. 6. Hats
+and bonnets.&mdash;SEC. 7. Covering for the feet. Stockings. Garters.
+Shoes&mdash;thick soles.&mdash;SEC. 8. Pins&mdash;their danger. Shocking
+anecdote.&mdash;SEC. 9. Remaining wet.&mdash;SEC. 10. Dress of boys. Tight
+jackets. Stocks and cravats. Boots.&mdash;SEC. 11. Dress of girls&mdash;should be
+loose. Temperature. Exposure to the night air.</blockquote>
+<br>
+
+<p>Dress serves three important purposes:&mdash;1. To cover us; 2. To defend us
+against cold; 3. To defend our bodies and limbs from injury. There is
+one more purpose of dress; in case of deformity, it seems to improve the
+appearance.</p>
+
+<p>In all our arrangements in regard to dress, whether of children or of
+adults, we should ever keep in mind the above principles. The form,
+fashion, material, application, and quantity of all clothing,
+especially for infants, ought to be regulated by these three or four
+rules.</p>
+
+<p>The subject of this chapter is one of so much importance, and embraces
+such a variety of items, that it will be more convenient, both to the
+reader and myself, to consider it under several minor heads.</p>
+<br>
+
+<h4>SEC. 1. <i>Swathing the Body.</i></h4>
+
+<p>Buffon, in his &quot;Natural History,&quot; says that in France, an infant has
+hardly enjoyed the liberty of moving and stretching its limbs, before it
+is put into confinement. &quot;It is swathed,&quot; says he, &quot;its head is fixed,
+its legs are stretched out at full length, and its arms placed straight
+down by the side of its body. In this manner it is bound tight with
+cloths and bandages, so that it cannot stir a limb; indeed it is
+fortunate that the poor thing is not muffled up so as to be unable to
+breathe.&quot;</p>
+
+<p>All swathing, except with a single bandage around the abdomen, is
+decidedly unreasonable, injurious and cruel. I do not pretend that the
+remarks of M. Buffon are fully applicable to the condition of infants in
+the United States. The good sense of the community nowhere permits us to
+transform a beautiful babe quite into an Egyptian mummy. Still there
+are many considerable errors on the subject of infantile dress, which,
+in the progress of my remarks, I shall find it necessary to expose.</p>
+
+<p>The use of a simple band cannot be objected to. It affords a general
+support to the abdomen, and a particular one to the <i>umbilicus</i>. The
+last point is one of great importance, where there is any tendency to a
+rupture at this part of the body&mdash;a tendency which very often exists in
+feeble children. And without some support of this kind, crying,
+coughing, sneezing, and straining in any way, might greatly aggravate
+the evil, if not produce serious consequences.</p>
+
+<p>But, in order to afford a support to the abdomen in the best manner, it
+is by no means necessary that the bandage should be drawn very tight.
+Two thirds of the nurses in this country greatly err in this respect,
+and suppose that the more tightly a bandage is drawn, the better. It
+should be firm, but yet gently yielding; and therefore a piece of
+flannel cut &quot;bias,&quot; as it is termed, or, obliquely with respect to the
+threads of which it is composed, is the most appropriate material.</p>
+
+<p>If the attention of the mother were necessary nowhere else, it would be
+indispensable in the application of this article. If she do not take
+special pains to prevent it, the erring though well meaning nurse may
+so compress the body with the bandage as to produce pain and uneasiness,
+and sometimes severe colic. Nay, worse evils than even this have been
+known to arise. When a child sneezes, or coughs, or cries, the abdomen
+should naturally yield gently; but if it is so confined that it cannot
+yield where the band is applied, it will yield in an unnatural
+proportion below, to the great danger of producing a species of rupture,
+no less troublesome than the one which such tight swathing is designed
+to prevent.</p>
+
+<p>But besides the bandage already mentioned, no other restraint of the
+body and limbs of a child is at all admissible. The Creator has kindly
+ordained that the human body and limbs, and especially its muscles, or
+moving powers, shall be developed by exercise. Confine an arm or a leg,
+even in a child of ten years of age, and the limb will not increase
+either in strength or size as it otherwise would, because its muscles
+are not exercised; and the fact is still more obvious in infancy.</p>
+
+<p>There is a still deeper evil. On all the limbs are fixed two sets of
+muscles; one to extend, the other to draw up or bend the limb. If you
+keep a limb extended for a considerable time, you weaken the one set of
+muscles; if you keep it bent, you weaken the other. This weakness may
+become so great that the limb will be rendered useless. There are cases
+on record&mdash;well authenticated&mdash;where children, by being obliged to sit
+in one place on a hard floor, have been made cripples for life. Hundreds
+of others are injured, though they may not become absolutely crippled.</p>
+
+<p>I repeat it, therefore, their dress should be so free and loose that
+they may use their little limbs, their neck and their bodies, as much as
+they please; and in every desired direction. The practices of confining
+their arms while they lie down, for fear they should scratch themselves
+with their nails, and of pinning the clothes round their feet, are
+therefore highly reprehensible. Better that they should even
+occasionally scratch themselves with their nails, than that they should
+be made the victims of injurious restraint. Who would think of tying up
+or muffling the young lamb or kid? And even the young plant&mdash;what think
+you would be the effect, if its leaves and branches could not move
+gently with the soft breezes? Would the fluids circulate, and health be
+promoted: or would they stagnate, and a morbid, sickly and dwarfish
+state be the consequence?</p>
+
+<p>Those whose object is to make infancy, as well as any other period of
+existence, a season of happiness, will not fail to find an additional
+motive for giving the little stranger entire freedom in the land
+whither he has so recently arrived, especially when he seems to enjoy
+it so much. Who can be so hardened as to confine him, unless compelled
+by the most pressing necessity?</p>
+<br>
+
+<h4>SEC. 2. <i>Form of the Dress.</i></h4>
+
+<p>On this subject a writer in the London Literary Gazette of some eight or
+ten years ago, lays down the following general directions, to which, in
+cold weather, there can be but one possible objection, which is, they
+are not <i>alamode</i>, and are not, therefore, likely to be followed.</p>
+
+<p>&quot;All that a child requires, so far as regards clothing, in the first
+month of its existence, is a simple covering for the trunk and
+extremities of the body, made of a material soft and agreeable to the
+skin, and which can retain, in an equable degree, the animal
+temperature. These qualities are to be found in perfection in fine
+flannel; and I recommend that the only clothing, for the first month or
+six weeks, be a square piece of flannel, large enough to involve fully
+and overlap the whole of the babe, with the exception of the head, which
+should be left totally uncovered. This wrapper should be fixed by a
+button near the breast, and left so loose as to permit the arms and legs
+to be freely stretched, and moved in every direction. It should be
+succeeded by a loose flannel gown with sleeves, which should be worn
+till the end of the second month; after which it may be changed to the
+common clothing used by children of this age.&quot;</p>
+
+<p>The advantages of such a dress are, that the movements of the infant
+will be, as we have already seen, free and unrestrained, and we shall
+escape the misery of hearing the screams which now so frequently
+accompany the dressing and undressing of almost every child. No chafings
+from friction, moreover, can occur; and as the insensible perspiration
+is in this way promoted over the whole surface of the body, the sympathy
+between the stomach and skin is happily maintained. A healthy sympathy
+of this kind, duly kept up, does much towards preserving the stomach in
+a good state, and the skin from eruptions and sores.</p>
+
+<p>But as I apprehend that christianity is not yet very deeply rooted in
+the minds and hearts of parents, I have already expressed my doubts
+whether they are prepared to receive and profit by advice at once
+rational and physiological. Still I cannot help hoping that I shall
+succeed in persuading mothers to have every part of a child's dress
+perfectly loose, except the band already referred to; and that should be
+but moderately tight.</p>
+
+<p>Common humanity ought to teach us better than to put the body of a
+helpless infant into a <i>vise</i>, and press it to death, as the first mark
+of our attention. Who has not been struck with a strange inconsistency
+in the conduct of mothers and nurses, who, while they are so exceedingly
+tender towards the infant in some points as to injure it by their
+kindness, are yet almost insensible to its cries of distress while
+dressing it? So far, indeed, are they from feeling emotions of pity,
+that they often make light of its cries, regarding them as signs of
+health and vigor.</p>
+
+<p>There can be no doubt, I confess, that the first cries of an infant, if
+strong, both indicate and promote a healthy state of the lungs, to a
+certain extent; but there will always be unavoidable occasions enough
+for crying to promote health, even after we have done all we can in the
+way of avoiding pain. They who only draw the child's dress the tighter,
+the more it cries, are guilty of a crime of little less enormity than
+murder.</p>
+
+<p>&quot;Think,&quot; says Dr. Buchan, &quot;of the immense number of children that die of
+convulsions soon after birth; and be assured that these (its cries) are
+much oftener owing to galling pressure, or some external injury, than to
+any inward cause.&quot; This same writer adds, that he has known a child
+which was &quot;seized with convulsion fits&quot; soon after being &quot;swaddled,&quot;
+immediately relieved by taking off the rollers and bandages; and he says
+that a loose dress prevented the return of the disease.</p>
+
+<p>I think it is obvious that the utmost extent to which we ought to go, in
+yielding to the fashion, as it regards form, is to use three pieces of
+clothing&mdash;the shirt, the petticoat and the frock; all of which must be
+as loose as possible; and before the infant begins to crawl about much,
+the latter should be long, for the salve of covering the feet and legs.
+At four or five years of age, loose trowsers, with boys, may be
+substituted for the petticoat; but it is a question whether something
+like the frock might not, with every individual, be usefully retained
+through life.</p>
+
+<p>I wish it were unnecessary, in a book like this, to join in the general
+complaint against tight lacing any part of the body, but especially the
+chest. But as this work of torture is sometimes begun almost from the
+cradle, and as prevention is better than cure, the hope of preventing
+that for which no cure appears yet to have been found, leads me to make
+a few remarks on the subject.</p>
+
+<p>As it has long been my opinion that one reason why mothers continue to
+overlook the subject is, that they do not understand the structure and
+motion of the chest, I have attempted the following explanation and
+illustration.</p>
+
+<p>I have already said, that if we bandage tightly, for a considerable
+time, any part of the human frame, it is apt to become weaker. The more
+a portion of the frame which is furnished with muscles, those curious
+instruments of motion, is used, provided it is not <i>over</i>-exerted, the
+more vigorous it is. Bind up an arm, or a hand, or a foot, and keep it
+bound for twelve hours of the day for many years, and think you it will
+be as strong as it otherwise would have been? Facts prove the contrary.
+The Chinese swathe the feet of their infant females; and they are not
+only small, but weak.</p>
+
+<p>I have said their feet are smaller for being bandaged. So is a hand or
+an arm. Action&mdash;healthy, constant action&mdash;is indispensable to the
+perfect development of the body and limbs. Why it is so, is another
+thing. But so it is; and it is a principle or law of the great Creator
+which cannot be evaded. More than this; if you bind some parts of the
+body tightly, so as to compress them as much as you can without
+producing actual pain, you will find that the part not only ceases to
+grow, but actually dwindles away. I have seen this tried again and
+again. Even the solid parts perish under pressure. When a person first
+wears a false head of hair, the clasp which rests upon the head, at the
+upper part of the forehead, being new and elastic, and pressing rather
+closely, will, in a few months, often make quite an indentation in the
+cranium or bone of the head.</p>
+
+<p>Now is it probable&mdash;nay, is it possible&mdash;that the lungs, especially
+those of young persons, can expand and come to their full and natural
+size under pressure, even though the pressure should be slight? Must
+they not be weakened? And if the pressure be strong, as it sometimes is,
+must they not dwindle away?</p>
+
+<p>We know, too, from the nature and structure of the lungs themselves,
+that tight lacing must injure them. Many mothers have very imperfect
+notions of what physicians mean, when they say that corsets impede the
+circulation, by preventing the full and undisturbed action of the lungs.
+They get no higher ideas of the <i>motion</i> of the <i>chest</i>, than what is
+connected with bending the body forward and backward, from right to
+left, &amp;c. They know that, if dressed too tightly, <i>this</i> motion is not
+so free as it otherwise would be; but if they are not so closely laced
+as to prevent that free bending of the body of which I have been
+speaking, they think there can be no danger; or at least, none of
+consequence.</p>
+
+<p>Now it happens that this sort of motion is not that to which physicians
+refer, when they complain of corsets. Strictly speaking, this bending of
+the whole body is performed by the muscles of the back, and not those
+of the chest. The latter have very little to do with it. It is true,
+that even <i>this</i> motion ought not to be hindered; but if it is, the evil
+is one of little comparative magnitude.</p>
+
+<p>Every time we breathe naturally, all the ribs, together with the breast
+bone, have motion. The ribs rise, and spread a little outward,
+especially towards the fore part. The breast bone not only rises, but
+swings forward a little, like a pendulum. But the moment the chest is
+swathed or bandaged, this motion must be hindered; and the more, in
+proportion to the tightness.</p>
+
+<p>On this point, those persons make a sad mistake, who say that &quot;a busk
+not too wide nor too rigid seems to correspond to the supporting spine,
+and to assist, rather than impede the efforts of nature, to keep the
+body erect.&quot;</p>
+
+<p>Can we seriously compare the offices of the spine with those of the
+ribs, and suppose that because the former is fixed like a post, at the
+back part of the lungs, therefore an artificial post in front would be
+useful? Why, we might just as well argue in favor of hanging weights to
+a door, or a clog to a pendulum, in order to make it swing backwards and
+forwards more easily. We might almost as well say that the elbow ought
+to be made firm, to correspond with the shoulders, and thus become
+advocates for letting the stays or bandages enclose the arm above the
+elbow, and fasten it firmly to the side. Indeed, the consequences in the
+latter case, aside from a little inconvenience, would not be half so
+destructive to health as in the former. The ribs, where they join to the
+back bone, form hinges; and hinges are made for motion. But if you
+fasten them to a post in front, of what value are the hinges?</p>
+
+<p>If mothers ask, of what use this motion of the lungs is, it is only
+necessary to refer them to the chapter on Ventilation, in which I trust
+the subject is made intelligible, and a satisfactory answer afforded.</p>
+
+<p>But I might appeal to facts. Let us look at females around us generally.
+Do their countenances indicate that they enjoy as good health as they
+did when dress was worn more loosely? Have they not oftener a leaden
+hue, as if the blood in them was darker? Are they not oftener
+short-breathed than formerly? As they advance in life, have they not
+more chronic diseases? Are not their chests smaller and weaker? And as
+the doctrine that if one member suffers, all the other members suffer
+with it, is not less true in physiology than in morals, do we not find
+other organs besides the lungs weakened? Surgeons and physicians, who,
+like faithful sentinels, have watched at their post half a century,
+tell us, moreover, that if these foolish and injurious practices to
+which I refer are tolerated two centuries longer, every female will be
+deformed, and the whole race greatly degenerated, physically and
+morally.</p>
+
+<p>Those with whom no arguments will avail, are recommended to read the
+following remarks from the first volume of the Library of Health, p.
+119:</p>
+
+<p>&quot;It is related, on the authority of Macgill, that in Tunis, after a girl
+is engaged, or betrothed, she is then <i>fattened</i>. For this purpose, she
+is cooped up in a small room, and shackles of gold and silver are placed
+upon her ancles and wrists, as a piece of dress. If she is to be married
+to a man who has discharged, despatched, or lost a former wife, the
+shackles which the former wife wore are put on the new bride's limbs,
+and she is fed till they are filled up to a proper thickness. The food
+used for this custom worthy of the barbarians is called <i>drough</i>, which
+is of an extraordinary fattening quality, and also famous for rendering
+the milk of the nurse rich and abundant. With this and their national
+dish, <i>cuscasoo</i>, the bride is literally crammed, and many actually die
+under the spoon.&quot;</p>
+
+<p>We laugh at all this, and well we may; but there are customs not very
+far from home, no less ridiculous.</p>
+
+<p>&quot;There is a country four or five thousand miles westward of Tunis,
+where the females, to a very great extent, are emaciated for marriage,
+instead being fattened. This process is begun, in part, by shackles&mdash;not
+of gold and silver, perhaps, but of wood&mdash;but instead of being put on
+loosely, and causing the body or limbs to fill them, they are made to
+compress the body in the outset; and as the size of the latter
+diminishes, the shackles are contracted or tightened. As with the
+eastern, so with the western females, many of them die under the
+process; though a far greater number die at a remote period, as the
+consequence of it.&quot;</p>
+<br>
+
+<h4>SEC. 3. <i>Material.</i></h4>
+
+<p>I have already committed myself to the reader as favoring the use of
+soft flannel in cold weather, especially for children who are not yet
+able to run about freely in the open air. The advantages of an early use
+of this material, at least for under-clothes, are numerous. The
+following are a few of them.</p>
+
+<p>1. Flannel, next to the skin, is a pleasant flesh brush; keeping up a
+gentle and equable irritation, and promoting perspiration and every
+other function which it is the office of the skin to perform, or assist
+in performing.</p>
+
+<p>2. It guards the body against the cooling effects of evaporation, when
+in a state of profuse perspiration.</p>
+
+<p>3. By preventing the heat of the body from escaping too rapidly, it
+keeps up a steadier temperature on the surface than any other known
+substance. The importance of the last consideration is greater, in a
+climate like our own, than elsewhere.</p>
+
+<p>But there are limits to the use of this article of clothing. Whenever
+the temperature of the atmosphere is so great, even without artificial
+heat, that we no longer wish to retain the heat of the body by the
+clothing, then all flannel should be removed at once, and linen should
+be substituted; taking care to replace the flannel whenever the
+temperature of the atmosphere, as indicated by the thermometer, or by
+the child's feelings, may seem to require it.</p>
+
+<p>It should also be kept clean. There is a very general mistake abroad on
+this subject. Many suppose that flannel can be worn longer without
+washing than other kinds of cloth. On the contrary, it should be changed
+oftener than cotton, or even linen, because it will absorb a great deal
+of fluid, especially the matter of perspiration, which, if long
+retained, is believed to ferment, and produce unhealthy, if not
+poisonous gases. For this reason, too, flannel for children's clothing
+should be white, that it may show dirt the more readily, and obtain the
+more frequent washing; although it is for this very reason&mdash;its
+liability to exhibit the least particles of dirt&mdash;that it is commonly
+rejected.</p>
+
+<p>One caution more in regard to the use of flannel may be necessary. With
+some children, owing to a peculiarity of constitution, flannel will
+produce eruptions on the skin, which are very troublesome. Whenever this
+is the case, the flannel should be immediately laid aside; upon which
+the eruptions usually disappear.</p>
+
+<p>If parents would take proper pains to get the lighter, softer kinds of
+flannel for this purpose, and be particular about its looseness and
+quantity, I should prefer, as I have already intimated, to have very
+young children, in our climate, wear this material the greater part of
+the year, excepting perhaps July and August.</p>
+
+<p>My reasons for this course would be, first, that I like the stimulus of
+soft flannel on the skin, if changed sufficiently often, better than
+that of any other kind of clothing. Secondly, cotton is so liable to
+take fire, that its use in the nursery and among little children seems
+very hazardous. Thirdly, silk is not quite the appropriate material, as
+a general thing, besides being too expensive; and fourthly, linen is
+not warm enough, except in mid-summer.</p>
+
+<p>Except, therefore, in July and August, and in cases of idiosyncracy,
+such as have just been alluded to, I would use flannel for the
+under-clothes of young children, throughout the year. But whenever they
+acquire sufficient strength to walk and run, and play much in the open
+air, I would gradually lay aside the use of all flannel, even in winter.
+Great attention, however, must be paid to the <i>quantity</i>. The parent
+who, guided by this rule, should keep on her child the same amount of
+flannel, and of the same thickness, from January to June 30th, and then,
+on the first of July, should suddenly exchange it for thin linen, in
+moderate quantity, might find trouble from it. It is better to make the
+changes more gradually; otherwise, whatever may be the material of the
+dress, the child will be likely to suffer.</p>
+<br>
+
+<h4>SEC. 4. <i>Quantity.</i></h4>
+
+<p>The quantity of clothing used by different individuals of the same age,
+in the same climate, possessing constitutions nearly alike, and
+following similar occupations, is so different as to strike us with
+surprise when we first observe the fact.</p>
+
+<p>One will wear nothing but a coarse linen or cotton shirt, coarse coat,
+waistcoat, and pantaloons, and boots, in the coldest weather. He never,
+unless it be on the Sabbath, puts on even a cravat, and never in any
+case stockings or mittens.</p>
+
+<p>Another, in similar circumstances in all respects, constantly wears his
+thick stockings, flannel wrapper and drawers, and cravat; and seldom
+goes out, in cold weather, without mittens and an overcoat. He is not a
+whit warmer: indeed he often suffers more from the cold, than his
+neighbor who dresses in the manner just described.</p>
+
+<p>Why all this difference? It is no doubt the result of habit. Any
+individual may accustom himself to much or little clothing. And the
+earlier the habit is begun, the greater is its influence.</p>
+
+<p>Some persons, observing how little clothing one may accustom himself to
+use and yet be comfortable, have told us, that so far as mere
+temperature is concerned, we need no clothing at all. They relate the
+story of the Scythian and Alexander. Alexander asked the former how he
+could go without clothes in such a cold climate. He replied, by asking
+Alexander how he could go with his face naked. &quot;Habit reconciles us to
+this;&quot; was the reply. &quot;Think me, then, <i>all</i> face,&quot; said the Scythian.</p>
+
+<p>But admitting that certain individuals, and even a few rude tribes,
+have gone without clothing; did they therefore follow, in this respect,
+the intentions of nature? The greatest stickler for adhering to nature's
+plan, cannot prove this. Analogy is against it. Most of the other
+animals, even in hot climates, are furnished with a hairy covering from
+the first; and in cold climates, the Author of their being has even
+provided them with an increase of clothing for the winter. Their fur, on
+the approach of cold weather, not only becomes whiter, and therefore
+conducts the heat away from the body more slowly, but, as every dealer
+in furs well understands, it becomes softer and thicker. And yet the
+blood of the furred animals of cold countries is as warm as ours, if not
+warmer.</p>
+
+<p>The inferences which it seems to me we ought to make from this are, that
+if other animals require clothing, and even a change of clothing, so
+does man; and that as the Creator has left him to provide, by his own
+ingenuity, for a great many of his wants, instead of furnishing him with
+instinct to direct him, so in relation to dress. And even if it could be
+proved that dress were naturally unnecessary, with reference to
+temperature, I should still defend its use on other principles. The few
+speculative minds, therefore, that in the vagaries of their fancy, but
+never in their practice, reject it, are not to be regarded.</p>
+
+<p>The principle laid down in the commencement of the chapter on
+Temperature, is the great principle which should guide us in regard to
+dress. But although we should always keep a little too cool rather than
+a little too warm, it is by no means desirable to be cold. Any degree of
+chilliness, long continued, interrupts the functions which the skin
+ought to perform, and thus produces mischief.</p>
+
+<p>The same rules, in this respect, apply to eating, as well as to dress.
+It is better to eat a little less than nature requires, than a little
+more. It is a generally received opinion, however, that mankind
+frequently, at least in this country, eat about twice as much as health
+requires. This is owing to habit; and perhaps the power of the latter is
+as great in this respect as in regard to dress.</p>
+
+<p>The great point in regard to food or dress is, to <i>begin</i> right, and,
+observing what nature requires&mdash;studying at the same time the testimony
+of others&mdash;to endeavor to keep within the bounds she has assigned. It
+has already been more than intimated, that if the nursery be kept in a
+proper temperature, a single loose piece of dress is, for some time, all
+that is required. In pursuance of this principle, through life, I
+believe few persons would be found who would need more at one time than
+a single suit of woollen clothes, even in the severest winters of our
+northern climate.</p>
+
+<p>I have always observed that they who wear the greatest amount of
+clothing, are most subject to colds. There are obvious reasons why it
+should be so. This, then, if a fact, is one of the strongest reasons in
+favor of acquiring a habit of going as thinly clad as we possibly can,
+and not at the same time feel any inconvenience.</p>
+
+<p>But after all, whether it be winter or summer, we must vary our clothing
+with the variations of the weather, as indicated by the thermometer, and
+our own feelings. Sometimes, in our ever-changing and ever-changeable
+climate, it may be necessary to vary our dress three or four times a
+day. Some cry out against this practice as dangerous, but I have never
+found it so. I have known persons who made it a constant practice; and I
+never found that they sustained any injury from it, except the loss of a
+little time; and the increase of comfort was more than enough to
+compensate for that. There is one thing to be avoided, however, whether
+we change our clothing&mdash;our linen especially&mdash;twice a day, or only twice
+a week&mdash;which is, <i>dampness</i>.</p>
+<br>
+
+<h4>SEC. 5. <i>Caps.</i></h4>
+
+<p>The practice of putting caps on infants is happily going by; and perhaps
+it may be thought unnecessary for me to dwell a single moment on the
+subject. But as the practice still prevails in some parts of the
+country, it may be well to bestow upon it a few passing remarks.</p>
+
+<p>Many mothers have not considered that the circulation of the blood in
+young infants is peculiarly active; that a large amount of blood is at
+that period carried to the head; that in consequence of this, the head
+is proportionably hotter than in adults; and that from this source
+arises the tendency of very young children to brain-fever, dropsy in the
+head, and other diseases of this part of the system. But these are most
+undoubted facts.</p>
+
+<p>Hence one reason why the heads of infants should be kept as cool as
+possible; and though a thin cap confines less heat than a thick head of
+hair does when they are older, yet they are less able to bear it. The
+truth is, that nature furnishes a covering for the head, just about as
+fast as a covering is required, and the child's safety will permit.</p>
+
+<p>At the present day, few persons will probably be found, who will defend
+the utility of caps, any longer than till the hair is grown. The
+general apology for their use after this period, and indeed in most
+instances before, is, that they look pretty. &quot;What would people say to
+see my darling without a cap?&quot;</p>
+
+<p>But when the head is kept, from the first, totally uncovered, the hair
+grows more rapidly, dandruff and other scurfy diseases rarely attack the
+scalp; catarrh, snuffles, and other similar complaints, and above all,
+dropsy in the head, seldom show themselves; and the period of cutting
+teeth, that most dangerous period in the life of an infant, is passed
+over with much more safety.</p>
+
+<p>&quot;Nothing but custom,&quot; says a foreign writer, &quot;can reconcile us to the
+cap, with all its lace and trumpery ornaments, on the beautiful head of
+a child; and I would ask any one to say candidly, whether he thinks the
+children in the pictures of Titian and Raffaelle would be improved by
+having their heads covered with caps, instead of the silken curls&mdash;the
+adornment of nature&mdash;which cluster round their smiling faces. If there
+were no other reason for disusing caps for infants, but the improvement
+which it produces in the <i>appearance</i> of the child, I would maintain
+that this is a sufficient inducement.&quot; And I concur with him fully.</p>
+
+<p>As to the notion&mdash;now I hope nearly exploded&mdash;that it is necessary to
+cover up the &quot;open of the head,&quot; as it is called, nothing can be more
+idle. This part of the head requires no more covering than any other
+part; and if it did, all the dress in the world could not affect it in
+the least, except to retard the growth of the bones, which, in due time,
+ought to close up the space; and this effect, anything which keeps the
+head too hot might help to produce. Of the folly of wetting the head
+with spirits, or any other medicated lotions, and of making daily
+efforts to bring it into shape, it is unnecessary to speak in the
+present chapter.</p>
+<br>
+
+<h4>SEC. 6. <i>Hats and Bonnets.</i></h4>
+
+<p>The hats worn in this country are almost universally too warm. But if it
+is a great mistake in adults to wear thick, heavy hats, it is much more
+so in the case of children.</p>
+
+<p>The infant in the nursery, as we have already seen, needs no covering of
+the kind. It is absolutely necessary that the head should be kept as
+cool as possible; and absolutely dangerous to cover it too warmly. At a
+later period, however, the danger greatly diminishes, because the
+circulation of the blood becomes more equal, and does not tend so much
+towards the brain.</p>
+
+<p>Still, however, the head is hotter than the limbs, especially the hands
+and feet; and I cannot help thinking that the hair is the only covering
+which is perfectly safe, either in childhood or age; except in the
+sunshine or in the storm. There may be&mdash;there probably is&mdash;some danger
+in going without hat or bonnet in the hot sun; though I have known many
+children, and some grown persons, who were constantly exposed in this
+way, and yet appeared not to suffer from it.</p>
+
+<p>But this may be the proper place to state that we are ever in great
+danger of deceiving ourselves on this subject. If the individuals who
+follow practices usually regarded as pernicious, while their habits in
+other respects are just like those of other persons around them who have
+similar strength, &amp;c. of constitution,&mdash;if these individuals, I say,
+were wholly to escape disease, through life, or if they were to be so
+much more free from it, and live to an age so much greater than others
+as to constitute a striking and obvious difference in their favor, we
+might then safely argue that the practices which they follow are at
+least without dangers, if not of obvious advantage. But when we see them
+beset with ills, like other people, it is not safe to pronounce their
+habits favorable to health, since it is impossible to know whether some
+of the ills which they suffer are not produced by them.</p>
+
+<p>These remarks are applicable to the disuse of any covering for the head
+in the sun and in the rain. For you will find those who adopt this
+practice from early infancy,[Footnote: I say, from early infancy;
+because we may adopt the best habits in mature years, after our
+constitutions have been broken up by error and vice, without effecting
+anything more than to keep us from actually sinking at once. Indeed, in
+most cases we ought not to expect more.] subject to as many diseases as
+those around them with similar constitutions, but with habits somewhat
+different; and as our diseases are generally the consequences of our
+errors in one way or another, it is impossible to say with certainty
+that some of them might not have arisen from exposure of the head.</p>
+
+<p>I should not hesitate, therefore, to advise all mothers to put a light
+hat or bonnet on the heads of their children, whenever they are to be
+exposed to the direct rays of the summer sun, or to the rain. And as we
+cannot always foresee when and where these exposures will arise, and as
+it is believed that these coverings, if light, will never be productive
+of much injury while we are abroad in the open air, it will follow that
+it is better to wear than to omit them.</p>
+
+<p>But while I contend for their use as consistent with health and sound
+philosophy, I must not be understood as admitting the use of such hats
+as are worn at present, even by children. They are, as I have said
+before, too hot. What should be substituted, I am unable to determine;
+but until something can be supplied, which would not be half so
+oppressive as our common wool hats, I should regard it as the lesser
+evil to omit them entirely. The danger of going bare-headed, if the
+practice is commenced early, we know from the customs of some savage
+nations, can never be very great.</p>
+<br>
+
+<h4>SEC. 7. <i>Covering for the Feet.</i></h4>
+
+<p>The same reason for avoiding the use of any covering for the head, in
+early infancy, is a sufficient reason for covering the feet well. For
+just in proportion as the blood is sent to the head in superabundance,
+and keeps up in it an undue degree of heat, just in the same proportion
+is it sent to the feet in too <i>small</i> a quantity, leaving these parts
+liable to cold. Now it is a fundamental law with medical men, that the
+feet ought to be kept warmer than the head, if possible; especially
+while the child is very young, and exposed to brain diseases.</p>
+
+<p>So long, therefore, as children are young, and unable to exercise their
+feet, stockings ought to be used, both in summer and winter; but I
+prefer to have them short, unless long ones can be used without garters.
+Everything in the shape of a garter or ligature round the limbs, body,
+or neck of a child, except a single body-band, already mentioned in
+another chapter, ought forever to be banished.</p>
+
+<p>It has often been objected, I know, that stockings will make the feet
+tender. But as no child was ever hardened by <i>continued</i> and severe cold
+applied to any part of the body, but the contrary, so no one was ever
+made more tender by being kept moderately warm. Excess of heat, like
+excess of cold, will alike weaken either children or adults; but there
+is little danger of heating the feet and legs of infants too much during
+the first year of infancy.</p>
+
+<p>It is also said that stockings are apt to receive and retain wet. But as
+I shall show in another place that wet clothes should be frequently
+changed, this objection would be equally strong against wearing coats
+and diapers.</p>
+
+<p>As to shoes, there is some variety of opinion among medical men. A few
+hold that they cramp the feet, and prevent children from learning to
+walk as early as they otherwise would. If it were best for children
+that they should learn to walk as early as possible, the last objection
+might have weight. But it seems to me not at all desirable to be in
+haste about their walking. Indeed, I greatly prefer to retard their
+progress, in this respect, rather than to hasten it.</p>
+
+<p>As to the first objection, that shoes cramp the feet too much, nearly
+its whole force turns upon the question whether they are made of proper
+materials or not. There is no need of making them of cow-hide, or any
+other thick leather. The soles are the most important part. These will
+defend the feet against pins, needles, and such other sharp substances
+as are usually found on the floor; and the upper part of the shoe, so
+long as the wearer remains in the nursery, may be made of the softest
+and most yielding material&mdash;even of cloth. Infants' shoes should always
+be made on two lasts, one for each foot.</p>
+
+<p>The philosopher Locke held, that in order to harden the young, their
+shoes ought to be &quot;so that they might leak and let in water, whenever
+they came near it.&quot; There may be and probably is, no harm in having a
+child wet his feet occasionally, provided he is soon supplied with dry
+stockings again; but it is hazardous for either children or adults to go
+too long in wet stockings, and especially to sit long in them, after
+they have been using much active exercise. I am in favor of good,
+substantial shoes and stockings for people of all ages and conditions,
+and at all seasons; and believe it entirely in accordance with sound
+economy and the laws of the human constitution.</p>
+<br>
+
+<h4>SEC. 8. <i>Pins.</i></h4>
+
+<p>The custom of using ten or a dozen pins in the dressing of children,
+ought by all means to be set aside. They not only often wound the skin,
+but they have occasionally been known to penetrate the body and the
+joints of the limbs. So many of these dreadful accidents occur, and
+where no accident happens, so much pain is occasionally given by their
+sharp points to the little sufferer, who cannot tell what the matter is,
+that it is quite time the practice were abolished.</p>
+
+<p>Do you ask what can be substituted?&mdash;The following mode is adopted by
+Dr. Dewees in his own family, as mentioned in his work on the &quot;Physical
+and Medical Treatment of Children,&quot; at page 86.</p>
+
+<p>&quot;The belly-band and the petticoat have strings; and not a single pin is
+used in their adjustment. The little shirt, which is always made much
+larger than the infant's body, is folded on the back and bosom, and
+these folds kept in their places by properly adjusting the body of the
+petticoat: so far not a pin is used. The diaper requires one, but this
+should be of a large size, and made to serve the double purpose of
+holding the folds of this article, as well as keeping the belly-band in
+its proper place; the latter having a small tag of double linen
+depending from its lower margin, by which it is secured to the diaper,
+by the same pin.</p>
+
+<p>&quot;Should an extraordinary display of best 'bib and tucker' be required
+upon any special occasion, a third pin may be admitted to ensure the
+well-sitting of the 'frock' waist in front;&mdash;this last pin, however, is
+applied externally; so that the risk of its getting into the child's
+body is very small, even if it should become displaced.&quot;</p>
+
+<p>The writer from whom the last two paragraphs are taken, says be has seen
+needles substituted for pins; and relates a long story of a child whose
+life was well nigh destroyed in this manner. It underwent months of ill
+health, and many moments of excruciating agony, before the cause of its
+trouble was suspected. Sometimes its distress was so great that nothing
+but large doses of laudanum, sufficient to stupify it, could afford the
+least relief. At last a tumor was discovered by the attending physician,
+near one of the bones on which we sit, and a needle was extracted two
+inches long. The needle had been put in its clothes, and, by slipping
+into the folds of the skin, had insinuated itself, unperceived, into the
+child's body. It is pleasing to add, that, although the little sufferer
+had now been ill seven or eight months, and had endured almost
+everything but death,&mdash;fever, diarrhoea, and the most excruciating
+pain,&mdash;it soon recovered.</p>
+
+<p>This shocking circumstance is enough, one would think, to deter every
+mother or nurse, who becomes acquainted with it, from using needles in
+infants' clothes. Happy would it be, if, in banishing needles, they
+would contrive to banish pins also, and adopt either the plan of Dr.
+Dewees, or one still more rational.</p>
+<br>
+
+<h4>SEC. 9. <i>Remaining Wet.</i></h4>
+
+<p>On the subject of changing the wet clothing of a child, there is a
+strange and monstrous error abroad; which is, that by suffering them to
+remain wet and cold, we harden the constitution. The filthiness of this
+practice is enough to condemn it, were there nothing else to be said
+against it.</p>
+
+<p>It is insisted on by many, I know, that as water which is salt, when it
+is applied to the skin, and suffered to remain long, while it secures
+the point of hardening the child, prevents all possibility of its taking
+cold, it hence follows, that wet diapers are not injurious. But this is
+a mistake. Every time an infant is allowed to remain wet, we not only
+endanger its taking cold, but expose it to excoriations of the skin, if
+not to serious and dangerous inflammation. In short, if frequent changes
+are not made, whatever some mothers and nurses may think, they may rest
+assured, that the health of the child must sooner or later suffer as the
+consequence.</p>
+
+<p>Nor is it enough to hang up a diaper by the fire, and, as soon as it is
+dry, apply it again. It should be clean, as well as dry. Let us not be
+told, that it is troublesome to wash so often. Everything is in a
+certain sense troublesome. Everything in this world, which is worth
+having, is the result of toil. Nothing but absolute poverty affords the
+shadow of an excuse for neglecting anything which will promote the
+health, or even the comfort of the tender infant.</p>
+
+<p>Of the impropriety and danger of suffering wet clothes to dry upon us, I
+shall speak elsewhere; as well as of the evil of suffering children to
+remain dirty,&mdash;their skins or their clothing.</p>
+<br>
+
+<h4>SEC. 10. <i>Remarks on the Dress of Boys.</i></h4>
+
+<p>Whatever tends to disturb the growth of the body, or hinder the free
+exercise of the limbs, during the infancy and childhood of both sexes
+is injurious. And as every mother has the control of these things, I
+have thought it desirable to append to this chapter a few thoughts on
+the particular dress of each sex. I begin with that of boys.</p>
+
+<p>&quot;Nothing can be more injurious to health,&quot; says a foreign writer, &quot;than
+the tight jacket, buttoned up to the throat, the well-fitted boots, and
+the stiff stock.&quot; And his remarks are nearly as applicable to this
+country as to England. The consequences of this preposterous method of
+dressing boys, are diminutive manhood, deformity of person, and a
+constitution either already imbued with disease, or highly susceptible
+of its impression.</p>
+
+<p>No part of the modern dress of boys is more absurd, than the stiff
+stock, or thick cravat. It is not only injurious by pressing on the
+<i>jugular</i> veins, and preventing the blood from freely passing out of the
+head, but, by constantly pressing on the numerous and complex muscles of
+the neck, at this period of life, it prevents their development; because
+whatever hinders the action of the muscular parts, hinders their growth,
+and makes them even appear as if wasted.</p>
+
+<p>It would be a great improvement, if this part of dress were wholly
+discarded; and when is there so appropriate a time for setting it aside,
+as <i>before we began to use it</i>; or rather while we are under the more
+immediate care of our mothers?</p>
+
+<p>The use of jackets buttoned up to the throat, except in cold weather, is
+objectionable; but this is very fortunately going out of fashion.</p>
+
+<p>Boots, if used at all, should fit well; to this there can be no possible
+objection. What the writer, whom I have quoted, referred to, was
+probably the tight boot, worn to prevent the foot from being large and
+unseemly; but producing, as tight boots inevitably do, an injurious
+effect upon the muscles, a constrained walk, and corns.</p>
+
+<p>What can be more painful, than to see little boys&mdash;yes, <i>little</i>
+boys&mdash;boys neither fifteen, nor twenty, nor twenty-five, walk as if they
+were fettered and trussed up for the spit; unable to look down, or turn
+their heads, on account of a thick stock, or two or three cravats piled
+on the top of each other&mdash;and only capable of using their arms to dangle
+a cane, or carry an umbrella, as they hobble along, perhaps on a hot
+sun-shiny day in July or August?</p>
+
+<p>But this evil, you who are mothers, have it very generally in your power
+to prevent, if you are only wise enough to secure that ascendancy over
+your children's minds which the Author of their nature designed. At the
+least, you can prevent it for a time&mdash;the most important period, too&mdash;by
+your own authority. This you will not need any urging to induce you to
+do, if you ever become thoroughly convinced of its pre-eminent folly.</p>
+<br>
+
+<h4>SEC. 11. <i>On the Dress of Girls.</i></h4>
+
+<p>The same general principles which should guide the young mother in
+regard to the dress of boys, are equally important and applicable in the
+management of girls. The whole dress should, as much as possible, hang
+loosely from the shoulders, without pressing on the body, or any part of
+it. This, I say, is the grand point to be aimed at; and this is the only
+great principle, whatever some mothers may think, which will lead to
+true beauty of person, and gracefulness of gesture.</p>
+
+<p>There is, however, a slight difference to be made between the dress of
+girls and that of boys. The greater delicacy of the female frame
+requires that the surface of the body should be kept rather warmer, as
+well as better protected from the vicissitudes of the atmosphere.</p>
+
+<p>But is this the fact? Is not the contrary true? While boys in the winter
+are clad in warm woollen vestments, covering every part of their trunk,
+many portions of the female frame, and especially many parts of their
+limbs, are left so much exposed, that in cold weather you scarcely find
+a girl abroad, who appears to be comfortable.</p>
+
+<p>Nay, they are not only uncomfortable abroad, but at home; and if I were
+to present to mothers in detail, a tenth of the evils which their
+daughters suffer from not adopting a warmer method of clothing, I should
+probably be stared at by some, and laughed at by others. All this, too,
+without speaking of going out of warm concert rooms, theatres, ball
+rooms and lecture rooms, into the night air, or out of school rooms and
+churches, to walk home with measured and stiffened pace, lest the sin
+unpardonable of walking swiftly or RUNNING,&mdash;that active exercise which
+health requires, which youthful feeling prompts, and which duty ought to
+inspire,&mdash;should unwarily be committed.</p>
+
+<p>The tremendous evils of confining the lungs have been adverted to at
+sufficient length. In reference to that general subject, I need only
+add, that if the chest be not duly exercised and expanded, the liver,
+the lungs, the stomach, digestion, absorption, circulation and
+perspiration, are all hindered. And even so far as the various internal
+organs of the body <i>are</i> active, they act at a great disadvantage. The
+blood which they &quot;work up,&quot; is bad blood, and must be so, as long as the
+lungs do not have free play. Hence may and do arise all sorts of
+diseases; especially diseases of OBSTRUCTION; and such as are often very
+difficult of removal.</p>
+
+<p>What can be a more pitiable sight than some modern girls going home from
+school or church in winter? Thinly clad, the blood is all driven from
+the surface upon the internal organs, and what remains is so loaded with
+carbon, which the lungs ought but cannot discharge, that her skin has a
+leaden hue; her teeth chatter; her very heart is chilled in her panting,
+frozen bosom; she cannot run, and if she could, she must not, for it
+would be vulgar! Every mother should shrink from the sight of such a
+picture.</p>
+
+
+
+<br><br><hr style="width: 65%;"><br><br>
+<a name="CHAPTER_V."></a><h2>CHAPTER V.</h2>
+
+<h3>CLEANLINESS.</h3>
+
+<blockquote class="small">Physiology of the human skin. Of checking perspiration. Diseases thus
+produced. &quot;Dirt&quot; not &quot;healthy.&quot; How the mistake originated. &quot;Smell of
+the earth.&quot; Effect of uncleanliness on the morals. Filthiness produces
+bowel complaints. Changing dress for the sake of cleanliness.</blockquote>
+<br>
+
+<p>No mother will ever pay that attention to cleanliness which its
+importance to health and happiness demands, till she perceives its
+necessity. And she will never perceive that necessity till she has
+studied attentively the machinery of the human frame&mdash;and especially its
+wonderful covering.</p>
+
+<p>The skin is pierced with little openings or <i>pores</i>, so numerous that
+some have reckoned them at a million to every square inch. At all
+events, they are so small that the naked eye can neither distinguish nor
+count them; and so numerous, that we cannot pierce the skin with the
+finest needle without hitting one or more of them.</p>
+
+<p>When we are in perfect health, and the skin clean, a gentle moisture or
+mist continually oozes through these pores. This process is called
+<i>perspiration</i>; and the moisture which thus escapes, the <i>matter</i> of
+perspiration.</p>
+
+<p>Perspiration may be checked in two ways. 1. by filth on the skin; 2. by
+what is commonly called taking cold&mdash;for taking cold essentially
+consists in chilling the skin to such a degree as to stop, for some
+time, the escape of this moisture. Most persons have doubtless observed,
+that in the first stages of a cold, they frequently have a very dry
+skin. Whereas, when we are in health, the skin usually feels moist.</p>
+
+<p>Our health is not only endangered, and a foundation laid for fevers,
+rheumatisms, and consumptions, by stopping the pores of the skin with
+dirt, or anything else, but there is also danger from another and a very
+different source.</p>
+
+<p>The blood, in its circulation through the body, is constantly becoming
+impure; and as it thus comes back impure to the heart, is as constantly
+sent to the lungs, where it comes in close contact with the air which we
+breathe, and is purified. But this same purifying process which goes on
+in the lungs, goes on, too, if the skin is in a pure, free, healthy
+condition, all over the surface of the body. If it is not&mdash;if the skin
+cannot do this part of the work&mdash;an additional burden is thus laid on
+the lungs, which in this way soon become so overworked, that they
+cannot perform their own proportion of the labor. And whenever this
+happens, the health must soon suffer.</p>
+
+<p>The strange belief, that &quot;dirt is healthy,&quot; has much influence on the
+daily practice of thousands of those who are ignorant of the human
+structure, and the laws which govern and regulate the animal economy. It
+has probably originated in the well-known fact, that those children who
+are allowed to play in the dirt, are often as healthy&mdash;and even <i>more</i>
+healthy&mdash;than those who are confined to the nursery or the parlor.</p>
+
+<p>Now, while it is admitted that this is a very common case, it is yet
+believed that the former class of children would be still more vigorous
+than they now are, if they were kept more cleanly, or were at least
+frequently washed. It is not the dirt which promotes their health, but
+their active exercise in the open air; the advantages of which are more
+than sufficient to compensate for the injury which they sustain from the
+dirt. That is to say, they retain, in spite of the dirt, better health
+than those who are denied the blessings of pure air and abundant
+exercise, and subjected to the opposite extreme of almost constant
+confinement.</p>
+
+<p>There is something deceitful, after all, in the ruddy, blooming
+appearance of those children who are left by the busy parent to play in
+the road or field, without attention to cleanliness. If this were not
+so, how comes it to pass that they suffer much more, not only from
+chronic, but from acute diseases, than children whose parents are in
+better circumstances?</p>
+
+<p>I am the more solicitous to combat a belief in the salutary tendency of
+an unclean skin, because I know it prevails to some extent; and because
+I know also, both from reason and from fact, that it is a gross error.</p>
+
+<p>It is, however, true, that years sometimes intervene, before the evil
+consequences of dirtiness appear. The office of the vessels of the skin
+being interrupted, an increase of action is imposed on other parts,
+especially on those internal organs commonly called glands, which action
+is apt to settle into obstinate disease. Hence, at least when aided by
+other causes, often arise, in later life, after the source of the evil
+is forgotten, if it were ever suspected, rheumatism, scrofula, jaundice,
+and even consumption.</p>
+
+<p>There is a strange notion abroad, that the <i>smell</i> of the earth is
+beneficial, especially to consumptive persons. I honestly believe,
+however, that it is more likely to create consumption than to cure it.
+Besides, in what does this smell consist? Do the silex, the alumine, and
+the other earths, with their compounds, emit any odor? Rarely, I
+believe, unless when mixed with vegetable matter. But no gases
+necessary to health are evolved during the decomposition of vegetable
+matter; on the contrary, it is well known that many of them tend to
+induce disease.</p>
+
+<p>I am thoroughly persuaded that too much attention cannot be paid to
+cleanliness; and the demand for such attention is equally imperious in
+the case of those who cultivate the earth, or labor in it, or on stone,
+during the intervals of their useful avocations, as in the case of those
+individuals who follow other employments.</p>
+
+<p>I must also protest against the doctrine, that the smell or taste of the
+earth, much less a coat of it spread over the surface, and closing up,
+for hours and days together, thousands and millions of those little
+pores with which the Author of this &quot;wondrous frame&quot; has pierced the
+skin, can have a salutary tendency.</p>
+
+<p>The opinion has been even maintained, that uncleanly habits are not only
+unfavorable to health, but to morality. There can be no doubt that he
+who neglects his person and dress will be found lower in the scale of
+morals, other things being equal, than he who pays a due regard to
+cleanliness.</p>
+
+<p>Some have supposed that a disposition to neglect personal cleanliness
+was indicative of genius. But this opinion is grossly erroneous, and
+has well nigh ruined many a young man.</p>
+
+<p>I am far from recommending any degree of fastidiousness on this subject.
+Truth and correct practice usually lie between extremes. But I do and
+must insist, that the connection between cleanliness of body and purity
+of moral character, is much more close and direct than has usually been
+supposed.</p>
+
+<p>But to return to the more immediate effects of cleanliness on health.
+There is one class of diseases in particular which, in an eminent
+degree, owe their origin to a neglect of cleanliness. I refer to the
+bowel complaints so common among children during summer and autumn.
+Except in case of teething, the use of unripe fruits, or the <i>abuse</i> of
+those which are in themselves excellent, it is probable that more than
+half of the bowel complaints of the young are either produced or greatly
+aggravated by a foul skin.</p>
+
+<p>The importance of washing the whole body in water will be insisted on in
+the chapter on Bathing; it is therefore unnecessary to say anything
+farther on that subject in this place, except to observe that whether
+the washings of the body be partial or general, they should be thorough,
+so far as they are carried. There are thousands of children who, in
+pretending to wash their hands and face, will do little more than wet
+the inside of their hands, and the tips of their noses and ears unless
+great care is taken.</p>
+
+<p>Few things are more important than suitable changes of dress. There are
+those, who, from principle, never wear the same under-garment but one
+day without washing, either in summer or winter; and there are others
+who, though they may wear an article without washing two or three
+successive days, take care to change their dress at night&mdash;never
+sleeping in a garment which they have worn during the day.</p>
+
+<p>It is a very common objection to suggestions like these, that they will
+do very well for those who have wealth, but not for the poor;&mdash;that
+<i>they</i> have neither the time nor the means of attending to them. How can
+they change their clothes every day? we are asked. And how can they
+afford to have a separate dress for the night?</p>
+
+<p>There must be retrenchment in some other matters, it is admitted. In
+order to find time for more washing, or money to pay others for the
+labor, the poor must deny themselves a few things which they now
+suppose, if they have ever thought at all on the subject, are conducive
+to their happiness&mdash;but which are in reality either useless or
+injurious. Something may be saved by a reasonable dress, as I have
+already shown. Other items of expense, which might be spared with great
+advantage to health and happiness, and applied to the purpose in
+question, will be mentioned in the chapter on Food and Drink.</p>
+
+
+
+<br><br><hr style="width: 65%;"><br><br>
+<a name="CHAPTER_VI."></a><h2>CHAPTER VI.</h2>
+
+<h3>ON BATHING.</h3>
+
+<blockquote class="small">Danger of savage practices. Rousseau. Cold water at birth. First washing
+of the child. Rules. Temperature. Bathing vessels. Unreasonable fears.
+Whims. Views of Dr. Dewees. Hardening. Rules for the cold bath. Securing
+a glow. Coming out of the bath. Local baths. Shower bath. Vapor bath.
+Sponging. Neglect of bathing. The Romans. Treatment of children compared
+with that of domestic animals.</blockquote>
+<br>
+
+<p>Some of the hardy nations of antiquity, as well as a few savage tribes
+of modern times, have been accustomed to plunge their new-born infants
+into cold water. This is done for the two-fold purpose of washing and
+hardening them.</p>
+
+<p>To all who reason but for a moment on this subject, the danger of such a
+practice must be obvious. So sudden a change from a temperature of
+nearly 100&deg; of Fahrenheit to one quite low, perhaps scarcely 40&deg;, must
+and does have a powerful effect on the nervous system even of an adult;
+but how much more on that of a tender infant? We may form some idea of
+this, by the suddenness and violence of its cries, by the sudden
+contractions and relaxations of its limbs and body, and by its
+palpitating heart and difficult breathing.</p>
+
+<p>Every one's experience may also remind him, that what produces at best a
+momentary pain to himself, cannot otherwise than be painful to the
+infant. In making a comparison between adults and infants, however, in
+this respect, we should remember that the lungs of the infant do not get
+into full and vigorous action until some time after birth; and that, on
+this account, the hold they have on life is so feeble, that any powerful
+shock, and especially that given by the cold bath, is ten times more
+dangerous to them than to adults, or even to infants themselves, after a
+few months have elapsed.</p>
+
+<p>It is surprising to me that so sensible a writer as Rousseau generally
+is on education, should have encouraged this dangerous practice; and
+still more so that many fathers even now, blinded by theory, should
+persist in it, notwithstanding the pleadings of the mother or the nurse,
+and the plainest dictates of common sense and common prudence.[Footnote:
+Nothing is intended to be said here, which shall encourage unthinking
+nurses or mothers in setting themselves against measures which have been
+prescribed by higher authority,&mdash;I mean the physician. There are cases
+of this kind, where it requires all the resolution which a father,
+uninterrupted, can summon to his aid, to administer a dose or perform a
+task, on which he knows the existence of his child may be depending: but
+when the thoughtless entreaties of the mother or nurse are interposed,
+it makes his condition most distressing. Mothers, in such cases, ought
+to encourage rather than remonstrate. They who <i>do not</i>, are guilty of
+cruelty, and&mdash;perhaps&mdash;of infanticide.]</p>
+
+<p>A child plunged into cold water at birth, by those whose theories carry
+them so far as to do it even in the coldest weather, has sometimes been
+twenty-four hours in recovering, notwithstanding the most active and
+judicious efforts to restore it. In other instances the results have
+been still more distressing. Dr. Dewees is persuaded that he has &quot;known
+death itself to follow the use of cold water,&quot; in this way&mdash;I believe he
+means <i>immediate</i> death&mdash;and adds, with great confidence, that he has
+&quot;repeatedly seen it require the lapse of several hours before reaction
+could establish itself; during which time the pale and sunken cheeks and
+livid lips declared the almost exhausted state&quot; of the infant's
+excitability.[Footnote: &quot;Dewees on children&quot; p. 72.]</p>
+
+<p>We need not hesitate to put very great confidence in the opinion here
+expressed; for besides being a close and just observer of human nature,
+Dr. D. has had the direction and management, in a greater or less
+degree, of several thousands of new-born infants.</p>
+
+<p>Nothing, indeed, in the whole range of physical education, seems better
+proved, than that while some few infants, whose constitutions are
+naturally very strong, are invigorated by the practice in question,
+others, in the proportion of hundreds for one, who are <i>less</i> robust,
+are injured for life; some of them seriously.</p>
+
+<p>Nor will spirits added to the water make any material difference. I am
+aware that there is a very general notion abroad, that the injurious
+effects of cold water, in its application both internally and
+externally, are greatly diminished by the addition of a little spirit;
+but it is not so. Does the addition of such a small quantity of spirit
+as is generally used in these cases, materially alter the temperature?
+Is it not the application of a cold liquid to a heated surface, still?
+Can we make anything else of it, either more or less?</p>
+
+<p>I do not undertake to say, that the cold bath may not be so managed in
+the progress of infancy, as to make it beneficial, especially to strong
+constitutions. It is its indiscriminate application to all new-born
+children, without regard to strength of constitution, or any other
+circumstances, that I most strenuously oppose. Of its occasional use,
+under the eye of a physician, and by parents who will discriminate, I
+shall say more presently.</p>
+
+<p>Our first duty on receiving a new inhabitant of the world is, to see
+that it is gently but thoroughly washed, in moderately warm soft water,
+with fine soap. Special attention should be paid to the folds of the
+joints, the neck, the arm pits, &amp;c. For rubbing the body, in order to
+disengage anything which might obstruct the pores, or irritate or fret
+the skin, nothing can be preferable to a piece of soft sponge or
+flannel. Though the operation should be thorough, and also as rapid as
+the nature of circumstances will permit, all harshness should be
+avoided. When finished, the child should be wiped perfectly dry with
+soft flannel.</p>
+
+<p>While the washing is performed, the temperature of the room should be
+but a few degrees lower than that of the water; and the child should not
+be exposed to currents of cold air. If the weather is severe, or if
+currents of air in the room cannot otherwise be avoided, the dressing,
+undressing, washing, &amp;c., may be done near the fire. And I repeat the
+rule, it should always be done with as much rapidity as is compatible
+with safety.</p>
+
+<p>Here will be seen one great advantage of simplicity in the form of
+dress. If the more rational suggestions of our chapter on that subject
+are attended to, it will greatly facilitate the process of washing, and
+the subsequent daily process of bathing, which I am about to recommend
+to my readers.</p>
+
+<p>This washing process is also an introduction to bathing. For it should
+be repeated every day; but with less and less attention to the washing,
+and more and more reference to the bathing. How long the child should
+stay in the bath, must be left to experience. If he is quiet, fifteen
+minutes can never be too long; and I should not object to twenty. If
+otherwise, and you are obliged to remove him in five minutes, or even in
+three, still the bathing will be of too much service to be dispensed
+with.</p>
+
+<p>Nothing should be mixed with the water, if the infant is healthy, except
+a little soap, as already mentioned. Some are fond of using salt; but it
+is by no means necessary, and may do harm.</p>
+
+<p>The proper hour for bathing is the early part of the day, or about the
+middle of the forenoon. This season is selected, because the process,
+manage it as carefully as we may, is at first a little exhausting. As
+the child grows older, however, and not only becomes stronger, but
+appears to be actually refreshed and invigorated by the bath, it will be
+advisable to defer it to a later and later hour. By the time the babe is
+three months old, particularly in the warm season, the hour of bathing
+may be at sunset.</p>
+
+<p>The degree of heat must be determined, in part, by observing its effect
+on the child; and in part by a thermometer. For this, and for other
+purposes, a thermometer, as I have already more than hinted, is
+indispensable in every nursery. Our own sensations are often at best a
+very unsafe guide. There is one rule which should always be
+observed&mdash;never to have the temperature of the bath below that of the
+air of the room. If the thermometer show the latter to be 70&deg;, the bath
+should be something like 80&deg; perhaps with feeble children, rather more.</p>
+
+<p>Great care ought always to be taken to proportion the air of the room
+and the water of the bath to each other. If, for example, the
+temperature of the room have been, for some time, unusually warm, that
+of the water must not be so low as if it had been otherwise. On the
+contrary, if the room have been, for a considerable time, rather cool,
+the bath may be made several degrees cooler than in other circumstances.
+But in no case and in no circumstances must a <i>warm</i> bath&mdash;intended as
+such, simply&mdash;be so warm or so cold, as to make the child uncomfortable;
+whether the temperature be 70&deg;, 80&deg;, or 90&deg;.</p>
+
+<p>It is hardly necessary to add, that in bathing a young child, the vessel
+used for the purpose should be large enough to give free scope to all
+the motions of its extremities. Most children are delighted to play and
+scramble about in the water. I know, indeed, that the contrary sometimes
+happens; but when it does, it is usually&mdash;I do not say <i>always</i>&mdash;because
+the countenances of those who are around express fear or apprehension;
+for it is surprising how early these little beings learn to decipher our
+feelings by our very countenances.</p>
+
+<p>Some of our readers may be surprised at the intimation that there are
+mothers and nurses who have fears or apprehensions in regard to the
+effects of the warm bath; but others&mdash;and it is for such that I write
+this paragraph&mdash;will fully understand me. I have been often surprised at
+the fact, but it is undoubted, that there is a strong prejudice against
+warm bathing, in many parts of the country. In endeavoring to trace the
+cause, I have usually found that it arose from having seen or heard of
+some child who died soon after its application. I have had many a parent
+remonstrate with me on the danger of the warm bath; and this, too, in
+circumstances when it appeared to me, that the child's existence
+depended, under God, on that very measure. Perhaps it is useless in such
+cases, however, to reason with parents on the subject. The medical
+practitioner must do his duty boldly and fearlessly, and risk the
+consequences.</p>
+
+<p>But as I am writing, not for persons under immediate excitement, but for
+those that may be reasoned with, it is proper to say, that in medicine,
+the warm bath is so often used in extreme cases, and as a last resort,
+even when death has already grasped, or is about to fix his grasp on the
+sufferer, that it would be very strange if many persons <i>did not</i> die,
+just after bathing. But that the bathing itself ever produced this
+result, in one case in a thousand, there is not the slightest reason for
+believing. [Footnote: Let me not be understood as intimating that, the
+general neglect of bathing, of which I complain so loudly, is <i>chiefly</i>
+owing to this unreasonable prejudice, though this no doubt has its sway.
+On the contrary, I believe it is much oftener owing to ignorance,
+indolence, and parsimony.]</p>
+
+<p>There are many more whims connected with bathing, as with almost
+everything else, which it were equally desirable to remove. Some nurses
+and mothers think that if the child's skin is wiped dry after bathing,
+it will impair, if not destroy, the good effects of the operation.
+Others still, shocking to relate, will even put it to bed in its wet
+clothes; this, too, from principle. Not unlike this, is the belief, very
+common among adults, that if we get our clothes wet&mdash;even our
+stockings&mdash;we must, by all means, suffer them to dry on us; a belief
+which, in its results, has sent thousands to a premature grave&mdash;and,
+what is still worse, made invalids, for life, of a still greater number.</p>
+
+<p>I am aware, that in rejecting the indiscriminate cold bathing of
+infants, I am treading on ground which is rather unpopular, even with
+medical men; a large proportion of whom seem to believe that the
+practice may be useful. But I am not <i>wholly</i> alone. Dr. Dewees&mdash;of
+whose large experience I have already spoken&mdash;and some others, do not
+hesitate to avow similar sentiments.</p>
+
+<p>The objections of Dr. Dewees to cold bathing are the following. 1. There
+often exists a predisposition to disease, which cold bathing is sure to
+rouse to action. Or if the disease have already begun to affect the
+system, the bath is sure to aggravate it. 2. Some children have such
+feeble constitutions that they are sure to be permanently weakened by
+it, rather than invigorated. 3. To those in whom there is the tendency
+of a large quantity of blood to the head, lungs, liver, &amp;c., it is
+injurious. 4. In some, the shock produces a species of syncope, or
+catalepsy. 5. The <i>reaction</i>, as shown by the heat which follows the
+cold bath, is, in some cases, so great as to produce a degree of fever,
+and consequent debility. 6. It never answers the purposes of
+cleanliness&mdash;one great object of bathing&mdash;so well as the warm bath. 7.
+It is always unpleasant or painful to the child; especially at first. 8.
+It sometimes produces severe pain in the bowels.</p>
+
+<p>This is a very formidable list of objections; and certainly deserves
+consideration. There is one statement made by Dr. D. in the progress of
+his remarks on this subject, in which I do not concur. He says&mdash;&quot;The
+object of all bathing is to remove impurities arising from dust,
+perspiration, &amp;c., from the surface; that the skin may not be obstructed
+in the performance of its proper offices.&quot;</p>
+
+<p>But the object of cold bathing, with many, is to <i>harden</i>; consequently
+it is not true that cleanliness is the <i>only object</i>. If he means, even,
+that cleanliness is the only <i>legitimate</i> object of all bathing, I shall
+still be compelled to dissent.</p>
+
+<p>If the cold bath could be used, always, by and with the direction of a
+skilful physician, I believe its occasional use might be rendered
+salutary. And although as it is now commonly used, I believe its effects
+are almost anything but salutary, I do not deny that if its use were
+cautiously and gradually begun, and judiciously conducted, it might be
+the means of making children who are already robust, still more hardy
+and healthy than before, and better able to resist those sudden changes
+of temperature so common in our climate, and so apt to produce cold,
+fever, and consumption.</p>
+
+<p>Cold bathing, in the hands of those who are ignorant of the laws of the
+human frame&mdash;and such unfortunately and unaccountably most fathers and
+mothers are&mdash;I cannot help regarding as a highly dangerous weapon; and
+therefore it is, that in view of the whole subject, I cannot recommend
+its general and indiscriminate use.</p>
+
+<p>If there are individuals, however, who are determined to employ it, in
+the case of their more vigorous children, and without the advice or
+direction of their family physician, I beg them to attend to the
+following rules or principles, expressed as briefly as possible.</p>
+
+<p>In no ordinary case whatever, is the cold bath useful, unless it is
+succeeded by that degree of warmth on the surface of the body which is
+usually called a <i>glow</i>. This is a leading and important principle. The
+contrary, that is, the injurious effects of cold bathing&mdash;its
+<i>immediate</i> bad effects, I mean&mdash;are shown by the skin remaining pale
+and shrivelled after coming out of the bath, by its blue appearance, and
+by its coldness, as well as by a sunken state of the eyes, and much
+general languor.</p>
+
+<p>To secure this point&mdash;I mean the GLOW&mdash;it is indispensably important to
+begin the use of cold water gradually; that is, to use it at first of
+so high a temperature as to produce only a slight sensation of cold, and
+to take special care that the skin be immediately wiped very dry, and
+the temperature of the room be quite as high as usual. Afterward the
+water may be cooled gradually, from week to week, though never more than
+a degree or two at once.</p>
+
+<p>It will probably be unsafe to commence this practice of cold
+bathing&mdash;even in the case of the most robust children&mdash;until they are at
+least six months of age.</p>
+
+<p>The appropriate season will be the middle of the forenoon, the hour when
+the system is usually the most vigorous, and at which we shall be most
+likely to secure a reaction. At first, twice or three times a week are
+as often as it will be safe to repeat it. Some writers recommend it
+twice a day; but once is enough, under any ordinary circumstances.</p>
+
+<p>The method at first is, to give the infant a single plunge. Afterward,
+when he becomes older, and more inured to it, he may be plunged several
+times in succession.</p>
+
+<p>On taking him out of the bath, the skin should be wiped perfectly dry,
+as in the case of the warm bath, and with the same or an increased
+degree of attention to other circumstances&mdash;the temperature of the
+room, the avoiding currents of air, &amp;c. He should next be put in a soft,
+warm blanket, and be kept for some time in a state of gentle motion; and
+after a little time, should be dressed.</p>
+
+<p>I have already mentioned the importance of avoiding the manifestation of
+fear, when we bathe a child; and the caution is particularly necessary
+in the administration of the cold bath. Some writers even recommend,
+that during the whole process of undressing, bathing, exercising, and
+dressing, singing should be employed. There is philosophy in this
+advice, and it is easily tried; but I cannot speak of it from
+experience.</p>
+
+<p>There is one thing which may serve to calm our apprehensions&mdash;if we have
+any&mdash;of danger; which is, that though the child's lungs are feeble at
+first, from their not having been, like the heart, accustomed to
+previous action, yet when they get fairly into motion and action, and
+the child is a few months old, they are probably as strong, if not
+stronger, in proportion, than those of adults.</p>
+
+<p>Bathing in cold water should never be performed immediately after a full
+meal. Neither is it desirable to go to the contrary extreme, and bathe
+when the stomach has been long empty; nor when the child's mental or
+bodily powers are more than usually exhausted by fatigue.</p>
+
+<p>Although I have given these rules for those who are determined to use
+the cold bath with their children, yet, for fear I shall be
+misunderstood, I must be suffered to repeat, in this place, that,
+uninformed as people generally are in regard to physiology, I cannot
+advise even its moderate use. On the contrary, I would gladly dissuade
+from it, as most likely, in the way it would inevitably be used, to do
+more harm than good.</p>
+
+<p>There is no sort of objection to what might be called local bathing with
+cold water. If the child's head is hot at any time, the temples, and
+indeed the whole upper part of the head, may be very properly wet with
+moderately cold water&mdash;taking care to avoid wetting the clothes. But
+avoid, by all means, the common but foolish practice of putting spirits
+in the water.</p>
+
+<p>A tea-spoonful of cold water cannot be too early put into the mouth of
+the infant. The object is to cleanse or rinse the mouth; and the process
+may be aided by wiping it out with a piece of soft linen rag. If a part
+or all of the water should be swallowed, no harm will be done. This
+practice, commenced almost as soon as children are born, has saved many
+a sore mouth.</p>
+
+<p>There are other forms of bathing besides those already mentioned; among
+which are the shower bath, the vapor bath, and the medicated bath. The
+shower bath&mdash;for which purpose the water is commonly used cold&mdash;is but
+poorly adapted to the wants of infants. The shock is much greater than
+the common cold bath, and more apt to frighten; and fear is unfavorable
+to reaction, or the production of a genial glow.</p>
+
+<p>The vapor bath is much better; and probably has quite as good an effect
+as the common warm bath. The trouble and expense of procuring the
+necessary apparatus is somewhat greater, however, as a mere bathing tub
+costs but little, and can be made by every father who possesses common
+ingenuity. But whatever may be the expense, it is indispensable in every
+family; and whenever the pores of the skin are obstructed, a vapor
+bathing apparatus is equally desirable.</p>
+
+<p>The medicated vapor bath is sometimes used; but I am not now treating of
+infants who are sick, but of those who are in a state of health.</p>
+
+<p>The common warm bath is sometimes medicated by putting in salt. This, of
+course, renders the water more stimulating to the skin; but except when
+the perspiration is checked, or the skin peculiarly inactive from some
+other cause&mdash;in other words, unless we are sick&mdash;it is seldom expedient
+to use it.</p>
+
+<p>There is one substitute for the bathing tub, in the case of the cold
+bath. I refer to the use of a wet cloth or sponge, applied rapidly to
+the whole surface of the body. When this is done, the skin should be
+wiped thoroughly dry immediately afterwards, as in the case of complete
+immersion.</p>
+
+<p>The application of either a cloth or a sponge, filled with warm water,
+to the skin, in this manner, even if continued for several minutes
+together, is less efficacious than a continuous immersion. I repeat
+it&mdash;no family ought to be without conveniences for bathing in warm water
+daily. I speak now of every member of the family, young and old, as well
+as the infant; and I refer particularly to the summer season: though I
+do not think the practice ought to be wholly discontinued during the
+winter.</p>
+
+<p>It will still be objected that this care of, and attention to the young,
+in reference to health&mdash;this provision for bathing daily, and care to
+see that it is performed&mdash;can never be afforded by the laboring portion
+of the community. But I shall as strenuously insist on the contrary; and
+trust I shall, in the sequel, produce reasons which will be
+satisfactory.</p>
+
+<p>The great difficulty is, to convince parents that these things are
+vastly more productive of health and happiness to their children&mdash;more
+truly necessaries&mdash;than a great many things for which they now expend
+their time and money. There is, and always has been&mdash;except, perhaps,
+among the Jews, in the earliest periods of the history of that wonderful
+nation&mdash;a strange disposition to overlook the happiness of the young. It
+is not necessary to represent this dereliction as peculiar to modern
+times, for we find traces of the same thing thousands of years ago.</p>
+
+<p>The Roman emperors&mdash;Dioclesian in particular&mdash;could make provision for
+bathing, to an extent which now astonishes us; but for whom? For whom, I
+repeat it, was incurred the enormous expense of fitting up and keeping
+in repair accommodations for bathing at once 18,000 people? For adults;
+and for adults alone. I do not say that children were not admitted, in
+any case; but I say they were not contemplated in these arrangements.
+Nothing was done&mdash;not a single thing&mdash;that would not have been done, had
+there been no child under ten years of age in the whole empire.</p>
+
+<p>And what better than this do WE, now? We make provision for the
+happiness of the adult. The most indigent person will find time and
+money to spend for the gratification of his own senses, his pride, or
+his curiosity; but his children&mdash;they may be overlooked! Or, if he has
+an eye to the future happiness of his child, he conceives that he is
+promoting it in the best possible degree, by endeavoring to lay up a few
+dollars for his use, after his character is formed&mdash;at a period, as it
+too often happens, when money will do him little good, since it can
+neither purchase health, peace of mind, nor reputation.</p>
+
+<p>Far be it from me to say, that the poor&mdash;ground into the dust as they
+are, by the force of circumstances operating with their own concurrence,
+to make them ignorant, vicious, or miserable&mdash;can do for their children
+all that is desirable. By no means. But they have it in their power to
+do much more than they are at present doing. They have it in their
+power, at least, to use the same good sense in the management of the
+human being that they do in that of a pig, a calf, or a colt, or even a
+young vegetable. No parent, let him be ever so poor, is found in the
+habit of neglecting either of these in proportion to its infancy, and of
+exerting himself only in proportion as it grows older. Common sense
+tells him that the contrary is the true course; that however poor he may
+be, he will be still poorer, if he do not take special pains with the
+young animal, to rear it and with the young vegetable, to give it the
+right direction, by keeping down the weeds, and pruning and watering it.
+And I say again, that however deserving of censure the wealthy of a
+Christian community may be in not directing the ignorant and vicious
+into the right path, and in not expending more of their wealth on those
+who are poor, in elevating their minds and their manners, and promoting
+their health, still the latter are inexcusable for their present neglect
+of their infant offspring, while they would not think of neglecting, on
+the same principle, the offspring of their domestic animals.</p>
+
+
+
+<br><br><hr style="width: 65%;"><br><br>
+<a name="CHAPTER_VII."></a><h2>CHAPTER VII.</h2>
+
+<h3>FOOD.</h3>
+
+<blockquote class="small">SEC. 1. General principles.&mdash;SEC. 2. Conduct of the mother.&mdash;SEC. 3.
+Nursing&mdash;rules in regard to it.&mdash;SEC. 4. Quantity of food. Errors.
+Over-feeding. Gluttony.&mdash;SEC. 5. How long should milk be the child's
+only food?&mdash;SEC. 6 Feeding before teething. Cow's milk. Sucking bottles.
+Cleanliness. Nurses.&mdash;SEC. 7. Treatment from teething to weaning.&mdash;SEC.
+8. Process of weaning-rules in regard to it.&mdash;SEC. 9. First food to be
+used after weaning. Importance of good bread. Other kinds of food.&mdash;SEC.
+10. Remarks on fruit.&mdash;SEC. 11. Evils and dangers of confectionary.&mdash;SEC.
+12. Mischiefs of pastry.&mdash;SEC. 13. Crude and raw substances.</blockquote>
+<br>
+
+<h4>SEC. 1. <i>General Principles.</i></h4>
+
+<p>The mother's milk, in suitable quantity, and under suitable regulations,
+is so obviously the appropriate food of an infant during the first
+months of its existence, that it seems almost unnecessary to repeat the
+fact. And yet the violations of this rule are so numerous and constant,
+as to require a few passing remarks.</p>
+
+<p>There are some mothers who seem to have a perfect hatred of children;
+and if they can find any plausible apology for neglecting to nurse them,
+they will. Few, indeed, will publicly acknowledge a state of feeling so
+unnatural; but there are some even of such. On the latter, all argument
+would, I fear, be utterly lost. Of the former, there may, be hope.</p>
+
+<p>They tell us&mdash;and they are often sustained by those around them&mdash;that it
+is very inconvenient to be so confined to a child that they cannot leave
+home for a little while. Can it be their duty&mdash;for in these days, when
+virtue and religion, and everything good, are so highly complimented, no
+people are more ready to talk of <i>duty</i> than they who have the least
+regard to it&mdash;can it be their duty, they ask, to exclude themselves from
+the pleasures and comforts of social life for half or two thirds of
+their most active and happy years? Ought they not to go abroad, at least
+occasionally? But if so, and their children have no other source of
+dependence, must they not suffer? Is it not better, therefore, that they
+should be early accustomed to other food, for a part of the time?
+Besides, they may be sick; and then the child must rely on others; and
+will it not be useful to accustom it early to do so?</p>
+
+<p>Perhaps few mothers are conscious that this train of reasoning passes
+through their minds. But that something like it is often made the
+occasion of substituting food which is less proper, for that furnished
+by Divine Providence, there cannot be a doubt. And the mischief is, that
+she who has gone so far, will not scruple, ere long, to go farther. And,
+strange and unnatural as it may seem, that mothers should turn over
+their children to be nursed wholly by others, in order to get rid of the
+inconvenience of nursing them at their own bosoms, it is only carrying
+out to its fullest extent, and reducing to practice, the train of
+reasoning mentioned above.</p>
+
+<p>Nor is it necessary that I should stop here to denounce a course of
+conduct so unchristian and savage. I know it is very common in some
+countries; and those American mothers who ape the other eastern
+fashions, or countenance their sons and daughters in doing it, will not
+be slow to imitate this also&mdash;especially as it is a very <i>convenient</i>
+fashion. And I question whether I shall succeed in reasoning them out of
+it. Habit, both of thought and action, is exceedingly powerful. I will,
+therefore, confine myself chiefly to those efforts at prevention, from
+which much more is to be hoped, in the present state of society, than
+from direct attempts at cure.</p>
+
+<p>It will be soon enough to leave a child with another person, when the
+mother is actually sick, or unavoidably absent; or when some other
+adequate cause is known to exist. We are to be governed, in these and
+similar cases, by general rules, and not by exceptions. The general
+rule, in the present case, is, that mothers can nurse their own
+children; and, if they have the proper disposition, that they can do it
+uninterruptedly.</p>
+
+<p>But those who are so ready to become counsellors on these occasions,
+will tell us, perhaps, that the child must be &quot;fed to spare the mother.&quot;
+That is to say, nursing weakens the mother, and the child must be taken
+away, a part of the time, to save her strength.</p>
+
+<p>Now it may safely be doubted whether the process of nursing, in itself
+considered, does weaken, at all. The Author of nature has made provision
+for the secretion (formation) of the milk, whether the child receives it
+or not. If it is not taken by the child, or drawn off in some other way,
+one of two things must follow;&mdash;either it must be taken up by what are
+called absorbent vessels, and carried into the circulation, and chiefly
+thrown out of the system as waste matter, or it will prove a source of
+irritation, if not of inflammation, to the organs themselves which
+secrete it. In both cases, the strength of the mother is quite as likely
+to be taxed, as if the child received the milk in the way that nature
+intended.</p>
+
+<p>Besides, on this very principle, the plan of saving a mother's strength
+by requiring another to nurse for her, is but saying that we will weaken
+one person to save another. Or if we feed the child, to &quot;spare its
+mother,&quot; what is this, in practice, but to say that the works of the
+Creator are very imperfect; and that he has thrown upon the mass of
+mankind a task to which they are not equal? For the mass of mankind are
+poor; and the poor, having neither the means nor the time to escape the
+duties in question, must submit to them, while their more wealthy
+neighbors escape.</p>
+
+<p>But it is idle to defend customs so monstrous. They admit of no defence
+that has the slightest claim to solidity. The general rule then is, that
+mothers should nurse their own children.</p>
+<br>
+
+<h4>SEC. 2. <i>Conduct of the Mother.</i></h4>
+
+<p>Originally it was not my intention to give directions, in this volume,
+in regard to the food, drink, &amp;c., of the mother while nursing; but
+repeated solicitations on this point, have led me to the conclusion that
+a few general principles may be very properly introduced.</p>
+
+<p>The future health, and even the moral well-being of the child, depend
+much more on the proper management of the mother herself than is usually
+supposed. How, indeed, can it be other wise? How can the mother's blood
+be constantly irritated with improper food and drink, without rendering
+the milk so? And how can a child draw, daily and hourly, from this
+feverish fountain, without being affected, not only in his physical
+frame, but in his very temper and feelings?</p>
+
+<p>It is not enough that we adopt the principles already insisted on by
+some of our wisest medical men, and even by one or two medical
+societies,[Footnote: Those of Connecticut and New Hampshire.] that
+children in this way often acquire a propensity for exciting drinks,
+that may end in their downright intemperance. What if it should not, in
+every case, proceed quite so far as to make the child a drunkard? If it
+but lays the foundation of a constitutional fondness for <i>excitements</i>,
+it tends to disease. Indeed that, in itself, is a disease; and one, too,
+which is destroying more persons every year than the cholera, or even
+the consumption. Consumption has at most only slain her tens of
+thousands [Footnote: About 40,000 a year, in the United States, as nearly
+as it can be estimated.] a year; but a fondness for exciting food and
+drink&mdash;innocent and harmless as it is often supposed to be, and
+therefore only the more dangerous a foe&mdash;does not fail to slay every
+year, directly or indirectly, its hundreds of thousands. At least this
+is my own opinion.</p>
+
+<p>Why, where can you find the individual who is not a slave to this
+perpetual rage within&mdash;this perpetual cry, &quot;Who will show us any&quot;
+physical &quot;good&quot;? Who, in this land of abundance, will eat or drink plain
+things? Who will eat simple bread, meat, potatoes, rice, pudding,
+apples, &amp;c. or drink simple water? A few instances may be found, of
+late, in which people confine themselves to simple water for drink; but
+they are rather rare. And no wonder. They <i>must</i> be rare so long as an
+unnatural thirst is kept up everywhere by the most exciting and most
+strange mixtures of food. Where, I again ask, is the person who will eat
+and relish plain bread, plain meat, plain puddings, &amp;c.? Certainly not
+in the nursery. No young mother&mdash;scarcely one I mean&mdash;will, for a single
+meal, confine herself to a piece of bread, the sweetest and best food in
+the whole world, unless it is hot, or toasted, or soaked, or buttered. A
+natural, healthy appetite, is as rare a thing on our planet, almost, as
+an inhabitant of the sun or moon.</p>
+
+<p>I have seen more than one mother made sick by using, while nursing,
+improper food and drink. I have known milk punch, taken by
+stealth&mdash;(because how could the mother, it was said, ever have a supply
+of food for her poor child without it!)&mdash;to kindle a fever that came
+very near burning up the mother and child both. And yet, if I have once
+or twice succeeded in convincing the mother that she was only suffering
+the natural punishment of her own transgressions, I have never, so far
+as I now recollect, succeeded in making her believe that her iniquities
+were visited upon her unoffending infant.</p>
+
+<p>There is everywhere the most painful apathy on this most painful
+subject. We see little children of all ages, everywhere, the victims of
+debility, and pain, and suffering, and disease and death, and yet we
+very seldom seem to search for one moment for the causes of this
+premature destruction. In fact most parents&mdash;even many intelligent
+mothers&mdash;at once stare, if you attempt to inquire into the causes of
+their child's death, as if it was either a kind of sacrilege, or an
+impeachment of their own parental affection. Diseases, even at this day,
+with the sun of science blazing in meridian splendor, they seem to
+regard as the judgments of heaven; and to think of tracing out the
+causes of the early death of half our race, is, in their estimation, not
+only idle, but wicked.</p>
+
+<p>Yet this is obviously one of the first steps, every, where, which
+philanthropy demands; to say nothing of the demands of christianity. It
+is the first step for the physician, the first step for the educator,
+the first step for the parent, and above all, the mother. Nay; more&mdash;we
+must not suppress so great and important a truth&mdash;it is the first step
+for the legislator and the minister. What sense is there in continuing,
+century after century, and age after age, to expend all our efforts in
+merely <i>mending</i> the diseased half of mankind, when those same efforts
+are amply sufficient, if early and properly applied, not only to
+continue the lives of the whole, but to make them <i>whole beings</i>,
+instead of passing through life mere <i>fragments</i> of humanity?</p>
+
+<p>But I must not forget that this is merely a small manual, not intended
+for those who make it their profession to teach the laws of God and man,
+but simply for young mothers. For the sake of erring humanity, would
+that I could, but for one moment, divest myself of the idea, that in
+writing for the young mother I am not writing for legislators and
+ministers! Would that I could banish from my mind the deep conviction
+that the mother is everywhere far more the law-giver to her infant&mdash;far
+more the arbiter of the present and eternal destiny of her child&mdash;than
+he who is more commonly regarded as such.</p>
+
+<p>Every mother owes it, not only to herself&mdash;for on this part she is not
+<i>wholly</i> forgetful&mdash;but to her offspring, to abstain, during the period
+of nursing at least, from all causes which tend to produce a feverish
+state of her fluids. Among these are every form of premature exertion,
+whether in sitting up, laboring, conversing, or even thinking. It is of
+very great importance that both the body and the mind should be kept
+quiet; and the more so, the better.</p>
+
+<p>Among the particular causes of fever to the young mother, Dr. Dewees
+enumerates spirits, wine, and other fermented liquors, a room too much
+heated, closed curtains, confined air, too much exposure, and too much
+company; and during the early period of confinement, broths and animal
+food.</p>
+
+<p>There is nothing which he insists on more strongly, than the importance
+of fresh air. Indeed, the practice of confining a nursing woman in a
+space scarcely six feet square, and excluding the air surrounding her by
+curtains and closed windows, and subjecting her to the necessity of
+breathing twenty times the air that has already been as often
+discharged, filled with poison, from her lungs, is not too strongly
+reprobated by Dr. Dewees, or anybody else. But I have spoken of these
+things in the chapter which treats on &quot;The Nursery.&quot; I would only
+observe, on this point, that if I were asked what one thing is most
+indispensable to the health of the nursing woman, I would reply, Fresh
+air; and if asked what were the second and third most important things,
+I would still repeat&mdash;in imitation of the orator of old, in regard to
+another subject&mdash;Fresh air, Fresh air.</p>
+
+<p>This important ingredient in human happiness, and especially in the
+happiness of the young mother and her tender infant, can usually be had
+within doors, if pains enough be taken. But if the weather is fine and
+in every respect favorable, a woman who is in tolerable health may
+venture abroad a little in about three weeks after her confinement, and
+sometimes even in two. Whether her exercise be without or within doors,
+however, she should be effectually protected against chills, and against
+the influence of currents of cold air.</p>
+
+<p>It has been incidentally stated, that Dr. Dewees objects to the mother's
+use, during her early period of nursing, of broths and animal food. This
+is about as much as we could reasonably expect from one who belongs to a
+profession whose members are, almost without exception, enslaved to the
+practice of flesh-eating. But even this advice of his, if duly followed,
+would be a great advance upon the practice which generally prevails.
+There is so universal a belief among females that they demand, at this
+period of their existence, not only a larger quantity of food than
+usual, but also that which is more stimulating in its quality, as almost
+to forbid the hopes of making much impression upon their minds. Many
+young mothers seem to consider themselves as licensed, during a part of
+their lives, not only to eat immoderately, and even to gluttony, but
+also to swallow almost every species of vile trash which a vile world
+affords.</p>
+
+<p>How long will it be, ere the mother can be induced to take as much pains
+to select the most appropriate and most healthy aliment for herself and
+her child, as she now does that which is demanded by a capricious
+appetite, without the smallest reference to fitness or digestibility!
+How long will it be ere the mother can be brought to believe and feel
+that, in every step she takes, she is forming the habitation of an
+immortal spirit&mdash;a spirit, too, whose character and destiny, both
+present and eternal, must depend, in no small degree, upon the character
+of the dwelling it occupies while passing through this stage of earthly
+existence! How long will it be, before mothers can be made to believe
+even these two simple truths, that the nourishment, which the human
+being actually receives, is not always in exact proportion to the
+quantity of nutritious food which he throws into his stomach, and that
+the diet is always best for both mother and child, which is least
+exciting.</p>
+
+<p>The Charleston Board of Health, during the existence of cholera in that
+city in 1836, publicly announced that the &quot;best food is the least
+exciting,&quot; and this great truth is just as true in all other places and
+circumstances on the globe as it was then in South Carolina. And though
+I am far from believing that health depends more on food and drink than
+on all other things put together, as many seem to suppose, yet I am
+entirely of opinion that he who should devote himself successfully to
+the work of applying this truth, in all its bearings, to the dietetic
+practice of all mankind, would do more for their reformation&mdash;yes, and
+their salvation too&mdash;than has yet been done by any merely <i>human</i> being,
+since the first day of the creation.</p>
+<br>
+
+<h4>SEC. 3. <i>Nursing&mdash;how often.</i></h4>
+
+<p>Many lay it down, as an invariable rule, that no system can be pursued
+with a child till it is six months old; and it must be admitted by all,
+that for several months after birth there are serious difficulties in
+the way of determining, with any degree of precision, how often a child
+should be nursed or fed. Still, there are a few rules of universal
+application; some of which are here presented.</p>
+
+<p>1. A child should never be nursed, merely to quiet it; for if this be
+done, it will soon learn to cry, whenever it feels the slightest
+uneasiness, not only from hunger, but from other causes; merely to be
+gratified with nursing. Besides, if its cries should happen to be from
+illness, it is ten to one but the reception of anything into the stomach
+will do harm instead of good.</p>
+
+<p>2. The stomach, like every other organ in the body which is muscular,
+must have time for rest; and this in the case of children as well as
+adults. But to nurse them too frequently is in opposition to this rule,
+and therefore of evil tendency.</p>
+
+<p>3. For reasons which may be seen by the last rule, there should be
+regular seasons for nursing, and these should be adhered to, especially
+by night. When very young, once in three hours may not be too frequent;
+I believe that it is seldom proper to nurse a child more frequently than
+this. But whenever three hours becomes a suitable period by day, once in
+four hours will be often enough by night. I will not undertake to say at
+what precise age children should be nursed at intervals of three and
+four hours each; because some children are older, <i>constitutionally</i>, at
+three months, than others are at four.</p>
+
+<p>There is one grand mistake, however, against which I must caution young
+mothers; which is, not to indulge the vain expectation that feeble
+infants will become robust, in proportion to their indulgence. On the
+contrary, it is the more necessary to be strict with feeble children,
+<i>because</i> they are feeble. To keep them hanging at the breast to
+invigorate them, is the very way to counteract our own intentions, and
+defeat our own purpose. Seasons of entire rest are even more important
+to their stomachs than to those of other persons.</p>
+
+<p>4. But in order to secure intervals of rest, both to the strong and the
+feeble, we must avoid the pernicious habit of giving infants pap, and
+other delicacies, &quot;between meals.&quot; Many a child's health is ruined by
+this practice. Nothing should be put into their stomachs for many
+months&mdash;if they are in health&mdash;but the mother's milk.</p>
+
+<p>&quot;This,&quot; says Dr. Dunglison, &quot;is the sole food of the infant, and is
+consequently sufficiently nutrient to maintain life, and to minister to
+the growth, during the earliest periods of existence.&quot; [Footnote:
+Elements of Hygiene, page 271.] In another place, he says, &quot;Milk is an
+appropriate nourishment at all ages, and is more so the nearer to
+birth.&quot;</p>
+<br>
+
+<h4>SEC. 4. <i>Quantity of Food.</i></h4>
+
+<p>&quot;We all know,&quot; says Dr. Dewees, &quot;how easily the stomach may be made to
+demand more food than is absolutely required; first, by the repetition
+of aliment, and secondly, by its variety;&mdash;therefore both of these
+causes must be avoided. The stomach, like every other part, can, and
+unfortunately does, acquire habits highly injurious to itself; and that
+of demanding an unnecessary quantity of aliment is not one of the least.
+It should, therefore, be constantly borne in mind, that it is not the
+quantity of food taken into the stomach, that is available to the proper
+purposes of the system; but the quantity which can be digested, and
+converted into nourishment fit to be applied to such purposes.&quot;</p>
+
+<p>There is a great deal of truth in these remarks; and especially in the
+closing one, that not all which is taken into the stomach is digested.
+It is highly probable, that the least quantity which is usually given to
+an infant is more than sufficient for the purposes of digestion; and
+that nearly every child in the arms of its mother, is over-fed.</p>
+
+<p>I know it has been said, by some physicians&mdash;and by those who are
+sensible men, in other respects, too&mdash;that the child's stomach is a
+pretty correct guide in regard to quantity. If we give it too much, say
+they, it will reject it;&mdash;as if that were an end of the matter.</p>
+
+<p>But it is not so. It is by no means harmless to fill the child's stomach
+as full as is possible without overflowing. Such a process, though it
+should not create disease directly, would produce a gluttonous habit.
+The stomach, being muscular, may be increased in size by use, like all
+other muscular organs. The hands, the arms, the legs, the feet, the
+fleshy portions of the face, even, may be disproportionally enlarged by
+constant use. Thus a sailor, who uses his hands and arms much more than
+his legs and feet, has the former unusually large; one who is much
+accustomed to walking, has large feet; and in a tailor, who from
+childhood uses his lower limbs comparatively little, they are both small
+and slender. On the same principle, the stomach, by inordinate use, and
+by carrying unreasonable loads, may be made nearly twice as large as
+nature intended, and may demand twice as much food. And I have no doubt
+that the bulk of mankind, young and old, eat about twice as much as
+nature, unperverted, would require.</p>
+
+<p>If the suggestions of our last section are duly attended to, one of the
+causes which lead the stomach to demand an unreasonable quantity of food
+will be avoided&mdash;I mean the too frequent &quot;repetition of aliment.&quot; And if
+we never depart from the general rule, already laid down, not to give
+the infant anything but its mother's milk, we shall escape the evils
+incident to variety.</p>
+<br>
+
+<h4>SEC. 5. <i>How long should milk be the only food.</i></h4>
+
+<p>On this point, there is a great diversity of opinion. Perhaps the most
+approved role, of universal application, is, that the first change
+should be made in the child's diet, when the teeth begin to appear.</p>
+
+<p>This period, it is well known, cannot be fixed to any particular age,
+but varies from the fifth to the twelfth month.</p>
+
+<p>Some mothers, who have borne with me patiently to this place, will
+probably here object. &quot;What child,&quot; they will ask, &quot;would ever have any
+strength, brought up so?&quot; Not only a little pap and gruel is, in their
+estimation, necessary, long before this period, but even many choice
+bits of meat.</p>
+
+<p>Now I am very sure, that these choice bits&mdash;whatever they may be&mdash;given
+to a child before it has teeth, not only do no good, but actually do
+mischief. Indeed, that which does no good in the stomach must do harm,
+of course; since it is not only in the way, but acts like a foreign body
+there, producing more or less of irritation.</p>
+
+<p>I ought to state, in this place, that many people&mdash;mothers among the
+rest&mdash;have very inadequate ideas of digestion. They appear to have no
+farther notion of the digestive process than that it consists in
+reducing to a pulp the substances which are swallowed; and hence,
+whatever is reduced to a pulp, they regard as being digested. Whereas
+nothing is better known to the anatomist and physiologist, than that
+this&mdash;the formation of <i>chyme</i> in the stomach&mdash;constitutes only a very
+small part of the digestive process. The chyme must pass into the
+duodenum and other portions of intestine beyond the stomach, and be
+retained there for some time, before it will form perfect chyle.</p>
+
+<p>This is a more important part of the work of digestion than even the
+former. For, suppose the chyme to be perfect, though even this may be
+mere pulp, rather than chyme, and suppose it pass quietly along into the
+duodenum and other small intestines. All this process, thus far, may go
+on naturally enough, and yet the chyle may not be well formed, and the
+chymous mass may find its way out of the system without answering any of
+the purposes of nutrition. For no matter how well the food is dissolved
+in the stomach, if it do not become good and proper chyle, the blood
+which is formed will not be good and perfect blood; or, lastly, if it
+<i>seem</i> to make good blood, it may still be faulty, so that the
+particles which should be applied to build up or repair the system, are
+either not used, or if used, answer the purpose but imperfectly.</p>
+
+<p>We hence see how little prepared a large proportion of the community,
+are, to judge of the digestibility or fitness of a substance for
+infants, by their own observation and experience merely; and how much
+more wisely they act, in contenting themselves with giving them&mdash;at
+least until they have teeth&mdash;such food only as the Author of nature
+seems to have assigned them; especially when thus course, is precisely
+that which is recommended or sanctioned by nearly every judicious
+physician, as well as by almost all our writers on health.</p>
+<br>
+
+<h4>SEC. 6. <i>On Feeding before Teething.</i></h4>
+
+<p>Having laid down the general rule, that until the appearance of teeth,
+the sole food of an infant should be the milk of its own mother, I
+proceed to speak of some of the more common exceptions to it.</p>
+
+<p>EXCEPTION 1.&mdash;The first of these is when the supply furnished by the
+mother is scanty. There may be two causes of the scantiness of this
+supply; 1st, the want of suitable nourishment by the mother; and, 2dly,
+a feeble constitution, or bad health. In the former case, it should be
+her first object, as it undoubtedly will be that of her physician, to
+improve the quality of her diet; and in the latter, to restore her
+health, or at least invigorate her constitution.</p>
+
+<p>In regard to the proper diet of a <i>mother</i>, as such, as well as the
+general management which her case requires, a volume might be written
+without exhausting the subject. But I have already said as much on this
+subject, in another place, as my limits will permit.</p>
+
+<p>But we cannot wait for the mother's health to improve, and allow the
+infant to suffer, in the mean time, for a due supply of food. The
+appropriate question now is, How shall such a supply be furnished?</p>
+
+<p>This should be done by means of an article resembling in its properties,
+as closely as possible, the mother's milk. For this purpose, we have
+only to mix with a suitable quantity of new cow's milk, one third of
+water, and sweeten it a little with loaf sugar. This is to be given to
+the child, at suitable intervals, and in proper quantities, by means of
+a common sucking bottle. It is, indeed, sometimes given with the spoon;
+but the bottle is better.</p>
+
+<p>To the question, whether the child should be confined to this, till the
+period of weaning, Dr. Dewees answers, No. I am surprised at this; and
+my surprise is increased, when I find him, almost in the very next
+breath, urging with all his might, numerous reasons against the very
+common notion, that children in early life require a variety of food. He
+even insists on the importance of confining the child to a single
+article of food when it is practicable. Yet he has not given us so much
+as one reason why it is not practicable in the case before us; but has
+gone on to speak of barley water, gum arabic water, rice water,
+arrowroot, &amp;c. I venture, therefore, to dissent from him, and to answer
+the foregoing question in the affirmative. When one good and substantial
+reason can be given for <i>change</i>, the decision will, however, be
+reconsidered.</p>
+
+<p>I have already stated the general rule for preparing this substitute for
+the mother's milk. But there are several minor directions, which may be
+useful to those who are wholly without experience on the subject.</p>
+
+<p>If possible, the milk used should not only be just taken from the cow,
+but should always be from the <i>same</i> cow; for it is well known, that the
+quality of milk often differs very materially, even among cows feeding
+in the same pasture, or from the same pile of hay; and the stomach
+becomes most easily reconciled to the mixture when it is uniform in its
+qualities. Great care should also be taken to see that the cow whose
+milk is used is young and healthy.</p>
+
+<p>The mixture should not be prepared any faster than it is wanted, and
+should always be prepared in vessels perfectly clean and sweet, and
+given as soon as possible after it is prepared, to prevent any degree of
+fermentation. It is never so well to heat it by the fire. If taken from
+the cow just before it is used, and if the water to be added is warm
+enough, the temperature will hardly need to be raised any higher.</p>
+
+<p>When it is impracticable, in all cases, to take milk for this purpose
+immediately from the cow, it should be kept, in winter, where it will
+not freeze; and in summer, where there will be no tendency to acidity.</p>
+
+<p>Some mothers and nurses are addicted to the practice of passing the food
+through their own mouths, before they give it to the child&mdash;with a view,
+no doubt, to see that it is at a proper temperature. This practice is
+not only wholly unnecessary, but altogether disgusting, and even
+ridiculous. A thermometer would answer every purpose; and save even the
+trouble of another disgusting practice&mdash;that of blowing it with the
+breath.</p>
+
+<p>The most proper season for giving the child this preparation, is
+immediately after it has been nursing. It is better for both mother and
+child, that the latter should nurse just as often as though the supply
+of food was adequate to his wants. And when his first supply is
+exhausted, then let him make up his meal from the sucking bottle. The
+great advantage of this plan is, that he will not be so likely in this
+way to be over-fed. If he is really needy, he will accept the bottle,
+even if he do not like it quite so well; if he refuse it, let him go
+without till he is hungry enough to receive it.</p>
+
+<p>In regard to the water used in the preparation, only one thing needs to
+be said; which is, that it should be pure. If it is not, it should by
+all means be boiled. The sugar used should be of the very best kind; and
+the quantity not large; since if the preparation be too sweet, it
+readily becomes acid in the stomach.</p>
+
+<p>There has been, and still is, a controversy going on among medical men,
+whether sugar is or is not hurtful to the young. &quot;Who shall decide, when
+doctors disagree?&quot; has often been asked. Without undertaking the task
+myself, I may perhaps be permitted to say, that I cannot see any reason
+why a substance so pure, and so highly nutritious as sugar&mdash;if given in
+very small quantity only&mdash;should prove injurious: though I do not regard
+the reasoning of Dr. Dewees as very conclusive on the subject, when, in
+reply to Dr. Cadogan, he has the following language&mdash;&quot;If sugar be
+improper, why does it so largely enter into the composition of the early
+food of all animals? It is in vain that physicians declaim against this
+article, since it forms between seven and eight per cent of the mother's
+milk.&quot;&mdash;Now with me, the fact that milk and almost all other kinds of
+food are furnished with a measure of this substance, is the strongest
+reason I am acquainted with for making no additions. I believe, however,
+that they may sometimes be made, but not for these reasons.</p>
+
+<p>EXCEPTION 2.&mdash;The second striking exception to the general rule that has
+been laid down, is when the mother is unable to nurse her own child from
+positive ill health, or when circumstances exist which render it
+obviously improper that she should do it. The following are some of the
+circumstances which render such a departure from nature indispensable.</p>
+
+<p>1. When the mother is affected strongly with a hereditary disease, such
+as consumption or scrofula; or when her constitution is tainted, as it
+were, with venereal disease, or other permanent affections.</p>
+
+<p>2. When nursing produces, uniformly, some very troublesome or dangerous
+disease in the mother; as cough, colic, &amp;c.</p>
+
+<p>3. There are a few instances in which the milk of the mother, owing to
+an unknown cause, has been found by experience to disagree with the
+child. In these circumstances, it is the unquestionable duty of the
+mother to resort wholly to feeding.</p>
+
+<p>4. Sometimes the milk, at first abundant, fails suddenly, owing to some
+accidental or constitutional defect; and this failure becomes habitual.
+In all these circumstances, the proper resort is to a sucking bottle, or
+a hired nurse. I generally prefer the latter. The cases which seem to me
+to admit of the former, will be pointed out in the next section.</p>
+
+<p>&quot;When the bottle is used,&quot; says Dr. Dewees, &quot;much care is requisite to
+preserve it sweet and free from all impurities, or the remains of the
+former food, by which the present may be rendered impure or sour; for
+which purpose a great deal of caution must be observed.&quot;</p>
+
+<p>The business of feeding a child, whether by the bottle or the spoon,
+should never be hurried: the slower it is, the better. We should stop
+from time to time, during the process. Nor should the nourishment be
+given while lying down; it is much more pleasant, as well as more safe,
+to sit up.</p>
+
+<p>A few thoughts more on the character and condition of the milk which we
+give to the young, will conclude the second division of this section.</p>
+
+<p>Some are fond of boiling milk for infants; but to this I am decidedly
+opposed, so long as they are in health. Boiling takes away, or appears
+to take away, some of the best properties of the milk.</p>
+
+<p>It is true that milk which is boiled does not turn sour so readily in
+hot weather; but it is quite unnecessary to boil milk in the common
+manner in order to present its changing, since such a result can be
+prevented by another process. You have only to put your milk in a
+kettle, cover it closely, and heat it quickly to the boiling point, and
+then remove and cool it as speedily as possible. This plan prevents the
+rising to the surface of that coat or pellicle which contains some of
+the most valuable properties of the milk.</p>
+
+<p>I have already said that it was as necessary that the stomach should
+have rest as any other muscular organ. Some writers say that the infant
+should be kept perfectly quiet, at least half an hour, after each meal.
+This is certainly necessary with feeble children, but I question its
+necessity in the case of those who are strong and robust. I would not
+recommend, however, nor even tolerate, for one moment, the absurd
+practice of <i>jolting</i>, so common with a few ignorant nurses and,
+mothers, as if they could jolt down the food in the stomach with just as
+much safety as they can shake down the contents of a farmer's bag of
+produce. Such mothers as these should go and reside among the native
+tribes of Indians in Guiana, in South America, where they make it a
+point not only to stuff their children's stomachs as long as they will
+hold, but actually to shake it down.</p>
+
+<p>Little less absurd than jolting is the custom of tossing a child high,
+in quick succession, which is practised not only after meals, but at
+other times. But on this point, I have treated elsewhere.</p>
+
+<p>Some give the sucking bottle to children as a plaything. This is just
+about as wise a practice as that of giving them books as playthings.
+Both are done, usually, to save the time and trouble of those whose
+office it is to devote their time to the very purpose of managing and
+educating their offspring. The evil, however, of suffering the child to
+have the bottle when it pleases is, that he will thus be tasting food so
+often as to interfere with and disturb the process of digestion, to his
+great and lasting injury. For in this way, a part of the food will pass
+from the stomach into the bowels unchanged, or at least but imperfectly
+digested, where it is liable to become sour, and cause disease. It is
+not to be doubted that many diarrhoeas, as well as, other bowel
+affections, are produced in this way. Children that are always eating
+are seldom healthy; and we may hence see the reason.</p>
+
+<p>In speaking of the importance of keeping the bottle, from which a child
+takes his food, perfectly clean and sweet, I ought to have extended the
+injunction much farther. There is a degree of slovenliness sometimes
+observable in those who manage children, both when they are sick and
+when they are in health, which even common sense cannot and ought not to
+tolerate. Every vessel which is used in preparing or administering
+anything for children, ought, after we have used it, to be immediately
+and effectually cleansed. How shocking is it to see dirty vessels
+standing in the nursery from hour to hour, becoming sour or impure! How
+much more so still, to see food in copper vessels, or in the red earthen
+ones, glazed with a poisonous oxyd! I speak now more particularly of
+vessels in which food is given; for with the administration of medicine,
+and nursing the sick, I do not intend in this volume to interfere.</p>
+
+<p>EXCEPTION 3.&mdash;We come now to the consideration of those cases&mdash;for such
+it will not be doubted there are&mdash;where a hired nurse is to be preferred
+to feeding by the hand.</p>
+
+<p>Before proceeding farther, however, it is important to say, that if a
+nurse could always be procured whose health, and temper, and habits were
+good, who had no infant of her own, and who would do as well for the
+infant, in every respect, as his own mother, it would be preferable to
+have no feeding by the hand at all.</p>
+
+<p>But such nurses are very scarce. Their temper, or habits, or general
+health, will often be such as no genuine parent would desire, and such
+as they ought to be sorry to see engrafted, in any degree, on the child.
+For even admitting what is claimed by some, that the temper of the nurse
+does <i>not</i> affect the properties of the milk, and thus injure the child
+both physically and morally, still much injury may and inevitably will
+result from the influence of her constant presence and example.</p>
+
+<p>Others have infants of their own, in which case either their own child
+or the adopted one will suffer; and in a majority of cases, it can
+scarcely be doubted <i>which</i> it will be. And I doubt the morality of
+requiring a nurse, in these cases, to give up her own child wholly. If
+<i>one</i> must be fed, why not our own, as well as that of another?</p>
+
+<p>The only cases, then, which seem to me to justify the employment of a
+nurse, are where she possesses at least the qualifications above
+mentioned; and as these are rare, not many nurses, of course, would on
+this principle be employed. But when employed, it is highly desirable
+that the following rules should be observed:</p>
+
+<p>1: The nurse should suckle the child at both breasts; otherwise he is
+liable to acquire a degree of crookedness in his form. There is another
+evil which sometimes results from the too common neglect of this rule,
+which is, that it endangers the deterioration of the quality of the
+milk.</p>
+
+<p>2. The milk which is thus substituted for that of the mother, should be
+as nearly as possible of the same age as the child who is to receive it.
+It should be remembered, however, that the milk is not so good after the
+twelfth or thirteenth month, nor <i>quite</i> so good under the third.</p>
+
+<p>3. When the parent or some trusty and confidential friend can, without
+the aid of interested spies and emissaries, have an eye to the general
+treatment, and especially to the moral management, it should be done;
+for even the best nurses may so differ in their principles, manners and
+habits from the parent, that the latter would deem it preferable to
+withdraw the child, and resort at once to feeding.</p>
+<br>
+
+<h4>SEC. 7. <i>From Teething to Weaning.</i></h4>
+
+<p>This period will, of course, be longer or shorter according as the teeth
+begin to appear earlier or later, and according to the time when it is
+thought proper to wean.</p>
+
+<p>On few points, perhaps, has there existed a greater diversity of opinion
+than in regard to the age most proper for weaning. The limits of this
+work do not permit a thorough discussion of the question; and I shall
+therefore be very brief in my remarks on the subject.</p>
+
+<p>Dr. Cullen, whose opinion on topics of this kind is certainly entitled
+to much respect, thought that less than seven, or more than eleven
+months of nursing was injurious. Yet in some countries, and even in some
+parts of our own, the period is extended by the mother, from choice, to
+two years. And although the milk is not so good after the thirteenth or
+fourteenth month, I have never either known or heard that any evil
+consequences followed from the practice.</p>
+
+<p>Dr. Loudon, a recent writer, observes, that the period of nursing has a
+great influence over the numbers of mankind in various countries, as is
+evinced by numerous facts. He adduces proofs of this, position. Thus, he
+says, in China, where the population is excessive, and the inhuman
+practice of infanticide is common, they wean a child as soon as it can
+put its hand to its mouth. On the other hand, the Indians of North
+America do not wean their children until they are old and strong enough
+to run about: generally they are suckled for a period of more than two
+years.</p>
+
+<p>He then enters into a physiological inquiry why it is that British
+mothers do not usually suckle their children longer than ten months. He
+seems&mdash;though he does not give us his precise opinion&mdash;to think that, in
+all ordinary cases, the period of nursing ought to be protracted to two
+or three years, and that perhaps it would be better still to extend it
+to four or five. His remarks are so excellent, and withal so curious,
+and their tendency so humane, that we venture to insert one or two of
+his paragraphs entire.</p>
+
+<p>&quot;Certain it is, that the milk does not diminish particularly at that
+time, (ten months,) so far as regards quantity; and from the health of
+children reared without spoon-meat beyond this time, it as certainly
+undergoes no change in its quality. Children are sometimes so old before
+weaning, as to be able to ask for the breast; and it has not been
+remarked that the health of mothers, thus suckling, was in any way worse
+than that of their neighbors. Altogether, then, it may be asserted, that
+a mother is likely to enjoy better health, and to be less liable to
+sickness and death during lactation, than during pregnancy.</p>
+
+<p>&quot;Many women believe, or affect to believe, that the weakness they labor
+under arises from some latent moral or physical cause; but this weakness
+is not attributed to lactation in the earlier months of suckling,
+because the mother then considers herself fulfilling a necessary duty,
+which her constitution, for so long, is well able to bear. So soon,
+however, as the period of lactation has passed over, as it is
+established by custom or fashion, she imagines she is exceeding the
+intentions of nature, and she forthwith concludes that the continuance
+of suckling is the cause of her uncomfortable sensations. This whim
+being entertained, the child is weaned, and too often becomes the victim
+of a most reprehensible delusion.</p>
+
+<p>&quot;Since nature has furnished the mother with milk for a longer period
+than custom demands, it is evident that some good purpose for the mother
+and child was intended in this arrangement. Had it been otherwise, the
+secretion of milk would stop at a definite time, in like manner as the
+period of gestation is definite. That a child, in comparison with the
+young of the lower animals, is so long unable to provide for itself,
+strongly tends to corroborate the proofs already advanced&mdash;that nature
+originally had in view a more protracted period for lactation than is
+now allowed.</p>
+
+<p>&quot;Some writers, following the laws of nature, as they interpreted them,
+fixed the period of weaning at fifteen months, when the infant has got
+its eight incisors and four canine teeth. There are well-authenticated
+instances of mothers having suckled their children for three, four,
+five, and even seven consecutive years; we ourselves have known cases
+of lactation being prolonged far three and for four years, with the
+happiest results.&quot;</p>
+
+<p>It appears to me better, therefore, that the child should be nursed, in
+all ordinary cases, from twelve to fifteen months; and when there are no
+special objections, about two years. As the change, whenever it is made,
+and however gradual it may be, is an important one, in its effects on
+the stomach and bowels, it is better to wean a little earlier or a
+little later, than to do so just at the close of summer or beginning of
+autumn, at which season bowel complaints are most common, most severe,
+and most dangerous. It is sufficiently unfortunate that teething should
+commence just at this period; but when we add another cause of irregular
+action, which we can control, to one which we <i>cannot</i>, we act very
+unwisely.</p>
+
+<p>I have already observed that we may begin to feed children when the
+teeth begin to appear. By this is not meant that we should do so while
+the system is under the irritation to which teething usually, or at
+least often, subjects it. But when this is over, and a few teeth have
+appeared, it is usually a proper time to commence our operations.</p>
+
+<p>The first food given should be precisely of the kind which has been
+recommended for those children who are fed by the hand. The rules and
+restrictions by which we are to be guided, are the same, except in one
+point, which is, that in the case we are now considering, the child
+should be fed <i>between nursing</i>.</p>
+
+<p>Let not parents be anxious about their healthy children under two years,
+who have a supply of good milk, either from the mother or from the cow.
+For those that are feeble, a physician may and ought to prescribe&mdash;not
+medicine, but appropriate food, drink, &amp;c.</p>
+
+<p>When the grinding teeth have cut through, if we have any doubts in
+regard to the nutritive qualities of the food we are giving, we may
+improve it by adding, instead of the one third of pure water, a similar
+quantity of gum arabic water, barley water, or rice water. Some use a
+little weak animal broth; but this is unnecessary, and I think, on the
+whole, injurious, except for purposes strictly medicinal.</p>
+
+<p>This course is so simple, and so far removed from that which is
+generally adopted, that few mothers will probably be willing to pursue
+it with perseverance, especially when the teeth appear very late. Those
+who are, however, will be richly rewarded, in the end, in the
+advantages; which will accrue to the child's health, and the vigor it
+will ensure to his constitution.</p>
+<br>
+
+<h4>SEC. 8. <i>During the process of Weaning.</i></h4>
+
+<p>It has already been shown that, in weaning, some regard should be had to
+the season of the year; and that the end of summer and beginning of fall
+are of all periods the most unfavorable. The best time, on every
+account, is in the spring&mdash;in March, April, May, or June; and the next
+best is during the months of October and November. But December, January
+and February are better than July, August and September.</p>
+
+<p>Weaning should never be sudden. We may safely and properly call upon
+those who are addicted to snuff or opium taking, tobacco chewing, rum
+drinking, and other habits which are purely artificial, to break
+off&mdash;<i>to wean themselves</i>&mdash;suddenly; since <i>they</i> can do so with
+considerable safety, and will seldom have the courage or the
+perseverance to do it otherwise. But with the child, in regard to his
+food, such a course will not be advisable. If we regard his future
+health or happiness, he must be weaned gradually.</p>
+
+<p>The first proper step will be to give the child a little larger quantity
+of the cow's milk and gum arabic mixture, between nursings, at the same
+time increasing very gradually the intervals of nursing. When the
+intervals become six hours distant from each other, it will be best to
+add a little good bread to the milk with which it is fed, about two or
+three times a day. Arrowroot jelly, if he can be made to relish it, will
+be highly useful; but if not, some boiled rice, into which a little
+arrowroot has been sprinkled while boiling, may be added to his milk.</p>
+
+<p>It may be worth the attempt to excite an aversion in the child to
+nursing his mother, so that be will refuse to nurse, if possible, of his
+own accord. This aversion may be excited by such an application of
+aloes, or some other offensive substance, as will cause him to withdraw
+himself from the breast as soon as he tastes it.</p>
+
+<p>A serious mistake is often made, in connection with weaning, in giving
+the child not only too much food, but that which is too solid, or too
+rich. This mistake has undoubtedly grown out of the belief that his
+feeble condition <i>requires</i> it; whereas the truth is, that he neither
+needs food at this period, nor is capable of digesting it. For let us be
+as judicious in the process of weaning as we may, the tone of the
+child's stomach will be somewhat reduced, or in other words, its powers
+of digestion will be weakened by it; and to give it strong food, or
+overload it with that which is weaker, is not only unreasonable and
+unphilosophical, but cruel. And if there should be a tendency in the
+child's constitution to rickets, scrofula, consumption, and other
+wasting diseases, such a course would be likely to bring them on, and
+destroy life.</p>
+
+<p>&quot;When milk will agree,&quot; says Dr. Dewees, &quot;there is no food so proper. It
+may be employed in any of its combinations, with good wheaten bread,
+rice, sago, &amp;c., only remembering that when either of these articles is
+found to agree, it should be continued perseveringly, until it may
+become offensive. In this case, some new combination may be required.&quot; I
+do not see the necessity of continuing one kind of food till it
+<i>offends</i>. Besides, I do not believe that these simple articles of food
+are apt to become offensive to stomachs that have not already been
+spoiled. But whether a single dish should or should not come to be
+offensive, I greatly prefer an occasional change.</p>
+
+<p>Buchan, in his Advice to Mothers, has recommended it to them to boil
+bread for their infants, in water. It should not, for this purpose&mdash;nor
+indeed for any other&mdash;be new; it is best at one or two days, old. It may
+be boiled in a small quantity of water, or what is still better, of
+milk; or it may be steamed till it becomes soft and light, almost like
+new bread, but without any of the objectionable properties of that which
+is wholly new. To bread, thus prepared, is to be added a suitable
+quantity of milk, fresh from the cow, and a little diluted with water,
+but not boiled.</p>
+
+<p>But as there may be, here and there, at any age, a stomach with which
+milk, with bread, or rice, or sago, will not agree&mdash;though I think they
+must be very rare cases&mdash;we may be allowed to substitute for it a
+solution of &quot;gum arabic, in the proportion of an ounce to a pint of
+water,&quot; to which may be added a little sugar; and if the child is old
+enough to observe the color, just milk enough to change the appearance.
+Another preparation for the same purpose consists of rennet whey, a
+little sweetened, and &quot;disguised, if necessary, as just stated.&quot;</p>
+
+<p>The health of the mother, too, during the period of weaning, often needs
+great attention. Let her avoid medicine, however, if possible. A due
+regard to food, drink, exercise, and rest of body and mind, &amp;c., will
+usually be found more effective, as well as more permanently
+efficacious.</p>
+<br>
+
+<h4>SEC. 9. <i>Food subsequently to Weaning.</i></h4>
+
+<p>You will allow me to introduce in this place, some of the sentiments of
+Dr. Cadogan, an English physician, from a little work on the management
+of children. [Footnote: Though Dr. C.'s remarks will apply more closely
+to England in 1750, they are by no means inapplicable to the United
+States in 1837.] I do it with the more pleasure because, though he wrote
+almost a century ago, he urges the same general principles on which I
+have all along been insisting: hence it will be seen that mine are no
+new-fangled notions. His remarks refer to the young of every age, but
+chiefly to early infancy and childhood. It will be found necessary, in
+some instances, to abridge, but I shall endeavor not to misrepresent the
+Doctor's views.</p>
+
+<br><hr style="width: 45%;"><br>
+
+<p>&quot;Look over the bills of mortality. Almost half of those who fill up that
+black list, die under five years of age; so that half the people that
+come into the world go out of it again, before they become of the least
+use to it or to themselves. To me, this seems to deserve serious
+consideration.</p>
+
+<p>&quot;It is ridiculous to charge it upon nature, and to suppose that infants
+are more subject to disease and death than grown persons; on the
+contrary, they bear pain and disease much better&mdash;fevers especially; and
+for the same reason that a twig is less hurt by a storm than an oak.</p>
+
+<p>&quot;In all the other productions of nature, we see the greatest vigor and
+luxuriancy of health, the nearer they are to the egg or bud. When was
+there a lamb, a bird, or a tree, that died because it was young? These
+are under the immediate nursing of unerring nature; and they thrive
+accordingly.</p>
+
+<p>&quot;Ought it not, therefore, to be the care of every nurse and every
+parent, not only to protect their nurslings from injury, but to be well
+assured that their own officious services be not the greatest evils the
+helpless creatures can suffer?</p>
+
+<p>&quot;In the lower class of mankind, especially in the country, disease and
+mortality are not so frequent, either among adults or their children.
+Health and posterity are the portion of the poor&mdash;I mean the laborious.
+The want of superfluity confines them more within the limits of nature;
+hence they enjoy the blessings they feel not, and are ignorant of their
+cause.</p>
+
+<p>&quot;In the course of my practice, I have had frequent occasion to be fully
+satisfied of this; and have often heard a mother anxiously say, 'the
+child has not been well ever since it has done puking and crying.'</p>
+
+<p>&quot;These complaints, though not attended to, point very plainly to the
+cause. Is it not very evident that when a child rids its stomach of its
+contents several times a day, it has been overloaded? While the natural
+strength lasts, (for every child is born with more health and strength
+than is generally imagined,) it cries at or rejects the superfluous
+load, and <i>thrives apace</i>; that is, grows very fat, bloated, and
+distended beyond measure, like a house lamb.</p>
+
+<p>&quot;But in time, the same oppressive cause continuing, the natural powers
+are overcome, being no longer able to throw off the unequal weight. The
+child, now unable to cry any more, languishes and is quiet.</p>
+
+<p>&quot;The misfortune is, that these complaints are not understood. The child
+is swaddled and crammed on, till, after gripes, purging, &amp;c., it sinks
+under both burdens into a convulsion fit, and escapes farther torture.
+This would be the case with the lamb, were it not killed, when full fat.</p>
+
+<p>&quot;That the present mode of nursing is wrong, one would think needed no
+other proof than the frequent miscarriages attending it, the death of
+many, and the ill health of those that survive. But what I am going to
+complain of is, that children, in general, are over-clothed and
+over-fed, and fed and clothed improperly. To these causes I attribute
+almost all their diseases.</p>
+
+<p>&quot;But the feeding of children is much more important to them than their
+clothing. Let us consider what nature directs in the case. If we follow
+nature, instead of leading or driving her, we cannot err. In the
+business of nursing, as well as physic, art, if it do not exactly copy
+this original, is ever destructive.</p>
+
+<p>&quot;If I could prevail, no child should ever be crammed with any unnatural
+mixture, till the provision of nature was ready for it; nor afterwards
+fed with any ungenial diet whatever, at least for the <i>first three
+months</i>; for it is not well able to digest and assimilate other elements
+sooner.</p>
+
+<p>&quot;I have seen very healthy children that never ate or drank anything
+whatever but their mother's milk, for the first ten or twelve months.
+Nature seems to direct to this, by giving them no teeth till about that
+time. The call of nature should be waited for to feed them with anything
+more substantial; and the appetite ought ever to precede the food&mdash;not
+only with regard to the daily meals, but those changes of diet which
+opening, increasing life requires. But this is never done, in either
+case; which is one of the greatest mistakes of all nurses.</p>
+
+<p>&quot;When the child requires more solid sustenance, we are to inquire what
+and how much is most proper to give it. We may be well assured there is
+a great mistake either in the quantity or quality of children's food, or
+both, as it is usually given them, because they are made sick by it; for
+to this mistake I cannot help imputing nine in ten of all their
+diseases.</p>
+
+<p>&quot;As to quantity, there is a most ridiculous error in the common
+practice; for it is generally supposed that whenever a child cries, it
+wants victuals: it is accordingly fed ten or twelve or more times in a
+day and night. This is so obvious a misapprehension, that I am surprised
+it should ever prevail.</p>
+
+<p>&quot;If a child's wants and motions be diligently and judiciously attended
+to, it will be found that it never cries, but from pain. Now the first
+sensations of hunger are not attended with pain; accordingly, a very
+young child that is hungry will make a hundred other signs of its want,
+before it will cry for food. If it be healthy, and quite easy in its
+dress, it will hardly ever cry at all. Indeed, these signs and motions I
+speak of are but rarely observed, because it seldom happens that
+children are ever suffered to be hungry.[Footnote: That which we
+commonly observe in them, in such cases, and call by the name of hunger,
+the Doctor, I suppose would regard as morbid or unnatural feeling,
+wholly unworthy of the name of HUNGER.]</p>
+
+<p>&quot;In a few, very few, whom I have had the pleasure to see reasonably
+nursed, that were not fed above two or three times in twenty-four hours,
+and yet were perfectly healthy, active, and happy, I have seen these
+signals, which were as intelligible as if they had spoken.</p>
+
+<p>&quot;There are many faults in the quality of children's food.</p>
+
+<p>&quot;1. It is not simple enough. Their paps, panadas, gruels, &amp;c. are
+generally enriched with sugar, spices, and other nice things, and
+sometimes a drop of wine&mdash;none of which they ought ever to take. Our
+bodies never want them; they are what luxury only has introduced, to the
+destruction of the health of mankind.</p>
+
+<p>&quot;2. It is not enough that their food should be simple; it should also be
+light. Many people, I find, are mistaken in their notions of what is
+light, and fancy that most kinds of pastry, puddings, custards, &amp;c. are
+light; that is, light of digestion. But there is nothing heavier, in
+this sense, than unfermented flour and eggs, boiled hard, which are the
+chief ingredients in some of these preparations.</p>
+
+<p>&quot;What I mean by light food&mdash;to give the best idea I can of it&mdash;is, any
+substance that is easily separated, and soluble in warm water. Good
+bread is the lightest thing I know, and the fittest food for young
+children. Cows' milk is also simple and light, and very good for them;
+but it is often injudiciously prepared. It should never be boiled; for
+boiling alters the taste and properties of it, destroys its sweetness,
+and makes it thicker, heavier, and less fit to mix and assimilate with
+the blood.&quot;</p>
+
+<br><hr style="width: 45%;"><br>
+
+<p>It is hardly necessary for me to repeat, that in these general views of
+Dr. C., with a few exceptions, I entirely concur; indeed some of them
+have already been presented. But I have expressed my doubts of the
+soundness of his conclusion in regard to sugar. Used with food, in very
+small quantity, by persons whose stomachs are already in a good
+condition, both sugar and molasses, especially the former, appear to me
+not only harmless, but wholesome and useful.</p>
+
+<p>On the subject of simplicity in children's food, I should be glad to
+enlarge. There is nothing more important in diet than simplicity, and
+yet I think there is nothing more rare. To suit the fashion, everything
+must be mixed and varied. I have no objection to variety at different
+meals, both for children and adults; indeed I am disposed to recommend
+it, as will be seen hereafter. But I am utterly opposed to any
+considerable variety at the same meal; and above all, in a single dish.
+The simpler a dish can be, the better.</p>
+
+<p>But let us look, for a moment, at the dishes of food which are often
+presented, even at what are called plain tables.</p>
+
+<p>Meats cannot be eaten&mdash;so many persons think&mdash;without being covered
+with mustard, or pepper, or gravy&mdash;or soaked in vinegar; and not a few
+regard them as insipid, unless several of these are combined. Few people
+think a piece of plain boiled or broiled muscle (lean flesh) with
+nothing on it but a little salt, is fit to be eaten. Everything, it is
+thought, must be rendered more stimulating, or acrid; or must be
+swimming in gravy, or melted fat or butter.</p>
+
+<p>Bread, though proverbially the staff of life, can scarcely be eaten in
+its simple state. It must be buttered, or honied, or toasted, or soaked
+in milk, or dipped in gravy. Puddings must have cherries or fruits of
+some sort, or spices in them, and must be sweetened largely. Or
+perhaps&mdash;more ridiculous still&mdash;they must have suet in them. And after
+all this is done, who can eat them without the addition of sauce, or
+butter, or molasses, or cream? Potatoes, boiled, steamed or roasted,
+delightful as they are to an unperverted appetite, are yet thought by
+many people hardly palatable till they are mashed, and buttered or
+gravied; or perhaps soaked in vinegar. In short, the plainest and
+simplest article for the table is deemed nearly unfit for the stomach,
+till it has been buttered, and peppered, and spiced, and perhaps
+<i>pearlashed</i>. Even bread and milk must be filled with berries or fruits.
+Where can you find many adults who would relish a meal which should
+consist entirely of plain bread, without any addition; of plain
+potatoes, without anything on them except a little salt; of a plain rice
+pudding, and nothing with it; or of plain baked or boiled apples or
+pears? And <i>could</i> such persons be found, how many of them would bring
+up their children to live on such plain dishes?</p>
+
+<p>It need not be wondered at, that a palate which has been so long tickled
+by variety, and by so many stimulating mixtures of food, should come to
+regard cold water for drink as insipid; and should feel dissatisfied
+with it, and desirous of boiling some narcotic or poisonous herb in it,
+or brewing it with something which will impart to it more or less of
+alcohol. The wonder is, not that some of our epicures become drunkards,
+but that all of them do not.</p>
+
+<p>Dr. Cadogan alludes to a sad mistake everywhere made about <i>light</i> food;
+and condemns, very justly, hard-boiled custards, pastry, &amp;c. It is very
+strange that these substances&mdash;for these are among the injurious
+articles which I call mixtures&mdash;should ever have obtained currency in
+the world, to the exclusion of bread, which, as the same writer justly
+says, is among the lightest articles of food which are known.</p>
+
+<p>It is strange, in particular, what views people have about bread.
+Judging from what I see, I am compelled to believe that there are few
+who regard it in any other light than as a kind of necessary evil. They
+appear to eat it, not because they are fond of it, by itself, but
+because they <i>must</i> eat it; or rather, because it is a fashionable
+article; and not to make believe they eat it, at the least, would be
+unfashionable. They will get rid of it, however, when they can. And when
+they must eat it, they soak it, or cover it with butter or milk, or
+something else which will render it tolerable&mdash;or toast it. And use it
+as they may, it must be hot from the oven. After it is once cold, very
+few will eat it. The idea, above all, of making a full meal of simple
+cold bread, twenty-four hours old, would be rejected by ninety-nine
+persons in a hundred; and by some with abhorrence.</p>
+
+<p>People not only dislike bread, but regard it as unnutritious. I have
+heard many a fond parent say to the child who ate no meat, and seemed to
+depend almost wholly on bread&mdash;&quot;Why, my dear child, you will starve if
+you eat no meat. Do at least put some butter on your bread or your
+potatoes.&quot; A thousand times have I been admonished, when eating my
+vegetable dinner during the hot and fatiguing days of summer&mdash;for I was
+bred to the farm, and ate little or no meat till I was fourteen years
+of age&mdash;to eat more butter, or cheese, or something that would give me
+strength; for I could not work, they said, without something more
+nourishing than bread and the other vegetables. And yet few if any boys
+of my age did more work, or performed it better, or with more ease, than
+myself. And I early observed the same thing in other vegetable eaters.</p>
+
+<p>The truth is, there is nothing in the world better adapted to the daily
+wants of the human stomach than good bread; and few things more
+nutritious. There may be a little more nutriment in eggs or jelly; but
+if the former are hard-boiled, the stomach cannot digest them; and fat
+meat of any kind is digested with great difficulty. Indeed it is
+doubtful whether stomachs in temperate climates digest fat at all. They
+may dissolve it, but that is not making good chyle of it. They may even
+reduce it to chyle; <i>but chyle is not blood</i>. Fat may slip through the
+system without much of it <i>adhering</i>; and I think it pretty evident that
+it usually does so.</p>
+
+<p>The muscle&mdash;the lean part of animals&mdash;may be nearly as nutritious as
+good bread, and is more easily digested. But it is very far from being
+proved that, for the healthy, those things are always best which are
+most easily digested. Nobody will pretend that potatoes are better for
+us than bread; and yet the experiments of Dr. Beaumont seem to prove
+that boiled or roasted potatoes are much more quick and easy of
+digestion than bread of the first and best quality. Even over-boiled
+eggs and raw cabbage, bad as they are, are dissolved in the stomach, and
+appear to be digested as quick, if not quicker, than good wheat bread.
+But nobody in the world will pretend they form more wholesome food.
+Neither is meat&mdash;even <i>lean</i> meat&mdash;necessarily more wholesome, or better
+calculated to give strength than bread, simply be cause it is more
+quickly and easily digested. It would be nearer the truth to say, that
+those substances which digest slowest (provided they do not irritate)
+are best adapted to the wants of the human stomach.</p>
+
+<p>The philosopher LOCKE&mdash;perhaps from his knowledge of medicine&mdash;gives
+some excellent directions on this subject. &quot;Great care should be used,&quot;
+be says, that the child &quot;eat bread plentifully, both alone and with
+everything else; and whatever he eats that is solid, make him chew it
+well.&quot; This writer, by the way, supposed that the teeth were made to be
+used in beating our food; and that we ought neither to swallow it
+without chewing, as is customary in our busy New England, nor to mash or
+soak it in order to save the labor of mastication&mdash;a practice almost
+equally universal. But let us hear his own words.</p>
+
+<blockquote class="small">&quot;As for his diet, it ought to be very plain and simple; and if I might
+advise, flesh should be forborne, at least till he is two or three years
+old. But of whatever advantage this may be to his future health and
+strength, I fear it will hardly be consented to by parents, misled by
+the custom of eating too much flesh themselves, who will be apt to think
+their children&mdash;as they do themselves&mdash;in danger to be starved; if they
+have not flesh at least twice a day. This I am sure, children would
+breed their teeth with much less danger, be freer from diseases while
+they were little, and lay the foundations of a healthy and strong
+constitution much surer, if they were not crammed so much as they are,
+by fond mothers and foolish servants, and were kept wholly from flesh
+the first three or four years of their lives.&quot;</blockquote>
+
+<p>Were Locke still living, I should like to interrogate him at this
+place. He first speaks of giving children no meat till they are two or
+three years old; and then afterwards extends the period to three or
+four. The question I would put is this: If the child is healthier
+without meat till he is three or four years old, why not till he is
+thirteen or fourteen; or even till thirty, or forty, or seventy? And is
+not Professor Stuart, of Andover&mdash;a meat eater himself, and an advocate
+for its moderate use by those who have already been trained to the use
+of it&mdash;is not the Professor, I say, more than half right when he
+asserts, as I have heard him, that it may be well to train all children,
+from the first, to the exclusive use of vegetable food?</p>
+
+<p>I have a few more extracts from Locke, particularly on the subject of
+bread.</p>
+
+<blockquote class="small">&quot;I should think that a good piece of well made and well baked brown
+bread would be often the best breakfast for my young master. I am sure
+it is as wholesome, and will make him as strong a man, as greater
+delicacies; and if he be used to it, it will be as pleasant to him.</blockquote>
+
+<blockquote class="small">&quot;If he, at any time, call for victuals between meals, use him to nothing
+but dry bread. If he be hungry more than wanton, bread will go down; and
+if he be not hungry, it is not fit that he should eat. By this you will
+obtain two good effects. First, that by custom he will come to be in
+love with bread; for, as I said, our palates and stomachs, too, are
+pleased with the things we are used to. Another good you will gain
+hereby is, that you will not teach him to eat more nor oftener than
+nature requires.</blockquote>
+
+<blockquote class="small">&quot;I do not think that all people's appetites are alike; some have
+naturally stronger and some weaker stomachs. But this I think, that
+many are made gormands and gluttons by custom, that were not so by
+nature. And I see, in some countries, men as lusty and strong, that eat
+but two meals a day, as those that have set their stomachs, by a
+constant usage, to call on them for four or five.</blockquote>
+
+<blockquote class="small">&quot;The Romans usually fasted till supper, the only set meal, even of those
+who ate more than once in a day; and those who used breakfasts, as some
+did at eight, same at ten, others at twelve of the clock, and some
+later, neither ate flesh nor had anything made ready for them.</blockquote>
+
+<blockquote class="small">&quot;Augustus, when the greatest monarch on the earth, tells us he took a
+piece of dry bread in his chariot; and Seneca, in his 83d epistle,
+giving an account how be managed himself when he was old, and his age
+permitted indulgence, says that he used to eat a piece of dry bread for
+his dinner, without the formality of sitting to it. Yet Seneca, as it is
+well known, was wealthy.</blockquote>
+
+<blockquote class="small">&quot;The masters of the world were brought up with this spare diet, and the
+young gentlemen of Rome felt no want of strength or spirit because they
+ate but once a day. Or if it happened by chance that any one could not
+fast so long as till supper, their only set meal, he took nothing but a
+bit of dry bread, or at most a few raisins or some such slight thing
+with it, to stay his stomach. And more than one set meal a day was
+thought so monstrous that it was a reproach, as low as Caesar's time, to
+make an entertainment, or sit down to a table, till towards sunset.
+Therefore I judge it most convenient that my young master should have
+nothing but bread for breakfast. I impute a great part of our diseases
+in England to our eating too much flesh, and too little bread. Dry
+bread, though the best nourishment, has the least temptation.&quot;</blockquote>
+
+<p>I shall not undertake to defend all the sentiments of Mr. Locke in these
+extracts; but in regard to the main point&mdash;the nutritive properties and
+wholesome tendency of bread, and the importance of making it a principal
+article of diet for children&mdash;I think his views are just. In short, they
+do not differ, substantially, from those of a large proportion of the
+best writers on this subject in every country, during the last three
+hundred years. As if with one voice, they dissuade from the use of too
+much animal food for the young, and encourage the use of a larger
+proportion of vegetable food&mdash;bread, plain puddings, rice, potatoes,
+turnips, beets, apples, pears, &amp;c., and milk.</p>
+
+<p>Yet they all, or nearly all, seem to write just as if they did not
+expect to be believed; or if believed, to be followed. They seem to
+regard mankind as so inveterately attached to old habits, and so much
+addicted to flesh eating, that there is little hope of reclaiming them.</p>
+
+<p>Now, though my opinions are no more entitled to respect than many of
+theirs, I hope for greater success than they appear to do. I expect that
+many young mothers who read this work, will be led to think and inquire
+further on the subject; and if they find that the views here advanced
+are in accordance with reason, and common sense, and higher authority, I
+am not without hope that they will reform, and do what they can to
+reform their neighbors.</p>
+
+<p>I have dwelt the longer, in this section, on the <i>general</i> principles of
+diet, because I am of opinion that whatever is true, on this subject, in
+regard to the diet of children, soon after weaning, is equally, or
+nearly equally applicable to the whole of childhood, youth, manhood and
+age. It is not true that one period of life, and one mode of employment,
+demands a diet essentially different from that which is demanded at
+another period, and in other circumstances; provided always, that the
+individual is in health. Occasional instances of the kind, there may be;
+but they are not numerous.</p>
+
+<p>The digestive powers of the young are more nearly as strong as those of
+the adult than is usually admitted, and they are much more active. They
+require a less quantity of food, undoubtedly; and they should be fed at
+shorter intervals. But as a general rule, what is best for them, as
+regards its quality, at three years old, is best for them at thirty; or,
+should they live so long, at ninety. I repeat it; there is very little
+difference in the nature of the food required ever after teething.</p>
+
+<p>Let me not be understood as saying that the strong, and the robust, and
+the active cannot digest food which the weak, and enervated, and
+indolent cannot. Undoubtedly they can. But this does not prove that they
+<i>ought</i> to do it. It does not prove that their strength and vigor were
+not given them for other purposes than to be expended on the poorer
+substances for food, when they might have better. Nor is it true, as
+often pretended, that the hard laborer needs either more food, or that
+which is of a stronger quality, just in proportion to the severity of
+his labor. The man or the child who labors moderately, just sufficient
+for the purposes of health, and labors with his hands in the open air,
+needs rather <i>more</i> food than the indolent or the sedentary, or those
+who labor to excess; but not that which is of a stronger quality. It is
+he who labors to excess&mdash;if any difference of quality were required at
+all&mdash;who should eat milder food, as well as less in quantity.</p>
+
+<p>Some physicians there are who tell us that all mankind would live
+longer, as well as be more healthful, if they ate nothing but bread, and
+drank nothing but water. It may be so, but I do not believe it. Water,
+as I shall show hereafter, is indeed the only appropriate drink; but I
+do not believe that bread, even after the second year, is in all cases
+and circumstances the best food. Besides that the experiments of
+Majendie and other physiologists go a little way&mdash;though not far, I
+confess&mdash;to prove that animals generally, (and if so, why not man, as
+well as the rest?) thrive best with some degree of variety in their
+food, it seems to me more in accordance with the general intentions of
+the Creator, so far as we can discover what they are.</p>
+
+<p>While, therefore, I deny that either milk or bread is better, in all
+cases, for human sustenance, than any other articles of food, I must, at
+the same time, be permitted to regard them as among the best, and as
+deserving more general attention. Every infant, after leaving the
+breast, should, as it seems to me, make bread, in some of its forms, a
+chief article of food.</p>
+
+<p>This article, so justly and emphatically called the staff of life, may
+be found in almost every country. Common sense seems to have dictated
+the propriety of its use; though fashion has often led us to overlook
+or despise it&mdash;like air, and fire, and water, and nearly every other
+common but indispensable blessing.</p>
+
+<p>The best kind of bread is made from wheat, the worst from bark,
+saw-dust, &amp;c. Wood and bark afford so little nutriment, that it is only
+in such countries as Norway, Sweden, Lapland. Iceland, Greenland, and
+Siberia, that the inhabitants can be induced to make use of them. Here
+they are often useful; either because people cannot get food which is
+better, or to blend with their fat or oily animal food. For it should
+never be forgotten, that healthy digestion requires a large proportion
+of innutritious matter along with the pure nutriment. In order to make
+bread from wheat, the meal should not be bolted. If it seems to contain
+particles which are too coarse, it may be well to pass it through a
+coarse family sieve; but the best bread I have ever eaten, as well as
+the cleanest and neatest, was not sifted at all.</p>
+
+<p>I know there is an almost universal prejudice against this sort of
+bread. Some complain that it scratches their throats; others, that it is
+tasteless; and others still, that it does not agree with them. With
+others there is another objection&mdash;which is that bread of this sort has
+sometimes been called <i>dyspepsia</i> bread; and with others still, that it
+has been called <i>Graham</i> bread. Either of these appellations seems
+sufficient to condemn it.</p>
+
+<p>Now as to the harshness, this is owing to its being made of bad
+materials, or to its being baked too hard, or kept too long. Much of
+what they call dyspepsia bread, in our cities, is evidently made by
+mixing the bran and flour of wheat after they have been once separated;
+besides which, in not a few cases, the finest of the flour appears to be
+taken away. Now bread made of such materials thus combined, will always
+be darker colored, as well as harsher, than when made from the wheat,
+simply ground without any bolting, and wet up in the usual manner. Such
+bread is best two or three days old. After four days, it becomes dry and
+somewhat harsh.</p>
+
+<p>They who complain that such bread is insipid, are persons whose
+appetites have been injured by food which is high-seasoned; and who, if
+they eat bread at all, must eat it hot, or soaked in butter. No wonder
+such persons do not like plain bread, and say it is tasteless. But it
+must not be denied that bakers often suffer this kind of bread to be
+over-risen, in order to make it sufficiently light and porous. This
+renders it less tasteful, and from the saleratus they use, less
+wholesome.</p>
+
+<p>No child who has been accustomed, from the first, to good wheaten bread,
+made of unbolted meal, and not less than one day old, will ever prefer
+any other, until he has been rendered capricious on this subject, and
+wishes to change for the sake of changing, or until he has been misled
+by surrounding example. I speak from observation when I say that
+infants, whose habits have not been depraved, will not prefer hot bread
+of any kind. &quot;It is hot, mother,&quot; I have heard them say, as an apology
+for refusing a piece of bread; but never, &quot;It is cold,&quot; or &quot;It is too
+old.&quot;</p>
+
+<p>It is the epicurean&mdash;it is he with whom it is a sufficient objection to
+any kind of food whatever, that he has used it for several successive
+meals or days&mdash;that is most ready to complain of good bread. He whose
+habits are correct, and who is the more unwilling to change any of his
+articles of diet, the longer he has been in the use of them, and who
+only changes them, or uses variety, from principle&mdash;he, I say, will
+never complain of harshness or want of taste in good wheat bread; nor
+will it be an objection of weight with him that <i>Mr. Graham</i> has
+recommended it, or that it has either prevented or cured <i>dyspepsia</i>.</p>
+
+<p>Nor will the epicurean himself complain that bread is insipid, after
+being confined to it for a month or six weeks. He will then find a
+sweetness in it, for which he had long sought in vain in the more
+delicate and costly viands of a luxurious, and expensive, and
+unchristian modern table.</p>
+
+<p>It is they only who observe simplicity, and confine themselves to very
+plain food, who truly enjoy pleasure in eating. The bulk of mankind
+benumb their sense of taste by their high-seasoned, over-stimulating
+food and drink, and by such constant variety and strange mixtures; and
+thus, in their eager cry, &quot;Who will show us any good?&quot; they actually
+enjoy less than he who eats plain food, and is contented with it.</p>
+
+<p>Bread of all kinds is greatly improved in whiteness and pleasantness by
+being wet with milk; though even when wet with nothing but water, there
+is a solid and rational sweetness to it, of which the despisers of
+bread, and devourers of much flesh and condiments never dreamed, and
+never will dream, till they reform their habits.</p>
+
+<p>If children are furnished with good bread, on the plan of Mr. Locke,
+there is no doubt that they will relish it most keenly; that their
+attachment to it will strengthen, and that unless we give them other
+food occasionally, from principle, or seduce them by depraving their
+tastes, they will continue it through life. &quot;Train up a child in the way
+he should go, and when he is old he will not depart from it,&quot; is a
+general rule, and has as few exceptions, when applied to the diet of a
+child, as when it is applied to his moral tastes and preferences.</p>
+
+<p>With those parents who, though convinced of the justness of the views
+here advanced, have already trained their children in the way they
+should <i>not</i> go, but are anxious to retrace their steps as far as
+possible, there will here be a difficulty. &quot;Our children,&quot; they will
+say, &quot;do not, at present, <i>relish</i> the kind of bread you speak of; and
+how shall we bring them to do so? or is the thing indeed possible?&quot;</p>
+
+<p>The answer to these inquiries is easy. Such parents have only to confine
+their children to the kinds of food which they deem proper for them, a
+few weeks or a few months, and they will soon relish them. If those who
+are old enough to be convinced can be brought to unite heartily in the
+change, and to endeavor to be pleased with it, the work of reformation
+will be more pleasant and probably more speedy. I have never found any
+difficulty of bringing myself to relish in a very short time an article
+of food for which I had no relish before, and to which I had even a
+dislike, provided I was thoroughly convinced it was best for me, and was
+earnest in the desire of change&mdash;except sweet oil, to which I was about
+six months in becoming reconciled.</p>
+
+<p>It is with physical, as with moral habits, in their formation. We
+should fix on what we believe, from experience, observation, and divine
+and human testimony, is best for us, and habit will soon render it
+agreeable. It is important, even to health, that food should be
+agreeable; but as I have already said, what we know to be best for us
+will soon become agreeable, if we confine ourselves to it; and to our
+children also, if we confine them to it, in like manner.</p>
+
+<p>Next to bread made of wheat&mdash;when that cannot be procured&mdash;is a mixture
+of wheat and Indian meal; but the proportion of the latter should be the
+smallest. Wheat, rye, and Indian, in the proportion of one third of
+each, make excellent bread, sometimes called <i>third</i> bread. Rye and
+Indian make a tolerable bread. Rye alone is not so good. The want, in
+the latter, of the vegetable principle called gluten, makes its general
+use of very questionable propriety.</p>
+
+<p>Indian meal alone, baked in cakes by the fire, if eaten only in small
+quantities, is a very nutritious and by no means unwholesome bread. But
+its sweetness, and the general fondness which people who are accustomed
+to its use have for it, lead them to eat it in too large proportions, if
+they use it while it is warm. In these circumstances, it proves itself
+too active for the stomach and bowels. If warm, six ounces is as much
+as a hearty adult ought to eat of it at once; and children should of
+course take much less. It is less active on the bowels, and scarcely
+less agreeable, as soon as we become accustomed to it, if eaten when it
+is cold&mdash;even if baked in loaves, in the oven.</p>
+
+<p>Potatoes, added to unbolted wheat flour, make excellent bread; and so,
+as I am informed, does rice. Of the latter, however, I have never eaten.
+Oats and barley, and many other grains and substances, will make bread;
+but it is of an inferior kind.</p>
+
+<p>The question may again recur, after this extended series of remarks,
+whether I intend to confine the young almost exclusively to bread, in
+one or another of its forms. We shall see how this is, presently.</p>
+
+<p>While bread, therefore, should constitute a part, at least, and
+sometimes the whole of a meal, a great variety of other articles are not
+only admissible, but desirable. Among these may be mentioned plain
+puddings.</p>
+
+<p>One of the most wholesome puddings is made of Indian meal, enclosed in a
+bag and boiled. Nearly allied to this is the common hasty pudding; but
+the last is less wholesome, because it requires less chewing; and it
+ought to have been observed, before now, that after weaning, any food
+is digested better which has undergone the process of thorough
+mastication.</p>
+
+<p>Boiled rice, though hardly to be regarded as a pudding, is very
+nutritious, and very easy of digestion. I am not without doubts,
+however, in regard to the utility of a large proportion of rice, as
+food. A dinner of it, two or three times a week, I believe to be
+wholesome; but used too frequently, it seems to me not active enough for
+the stomach and bowels; having in this respect precisely a contrary
+effect to that of warm Indian cakes. The common notion that rice has a
+tendency to make people blind, is entirely unfounded. Its worst effect
+is when eaten without being boiled through. In such cases, I have known
+it to do mischief; perhaps because it was swallowed without much
+chewing. Some grind it, and use the flour; but I cannot recommend it to
+be used in this manner.</p>
+
+<p>The best pudding in the world is a loaf of bread, (What!&mdash;you will
+say&mdash;bread again?) three or four or five days old, boiled, or rather
+<i>steamed</i>, in milk. All kinds of bread are excellent for this purpose,
+but wheat and Indian are the best. They are excellent even without
+milk&mdash;that is, simply steamed.</p>
+
+<p>Puddings made of the flour of wheat, rye, buckwheat, &amp;c., are less
+wholesome than those which have been already mentioned. And all sorts
+of puddings are less wholesome, when eaten as hot as our unreasonable
+fashions require, than when their temperature is quite below that of our
+bodies. I would not have them so cold as to chill us, for this would be
+to go to the other, though less dangerous extreme; but they ought to be
+cool. Too much heat is an unnatural stimulus, likely to leave more or
+less debility behind it. In addition to this, those who eat hot food are
+more exposed to take cold, in consequence of it.</p>
+
+<p>With none of these puddings ought we to mix any fruits, green or
+dried&mdash;not even raisins. Some of the more important properties of nearly
+every kind of fruit or berry are lost by boiling, unless we eat the
+water in which they are boiled, and save the vapor which would otherwise
+escape. I am not in favor of boiled fruit generally, especially if
+boiled in puddings.</p>
+
+<p>Puddings, like most other kinds of food&mdash;even bread&mdash;may be slightly
+salted: not that this is indispensable, but because the balance of human
+testimony is in its favor. The argument that we evidently need salt
+because the other animals require it, is without much weight. The other
+animals do not <i>generally</i> require or use it.[Footnote: Some
+considerable savage nations use no salt, and a few have a strong
+aversion to it.] The cases so often triumphantly mentioned, where
+animals appear to thrive better from the use of it, are only exceptions
+to the general rule, nor are they very numerous in comparison with the
+whole race of animals. Still I have no objections to its moderate use.
+It may be useful in preventing worms; though there are doubts even of
+that. In large quantities, it is unquestionably hurtful.</p>
+
+<p>But neither fruits nor berries&mdash;permit me to repeat the sentiment&mdash;no,
+nor any such thing as cinnamon or spices, nor even sugar or molasses in
+any considerable quantity, should go into the composition of any sort of
+pudding. If the puddings are not sweet enough without, it is better to
+add a little sugar or molasses on your plate. Nor should sauces, or
+cream, or butter, or suet be used in or upon them; though of all these
+substances, cream is least injurious. Nutmegs, grated cheese, &amp;c., are
+unnecessary and hurtful. Cheese should never be eaten, in any way.</p>
+
+<p>There is one thing, however, which may be eaten in moderate quantity
+with all sorts of puddings and with bread; I mean milk. I say eaten
+<i>with</i>, for it is better never to put these substances, nor indeed any
+other, <i>into</i> the milk. The bread, pudding, &amp;c., should be eaten by
+itself, and the milk by itself, also. In this way we shall not be liable
+to cheat the teeth out of what is justly their due, and then make the
+deranged stomach and general system pay for it.</p>
+
+<p>Potatoes are a good article of diet&mdash;to be used once a day&mdash;though they
+are not very nutritious. They are best either steamed or roasted in the
+ashes. They are also excellent when boiled. Turnips are also good.
+Onions are not so useful as is generally supposed, except for the
+purposes of medicine.</p>
+
+<p>Beets; in small quantity, and carrots and asparagus, and above all,
+beans and peas&mdash;but not their pods&mdash;are tolerable food once a day,
+during most of the year, except it be the middle of the winter. But
+neither these, nor potatoes, nor any other vegetables, ought to be
+cooked in any way with fat, or fat meat, or butter; or be mashed after
+they are cooked, or eaten with oil or butter.</p>
+
+<p>If there be an exception to this general rule&mdash;which may seem to be
+rather sweeping&mdash;it should be in favor of a little sweet oil on rice, or
+on bread puddings. But the common practice, founded upon the apparent
+belief that we can scarcely eat anything until it is well covered with
+lard or butter, is quite objectionable&mdash;nay, it is even disgusting. No
+pure stomach would ever prefer oily bread, or pudding, or beans, or
+peas; and most people would abhor the sight of such a strange
+combination, were not habit, in its power to change our very nature,
+almost omnipotent.</p>
+<br>
+
+<h4>SEC. 10. <i>Remarks on Fruit.</i></h4>
+
+<p>There is a very great diversity of opinion on the subject of fruit. Some
+maintain that all fruit, even in the most ripe and perfect state, is of
+doubtful utility, especially for children. Others say none is hurtful,
+if ripe, and eaten in moderate quantity. Some require care in making a
+proper selection; but here again, in regard to what constitutes a proper
+selection, there is a difference of opinion. Some consider fruits easy
+of digestion; others believe they are digested only with very great
+difficulty.</p>
+
+<p>When the cholera prevailed in the large cities of the United States, a
+majority of the physicians believed all fruits, even those which were
+ripe, to be injurious in their tendency. But it was insisted by the
+minority&mdash;I think very justly&mdash;that whenever fruit appeared to be
+injurious, it was accidental&mdash;that is, the disease, being prepared to
+make its attack just at that time, happened to do so immediately after
+the use of fruit, rather than something else, and especially in the
+<i>season</i> of fruits&mdash;or on account of excess; or (which was certainly
+the case in some instances) because the quality of the fruit was bad.</p>
+
+<p>At present, the <i>weight</i> of testimony on this subject&mdash;estimating
+according to talent, and not according to numbers&mdash;is in favor of good
+fruit, used with moderation&mdash;even in the face of the cholera. Dr.
+Dunglison&mdash;one of the last to adopt such an opinion&mdash;appears to be in
+its favor.</p>
+
+<p>On several points, in regard to fruit, I believe that among medical men
+there is no essential difference of opinion. As I always prefer, in
+controversies, to see in how many things antagonists agree, before
+proceeding to the points in which they differ, I will here endeavor to
+enumerate them.</p>
+
+<p>1. All unripe fruits, especially, if eaten raw and uncooked&mdash;let the
+season, or prevalent disease, or individual, be what or who it may&mdash;are
+unwholesome.</p>
+
+<p>2. Excess, in the use of the most wholesome fruits, under any
+circumstances, is also injurious.</p>
+
+<p>3. Fruits, eaten immediately after a full meal, when the stomach is in
+an improper condition for receiving anything more, contribute to
+overtask the digestive powers, and must hence produce more or less of
+injury.</p>
+
+<p>4. The skins and kernels of the larger fruits are unwholesome, because
+indigestible. The skins of fruits, if beaten or masticated finely; may
+appear to be digested, because dissolved; but I have already endeavored
+to show that solution is not always digestion.</p>
+
+<p>5. Fruits of all kinds are most wholesome in their own country, and in
+their own appropriate season.</p>
+
+<p>6. Dried fruits are less wholesome than fresh.</p>
+
+<p>7. Fruit of all kinds should be withheld from infants, until they have
+teeth.</p>
+
+<p>Thus far, as I have already said, all agree; at least so far as I know.
+There are several other points on which medical men are generally
+agreed, though not universally. One of these is, that fruits, if eaten
+at all, should usually form a part of a regular meal. Another is, that
+it is better not to eat them immediately before going to bed.</p>
+
+<p>There are contradictory opinions among the mass of the community,
+physicians as well as others, on the general intention of our summer
+fruits. From the fact that children's diseases prevail more at the
+season of the year when fruits are more abundant, many think the fruits
+are the immediate cause of them. Others, and with better reason, suppose
+that the latter are intended by the Author of nature to check or prevent
+the bowel diseases of summer.</p>
+
+<p>Nothing, certainly, is more unnatural than to suppose that at the very
+season of the year when so many other influences combine to awaken a
+tendency to disease in the human system, the Creator should place before
+our eyes an abundance of fruits, inviting us by all their cooling and
+tempting properties, only to do us mischief. On the contrary, it seems
+to me much more probable that many of them were designed for our
+moderate use. In what quantity, under what circumstances, and which are
+best, it is left to human experience to determine.</p>
+
+<p>Some say that fruit should never be eaten in the morning, before
+breakfast. Now everything I know of the human constitution, together
+with what I have learned from experience and observation, has been for
+years leading me to the contrary opinion. Indeed, I am most fully
+convinced, that of all periods for eating fruit, whether we use it alone
+or make it a part of our regular meals, the morning, soon after we rise,
+is the most favorable. [Footnote: I ought to remark, that as the morning
+is the best time for eating <i>good</i> fruit, so it is the very worst time
+for eating it if <i>not</i> good; and as a large proportion of that which is
+eaten is unripe, or otherwise bad, this may account for the general
+prejudice against eating it at this period.] My reasons are as follows:</p>
+
+<p>1. The rest and sleep of the preceding night has restored our general
+vigor, and consequently has invigorated the stomach, so that digestion
+will be more easily and perfectly accomplished.</p>
+
+<p>2. We have been, at our rising, so long without food on our stomachs,
+that they are not likely to be oppressed by a moderate quantity of good,
+ripe, wholesome fruit. In the course of our waking hours, meals follow
+each other in such quick succession, and there is so much variety, even
+at the plainest tables, to tempt us to excess, that there is more danger
+of injury from the addition of fruit than at our first rising.</p>
+
+<p>3. I have never known any one to receive injury from the use of fruit in
+this way, provided no other circumstance in relation to quantity,
+quality, &amp;c. had been disregarded. In my own case, the practice has, on
+the contrary, seemed beneficial.</p>
+
+<p>4. There is one reason in favor of this practice which perhaps would
+have less weight, if people rose as early in the morning as they ought;
+or, in the language of Dr. Franklin to the inhabitants of Paris, if they
+knew that the sun gives light as soon as he rises. I allude to the
+demand which I conceive that the stomach makes for something, after so
+long fasting, and the pernicious custom of late breakfasts. I am
+persuaded that it is advisable to eat something nearly as soon as we
+rise, be it never so early; and if we can get nothing else for
+breakfast, and have not accustomed ourselves to relish a piece of good
+bread, or some other simple thing, which requires no labor of
+preparation, I think it perfectly proper to eat a small quantity of
+fruit.</p>
+
+<p>We come now to the particular consideration of some of those fruits
+which universal experience has shown to be the most salutary.</p>
+
+<p>Of all these, none is more wholesome than the apple. There is indeed a
+great diversity in the quality even of this single article. Sweet apples
+are the most nutritious; but perhaps those which are gently acid, and at
+the same time mealy, are rather more cooling, and when eaten raw, and in
+the heat of summer, not less wholesome.</p>
+
+<p>Apples which come to maturity very early in the season appear, as a
+general rule, to be less rich, and even less perfect, than those which
+ripen later. In view of this fact, some writers have endeavored to
+dissuade us from their use; and among others, Mr. Locke. We may judge a
+little what his opinions were, from his concluding remarks on the
+subject:&mdash;&quot;I never knew apples hurt anybody,&quot; says he, &quot;after October.&quot;</p>
+
+<p>But although neither apples nor any other fruits which ripen uncommonly
+early are quite so good as those which come in a little later, yet I do
+not think they are to be wholly rejected, unless they have been raised
+in hot houses. Fruits, and indeed vegetables in general, whose maturity
+is hastened by artificial processes, must be less wholesome than when
+brought to perfection in nature's own appropriate time and manner. I
+ought to say, however, very distinctly, that of the fruits of any
+particular tree, those which first ripen are always the worst; for they
+are usually wormy, or otherwise defective.</p>
+
+<p>Most of the fruit, as well as other vegetables, brought to our city
+markets in this country, is utterly unfit to be eaten. Sometimes it is
+immature; sometimes it has a hot house maturity; sometimes it has been
+picked so long that it has begun to decay. Many fruits&mdash;berries
+especially&mdash;are in perfection for a very short period only. Mulberries,
+for example&mdash;one kind especially&mdash;are not in perfection long enough to
+carry to the market house, even though the distance were very small.
+Luckily, however, very few mulberries are eaten. But the raspberry and
+strawberry, if perfect when gathered, have usually begun to decay,
+before they are purchased. That this appears to be rather unfrequent, is
+because they are gathered before they are ripe.</p>
+
+<p>Dr. Dewees regards most fruits as difficult of digestion. I do not think
+they are so, if perfect and ripe. The experiments of Dr. Beaumont, so
+far as they prove any general principle, show conclusively that mellow
+sweet apples are more quickly digested than any kind of vegetable food
+whatever, except rice and sago. But even admitting they were slow of
+digestion, I do not think&mdash;as I have already shown in another
+place&mdash;that they ought on that account to be excluded. Besides, my
+opinion differs from that of Dr. D. in regard to the strength of the
+digestive powers of children. After teething, they seem to me to be able
+to digest any substances which adults can; and with as little
+difficulty.</p>
+
+<p>But to return:&mdash;No fruit is in perfection longer than the apple.
+Besides, no fruit appears to be less injured in its nature and
+properties by picking it a little before it is ripe, and preserving it
+during the winter. It is on this account, more perhaps than any other,
+that I value it more highly than all other fruits united.</p>
+
+<p>Apples may be used either raw or cooked. In either case, the skins and
+seeds should be avoided, as has been before suggested. I am not ignorant
+that WILLICH, in his &quot;Lectures on Diet and Regimen&quot;&mdash;an excellent work,
+in the main&mdash;says that the seeds ought to be eaten; but I believe few
+physiologists would comply with his injunction, especially when it is
+considered that he recommends, in the same connection, that we swallow
+the stones of cherries and plums. Strange how far our theories will
+sometimes carry us!</p>
+
+<p>The apple is excellent when roasted or baked, especially the sweet
+apple. It is very common, in some places, to eat baked sweet apples with
+milk; and the practice is by no means a bad one. Indeed, baked or raw
+apples might be advantageously made a part of at least one of our meals
+every day. There is said to be a miserly farmer&mdash;a single gentleman&mdash;in
+the western part of the state of Massachusetts, who has lived on nothing
+but apples for his food, and water for his drink, about forty years. And
+yet he is said to enjoy the most perfect health. I do not propose this
+as an example worthy of imitation; but it shows that apples maybe made
+to subserve an important purpose in diet. And though I have more than
+once expressed an opinion highly unfavorable to the exclusive use of any
+one article of diet, yet if I were to confine myself to any one thing, I
+know of nothing except bread that I should prefer to good apples. Still,
+however, I prefer a variety&mdash;sweet, sour, early, late, &amp;c.; and I should
+use them raw, roasted, baked, made into sauce with new or unfermented
+cider, and boiled. Good apples, eaten raw, with bread, form not only a
+very wholesome, but, to an unperverted appetite, a most delicious
+dinner.</p>
+
+<p>Much has been said about cutting down orchards; but the whole seems to
+me idle&mdash;for if the fruit is of a good quality, it may be used as food,
+either for man or beast. And if not good, the trees ought either to be
+destroyed or replaced by those that will produce fruit which is
+better&mdash;even if the object were to make it into cider. I have said that
+apples may be used both by man and beast. It is well known that most
+domestic animals thrive well on good apples, especially sweet ones. Very
+tolerable molasses is also sometimes made from sweet apples.</p>
+
+<p>Nearly everything which has been said above in regard to apples, will
+apply to pears. The best varieties of this excellent fruit are quite as
+nutritious and as wholesome as the apple; and as much improved for the
+table by baking. I believe, however, that no cheap process has yet been
+devised for keeping them as long in the winter. They may be preserved in
+the form of sauce, prepared in the same way with common apple sauce. The
+skins, of many kinds of pears are less injurious than those of apples;
+but even the skins of pears need not be eaten.</p>
+
+<p>Some kinds of peaches are tolerably wholesome; but the stringy character
+of their pulp appears to me to render them less so than apples and
+pears, though I am not confident on this point. But if used at all, they
+should be used in less quantity at one time. Tempting as their flavor
+is, I seldom eat them, when I can get apples and pears; holding myself
+in duty bound to use the <i>best</i>, even of the fruits.</p>
+
+<p>&quot;Fruit,&quot; says Mr. Locke, &quot;makes one of the most difficult chapters in
+the government of health, especially that of children. Our first parents
+ventured Paradise for it; and it is no wonder our children cannot stand
+the temptation, though it cost them their health. The regulation of this
+cannot come under any one general rule; for I am by no means of their
+mind who would keep children wholly from fruit, as a thing totally
+unwholesome for them, by which strict way they make them but the more
+ravenous after it, to eat good or bad, ripe or unripe, all that they can
+get, whenever they come at it.</p>
+
+<p>&quot;Melons, peaches, most sorts of plums, and all sorts of grapes, in
+<i>England</i>, I think children should be wholly kept from, as having a very
+tempting taste, in a very unwholesome juice, so that if it were
+possible, they should never so much as see them, or know that there was
+any such thing. But strawberries, cherries, gooseberries and currants,
+when thoroughly ripe, I think may be pretty safely allowed them.&quot;</p>
+
+<p>Excellent as these remarks are, in general, I do not like his entire
+interdiction of the use of melons, peaches, plums, and grapes, even in
+England. Peaches, to be sure, as they come at a season when apples or
+pears, or both of them&mdash;which are more wholesome than peaches&mdash;are
+abundant, may be better omitted, delicious as they are to the taste; and
+I do not think very highly of plums. But melons, in very moderate
+quantity, and grapes, if we eat nothing but the ripe pulp, rejecting
+both the husk and the interior hard part, including the seeds, are, I
+think, useful and wholesome. On the other hand, I should never place
+cherries and gooseberries in the same list with strawberries; for the
+latter are, if I may use the expression, infinitely the most wholesome.</p>
+
+<p>Many seem to think that not to eat all sorts of fruits is to despise, or
+at least to treat with neglect the gifts of God, intended for our
+reception; by which they mean, if they mean anything, that the use of
+all sorts of fruits is already found out, even in the present
+comparative infancy of the world. Now I do not suppose that God has made
+anything in vain&mdash;absolutely so&mdash;though I do not think we have found out
+the true uses of half the things which he has made and given us. And
+among those things of which we are yet ignorant, are some of the fruits.
+I do not believe it follows, necessarily, that because fruits are
+created, we are obliged to use them all.</p>
+
+<p>Besides, if this is a rule, it is one which nobody follows. Every one
+uses more of some sorts, and fewer of others; and a large proportion of
+the community entirely reject some kinds. Now if the statement commonly
+made, that all fruits are the gifts of God, and ought therefore to be
+used by all persons, is correct, those who make the statement ought to
+conform to it as a rule of their lives, and to eat all kinds of fruit
+which the season and country affords; and not only eat all kinds, but
+see that the whole of every kind is consumed; since to waste any portion
+is to slight the good gifts of God.</p>
+
+<p>The result then is, that we cannot obey such a rule; but are driven back
+to the mode which common sense dictates, which is, to make a selection,
+using some, and rejecting others. And the value of studying the nature
+of these fruits, by examining the experience of mankind in regard to
+them, consists in the aid thus afforded us in making our selection
+wisely.</p>
+
+<p>There is one very common error in the use of the smaller summer fruits,
+such as strawberries, whortleberries, currants, &amp;c., which is that of
+mixing cream, wine, spices, sugar, &amp;c., with them. We are thus tempted
+to eat too great a quantity at once. Besides&mdash;which is a worse evil&mdash;we
+change the proportions of the saccharine parts, and thus do all in our
+power, by increasing a similarity in all fruits, to destroy that
+agreeable variety which God has established, and which is probably
+salutary.</p>
+<br>
+
+<h4>SEC. 11. <i>Confectionary.</i></h4>
+
+<p>By confectionary we here mean the substances usually sold at those shops
+in our cities distinguished by the general name of confectionaries, and
+which consist either wholly of sugar, or of sugar and some other
+substances combined.</p>
+
+<p>As to the use of a moderate quantity of pure sugar at our meals, whether
+it is procured at a confectioner's shop or elsewhere, I do not know that
+there is any strong objection to it; though I believe that it cannot be
+regarded as indispensable to health&mdash;for were that the fact, it seems to
+me to imply something short of infinite wisdom in the creation of
+articles destined for our sustenance. But I have spoken on this subject
+elsewhere.</p>
+
+<p>A part, however, of the contents of the confectionary shop are actually
+poisonous. I refer to those things which are either frosted, as it is
+called, or colored. The substances applied to the sugar for this purpose
+are usually some mineral or vegetable poison; although the fact of its
+being a poison may not always be known to the manufacturer. The most
+unhappy consequences have occasionally followed the use of
+confectionary, when poisoned in this manner. A family of four persons,
+in New York, were made sick in this way in March of year before last,
+and some of them came very near losing their lives. The &quot;frosting&quot; which
+caused the mischief was pronounced by eminent chemists to be one fifth
+rank poison.[Footnote: It is to be remembered that those who eat
+confectionary so slightly poisoned that it does not make them sick at
+once, may nevertheless be as much injured in their constitutions as they
+who are poisoned outright. In the latter case, the poison is in part
+thrown out of the body; in the former, it remains in it much longer&mdash;and
+therefore more surely, though more slowly, accomplishes the work of
+destruction.] The coloring substances used are sometimes poisonous, as
+well as the frosting.</p>
+
+<p>Some of the articles sold at these shops consist of sugar mixed with
+paste. Others are called sweetmeats; that is, fruits, or rinds of
+fruits, preserved in sugar. All these substances, I believe, without
+exception, are injurious.</p>
+
+<p>The great evils of confectionary yet remain to be mentioned. These are
+of three kinds, physical, mental and moral.</p>
+
+<p>Some of the <i>physical</i> evils have, it is true, just been mentioned; but
+there is another evil of still greater magnitude. Young people who eat
+confectionary, commonly eat it between meals. This produces mischief in
+two ways. First, it keeps the stomach at work when it ought to rest; for
+this, like every other muscular organ, requires its seasons of repose.
+Secondly, it destroys gradually the appetite; so that when the regular
+meal arrives, the accustomed keenness of appetite does not come with it.
+And the consequence is, not so much that we do not eat enough, as that
+we are fastidious, and eat a little of this, then a little of that; and
+usually select the worst things. We are not hungry enough to make a meal
+of a single article of plain food. And this evil goes on increasing, as
+long as we have access to the confectionary shop. These statements
+describe the case of thousands of pupils, of both sexes, at our schools
+and seminaries.</p>
+
+<p>The <i>intellectual</i> evil resulting from the use of confectionary consists
+in the fondness for excitement which is produced. You will seldom find a
+person who depends daily and almost hourly on some excitement to his
+appetite and stomach, and is not satisfied with plain food, who will
+content himself to <i>study</i> without unnatural excitements of the mind.
+Duty to himself or to others will not move him. He must have before him
+the hope of reward, or the fear of punishment. He must be moved by
+emulation or ambition, or some other questionable or wicked motive or
+passion.</p>
+
+<p>But the <i>moral</i> results, to the young, of using confectionary, are still
+more dreadful. I do not here refer to the danger of meeting with bad
+company at the shops themselves, or of going from these places of
+pollution <i>directly</i> to the grog-shop, the gambling-house, or the
+brothel; though there is danger enough, even here. But I allude to the
+tendency which a habit of not resting satisfied with plain food, but of
+depending on exciting things, has, to make us dissatisfied with plain
+moral enjoyments&mdash;the society of friends, and the quiet discharge of our
+duty to God and our neighbor. Just in proportion as we gratify our
+propensity for excitement at the confectioner's shop, just in the same
+proportion do we expose ourselves to the, danger of yielding to
+temptation, should other gratifications present themselves. The young of
+both sexes who are in the use of confectionary, are on the high road to
+gluttony, drunkenness, or debauchery; perhaps to all three. I do not say
+they will certainly arrive there, for circumstances not quite miraculous
+may pluck them as &quot;brands from the burning;&quot; but I do not hesitate to
+say that such is the inevitable tendency; and I call on every mother and
+teacher who reads this section, to beware of confectionaries, and see,
+if possible, that the young never set foot in them. They are a road
+through which thousands pass to the chamber of death&mdash;death to the
+immortal spirit, as well as to the body, its vehicle.</p>
+
+<p>More might be added&mdash;for this is an important subject&mdash;but I trust I
+have said enough. Those who have read and believe what I have written,
+if they remain wholly unaffected and unmoved, would not be roused to
+effort were anything to be added.</p>
+<br>
+
+<h4>SEC. 12. <i>Pastry.</i></h4>
+
+<p>Dr. Paris, a distinguished British writer on diet, says that all pastry
+is &quot;an abomination.&quot; And yet, go where we will, we find it often on the
+table. Hardly any one, whether old or young, attempts to do without it.</p>
+
+<p>There are indeed some, who will not eat pie-crust, or high-seasoned
+cakes formed of paste; but yet will not hesitate to eat hot bread, or
+rolls, or biscuits made of wheat flour, bolted. Now what is this but
+paste? If we could see the contents of the stomach, an hour after the
+mass is swallowed, we should find it to be paste, and <i>mere</i> paste.</p>
+
+<p>And yet the evil is increasing everywhere. So generally is this true,
+that a person who refuses to eat hot bread, or cake, or biscuit, is
+deemed singular. He who ventures to lift his voice against it is deemed
+an ascetic or a visionary. But such a voice must be raised, and heard,
+too, whether its monitions are or are not regarded.</p>
+
+<p>Pastry is less objectionable, however, when used in the form of hot
+bread, &amp;c., than when butter or fat is mixed with it. Then it becomes
+one of the most indigestible substances in the world. Besides, it not
+only tries the patience of the stomach, but according to Willich, whose
+authority ranks high, it tends to produce diseases of the skin,
+especially a disease which he calls &quot;copper in the face,&quot; and which he
+pronounces incurable.</p>
+
+<p>I know not whether the eruptions so common on the faces of young people
+in this country, and especially of young men, are in every instance
+either produced or aggravated by pastry; but I am very sure of one
+thing, viz., that those who are in the use of pastry, and have eruptions
+of the skin of any kind, will not be apt to get well, as long as they
+continue the use of this objectionable substance.</p>
+
+<p>Physicians are often consulted about eruptions on the face. When they
+assign the real cause, which is undoubtedly connected with the improper
+gratification of some of the appetites, in one way or another, it is
+seldom that the patient has self-command enough to follow his
+prescription of temperance or abstinence. Mothers, it is yours to
+prevent this mischief;&mdash;first, by establishing correct physical habits;
+secondly, by teaching your children the great duty of self-denial&mdash;not
+only by precept, but by your own good example.</p>
+<br>
+
+<h4>SEC. 13. <i>Crude or Raw Substances.</i></h4>
+
+<p>I have reserved this section for remarks on certain articles used at our
+fashionable modern tables, of which I could not well find it convenient
+to speak elsewhere. And first, of SALADS, and HERBS used in cooking;
+such as asparagus, artichokes, spinage, plantain, cabbage, dock,
+lettuce, water-cresses, chives, &amp;c.</p>
+
+<p>Several of these substances are often eaten raw, in which state they are
+exceedingly indigestible, at the best; and they are rendered still more
+beyond the reach of the powers of the stomach, by the oil or vinegar
+which is added to them. Boiled, they are more tolerable; especially
+asparagus. In the midst, however, of such an abundance of excellent food
+as this country affords, it is most surprising that anybody should ever
+take it into their heads to eat such crude substances; and above all,
+that they should fill children's stomachs with them. What child, with an
+unperverted appetite, would not prefer a good ripe apple, or peach, or
+pear, to the most approved raw salads?&mdash;and a good baked one, to the
+best boiled asparagus?</p>
+
+<p>NUTS, in general, are probably made for other animals rather than man;
+though of this we cannot in the present infancy of human knowledge be
+quite certain. But if any of them were intended, by the Creator, for
+man, it is the chesnut; and this should be boiled. Boiled chesnuts are
+used as food, in many parts of southern Europe; and to a very
+considerable extent.</p>
+
+<p>SPICES, as they are sometimes called, such as nutmeg, mace, pepper,
+pimento; cubebs, cardamoms, juniper berries, ginger, calamus, cloves,
+cinnamon, caraway, coriander, fennel, parsley, dill, sage, marjoram,
+thyme, pennyroyal, lavender, hyssop, peppermint, &amp;c., are unfit for the
+human stomach&mdash;above all in infancy&mdash;except as medicines.</p>
+
+<p>There are several other vegetables equally objectionable with the last,
+though they cannot be classed under the same head. Such are mustard,
+horseradish, raw onions, garlic, cucumbers, and pickles. No appetite
+which has not been accustomed to these substances in early infancy, will
+ever require them. Not that they may not sometimes be useful in enabling
+the stomach&mdash;at every age&mdash;to get rid of certain substances with which
+it has been improperly or unreasonably loaded;&mdash;this is undoubtedly the
+fact; ardent spirits would do the same. And it is with a view to some
+such effect, generally, that medical writers have spoken in their favor.
+Some of them stimulate the stomach to get rid of a load of <i>green</i>
+fruit; others, of a load of <i>fat</i> or <i>salt</i> food; others, again,
+of too large a <i>quantity</i> of food which is naturally wholesome.</p>
+
+<p>But in all these cases, they should be considered, not as food, but as
+medicine; and we ought to call them by their right name. And if we
+withhold the cause of the disease, there will be no need of the
+medicine.</p>
+
+
+
+<br><br><hr style="width: 65%;"><br><br>
+<a name="CHAPTER_VIII."></a><h2>CHAPTER VIII.</h2>
+
+<h3>DRINKS.</h3>
+
+<blockquote class="small">Infants need little drink. Adults, even, generally drink to cool
+themselves. Simple water the best drink. Opinions of Dr. Oliver and Dr.
+Dewees. Animal food increases thirst. Only one real drink in the world.
+The true object of all drink. Tea, coffee, chocolate, beer, &amp;c. Milk and
+water, molasses and water, &amp;c. Cider, wine, and ardent spirits. Bad food
+and drink the most prolific sources of disease. Children naturally
+prefer water. Danger of hot drinks. Cold drinks. Mischief they produce.
+Caution to mothers. Extracts. Drinking cold water, while hot.</blockquote>
+<br>
+
+<p>Children need little if any drink, so long as their food is nothing but
+milk; nor indeed for some time afterward, unless they are indulged in
+the use of animal food. Adults, even, very seldom drink merely to quench
+natural thirst. In the summer, people usually drink either to cool
+themselves, or to gratify a thirst which is wholly artificial. Tea,
+coffee, beer, cider, and most other common drinks, when not used for the
+sake of their coolness, are drank, both in winter and summer, for this
+purpose.</p>
+
+<p>That this is the fact, we have the most abundant and unequivocal
+evidence. I know that much is said of the demand which a profuse
+perspiration creates among hard laborers in the summer. Such a sudden
+abstraction of a large amount of fluid requires, it is said, a
+proportional supply, or life would soon become extinct. Yet there are
+many old men who have perspired profusely at their labor all their days,
+and yet have drank nothing at all, except their tea, morning and
+evening; and perhaps have eaten, for one or two of their meals daily, in
+summer, a bowl of bread and milk. And some of them are among the most
+remarkable instances of longevity which the country affords.</p>
+
+<p>How the system acquires a sufficient supply of moisture to keep up good
+health, in these cases, I do not pretend to determine: perhaps it is
+through the medium of the lungs. But at any rate, it can obtain it
+without our drinking for that sole purpose, to the great danger of
+exciting liver complaints, diarrhoea, dyspepsia, colds, rheumatisms, and
+fevers.</p>
+
+<p>But if adults who perspire freely do not require much drink, children
+certainly do not; and above all, young children. And if they do require
+any thing, it is only simple water. The following remarks of Dr. Oliver,
+of Hanover, N.H., are extracted from Dr. Mussey's late Prize Essay on
+Ardent Spirits:</p>
+
+<blockquote class="small">&quot;Who has not observed the extreme satisfaction which children derive
+from quenching their thirst with pure water? And who that has perverted
+his appetite for drink, by stimulating his palate with bitter beer, sour
+cider, rum and water, and other beverages of human invention, but would
+be a gainer, even on the score of mere animal gratification, without any
+reference to health, if he could bring back his vitiated taste to the
+simple relish of nature?</blockquote>
+
+<blockquote class="small">&quot;Children drink because they are dry. Grown people drink, whether dry or
+not, because they have discovered a way of making drink pleasant.
+Children drink water because this is a beverage of nature's own brewing,
+which she has made for the purpose of quenching a natural thirst. Grown
+people drink anything but water, because this fluid is intended to
+quench only a natural thirst; and natural thirst is a thing which they
+seldom feel.&quot;</blockquote>
+
+<p>There is a great deal of truth, as well as of sound philosophy, in these
+two paragraphs, and little less of truth in the following paragraph from
+Dr. Dewees:</p>
+
+<blockquote class="small">&quot;We have witnessed very often, with sorrow, parents giving to their
+young children wine, or other stimulating liquors. Nature never intended
+anything stronger than water to be the drink for children. This they
+enjoy greatly; and much advantage is occasionally experienced from its
+use, especially after they have commenced the use of animal food.&quot;</blockquote>
+
+<p>Two things are to be observed in the last remarks, which are, that
+children demand drink of any kind but seldom, and that even this
+occasional demand is often the special result of the use of animal food.
+Here comes out an important secret. It is the use of animal food, to a
+very great degree, in adults and children both, that creates so much of
+that unnatural thirst which prevails in the community. When we shall
+come to lay aside animal food, in childhood, youth, manhood and age,
+much that is now <i>called</i> thirst will be banished; and much of the
+intemperance and other kinds of sensuality which follow in its train.</p>
+
+<p>It has been sometimes said that there is but one kind of drink in the
+world&mdash;and that is water. This is strictly, or rather <i>physiologically</i>
+true. For, though many mixtures are <i>called</i> drinks, it is only the
+water which they contain that answers any of the legitimate purposes for
+which drink was intended by the Creator.</p>
+
+<p>The object of drink, besides quenching our thirst, or rather <i>while</i> it
+quenches it, is, not to be digested, like food, but to pass directly
+from the stomach into the blood-vessels, and dilute and temper the
+blood, rendering it more fit to answer the great purpose of sustaining
+life and health. Now, there is nothing that can do this but water.
+Alcohol cannot do it, nor can turpentine, oil, quicksilver, melted lead,
+or any other liquid.</p>
+
+<p>Tea, coffee, chocolate, small beer, soda water, lemonade, &amp;c., which are
+nearly all water, quench the thirst very well, it is true; but not quite
+so well as water alone would. The narcotic principle of the first two,
+the alcoholic principle of the fourth, and the mucilage, nutriment,
+acid, and alkali of the rest, are in the way; for thirst would be
+quenched still better without them, even when it is of an unnatural
+kind.</p>
+
+<p>Indeed, the same or similar remarks may be made in regard to all other
+mixtures which are usually proposed as drinks. Even milk and water,
+molasses and water, &amp;c., in favor of which so much is said, are
+objectionable, as mere drinks. Not that they contain anything poisonous,
+but they evidently contain nutriment; and even this, except as a part or
+the whole of a regular meal, does harm; for it sets the stomach at work
+when it needs repose. Mere drink, as I have already said, is never
+digested.</p>
+
+<p>But if the drinks above mentioned, and even milk and water, are
+objectionable, what shall we say of cider, wine, and ardent
+spirits?&mdash;substances which contain, the latter one half, and the two
+former from one twentieth to one fourth alcohol. Surely, nobody will
+deny that these substances ought, at all events, to be banished from the
+nursery. And yet we occasionally find them there, not only for the use
+of the mother, to the ruin of the child, indirectly&mdash;but also, in some
+of their smoother forms, for the use of the child itself.</p>
+
+<p>I would not lay too much stress on food and drink; for, as I have
+already observed, more than once, the causes of infantile ill health and
+mortality are numerous. Still I must insist that, of all the sources of
+disease, these are the most prolific. Much is done towards ruining the
+health of children by the improper food and drink of the mother. But
+when, in addition to all this, the children themselves are early fed
+with animal food, and with stimulating drinks&mdash;punch, coffee, tea,
+&amp;c.&mdash;and an artificial thirst is early excited and rendered habitual,
+their destruction, for time and eternity, is almost inevitable.</p>
+
+<p>Very few children relish any drink but water, or sweetened water, at
+first; and where they do, it is probably hereditary. I have been struck
+with their tastes and preferences; nor less with the folly of those
+around them, in endeavoring to change them, by requiring them&mdash;almost
+always against their will&mdash;to sip a little coffee, or a little tea, or
+a little lemonade; or, it may be, a little toddy. Such children <i>may</i>
+escape the death of the drunkard or the debauchee; but if they do, it
+will not be through the instrumentality of the parents.</p>
+
+<p>I am very much opposed to giving children hot drinks of any kind. If
+they are to drink substances which are injurious, as tea or coffee, let
+them be cool. I do not say <i>cold</i>, for that would be going to the other
+extreme. But no drink, in any ordinary case, should be above the heat of
+our bodies; that is, about 98 degrees of Fahrenheit's thermometer. Yet
+the precautions of this paragraph will be almost unnecessary, if
+children are confined&mdash;as they ought to be, and would be, did we not go
+out of our way to teach them otherwise&mdash;to water, as their only drink.
+Cold water is almost always preferred. Not one child in a thousand would
+ever prefer it hot, until his taste had been perverted. No writer has
+inveighed more against hot drinks of every kind, than the late William
+Cobbett&mdash;and, as I think, with more justice.</p>
+
+<p>But, in avoiding one rock, we must not, as has already been intimated,
+make shipwreck on another. Hot drinks, though they injure the powers of
+the stomach, and by that means and through that medium, are one
+principal cause of the almost universal early decay of teeth, are yet
+less injurious, or at least less dangerous, immediately, than cold ones.
+Mr. Locke, in speaking of the sports of a child, in the open air, has
+the following quaint, but judicious remarks:</p>
+
+<blockquote class="small">&quot;Playing in the open air has but this one danger in it, that I know; and
+that is, that when he is hot with running up and down, he should sit or
+lie down on the cold or moist earth. This, I grant, and drinking cold
+drink, when they are hot with labor or exercise, brings more people to
+the grave, or to the brink of it, by fevers and other diseases, than
+anything I know. These mischiefs are easily enough prevented when he is
+little, being then seldom out of sight. And if, during his childhood, he
+be constantly and rigorously kept from sitting on the ground, or
+drinking any cold liquor, while he is hot, the custom of forbearing,
+grown into <i>habit</i>, will help much to preserve him, when he is no longer
+under his maid's or tutor's eye.</blockquote>
+
+<blockquote class="small">&quot;More fevers and surfeits are got by people's drinking when they are
+hot, than by any one thing I know. If he (the child) be very hot, he
+should by no means <i>drink</i>; at least a good piece of bread, first to be
+eaten, will gain time to warm his drink <i>blood hot</i>, which then he may
+drink safely. If he be very dry, it will go down so warmed, and quench
+his thirst better; and if he will not drink it so warmed, abstaining
+will not hurt him. Besides, this will teach him to forbear, which is a
+habit of the greatest use for health of mind and body too.&quot;</blockquote>
+
+<p>The last remarks are full of wisdom. Mothers may depend upon it, that
+every indulgence to which they accustom their children paves the way for
+<i>habitual</i> indulgence; and has a tendency to lead, indirectly, to
+indulgence in other matters; and, on the contrary, every self-denial
+which they can lead children to exercise, voluntarily&mdash;even in these
+every-day matters of food, drink, exercise, &amp;c. is so much gained in the
+great work of self-denial and the resisting of temptation in matters of
+higher importance. But I must not moralize too long; having dwelt on
+this same point under the head Confectionary. I proceed, therefore, to
+make a few more extracts from Mr. Locke:</p>
+
+<blockquote class="small">&quot;Not being permitted to <i>drink</i> without eating, will prevent the custom
+of having the cup often at his nose; a dangerous beginning.&quot;</blockquote>
+
+<blockquote class="small">&quot;Men often bring habitual hunger and thirst on themselves by custom.&quot;</blockquote>
+
+<blockquote class="small">&quot;You may, if you please, bring any one to be thirsty every hour.&quot;</blockquote>
+
+<blockquote class="small">&quot;I once lived in a house, where, to appease a froward child, they gave
+him <i>drink</i> as often as he cried, so that he was constantly bibbing.
+And though he could not speak, yet he drank more in twenty-four hours
+than I did.&quot;</blockquote>
+
+<blockquote class="small">&quot;It is convenient, for health and sobriety, to drink no more than
+natural thirst requires; and he that eats not salt meats, nor drinks
+strong drink, will seldom thirst between meals.&quot;</blockquote>
+
+<p>Great mischief is often done to their health by children at school; and
+one instance of this is, in getting violently heated with exercise, and
+then pouring down large quantities of cold water to cool themselves. I
+once made it a habitual rule for pupils, that they must drink water, if
+they drank it at all, on leaving their seats to go to their plays, but
+not afterwards: and I was so situated that I could prevent the law from
+being broken, as there was no spring or well to which they could have
+access, privately. And though they thought the rule rather severe, I
+have no doubt it saved them from much injury, and perhaps sometimes from
+sickness.</p>
+
+
+
+<br><br><hr style="width: 65%;"><br><br>
+<a name="CHAPTER_IX."></a><h2>CHAPTER IX.</h2>
+
+<h3>GIVING MEDICINE.</h3>
+
+<blockquote class="small">&quot;Prevention&quot; better than &quot;cure.&quot; Nine in ten infantile diseases caused
+by errors in diet and drink. Signs of failing health. Causes of a bad
+breath. Flesh eaters. Gormandizers. General rule for preventing disease.
+When to call a physician.</blockquote>
+<br>
+
+<p>So much error prevails in regard to the medical management of the young,
+that a volume might be written without exhausting the subject.[Footnote:
+Such a volume is in preparation. It is intended as a companion to the
+present.] My present limits and plan allow of only a few remarks, and
+those must be general.</p>
+
+<p>That &quot;an ounce of prevention is worth a pound of cure,&quot; has so long ago
+become a proverb, that it seems almost idle to repeat the sentiment. And
+yet it is to be feared that very few receive it as a practical truth, in
+the management of children. Now nothing is more certain than that it is
+easier, as well as more humane, to prevent diseases than to cure them.</p>
+
+<p>I have elsewhere mentioned the opinion of a very eminent physician,
+that nine in ten of children's diseases may be imputed to error with
+regard to the quantity or the quality of their food. For myself, I am by
+no means certain that nine out of ten is the exact proportion, though I
+think the number is, at all events, very large. Few children, or even
+grown persons, are seized with disease suddenly. Their progress towards
+it is always gradual, and sometimes imperceptible. To a physician of any
+tolerable degree of skill, however, there is no difficulty in observing
+and pointing out the first steps towards illness; in those whose habits
+of life are well known to him; and of foretelling the consequence.</p>
+
+<p>But since parents and nurses are not so well qualified as physicians to
+make these observations, I will endeavor to point out a few certain
+signs and symptoms by which they may know a child's health to be
+declining, even before be appears to be sick.&mdash;For if these are
+neglected, the evil increases, goes on from bad to worse, and more
+violent and apparent complaints will follow, and perhaps end in
+incurable diseases, which a timely remedy, or a slight change in the
+diet and manner of life, would have infallibly prevented.</p>
+
+<p>&quot;The first tendency to disease,&quot; says Dr. Cadogan, &quot;may be observed in a
+child's breath. It is not enough that the breath is not offensive; it
+should be sweet and fragrant, like a nosegay of fresh flowers, or a pail
+of new milk from a young cow that feeds upon the sweetest grass of the
+spring; and this as well at first waking in the morning, as all day
+long.&quot; [Footnote: Buchan's &quot;Advice to Mothers,&quot; pages 337, 388]</p>
+
+<p>There is much of truth in these remarks; but if they are wholly true,
+then very few children are perfectly healthy. For no child that eats
+much animal food of any sort, or, what amounts to nearly the same thing,
+much butter or gravy, will long retain the fragrant breath here alluded
+to. Who has not observed the difference in this respect, between animals
+in general which feed on flesh, and those which feed on grass? And
+whether it is the character of their respective food that makes the
+difference or not, it is also true that there is nearly as much
+difference of breath between <i>men</i> who use animal food and those who do
+not, as between other animals. The breath of some of our enormous meat
+eaters would almost remind one of a slaughter house.</p>
+
+<p>Nor is it the quality of food alone, that will induce a foul breath,
+either in adults or infants. He who swallows such enormous quantities,
+even of plain food, as by overloading and fatiguing the stomach, tend
+gradually to debilitate it, will produce the same effect. The enormous
+feeders of this full feeding country, whether they are young or old,
+whether they inhabit the mountain or the vale, and whether they feed on
+animal food or not, have generally a bad breath; and if they seldom
+offend, it is because few feed otherwise. And it is not too much&mdash;in my
+own opinion&mdash;to say of this whole class of gormandizers, no less than of
+the flesh eaters, that they have laid for themselves the foundation of
+future disease.</p>
+
+<p>One general rule may here be distinctly laid down. As a child's breath
+becomes hot and feverish, or strong, or acid, we may be certain that
+&quot;digestion and surfeit have fouled and disturbed the blood; and now is
+the time to apply a proper remedy, and prevent a train of impending
+evils. Let the child be restrained in its food. Let it eat less, live
+upon milk or thin broth for a day or two, and be carried (or walk if it
+is able) a little more than usual in the open air.&quot; [Footnote: Advice to
+Mothers, page 338]</p>
+
+<p>This rule is the more important, because, if duly persevered in, it will
+generally prevent disease, and save the trouble and evil consequences of
+taking medicine at all. Meanwhile it will be advisable to call in a
+physician&mdash;not to give drugs, but to prevent the necessity of giving
+them. There is a foolish fear abroad that physicians, if called before a
+person is violently sick, will dose him with their drugs, as a matter of
+course, till they <i>make</i> him sick. But this, no judicious physician will
+ever do. It may <i>have been</i> done, though I believe it has been seldom.
+The more general course is to defer calling for medical advice, till it
+is too late to use preventive means; and medicine is then resorted to by
+the physician as a sort of necessary evil.</p>
+
+<p>A judicious physician, seasonably called in, would in many instances
+save a severe fit of sickness, besides a great deal of expense, both of
+time and money.</p>
+
+<p>But if the first symptoms of approaching disease are overlooked&mdash;if the
+child is fed, or rather crammed; with solid food as much as ever&mdash;and if
+no medical advice is sought, his sleep will soon become disturbed; he
+will be talking, starting, and tumbling about, and will have frightful
+dreams; or he will at other times be found smiling and laughing. To
+these, in the end, may be added, loss of appetite, paleness, emaciation,
+weakness, cough, and consumption; or colics, worms, and convulsions.</p>
+
+<p>I do not undertake to say that the most judicious parental management,
+aided by the greatest medical skill, will always prevent disease; far
+from it. The child may and undoubtedly sometimes does inherit a tendency
+to a particular disease; or he may be made sick by error in regard to
+dress, exercise, &amp;c. But so long as nine tenths of the disease and early
+mortality of the young might be prevented by due attention to all these
+means combined, so long will it be necessary to reiterate the sentiments
+of the present section.</p>
+
+
+
+<br><br><hr style="width: 65%;"><br><br>
+<a name="CHAPTER_X."></a><h2>CHAPTER X.</h2>
+
+<h3>EXERCISE.</h3>
+
+<blockquote class="small">SEC. 1. Objections to the use of cradles.&mdash;SEC. 2. Carrying in the
+arms&mdash;its uses and abuses.&mdash;SEC. 3. Creeping&mdash;why useful&mdash;to be
+encouraged.&mdash;SEC. 4. Walking&mdash;general directions about it.&mdash;SEC. 5.
+Riding abroad in carriages.&mdash;SEC. 6. Riding on horseback&mdash;objections.
+Riding schools.</blockquote>
+<br>
+
+<p>This subject may be considered under the following heads: ROCKING IN THE
+CRADLE; CARRYING IN THE ARMS; CREEPING; WALKING; RIDING IN A CARRIAGE;
+AND RIDING ON HORSEBACK. These I shall consider in their order.</p>
+
+
+<h4>SEC. 1. <i>Rocking in the Cradle.</i></h4>
+
+<p>There are two opinions in regard to the use of the cradle in the
+nursery. Some condemn it altogether; others think its occasional use
+highly proper. Those who condemn it, do it chiefly on the ground that it
+produces a whirling motion of the brain, which, while it inclines to
+giddiness and lulls to sleep, disturbs, in some degree, the process of
+digestion.</p>
+
+<p>It seems to me that there is weight to this objection; and although the
+cradle has been extensively used without producing any obviously evil
+effects, I should greatly prefer to have it universally laid aside. As
+far as mere amusement is demanded, it is quite unnecessary, since there
+are so many amusements which are far better. As a means of inducing
+sleep, I am still more strongly opposed to it; for if a child be
+rationally treated in every other respect, it will never need artificial
+means to induce it to sleep. Nature will then be the most appropriate
+directress in this matter.</p>
+
+<p>If there is a cradle in a nursery, it is almost always full of clothes
+loaded with air more or less impure, and the child is buried in it more
+than is compatible with health, even in the judgment of the mother or
+the nurse; for so convenient is its use, and so great the temptation to
+keep the child in it, that he will often be found soaking there a large
+proportion of his time. Every one knows that the air has not so free
+access to a child in the cradle as elsewhere, especially if it have a
+kind of covering or hood to it, as we often see. Besides, the cradle is
+a piece of furniture which takes up a great deal of space in the
+nursery; and every one who has made the trial effectually, will, it
+seems to me, greatly prefer its room to its company.</p>
+
+<p>If any cradle is to be used, those are best which are suspended by
+cords, and are swung, rather than rocked. And this swinging should be in
+a line with the body of the child as much as possible; as this motion is
+less likely to produce injury than its opposite.</p>
+<br>
+
+<h4>SEC. 2. <i>Carrying in the Arms.</i></h4>
+
+<p>This is the most appropriate exercise for the first two months of
+existence; and indeed, one of the best for some time afterward.</p>
+
+<p>Although a healthy, thriving child ought to sleep, for some time after
+birth, from two thirds to three fourths of his time, yet it should never
+be forgotten that the demand for proper exercise during the rest of the
+time, is not the less imperious on this account; but probably the more
+so.</p>
+
+<p>I have already mentioned the importance of bathing, which is one form of
+exercise, and of gentle motion in the arms, immediately afterward. The
+same gentle motion should be often repeated during the day; care being
+taken to hold the child in such a position as will be easy to him, and
+favorable to the free exercise of all his limbs and muscles.</p>
+
+<p>There are many mothers and nurses, who not only rejoice that the infant
+inclines to sleep a great deal, since it gives them more liberty, but
+who take pains to prolong these hours beyond what nature requires, by
+artificial means. I refer not only to the use of the cradle, but to
+means still more artificial&mdash;the use of cordials and opiates, to which I
+have already adverted. But whatever the means used may be, they defeat
+the purposes of nature, and are in the highest degree reprehensible.
+Nothing but the most chilling poverty should prevent the mother from
+having the child&mdash;for a few weeks of its first existence at least&mdash;in
+her own arms, nearly all the time which is not absolutely demanded for
+repose. She should even invite it to wakefulness, rather than encourage
+sleep.</p>
+
+<p>Attention to exercise ought to be commenced before the child is more
+than ten days old. For this purpose he should be placed on his back, on
+a pillow, in order that the body may rest at as many points as possible.
+In this position he has the opportunity to move his limbs with the most
+perfect freedom, and to exercise his numerous muscles. There is nothing
+more important to the infant&mdash;not even sleep itself&mdash;than the action of
+all his muscles; and nothing contributes more to his rapid growth.</p>
+
+<p>At first, the body should be kept, while on the arm, in nearly a
+horizontal position, with the head perhaps a very little elevated; but
+after a few weeks, it will be proper to change the position for a small
+part of the time; placing the body so that it may form an angle of a few
+degrees with the horizon. When this is done, however, it should always
+be by placing the hand against the shoulders and head, in such a manner
+as to support well the back; for it is extremely injurious to suffer the
+feeble spine to sustain, at this early period, any considerable weight.</p>
+
+<p>Still more erroneous is the practice of some careless nurses, of
+carrying the child quite upright a part of the time, almost without any
+support at all. There can be no doubt that the spinal column of many a
+child is injured for life in this way. There can be no apology for such
+things.</p>
+
+<p>But it is not sufficient to denounce, merely, the custom of holding the
+infant's body in an erect position. Every inquiring mother&mdash;and it is
+for such, and no other, that I write&mdash;will naturally and properly ask
+the reason why.</p>
+
+<p>The child is not born with all its bones solid. Some are mere cartilage
+for a considerable time. This is the case with the bones of the back.
+Now every person must see that the weight of the child's head and
+shoulders, resting for a considerable time on the slender cartilaginous
+spinal column, may easily bend it. And a curvature, thus given, may, and
+often does, deform children for life.</p>
+
+<p>Dr. Dewees mentions a nurse who, from a foolish fondness for displaying
+them, made the children consigned to her charge sit perfectly upright
+before they were a month old. It is truly ludicrous, he says, to see the
+little creatures sitting as straight as if they were stiffened by a back
+board. It is truly <i>horrible</i>, I should say, rather than ludicrous.
+Crooked spines must be the inevitable consequence, if nothing worse.</p>
+
+<p>The practice of bracing children, as it is called, by straps, back
+boards, corsets, &amp;c., where it has produced any effect at all, has
+always had a tendency to crook the spine. This may be seen first, by
+observing one shoulder to be lower than the other, and next by a
+projection of the part of the shoulder blades next to the spine.
+Whenever these changes begin to appear, it is time to send for a
+physician, though it may often be too late to effect a cure. But on the
+general subject of bracing and corseting, I have treated at sufficient
+length elsewhere.</p>
+
+<p>There is another error committed in carrying children in the arms. The
+head of the infant is often permitted either to hang constantly on one
+side, or to roll about loosely; as if it hardly belonged to the body.
+In the former case there is danger of producing a habit of holding the
+head upon one side, which it will be very difficult to overcome; in the
+latter, the spinal marrow itself may be injured&mdash;which would produce
+alarming and perhaps fatal consequences.</p>
+
+<p>But all these evils, as has already been said, may be prevented, if the
+hand is placed so as to support the head and shoulders. Let not the
+mother, however, who reads this work, trust the matter wholly to a
+nurse; she must see to it herself; else she incurs a most fearful
+responsibility. The suggestions I have made are the more important in
+the case of children either very fleshy or very feeble, and of those
+disposed to rickets or scrofula; but they are important to all.</p>
+
+<p>I have said that the motion of the child, on the arm, should be gentle.
+Many are in the habit of tossing infants about. There can be no
+objection to a slight and slow movement up and down, for a minute or so
+at a time; indeed, it is rather to be recommended, as likely to give
+strength and vigor no less than pleasure to the child. But when such
+movements are carried to excess, so as to frighten the child, they are
+highly reprehensible. The shock thus produced to the nervous system has
+sometimes been so great as to produce sudden death. Nor is it safe to
+run, jump, or descend stairs hastily or violently, with a child in our
+arms; and for similar reasons.</p>
+
+<p>Infants should not be carried always on the same arm, for there is
+danger of contracting a habit of leaning to one side, and thus of
+becoming crooked. On this account, the arm on which they rest should be
+often changed. Nor should they be grasped too firmly. A skilful mother
+will hold a child quite loosely, with the most perfect safety; while an
+inexperienced one will grasp him so hard as to expose the soft bones to
+be bent out of their place, and yet be quite as liable to let him fall
+as she who handles him with more ease and freedom.</p>
+<br>
+
+<h4>SEC. 3. <i>Creeping.</i></h4>
+
+<p>&quot;Mankind must creep before they can walk,&quot; is an old adage often used to
+remind us of that patient application which is so indispensable to
+secure any highly important or valuable end. But it is as true
+literally, as it is figuratively. The act of creeping exercises in a
+remarkable degree nearly all the muscles of the body; and this, too,
+without much fatigue.</p>
+
+<p>Some mothers there indeed are, who think it a happy circumstance if a
+child can be taught to walk without this intermediate step. But such
+mothers must have strange ideas of the animal economy. They must never
+have thought of the pleasure which creeping affords the mind, or of the
+vigor it imparts to the body.</p>
+
+<p>Children are wonderfully pleased with their own voluntary efforts. What
+they can do themselves, yields them ten-fold greater pleasure than if
+done by the mother or the nurse. Yet the latter are exceedingly prone to
+forget or overlook all this&mdash;and to say, at least practically, that the
+only proper efforts are those to which themselves give direction.</p>
+
+<p>They are moreover exceedingly fond of display. Some mothers seem to
+act&mdash;in all they do with and for children&mdash;as if all the latter were
+good for, was display and amusement. They feed them, indeed, and strive
+to prolong their existence; but it appears to be for similar reasons to
+those which would lead them to take kind care of a pet lamb.</p>
+
+<p>It is on this account that they dress them out in the manner they do,
+strive to make them sit up straight, and prohibit their creeping. It is
+on this account too, as much perhaps as any other, that go-carts and
+leading strings are put in such early requisition. The contrary would be
+far the safer extreme; and the parent who keeps his child scrambling
+about upon the back as long as possible, and when he cannot prevent
+longer an inversion of this position, retains him at creeping as long
+as is in his power, is as much wiser, in comparison with him who urges
+him forward to make a prodigy of him, as he is who, instead of making
+his child a prodigy in mind or morals at premature age, holds him back,
+and endeavors to have his mental and moral nature developed no faster
+than his physical frame.</p>
+
+<p>I wish young mothers would settle it in their minds at once, that the
+longer their children creep the better. They need have no fears that the
+force of habit will retain them on their knees after nature has given
+them strength to rise and walk; for their incessant activity and
+incontrollable restlessness will be sure to rouse them as early as it
+ought. Least of all ought the difficulty of keeping them clean, to move
+them from the path of duty.</p>
+
+<p>Children who are allowed to crawl, will soon be anxious to do more. We
+shall presently see them taking hold of a chair or a table, and
+endeavoring to raise themselves up by it. If they fail in a dozen
+attempts, they do not give up the point; but persevere till their
+efforts are crowned with success.</p>
+
+<p>Having succeeded in raising themselves from the floor, they soon learn
+to stand, by holding to the object by which they have raised themselves.
+Soon, they acquire the art of standing without holding; [Footnote: The
+art of standing, which consists in balancing one's self, by means of the
+muscles of the body and lower limb&mdash;simple as it may seem to those who
+have never reflected on the subject&mdash;is really an important acquisition
+for a child of twelve or fifteen months. No wonder they feel a conscious
+pride, when they find themselves able to stand erect, like the world
+around them.] ere long they venture to put forward one foot&mdash;they then
+repeat the effort and walk a little, holding at the same time by a
+chair; and lastly they acquire, with joy to them inexpressible and to us
+inconceivable, the art of &quot;trudging&quot; alone.</p>
+
+<p>When children learn to walk in nature's own way, it is seldom indeed
+that we find them with curved legs, or crooked or clubbed feet. These
+deformities are almost universally owing either to the mother or the
+nurse.</p>
+
+<p>Let me be distinctly understood as utterly opposed, not only to
+go-carts, leading strings, and every other <i>mechanical</i> contrivance, to
+induce children to walk before their legs are fit for it, but to efforts
+of every kind, whose main object is the same. Teaching them to walk by
+taking hold of one of their hands, is in some respects quite as bad as
+any other mode; for if the child should fall while we have hold of his
+hand, there is some danger of dislocating or otherwise injuring the
+limb.</p>
+
+<p>Falls we must expect; but if a child is left to his own voluntary
+efforts as much as possible, these falls will be fewer, and probably
+less serious, than under any other circumstances.</p>
+<br>
+
+<h4>SEC. 4. <i>Walking.</i></h4>
+
+<p>&quot;The way to learn how to write without ruled lines, is <i>to rule</i>,&quot; was
+the frequent saying of an old schoolmaster whom I once knew; and I may
+say with as much confidence and with more truth, that &quot;the way for a
+child to learn to walk alone, is to hold by things.&quot;</p>
+
+<p>I have anticipated, in previous pages, much of what might have otherwise
+been contained in this section. A few additional remarks are all that
+will be necessary.</p>
+
+<p>At first, the nursery will be quite large enough for our young
+pedestrian. Much time should elapse before he is permitted to go abroad,
+upon the green grass;&mdash;not lest the air should reach him, or the sun
+shine upon his face and hands, but because the surface of the ground is
+so much less firm and regular than the floor, that he ought to be quite
+familiar with walking on the latter, in the first place.</p>
+
+<p>But when he can walk well in the play ground, garden, fields, and
+roads, it is highly desirable that he should go out more or less every
+day, when the weather will possibly admit; nor would I be so fearful as
+many are of a drop of rain or dew, or a breath of wind. For say what
+they will in favor of riding, sailing, and other modes of exercise,
+there is none equal to walking, as soon as a child is able;&mdash;none so
+natural&mdash;none, in ordinary cases, so salutary. I know it is unpopular,
+and therefore our young master or young miss must be hoisted into a
+carriage, or upon the back of a horse, to the manifest danger of health
+or limbs, or both.</p>
+
+<p>Who of us ever knew a herdsman or a shepherd who found it for the health
+and well-being of the young calf or lamb to hoist it into a carriage,
+and carry it through the streets, instead of suffering it to walk? Such
+a thing would excite astonishment; and the man who should do it would be
+deemed insane. The health and growth of our young domestic animals is
+best promoted by suffering them to walk, run, and skip in their own way.
+They ask no artificial legs, or horses, or carriages. But would it not
+be difficult to find arguments in favor of carrying children about, when
+they are able to walk, which would not be equally strong in favor of
+carrying about lambs and calves and pigs.</p>
+
+<p>This is the more remarkable from the consideration, elsewhere urged,
+that in general we take more rational pains about the physical
+well-being of domestic animals, than of children. However, it will be
+seen, on a little reflection, that the number of those who carry
+children about, is, after all, very inconsiderable. The greater portion
+of the community regard it as too troublesome or costly; and if poverty
+brought with it no other evils than a permit to children to walk on the
+legs which the Creator gave them, it could hardly be deemed a
+misfortune.</p>
+
+<p>It is scarcely necessary to add that there will be nothing gained to the
+young&mdash;or to persons of any age&mdash;from walks which are very long and
+fatiguing. Walking should refresh and invigorate: when it is carried
+beyond this, especially with the young child, we have passed the line of
+safety.</p>
+<br>
+
+<h4>SEC. 5. <i>Riding in Carriages.</i></h4>
+
+<p>It will be seen by the foregoing section, that I am not very friendly to
+the use of carriages for the young, after they can walk. Before this
+period, however, I think they may be often serviceable; and there are
+occasional instances which may render them useful afterward. On this
+account, I have thought it might be well to give the following general
+directions.</p>
+
+<p>Carriages for children should be so constructed as not to be liable to
+overset. To this end, the wheels must be low, and the axle unusually
+extended. The body should be long enough to allow the child to lie down
+when necessary; and so deep that he may not be likely to fall out.
+Everything should be made secure and firm, to avoid, if possible, the
+danger of accidents.</p>
+
+<p>The carriage should be drawn steadily and slowly; not violently, or with
+a jerking motion. Such a place should be selected as will secure the
+child&mdash;if necessary&mdash;from the full blaze of a hot sun. This point might
+indeed be secured by having the carriage covered; but I am opposed to
+covered carriages, for children or adults, unless we are compelled to
+ride in the rain.</p>
+
+<p>While the child is unable to sit up without injury, and even for some
+months afterwards, he ought by all means to lie down in a carriage,
+because it requires more strength to sit in a seat which is moving, than
+in a place where he is stationary. In assuming the horizontal position,
+in a carriage, a pillow is needed, and such other arrangements as will
+prevent too much rolling.</p>
+
+<p>After the child's strength will fairly permit, he may sit up in the
+carriage, but he ought still to be secured against too much motion. As
+his strength increases, however, the latter direction will be less and
+less necessary. I need not repeat in this place, (had I not witnessed so
+many accidents from neglect,) the caution recently given, that great
+care should be taken to prevent the child from falling out of the
+carriage.</p>
+
+<p>While children are riding abroad in cold weather, much pains should be
+taken to see that they are suitably clothed. It is well to keep them in
+motion, while they are in the carriage, and especially to guard against
+their falling asleep in the open air, until they have become very much
+accustomed to being out in it.</p>
+
+<p>It has been said by some writers, that a ride ought never to exceed the
+length of half an hour; but no positive rule can be given, except to
+avoid over-fatigue.</p>
+<br>
+
+<h4>SEC. 6. <i>Riding on Horseback.</i></h4>
+
+<p>While children are very young, I think it both improper and unsafe to
+take them abroad on horseback; I mean so long as they are in health. In
+case of disease, this mode of exercise is sometimes one of the most
+salutary in the world. But after boys are six or seven years old, and
+girls ten, if they are ever to practise horsemanship, it is time for
+them to begin; both because they are less apt to be unreasonably timid
+at this age, and because they learn much more rapidly.</p>
+
+<p>So few parents are good horsemen, that if there is a riding school at
+hand, I should prefer placing a child in it at once. But I wish to be
+distinctly understood, that I do not consider it a matter of importance,
+especially to females, that they should ever learn to ride at all.</p>
+
+<p>Some of the principal objections to riding on horseback, by boys, as an
+ordinary exercise, are the following:</p>
+
+<p>1. Walking, as I have already intimated, is one of the most HEALTHY
+modes of exercise in the world. It is nature's exercise; and was
+unquestionably in exclusive use long before universal dominion was given
+to man, if not for many centuries afterward; and I believe it would be
+very difficult to prove that it interfered at all with human longevity;
+for the first of our race lived almost a thousand years.</p>
+
+<p>2. Young children, in riding on horseback, are rather apt to acquire,
+rapidly, the habit of domineering over animals. It seems almost needless
+to say how easy the transition is, in such cases, should opportunity
+offer, from tyranny over the brute slave, to tyranny over the human
+being. There are slave-holders in the family and in the school, as well
+as elsewhere. It is the SPIRIT of a person which makes him either a
+tyrant or slave-holder. And let us beware how we foster this spirit in
+the children whom God has given us.</p>
+
+
+
+<br><br><hr style="width: 65%;"><br><br>
+<a name="CHAPTER_XI."></a><h2>CHAPTER XI.</h2>
+
+<h3>AMUSEMENTS.</h3>
+
+<blockquote class="small">Universal need of amusements. Why so necessary. Error of schools. Error
+of families. Infant schools, as often conducted, particularly injurious.
+Lessons, or tasks, should be short. Mistakes of some manual labor
+schools. Of particular amusements in the nursery. With small wooden
+cubes&mdash;pictures&mdash;shuttlecock&mdash;the rocking horse&mdash;tops and
+marbles&mdash;backgammon&mdash;checkers&mdash;morrice&mdash;dice&mdash;nine-pins&mdash;skipping the
+rope&mdash;trundling the hoop&mdash;playing at ball&mdash;kites&mdash;skating and
+swimming&mdash;dissected maps&mdash;black boards&mdash;elements of letters&mdash;dissected
+pictures.</blockquote>
+<br>
+
+<p>However heterodox the concession may be, I am one of those who believe
+amusements of some sort or other to be universally necessary. Indeed I
+cannot possibly conceive of an individual in health, whatever may be the
+age, sex, condition, or employment, who does not need them, in a greater
+or less degree.</p>
+
+<p>Now if by the term amusement, I merely meant employment, nobody would
+probably differ from me&mdash;at least in theory. Every one is ready to admit
+the importance of being constantly employed. A mind unemployed is a
+VACANT mind. And a vacant or idle mind is &quot;the devil's work-shop;&quot; so
+says the proverb.</p>
+
+<p>By amusement, however, I mean something more than mere employment; for
+the more constantly an adult individual is employed, the greater,
+generally, is his demand for amusement. Indolent persons have less need
+of being amused than others; but perhaps there are few if any persons to
+be found, who are so indolent as not to think continually, on one
+subject or another. And it is this constant thinking, more than anything
+else, that creates the necessity of which I am speaking. The mere
+drudge, whether biped or quadruped&mdash;he, I mean, whose thinking powers
+are scarcely alive&mdash;has little need of the relief which is afforded by
+amusement.</p>
+
+<p>The young of all animals&mdash;man among the rest&mdash;appear to have such an
+instinctive fondness for amusement, that so long as they are
+unrestrained, they seldom need any urging on this point. In regard to
+<i>quality</i>, the case is somewhat different. In this respect, most
+children require attention and restraint; and some of them a great deal
+of it.</p>
+
+<p>But what is the nature of the amusement which adults&mdash;nay, mankind
+generally&mdash;require? I answer, it is relief from the employment of
+thinking. For it is not that mankind do not really think at all, that
+moralists complain so loudly. When they tell us that men will not
+think, they mean that they will not think as rational beings. They
+think, indeed; and so do the ox, and the horse, and the dog, and the
+elephant&mdash;but not as rational men ought to do; and this it is that
+constitutes the burden of complaint. But you will probably find few
+persons belonging to the human species who do not think constantly, at
+least while awake; and whose mental powers do not become fatigued, and
+demand relief in amusement.</p>
+
+<p>Children's minds are so soon wearied by a continuous train of thinking,
+even on topics which are pleasing to them, that they can seldom he
+brought to give their attention to a single subject long at once. They
+require almost incessant change; both for the sake of relief, and to
+amuse for the <i>sake</i> of amusement. And it is, to my own mind, one of
+the most striking proofs of Infinite Wisdom in the creation of the human
+mind, that it has, during infancy, such an irresistible tendency to
+amusement.</p>
+
+<p>How greatly do they err, who grudge children, especially very young
+children, the time which, in obedience to the dictates of their nature,
+they are so fond of spending in sports and gambols! How much more
+rational would it be to encourage and direct them in their amusements!
+And how exceedingly unwise is the practice, whenever and wherever it
+exists, of confining them to school rooms and benches, not only for
+hours, but for whole half days at once.</p>
+
+<p>If individuals and circumstances were everywhere combined, with the
+special purpose to oppose the intentions of nature respecting the human
+being, at every step of his progress from the cradle to maturity, and
+from maturity to the grave, I hardly know how they could contrive to
+accomplish such a purpose more effectually than it is at present
+accomplished. But it is proper that I should here explain a little.</p>
+
+<p>All our family arrangements tend to repress amusement. Everything is
+contrived to facilitate business&mdash;especially the business or employments
+of adults. The child is hardly regarded as a human being,&mdash;certainly not
+as a <i>perfect</i> being. He is considered as a mere fragment; or to change
+the figure, as a plant too young to be of any real service to mankind,
+because too young to bear any of its appropriate fruits. Whereas, in my
+opinion, both infancy and childhood, at every stage, should bring forth
+their appropriate fruits. In other words, the child of the most tender
+years should be regarded as a whole, and not as the mere fragment of a
+being; as a perfect member of a family&mdash;occupying a full and complete,
+only a more limited sphere than older members: and all the rules and
+regulations and arrangements of the family should have a reference to
+this point. So long as a child is reckoned to be a mere cipher in
+creation, or at most, as of no more practical importance, till the
+arrival of his twenty-first birth day, or some other equally arbitrary
+period, than our domestic animals&mdash;that is, of just sufficient
+consequence to be fed, and caressed, and fondled, and made a pet of&mdash;so
+long will our arrangements be made with reference to the comfort and
+happiness of adults. There may indeed be here and there a child's chair,
+or a child's carriage, or newspaper, or book; but there will seldom be,
+except by stealth, any free juvenile conversation at the table or the
+fireside. Here the child must sit as a blank or cypher, to ruminate on
+the past, or to receive half formed and passive impressions from the
+present.</p>
+
+<p>The arrangements of the infant school, also, seem designed for the same
+purpose&mdash;to repress as much as possible the infantile desire for
+amusement. Not that this was their original, nor that it now is their
+legitimate intention. Their legitimate object is, or should be, not to
+develope the intellect by over-working the tender brain, but to promote
+cheerfulness and health and love and happiness, by well contrived
+amusements, conducted as much as possible in the open air; and by
+unremitting efforts to elicit and direct the affections.</p>
+
+<p>Infant schools should repress rather than encourage the hard study of
+books. Lessons at this age should be drawn chiefly from objects in the
+garden, the field, and the grove; from the flower, the plant, the tree,
+the brook, the bird, the beast, the worm, the fly, the human body&mdash;the
+sun, or the visible heavens. These lessons, whether given by the parent,
+as constituting a part of the family arrangements, or by the infant or
+primary school teacher, should, it is true, be regarded for the time
+being as study, but they should never be long; and they should be
+frequently relieved by the most free and unrestrained pastimes and
+gambols of the young on the green grass, or beside the rippling stream,
+uninfluenced, or at least unrepressed, by those who are set over them.</p>
+
+<p>The public or common school, overlooking as it does any direct attempts
+to make provision for the amusement of the pupils, even during the
+scanty recess that is afforded them once in three hours, would appear to
+a stranger on this planet, at first sight, to be designed as much as
+possible to defeat every intention of nature with reference to the
+growth of the human frame. For we may often travel many hundred miles
+and not see so much as an enclosed play ground; and never perhaps any
+direct provision for particular and more favorable amusements.</p>
+
+<p>I might speak of other schools and places of resort for children, and
+proceed to show how all our arrangements appear to be the offspring of a
+species of utilitarianism which rejects every sport whose value cannot
+be estimated in dollars and cents. I might even refer to those schools
+of our country where these ultra utilitarian notions are carried to an
+extent which excludes amusing conversation or reading even during
+meal-time; and devotes the hours which were formerly spent in
+recreation, to manual labor of some productive kind or other.&mdash;But I
+forbear. Enough has been said to illustrate the position I have taken,
+that there is in vogue a system which bears the marks of having been
+contrived, if not by the enemies of our race, either openly or covertly,
+at least by those whom ignorance renders scarcely less at war with the
+general happiness.</p>
+
+<p>Now I would not deny nor attempt to deny that change of occupation of
+body or mind is of itself an amusement, and one too of great value.
+Undoubtedly it is so. To some children, studies of every kind are an
+amusement; and there are few indeed to whom none are so. Labor, with
+many, when alternated with study, is amusing. And yet, after all, unless
+such labors are performed in company, where light and cheerful
+conversation is sure to keep the mind away from the subjects about
+which it has just been engaged, I am afraid that the purposes for which
+amusements were designed, are very far from being <i>all</i> secured.</p>
+
+<p>But perhaps I am dwelling too long on the general principle that people
+of every age, and children in particular, need, and must have
+amusements, whether they are of a productive kind or not; and that it is
+very far from being sufficient, were it either practicable or desirable,
+to turn all study and labor into amusement. [Footnote: I will even say,
+more distinctly than I have already done, that however popular the
+contrary opinion may be, neither study nor work ought to be regarded as
+mere amusement. I would, it is true, take every possible pains to render
+both work and study agreeable; but I would at the same time have it
+distinctly understood, that one of them is by no means the other; that,
+on the contrary, work is <i>work</i>&mdash;study, <i>study</i>&mdash;and amusement,
+<i>amusement</i>.] My business is with those who direct the first dawnings
+of affection and intellect. Principles are by no means of less importance
+on this account; but the limits of a work for young mothers do not admit
+of anything more than a brief discussion of their importance.</p>
+
+<p>I will now proceed to speak of some of the more common amusements of the
+nursery.</p>
+
+<p>I have seen very young children sit on the floor and amuse themselves
+for nearly half an hour together, with piling up and taking down small
+wooden cubes, of different sizes. Some of them, instead of being cubes,
+however, may be of the shape of bricks. Their ingenuity, while they are
+scarcely a year or two old, in erecting houses, temples, churches, &amp;c.,
+is sometimes surprising. Girls as well as boys seem to be greatly amused
+with this form of exercise; and both seem to be little less gratified in
+destroying than in rearing their lilliputian edifices.</p>
+
+<p>Next to the latter kind of amusement, is the viewing of pictures. It is
+surprising at what an early age children may be taught to notice
+miniature representations of objects; living objects especially.
+Representations of the works of art should come in a little later than
+those of things in nature. I know a father who prepares volumes of
+pictures, solely for this purpose; though he usually regards them not
+only as a source of amusement to children, but as a medium of
+instruction.</p>
+
+<p>Battledoor or shuttlecock may be taught to children of both sexes very
+early; and it affords a healthy and almost untiring source of amusement.
+It gives activity as well as strength to the muscles or moving powers,
+and has many other important advantages. There is some danger, according
+to Dr. Pierson [Footnote: See his Lecture before the American Institute
+of Instruction] of distorting the spine by playing at shuttlecock too
+frequently and too long; but this will seldom be the case with little
+children in the nursery. Neither shuttlecock nor any other amusement
+will secure their attention long enough to injure them very much.</p>
+
+<p>Perhaps this exercise comes nearer to my ideas of a perfect amusement
+than almost any which could be named. The mind is agreeably occupied,
+without being fatigued; and if the amusements are proportioned to the
+age and strength of the child, there is very little fatigue of the body.
+It gives, moreover, great practical accuracy to the eye and to the hand.</p>
+
+<p>A rocking-horse is much recommended for the nursery. I have had no
+opportunity for observing the effects of this kind of amusement; but if
+it is one half as valuable as some suppose, I should be inclined to
+recommend it. But I am opposed to fostering in the rider lessons of
+cruelty, by arming him with whips and spurs. If the young are ever to
+learn to ride, on a living horse, the exercises of the rocking-horse
+will, most certainly, be a sort of preparation for the purpose.</p>
+
+<p>Tops and marbles afford a great deal of rational amusement to the young;
+and of a very useful kind, too. Spinning a top is second to no exercise
+which I have yet mentioned, unless it is playing at shuttlecock.</p>
+
+<p>Dr. Dewees recommends a small backgammon table, with men, but without
+dice. He says, also, that &quot;children, as soon as they are capable of
+comprehending the subject, should be taught draughts or checkers. This
+game is not only highly amusing, but also very instructive.&quot; In another
+place he heaps additional encomiums upon the game of checkers. &quot;It
+becomes a source of endless amusement,&quot; he says, &quot;as it never tires, but
+always instructs.&quot; Of exercises which instruct, however, as well as
+amuse, I shall speak presently.</p>
+
+<p>The amusements called &quot;morrice,&quot; &quot;fox and geese,&quot; &amp;c., with which some
+of the children of almost every neighborhood are more or less
+acquainted, are of the same general character and tendency as checkers.
+So is a play, sometimes, but very improperly, called dice, in which two
+parties play with a small bundle of wooden pins, not unlike knitting
+pins in shape, but shorter.</p>
+
+<p>The writer to whom I have referred above recommends nine-pins and balls
+of proper size, as highly useful both for diversion and exercise. If
+they can be used without leading to bad habits and bad associations, I
+think they may be useful.</p>
+
+<p>For girls, who demand a great deal more of exercise, both within doors
+and without, skipping the rope is an excellent amusement. So also is
+swinging. Both of these exercises may be used either out of doors, or
+in the nursery.</p>
+
+<p>Trundling a hoop I have always regarded as an amusing out-of-door
+exercise; and I am not sorry when I sometimes see girls, as well as
+boys, engaged in it, under the eye of their mothers and teachers.</p>
+
+<p>Playing ball, of which there are many different games, and flying kites,
+employ a large proportion if not all of the muscles of the body, in such
+a manner as is likely to confirm the strength, and greatly improve the
+health. The same may be said of skating in the winter, and swimming in
+the summer. But these last are exercises over which the mother cannot,
+ordinarily, have very much control.</p>
+
+<p>Under the head of amusements, it only remains for me to speak of a few
+juvenile employments of a mixed nature. Of these I shall treat very
+briefly, as they are a branch of the subject which does not necessarily
+come within the compass of my present plan. They are exercises, too,
+which should more properly come under the head of Infantile Instruction.</p>
+
+<p>Dissected maps afford children of every age a great fund of amusement;
+but much caution is necessary, with those that are very young, not to
+discourage or confound them by showing them too many at once. Thus if
+we cut in pieces the map of one of the smaller United States, at the
+county lines, or the whole United States, at the state lines, it is
+quite as many divisions as they can manage. Cut up as large a state,
+even, as Pennsylvania or New York is, into counties, and try to lead
+them to amuse themselves by putting together so large a number, many of
+which must inevitably very closely resemble each other, and it is ten to
+one but you bewilder, and even perplex and discourage them. The same
+results would follow from cutting up even the whole of a large county,
+or a small state, into towns. I have usually begun with little children,
+by requiring them to put together the eight counties of the small state
+of Connecticut. In this case the counties are not only few, but there is
+a very striking difference in their shape.</p>
+
+<p>A black board and a piece of chalk, along with a little ingenuity on the
+part of the mother, will furnish the child with an almost endless
+variety of amusement. Let him attempt to imitate almost any object which
+interests him, whether among the works of nature or art. However rude
+his pictures may be, do not laugh at, but on the contrary, endeavor to
+encourage him. He may also be permitted to imitate letters and figures.
+The elements of letters, too, both printed and written, may be given
+him, and he may be required to put them together. Dissected pictures, as
+well as dissected maps and letters, are useful, and to most children,
+very acceptable.</p>
+
+<p>In short, the devices of an ingenious, thinking mother, for the
+amusement of her very young children, are almost endless; and the great
+danger is, that when a mother once enters deeply into the spirit of
+these exercises, she will substitute them for those much more healthy
+ones which have been already mentioned, such as require muscular
+activity, or may be performed in the open air.</p>
+
+
+
+<br><br><hr style="width: 65%;"><br><br>
+<a name="CHAPTER_XII."></a><h2>CHAPTER XII.</h2>
+
+<h3>CRYING.</h3>
+
+<blockquote class="small">Its importance. Danger of repressing a tendency to cry. Anecdote from
+Dr. Rush. Physiology of crying. Folly of attempting wholly to suppress
+it.</blockquote>
+<br>
+
+<p>&quot;Crying,&quot; says Dr. Dewees, &quot;should be looked upon as an exercise of much
+importance;&quot; and he is sustained in this view by many eminent medical
+writers.</p>
+
+<p>But people generally think otherwise. Nothing is more common than the
+idea that to cry is unbecoming; and children are everywhere taught, when
+they suffer pain, to brave it out, and <i>not cry</i>. Such a direction&mdash;to
+say nothing of its tendency to encourage hypocrisy&mdash;is wholly
+unphilosophical. The following anecdote may serve in part to illustrate
+my meaning. It is said to have been related by Dr. Rush.</p>
+
+<p>A gentleman in South Carolina was about to undergo a very painful
+surgical operation. He had imbibed the idea that it was beneath the
+dignity of a man ever to say or do anything expressive of pain. He
+therefore refused to submit to the usual precaution of securing the
+hands and feet by bandages, declaring to his surgeon that he had nothing
+to fear from his being untied, for he would not move a muscle of his
+body. He kept his word, it is true; but he died instantly after the
+operation, from apoplexy.</p>
+
+<p>There is very little doubt, in the mind of any physiologist, in regard
+to the cause of apoplexy in this case; and that it might have been
+prevented by the relief which is always afforded by groans and tears.</p>
+
+<p>It is, I believe, very generally known, that in the profoundest grief,
+people do not, and cannot shed tears; and that when the <i>latter</i> begin
+to flow, it affords immediate relief.</p>
+
+<p>I do not undertake to argue from this, that crying is so important,
+either to the young or the old, that it is ever worth while to excite or
+continue it by artificial means; or that a habit of crying, so easily
+and readily acquired by the young, is not to be guarded against as a
+serious, evil. My object was first to show the folly of those who
+denounce all crying, and secondly, to point out some of its
+advantages&mdash;in the hope of preventing parents from going to that extreme
+which borders upon stoicism.</p>
+
+<p>One of the most intelligent men I ever knew, frequently made it his
+boast that he neither laughed nor cried on any occasion; and on being
+told that both laughing and crying were physiologically useful, he only
+ridiculed the sentiment.</p>
+
+<p>Crying is useful to very young infants, because it favors the passage of
+blood in their lungs, where it had not before been accustomed to travel,
+and where its motion is now indispensable. And it not only promotes the
+circulation of the blood, but expands the air-cells of the lungs, and
+thus helps forward that great change, by which the dark-colored impure
+blood of the veins is changed at once into pure blood, and thus rendered
+fit to nourish the system, and sustain life.</p>
+
+<p>But this is not all. Crying strengthens the lungs themselves. It does
+this by expanding the little air-cells of which I have just spoken, and
+not only accustoms them to being stretched, at a period, of all others,
+the most favorable for this purpose, but frees them at the same time
+from mucus, and other injurious accumulations.</p>
+
+<p>They, therefore, who oppose an infant's crying, know not what they do.
+So far is it from being hurtful to the child, that its occasional
+recurrence is, as we have already seen, positively useful. Some
+practitioners of medicine, in some of the more trying situations in
+which human nature can be placed, even encourage their patients to
+suffer tears to flow, as a means of relief.</p>
+
+<p>Infants, it should also be recollected, have no other language by which
+to express their wants and feelings, than sighs and tears. Crying is not
+always an expression of positive pain; it sometimes indicates hunger and
+thirst, and sometimes the want of a change of posture. This last
+consideration deserves great attention, and all the inconveniences of
+crying ought to be borne cheerfully, for the sake of having the little
+sufferer remind us when nature demands a change of position. No child
+ought to be permitted to remain in one position longer than two hours,
+even while sleeping; nor half that time, while awake; and if nurses and
+mothers will overlook this matter, as they often do, it is a favorable
+circumstance that the child should remind them of it.</p>
+
+<p>Crying has been called the &quot;waste gate&quot; of the human system; the door of
+escape to that excess of excitability which sometimes prevails,
+especially among children and nervous adults. To all such persons it is
+healthy&mdash;most undoubtedly so; nor do I know that its occasional
+recurrence is injurious to any adult&mdash;a fastidious public sentiment to
+the contrary notwithstanding.</p>
+
+<p>Some have supposed, that what is here said will be construed by the
+young mother into a license to suffer her child to cry unnecessarily.
+Perhaps, say they, she is a laboring woman, and wishes to be at work.
+Well, she lays down her child in the cradle, or on the bed, and goes to
+her work. Presently the child, becoming wet perhaps, begins to cry, as
+well he might. But, instead of going to him and taking care of him, she
+continues at her employment; and when one remonstrates against her
+conduct as cruelty, she pleads the authority of the author of the &quot;Young
+Mother.&quot;</p>
+
+<p>All this may happen; but if it should, I am not answerable for it. I
+have insisted strongly on guarding the child against wet clothing, and
+on watching him with the utmost care to prevent all real suffering.
+Mothers, like the specimen here given, if they happen to have a little
+sensibility to suffering, and not much love of their offspring,
+generally know of a shorter way to quiet their infants and procure time
+to work, than that which is here mentioned. They have nothing to do but
+to give them some cordial or elixir, whose basis is opium. Startle not,
+reader, at the statement;&mdash;this abominable practice is followed by many
+a female who claims the sacred name of mother. And many a wretch has
+thus, in her ignorance, indolence or avarice, slowly destroyed her
+children!</p>
+
+<p>I repeat, therefore, that I do not think my remarks on crying are
+necessarily liable to abuse; though I am not sure that there are not a
+few individuals to be found who may apply them in the manner above
+mentioned&mdash;an application, however, which is as far removed from the
+original intention of the author, as can possibly be conceived.</p>
+
+
+
+<br><br><hr style="width: 65%;"><br><br>
+<a name="CHAPTER_XIII."></a><h2>CHAPTER XIII.</h2>
+
+<h3>LAUGHING.</h3>
+
+<blockquote class="small">&quot;Laugh and be fat.&quot; Laughing is healthy. A common error. Monastic
+notions yet too prevalent on this subject.</blockquote>
+<br>
+
+<p>Laughing, like crying, has a good effect on the infantile lungs; nor is
+it less salutary in other respects. &quot;Laugh and be fat,&quot; an old adage,
+has its meaning, and also its philosophy.</p>
+
+<p>There is an excess, however, to which laughing, no less than crying, may
+be carried, and which we cannot too carefully avoid. But how little to
+be envied&mdash;how much to be pitied&mdash;are they who consider it a weakness
+and a sin to laugh, and in the plenitude of their wisdom, tell us that
+<i>the Saviour of mankind never laughed</i>. When I hear this last assertion,
+I am always ready to ask, whether the individual who makes it has read a
+new revelation or a new gospel; for certainly none of the sacred books
+which I have seen give us any such information.</p>
+
+<p>But I will not dwell here. The common notion on this subject, if not
+ridiculous, is certainly strange. I will only add, that, come into vogue
+as it might have done, there is no opinion more unfounded than the very
+general one among adults, that children should be uniformly grave; and
+that just in proportion as they laugh and appear frolicsome, just in the
+same proportion are they out of the way, and deserving of reprehension.</p>
+
+<p>It is strange that it should be so, but I have seen many parents who
+were miserable because their children were sportive and joyful. Oh, when
+will the days of monkish sadness and austerity be over; and the public
+sentiment in the christian world get right on this subject!</p>
+
+
+
+<br><br><hr style="width: 65%;"><br><br>
+<a name="CHAPTER_XIV."></a><h2>CHAPTER XIV.</h2>
+
+<h3>SLEEP.</h3>
+
+<blockquote class="small">General remarks. Hints to fathers.&mdash;SEC. 1. Proper hours for repose.
+Dark rooms. Noise.&mdash;SEC. 2. Place for sleeping. Sleeping
+alone&mdash;reasons.&mdash;SEC. 3. Purity of the air in sleeping rooms.&mdash;SEC. 4.
+The bed. Objections to feathers. Other materials.&mdash;SEC. 5. The covering
+of beds. Covering the head.&mdash;SEC. 6. Night Dresses. Robes.&mdash;SEC. 7.
+Posture of the body in sleep.&mdash;SEC. 8. State of the mind.&mdash;SEC. 9.
+Quality of sleep.&mdash;SEC. 10. Quantity of sleep.</blockquote>
+<br>
+
+<p>Not a few persons consider all rules relative to sleep as utterly
+futile. They regard it as so much of a natural or animal process, that
+if we are let alone we shall seldom err, at any age, respecting it.
+Rules on the subject, above all, they regard as wholly misplaced.</p>
+
+<p>Those who entertain such views, would do well, in order to be
+consistent, to go a little farther; and as breathing and eating and
+drinking&mdash;nay, even <i>thinking</i>&mdash;are natural processes, deny the utility
+of all rules respecting <i>them</i> also. Perhaps they would do well,
+moreover, to deny that rules of any sort are valuable. But would not
+this have the effect to bar the door perpetually against all human
+improvement? Would it not be equivalent to saying, to a half-civilized,
+because only half-christianized community&mdash;Go on with your barbarous
+customs, and your uncleanly and unthinking habits, forever?</p>
+
+<p>But I have not so learned human nature. I regard man as susceptible of
+endless progression. And I know of no way in which more rapid progress
+can be made, than by enlightening young mothers on subjects which
+pertain to our physical nature, and the means of physical improvement.
+Not for the <i>sake</i> of that perishable part of man, the frame, but
+because it is nearly in vain to attempt to improve the mind and heart,
+without due attention to the frame-work, to which mind and heart, for
+the present, are appended, and most intimately related.</p>
+
+<p>Let it be left to fathers to study the improvement of hounds and horses
+and cattle, and at the same time to think themselves above the concerns
+of the nursery. We may, indeed, read of a Cato once in three thousand
+years, who was in the habit of quitting all other business in order to
+be present when the nurse washed and rubbed his child. But our passion
+for gain, in the present age, is so much more absorbing and
+soul-destroying than the passion for military glory, that we cannot
+expect many Catos. Oh no. All, or nearly all, must devolve on the
+mother. The father has no time to attend to his children! What belongs
+to the mother, if she can be duly awakened, may be at least <i>half</i> done;
+what belongs to the father, must, I fear, be left undone.</p>
+
+<p>I am accustomed to regard every day&mdash;even of the infant&mdash;as a miniature
+life. I am, moreover, accustomed to consider mental and bodily vigor,
+not only for each separate day, but for life's whole day, as greatly
+influenced by the circumstances of sleep; the HOUR, PLACE, PURITY OF THE
+AIR, THE BED, THE COVERING, DRESS, POSTURE, STATE OF THE MIND, QUALITY,
+QUANTITY, AND DURATION.</p>
+<br>
+
+<h4>SEC. 1. <i>Hour for Repose.</i></h4>
+
+<p>Generally speaking, the night is the appropriate season for repose; but
+in early infancy, it is <i>every</i> hour. I have already spoken of the vast
+amount of sleep which the new-born infant requires, as well as of many
+other circumstances connected with it, requiring our attention. Suffer
+me, however, to enlarge, at the risk of a little repetition.</p>
+
+<p>What time the infant is awake, should be during the day. It is of very
+great importance, in the formation of good habits, that he should be
+undressed and put to bed, at evening, with as much regularity as if be
+had not slept during the day for a single moment. It is also important
+that he be permitted to sleep during the whole night, as uninterruptedly
+as possible; and that when he is aroused, to have his position or
+diapers changed, or to receive food, it should be done with little
+parade and noise, and with as little light as possible. All persons, old
+as well as young, sleep more quietly in a dark room, than in one where a
+light is burning.</p>
+
+<p>I am well aware that the course here recommended, may be carried to an
+excess which will utterly defeat the object intended, since there are
+children to be found, who are so trained in this respect, that the
+lightest tread upon the floor will awake, and perhaps frighten them. But
+this is an excess which is not required. All that is necessary during
+the night, is a reasonable degree of silence, in order to induce the
+habit of continued rest, if possible. In the day time, on the contrary,
+fatigue will impel a child to sleep occasionally, even in the midst of
+noise. I am not sure that the habit of sleeping in the midst of noise is
+not worth a little pains on the part of the mother. Nor is it improbable
+that a habit of this kind, once acquired by the infant, might ultimately
+be extended to the night, so that over-caution, even in regard to that
+season, might gradually be laid aside.</p>
+
+<p>Dr. North, a distinguished medical practitioner in Hartford, Conn.,
+confirms the foregoing sentiments; and adds, that he deems it an
+imperious duty of those parents who wish well to their infants, to form
+in them the habit of sleeping when fatigued, whether the room be quiet
+or noisy. With his children, no cradles or opiates are needed or used.</p>
+<br>
+
+<h4>SEC. 2. <i>Place.</i></h4>
+
+<p>For some time after its birth, the infant should sleep near its mother,
+though not in the same bed. The bedstead should be of the usual height
+of bedsteads, and should be enclosed with a railing sufficient to secure
+the infant from falling out, but not of such a structure as to hinder,
+in any degree, a free circulation of the air.</p>
+
+<p>The reasons why a child ought to sleep alone, and not with the mother or
+nurse, are numerous; but the following are the principal;</p>
+
+<p>1. The heat accumulated by the bodies of the mother and child both, is
+often too great for health.</p>
+
+<p>2. The air is too impure. I have already spoken of the change in the
+purity of the air which is produced by breathing in it. It is bad
+enough for two adults to sleep in the same bed, breathing over and over
+again the impure air, as they must do more or less, even if the bed is
+very large;&mdash;but it is still worse for infants. Their lungs demand
+atmospheric air in its utmost purity; and if denied it, they must
+eventually suffer.</p>
+
+<p>3. But besides the change of the air by breathing, the surface of the
+body is perpetually changing it in the same manner, as was stated in the
+chapter on Ventilation. Now a child will almost inevitably breathe a
+stream of this bad air, as it issues from the bed; and what is still
+worse, it is very apt, in spite of every precaution, to get its head
+covered up with the clothes, where it can hardly breathe anything else.
+This, if frequently repeated, is slow but certain death;&mdash;as much so as
+if the child were to drink poison in moderate quantities.</p>
+
+<p>Let me not be told that this is an exaggeration; that thousands of
+mothers make it a point to cover up the beads of their infants; and that
+notwithstanding this, they are as healthy as the infants of their
+neighbors. I have not said that they would droop and die while infants.
+The fumes of lead, which is a certain poison, may be inhaled, and yet
+the child or adult who inhales them may live on, in tolerable health,
+for many years. But suffer he must, in the end, in spite of every effort
+and every hope. So must the child, whose head is covered habitually
+with the bed clothing, where it is compelled to breathe not only the air
+spoiled by its own skin, but also that which is spoiled by the much
+larger surface of body of the mother or nurse.</p>
+
+<p>But I have proof on this subject. Friedlander, in his &quot;Physical
+Education,&quot; says expressly, that in Great Britain alone, between the
+years 1686 and 1800, no less than 40,000 children died in consequence of
+this practice of allowing them to sleep near their nurses. I was at
+first disposed to doubt the accuracy of this most remarkable statement.
+But when I consider the respectability of the authority from which it
+emanated, and that it is only about 350 a year for that great empire, I
+cannot doubt that the estimate is substantially correct. What a
+sacrifice at the shrine of ignorance and folly!</p>
+
+<p>It should be added, in this place, both to confirm the foregoing
+sentiment, and to show that British mothers and nurses are not alone,
+that Dr. Dewees has witnessed, in the circle of his practice, four
+deaths from the same cause. If every physician in the United States has
+met with as many cases of the kind, in proportion to his practice, as
+Dr. D., the evil is about as great in this country as Dr. F. says it is
+in Great Britain.</p>
+
+<p>If a child sleeps alone, it cannot of course be liable to as much
+suffering of this kind as if it slept with another person; though much
+precaution will still be necessary to keep its head uncovered, and
+prevent its inhaling air spoiled by its own lungs and skin.</p>
+
+<p>4. There is one more evil which will be avoided by having a child sleep
+alone. Many a mother has seriously injured her child by pressure. I do
+not here allude to those monsters in human nature, whose besotted habits
+have been the frequent cause of the suffocation and death of their
+offspring, but to the more careful and tender mother, who would sooner
+injure herself than her own child. Such mothers, even, have been known
+to dislocate or fracture a limb![Footnote: There may be instances where
+the debility of an infant will be so great that the mother or a nurse
+must sleep with it, to keep it warm. But such cases of disease are very
+rare.]</p>
+
+<p>To cap the climax of error in this matter, some mothers allow their
+infants to lie on their arm, as a pillow. This practice not only exposes
+them to all or nearly all the evils which have been mentioned, but to
+one more; viz. the danger of being thrown from the bed.</p>
+
+<p>A young mother, with whom I was well acquainted, was sleeping one night
+with her infant on her arm, when she made a sudden and rather violent
+effort to turn in the bed, in doing which she threw the child upon the
+floor with such violence as to fracture its little skull, and cause its
+death.</p>
+
+<p>Enough, I trust, has now been said to convince every reasonable young
+mother, where absolute poverty does not preclude comfort and health,
+that her child ought never to be permitted to sleep in the same bed with
+her; but that it should be placed on a bedstead by itself at a short
+distance from her, and properly guarded from accidents&mdash;and above all,
+from inhaling impure air.</p>
+
+<p>At a suitable age, a child may be removed from the nursery to a separate
+chamber. Here, if the circumstances permit, it should still sleep by
+itself; and if the bedstead be somewhat lower than ordinary, and the
+room be not too small, it will need no watching.</p>
+
+<p>Perhaps this may be the proper place to say that there are more reasons
+than one&mdash;and some of them are of a moral nature, too&mdash;why a child
+should continue to sleep alone, after it leaves the nursery. Nor is it
+sufficient to prohibit its sleeping with younger persons, and yet crowd
+it into the bed with an aged grandfather or grandmother, or with both.
+There is no excuse for a course like this, except the iron hand of
+necessity. And even then, I should prefer to have a child of mine sleep
+on the hard floor, at least during the summer season, rather than with
+an aged person.</p>
+
+<p>Let it not be supposed I have imbibed the fashionable idea that it is
+<i>peculiarly</i> unhealthy for the young to sleep with the old. I know this
+doctrine has many learned advocates. And yet I doubt its correctness. I
+believe that the manners and habits of the old may injure the young who
+sleep with them, and I know that they render the air impure, like other
+people. But I cannot see why the mere circumstance of their being <i>old</i>
+should be a source of unhealthiness to their younger bed-fellows. Still
+I say, that there are reasons enough against the practice I am opposing,
+without this.</p>
+
+<p>Some parents allow dogs and cats to sleep with children. Others have a
+prejudice against cats, but not against dogs. The truth is, that they
+both contaminate the air by respiration and perspiration, in the same
+manner that adults do. And aside from the fact that they are often
+infested by lice and other insects, and addicted to uncleanly habits,
+they ought always to be excluded, and with iron bars and bolts, if
+necessary, from the beds of children. But of this, too, I have treated
+elsewhere.</p>
+<br>
+
+<h4>SEC. 3. <i>Purity of the Air.</i></h4>
+
+<p>The general importance of pure air has been mentioned. I have spoken of
+the elements of the atmosphere in which we live, of the manner in
+which it may be vitiated, and the consequences to health. I have
+shown&mdash;perhaps at sufficient length&mdash;the impropriety of washing, drying,
+and ironing clothes in the room where a child is kept; of cooking in the
+room, especially on a stove; of suffering the floor or clothes,
+particularly those of the child, to remain long wet, in the room; of
+smoking tobacco, using spirits, burning oil with too long a wick, &amp;c.</p>
+
+<p>All which has thus been said of the purity of the air of the nursery
+generally, is applicable to that of all sleeping rooms. It is an
+important point gained, when we can secure a nursery with folding doors
+in the centre, so as, when we please, to make two rooms of it. In that
+case, the division in which the bed is, can be completely ventilated a
+little before night, and thus be comparatively pure for the reception of
+both the mother and the child.</p>
+
+<p>Shall the windows and doors where a child sleeps, be kept closed; or
+shall they be suffered to remain open a part or the whole of the night?
+This must be determined by circumstances. If there are no doors but
+such as communicate with apartments whose air is equally impure with
+that in which the child is, it is preferable to keep them closed. If the
+windows cannot be opened without exposing the child to a current of air,
+it is perhaps the less of two evils, not to open them.</p>
+
+<p>But we are not usually driven to such extremities. In some instances,
+windows are constructed&mdash;and all of them ought to be&mdash;so that they can
+be lowered from the top. When this is not the case, something can be
+placed before the window to break the current, so that it need not fall
+directly upon the child. Closing the blinds will partially effect this,
+where blinds exist.</p>
+
+<p>I have known many an individual who was in the habit of sleeping with
+his windows open during the whole year, and without any obvious evil
+consequences. Dr. Gregory was of this habit. But if adults&mdash;not trained
+to it&mdash;can acquire such a habit with impunity, with how much more safety
+could children be trained to it from the very first year. Macnish says,
+&quot;there can be no doubt that a gentle current pervading our sleeping
+apartments, is in the highest degree ESSENTIAL TO HEALTH.&quot;</p>
+
+<p>This consideration&mdash;I mean the impurity of sleeping rooms, even after
+every precaution has been used to keep them ventilated&mdash;affords one
+of the strongest inducements to going abroad early in the morning
+(especially when there is no other room which either adults or children
+can occupy) while the nursery or chamber is aired and ventilated. The
+utility of <i>rising</i> early, I hope no one can doubt; but some have doubts
+of the propriety of going abroad, till the dew has &quot;passed away.&quot; Such
+should be reminded, by the foregoing train of remarks, that early
+walking may be a choice of evils; and that if it <i>is</i> on the whole
+advantageous to adults, it cannot be less so to children. And as soon as
+the sun has chased away the vapors of the night, if the weather is
+tolerable, most children should be carried abroad.</p>
+<br>
+
+<h4>SEC. 4. <i>The Bed.</i></h4>
+
+<p>This should never be of feathers. There are many reasons for this
+prohibition, especially to the feeble.</p>
+
+<p>1. They are too warm. Infants should by all means be kept warm enough,
+as I have all along insisted. But excess of heat excites or stimulates
+the skin, causing an unnatural degree of perspiration, and thus inducing
+weakness or debility.</p>
+
+<p>2. When we first enter a room in which there is a feather bed which has
+been occupied during the night, we are struck with the offensive smell
+of the air. This is owing to a variety of causes; one of which probably
+is, that beds of this kind are better adapted to absorb and retain the
+effluvia of our bodies. But let the causes be what they may, the effects
+ought, if possible, to be avoided; for both experience and authority
+combine to pronounce them very injurious.</p>
+
+<p>3. Feather beds&mdash;if used in the nursery&mdash;will inevitably discharge more
+or less of dust and down; both of which are injurious to the tender
+lungs of the infant.</p>
+
+<p>Mattresses are better for persons of every age, than soft feather beds.
+They may be made of horse hair or moss; but hair is the best. If the
+mattress does not appear to be warm enough for the very young infant, a
+blanket may be spread over it. Dr. Dewees says that in case mattresses
+cannot be had, &quot;the sacking bottom&quot; may be substituted, or &quot;even the
+floor;&quot; at least in warm weather: &quot;for almost anything,&quot; he adds, &quot;is
+preferable to feathers.&quot;</p>
+
+<p>Macnish, in his &quot;Philosophy of Sleep,&quot; objects strongly to air beds, and
+says that he can assert &quot;from experience,&quot; that they are the very worst
+that can possibly be employed. My theories&mdash;for I have had no experience
+on the subject&mdash;would lead me to a similar conclusion. A British
+writer of eminence assures us that the higher classes in Ireland, to a
+considerable extent, accustom themselves and their infants to sleep on
+bags of cut straw, overspread with blankets and a light coverlid; and
+that the custom is rapidly finding favor. I have slept on straw, both in
+winter and summer, for many years, yet I am always warm; and those who
+know my habits say I use less <i>covering</i> on my bed than almost any
+individual whom they have ever known.</p>
+
+<p>I have no hostility to soft beds, especially for young children and feeble
+adults, could softness be secured without much heat and relaxation
+of the system. On the contrary, it is certainly desirable, in itself,
+to have the bed so soft that as large a proportion of the surface of
+the body may rest on it as possible. But I consider hardness as a
+much smaller evil than feathers.</p>
+
+<p>It is worthy of remark how generally physicians, for the last hundred
+years, have recommended hard beds, especially straw beds or hair
+mattresses, to their more feeble and delicate patients. This fact might
+at least quiet our apprehensions in regard to their tendency on those
+who are accustomed to them in early infancy.</p>
+
+<p>Some writers on these subjects appear to doubt whether, after all that
+they say, they shall have much influence on mothers in inducing them to
+give up feather beds for their infants. But they need not be so
+faithless. Multitudes have already been reformed by their writings; and
+multitudes larger still would be so, could they gain access to them. It
+is a most serious evil that they are often so written and published that
+comparatively few mothers will ever possess them.</p>
+
+<p>The pillow, as well as the bed, should be rather hard; and its thickness
+should be much less than is usual, or we shall do mischief by bending
+the neck, and thus compressing the vessels, and obstructing the
+circulation of the blood. But on this subject I will say more, when I
+come to treat on &quot;Posture.&quot;</p>
+
+<p>The child's bed should not be placed near the wall, on account of
+dampness. There is also, during the summer, another reason. Should
+lightning strike the house, it will be much more apt to injure those who
+are near the wall than other persons; as it seldom leaves the wall to
+pass over the central part of the room.</p>
+
+<p>Curtains are not only useless, but injurious. They prevent a free
+circulation of the air. Everything which has this tendency must be
+studiously guarded against, in the management of infants.</p>
+
+<p>Nothing is more injurious to the old or the young than damp beds and
+damp covering. It behoves, especially, all those who have the care of
+infants, to see that everything about their beds is thoroughly dry. The
+walls and clothes should also be dry; and wet clothes should never be
+hung up in the room. By neglecting these precautions, colds,
+rheumatisms, inflammations, fevers, consumptions, and death, may ensue.
+Many a person loses his health, and not a few their lives, in this way.
+The author of this work was once thrown into a fever from such a cause.</p>
+
+<p>Warming the bed is, in all cases, a bad practice. While in the nursery,
+if the air be kept at a proper temperature, there will be no need of it;
+after the child is assigned to a separate chamber, its enervating
+tendency would result in more evil than good. It is better to let the
+bed became gradually heated by the body, in a natural and healthy way.</p>
+
+<p>No person, and above all, no infant, should be suffered to sleep in a
+bed that has been recently occupied by the sick. The bed and all the
+clothes should first be thoroughly aired. Could we see with our eyes at
+once, how rapidly these bodies of ours fill the air, and even the beds
+we sleep in, with carbonic acid and other hurtful gases and impurities,
+even while in health, but much more so in sickness, we should be
+cautious of exposing the lungs of the tender infant, in such an
+atmosphere, until everything had been properly cleansed, and the
+apartments properly ventilated.</p>
+<br>
+
+<h4>SEC. 5. <i>The Covering.</i></h4>
+
+<p>The covering of the bed should be sufficiently warm, but never any
+warmer than is absolutely necessary to protect the child from
+chilliness. The lightest covering which will secure this object is the
+best. Perhaps there is nothing in use that, with so little weight,
+secures so much heat as what are called &quot;comfortables.&quot;</p>
+
+<p>The clothes should not be &quot;tucked up&quot; at the sides and foot of the bed
+with too much care and exactness. For when the bed is once warmed
+thoroughly with the child's body, the admission of a little fresh air
+into it, when he elevates or otherwise moves his limbs, can do no harm,
+but <i>may</i> do much of good, in the way of ventilation. I deem it
+important, moreover, to inure children very early to little partial
+exposures of this kind.</p>
+
+<p>Those mothers who, from over-tenderness, and want of correct information
+on the subject, pursue a contrary course, and consider it as almost
+certain death to have a particle of fresh air reach the bodies of their
+infants during their slumbers, are generally sure to outwit themselves,
+and defeat their very intentions. For by being thus tender of their
+children, it often turns out that whenever the mother is ill, or when on
+any other account she ceases to watch over them&mdash;and such times must,
+in general, sooner or later come&mdash;they are much more liable to take cold
+or sustain other injury, should they be exposed, than if they had been
+treated more rationally.</p>
+
+<p>I knew a mother who would not trust her children to take care of their
+own beds on retiring to rest, as long as they remained in her house,
+even though they were twenty or thirty years old. But they had no better
+or firmer constitutions than the other children of the same
+neighborhood.</p>
+
+<p>Hardly anything can be more injurious than covering the head with the
+bed clothes; and yet some mothers and nurses cover, in this way, not
+only their own heads, but those of their children. I have elsewhere
+shown how impure the air is, which is imprisoned under the bed clothes.
+I hope those mothers who are willing to destroy <i>themselves</i> by covering
+up their heads while they sleep, will at least have mercy on their
+unoffending infants.</p>
+<br>
+
+<h4>SEC. 6. <i>Night Dresses.</i></h4>
+
+<p>The grand rule on this point is, to wear as little dress during sleep as
+possible. Some mothers not only suffer their infants to sleep in the
+same shirt, cap, and stockings that they have worn during the day, but
+add a night gown to the rest. No cap should be worn during the night,
+any more than in the day time. Or if the foolish practice has been
+adopted for the day, it should be discontinued at night. It is enough
+for those adults whose long hair would otherwise be dishevelled, to wear
+night caps, and subject themselves, as they inevitably do, to catarrh
+and periodical headache. Children's heads should have nothing on them by
+night; nor even by day, except to defend them from the rain or the hot
+rays of the sun.</p>
+
+<p>The stockings, too, should be wholly laid aside at night, unless in the
+case of those who are feeble, apt to have their feet cold, or
+particularly liable to bowel complaints. Such may be allowed to sleep in
+their stockings, but not in those which have been worn all the day.</p>
+
+<p>Indeed, neither children nor adults should ever wear a single garment in
+the night which they have worn during the day. The reason is, that there
+are too many causes of impurity in operation while we sleep, without our
+wearing the clothes in which we have been perspiring during the
+day-time&mdash;and which must be already more or less filled with the
+effluvia of our bodies.</p>
+
+<p>It is a very easy thing to have a loose night gown to supply the place
+of the shirt we have worn during the day; and if nothing else is
+convenient, a spare shirt will answer. But both a night gown and shirt
+should never be admitted, especially in warm weather. The garment to
+supply the place of the shirt during the night, may be of calico in the
+summer, and of flannel in the winter.</p>
+
+<p>The collar and wristbands of this night dress should be loose; and the
+whole garment should be large and long. No article of dress should ever
+press upon our bodies, so as in the least to impede the circulation; and
+for this reason it is, that writers on physical education have inveighed
+so much against cravats, straps, garters, &amp;c. This caution, so important
+to all, is doubly so to young mothers, on whom devolves the management
+of the tender infant.</p>
+
+<p>When the child has been perspiring freely during the evening, just
+before he is undressed, or when he has just been subjected to the warm
+bath, it may be well to use a little care in undressing and exchanging
+clothes, to prevent taking cold;&mdash;though it should ever be remembered,
+that those children who are managed on a rational system will bear
+slight exposures with far more safety, than they who have been managed
+at random&mdash;sometimes, indeed, with great tenderness, but at others,
+wholly neglected.</p>
+<br>
+
+<h4>SEC. 7. <i>Posture of the Body.</i></h4>
+
+<p>In early infancy, children who are not stuffed rather than fed, may
+occasionally be permitted to sleep on their backs, especially if they
+incline to do so. But it will be well to encourage them to sleep on one
+side, as soon as you can without great inconvenience.</p>
+
+<p>The right side, as a general rule, is preferable; because the stomach,
+which lies towards the left side, is thus left uncompressed, and
+digestion undisturbed. I would not, however, require a child to lie
+always on the right side, but would occasionally change his position,
+lest he should become unable to sleep at all, except in a particular
+manner.</p>
+
+<p>I have said elsewhere, that the head ought to be a little raised,
+especially if the child is liable to diseases of the brain. But this
+remark, rather hastily thrown out, requires explanation.</p>
+
+<p>There is so much blood sent by the heart to the head and upper parts of
+the system of infants, as to predispose those parts, especially the
+brain, to disease. In a horizontal position of the body, there is more
+blood sent to the brain than when the body is erect. This will show the
+reader, at once, that if the infant is peculiarly exposed to diseases
+of the brain&mdash;and it certainly is so&mdash;he ought to remain in a horizontal
+posture as little as possible, except during sleep; and that even then
+it is desirable to make his bed in such a manner as to elevate the head
+and shoulders as much as we can without compressing the lungs, or
+obstructing the circulation in the neck.</p>
+
+<p>I recommend, therefore, to raise the head of an infant's bedstead a
+little higher than the foot; though not so much as to incline him to
+slide downwards into the bed, for that would be to produce one evil in
+curing another.</p>
+
+<p>Sir Charles Bell thinks that the common disease of infants called
+<i>diabetes</i>, arises from their being permitted to sleep on their backs;
+and that by breaking up the habit of lying in this position, and
+accustoming them to lie on their sides, we shall prevent it. I doubt
+whether the effect here referred to, is ever the result of such a cause.
+Still I am as much opposed to the <i>habit</i> of sleeping on the back, as
+Sir Charles Bell. It is quite injurious to free respiration.</p>
+
+<p>Closely allied to the subject of bodily position in general, is the
+state of particular organs; especially the stomach and the senses. I
+have already intimated that in order to have an infant sleep quietly, it
+is desirable to darken the room. This is the more necessary, where
+infants are unnaturally wakeful. In such cases, not only light should
+be excluded from the eye, but sounds from the ear, odors from the
+nostrils, &amp;c. A remarkably full stomach is in the way of going quietly
+to sleep, whether the person be old or young. Neither infants nor adults
+ought to take food for some time previous to their going to sleep for
+the night. Great bodily heat, as well as too great cold, is also
+unfavorable. If too hot, the temperature of the infant should be
+somewhat reduced by exposure to the air; if too cold, it should be
+raised in a natural, healthy, and appropriate manner.</p>
+<br>
+
+<h4>SEC. 8. <i>State of the Mind.</i></h4>
+
+<p>In giving directions how to procure pleasant dreams, Dr. Franklin
+mentions as a highly important requisition, the possession of a quiet
+conscience. A wise prescription, no doubt.</p>
+
+<p>But infants, as well as adults, in order to sleep quietly, should have
+their minds and feelings in a state of tranquillity. The youngest child
+has its &quot;troubles;&quot; and it is highly important, if not indispensable, to
+<i>healthy</i> sleep, that the mother take all reasonable pains to remove
+them before sleep is induced.</p>
+
+<p>We sometimes hear about children crying themselves to sleep, as if it
+were a matter of no consequence; and sometimes, as if it were, on the
+contrary, rather desirable. But is the sleep of an adult satisfying, who
+goes to bed in trouble, and only sleeps because nature is so exhausted
+that she cannot bear the protracted watchfulness any longer? Why then
+should we expect it, in the case of the infant?</p>
+
+<p>I know an excellent father who is so far from believing this doctrine,
+that he silences the cries of his child by the word of command&mdash;and
+believes that in so doing, he promotes both his health and his
+happiness. He would no more let him cry himself to sleep than he would
+let him cough himself to sleep; though both crying and coughing, in
+their places, may be and undoubtedly are salutary.</p>
+
+<p>Whatever may be the age and circumstances of an individual, he ought to
+retire for rest with a cheerful mind. All anxiety about the future, all
+regret about the past, all plans even, in regard to the business or
+amusement of the morrow, should be kept wholly out of the mind. We
+should yield ourselves up to the arms of sleep with the same quietude as
+if life were finished, and we had nothing more to do or think of.</p>
+<br>
+
+<h4>SEC. 9. <i>Quality of Sleep.</i></h4>
+
+<p>The soundness, as well as other qualities, of sleep, differs greatly in
+different individuals; and even in the same night, with the same
+individual in different circumstances. The first four or five hours of
+sleep are usually more sound than the remainder. Hardly anything will
+interrupt the repose of some persons during the early part of the night,
+while they awake afterwards at the slightest noise or movement&mdash;the
+chirping of a cricket, or the playing of a kitten.</p>
+
+<p>In profound sleep, we probably dream very little, if at all; but in
+other circumstances, we are constantly disturbed by dreaming, and
+sometimes start and wake in the greatest anxiety or horror.</p>
+
+<p>Nightmare is generally accompanied by dreams of the most distressing
+kind. We imagine a wild beast, or a serpent in pursuit of us; or a rock
+is detached from some neighboring cliff, and is about to roll upon and
+crush us; and yet all our efforts to fly are unavailing. We seem chained
+to the spot; but while in the very jaws of destruction, perhaps we
+awake, trembling, and palpitating, and weary, as if something of a
+serious nature had really happened.</p>
+
+<p>In the case of nightmare, it is more than probable that we fall asleep
+with our stomachs too heavily loaded with food, or with a smaller
+quantity of that which is highly indigestible. Or it may sometimes arise
+from an improper position of the body, such as disturbs the action of
+the stomach or lungs, or of both these organs. Lying on the back, when
+we first go to sleep, is very apt to produce nightmare.</p>
+
+<p>But distressing dreams often follow an evening of anxious cares,
+especially if those cares preyed upon us for the last half hour; and
+also after late suppers, even if they are light&mdash;and late reading. Hence
+the injunctions of the last section. Hence, too, the importance of
+taking our last meal two or three hours before sleep, and of engaging,
+during these hours, in cheerful conversation, and in the social and
+private duties of religion. Family and private worship, in the evening,
+are enjoined no less by philosophy than they are by christianity; and
+every young mother will do well to understand this matter, and train her
+offspring accordingly.</p>
+
+<p>&quot;That sleep from which we are easily roused, is the healthiest,&quot; says
+Macnish. &quot;Very profound slumber partakes of the nature of apoplexy.&quot; I
+should say, rather, that a medium between the two extremes is
+healthiest. Profound apoplectic sleep,
+I am sure, is injurious; but that from which we are too easily roused
+cannot, it seems to me, be less so. Thus, I have often gone to sleep
+with a resolution to wake at a certain hour, or at the striking of the
+clock; and have found myself able to wake at the proposed time, almost
+without one failure in twenty instances where I have made the trial. But
+my sleep was obviously unsound, and certainly unsatisfying. The desire
+to awake at a certain moment or period, seemed to buoy me above the
+usual state of healthy sleep, and render me liable to awake at the
+slightest disturbance. Were it not for sacrificing the ease of others,
+it would be far better, in such cases, to rely upon some person to wake
+us, instead of charging our own minds with it.</p>
+
+<p>The quality of our sleep will be greatly affected by the quantity. But
+this thought, if extended, would anticipate the subject of our next
+section; so easily does one thing, especially in physical education, run
+into or involve another. I will therefore, for the present, only say
+that if we confine ourselves to a smaller number of hours than is really
+required, our sleep becomes too sound to be quite healthy, as if nature
+endeavored to make up in quality, for want of due quantity. On the
+contrary, if we attempt to sleep longer than is really necessary to
+restore us, the quality of our sleep is not what it ought to be; for we
+do not sleep soundly enough.</p>
+
+<p>The silence and darkness of the night tend to induce sleep of a better
+quality than the noise and activity of day. It is unquestionably
+desirable that children should be able to sleep, at least occasionally,
+without absolute quiet. And yet such sleep cannot be sufficiently sound
+to answer the purposes of health, if frequently repeated.</p>
+
+<p>Hence it is, perhaps&mdash;at least in part&mdash;that the maxim has obtained
+currency, that one hour of sleep before midnight is worth two afterward.
+The comparison has probably been made between the quiet and darksome
+hours of evening and those which followed daybreak, when light, and
+music, and bustle conspire, as they should, to make us wakeful. No
+person can sleep as soundly and as effectually, when light reaches his
+closed eyes, and sounds strike his ears, as in darkness and silence. He
+may sleep, indeed, under almost any circumstances, when fatigue and
+exhaustion demand it; but never so profoundly as when in absolute
+abstraction of light, and complete quiet.</p>
+<br>
+
+<h4>SEC. 10. <i>Quantity.</i></h4>
+
+<p>On this point much might be said, without exhausting the subject. But I
+have already observed that infants, when first born, require to sleep
+nearly their whole time. As they advance in years, the necessity for
+sleep; however, diminishes, until they come to maturity, when it remains
+for many years nearly stationary. In advanced age, the necessity for
+sleep again increases, till we reach the extremest old age, or what is
+usually called second childhood, when we again sometimes sleep nearly
+the whole time.</p>
+
+<p>I have already remarked that much might be said on this subject; but I
+do not think that the present occasion requires it. If the suggestions
+which are made in the chapter on &quot;Early Rising&quot; should receive the
+attention I flatter myself they merit, I do not believe children would
+often sleep too long. If, on the contrary, they are suffered to lie late
+in the morning, and then sit up late in the evening, all healthful
+habits and tendencies will he so deranged or broken up, that nature, in
+her indications, will by no means prove the unerring guide which she is
+wont to do in other circumstances.</p>
+
+<p>A few thoughts here, on the quantity of sleep required by the young
+after they approach maturity, may not be misplaced.</p>
+
+<p>Jeremy Taylor thought that for a healthy adult, three hours in
+twenty-four were enough for all the purposes of sleep. Baxter thought
+four hours about a reasonable time; Wesley, six; Lord Coke and Sir Wm.
+Jones, seven; and Sir John Sinclair, eight. These were the <i>theories</i> of
+men who were all eminent for their learning, and most of them for their
+piety. How far their <i>practice</i> corresponded with their theories, we are
+not, in every instance, told.</p>
+
+<p>But to come to the practice of several persons who have been
+distinguished in the world. General Elliot, one of the most vigorous men
+of his age, though living for his whole life on nothing but vegetables
+and water, and who at sixty-four had scarcely begun to feel the
+infirmities of old age, slept but four hours in twenty-four. Frederick
+the Great of Prussia, and the illustrious British surgeon, John Hunter,
+slept but five hours a day. Napoleon Bonaparte, for a great part of his
+life, slept only four hours; and Lord Brougham is said to require no
+more. Others, in numerous instances, require but six hours. But there
+are others still, who consume eight.</p>
+
+<p>The conclusion&mdash;in my own mind&mdash;is, that with a good constitution and
+active habits, men may habituate themselves to very different quantities
+of sleep. Still I think that six hours are little enough for most
+persons; and if a child, on arriving at maturity, is not inclined to
+sleep much longer than that, I should not regard him as wasting time.
+Most persons, it appears to me, require six hours of sound sleep in
+twenty-four;&mdash;I mean between the ages of twenty and seventy.</p>
+
+<p>Macnish is the most liberal modern writer I am acquainted with, in his
+allowance of time for sleep. Speaking of the wants of adults he
+says&mdash;&quot;No person who passes only eight hours in bed can be said to waste
+his time in sleep.&quot; Yet he obviously contradicts himself on the very
+same page; for he says expressly, that when a person is young, strong
+and healthy, an hour or two less may be sufficient. But an hour or two
+less than eight hours reduces the amount to seven or six hours. And
+taking the whole period of life, to which he probably refers&mdash;say from
+eighteen to forty&mdash;into consideration, there is a very considerable
+difference between six hours and eight hours a day. If six hours are
+&quot;sufficient,&quot; it cannot be right to sleep eight hours.</p>
+
+<p>Let us here make a few estimates. If six hours are sufficient for sleep
+between the ages of eighteen and forty, he who sleeps eight hours a day,
+actually loses 16,060 hours&mdash;equal to nearly two whole years of life, or
+about two years and three quarters of time in which we are usually
+awake. This, in the meridian of life, is not a small waste. Permit it to
+every person now in the United States, and the sum total of wasted time
+to a single generation, would be 25,649,098 years&mdash;equal to the average
+duration of the lives of 854,970 persons. The value of this time, as a
+commodity in the market, at a low estimate&mdash;only forty dollars a
+year&mdash;would be over A THOUSAND MILLIONS of DOLLARS! And its value, for
+the purposes of mental and moral improvement, cannot be estimated except
+in ETERNITY!</p>
+
+<p>Every young mother must derive from these considerations a motive to
+discourage all unnecessary waste of time in sleep; while no one, as I
+trust, will forget that to sleep too little is also dangerous to health,
+and prejudicial to the general happiness.</p>
+
+
+
+<br><br><hr style="width: 65%;"><br><br>
+<a name="CHAPTER_XV."></a><h2>CHAPTER XV.</h2>
+
+<h3>EARLY RISING.</h3>
+
+<blockquote class="small">All children naturally early risers. Evils of sitting up late at night.
+Excitements in the evening. The morning, by its beauties, invites us
+abroad. Example of parents. Forbidding children to rise early. Keeping
+them out of the way. How many are burnt up by parental neglect.
+&quot;Lecturing&quot; them. What is an early hour?</blockquote>
+<br>
+
+<p>Some writer&mdash;I do not recollect who&mdash;has said that all children are
+naturally early risers. And I cannot help coming to the same conclusion.
+That they are not so, is no more proved from the fact that as things now
+are they are generally found addicted to the contrary habit, than the
+very general neglect of milk among the higher classes of our citizens,
+proves that they have not a natural relish for it&mdash;when every one knows
+that at our first setting out in life, milk is, almost without
+exception, the sole article of human sustenance.</p>
+
+<p>One of the great difficulties in the way of early rising, as I have
+already had occasion to say, is late sitting up. If children are not
+accustomed to retire till nine or ten o'clock, nor then until they have
+been subjected to all the excitements pertaining to fashionable
+life&mdash;company, heated and impure air, stimulating drink, fruits,
+high-seasoned food, and perhaps music&mdash;and are become actually feverish,
+no one but an ignorant person or a brute ought to expect them to rise
+early. Indeed, whatever may have been the cause, and whether it have
+operated on high or low life, late retiring will inevitably result in
+late rising. The current may be turned out of its course a little while,
+it is true, but not always. It will ere long return to its accustomed
+channel; perhaps to renew its course with increased pertinacity.</p>
+
+<p>Everything, in the morning, naturally invites to early rising. The
+pleasant light, the music, at certain seasons, of some of the animated
+tribes, and the joy which we feel in activity, and in the society of
+those whom we love, all conspire to rouse us. If we have retired late,
+however, and especially in a feverish condition, so that when we wake we
+feel wretched, and, as sometimes happens, more fatigued than when we lay
+down, other collateral motives may be needed.</p>
+
+<p>I have said that everything invites us, in the morning, to rise early;
+but it was upon the presumption that our parents, and brothers, and
+sisters set us a good example. If parents and other friends lie in bed
+late themselves, can anything else be, expected of children? Admitting,
+even, that they rise early themselves, if they never speak of early
+rising as a pleasure, and connect along with it, in their children's
+minds, pleasant associations, they would be unreasonable to expect
+otherwise than that their children should cling to the morning couch,
+till they are fairly compelled to rise as a relief from pain and
+uneasiness.</p>
+
+<p>But when parents go farther than this, and actually discourage their
+children from rising early, and use every means in their power short of
+actual punishment&mdash;and sometimes even that&mdash;to make them lie still till
+breakfast, in order that they may be out of the way, what shall we say?
+And what is to be expected as the result?</p>
+
+<p>There is hope, however, under the last circumstances. People sometimes
+carry things to an extreme that defeats their very purposes. Thus it
+occasionally is, in the case before us. This forbidding children to rise
+early, and threatening them if they do, sometimes excites their
+curiosity, and leads them to the forbidden course of conduct, simply
+<i>because</i> it is forbidden. Not a few persons among us possess the
+disposition to be governed by what has sometimes been called the &quot;rule
+of contrary.&quot;</p>
+
+<p>I might stop here to show that there is nothing so well calculated to
+develope and improve the mind and heart, even of parents themselves, as
+the society of those whom God gives them to train for Him and their
+country. I might show that not a few of those traits of character which
+render the company of many old persons rather irksome, especially to the
+young, have their origin in their neglect of the young, and of keeping
+up, as long as circumstances will possibly admit, juvenile feelings,
+actions, and habits.</p>
+
+<p>And yet what do we too often witness in life? Is not every effort made
+to induce the young to lie in bed late that they may be out of the way?
+Are they not placed, as soon as possible after they are up, with the
+servants&mdash;if unfortunately there are any in the family&mdash;that they may be
+out of the way? Are they not required to breakfast, and dine, and sup
+elsewhere, if possible, that they may be out of the way? Do we not send
+them to school, even the Sabbath school, to get them out of the way? Do
+not some mothers even dose their infants with stupifying medicines to
+lull them to sleep, in order to have them out of the way? And to crown
+all, though they are quite too often permitted to sit up late in the
+evening, to enjoy that society which they are denied so great a part of
+the day-time, are they not occasionally put to bed early that they may
+be out of the way, and that the parents may attend late parties, to
+indulge in immoral or unhealthy habits?</p>
+
+<p>In the last instance, they are indeed sometimes put out of the way, in
+the result&mdash;and with a vengeance. Many a child, nay, many thousands of
+children, are burnt up yearly, while their parents are gone abroad in
+the evening in quest of that enjoyment which ought to be found in the
+bosom of their families. &quot;In Westminster, a part of London, containing
+less than two hundred thousand inhabitants, one hundred children were
+thus destroyed, during a single year.&quot; And the moral results which
+occasionally happen are a thousand times worse than burning. But enough
+of this.</p>
+
+<p>The common practice of lecturing the young on the importance of early
+rising, may have a good effect on a few; but in general, it is believed
+to produce the contrary result. It is, in short, to sum up the whole
+matter, the influence of parental example, and the speaking often of the
+happiness which early rising affords, with perhaps the occasional
+indulgence of the child in a pleasant morning walk, which, if he retires
+early enough, are almost certain to produce in him the valuable habit of
+early rising.</p>
+
+<p>But what is an early hour? Some call it early, when the sun is one hour
+high; some at sunrise; others, when they hear of an early riser,
+suppose he must be one who rises at least by daybreak.</p>
+
+<p>Midnight is, of course, as near the middle of the night as any hour; and
+he who goes to bed four or five hours before midnight, will never
+complain of those who insist that <i>he</i> is not an early riser who is not
+up by four or five o'clock. In summer, no adult ought to lie in bed
+after four o'clock, and no child, except the mere infant, after five.</p>
+
+<p>Much is said by a few writers, especially Macnish, of the danger of
+rising before the sun has attained a sufficient height above the horizon
+to chase away the vapors, and remove the dampness. But I must insist
+upon earlier rising than this, though we should not choose to venture
+abroad. Invigorated and restored as we are by sleep, I cannot think that
+the dampness of the morning air is more injurious than the foul air of
+some of our sleeping rooms.</p>
+
+
+
+<br><br><hr style="width: 65%;"><br><br>
+<a name="CHAPTER_XVI."></a><h2>CHAPTER XVI.</h2>
+
+<h3>HARDENING THE CONSTITUTION.</h3>
+
+<blockquote class="small">Mistakes about hardening children. Their clothing. Much cold enfeebles.
+The Scotch Highlanders. The two extremes equally fatal&mdash;over-tenderness
+and neglect. An interesting anecdote from Dr. Dewees.</blockquote>
+<br>
+
+<p>While I have been very particular in enjoining on my readers the
+importance of thoroughly ventilating their dwellings, I have also
+insisted upon the necessity of taking children abroad, as much as
+possible. Not, however, to harden them, so much as to give them a more
+free access to air and light than they can have at home; and also&mdash;when
+they are old enough&mdash;to cultivate the faculties of attention,
+comparison, &amp;c.</p>
+
+<p>The practice of attempting to harden children by frequent exposure to
+air much colder than that to which they have been accustomed, without
+sufficient additional clothing, is open to the same objections which
+have been brought against cold bathing. Under the management of a
+judicious medical practitioner, it may do great good to a few
+constitutions; but its indiscriminate use would injure a thousand
+infants for one who was benefited.</p>
+
+<p>True it is that if the child is protected against cold, no harm, but on
+the contrary much good may result, from carrying him abroad into the
+fresh air, even in very cold weather. But what can be more painful than
+to see the little sufferers carried along when their limbs are purple,
+or benumbed with cold? And how idle it is to hope that such exposure
+hardens or improves the constitution!</p>
+
+<p>It is on the same mistaken principle that many adults go thinly clad,
+late in the fall. I have seen men in November and December beating and
+rubbing their hands, who, on being asked why they did not wear mittens,
+replied, that if they should wear one pair of mittens so early in the
+season, they should want two in the winter.</p>
+
+<p>Now I cheerfully admit that to put on additional clothing before the
+severity of the weather demands it, actually produces the effect here
+supposed; but to endure severe cold, on the contrary, never hardens
+anybody. Nay, more, it enfeebles. Cold, when combined with the evils of
+<i>poverty</i>, produces more mischief and destroys more lives than any one
+disease in the whole catalogue of human maladies.</p>
+
+<p>Adam Smith says that it is not uncommon for mothers in the Highlands of
+Scotland, who have borne twenty children, to have only two of them
+alive.</p>
+
+<p>It may be difficult to say whether children are oftener destroyed by
+over-tenderness than by neglect, and the evils incident to poverty. Both
+extremes are common; while the happy medium&mdash;that of conducting a
+child's education upon the principles of physiology, is rarely known,
+and still more rarely followed.</p>
+
+<p>I have been much amused, and not a little instructed, by the following
+anecdote on this point, from Dr. Dewees:</p>
+
+<p>We were speaking with a lady who had lost three or four children with
+&quot;croup,&quot; who informed us she was convinced, from absolute experiment,
+that there was nothing like exposure to all kinds of weather to protect
+and harden the system. By her first plan of managing her children, which
+was by keeping them very warmly clad, she said she lost several by the
+croup; but since she had adopted the opposite scheme, her children had
+been perfectly healthy, and never had betrayed the slightest disposition
+to that terrible disease which had robbed her of her children.</p>
+
+<p>Perhaps, madam, we observed, you did not, in making your first
+experiments, attend to a number of details which might be thought
+essential to the plan. You did not probably take the proper precautions
+when you sent them into the cold air, or observe what was important for
+them when they returned from it.</p>
+
+<p>&quot;Oh, yes,&quot; she replied, &quot;I took every possible care when they, were
+going out. I always made them wear a very warm great coat, well lined
+with baize, and a fur cape or collar. I always made them wear a
+'comfortable' round their necks, made of soft woollen yarn. And as for
+their feet, they were always protected by socks or over-shoes lined with
+wool or fur, as the weather might be wet or dry.&quot;</p>
+
+<p>Do you believe, madam, they were kept at a proper degree of warmth by
+these means?</p>
+
+<p>&quot;Oh, certainly. Indeed, rather too warm; for they would often be in a
+state of perspiration, they told me, when in the open air; especially if
+they ran, slid, or skated.&quot;</p>
+
+<p>And what was done when they were thus heated?</p>
+
+<p>&quot;Oh, they got cool enough before they reached home.&quot;</p>
+
+<p>And would they receive no injury in passing from this state of
+perspiration to that of chill?</p>
+
+<p>&quot;Not at all; for when this happened, I always made them take a little
+warm brandy, or wine and water, and made them toast their feet well by
+the fire.&quot; [Footnote: This absurd custom is a fruitful source of that
+distressing condition of the hands and feet, in winter, called
+&quot;chilblains.&quot;]</p>
+
+<p>Did they sleep in a cold or warm room?</p>
+
+<p>&quot;In a warm room. A good fire was always made in the stove before they
+went to bed, which kept them quite warm all night.&quot;</p>
+
+<p>Would they never complain of being cold towards morning, when the stove
+had become cold?</p>
+
+<p>&quot;Yes, certainly; but then there were always at hand additional
+bed-clothes, with which they could cover themselves.&quot;</p>
+
+<p>And did they always do it?</p>
+
+<p>&quot;Oh, I suppose so.&quot;</p>
+
+<p>Well, madam, how did you carry your second plan into execution, which
+you say was attended with such happy results?</p>
+
+<p>&quot;I began by not letting them put on their great coats, except when the
+weather was so cold as to require this additional covering, and did not
+permit them to wear a 'comfortable' or fur round their necks. I took
+away their over-shoes, and if their feet chanced to get wet, (for they
+were always provided with good sound shoes,) the shoes were immediately
+changed, if they were at home. If the weather was wet, or unusually
+cold, they were permitted to wear their great coats, but not without.
+If they came home very cold, they were not allowed to approach the fire
+too soon. I gave them no warm, heating drinks, and accustomed them to
+sleep in rooms without fire.&quot;</p>
+
+<p>Who does not recognize, in this second plan for the enjoyment of air and
+exercise, as judicious a plan of physical education, so far as it goes,
+as can well be pointed out? We were so successful as to convince this
+lady, in a very short time, that our own plan of exposing the body was
+precisely the one she had pursued with so much success.</p>
+
+<p>We also inquired of her what plan she pursued with her children, when
+too young to be submitted to the rules just mentioned. She informed us
+that it was the same system throughout, only the details varied as
+circumstances of age, &amp;c. made it necessary. That is, she sent her
+children into the open air at very early periods of their lives,
+provided in summer it was neither too wet nor too warm; in winter, when
+the air was mild, dry and clear&mdash;but always carefully wrapped up, that
+their little extremities might not suffer from cold. She never suffered
+them to sleep in the open air, if it could be avoided; to prevent which,
+as much as possible, she constantly charged the nurse to bring the
+children home, as soon as she found them disposed to sleep, unless it
+was when they were very young, at which time it was impossible to guard
+against it.</p>
+
+<p>And when her children were sufficiently old to walk, she took care to
+prepare them properly for it, whether it might be in warm, cold, or
+moderate weather. She never sent them abroad for pleasure at the risk of
+encountering a storm of any kind; nor permitted them to walk at the
+hazard of getting wet or very muddy feet.</p>
+
+<p>Were the constitutions of your children pretty much the same? we
+demanded of this lady.</p>
+
+<p>&quot;No; one of my boys was extremely feeble, from his very birth.&quot;</p>
+
+<p>Did you treat him precisely as you did the others?</p>
+
+<p>&quot;Yes, as far as regarded principles; that is, I permitted him to bear as
+much of cold, heat or wet as his constitution would endure without pain
+or injury. The degrees, however, were very different from those his
+brothers bore, had they been determined by the measurement of the
+thermometer, but precisely the same in effect, as far as could be
+ascertained by consequences. Thus, if he were exposed to the same
+temperature as his brothers, he experienced no more inconvenience from
+it, when it was very low, than they, because he had additional covering
+to protect him.&quot;</p>
+
+
+
+<br><br><hr style="width: 65%;"><br><br>
+<a name="CHAPTER_XVII."></a><h2>CHAPTER XVII.</h2>
+
+<h3>SOCIETY.</h3>
+
+<blockquote class="small">Duty of mothers in this matter. Children prefer the society of parents.
+Importance of other society. Necessity of society illustrated. Early
+diffidence. Selecting companions for children. Moral effects of society
+on the young. Parents should play with their children.</blockquote>
+<br>
+
+<p>Every mother is unquestionably as much bound to have an eye to the
+society of her child, as to his food, drink or clothing. And if the
+quality, amount and general character of the latter are important, those
+of the former are by no means less so.</p>
+
+<p>It is indeed true that many a child has been happy, in a degree, in the
+society of its mother alone, where the father was seldom seen, and the
+brothers and sisters never. And it is equally true; that a few children
+have so far preferred the society of their parents alone, as to become
+disinclined to other society. But cases of this kind are only as
+exceptions to the general rule; and are probably monstrous formations
+of character. I cannot believe that any child, rightly educated, would
+prefer the society of none but its parents, or even its parents and
+brothers and sisters.</p>
+
+<p>A French author has written a considerable volume on the importance of
+what he calls <i>gaiety</i>, but which he should prefer to call cheerfulness.
+Among the rest, he maintains that it is indispensable to the best
+health. But if so&mdash;and I do not doubt it&mdash;then it ought to be encouraged
+in children, and the earlier the better. Now there is no way to
+encourage cheerfulness in the young so effectually as by indulging them
+with considerable society.</p>
+
+<p>That the thing may be carried to excess, I have no doubt. I have seen
+mothers who permitted their children to play with their mates till they
+became excited, and were thus led to continue their sports, not only
+farther than cheerfulness and health demanded, but until they were
+excessively fatigued, and almost made sick. And I believe that the
+excitement of numbers, in infant and other schools, may be so great as
+to be injurious, rather than salutary. Still I think these are rare
+cases.</p>
+
+<p>Truth usually lies somewhere between extremes. To keep a child,
+especially a boy, always in the nursery, or even in the parlor with his
+mother, is one extreme; and to let him go abroad continually, till his
+home and its smaller circle become insipid, is the other. A child
+properly trained will <i>usually</i> prefer home, and only desire to go
+abroad occasionally. He will rather need urging in the matter than
+require restraint.</p>
+
+<p>But he must, at any rate, be taught to be sociable, not only for the
+salve of cheerfulness and the consequent health, but for the sake of his
+manners, his mind, and his morals.</p>
+
+<p>If it is a matter of indifference, in the formation of human character,
+whether we mix in society or not, then, for anything I can see, an
+improvement might be proposed in the construction of the material
+universe. Instead of forming the planets so large&mdash;and this earth among
+the rest&mdash;each might have been divided into hundreds of millions; and
+every human being might have had a little planet, and an immortality,
+exclusively his own. Such an arrangement would certainly prevent a great
+many evils; and, among the rest, a great deal of quarrelling and
+bloodshed.</p>
+
+<p>But divine wisdom is higher than human wisdom, and one world to hundreds
+of millions of human beings has been made, instead of giving to each
+individual of the universe a little world of his own, in which he might
+have reigned sole monarch, and only wept, with Alexander, because none
+of the other worlds were within his grasp. Where a family is already
+large, other society will be unnecessary for some time; but where it
+consists of a mother only, although her society is always to be
+considered of the <i>first</i> importance, I cannot but think she ought to
+take great pains to introduce her child occasionally to the company of
+other children.</p>
+
+<p>That diffidence, which almost destroys the influence and the happiness
+of many individuals, is often cherished, if not created, by too much
+seclusion. Where there is a natural constitution which predisposes the
+child to timidity and diffidence, the danger is greatly increased; and
+parents should take unwearied pains to guard against it.</p>
+
+<p>It is hardly necessary for me to say, that great care should also be
+used in selecting the companions of children. Their character will be
+greatly influenced for life by their earlier associates. Friendships
+between children are sometimes formed, while playing together, which are
+interrupted only by death. Those parents who are so fond of controlling
+the choice of their sons and daughters in regard to a companion for
+life, at a period when control is generally resisted, would do well to
+take a hint from what has here been suggested. There is no doubt but
+they might often&mdash;very often&mdash;give such a direction to the embryo
+affections of their infants and children, as would terminate only with
+their existence.</p>
+
+<p>It is still less necessary to advert, in a work like this, to the effect
+which much observation and experience shows good society to have on
+purity, both physical and moral. Every one must have observed its
+tendency to form habits of cleanliness, not to say neatness. There may
+be excess, even in this. Young persons, of both sexes, often spend too
+much time in preparing their dress for the reception or the visiting of
+their friends. Still this is only the abuse of a good thing. Nor is it
+less true, though it may be less obvious, that moral purity is more
+likely to be secured where children and youth of both sexes associate a
+great deal, from the earliest infancy. [Footnote: If this principle be
+correct, what is the tendency of our numerous schools, which are
+exclusively for one sex? Must there not be latent evil to counterbalance
+some of the seeming good? For myself, I doubt whether moral character
+can ever be formed in due proportion and harmony, where this separation
+long exists.] There are tremendous cases of declension on record, which
+establish this point beyond the possibility of debate.</p>
+
+<p>To say that the mother&mdash;and indeed both parents&mdash;ought to form a part of
+the playing circle of the youngest children, in order to watch their
+opening dispositions, to check what may be improper, and encourage what
+ought to be encouraged, would be only to repeat what has often been
+recommended by the best writers on education&mdash;but which must be
+repeated, again and again, till it leaves an impression, especially on
+CHRISTIAN parents. It is strange that many regard this matter as they
+do, and appear not only ashamed to be seen sporting with their children,
+but almost ashamed to have their children thus occupied. They might as
+well be ashamed of the gambols of the kitten or the lamb; or of the
+grave mother, as she turns aside occasionally to join in its frolics.
+When will parents be willing to take lessons in education from that
+brute world which they have been so long accustomed to overlook or
+despise?</p>
+
+
+
+<br><br><hr style="width: 65%;"><br><br>
+<a name="CHAPTER_XVIII."></a><h2>CHAPTER XVIII.</h2>
+
+<h3>EMPLOYMENTS.</h3>
+
+<blockquote class="small">Influence of mothers over daughters. Anecdote of Benjamin West. Anecdote
+of a poor mother. Of set lessons and lectures. Daughters under the
+mother's eye. Why young ladies, now-a-days, dislike domestic
+employments. Miserable housewives&mdash;not to be wondered at. Mistake of one
+class of men. Mr. Flint's opinion.</blockquote>
+<br>
+
+<p>One important and never-to-be-forgotten employment of the young is the
+cultivation of their minds; and another, that of their morals. But my
+present purpose is only to speak of those employments denominated
+manual, or physical.</p>
+
+<p>It is obvious, at the first glance, that the influence of the mother, in
+our own country, at least, will be less over boys than over girls. We
+leave it to savages and semi-savages to employ their females, and even
+their mothers, in hard manual labor. Here, in America, what I should say
+on the employment of boys would be more properly addressed to the YOUNG
+FATHER.</p>
+
+<p>There are some exceptions to the general truth contained in the last
+paragraph. Many a mother has&mdash;unconsciously at the time, but with no
+less certainty than if she had done it intentionally&mdash;given a direction
+to the whole current of her son's life; and this, too, at a very early
+period. The mother of Benjamin West, the painter, if she did not give
+the first tendency to his favorite pursuit, while he was yet a mere
+child, at the least greatly confirmed him in it, by the manner of
+expressing her surprise at one of his early performances. &quot;My mother's
+kiss,&quot; on that occasion, said he, &quot;made me a painter.&quot; Nor are facts of
+the same general character by any means uncommon.</p>
+
+<p>I know a poor mother who, in the absence of her husband at his weekly
+or monthly labors, used to detain her eldest boy, then almost an
+infant, from going to bed in the evening till her day's work was
+finished&mdash;because, in her loneliness, she wanted his company&mdash;by telling
+stories of eminent men, and especially of distinguished philanthropists,
+until she had unconsciously kindled in him a philanthropic spirit, which
+will not cease to burn till his death.</p>
+
+<p>But it is in forming the predilections of daughters for their destined
+employments, that mothers are especially influential. Not so much by
+their set lessons or lectures, however, as by the force of continued
+example. No mother who sends her child away to be nursed, and
+subsequently to her return seizes on every possible opportunity to keep
+her out of the way and out of her sight, will be likely to give her any
+choice of employment, or indeed any fondness for employment at all.</p>
+
+<p>Nor is it sufficient that she keep her daughter constantly under her
+eye, with a view to qualify her for the duties of a housewife, if the
+daughter see as plainly as in the light of mid-day, that the mother
+dislikes the employment herself. She must love what she would have her
+daughter love, and even what she would have her understand. Nor is it
+sufficient that she <i>affect</i> a fondness for the employment; her love for
+it must be real. Little girls have keener eyes and better judgments than
+some mothers seem willing to believe or to admit.</p>
+
+<p>Many persons seem greatly surprised that the young ladies of modern days
+have so little fondness for domestic life and domestic duties. How few,
+it is often said, will do their own housework, if they can possibly get
+a train of domestics around them; even though the care and oversight of
+the domestics themselves gear them out more rapidly than bodily labor
+would.</p>
+
+<p>But there is a reason for this hostility to domestic employments. It is
+because mothers, almost universally, consider their occupations as mere
+drudgery, and bring up their children in the same spirit. And what else
+could be expected as the result? It would be an anomaly in the history,
+of human nature, if the female members of families were to grow up in
+love with ordinary domestic avocations, when they have been accustomed
+to see their mothers, and nurses, and elder sisters complaining and
+fretting while engaged in them; and showing by their actions, no less
+than by their words, that they regarded themselves as miserable and
+wretched.</p>
+
+<p>No wonder so many girls, of the present day, make miserable housewives.
+No wonder a factory, a book-bindery, or a shoemaker's shop, is
+considered preferable to the kitchen. No wonder the world degenerates,
+because females, no longer healthfully employed, become pale and sickly,
+spreading gloom and misery all around them, and transmitting the same
+ills which themselves suffer to those who come after them.</p>
+
+<p>It is true, the guilt of this dereliction must not be charged wholly on
+mothers; though they ought, unquestionably, to bear a large share of it.
+Those who have, and ought to have, much influence in society,
+erroneously, and I suppose thoughtlessly, help mothers along in their
+evil ways. If there were a universal combination between certain classes
+of mankind and the whole race of mothers, to ruin, rather than be
+instrumental of reforming mankind, and of saving their deathless souls,
+I hardly know how they could invent a much better, or at least a much
+more certain plan, than that now in operation. So long as those who take
+the lead in society, and govern the fashion in this matter, as others
+govern it in the matter of dress, refuse, as a general rule, to form
+alliances for life, except with those who practically despise house-hold
+concerns&mdash;and so long as our houses are filled with domestics, whose
+object is to aid these spoiled mothers, but whose real effect is to
+complete their ruin, and accelerate the ruin of mankind&mdash;just so long
+will human progress towards perfection be retarded.</p>
+
+<p>If mothers were in love with their occupations, and their daughters knew
+it, then to the influence of a good example they could add many lessons
+of instruction. These might be given in the way of natural, unstudied
+conversation, and thus be not only heard with attention, but sink deep.
+If the world is ever to be reformed, says Mr. Flint, in his Western
+Review, woman, sensible, enlightened, well educated and principled, must
+be the original mover in the great work. Every one who has considered
+well the extent and nature of female influence, will concur in the
+sentiment; and if he have one remaining particle of devotion to the
+Father of spirits, he will send up the most fervent petitions to his
+throne of mercy in behalf of this often depressed or enslaved half of
+the human race, that they may speedily be emancipated, and become as
+conspicuous in human redemption, as they have sometimes been in human
+condemnation.</p>
+
+
+
+<br><br><hr style="width: 65%;"><br><br>
+<a name="CHAPTER_XIX."></a><h2>CHAPTER XIX.</h2>
+
+<h3>EDUCATION OF THE SENSES.</h3>
+
+<blockquote class="small">Improving the senses. Examples of improvement. SEC. 1. Hearing&mdash;how
+injured&mdash;how improved.&mdash;SEC. 2. Seeing&mdash;how injured.&mdash;SEC. 3. Tasting
+and smelling&mdash;how benumbed&mdash;how preserved.&mdash;SEC. 4. Feeling. The blind.
+Hints to parents. Education of both hands.</blockquote>
+<br>
+
+<p>Man is much less useful and happy in this world than he would be, if
+more pains were taken by parents and teachers, as well as by himself, to
+cultivate his senses&mdash;hearing, seeing, feeling; tasting, and
+smelling&mdash;and to preserve their rectitude.</p>
+
+<p>The extent to which the senses can be improved or exalted, can best be
+understood by observing how perfect they become when we are compelled to
+cultivate them. Thus the blind, who are obliged to cultivate hearing,
+feeling, and smelling, often astonish us by the keenness of these
+senses. They will distinguish sounds&mdash;especially voices&mdash;which others
+cannot; and with so much accuracy, as to remember for several years the
+voice of a person in a large company, which they hear but once. They
+will also distinguish small pieces of money, different fabrics and
+qualities of cloth, &amp;c.; and, in walking, often ascertain, by the
+feeling of the air, or by other sensations, when they approach a
+building, or any other considerable body. So the North American Indian,
+whose habits of life seem to require it, can hear the footsteps of an
+approaching enemy at distances which astonish us. So also the deaf and
+dumb are very keen-sighted, and generally make very accurate
+observations. Any reader who is sceptical in regard to the cultivation
+of the senses, would do well to consult the account of Julia Brace, the
+deaf and dumb and blind girl, as published in some of the early volumes
+of the &quot;Annals of Education.&quot;</p>
+
+<p>But it is hardly necessary to resort to the blind, or to savages, or to
+the deaf and dumb, in order to prove man's susceptibility in this
+respect. We may be reminded of the same fact by observing with what
+accuracy the merchant tailor can distinguish, by feeling, the quality of
+his goods; how quick a painter, an engraver, or a printer, will discover
+errors in painting or printing, which wholly escape ordinary readers or
+observers; and how quick the ear of a good musician will discover the
+existence and origin of a discordant sound in his choir.</p>
+
+<p>Now I do not undertake to say or prove, that mankind would be better or
+happier for having their senses all cultivated in the highest possible
+degree; though I am not sure that this would not be the case. But so
+long as a large proportion of our ideas enter our minds through the
+medium of the five senses, it is desirable that something should be done
+to perfect them, instead of overlooking the whole subject. What mothers
+ought to do in this matter, deserves, therefore, a brief consideration.</p>
+<br>
+
+<h4>SEC. 1. <i>Hearing.</i></h4>
+
+<p>The suggestion, in another place, to keep away caps from the child's
+head, if duly attended to, is one means of perfecting, or at least of
+preserving, the sense of hearing. For caps, by the heat they produce to
+a part which cannot safely endure an increase of temperature, greatly
+expose children to catarrhal affections; and many a catarrh has laid the
+foundation for dulness of hearing, if not of actual deafness.</p>
+
+<p>The ears should be kept clean. If washed sufficiently often, and
+syringed once a week with warm milk and water, or with very weak
+soap-suds, gently warmed, the cerumen or ear wax will hardly be found
+accumulated in such masses as to produce deafness. And yet such
+accumulations, with such consequences, are by no means uncommon. It is
+not long since a young man with whom I am acquainted, applied to an
+eminent surgeon of Boston, on account of deafness in one ear, which had
+become quite troublesome, and as it was feared, incurable. Syringing
+with a large and strong syringe disengaged a large mass of cerumen, and
+hearing was immediately restored.</p>
+
+<p>Children should be taught to distinguish sounds with closed eyes, or
+blindfolded. We may strike on various objects, and ask them to tell what
+we struck, &amp;c. This will lead them to <i>observe</i> sounds; and will perfect
+their hearing in a remarkable degree.</p>
+
+<p>There are also advantages to be derived from accustoming a child to a
+great variety of sounds; both as regards their strength and character.
+But this must only be occasional; for if the ear be constantly
+accustomed to sounds of any kind, and more especially those which are
+harsh or loud, the organ of hearing is liable to sustain injury. Music,
+as it is now beginning to be taught to children in our schools, will do
+much, I think, to improve the faculty of hearing.</p>
+<br>
+
+<h4>SEC. 2. <i>Seeing.</i></h4>
+
+<p>The sight, says Addison, is the most perfect of all our senses; and this
+is unquestionably true. But it is more or less perfect, in different
+individuals, according to the early education they have received.
+Sometimes, it is true, we are born near-or dim-sighted; but such cases
+are comparatively rare.</p>
+
+<p>The question is sometimes asked why there are so many persons,
+now-a-days, who lose their sight, become near-sighted, &amp;c. very young.
+It may be difficult to answer this question fully; yet I cannot help
+thinking that the following are some of the causes.</p>
+
+<p>1. The great heat of our apartments, which, together with late hours and
+much lamp light, affects the eyes unpleasantly, is believed to be among
+the more prominent causes of early decay of sight. Formerly, our
+apartments were neither so steadily nor so generally heated; and we rose
+earlier, and consequently went to bed earlier.</p>
+
+<p>2. The fine print of a large proportion of our books, especially our
+school books, has done immense injury. I do not believe that reading
+fine print, occasionally, for a few moments at a time, or reading by a
+very strong or very weak light in the same way, does harm. On the
+contrary, I think it may strengthen and improve the sight. It is the
+long continuance of these things that does the mischief; and the
+mischief thus done is immense. I rejoice that printers and publishers
+are beginning of late to use much larger type than they have done for
+some years past.</p>
+
+<p>3. The early use of spectacles does mischief&mdash;I mean before they are
+needed. After they begin to be needed, there is no advantage in delaying
+to use them, as some do, for fear they shall wear them too soon. This is
+about as wise as the practice of going cold to harden ourselves.</p>
+
+<p>4. Reading when we are fatigued, or ill, or have a very full stomach, is
+another way to injure the sight.</p>
+
+<p>5. Rubbing the eyes with the fingers, or with anything else, does
+inevitable mischief. The Germans have a proverb which says&mdash;&quot;Never touch
+your eye, except with your elbow.&quot; There is much of good sense in it.</p>
+
+<p>In short, there are a thousand ways in which that delicate organ, the
+human eye, may sustain injury; and nearly as many in which it may be
+strengthened, cultivated, and improved. But my limits merely permit me
+to add, that the frequent but gentle application of water to the eye,
+several times a day, at such a temperature as is most agreeable&mdash;but
+cold, when it can be borne&mdash;is one of the best preservatives of sight
+which the world affords.</p>
+
+<p>Connected alike with physical and intellectual education, is the
+practice of measuring by the eye heights, distances, superfices,
+weights, and solids. It is not difficult to train the eye to an accuracy
+in this matter which would astonish the uninstructed.</p>
+<br>
+
+<h4>SEC. 3. <i>Tasting and Smelling.</i></h4>
+
+<p>I do not know that it is worth our while to take pains, by any direct
+methods, to cultivate the organs of taste or smell; but I think it
+proper, at the least, to preserve their original rectitude.</p>
+
+<p>Many, I know, undertake to say, that were it not for our errors in
+regard to food and drink, and were it not, in particular, for the
+multitude of strange mixtures which tend to benumb those two senses, we
+might determine the qualities of food and drink&mdash;whether they are
+favorable or adverse&mdash;by means of taste and smell, like the animals. But
+I do not believe this. The Creator has substituted reason, in us, for
+instinct in the brute animals. It is not necessary that we should
+possess the latter, when the former is so manifestly superior to it; and
+accordingly I do not believe that it is given us, or any of that
+acuteness of sensation which exists in the dog, the tiger, the vulture,
+&amp;c.&mdash;and which so closely resembles it.</p>
+
+<p>There can be no doubt&mdash;no reasonable doubt, certainly&mdash;that the wretched
+customs of modern cookery benumb the senses of taste and smell, more or
+less, and that high-seasoned food, condiments, and stimulating drinks do
+the same; and should for this reason, were it for no other, be
+studiously avoided.</p>
+
+<p>Closely connected with the organ of taste are the TEETH. A volume might
+profitably be written on these&mdash;as on the eye. But I will only say that
+they should be kept perfectly clean, either by rinsing or brushing, or
+both, especially after eating; that they should be permitted to chew all
+our food, instead of merely standing by as silent spectators to the
+passage of that which is mashed, soaked, chopped, &amp;c.; that they should
+not be picked or cleaned with pins, or other equally hard instruments;
+that they should not be used to crack nuts or other hard, indigestible
+substances; and that the stomach, with which they are apt to sympathize
+very strongly, should also be kept in a good and healthy condition.</p>
+<br>
+
+<h4>SEC. 4. <i>Feeling.</i></h4>
+
+<p>Corpulence and slovenliness are generally among the more prolific
+sources of a want of acuteness in feeling. The first is a disease, and
+may be avoided by a proper diet, and by active mental and bodily
+employment. Slovenliness we may of course avoid, whenever there is a
+wish to do so, and an abundance of water.</p>
+
+<p>But the sense of feeling, or especially that accumulation of it which we
+call TOUCH, and which seems to be specially located in the balls of the
+fingers and on the palm of the hand, is susceptible of a degree of
+improvement far beyond what would be the natural result of cleanliness,
+and freedom from plethora or corpulence.</p>
+
+<p>I have already alluded, in my general remarks at the head of this
+chapter, to the acuteness of this sense in the blind, as well as in the
+dealer in cloths. I might add many more illustrations, but a single one,
+in relation to the blind, which was accidentally omitted in that place,
+will be sufficient.</p>
+
+<p>The blind at the Institution in this city, as well as in other similar
+institutions, are now taught to read and write with considerable
+facility. But how? Most of my readers may have heard how they read, but
+I will describe the process as well as I can. A description of their
+method of writing is more difficult.</p>
+
+<p>The letters are formed by pressing the paper, while quite moist, upon
+rather large type, which raises a ridge in the line of every letter, and
+which remains prominent after the paper is dry. In order to read, the
+pupil has to feel out these ridges. A circular ridge on the paper he is
+told is O; a perpendicular one, I; a crooked one, S; &amp;c. They read music
+and arithmetic printed in a similar manner. A few months of practice, in
+this way, will enable an ingenious youth to read with considerable ease
+and despatch.</p>
+
+<p>Now if nothing is wanting but a little training to render the touch so
+accurate, would it not be useful to train every child to judge
+frequently of the properties of bodies by this sense? And cannot every
+one recall to his mind a thousand situations in which a greater accuracy
+of this sense would have saved him much inconvenience, as well as
+afforded him no little pleasure?</p>
+
+<p>I shall conclude this section with a few remarks on the HAND. The custom
+of neglecting, or almost neglecting the left hand, though nearly
+universal, in this country at least, appears to me to be
+wrong&mdash;decidedly so. For although more blood may be sent to the right
+arm than to the left, as physiologists say, yet the difference is not as
+great at birth as it is afterward; so that education either weakens the
+one or strengthens the other.</p>
+
+<p>Besides this, we occasionally find a person who is left-handed, as it is
+called; that is, his left hand and arm are as much larger and stronger
+than the right, as the right is usually stronger than the left. How is
+this? Do we find a corresponding change in the internal structure? But
+suppose it could be ascertained that such a change did exist, which I
+believe has never been done, the question would still arise whether the
+difference was the same at birth, or whether the more frequent use of
+the left hand has not, in part, produced it.</p>
+
+<p>I do not mean, here, to intimate that a more frequent use of the left
+hand than the right would make new blood-vessels grow where there were
+none before. But it would certainly do one thing; it would make the same
+vessels carry more blood than they did before, which is, in effect,
+nearly the same thing:&mdash;for the more blood in the limb, as a general
+rule, the more strength&mdash;provided the limb is in due health and
+exercise.</p>
+
+<p>The inference which I wish the reader to make from all this is, that
+since the left hand and arm, by due cultivation, and without essential
+difference or change of structure to begin with, can occasionally be
+made stronger than the right, it is fair to conclude that it may, if
+found desirable, be always rendered more nearly equal to it than, in
+adult years, we usually find it.</p>
+
+<p>The question is now fairly before us&mdash;Is such a result desirable? I
+maintain that it is; and shall endeavor to show my reasons.</p>
+
+<p>How often is one hand injured by an accident, or rendered nearly useless
+by disease? But if it should be the right, how helpless it makes us! The
+man who is accustomed to shave himself, must now resort to a barber. If
+he is a barber himself, or almost any other mechanic, his business must
+be discontinued. Or if he is a clerk, he cannot use his left hand, and
+must consequently lose his time. Or if amputation chances to be
+performed on a favorite arm, how entirely useless to society we are,
+till we have learned to use the other! It not only takes up a great deal
+of valuable time to acquire a facility of using it, but if we are
+already arrived at maturity, we can never use it so well as the other,
+during our whole lives; because it is too late in life to increase its
+size and strength much by constant exercise. Whereas in youth, it might
+have been done easily.</p>
+
+<p>Is it not then important&mdash;for these and many more reasons&mdash;to teach a
+child to use with nearly equal readiness, both of his hands? But if so,
+who can do it better than the mother? And when can it be better done
+than in the earliest infancy? When is the time which would be devoted to
+it worth less than at this period?</p>
+
+
+
+<br><br><hr style="width: 65%;"><br><br>
+<a name="CHAPTER_XX."></a><h2>CHAPTER XX.</h2>
+
+<h3>ABUSES.</h3>
+
+<blockquote class="small">Bad seats for children at table and elsewhere. Why children hate Sunday.
+Seats at Sabbath school&mdash;at church&mdash;at district schools. Suspending
+children between the heavens and the earth. Cushions to sit on. Seats
+with backs. Children in factories. Evils produced. Bodily punishment.
+Striking the heads of children very injurious. Beating across the middle
+of the body. Anecdote of a teacher. Concluding advice to mothers.</blockquote>
+<br>
+
+<p>It is difficult to determine, in regard to many things which concern the
+management of the young, whether they belong most properly to moral or
+physical education; so close is the connection between the two, and so
+decidedly does everything, or nearly everything which relates to the
+management of the body, have a bearing upon the formation of moral
+character. This work might be extended very much farther, did it comport
+with my original plan. But I hasten to close the volume, with a few
+thoughts on certain abuses of the body, which prevail to a greater or
+less extent in families and schools; and to which I have not adverted
+elsewhere.</p>
+
+<p>The seats of children are usually bad, both at table and elsewhere. It
+seems not enough that we condemn them to the use of knives, forks,
+spoons, &amp;c., of the same size with those of adults. We go farther; and
+give them chairs of the same height and proportion with our own. There
+are a few exceptions to the truth of this remark. Here and there we see
+a child's chair, it is true&mdash;but not often.</p>
+
+<p>But how unreasonable is it to seat a child in a chair so high that his
+feet cannot reach the floor; and so constructed that there is no outer
+place on which the feet can rest. What adult would be willing to sit in
+so painful a posture, with his legs dangling? No wonder children dislike
+to sit much, in such circumstances. And it is a great blessing to both
+parent and child that they do. No wonder children hate the Sabbath,
+especially in those families where they are compelled to keep the day
+holy by sitting motionless! Sabbath schools, though they bring with them
+some evil along with a great deal of good, are a relief to the young in
+this particular&mdash;especially if their seats are more comfortable
+elsewhere than at home. They consider it much more tolerable to spend
+the morning and intermission of the day in going and returning from
+Sabbath school, than in constant and close confinement. They prefer
+variety, and the occasional light and air of heaven, to monotony and
+seclusion and silence.</p>
+
+<p>It happens, however, that the seats at the Sabbath school and at church,
+are not always what they should be; nor, so far as church is concerned,
+do I see that this evil can be wholly avoided. Children usually sit with
+their parents, in the sanctuary&mdash;and they ought to do so: and the height
+of the seats cannot, of course, accommodate both. If there is a building
+erected solely for the use of the Sabbath school, the seats may be
+constructed accordingly, without seriously incommoding anybody; but in
+the church, I do not see, as I have once before observed, how the evil
+can be remedied.</p>
+
+<p>The greatest trouble in regard to seats, however, is at the day school;
+especially in our district or common schools. There, it is usual for
+children to be confined six hours a day&mdash;and sometimes two in
+succession&mdash;to hard, narrow, plank seats, a large proportion of which
+are without backs, and raised so high that the feet of most of the
+pupils cannot possibly touch the floor. There, &quot;suspended,&quot; as I have
+said in another work, [Footnote: See a &quot;Prize Essay,&quot; on School Houses,
+page 7.] &quot;between the heavens and the earth, they are compelled to
+remain motionless for an hour or an hour and a half together.&quot;</p>
+
+<p>I have also shown, in the same essay, that in regard to the desks, and
+indeed many other things which pertain to, or are connected with the
+school, very little pains is taken to provide for the physical welfare
+or even comfort of the pupils; and that a thorough reform on the subject
+appears to be indispensable.</p>
+
+<p>When I speak of hard plank seats, let me not be understood as hinting at
+the necessity of cushions. When I wrote the essay above mentioned, I did
+indeed believe that they were desirable. But I am now opposed to their
+use, either by children or adults, even where a laborious employment
+would seem to demand a long confinement to this awkward and unnatural
+position. If our seats are cushioned, we shall sit too easily. I believe
+that our health requires a hard seat; because its very hardness inclines
+us to change, frequently, our position.</p>
+
+<p>But if we must sit, be it ever so short a time, our seats should always
+have backs; and those which are designed for children, should not be so
+high as to render them uncomfortable. Nor should the backs of seats be
+so high as they usually are, either for children or adults. They should
+never come much higher than the middle of the body. If they reach the
+shoulders, they either favor a crouching forward, or interfere with the
+free action of the lungs.</p>
+
+<p>This might be deemed a proper place for saying something on the position
+of children in manufactories. But here a world of abuse opens upon my
+view, the full development of which demands a large volume. How many
+crooked spines, emaciated bodies, decaying lungs, as well as scrofulas,
+fevers, and consumptions, are either induced or accelerated by these
+unnatural employments! I mean they are unnatural for the <i>young</i>. As to
+employing adults in them, I have nothing at present to say. But when I
+think of the cruel custom of placing children in these places, whose
+bodies&mdash;and were this the place, I might add, <i>minds</i>&mdash;are immature, and
+especially girls, I am compelled, by the voice of conscience, and, as I
+trust, by a regard to those laws which God has established in our
+physical frames, but which are yet so strangely violated, to protest
+against it. Better that no factories should exist, than that children
+should be ruined in them as they now are. Better by far that we should
+return, were it possible, to the primitive habits of New England&mdash;to
+those by-gone days when mothers and daughters made the wearing apparel
+of themselves and their families&mdash;when, if there was less of
+intellectual cultivation, and less money expended for luxuries and
+extravagances, there was much more of health and happiness.</p>
+
+<p>There is one more species of abuse to which, in closing, I wish to
+direct maternal attention. I allude to injudicious modes of inflicting
+corporal punishment.</p>
+
+<p>Let me not be understood to appear, in this place, as the advocate of
+bodily punishments of any kind; for if they are even admissible under
+some circumstances, I am fully convinced that in the way in which they
+are commonly administered, they do much more harm than good.</p>
+
+<p>But leaving the question of their utility, in the abstract, wholly
+untouched, and taking it for granted, for the present, that they are&mdash;as
+is undoubtedly the fact&mdash;sometimes employed, and will continue to be so
+for a great while to come, I proceed to speak of their more flagrant
+abuses.</p>
+
+<p>Among these, none are more reprehensible than blows of any kind on the
+head. Even the rod is objectionable for this purpose, since it exposes
+the eyes. But the hand&mdash;in boxing the ears or striking in any way&mdash;is
+more so. The bones of the head, in young children, are not yet firmly
+knit together, and these concussions may injure the tender brain. I
+know of whole families, whose mental faculties are dull, as the
+consequence&mdash;I believe&mdash;of a perpetual boxing and striking of the head.
+Some individuals are made almost idiots, in this very manner.&mdash;But the
+worst is not yet told. Many teachers are in the habit of striking their
+pupils' heads with thick heavy books; and with wooden rules. I have seen
+one of the latter, of considerable size and thickness, broken in two
+across the head of a very small boy; and this, too&mdash;such is the public
+mind&mdash;in the presence of a mother who was paying a visit to the school.
+I have seen parents and masters strike the heads of their children with
+pieces of wood, of much larger size;&mdash;in one instance with a common
+sized tailor's press-board; in another with the heavy end of a wooden
+whip-handle, about an inch in diameter.</p>
+
+<p>Children are sometimes severely beaten across the middle of the
+body&mdash;the region where lie the vital organs&mdash;the lungs, the heart, the
+liver, &amp;c. They are sometimes beaten too, across the joints, or in any
+place that the excited, perhaps passionate teacher or parent can reach.
+Rules and books are thrown with violence at pupils in school. There is a
+story in the &quot;Annals of Education,&quot; Vol. IV. at page 28, of a teacher
+who threw a rule at a little boy, six years old, which struck him with
+great force, within an inch of one of his eyes. Had it struck a little
+nearer to his nose, it would, in all probability, have destroyed his
+left eye.</p>
+
+<br><hr style="width: 45%;"><br>
+
+<p>But without extending these remarks any farther, every intelligent
+mother who reads what I have already written, will see, as I trust, the
+necessity of properly informing herself on the great subject of physical
+education; and of being better prepared than she has hitherto been for
+acquitting herself, with satisfaction, of those high and sacred
+responsibilities which, in the wise arrangements of Nature and
+Providence, devolve upon her.</p>
+<br>
+
+
+
+
+
+
+
+
+<pre>
+
+
+
+
+
+End of the Project Gutenberg EBook of The Young Mother, by William A. Alcott
+
+*** END OF THIS PROJECT GUTENBERG EBOOK THE YOUNG MOTHER ***
+
+***** This file should be named 10482-h.htm or 10482-h.zip *****
+This and all associated files of various formats will be found in:
+        https://www.gutenberg.org/1/0/4/8/10482/
+
+Produced by Stan Goodman and PG Distributed Proofreaders
+
+Updated editions will replace the previous one--the old editions
+will be renamed.
+
+Creating the works from public domain print editions means that no
+one owns a United States copyright in these works, so the Foundation
+(and you!) can copy and distribute it in the United States without
+permission and without paying copyright royalties.  Special rules,
+set forth in the General Terms of Use part of this license, apply to
+copying and distributing Project Gutenberg-tm electronic works to
+protect the PROJECT GUTENBERG-tm concept and trademark.  Project
+Gutenberg is a registered trademark, and may not be used if you
+charge for the eBooks, unless you receive specific permission.  If you
+do not charge anything for copies of this eBook, complying with the
+rules is very easy.  You may use this eBook for nearly any purpose
+such as creation of derivative works, reports, performances and
+research.  They may be modified and printed and given away--you may do
+practically ANYTHING with public domain eBooks.  Redistribution is
+subject to the trademark license, especially commercial
+redistribution.
+
+
+
+*** START: FULL LICENSE ***
+
+THE FULL PROJECT GUTENBERG LICENSE
+PLEASE READ THIS BEFORE YOU DISTRIBUTE OR USE THIS WORK
+
+To protect the Project Gutenberg-tm mission of promoting the free
+distribution of electronic works, by using or distributing this work
+(or any other work associated in any way with the phrase "Project
+Gutenberg"), you agree to comply with all the terms of the Full Project
+Gutenberg-tm License (available with this file or online at
+https://gutenberg.org/license).
+
+
+Section 1.  General Terms of Use and Redistributing Project Gutenberg-tm
+electronic works
+
+1.A.  By reading or using any part of this Project Gutenberg-tm
+electronic work, you indicate that you have read, understand, agree to
+and accept all the terms of this license and intellectual property
+(trademark/copyright) agreement.  If you do not agree to abide by all
+the terms of this agreement, you must cease using and return or destroy
+all copies of Project Gutenberg-tm electronic works in your possession.
+If you paid a fee for obtaining a copy of or access to a Project
+Gutenberg-tm electronic work and you do not agree to be bound by the
+terms of this agreement, you may obtain a refund from the person or
+entity to whom you paid the fee as set forth in paragraph 1.E.8.
+
+1.B.  "Project Gutenberg" is a registered trademark.  It may only be
+used on or associated in any way with an electronic work by people who
+agree to be bound by the terms of this agreement.  There are a few
+things that you can do with most Project Gutenberg-tm electronic works
+even without complying with the full terms of this agreement.  See
+paragraph 1.C below.  There are a lot of things you can do with Project
+Gutenberg-tm electronic works if you follow the terms of this agreement
+and help preserve free future access to Project Gutenberg-tm electronic
+works.  See paragraph 1.E below.
+
+1.C.  The Project Gutenberg Literary Archive Foundation ("the Foundation"
+or PGLAF), owns a compilation copyright in the collection of Project
+Gutenberg-tm electronic works.  Nearly all the individual works in the
+collection are in the public domain in the United States.  If an
+individual work is in the public domain in the United States and you are
+located in the United States, we do not claim a right to prevent you from
+copying, distributing, performing, displaying or creating derivative
+works based on the work as long as all references to Project Gutenberg
+are removed.  Of course, we hope that you will support the Project
+Gutenberg-tm mission of promoting free access to electronic works by
+freely sharing Project Gutenberg-tm works in compliance with the terms of
+this agreement for keeping the Project Gutenberg-tm name associated with
+the work.  You can easily comply with the terms of this agreement by
+keeping this work in the same format with its attached full Project
+Gutenberg-tm License when you share it without charge with others.
+
+1.D.  The copyright laws of the place where you are located also govern
+what you can do with this work.  Copyright laws in most countries are in
+a constant state of change.  If you are outside the United States, check
+the laws of your country in addition to the terms of this agreement
+before downloading, copying, displaying, performing, distributing or
+creating derivative works based on this work or any other Project
+Gutenberg-tm work.  The Foundation makes no representations concerning
+the copyright status of any work in any country outside the United
+States.
+
+1.E.  Unless you have removed all references to Project Gutenberg:
+
+1.E.1.  The following sentence, with active links to, or other immediate
+access to, the full Project Gutenberg-tm License must appear prominently
+whenever any copy of a Project Gutenberg-tm work (any work on which the
+phrase "Project Gutenberg" appears, or with which the phrase "Project
+Gutenberg" is associated) is accessed, displayed, performed, viewed,
+copied or distributed:
+
+This eBook is for the use of anyone anywhere at no cost and with
+almost no restrictions whatsoever.  You may copy it, give it away or
+re-use it under the terms of the Project Gutenberg License included
+with this eBook or online at www.gutenberg.org
+
+1.E.2.  If an individual Project Gutenberg-tm electronic work is derived
+from the public domain (does not contain a notice indicating that it is
+posted with permission of the copyright holder), the work can be copied
+and distributed to anyone in the United States without paying any fees
+or charges.  If you are redistributing or providing access to a work
+with the phrase "Project Gutenberg" associated with or appearing on the
+work, you must comply either with the requirements of paragraphs 1.E.1
+through 1.E.7 or obtain permission for the use of the work and the
+Project Gutenberg-tm trademark as set forth in paragraphs 1.E.8 or
+1.E.9.
+
+1.E.3.  If an individual Project Gutenberg-tm electronic work is posted
+with the permission of the copyright holder, your use and distribution
+must comply with both paragraphs 1.E.1 through 1.E.7 and any additional
+terms imposed by the copyright holder.  Additional terms will be linked
+to the Project Gutenberg-tm License for all works posted with the
+permission of the copyright holder found at the beginning of this work.
+
+1.E.4.  Do not unlink or detach or remove the full Project Gutenberg-tm
+License terms from this work, or any files containing a part of this
+work or any other work associated with Project Gutenberg-tm.
+
+1.E.5.  Do not copy, display, perform, distribute or redistribute this
+electronic work, or any part of this electronic work, without
+prominently displaying the sentence set forth in paragraph 1.E.1 with
+active links or immediate access to the full terms of the Project
+Gutenberg-tm License.
+
+1.E.6.  You may convert to and distribute this work in any binary,
+compressed, marked up, nonproprietary or proprietary form, including any
+word processing or hypertext form.  However, if you provide access to or
+distribute copies of a Project Gutenberg-tm work in a format other than
+"Plain Vanilla ASCII" or other format used in the official version
+posted on the official Project Gutenberg-tm web site (www.gutenberg.org),
+you must, at no additional cost, fee or expense to the user, provide a
+copy, a means of exporting a copy, or a means of obtaining a copy upon
+request, of the work in its original "Plain Vanilla ASCII" or other
+form.  Any alternate format must include the full Project Gutenberg-tm
+License as specified in paragraph 1.E.1.
+
+1.E.7.  Do not charge a fee for access to, viewing, displaying,
+performing, copying or distributing any Project Gutenberg-tm works
+unless you comply with paragraph 1.E.8 or 1.E.9.
+
+1.E.8.  You may charge a reasonable fee for copies of or providing
+access to or distributing Project Gutenberg-tm electronic works provided
+that
+
+- You pay a royalty fee of 20% of the gross profits you derive from
+     the use of Project Gutenberg-tm works calculated using the method
+     you already use to calculate your applicable taxes.  The fee is
+     owed to the owner of the Project Gutenberg-tm trademark, but he
+     has agreed to donate royalties under this paragraph to the
+     Project Gutenberg Literary Archive Foundation.  Royalty payments
+     must be paid within 60 days following each date on which you
+     prepare (or are legally required to prepare) your periodic tax
+     returns.  Royalty payments should be clearly marked as such and
+     sent to the Project Gutenberg Literary Archive Foundation at the
+     address specified in Section 4, "Information about donations to
+     the Project Gutenberg Literary Archive Foundation."
+
+- You provide a full refund of any money paid by a user who notifies
+     you in writing (or by e-mail) within 30 days of receipt that s/he
+     does not agree to the terms of the full Project Gutenberg-tm
+     License.  You must require such a user to return or
+     destroy all copies of the works possessed in a physical medium
+     and discontinue all use of and all access to other copies of
+     Project Gutenberg-tm works.
+
+- You provide, in accordance with paragraph 1.F.3, a full refund of any
+     money paid for a work or a replacement copy, if a defect in the
+     electronic work is discovered and reported to you within 90 days
+     of receipt of the work.
+
+- You comply with all other terms of this agreement for free
+     distribution of Project Gutenberg-tm works.
+
+1.E.9.  If you wish to charge a fee or distribute a Project Gutenberg-tm
+electronic work or group of works on different terms than are set
+forth in this agreement, you must obtain permission in writing from
+both the Project Gutenberg Literary Archive Foundation and Michael
+Hart, the owner of the Project Gutenberg-tm trademark.  Contact the
+Foundation as set forth in Section 3 below.
+
+1.F.
+
+1.F.1.  Project Gutenberg volunteers and employees expend considerable
+effort to identify, do copyright research on, transcribe and proofread
+public domain works in creating the Project Gutenberg-tm
+collection.  Despite these efforts, Project Gutenberg-tm electronic
+works, and the medium on which they may be stored, may contain
+"Defects," such as, but not limited to, incomplete, inaccurate or
+corrupt data, transcription errors, a copyright or other intellectual
+property infringement, a defective or damaged disk or other medium, a
+computer virus, or computer codes that damage or cannot be read by
+your equipment.
+
+1.F.2.  LIMITED WARRANTY, DISCLAIMER OF DAMAGES - Except for the "Right
+of Replacement or Refund" described in paragraph 1.F.3, the Project
+Gutenberg Literary Archive Foundation, the owner of the Project
+Gutenberg-tm trademark, and any other party distributing a Project
+Gutenberg-tm electronic work under this agreement, disclaim all
+liability to you for damages, costs and expenses, including legal
+fees.  YOU AGREE THAT YOU HAVE NO REMEDIES FOR NEGLIGENCE, STRICT
+LIABILITY, BREACH OF WARRANTY OR BREACH OF CONTRACT EXCEPT THOSE
+PROVIDED IN PARAGRAPH F3.  YOU AGREE THAT THE FOUNDATION, THE
+TRADEMARK OWNER, AND ANY DISTRIBUTOR UNDER THIS AGREEMENT WILL NOT BE
+LIABLE TO YOU FOR ACTUAL, DIRECT, INDIRECT, CONSEQUENTIAL, PUNITIVE OR
+INCIDENTAL DAMAGES EVEN IF YOU GIVE NOTICE OF THE POSSIBILITY OF SUCH
+DAMAGE.
+
+1.F.3.  LIMITED RIGHT OF REPLACEMENT OR REFUND - If you discover a
+defect in this electronic work within 90 days of receiving it, you can
+receive a refund of the money (if any) you paid for it by sending a
+written explanation to the person you received the work from.  If you
+received the work on a physical medium, you must return the medium with
+your written explanation.  The person or entity that provided you with
+the defective work may elect to provide a replacement copy in lieu of a
+refund.  If you received the work electronically, the person or entity
+providing it to you may choose to give you a second opportunity to
+receive the work electronically in lieu of a refund.  If the second copy
+is also defective, you may demand a refund in writing without further
+opportunities to fix the problem.
+
+1.F.4.  Except for the limited right of replacement or refund set forth
+in paragraph 1.F.3, this work is provided to you 'AS-IS," WITH NO OTHER
+WARRANTIES OF ANY KIND, EXPRESS OR IMPLIED, INCLUDING BUT NOT LIMITED TO
+WARRANTIES OF MERCHANTIBILITY OR FITNESS FOR ANY PURPOSE.
+
+1.F.5.  Some states do not allow disclaimers of certain implied
+warranties or the exclusion or limitation of certain types of damages.
+If any disclaimer or limitation set forth in this agreement violates the
+law of the state applicable to this agreement, the agreement shall be
+interpreted to make the maximum disclaimer or limitation permitted by
+the applicable state law.  The invalidity or unenforceability of any
+provision of this agreement shall not void the remaining provisions.
+
+1.F.6.  INDEMNITY - You agree to indemnify and hold the Foundation, the
+trademark owner, any agent or employee of the Foundation, anyone
+providing copies of Project Gutenberg-tm electronic works in accordance
+with this agreement, and any volunteers associated with the production,
+promotion and distribution of Project Gutenberg-tm electronic works,
+harmless from all liability, costs and expenses, including legal fees,
+that arise directly or indirectly from any of the following which you do
+or cause to occur: (a) distribution of this or any Project Gutenberg-tm
+work, (b) alteration, modification, or additions or deletions to any
+Project Gutenberg-tm work, and (c) any Defect you cause.
+
+
+Section  2.  Information about the Mission of Project Gutenberg-tm
+
+Project Gutenberg-tm is synonymous with the free distribution of
+electronic works in formats readable by the widest variety of computers
+including obsolete, old, middle-aged and new computers.  It exists
+because of the efforts of hundreds of volunteers and donations from
+people in all walks of life.
+
+Volunteers and financial support to provide volunteers with the
+assistance they need, is critical to reaching Project Gutenberg-tm's
+goals and ensuring that the Project Gutenberg-tm collection will
+remain freely available for generations to come.  In 2001, the Project
+Gutenberg Literary Archive Foundation was created to provide a secure
+and permanent future for Project Gutenberg-tm and future generations.
+To learn more about the Project Gutenberg Literary Archive Foundation
+and how your efforts and donations can help, see Sections 3 and 4
+and the Foundation web page at https://www.pglaf.org.
+
+
+Section 3.  Information about the Project Gutenberg Literary Archive
+Foundation
+
+The Project Gutenberg Literary Archive Foundation is a non profit
+501(c)(3) educational corporation organized under the laws of the
+state of Mississippi and granted tax exempt status by the Internal
+Revenue Service.  The Foundation's EIN or federal tax identification
+number is 64-6221541.  Its 501(c)(3) letter is posted at
+https://pglaf.org/fundraising.  Contributions to the Project Gutenberg
+Literary Archive Foundation are tax deductible to the full extent
+permitted by U.S. federal laws and your state's laws.
+
+The Foundation's principal office is located at 4557 Melan Dr. S.
+Fairbanks, AK, 99712., but its volunteers and employees are scattered
+throughout numerous locations.  Its business office is located at
+809 North 1500 West, Salt Lake City, UT 84116, (801) 596-1887, email
+business@pglaf.org.  Email contact links and up to date contact
+information can be found at the Foundation's web site and official
+page at https://pglaf.org
+
+For additional contact information:
+     Dr. Gregory B. Newby
+     Chief Executive and Director
+     gbnewby@pglaf.org
+
+Section 4.  Information about Donations to the Project Gutenberg
+Literary Archive Foundation
+
+Project Gutenberg-tm depends upon and cannot survive without wide
+spread public support and donations to carry out its mission of
+increasing the number of public domain and licensed works that can be
+freely distributed in machine readable form accessible by the widest
+array of equipment including outdated equipment.  Many small donations
+($1 to $5,000) are particularly important to maintaining tax exempt
+status with the IRS.
+
+The Foundation is committed to complying with the laws regulating
+charities and charitable donations in all 50 states of the United
+States.  Compliance requirements are not uniform and it takes a
+considerable effort, much paperwork and many fees to meet and keep up
+with these requirements.  We do not solicit donations in locations
+where we have not received written confirmation of compliance.  To
+SEND DONATIONS or determine the status of compliance for any
+particular state visit https://pglaf.org
+
+While we cannot and do not solicit contributions from states where we
+have not met the solicitation requirements, we know of no prohibition
+against accepting unsolicited donations from donors in such states who
+approach us with offers to donate.
+
+International donations are gratefully accepted, but we cannot make
+any statements concerning tax treatment of donations received from
+outside the United States.  U.S. laws alone swamp our small staff.
+
+Please check the Project Gutenberg Web pages for current donation
+methods and addresses.  Donations are accepted in a number of other
+ways including including checks, online payments and credit card
+donations.  To donate, please visit: https://pglaf.org/donate
+
+
+Section 5.  General Information About Project Gutenberg-tm electronic
+works.
+
+Professor Michael S. Hart was the originator of the Project Gutenberg-tm
+concept of a library of electronic works that could be freely shared
+with anyone.  For thirty years, he produced and distributed Project
+Gutenberg-tm eBooks with only a loose network of volunteer support.
+
+Project Gutenberg-tm eBooks are often created from several printed
+editions, all of which are confirmed as Public Domain in the U.S.
+unless a copyright notice is included.  Thus, we do not necessarily
+keep eBooks in compliance with any particular paper edition.
+
+Each eBook is in a subdirectory of the same number as the eBook's
+eBook number, often in several formats including plain vanilla ASCII,
+compressed (zipped), HTML and others.
+
+Corrected EDITIONS of our eBooks replace the old file and take over
+the old filename and etext number.  The replaced older file is renamed.
+VERSIONS based on separate sources are treated as new eBooks receiving
+new filenames and etext numbers.
+
+Most people start at our Web site which has the main PG search facility:
+
+     https://www.gutenberg.org
+
+This Web site includes information about Project Gutenberg-tm,
+including how to make donations to the Project Gutenberg Literary
+Archive Foundation, how to help produce our new eBooks, and how to
+subscribe to our email newsletter to hear about new eBooks.
+
+EBooks posted prior to November 2003, with eBook numbers BELOW #10000,
+are filed in directories based on their release date.  If you want to
+download any of these eBooks directly, rather than using the regular
+search system you may utilize the following addresses and just
+download by the etext year.
+
+     https://www.gutenberg.org/etext06
+
+    (Or /etext 05, 04, 03, 02, 01, 00, 99,
+     98, 97, 96, 95, 94, 93, 92, 92, 91 or 90)
+
+EBooks posted since November 2003, with etext numbers OVER #10000, are
+filed in a different way.  The year of a release date is no longer part
+of the directory path.  The path is based on the etext number (which is
+identical to the filename).  The path to the file is made up of single
+digits corresponding to all but the last digit in the filename.  For
+example an eBook of filename 10234 would be found at:
+
+     https://www.gutenberg.org/1/0/2/3/10234
+
+or filename 24689 would be found at:
+     https://www.gutenberg.org/2/4/6/8/24689
+
+An alternative method of locating eBooks:
+     https://www.gutenberg.org/GUTINDEX.ALL
+
+
+
+
+</pre>
+
+</body>
+</html>
diff --git a/old/10482.txt b/old/10482.txt
new file mode 100644
index 0000000..c2a9337
--- /dev/null
+++ b/old/10482.txt
@@ -0,0 +1,8028 @@
+The Project Gutenberg EBook of The Young Mother, by William A. Alcott
+
+This eBook is for the use of anyone anywhere at no cost and with
+almost no restrictions whatsoever.  You may copy it, give it away or
+re-use it under the terms of the Project Gutenberg License included
+with this eBook or online at www.gutenberg.org
+
+
+Title: The Young Mother
+       Management of Children in Regard to Health
+
+Author: William A. Alcott
+
+Release Date: December 17, 2003 [EBook #10482]
+
+Language: English
+
+Character set encoding: ASCII
+
+*** START OF THIS PROJECT GUTENBERG EBOOK THE YOUNG MOTHER ***
+
+
+
+
+Produced by Stan Goodman and PG Distributed Proofreaders
+
+
+
+
+THE YOUNG MOTHER, OR
+
+MANAGEMENT OF CHILDREN IN REGARD TO HEALTH.
+
+BY WM. A. ALCOTT
+
+
+1836
+
+
+
+ADVERTISEMENT TO THE THIRD EDITION.
+
+The present edition has been much enlarged. The author has added a
+section on the conduct and management of the mother herself, besides
+several other important amendments and additions. The whole has also
+been carefully revised, and we cannot but indulge the hope that no
+popular work of the kind will be found more perfect, or more worthy of
+the public confidence.
+
+
+
+
+CONTENTS.
+
+
+CHAPTER I. THE NURSERY.
+
+General remarks. Importance of a Nursery--generally overlooked. Its
+walls--ceiling--windows--chimney. Two apartments. Sliding partition.
+Reasons for this arrangement. Objections to carpets. Furniture, &c.
+Feather beds. Holes or crevices. Currents of air. Cats and dogs.
+"Sucking the child's breath." Brilliant objects. Squinting. Causes of
+blindness.
+
+
+CHAPTER II. TEMPERATURE.
+
+General principle--"Keep cool." Our own sensations not always to be
+trusted. Thermometer. Why infants require more external heat than
+adults. Means of warmth. Air heated in other apartments. Clothes taking
+fire. Stove--railing around it. Excess of heat--its dangers.
+
+
+CHAPTER III. VENTILATION.
+
+General ignorance of the constitution of the atmosphere. The subject
+briefly explained. Oxygen gas. Nitrogen. Carbonic acid. Fires, candles,
+and breathing dependent on oxygen. Danger from carbonic acid. How it
+destroys people. Impurity of the air arising from lamps and candles.
+Other sources of impurity. Experiment of putting the candle under the
+bed-clothes. Covering the heads of infants while sleeping--its dangers.
+Proportions of oxygen and nitrogen in pure and impure air. No wonder
+children become sickly. Particular means of ventilating rooms. Caution
+in regard to lamps. Washing, ironing, cooking, &c., in a nursery. Their
+evil tendency. Fumigation--camphor, vinegar.
+
+
+CHAPTER IV. THE CHILD'S DRESS.
+
+General principles--1. To cover us; 2. To defend us from cold; 3. from
+injury.
+
+SEC. 1. _Swathing the Body._
+
+Buffon's remarks. Transforming children into mummies. Use of a belly-band.
+Evils produced by having it too tight. Cripples sometimes made. Absurdity
+of confining the arms. Infants should be made happy.
+
+SEC. 2. _Form of the Dress._
+
+Curious suggestion of a London writer. Advantages of his plan. Killing
+with kindness. Dr. Buchan's opinion. Conformity to fashion. Tight-lacing
+the chest. Its effects--dangerous. Physiology of the chest. Its motions.
+An attempt to make the subject intelligible. Serious mistakes of some
+writers. Appeal to facts. Color of females. Their breathing. Their
+diseases. Customs of Tunis. Our own customs little less ridiculous.
+
+SEC. 3. _Material._
+
+Flannel in cold weather. Its use--1. As a kind
+of flesh brush; 2. As a protection against taking cold; 3. As means of
+equalizing the temperature. Clothing should be kept clean--often
+changed--color--lightness--softness. Cotton apt to take fire. Silk
+expensive. Linen not warm enough. Flannel under-clothes.
+
+SEC. 4. _Quantity._
+
+The power of habit, in this respect. Opinion that no clothing is
+necessary. Anecdote of Alexander and the Scythian. Argument from
+analogy. Begin right, in early life. We generally use too much
+clothing. Should clothing be often varied?--objections to it. Avoid
+dampness.
+
+SEC. 5. _Caps._
+
+How caps produce disease. Nature's head-dress. Miserable apology for
+caps. What diseases are avoided by going with the head bare. Judicious
+remarks of a foreign writer. Covering the "open of the head." Wetting
+the head with spirits.
+
+SEC. 6. _Hats and Bonnets._
+
+Hats usually too warm. No covering needed in the house; and but little
+in the sun or rain. Is it dangerous to go with the head always bare?
+
+SEC. 7. _Covering for the Feet._
+
+The feet should be well covered. Why. Rule of medical men. No garters.
+Objections to covering the feet considered. Shoes useful. Not too thick.
+Thick soles. Mr. Locke's opinion.
+
+SEC. 8. _Pins._
+
+These ought not to be used. Why. Substitutes. Practice of Dr. Dewees.
+Needles--their danger. Shocking anecdote.
+
+SEC. 9. _Remaining Wet._
+
+Changing wet clothing. Monstrous error--its evils. Clean as well as dry.
+A lame excuse for negligence. No excuse sufficient but poverty.
+
+SEC. 10. _Remarks on the Dress of Boys._
+
+Every restraint of body or limb injurious. Tight jackets. Stiff stocks
+and thick cravats. Boots. Evils of having them too tight. A painful
+sight.
+
+SEC. 11. _On the Dress of Girls._
+
+Clothing should be loose for girls or boys. Girls to be kept warmer than
+boys. Few girls comfortable, at home or abroad. Going out of warm rooms
+into the night air. How it promotes disease.
+
+
+CHAPTER V. CLEANLINESS.
+
+Physiology of the human skin. Of checking perspiration. Diseases thus
+produced. "Dirt" not "healthy." How the mistake originated. "Smell of
+the earth." Effect of uncleanliness on the morals. Filthiness produces
+bowel complaints. Changing dress for the sake of cleanliness.
+
+
+CHAPTER VI. BATHING.
+
+Practice of savage nations. Rather dangerous. Mistake of Rousseau.
+Plunging into cold water at birth may produce immediate death. Hundreds
+injured where one is benefited. Spirits added to the water. First
+washings of the child--should be thorough. Rules in regard to the
+temperature of both the water and the air. Washing an introduction to
+bathing. Hour for bathing changes with age. Temperature of the water.
+Size of a bathing vessel. Unreasonable fears of the warm bath. How they
+arose. A list of common whims. Apology for opposing cold baths. Dr
+Dewees' eight objections to them. Does cold water harden? Cold bath
+sometimes useful under the care of a skilful physician. Its danger in other
+cases. Rules for using the cold bath, if used at all. Securing a glow after
+it. General management. Proper hour. Coming out of the bath. Dressing.
+Singing. Bathing after a meal. Local bathing. Tea-spoonful of water in the
+mouth. Its use. The shower bath. Vapor bath. Medicated bath. Sponging.
+Conveniences for bathing indispensable to every family. General neglect
+of bathing. Attention of the Romans to this subject. We treat domestic
+animals better than children.
+
+
+CHAPTER VII. FOOD.
+
+SEC. 1. _General Principles._
+
+The mother's milk the only appropriate food of infants. Unreasonableness
+of some mothers. The tendency to ape foreign fashions. Nursing does not
+weaken the mother.
+
+SEC. 2. _Conduct of the Mother._
+
+Much depends on the mother. Opinions of medical societies. Mothers
+sometimes make children drunkards. The general fondness for excitements.
+Hints to those whom it concerns. Caution to mothers. Opinions of Dr.
+Dewees. Slavery of mothers to strong drink and exciting food. Opinions
+of the Charleston Board of Health.
+
+SEC. 3. _Nursing, how often._
+
+Children should never be nursed to quiet them. Stomach must have time
+for rest. Regular seasons for nursing. Once in three hours. Difference
+of constitution. Indulgence does not strengthen. Feeble children require
+the strictest management. Nothing should be given between meals.
+
+SEC. 4. _Quantity of Food._
+
+Errors. Repetition of aliment. Variety. Children over-fed. Appetite not
+a safe guide. Training to gluttony. Illustrations of the principle.
+Mankind eat twice as much as is necessary.
+
+SEC. 5. _How long should Milk be the only Food?_
+
+First change in diet. Objections of mothers. Choice bits. Ignorance of
+the nature of digestion. What digestion is. Food which the author of
+nature assigned.
+
+SEC. 6. _On Feeding before Teething._
+
+When feeding before teething is necessary. Diet of mothers. Substitute
+for the mother's milk. How prepared. Variety not necessary to the
+infant. Milk best from the same cow. Vessels in which it is used should
+be clean. Sweet milk not heated too much. Not frozen. Disgusting
+practices. Pure water. If not pure, boil it. Best of sugar. Is sugar
+injurious? When the state of the mother's health forbids nursing. Use of
+sucking-bottles. Feeding should in all cases be slow. Jolting children
+after eating. Tossing. Sucking-bottle as a plaything. Evils of using it
+as such. Dirty vessels. Poisonous ones. Character of nurses. Nursing at
+both breasts. Age of the nurse. Parents should have the oversight, even
+of a nurse.
+
+SEC. 7. _From Teething to Weaning._
+
+Proper age for weaning. Cullen's opinion. Proper season of the year.
+When the teeth have fairly protruded. First food given. New forms of
+food. Animal broth.
+
+SEC. 8. _During the Process of Weaning._
+
+The spring the best time for weaning. Should not be too sudden. The
+process--how managed. Exciting an aversion to the breast. What solid
+food should first be given. Buchan's opinion. Health of the mother. She
+should--if possible--avoid medicine.
+
+SEC. 9. _Food subsequently to Weaning._
+
+Views of Dr. Cadogan. Half the children that come into the world go out
+of it before they are good for anything. Why? Owing chiefly to errors in
+nursing, feeding, and clothing. Simplicity of children's food. Picture
+of a modern table. Every dish tortured till it is spoiled. Plain, simple
+food, generally despised. How bread is now regarded. How it ought to be.
+Mr. Locke's opinion in favor of bread for young children, and against
+the use of animal food. Does not differ materially from that of most
+medical writers. Vegetable food generally preferred to animal. What is
+true of youth, in this respect, is true of every age, with slight
+exceptions. Who require most food. Mere bread and water not best. Bread
+the staple article of diet. Best kind of bread. Objections to it. How
+groundless they are. Fondness, for hot, new bread not natural. Fondness
+of change. What it indicates. How it is caused. Train up a child in the
+way he should go. We can like what food we please. Second best kind of
+bread. Other kinds. Plain puddings. Indian cakes. Salt may be used, in
+moderate quantity, but no other condiments. Of butter, cheese, milk, &c.
+Potatoes, turnips, onions, beets, and other roots. Beans, peas, and
+asparagus. No fat or gravies should be used.
+
+SEC. 10. _Remarks on Fruit._
+
+Diversity of opinion. The cholera. Fruits useful. Seven plain rules in
+regard to them. Other rules. A mistake corrected. Fruit before
+breakfast. Four arguments in its favor. Particular fruits. Apples. Why
+fruits brought to market are generally unfit to be eaten. Are good, ripe
+fruits difficult of digestion? Cooking the apple? A man who lives
+entirely on apples. Cutting down orchards. Pears, peaches, melons,
+grapes. Mixing improper substances with summer fruits.
+
+SEC. 11. _Confectionary._
+
+Confectionary sometimes poisonous. Case in New York. All, or nearly
+all confectionaries injurious. Physical evils attending their use.
+Intellectual evils. Moral evils. The last most to be dreaded. Slaves
+to confectionary are on the road to gluttony, drunkenness, or
+debauchery--perhaps all three.
+
+SEC. 12. _Pastry._
+
+Dr. Paris's opinion of pastry. Various forms of it. Hot flour bread a
+species of it. Produces, among other evils, eruptions on the face.
+Appeal to mothers.
+
+SEC. 13. _Crude, or Raw Substances._
+
+Salads, herbs, &c.--raw--cooked. Nuts, spices, mustard, horseradish,
+onions, cucumbers, pickles, &c. None of these should be used, except as
+medicine.
+
+
+CHAPTER VIII. DRINKS.
+
+Infants need little drink. Adults, even, generally drink to cool
+themselves. Simple water the best drink. Opinions of Dr. Oliver and Dr.
+Dewees. Animal food increases thirst. Only one real drink in the world.
+The true object of all drink. Tea, coffee, chocolate, beer, &c. Milk
+and water, molasses and water, &c. Cider, wine, and ardent spirits. Bad
+food and drink the most prolific sources of disease. Children naturally
+prefer water. Danger of hot drinks. Cold drinks. Mischiefs they produce.
+Caution to mothers. Extracts. Drinking cold water, while hot.
+
+
+CHAPTER IX. GIVING MEDICINE.
+
+"Prevention" better than "cure." Nine in ten infantile diseases caused
+by errors in diet and drink. Signs of failing health. Causes of a bad
+breath. Flesh eaters. Gormandizers. General rule for preventing disease.
+When to call a physician.
+
+
+CHAPTER X. EXERCISE.
+
+SEC. 1. _Rocking in the Cradle._
+
+Objections to the use of cradles. Under what circumstances they are
+least objectionable.
+
+SEC. 2. _Carrying in the Arms._
+
+Carrying in the arms a suitable exercise for the first two months of
+life. Danger of too early sitting up. Improper position in the arms.
+Mothers must see to this themselves. Motion in the arms should be
+gentle. No tossing, running, or jumping. Infants should not always be
+carried on the same arm.
+
+SEC. 3. _Creeping._
+
+Creeping useful to health. Why. Go-carts and leading strings prohibited.
+The longer children creep, the better. Their progress in learning to
+stand. Let it be slow and natural. Let it be, as much as possible, by
+their own voluntary efforts.
+
+SEC. 4. _Walking._
+
+Walking in the nursery. Walking abroad. Hoisting children into carriages.
+Walks should not become fatiguing.
+
+SEC. 5. _Riding in Carriages._
+
+Carriages useful before children can walk. Their construction. Should be
+drawn steadily. Position of the child in them: Falling asleep. How long
+this exercise should be continued.
+
+SEC. 6 _Riding on Horseback._
+
+Never safe for infants. Riding schools. Objections to riding on
+horseback, while very young. Tends to cruelty and tyranny.
+
+
+CHAPTER XI. AMUSEMENTS.
+
+Universal need of amusements. Why so necessary. Error of schools. Error
+of families. Infant schools, as often conducted, particularly injurious.
+Lessons, or tasks, should be short. Mistakes of some manual labor
+schools. Of particular amusements in the nursery. With small wooden
+cubes--pictures--shuttlecock--the rocking horse--tops and
+marbles--backgammon--checkers--morrice--dice--nine-pins--skipping the
+rope--trundling the hoop--playing at ball--kites--skating and
+swimming--dissected maps--black boards--elements of letters--dissected
+pictures.
+
+
+CHAPTER XII. CRYING.
+
+Its importance. Danger of repressing a tendency to cry. Anecdote from
+Dr. Rush. Physiology of crying. Folly of attempting wholly to suppress
+it.
+
+
+CHAPTER XIII. LAUGHING.
+
+"Laugh and be fat." Laughing is healthy. A common error. Monastic
+notions yet too prevalent on this subject.
+
+
+CHAPTER XIV. SLEEP.
+
+General remarks. A prevalent mistake. A hint to fathers. Few Catos.
+Everything left to mothers.
+
+SEC. 1. _Hour for Repose._
+
+Night the season of repose, generally. Infants require all hours.
+Sleeping in dark rooms. Excess of caution. Habit of sleeping amid noise.
+
+SEC. 2. _Place._
+
+Where the infant should sleep. Why alone. Poisoning by impure air.
+Illustration. Proofs. Friedlander. Dr. Dewees. Destruction of children
+by mothers. Anecdote. Moral reasons for having children sleep alone.
+Sleeping with the aged. Sleeping with cats and dogs.
+
+SEC. 3 _Purity of the Air._
+
+Nurseries. Windows open during the night. Lowering them from the top.
+Habit of Dr. Gregory. Going abroad in the open air.
+
+SEC. 4. _The Bed._
+
+No feathers should be used. They are too warm. Their effluvia
+oppressive. Other objections to their use. Mattresses. Air beds. Beds of
+cut straw. Soft beds. Testimony of physicians. The pillow. Dampness.
+Curtains. Warming the bed. Beds recently occupied by the sick.
+
+SEC. 5. _The Covering._
+
+Light covering. Mistakes of some mothers. Covering the head with bed
+clothes.
+
+SEC. 6. _Night Dresses._
+
+As little dress during sleep as possible. No caps. No stockings. Loose
+night shirt. No tight articles of nightdress. Frequent exchanging of
+clothes.
+
+SEC. 7. _Posture of the Body._
+
+Sleeping on the back--on the sides. Position of the head. The infant's
+bedstead. Sir Charles Bell. Darkening the room.
+
+SEC. 8. _State of the Mind._
+
+Mental quiet favorable to sleep. Crying to sleep. A good father. All
+anxiety should be avoided.
+
+SEC. 9. _Quality of Sleep._
+
+Soundness of our sleep. Nightmare. How produced. Late reading. Late
+suppers. Influence of religion on sleep. Different opinions about sleep.
+Truth midway between extremes. Effect of silence and darkness on our
+sleep. Of sleep before midnight. Light unfavorable to sleep.
+
+SEC. 10. _Quantity._
+
+Infants need to sleep nearly the whole time. Number of hours required
+for sleep. Opinions of eminent men. The author's own opinion. Statements
+of Macnish. Estimates on the loss of time by over-sleeping. Hint to
+young mothers.
+
+
+CHAPTER XV. EARLY RISING.
+
+All children naturally early risers. Evils of sitting up late at night.
+Excitements in the evening. The morning, by its beauties, invites us
+abroad. Example of parents. Forbidding children to rise early. Keeping
+them out of the way. Burning them up. "Lecturing" them. What is an early
+hour?
+
+
+CHAPTER XVI. HARDENING THE CONSTITUTION.
+
+Mistakes about hardening children. Their clothing. Much cold enfeebles.
+The Scotch Highlanders. The two extremes equally fatal--over-tenderness
+and neglect. An interesting anecdote from Dr. Dewees.
+
+
+CHAPTER XVII. SOCIETY.
+
+Duty of mothers in this matter. Children prefer the society of parents.
+Importance of other society. Necessity of society. Early diffidence.
+Selecting companions. Moral effects of society on the young. Parents
+should play with their children.
+
+
+CHAPTER XVIII. EMPLOYMENTS.
+
+Influence of mothers over daughters. Anecdote of Benjamin West. Anecdote
+of a poor mother. Of set lessons and lectures. Daughters under the
+mother's eye. Disliking domestic employments. Miserable housewives--not
+to be wondered at. Mistake of one class of men. Mr. Flint's opinion.
+
+
+CHAPTER XIX. EDUCATION OF THE SENSES.
+
+Extent to which the senses can be improved. Case of the blind. The
+Indians. Julia Brace. Tailors, painters, &c.
+
+SEC. 1. _Hearing._
+
+Injury done by caps. Syringing the ears. Anecdote of deafness from
+neglect. Means of improving the hearing.
+
+SEC. 2. _Seeing._
+
+Importance of seeing. Near-sighted people--why so common. Heat of our
+rooms. Very fine print. Spectacles. Reading when tired. Rubbing the
+eyes. Cold water to the eyes.
+
+SEC. 3. _Tasting and Smelling._
+
+Benumbing the senses. How this has often been done. The teeth. How to
+preserve them.
+
+SEC. 4. _Feeling._
+
+Corpulence and slovenliness. Sense of touch. The blind--how taught to
+read. Hint to parents. The hand. Neglecting the left hand. Physiology of
+the hand and arm. Evils of being able to use but one hand. Both should
+be educated.
+
+
+CHAPTER XX. ABUSES.
+
+Bad seats for children at table and elsewhere. Why children hate Sunday.
+Seats at Sabbath school--at church--at district schools. Suspending
+children between the heavens and the earth. Cushions to sit on. Seats
+with backs. Children in factories. Evils produced. Bodily punishment.
+Striking the heads of children very injurious. Beating across the middle
+of the body. Anecdote of a teacher. Concluding advice to mothers.
+
+
+       *       *       *       *       *
+
+
+PREFACE.
+
+There is a prejudice abroad, to some extent, against agitating the
+questions--"What shall we eat? What shall we drink? and Wherewithal
+shall we be clothed?"--not so much because the Scriptures have charged
+us not to be over "anxious" on the subject, as because those who pay the
+least attention to what they eat and drink, are supposed to be, after
+all, the most healthy.
+
+It is not difficult to ascertain how this opinion originated. There are
+a few individuals who are perpetually thinking and talking on this
+subject, and who would fain comply with appropriate rules, if they knew
+what they were, and if a certain definite course, pursued a few days
+only, would change their whole condition, and completely restore a
+shattered or ruined constitution. But their ignorance of the laws which
+govern the human frame, both in sickness and in health, and their
+indisposition to pursue any proposed plan for their improvement long
+enough to receive much permanent benefit from it, keep them,
+notwithstanding all they say or do, always deteriorating.
+
+Then, on the other hand, there are a few who, in consequence of
+possessing by nature very strong constitutions, and laboring at some
+active and peculiarly healthy employment, are able for a few, and
+perhaps even for many years, to set all the rules of health at defiance.
+
+Now, strange as it may seem, these cases, though they are only
+exceptions (and those more apparent than real) to the general rule, are
+always dwelt upon, by those who are determined to live as they please,
+and to put no restraint either upon themselves or their appetites. For
+nothing can be plainer--so it seems to me--than that, taking mankind by
+families, or what is still better, by larger portions, they are most
+free from pain and disease, as well as most healthy and happy, who pay
+the most attention to the laws of human health, that is, those laws or
+rules by whose observance alone, that health can be certainly and
+permanently secured.
+
+But these families and communities are most healthy and happy, not
+because they live in a proper manner, by fits and starts, but because
+they have, from some cause or other, adopted and persevered in HABITS
+which, compared with the habits of other families, or other communities,
+are preferable; that is, more in obedience to the laws which govern the
+human constitution. Not that even _they_ are "without sin" or error on
+this subject--gross error too--but because their errors are fewer or
+less destructive than those of their neighbors.
+
+Now is it possible that any intelligent father or mother of a family,
+whose diet, clothing, exercise, &c. are thus comparatively well
+regulated, would derive no benefit from the perusal of works which treat
+candidly, rationally, and dispassionately, on these points? Is there a
+mother in the community who is so destitute of reason and common sense
+as not to desire the light of a broader experience in regard to the
+tendency of things than she has had, or possibly can have, in her own
+family? Is there one who will not be aided by understanding not only
+that a certain thing or course is better than another, but also WHY it
+is so?
+
+It is by no means the object of this little work to set people to
+watching their stomachs from meal to meal, in regard to the effects of
+food, drink, &c.; for nothing in the world is better calculated to make
+dyspeptics than this. It is true, indeed, that some things may be
+obviously and greatly injurious, taken only once; and when they are so,
+they should be avoided. But in general, it is the effect of a habitual
+use of certain things for a long time together--and the longer the
+experiment the better--which we are to observe.
+
+A book to guide mothers in the formation of early good habits in their
+offspring, should be the result of long observation and much experiment
+on these points, but more especially of a thorough understanding of
+human physiology. It should not consist so much of the conceits of a
+single brain--perhaps half turned--as of the logical deductions of
+severe science, and facts gleaned from the world's history.
+
+Here is a nation, or tribe of men, bringing up children to certain
+habits, from generation to generation--and such and such is their
+character. Here, again, is another large portion of our race, who, under
+similar circumstances of climate, &c. &c., have, for several hundred
+years, educated their children very differently, and with different
+results. A comparison of things on a large scale, together with a close
+attention to the constitution and relations of the human system, affords
+ground for drawing conclusions which are or may be useful. If this book
+shall not afford light derived from such sources, it were far better
+that it had never been written. If it only sets people to watching over
+the effects of things taken or used only for a single day, instead of
+leading them from early infancy to form in their children such habits as
+will preclude, in a great measure, the necessity of watching ourselves
+daily, then let the day perish from the memory of the writer, in which
+the plan of bringing it forth to the world was conceived. But he is
+confident of better things. He does not believe that a work which, to
+such an extent, GIVES THE REASON WHY, will be productive of more evil
+than good. On the contrary, it must, if read, have the opposite effect.
+
+I do not deny that even after the formation of the best habits, there
+will be a necessity of paying some attention to what we eat and what we
+drink, from day to day, and from hour to hour; but only that the
+tendency of this work is not to increase this necessity, but on the
+contrary, to diminish it. In my own view; these occasions of inquiry in
+regard to what is right, _physically_ as well as _morally_, are one part
+of our trials in this world--one means of forming our characters. We are
+constantly tempted to excess and to error, in spite of the most firm
+habits of self-denial which can be formed. If we resist temptation, our
+characters are improved. And it is by self-denial and self-government in
+these smaller matters, that we are to hope for nearly all the progress
+we can ever make in the great work of self-education. Great trials of
+character come but seldom; and when they come, we are often armed
+against them; but these little trials and temptations, coming upon us
+every hour--these it is, after all, that give shape to our characters,
+and make us constantly growing either better or worse, both in the sight
+of God and man. But, as I have repeatedly said, the object of this work
+is to diminish rather than to increase the frequency of these trials,
+useful though they may be, if duly improved, in the formation of
+virtuous, and even of holy character.
+
+There is a sense in which every infant may be said to be born healthy,
+so that we may not only adopt the language of the poet, Bowring, and
+say
+
+                   --"a child is born;
+  Take it, and make it a bud of _moral_ beauty,"
+
+but we may also add--Take it and make it beautiful _physically_. For
+though a hereditary predisposition undoubtedly renders some individuals
+more susceptible than others to particular diseases, yet when the bodily
+organization of an infant is complete, and the degree of vitality which
+nature gives it is sufficient to propel the machinery of the frame, it
+can scarcely be regarded as in any other state than that of health.
+
+Now if it be the intention of divine Providence (and who will doubt that
+it is?) that the animal body should be capable of resisting with
+impunity the impressions of heat, cold, light, air, and the various
+external influences to which, at birth, it is subjected, it may be
+properly asked why this primitive state of health cannot be maintained,
+and diseases, and medicines, and even PREVENTIVES wholly avoided.
+
+But the reason is obvious. Civilized society has placed the human race
+in artificial circumstances. Instead of listening to the dictates of
+reason, making ourselves acquainted with the nature of the human
+constitution, and studying to preserve it in health and vigor, we yield
+to the government of ignorance and presumption. The first moment, even,
+in which we draw breath, sees us placed under the control of individuals
+who are totally inadequate to the important charge of preserving the
+infant constitution in its original state, and aiding its progress to
+maturity. And thus it is that though infants, as a general rule, may be
+said to be born healthy, few actually remain so. Seldom, indeed, do we
+find a person who has arrived at maturity wholly free from disease, even
+in those parts of our country which are reckoned to have the most
+healthy climate.
+
+It is indeed commonly said, that a large proportion, both of children
+and adults, among the agricultural portion of our population, are
+healthy. But it is not so. There is room for doubt whether, on the
+whole, the farmers of this country are healthier than the mechanics, or
+much more so than the manufacturers; or the whole mass of the country
+population healthier than that of the crowded city. The causes of
+disease are sufficiently numerous, in all places and conditions; and
+this will continue to be the fact, not merely until parents and teachers
+shall become more enlightened, but until many generations have been
+trained under their enlightened influence.
+
+If the children and adults among our agricultural population derive from
+their employments in the open air a more ruddy appearance than those
+either of the city or country who are confined more to their rooms; or
+to a vitiated atmosphere, and to numerous other sources of disease, and
+if they _appear_ more favored with health, I have learned, by accurate
+observation, that these appearances are somewhat deceptive. Their active
+sports and employments in the open air give them a stronger appetite
+than any other class of people; and the indulgence of this appetite, not
+only with articles which are heating or indigestible in their nature,
+but with an unreasonable quantity even of those which are considered
+highly proper, is almost in an exact proportion. And it is hence
+scarcely possible for the causes of disease and premature death to be
+more operative in factories and in cities than in farm houses and the
+country. Indeed it may be questioned whether the abuses of the ANIMAL
+part of man--more common in some of their forms in country than in
+city--though they may be less conspicuous, are not more certainly and
+even more immediately destructive than those abuses which, in city life,
+and bustle, and competition, affect more the MORAL nature.
+
+Be that as it may, however--for this is not the place for the grave
+discussion of so broad a question--one thing, to my mind, is perfectly
+clear, namely, that until physical education shall receive more
+attention from all those who hold the sacred office of instructors of
+the young, humanity can neither be much elevated nor improved. Mothers
+and schoolmasters especially--they who, as Dr. Rush says, plant the
+seeds of nearly all the good or evil in the world--must understand, most
+deeply and thoroughly, the laws which regulate the various provinces of
+the little world in which the soul resides, and which, like so many
+states of a great confederacy, have not only their separate interests
+and rights, but certain common and general ones; as well as those laws
+by which the human constitution is related to and connected with the
+objects which everywhere surround, and influence, and limit, and extend
+it.
+
+This book contains little, if anything, new to those who are already
+familiar with anatomy and physiology. Indeed, whatever may be its
+claims, its merits or its demerits, it disclaims novelty. It is, indeed,
+in one point of view, _original_;--I mean in its form, manner, and
+arrangement. What I have written is chiefly from my own resources--the
+results of patient study and observation, and careful reflection; but
+that study and observation of human nature, and this reflection, have
+been greatly aided by reading the writings of others.
+
+In the prosecution of the task which I had assigned myself, no work has
+been of more service to me than an octavo volume of 548 pages, by Dr.
+Wm. P. Dewees, of Philadelphia, entitled, "A Treatise on the Physical
+and Medical Treatment of Children." It is one of the most valuable works
+on Physical Education in the English language, as is evident from the
+fact that notwithstanding its expense--three or four dollars--it has, in
+nine years, gone through five editions. If it were written in such a
+style, and published at such a price as would bring it within reach of
+the minds and purses of the mass of the community, its sale would have
+been, I think, much greater still; and the good which it has
+accomplished would have been increased ten-fold.
+
+If the "YOUNG MOTHER" should be favorably received by the American
+community, and prove extensively useful, it will undoubtedly be owing to
+the fact that it presents so large a collection of facts and principles
+on the great subject of physical education, in a manner so practical,
+and at a price which is very low. To accomplish an object so desirable
+is by no means an easy task. It was once said by the author of a huge
+volume, that he wrote so large a work because he had not time to prepare
+a smaller one. And however unaccountable it may be to those who have not
+made the trial, it may be safely asserted, that to present, within
+limits so small, anything like a system of Physical Education for the
+guidance of young mothers, requires much more time, and labor, and
+patience, than to prepare a work on the same subject twice as large.
+
+Nor is it to be expected, after all, that the work is, in all respects,
+perfect. I have indeed done what I could to render it so; but am
+conscious that future inquiries may lead to the discovery of errors.
+Should such discoveries be made, they will be cheerfully acknowledged
+and corrected; truth being, as it should be, the leading object.
+
+
+       *       *       *       *       *
+
+
+THE YOUNG MOTHER.
+
+
+
+CHAPTER I.
+
+THE NURSERY.
+
+General remarks. Importance of a Nursery--generally overlooked. Its
+walls--ceiling--windows--chimney. Two apartments. Sliding partition.
+Reasons for this arrangement. Objections to carpets. Furniture, &c.
+Feather beds. Holes or crevices. Currents of air. Cats and dogs.
+"Sucking the child's breath." Brilliant objects. Squinting. Causes of
+blindness.
+
+
+It is far from being in the power of every young mother to procure a
+suitable room for a nursery. In the present state of society, the
+majority must be contented with such places as they can get. Still there
+are various reasons for saying what a nursery should be. 1. It may be of
+service to those who _have_ the power of selection. 2. Information
+cannot injure those who _have not_. 3. It may lead those who have wealth
+to extend the hand of charity in this important direction; for there
+are not a few who have little sympathy with the wants and distresses of
+the adult poor, who will yet open their hearts and unfold their hands
+for the relief of suffering _infancy_.
+
+Among those who have what is called a nursery, few select for this
+purpose the most appropriate part of the building. It is not
+unfrequently the one that can best be spared, is most retired, or most
+convenient. Whether it is most favorable to the health and happiness of
+its occupants, is usually at best a secondary consideration.
+
+But this ought not so to be. A nursery should never, for example, be on
+a ground floor, or in a shaded situation, or in any circumstances which
+expose it to dampness, or hinder the occasional approach of the light of
+the sun. It should be spacious, with dry walls, high ceiling, and tight
+windows. The latter should always be so constructed that the upper sash
+can be lowered when we wish to admit or exclude air. It should have a
+chimney, if possible; but if not, there should be suitable holes in the
+ceiling, for the purposes of ventilation.
+
+The windows should have shutters, so that the room, when necessary, can
+be darkened--and green curtains. Some writers say that the windows
+should have cross bars before them; but if they do not descend within
+three feet of the floor, such an arrangement can hardly be required.
+
+It is highly desirable that every nursery should consist of two rooms,
+opening into each other; or what is still better, of one large room,
+with a sliding or swinging partition in the middle. The use of this is,
+that the mother and child may retire to one, while the other is being
+swept or ventilated. They would thus avoid damp air, currents, and dust.
+Such an arrangement would also give the occupants a room, fresh, clean
+and sweet, in the morning, (which is a very great advantage,) after
+having rendered the air of the other foul by sleeping in it.
+
+In winter, and while there is an infant in the nursery, just beginning
+to walk, it is recommended by many to cover the floor with a carpet. The
+only advantage which they mention is, that it secures the child from
+injury if it falls. But I have seldom seen lasting injury inflicted by
+simple falls on the hard floor; and there are so many objections to
+carpeting a nursery, since it favors an accumulation of dust, bad air,
+damp, grease, and other impurities, that it seems to me preferable to
+omit it. Many physicians, I must own, recommend carpets during winter,
+though not in summer; and in no case, unless they are well shaken and
+aired, at least once a week.
+
+No furniture should be admissible, except the beds for the mother and
+child, a table, and a few chairs. With the best writers and highest
+authorities on the subject, I am decidedly of opinion that all feather
+beds ought effectually and forever to be excluded from nurseries. The
+reasons for this prohibition will appear hereafter.
+
+Every nursery should, if possible, be free from holes or crevices;
+otherwise the occupants will be exposed to currents of air, and their
+sometimes terrible and always injurious consequences. The room may, in
+this way, be kept at a lower medium temperature--a point of very great
+importance.
+
+Cats and dogs, I believe, are usually excluded from the nursery; if not,
+they ought to be. For though the apprehension of cats "sucking the
+child's breath," is wholly groundless, yet they may be provoked by the
+rude attacks of a child to inflict upon it a lasting injury. Besides,
+they assist, by respiration, in contaminating the air, like all other
+animals.
+
+If there are, in the nursery, objects which, from the vivacity or
+brilliancy of their colors, attract the attention of the child, they
+should never be presented to them sideways, or immediately over their
+heads. The reason for this caution is, that children seek, and pursue
+almost instinctively, bright objects; and are thus liable to contract a
+habit of moving their eyes in an oblique direction, which _may_
+terminate in squinting.
+
+Many parents seem to take great pleasure in indulging the young infant
+in looking at these bright objects; especially a lamp or a candle. If
+the child is naturally strong and vigorous, no immediate perceptible
+injury may arise; but I am confident in the opinion that the result is
+often quite otherwise. For many weeks, if not many months of their early
+existence, they should not be permitted to sit or lie and gaze at any
+bright object, be it ever so weak or distant, unless placed exactly
+before their eyes; and even in the latter case, it were better to avoid
+it.
+
+Heat is also injurious to the eyes of all, and of course not less so to
+children than to adults. But when a strong light and heat are conjoined,
+as is the case of sitting around a large blazing fire--the former custom
+of New England--it is no wonder if the infantile eyes become early
+injured. No wonder that the generation now on the stage, early subjected
+to these abuses, should be found almost universally in the use of
+spectacles.
+
+This may be the most proper place for observing that great care ought to
+be taken, at the birth of the child, to prevent a too sudden exposure of
+the tender organ of vision to the light. We believe this caution is
+generally omitted by the American physician, though it is one which
+accords with the plainest dictates of common sense. Who of us has not
+experienced the pain of emerging suddenly from the darkness of a cellar
+to the ordinary light of day? The strongest eyes of the adult are
+scarcely able to bear the transition. How much more painful to the
+tender organs of the new-born infant must be the change to which it is
+so frequently subjected? And how easy it is to prevent the pain and
+danger of the change, by more effectually darkening the room into which
+it is introduced!
+
+But we have testimony on this point. A distinguished German physician
+states that he has known many cases of permanent blindness from this
+very cause to which we have referred. The Principal of the Institution
+for the Blind, at Vienna, says he is confident that most children who
+appear to be born blind, are actually made blind by neglecting this same
+precaution.
+
+
+
+
+CHAPTER II.
+
+TEMPERATURE.
+
+General principle--"Keep cool." Our own sensations not always to be
+trusted. Thermometer. Why infants require more external heat than
+adults. Means of warmth. Air heated in other apartments. Clothes taking
+fire. Stove--railing around it. Excess of heat--its dangers.
+
+
+There is one general principle, on this subject, which is alike
+applicable to all persons and circumstances. It is, to keep a little too
+cool, rather than in the slightest degree too warm. In other words, the
+lowest temperature which is compatible with comfort, is, in all cases,
+best adapted to health; and a slight degree of coldness, provided it
+amount not to a chill, and is not long continued, is more safe than the
+smallest unnecessary degree of warmth.
+
+But the application of this rule to those over whom we have control, is
+not without its difficulties. Our own sensations are so variable,
+independently of external and obvious causes, that we cannot at all
+times judge for others, especially for infants. The absolute and real
+state of temperature in a room can only be ascertained by the aid of a
+thermometer; and no nursery should ever be without one. It should be
+placed, however, in such a situation as to indicate the real temperature
+of the atmosphere, and not where it will give a false result.
+
+No mother should forget that the infant, at birth, has not the power of
+generating heat, internally, to the extent which it possesses afterward.
+The lungs have as yet but a feeble, inefficient action. The purification
+of the blood, through their agency, is not only incomplete, but the heat
+evolved is as yet inconsiderable. In the absence of internal heat, then,
+there is an increased demand externally. If 60 be deemed suitable for
+most other persons, the new-born infant may, for a few days, require 65
+or even 70.
+
+Much may and should be done in preserving the child in a proper
+temperature by means of its clothing. On this point I shall speak at
+length, in another part of this work. My present purpose is simply to
+treat of the temperature of the nursery.
+
+The best way of warming a nursery--or indeed any other room, where MERE
+warmth is demanded--is by means of air heated in other apartments, and
+admitted through openings in the floor or fire-place. The air is not
+only thus made more pure, but every possibility of accidents, such as
+having the clothes take fire, is precluded. This last consideration is
+one of very great importance, and I hope will not be much longer
+overlooked in infantile education.
+
+Next to that, in point of usefulness and safety, is a stove, placed near
+or IN the fire-place, and defended by an iron railing. Most people
+prefer an open stove; and on some accounts it is indeed preferable,
+especially where it is desirable to burn coal. Still I think that the
+direct rays of the heat, and the glare of light from open stoves and
+fire-places, particularly for the young, form a very serious objection
+to their use.
+
+One of the strongest objections to open stoves and fire-places in the
+nursery is, the increased exposure to accidents. I know it is said that
+this evil may be avoided by laying aside the use of cotton, and wearing
+nothing but worsted or flannel. This is indeed true; but I do not like
+the idea of being compelled to dress children in flannel or worsted, at
+all times when the least particle of fire is demanded; for this would be
+to wear this stimulating kind of clothing, in our climate, the greater
+part of the year.
+
+Besides, I write for many mothers who are compelled to use cotton, on
+account of the expense of flannel. And if the stove be a close one, and
+well defended by a railing, cotton will seldom expose to danger. Still,
+as has been already said, the introduction of heated air from another
+apartment, whenever it can possibly be afforded, is incomparably better
+than either stoves or fire-places.
+
+Dr. Dewees is fully persuaded that the excessive heat of nurseries has
+occasioned a great mortality among very young children. "In the first
+place," he says, "it over-stimulates them; and in the second, it renders
+them so susceptible of cold, that any draught of cold air endangers
+their lives. They are in a constant perspiration, which is frequently
+checked by an exposure to even an atmosphere of moderate temperature."
+If this is but to repeat what has been already said, the importance of
+the subject seems to be a sufficient apology.
+
+
+
+
+CHAPTER III.
+
+VENTILATION.
+
+General ignorance of the constitution of the atmosphere. The subject
+briefly explained. Oxygen gas. Nitrogen. Carbonic acid. Fires, candles,
+and breathing dependent on oxygen. Danger from carbonic acid. How it
+destroys people. Impurity of the air by means of lamps and candles.
+Other sources of impurity. Experiment of putting the candle under the
+bed-clothes. Covering the heads of infants while sleeping--its dangers.
+Proportions of oxygen and nitrogen in pure and impure air. No wonder
+children become sickly. Particular means of ventilating rooms. Caution
+in regard to lamps. Washing, ironing, cooking, &c., in a nursery. Their
+evil tendency. Fumigation--camphor, vinegar.
+
+
+Few people take sufficient pains to preserve the air in any of their
+apartments pure; for few know what the constitution of our atmosphere
+is, and in how many ways and with what ease it is rendered impure.
+
+It is not my purpose to go into a learned, scientific account in this
+place, or even in this work, of the constitution of the atmosphere. A
+few plain statements are all that are indispensable. The atmosphere
+which we breathe is composed of two different airs or gases. One of
+these is called oxygen, [Footnote: Oxygen gas is the chief supporter of
+combustion, as well as of respiration. It is the vital part, as it were,
+of the air. No animal or vegetable could long exist without it. And yet
+if alone, unmixed, it is too pure and too refined for animals to
+breathe. Nitrogen gas, on the contrary, while alone, will not support
+either respiration or combustion; mixed, however, with oxygen, it
+dilutes it, and in the most happy manner fits it for reception into the
+lungs.] and the other nitrogen. There is another gas usually found with
+these two, in smaller quantity, called carbonic acid gas; but whether it
+is necessary, in a very small quantity, to health, chemists, I believe,
+are not agreed. One thing, however, is certain--that if any portion of
+it is healthful, it must be very little--not more, certainly, than
+one-fiftieth or one-hundredth of the whole mass.
+
+It is by means of the oxygen it contains, that air sustains life and
+combustion. Were it not for this, neither fires nor candles would burn,
+and no animal could breathe a single moment. Breathing consumes this
+oxygen of the air very rapidly. When the oxygen is present in about a
+certain proportion, combustion and respiration go on well, but when its
+natural proportion is diminished, the fire does not burn so well,
+neither does the candle; and no one can breathe so freely.
+
+Not only are breathing and combustion impeded or disturbed by the
+diminution of oxygen in the atmosphere, but just in proportion as oxygen
+is diminished by these two processes, or either of them, carbonic acid
+is formed, which is not only bad for combustion, but much worse for
+health. If any considerable quantity of it is inhaled, it appears to be
+an absolute poison to the human system; and if in _very large quantity_,
+will often cause immediate death.
+
+It is this gas, accumulated in large quantities, that destroys so many
+people in close rooms, where there is no chimney, nor any other place
+for the bad air to escape. But it not only kills people outright--it
+partly kills, that is, it poisons, more or less, hundreds of thousands.
+
+In a nursery there is the mother and child, and perhaps the nurse, to
+render the air impure by breathing, the fire and the lamp or candle to
+contribute to the same result, besides several other causes not yet
+mentioned. One of these is nearly related to the former. I allude to the
+fact that our skins, by perspiration and by other means, are a source of
+much impurity to the atmosphere; a fact which will be more fully
+explained and illustrated in the chapter on Bathing and Cleanliness. It
+is only necessary to say, in this place, that it is not the matter of
+perspiration alone which, issuing from the skin, renders the air
+impure; there are other exhalations more or less constantly going off
+from every living body, especially from the lungs; and carbonic acid gas
+is even formed all over the surface of the skin, as well as by means of
+the lungs.
+
+One needs no better proof that carbonic acid is formed on the surface of
+the body, than the fact that after the body has been closely covered all
+night, if you introduce a candle under the bed-clothes into this
+confined air, it will be quickly extinguished, because there is too
+much carbonic acid gas there, and too little oxygen.
+
+We may hence see at once the evil of covering the heads of infants when
+they lie down--a very common practice. The air, when pure, contains a
+little more than 20 parts of oxygen, and a little less than 80 of
+nitrogen. Breathing this air, as I have already shown, consumes the
+oxygen, which is so necessary to life and health, and leaves in its
+place an increase of nitrogen and carbonic acid gas, which are not
+necessary to health, and the latter of which is even positively
+injurious. But when the oxygen, instead of forming 20 or more parts in
+100 of the atmosphere of the nursery, is reduced to 15 or 18 parts only,
+and the carbonic acid gas is increased from 1 or 2 parts in 100, to 5,
+6, 8 or 10--when to this is added the other noxious exhalations from the
+body, and from the lamp or candle, fire-place, feather bed, stagnant
+fluids in the room, &c., &c.--is it any wonder that children, in the
+end, become sickly? What else could be expected but that the seeds of
+disease, thus early sown, should in due time spring up, and produce
+their appropriate fruits?
+
+It is sometimes said that fire in a room purifies it. It undoubtedly
+does so, to a certain extent, if fresh air be often admitted; but not
+otherwise.
+
+I have classed feather beds among the common causes of impurity. Dr.
+Dewees also condemns them, most decidedly; and gives substantial reasons
+for "driving them out of the nursery."
+
+In speaking of the structure of the room used for a nursery, I have
+adverted to the importance of having a large or double room, with
+sliding doors between, in order that the occupants may go into one of
+them, while the other is being ventilated. But whatever may be the
+structure of the room, the circumstances of the occupants, or the state
+of the weather, every nursery ought to be most thoroughly ventilated,
+once a day, at least; and when the weather is tolerable, twice a day. If
+there is but one apartment, and fear is entertained of the dampness of
+the fresh air introduced, or of currents, and if the mother and babe
+cannot retire, there is a last resort, which is for them to get into
+bed, and cover themselves a short time with the clothing. For though I
+have prohibited the covering of the face with the bed-clothes for any
+considerable length of time together, yet to do so for some fifteen or
+twenty minutes is an evil of far less magnitude than to suffer an
+apartment to remain without being ventilated, for twenty-four hours
+together--a very common occurrence.
+
+When a lamp is kept burning in a nursery during the night, it should
+always be placed at the door of the stove, or in the chimney place, that
+its smoke, and the bad airs or gases which are formed, may escape. But
+it is better, in general, to avoid burning lamps or candles during the
+night. By means of common matches, a light may be produced, when
+necessary, almost instantly; especially if you have a spirit lamp in the
+nursery, or what is still better, one of spirit gas--that is, a mixture
+of alcohol and turpentine.
+
+It is highly desirable that all washing, ironing, and cooking should be
+avoided in the nursery. They load the air with noxious effluvia or
+vapor, or with particles of dust; none of which ought ever to enter the
+delicate lungs of an infant.
+
+Fumigations with camphor, vinegar, and other similar substances, have
+long been in reputation as a means of purifying the air in sick-rooms
+and nurseries; but they are of very little consequence. Fresh air, if it
+can be had, is always better.
+
+
+
+
+CHAPTER IV.
+
+THE CHILD'S DRESS
+
+General principles. SEC. 1. Swathing the body--its numerous evils.--SEC.
+2. Form of the dress. Fashion. Tight lacing--its dangers. Structure and
+motion of the chest. Diseases from tight lacing.--SEC. 3. Material of
+dress. Flannel--its uses. Cleanliness. Cotton--silk--linen.--SEC. 4.
+Quantity of dress. Power of habit. Anecdote. Begin right. Change.
+Dampness.--SEC. 5. Caps--their evils. Going bare-headed.--SEC. 6. Hats
+and bonnets.--SEC. 7. Covering for the feet. Stockings. Garters.
+Shoes--thick soles.--SEC. 8. Pins--their danger. Shocking
+anecdote.--SEC. 9. Remaining wet.--SEC. 10. Dress of boys. Tight
+jackets. Stocks and cravats. Boots.--SEC. 11. Dress of girls--should be
+loose. Temperature. Exposure to the night air.
+
+
+Dress serves three important purposes:--1. To cover us; 2. To defend us
+against cold; 3. To defend our bodies and limbs from injury. There is
+one more purpose of dress; in case of deformity, it seems to improve the
+appearance.
+
+In all our arrangements in regard to dress, whether of children or of
+adults, we should ever keep in mind the above principles. The form,
+fashion, material, application, and quantity of all clothing,
+especially for infants, ought to be regulated by these three or four
+rules.
+
+The subject of this chapter is one of so much importance, and embraces
+such a variety of items, that it will be more convenient, both to the
+reader and myself, to consider it under several minor heads.
+
+
+SEC. 1. _Swathing the Body._
+
+Buffon, in his "Natural History," says that in France, an infant has
+hardly enjoyed the liberty of moving and stretching its limbs, before it
+is put into confinement. "It is swathed," says he, "its head is fixed,
+its legs are stretched out at full length, and its arms placed straight
+down by the side of its body. In this manner it is bound tight with
+cloths and bandages, so that it cannot stir a limb; indeed it is
+fortunate that the poor thing is not muffled up so as to be unable to
+breathe."
+
+All swathing, except with a single bandage around the abdomen, is
+decidedly unreasonable, injurious and cruel. I do not pretend that the
+remarks of M. Buffon are fully applicable to the condition of infants in
+the United States. The good sense of the community nowhere permits us to
+transform a beautiful babe quite into an Egyptian mummy. Still there
+are many considerable errors on the subject of infantile dress, which,
+in the progress of my remarks, I shall find it necessary to expose.
+
+The use of a simple band cannot be objected to. It affords a general
+support to the abdomen, and a particular one to the _umbilicus_. The
+last point is one of great importance, where there is any tendency to a
+rupture at this part of the body--a tendency which very often exists in
+feeble children. And without some support of this kind, crying,
+coughing, sneezing, and straining in any way, might greatly aggravate
+the evil, if not produce serious consequences.
+
+But, in order to afford a support to the abdomen in the best manner, it
+is by no means necessary that the bandage should be drawn very tight.
+Two thirds of the nurses in this country greatly err in this respect,
+and suppose that the more tightly a bandage is drawn, the better. It
+should be firm, but yet gently yielding; and therefore a piece of
+flannel cut "bias," as it is termed, or, obliquely with respect to the
+threads of which it is composed, is the most appropriate material.
+
+If the attention of the mother were necessary nowhere else, it would be
+indispensable in the application of this article. If she do not take
+special pains to prevent it, the erring though well meaning nurse may
+so compress the body with the bandage as to produce pain and uneasiness,
+and sometimes severe colic. Nay, worse evils than even this have been
+known to arise. When a child sneezes, or coughs, or cries, the abdomen
+should naturally yield gently; but if it is so confined that it cannot
+yield where the band is applied, it will yield in an unnatural
+proportion below, to the great danger of producing a species of rupture,
+no less troublesome than the one which such tight swathing is designed
+to prevent.
+
+But besides the bandage already mentioned, no other restraint of the
+body and limbs of a child is at all admissible. The Creator has kindly
+ordained that the human body and limbs, and especially its muscles, or
+moving powers, shall be developed by exercise. Confine an arm or a leg,
+even in a child of ten years of age, and the limb will not increase
+either in strength or size as it otherwise would, because its muscles
+are not exercised; and the fact is still more obvious in infancy.
+
+There is a still deeper evil. On all the limbs are fixed two sets of
+muscles; one to extend, the other to draw up or bend the limb. If you
+keep a limb extended for a considerable time, you weaken the one set of
+muscles; if you keep it bent, you weaken the other. This weakness may
+become so great that the limb will be rendered useless. There are cases
+on record--well authenticated--where children, by being obliged to sit
+in one place on a hard floor, have been made cripples for life. Hundreds
+of others are injured, though they may not become absolutely crippled.
+
+I repeat it, therefore, their dress should be so free and loose that
+they may use their little limbs, their neck and their bodies, as much as
+they please; and in every desired direction. The practices of confining
+their arms while they lie down, for fear they should scratch themselves
+with their nails, and of pinning the clothes round their feet, are
+therefore highly reprehensible. Better that they should even
+occasionally scratch themselves with their nails, than that they should
+be made the victims of injurious restraint. Who would think of tying up
+or muffling the young lamb or kid? And even the young plant--what think
+you would be the effect, if its leaves and branches could not move
+gently with the soft breezes? Would the fluids circulate, and health be
+promoted: or would they stagnate, and a morbid, sickly and dwarfish
+state be the consequence?
+
+Those whose object is to make infancy, as well as any other period of
+existence, a season of happiness, will not fail to find an additional
+motive for giving the little stranger entire freedom in the land
+whither he has so recently arrived, especially when he seems to enjoy
+it so much. Who can be so hardened as to confine him, unless compelled
+by the most pressing necessity?
+
+
+SEC. 2. _Form of the Dress._
+
+On this subject a writer in the London Literary Gazette of some eight or
+ten years ago, lays down the following general directions, to which, in
+cold weather, there can be but one possible objection, which is, they
+are not _alamode_, and are not, therefore, likely to be followed.
+
+"All that a child requires, so far as regards clothing, in the first
+month of its existence, is a simple covering for the trunk and
+extremities of the body, made of a material soft and agreeable to the
+skin, and which can retain, in an equable degree, the animal
+temperature. These qualities are to be found in perfection in fine
+flannel; and I recommend that the only clothing, for the first month or
+six weeks, be a square piece of flannel, large enough to involve fully
+and overlap the whole of the babe, with the exception of the head, which
+should be left totally uncovered. This wrapper should be fixed by a
+button near the breast, and left so loose as to permit the arms and legs
+to be freely stretched, and moved in every direction. It should be
+succeeded by a loose flannel gown with sleeves, which should be worn
+till the end of the second month; after which it may be changed to the
+common clothing used by children of this age."
+
+The advantages of such a dress are, that the movements of the infant
+will be, as we have already seen, free and unrestrained, and we shall
+escape the misery of hearing the screams which now so frequently
+accompany the dressing and undressing of almost every child. No chafings
+from friction, moreover, can occur; and as the insensible perspiration
+is in this way promoted over the whole surface of the body, the sympathy
+between the stomach and skin is happily maintained. A healthy sympathy
+of this kind, duly kept up, does much towards preserving the stomach in
+a good state, and the skin from eruptions and sores.
+
+But as I apprehend that christianity is not yet very deeply rooted in
+the minds and hearts of parents, I have already expressed my doubts
+whether they are prepared to receive and profit by advice at once
+rational and physiological. Still I cannot help hoping that I shall
+succeed in persuading mothers to have every part of a child's dress
+perfectly loose, except the band already referred to; and that should be
+but moderately tight.
+
+Common humanity ought to teach us better than to put the body of a
+helpless infant into a _vise_, and press it to death, as the first mark
+of our attention. Who has not been struck with a strange inconsistency
+in the conduct of mothers and nurses, who, while they are so exceedingly
+tender towards the infant in some points as to injure it by their
+kindness, are yet almost insensible to its cries of distress while
+dressing it? So far, indeed, are they from feeling emotions of pity,
+that they often make light of its cries, regarding them as signs of
+health and vigor.
+
+There can be no doubt, I confess, that the first cries of an infant, if
+strong, both indicate and promote a healthy state of the lungs, to a
+certain extent; but there will always be unavoidable occasions enough
+for crying to promote health, even after we have done all we can in the
+way of avoiding pain. They who only draw the child's dress the tighter,
+the more it cries, are guilty of a crime of little less enormity than
+murder.
+
+"Think," says Dr. Buchan, "of the immense number of children that die of
+convulsions soon after birth; and be assured that these (its cries) are
+much oftener owing to galling pressure, or some external injury, than to
+any inward cause." This same writer adds, that he has known a child
+which was "seized with convulsion fits" soon after being "swaddled,"
+immediately relieved by taking off the rollers and bandages; and he says
+that a loose dress prevented the return of the disease.
+
+I think it is obvious that the utmost extent to which we ought to go, in
+yielding to the fashion, as it regards form, is to use three pieces of
+clothing--the shirt, the petticoat and the frock; all of which must be
+as loose as possible; and before the infant begins to crawl about much,
+the latter should be long, for the salve of covering the feet and legs.
+At four or five years of age, loose trowsers, with boys, may be
+substituted for the petticoat; but it is a question whether something
+like the frock might not, with every individual, be usefully retained
+through life.
+
+I wish it were unnecessary, in a book like this, to join in the general
+complaint against tight lacing any part of the body, but especially the
+chest. But as this work of torture is sometimes begun almost from the
+cradle, and as prevention is better than cure, the hope of preventing
+that for which no cure appears yet to have been found, leads me to make
+a few remarks on the subject.
+
+As it has long been my opinion that one reason why mothers continue to
+overlook the subject is, that they do not understand the structure and
+motion of the chest, I have attempted the following explanation and
+illustration.
+
+I have already said, that if we bandage tightly, for a considerable
+time, any part of the human frame, it is apt to become weaker. The more
+a portion of the frame which is furnished with muscles, those curious
+instruments of motion, is used, provided it is not _over_-exerted, the
+more vigorous it is. Bind up an arm, or a hand, or a foot, and keep it
+bound for twelve hours of the day for many years, and think you it will
+be as strong as it otherwise would have been? Facts prove the contrary.
+The Chinese swathe the feet of their infant females; and they are not
+only small, but weak.
+
+I have said their feet are smaller for being bandaged. So is a hand or
+an arm. Action--healthy, constant action--is indispensable to the
+perfect development of the body and limbs. Why it is so, is another
+thing. But so it is; and it is a principle or law of the great Creator
+which cannot be evaded. More than this; if you bind some parts of the
+body tightly, so as to compress them as much as you can without
+producing actual pain, you will find that the part not only ceases to
+grow, but actually dwindles away. I have seen this tried again and
+again. Even the solid parts perish under pressure. When a person first
+wears a false head of hair, the clasp which rests upon the head, at the
+upper part of the forehead, being new and elastic, and pressing rather
+closely, will, in a few months, often make quite an indentation in the
+cranium or bone of the head.
+
+Now is it probable--nay, is it possible--that the lungs, especially
+those of young persons, can expand and come to their full and natural
+size under pressure, even though the pressure should be slight? Must
+they not be weakened? And if the pressure be strong, as it sometimes is,
+must they not dwindle away?
+
+We know, too, from the nature and structure of the lungs themselves,
+that tight lacing must injure them. Many mothers have very imperfect
+notions of what physicians mean, when they say that corsets impede the
+circulation, by preventing the full and undisturbed action of the lungs.
+They get no higher ideas of the _motion_ of the _chest_, than what is
+connected with bending the body forward and backward, from right to
+left, &c. They know that, if dressed too tightly, _this_ motion is not
+so free as it otherwise would be; but if they are not so closely laced
+as to prevent that free bending of the body of which I have been
+speaking, they think there can be no danger; or at least, none of
+consequence.
+
+Now it happens that this sort of motion is not that to which physicians
+refer, when they complain of corsets. Strictly speaking, this bending of
+the whole body is performed by the muscles of the back, and not those
+of the chest. The latter have very little to do with it. It is true,
+that even _this_ motion ought not to be hindered; but if it is, the evil
+is one of little comparative magnitude.
+
+Every time we breathe naturally, all the ribs, together with the breast
+bone, have motion. The ribs rise, and spread a little outward,
+especially towards the fore part. The breast bone not only rises, but
+swings forward a little, like a pendulum. But the moment the chest is
+swathed or bandaged, this motion must be hindered; and the more, in
+proportion to the tightness.
+
+On this point, those persons make a sad mistake, who say that "a busk
+not too wide nor too rigid seems to correspond to the supporting spine,
+and to assist, rather than impede the efforts of nature, to keep the
+body erect."
+
+Can we seriously compare the offices of the spine with those of the
+ribs, and suppose that because the former is fixed like a post, at the
+back part of the lungs, therefore an artificial post in front would be
+useful? Why, we might just as well argue in favor of hanging weights to
+a door, or a clog to a pendulum, in order to make it swing backwards and
+forwards more easily. We might almost as well say that the elbow ought
+to be made firm, to correspond with the shoulders, and thus become
+advocates for letting the stays or bandages enclose the arm above the
+elbow, and fasten it firmly to the side. Indeed, the consequences in the
+latter case, aside from a little inconvenience, would not be half so
+destructive to health as in the former. The ribs, where they join to the
+back bone, form hinges; and hinges are made for motion. But if you
+fasten them to a post in front, of what value are the hinges?
+
+If mothers ask, of what use this motion of the lungs is, it is only
+necessary to refer them to the chapter on Ventilation, in which I trust
+the subject is made intelligible, and a satisfactory answer afforded.
+
+But I might appeal to facts. Let us look at females around us generally.
+Do their countenances indicate that they enjoy as good health as they
+did when dress was worn more loosely? Have they not oftener a leaden
+hue, as if the blood in them was darker? Are they not oftener
+short-breathed than formerly? As they advance in life, have they not
+more chronic diseases? Are not their chests smaller and weaker? And as
+the doctrine that if one member suffers, all the other members suffer
+with it, is not less true in physiology than in morals, do we not find
+other organs besides the lungs weakened? Surgeons and physicians, who,
+like faithful sentinels, have watched at their post half a century,
+tell us, moreover, that if these foolish and injurious practices to
+which I refer are tolerated two centuries longer, every female will be
+deformed, and the whole race greatly degenerated, physically and
+morally.
+
+Those with whom no arguments will avail, are recommended to read the
+following remarks from the first volume of the Library of Health, p.
+119:
+
+"It is related, on the authority of Macgill, that in Tunis, after a girl
+is engaged, or betrothed, she is then _fattened_. For this purpose, she
+is cooped up in a small room, and shackles of gold and silver are placed
+upon her ancles and wrists, as a piece of dress. If she is to be married
+to a man who has discharged, despatched, or lost a former wife, the
+shackles which the former wife wore are put on the new bride's limbs,
+and she is fed till they are filled up to a proper thickness. The food
+used for this custom worthy of the barbarians is called _drough_, which
+is of an extraordinary fattening quality, and also famous for rendering
+the milk of the nurse rich and abundant. With this and their national
+dish, _cuscasoo_, the bride is literally crammed, and many actually die
+under the spoon."
+
+We laugh at all this, and well we may; but there are customs not very
+far from home, no less ridiculous.
+
+"There is a country four or five thousand miles westward of Tunis,
+where the females, to a very great extent, are emaciated for marriage,
+instead being fattened. This process is begun, in part, by shackles--not
+of gold and silver, perhaps, but of wood--but instead of being put on
+loosely, and causing the body or limbs to fill them, they are made to
+compress the body in the outset; and as the size of the latter
+diminishes, the shackles are contracted or tightened. As with the
+eastern, so with the western females, many of them die under the
+process; though a far greater number die at a remote period, as the
+consequence of it."
+
+
+SEC. 3. _Material._
+
+I have already committed myself to the reader as favoring the use of
+soft flannel in cold weather, especially for children who are not yet
+able to run about freely in the open air. The advantages of an early use
+of this material, at least for under-clothes, are numerous. The
+following are a few of them.
+
+1. Flannel, next to the skin, is a pleasant flesh brush; keeping up a
+gentle and equable irritation, and promoting perspiration and every
+other function which it is the office of the skin to perform, or assist
+in performing.
+
+2. It guards the body against the cooling effects of evaporation, when
+in a state of profuse perspiration.
+
+3. By preventing the heat of the body from escaping too rapidly, it
+keeps up a steadier temperature on the surface than any other known
+substance. The importance of the last consideration is greater, in a
+climate like our own, than elsewhere.
+
+But there are limits to the use of this article of clothing. Whenever
+the temperature of the atmosphere is so great, even without artificial
+heat, that we no longer wish to retain the heat of the body by the
+clothing, then all flannel should be removed at once, and linen should
+be substituted; taking care to replace the flannel whenever the
+temperature of the atmosphere, as indicated by the thermometer, or by
+the child's feelings, may seem to require it.
+
+It should also be kept clean. There is a very general mistake abroad on
+this subject. Many suppose that flannel can be worn longer without
+washing than other kinds of cloth. On the contrary, it should be changed
+oftener than cotton, or even linen, because it will absorb a great deal
+of fluid, especially the matter of perspiration, which, if long
+retained, is believed to ferment, and produce unhealthy, if not
+poisonous gases. For this reason, too, flannel for children's clothing
+should be white, that it may show dirt the more readily, and obtain the
+more frequent washing; although it is for this very reason--its
+liability to exhibit the least particles of dirt--that it is commonly
+rejected.
+
+One caution more in regard to the use of flannel may be necessary. With
+some children, owing to a peculiarity of constitution, flannel will
+produce eruptions on the skin, which are very troublesome. Whenever this
+is the case, the flannel should be immediately laid aside; upon which
+the eruptions usually disappear.
+
+If parents would take proper pains to get the lighter, softer kinds of
+flannel for this purpose, and be particular about its looseness and
+quantity, I should prefer, as I have already intimated, to have very
+young children, in our climate, wear this material the greater part of
+the year, excepting perhaps July and August.
+
+My reasons for this course would be, first, that I like the stimulus of
+soft flannel on the skin, if changed sufficiently often, better than
+that of any other kind of clothing. Secondly, cotton is so liable to
+take fire, that its use in the nursery and among little children seems
+very hazardous. Thirdly, silk is not quite the appropriate material, as
+a general thing, besides being too expensive; and fourthly, linen is
+not warm enough, except in mid-summer.
+
+Except, therefore, in July and August, and in cases of idiosyncracy,
+such as have just been alluded to, I would use flannel for the
+under-clothes of young children, throughout the year. But whenever they
+acquire sufficient strength to walk and run, and play much in the open
+air, I would gradually lay aside the use of all flannel, even in winter.
+Great attention, however, must be paid to the _quantity_. The parent
+who, guided by this rule, should keep on her child the same amount of
+flannel, and of the same thickness, from January to June 30th, and then,
+on the first of July, should suddenly exchange it for thin linen, in
+moderate quantity, might find trouble from it. It is better to make the
+changes more gradually; otherwise, whatever may be the material of the
+dress, the child will be likely to suffer.
+
+
+SEC. 4. _Quantity._
+
+The quantity of clothing used by different individuals of the same age,
+in the same climate, possessing constitutions nearly alike, and
+following similar occupations, is so different as to strike us with
+surprise when we first observe the fact.
+
+One will wear nothing but a coarse linen or cotton shirt, coarse coat,
+waistcoat, and pantaloons, and boots, in the coldest weather. He never,
+unless it be on the Sabbath, puts on even a cravat, and never in any
+case stockings or mittens.
+
+Another, in similar circumstances in all respects, constantly wears his
+thick stockings, flannel wrapper and drawers, and cravat; and seldom
+goes out, in cold weather, without mittens and an overcoat. He is not a
+whit warmer: indeed he often suffers more from the cold, than his
+neighbor who dresses in the manner just described.
+
+Why all this difference? It is no doubt the result of habit. Any
+individual may accustom himself to much or little clothing. And the
+earlier the habit is begun, the greater is its influence.
+
+Some persons, observing how little clothing one may accustom himself to
+use and yet be comfortable, have told us, that so far as mere
+temperature is concerned, we need no clothing at all. They relate the
+story of the Scythian and Alexander. Alexander asked the former how he
+could go without clothes in such a cold climate. He replied, by asking
+Alexander how he could go with his face naked. "Habit reconciles us to
+this;" was the reply. "Think me, then, _all_ face," said the Scythian.
+
+But admitting that certain individuals, and even a few rude tribes,
+have gone without clothing; did they therefore follow, in this respect,
+the intentions of nature? The greatest stickler for adhering to nature's
+plan, cannot prove this. Analogy is against it. Most of the other
+animals, even in hot climates, are furnished with a hairy covering from
+the first; and in cold climates, the Author of their being has even
+provided them with an increase of clothing for the winter. Their fur, on
+the approach of cold weather, not only becomes whiter, and therefore
+conducts the heat away from the body more slowly, but, as every dealer
+in furs well understands, it becomes softer and thicker. And yet the
+blood of the furred animals of cold countries is as warm as ours, if not
+warmer.
+
+The inferences which it seems to me we ought to make from this are, that
+if other animals require clothing, and even a change of clothing, so
+does man; and that as the Creator has left him to provide, by his own
+ingenuity, for a great many of his wants, instead of furnishing him with
+instinct to direct him, so in relation to dress. And even if it could be
+proved that dress were naturally unnecessary, with reference to
+temperature, I should still defend its use on other principles. The few
+speculative minds, therefore, that in the vagaries of their fancy, but
+never in their practice, reject it, are not to be regarded.
+
+The principle laid down in the commencement of the chapter on
+Temperature, is the great principle which should guide us in regard to
+dress. But although we should always keep a little too cool rather than
+a little too warm, it is by no means desirable to be cold. Any degree of
+chilliness, long continued, interrupts the functions which the skin
+ought to perform, and thus produces mischief.
+
+The same rules, in this respect, apply to eating, as well as to dress.
+It is better to eat a little less than nature requires, than a little
+more. It is a generally received opinion, however, that mankind
+frequently, at least in this country, eat about twice as much as health
+requires. This is owing to habit; and perhaps the power of the latter is
+as great in this respect as in regard to dress.
+
+The great point in regard to food or dress is, to _begin_ right, and,
+observing what nature requires--studying at the same time the testimony
+of others--to endeavor to keep within the bounds she has assigned. It
+has already been more than intimated, that if the nursery be kept in a
+proper temperature, a single loose piece of dress is, for some time, all
+that is required. In pursuance of this principle, through life, I
+believe few persons would be found who would need more at one time than
+a single suit of woollen clothes, even in the severest winters of our
+northern climate.
+
+I have always observed that they who wear the greatest amount of
+clothing, are most subject to colds. There are obvious reasons why it
+should be so. This, then, if a fact, is one of the strongest reasons in
+favor of acquiring a habit of going as thinly clad as we possibly can,
+and not at the same time feel any inconvenience.
+
+But after all, whether it be winter or summer, we must vary our clothing
+with the variations of the weather, as indicated by the thermometer, and
+our own feelings. Sometimes, in our ever-changing and ever-changeable
+climate, it may be necessary to vary our dress three or four times a
+day. Some cry out against this practice as dangerous, but I have never
+found it so. I have known persons who made it a constant practice; and I
+never found that they sustained any injury from it, except the loss of a
+little time; and the increase of comfort was more than enough to
+compensate for that. There is one thing to be avoided, however, whether
+we change our clothing--our linen especially--twice a day, or only twice
+a week--which is, _dampness_.
+
+
+SEC. 5. _Caps._
+
+The practice of putting caps on infants is happily going by; and perhaps
+it may be thought unnecessary for me to dwell a single moment on the
+subject. But as the practice still prevails in some parts of the
+country, it may be well to bestow upon it a few passing remarks.
+
+Many mothers have not considered that the circulation of the blood in
+young infants is peculiarly active; that a large amount of blood is at
+that period carried to the head; that in consequence of this, the head
+is proportionably hotter than in adults; and that from this source
+arises the tendency of very young children to brain-fever, dropsy in the
+head, and other diseases of this part of the system. But these are most
+undoubted facts.
+
+Hence one reason why the heads of infants should be kept as cool as
+possible; and though a thin cap confines less heat than a thick head of
+hair does when they are older, yet they are less able to bear it. The
+truth is, that nature furnishes a covering for the head, just about as
+fast as a covering is required, and the child's safety will permit.
+
+At the present day, few persons will probably be found, who will defend
+the utility of caps, any longer than till the hair is grown. The
+general apology for their use after this period, and indeed in most
+instances before, is, that they look pretty. "What would people say to
+see my darling without a cap?"
+
+But when the head is kept, from the first, totally uncovered, the hair
+grows more rapidly, dandruff and other scurfy diseases rarely attack the
+scalp; catarrh, snuffles, and other similar complaints, and above all,
+dropsy in the head, seldom show themselves; and the period of cutting
+teeth, that most dangerous period in the life of an infant, is passed
+over with much more safety.
+
+"Nothing but custom," says a foreign writer, "can reconcile us to the
+cap, with all its lace and trumpery ornaments, on the beautiful head of
+a child; and I would ask any one to say candidly, whether he thinks the
+children in the pictures of Titian and Raffaelle would be improved by
+having their heads covered with caps, instead of the silken curls--the
+adornment of nature--which cluster round their smiling faces. If there
+were no other reason for disusing caps for infants, but the improvement
+which it produces in the _appearance_ of the child, I would maintain
+that this is a sufficient inducement." And I concur with him fully.
+
+As to the notion--now I hope nearly exploded--that it is necessary to
+cover up the "open of the head," as it is called, nothing can be more
+idle. This part of the head requires no more covering than any other
+part; and if it did, all the dress in the world could not affect it in
+the least, except to retard the growth of the bones, which, in due time,
+ought to close up the space; and this effect, anything which keeps the
+head too hot might help to produce. Of the folly of wetting the head
+with spirits, or any other medicated lotions, and of making daily
+efforts to bring it into shape, it is unnecessary to speak in the
+present chapter.
+
+
+SEC. 6. _Hats and Bonnets._
+
+The hats worn in this country are almost universally too warm. But if it
+is a great mistake in adults to wear thick, heavy hats, it is much more
+so in the case of children.
+
+The infant in the nursery, as we have already seen, needs no covering of
+the kind. It is absolutely necessary that the head should be kept as
+cool as possible; and absolutely dangerous to cover it too warmly. At a
+later period, however, the danger greatly diminishes, because the
+circulation of the blood becomes more equal, and does not tend so much
+towards the brain.
+
+Still, however, the head is hotter than the limbs, especially the hands
+and feet; and I cannot help thinking that the hair is the only covering
+which is perfectly safe, either in childhood or age; except in the
+sunshine or in the storm. There may be--there probably is--some danger
+in going without hat or bonnet in the hot sun; though I have known many
+children, and some grown persons, who were constantly exposed in this
+way, and yet appeared not to suffer from it.
+
+But this may be the proper place to state that we are ever in great
+danger of deceiving ourselves on this subject. If the individuals who
+follow practices usually regarded as pernicious, while their habits in
+other respects are just like those of other persons around them who have
+similar strength, &c. of constitution,--if these individuals, I say,
+were wholly to escape disease, through life, or if they were to be so
+much more free from it, and live to an age so much greater than others
+as to constitute a striking and obvious difference in their favor, we
+might then safely argue that the practices which they follow are at
+least without dangers, if not of obvious advantage. But when we see them
+beset with ills, like other people, it is not safe to pronounce their
+habits favorable to health, since it is impossible to know whether some
+of the ills which they suffer are not produced by them.
+
+These remarks are applicable to the disuse of any covering for the head
+in the sun and in the rain. For you will find those who adopt this
+practice from early infancy,[Footnote: I say, from early infancy;
+because we may adopt the best habits in mature years, after our
+constitutions have been broken up by error and vice, without effecting
+anything more than to keep us from actually sinking at once. Indeed, in
+most cases we ought not to expect more.] subject to as many diseases as
+those around them with similar constitutions, but with habits somewhat
+different; and as our diseases are generally the consequences of our
+errors in one way or another, it is impossible to say with certainty
+that some of them might not have arisen from exposure of the head.
+
+I should not hesitate, therefore, to advise all mothers to put a light
+hat or bonnet on the heads of their children, whenever they are to be
+exposed to the direct rays of the summer sun, or to the rain. And as we
+cannot always foresee when and where these exposures will arise, and as
+it is believed that these coverings, if light, will never be productive
+of much injury while we are abroad in the open air, it will follow that
+it is better to wear than to omit them.
+
+But while I contend for their use as consistent with health and sound
+philosophy, I must not be understood as admitting the use of such hats
+as are worn at present, even by children. They are, as I have said
+before, too hot. What should be substituted, I am unable to determine;
+but until something can be supplied, which would not be half so
+oppressive as our common wool hats, I should regard it as the lesser
+evil to omit them entirely. The danger of going bare-headed, if the
+practice is commenced early, we know from the customs of some savage
+nations, can never be very great.
+
+
+SEC. 7. _Covering for the Feet._
+
+The same reason for avoiding the use of any covering for the head, in
+early infancy, is a sufficient reason for covering the feet well. For
+just in proportion as the blood is sent to the head in superabundance,
+and keeps up in it an undue degree of heat, just in the same proportion
+is it sent to the feet in too _small_ a quantity, leaving these parts
+liable to cold. Now it is a fundamental law with medical men, that the
+feet ought to be kept warmer than the head, if possible; especially
+while the child is very young, and exposed to brain diseases.
+
+So long, therefore, as children are young, and unable to exercise their
+feet, stockings ought to be used, both in summer and winter; but I
+prefer to have them short, unless long ones can be used without garters.
+Everything in the shape of a garter or ligature round the limbs, body,
+or neck of a child, except a single body-band, already mentioned in
+another chapter, ought forever to be banished.
+
+It has often been objected, I know, that stockings will make the feet
+tender. But as no child was ever hardened by _continued_ and severe cold
+applied to any part of the body, but the contrary, so no one was ever
+made more tender by being kept moderately warm. Excess of heat, like
+excess of cold, will alike weaken either children or adults; but there
+is little danger of heating the feet and legs of infants too much during
+the first year of infancy.
+
+It is also said that stockings are apt to receive and retain wet. But as
+I shall show in another place that wet clothes should be frequently
+changed, this objection would be equally strong against wearing coats
+and diapers.
+
+As to shoes, there is some variety of opinion among medical men. A few
+hold that they cramp the feet, and prevent children from learning to
+walk as early as they otherwise would. If it were best for children
+that they should learn to walk as early as possible, the last objection
+might have weight. But it seems to me not at all desirable to be in
+haste about their walking. Indeed, I greatly prefer to retard their
+progress, in this respect, rather than to hasten it.
+
+As to the first objection, that shoes cramp the feet too much, nearly
+its whole force turns upon the question whether they are made of proper
+materials or not. There is no need of making them of cow-hide, or any
+other thick leather. The soles are the most important part. These will
+defend the feet against pins, needles, and such other sharp substances
+as are usually found on the floor; and the upper part of the shoe, so
+long as the wearer remains in the nursery, may be made of the softest
+and most yielding material--even of cloth. Infants' shoes should always
+be made on two lasts, one for each foot.
+
+The philosopher Locke held, that in order to harden the young, their
+shoes ought to be "so that they might leak and let in water, whenever
+they came near it." There may be and probably is, no harm in having a
+child wet his feet occasionally, provided he is soon supplied with dry
+stockings again; but it is hazardous for either children or adults to go
+too long in wet stockings, and especially to sit long in them, after
+they have been using much active exercise. I am in favor of good,
+substantial shoes and stockings for people of all ages and conditions,
+and at all seasons; and believe it entirely in accordance with sound
+economy and the laws of the human constitution.
+
+
+SEC. 8. _Pins._
+
+The custom of using ten or a dozen pins in the dressing of children,
+ought by all means to be set aside. They not only often wound the skin,
+but they have occasionally been known to penetrate the body and the
+joints of the limbs. So many of these dreadful accidents occur, and
+where no accident happens, so much pain is occasionally given by their
+sharp points to the little sufferer, who cannot tell what the matter is,
+that it is quite time the practice were abolished.
+
+Do you ask what can be substituted?--The following mode is adopted by
+Dr. Dewees in his own family, as mentioned in his work on the "Physical
+and Medical Treatment of Children," at page 86.
+
+"The belly-band and the petticoat have strings; and not a single pin is
+used in their adjustment. The little shirt, which is always made much
+larger than the infant's body, is folded on the back and bosom, and
+these folds kept in their places by properly adjusting the body of the
+petticoat: so far not a pin is used. The diaper requires one, but this
+should be of a large size, and made to serve the double purpose of
+holding the folds of this article, as well as keeping the belly-band in
+its proper place; the latter having a small tag of double linen
+depending from its lower margin, by which it is secured to the diaper,
+by the same pin.
+
+"Should an extraordinary display of best 'bib and tucker' be required
+upon any special occasion, a third pin may be admitted to ensure the
+well-sitting of the 'frock' waist in front;--this last pin, however, is
+applied externally; so that the risk of its getting into the child's
+body is very small, even if it should become displaced."
+
+The writer from whom the last two paragraphs are taken, says be has seen
+needles substituted for pins; and relates a long story of a child whose
+life was well nigh destroyed in this manner. It underwent months of ill
+health, and many moments of excruciating agony, before the cause of its
+trouble was suspected. Sometimes its distress was so great that nothing
+but large doses of laudanum, sufficient to stupify it, could afford the
+least relief. At last a tumor was discovered by the attending physician,
+near one of the bones on which we sit, and a needle was extracted two
+inches long. The needle had been put in its clothes, and, by slipping
+into the folds of the skin, had insinuated itself, unperceived, into the
+child's body. It is pleasing to add, that, although the little sufferer
+had now been ill seven or eight months, and had endured almost
+everything but death,--fever, diarrhoea, and the most excruciating
+pain,--it soon recovered.
+
+This shocking circumstance is enough, one would think, to deter every
+mother or nurse, who becomes acquainted with it, from using needles in
+infants' clothes. Happy would it be, if, in banishing needles, they
+would contrive to banish pins also, and adopt either the plan of Dr.
+Dewees, or one still more rational.
+
+
+SEC. 9. _Remaining Wet._
+
+On the subject of changing the wet clothing of a child, there is a
+strange and monstrous error abroad; which is, that by suffering them to
+remain wet and cold, we harden the constitution. The filthiness of this
+practice is enough to condemn it, were there nothing else to be said
+against it.
+
+It is insisted on by many, I know, that as water which is salt, when it
+is applied to the skin, and suffered to remain long, while it secures
+the point of hardening the child, prevents all possibility of its taking
+cold, it hence follows, that wet diapers are not injurious. But this is
+a mistake. Every time an infant is allowed to remain wet, we not only
+endanger its taking cold, but expose it to excoriations of the skin, if
+not to serious and dangerous inflammation. In short, if frequent changes
+are not made, whatever some mothers and nurses may think, they may rest
+assured, that the health of the child must sooner or later suffer as the
+consequence.
+
+Nor is it enough to hang up a diaper by the fire, and, as soon as it is
+dry, apply it again. It should be clean, as well as dry. Let us not be
+told, that it is troublesome to wash so often. Everything is in a
+certain sense troublesome. Everything in this world, which is worth
+having, is the result of toil. Nothing but absolute poverty affords the
+shadow of an excuse for neglecting anything which will promote the
+health, or even the comfort of the tender infant.
+
+Of the impropriety and danger of suffering wet clothes to dry upon us, I
+shall speak elsewhere; as well as of the evil of suffering children to
+remain dirty,--their skins or their clothing.
+
+
+SEC. 10. _Remarks on the Dress of Boys._
+
+Whatever tends to disturb the growth of the body, or hinder the free
+exercise of the limbs, during the infancy and childhood of both sexes
+is injurious. And as every mother has the control of these things, I
+have thought it desirable to append to this chapter a few thoughts on
+the particular dress of each sex. I begin with that of boys.
+
+"Nothing can be more injurious to health," says a foreign writer, "than
+the tight jacket, buttoned up to the throat, the well-fitted boots, and
+the stiff stock." And his remarks are nearly as applicable to this
+country as to England. The consequences of this preposterous method of
+dressing boys, are diminutive manhood, deformity of person, and a
+constitution either already imbued with disease, or highly susceptible
+of its impression.
+
+No part of the modern dress of boys is more absurd, than the stiff
+stock, or thick cravat. It is not only injurious by pressing on the
+_jugular_ veins, and preventing the blood from freely passing out of the
+head, but, by constantly pressing on the numerous and complex muscles of
+the neck, at this period of life, it prevents their development; because
+whatever hinders the action of the muscular parts, hinders their growth,
+and makes them even appear as if wasted.
+
+It would be a great improvement, if this part of dress were wholly
+discarded; and when is there so appropriate a time for setting it aside,
+as _before we began to use it_; or rather while we are under the more
+immediate care of our mothers?
+
+The use of jackets buttoned up to the throat, except in cold weather, is
+objectionable; but this is very fortunately going out of fashion.
+
+Boots, if used at all, should fit well; to this there can be no possible
+objection. What the writer, whom I have quoted, referred to, was
+probably the tight boot, worn to prevent the foot from being large and
+unseemly; but producing, as tight boots inevitably do, an injurious
+effect upon the muscles, a constrained walk, and corns.
+
+What can be more painful, than to see little boys--yes, _little_
+boys--boys neither fifteen, nor twenty, nor twenty-five, walk as if they
+were fettered and trussed up for the spit; unable to look down, or turn
+their heads, on account of a thick stock, or two or three cravats piled
+on the top of each other--and only capable of using their arms to dangle
+a cane, or carry an umbrella, as they hobble along, perhaps on a hot
+sun-shiny day in July or August?
+
+But this evil, you who are mothers, have it very generally in your power
+to prevent, if you are only wise enough to secure that ascendancy over
+your children's minds which the Author of their nature designed. At the
+least, you can prevent it for a time--the most important period, too--by
+your own authority. This you will not need any urging to induce you to
+do, if you ever become thoroughly convinced of its pre-eminent folly.
+
+
+SEC. 11. _On the Dress of Girls._
+
+The same general principles which should guide the young mother in
+regard to the dress of boys, are equally important and applicable in the
+management of girls. The whole dress should, as much as possible, hang
+loosely from the shoulders, without pressing on the body, or any part of
+it. This, I say, is the grand point to be aimed at; and this is the only
+great principle, whatever some mothers may think, which will lead to
+true beauty of person, and gracefulness of gesture.
+
+There is, however, a slight difference to be made between the dress of
+girls and that of boys. The greater delicacy of the female frame
+requires that the surface of the body should be kept rather warmer, as
+well as better protected from the vicissitudes of the atmosphere.
+
+But is this the fact? Is not the contrary true? While boys in the winter
+are clad in warm woollen vestments, covering every part of their trunk,
+many portions of the female frame, and especially many parts of their
+limbs, are left so much exposed, that in cold weather you scarcely find
+a girl abroad, who appears to be comfortable.
+
+Nay, they are not only uncomfortable abroad, but at home; and if I were
+to present to mothers in detail, a tenth of the evils which their
+daughters suffer from not adopting a warmer method of clothing, I should
+probably be stared at by some, and laughed at by others. All this, too,
+without speaking of going out of warm concert rooms, theatres, ball
+rooms and lecture rooms, into the night air, or out of school rooms and
+churches, to walk home with measured and stiffened pace, lest the sin
+unpardonable of walking swiftly or RUNNING,--that active exercise which
+health requires, which youthful feeling prompts, and which duty ought to
+inspire,--should unwarily be committed.
+
+The tremendous evils of confining the lungs have been adverted to at
+sufficient length. In reference to that general subject, I need only
+add, that if the chest be not duly exercised and expanded, the liver,
+the lungs, the stomach, digestion, absorption, circulation and
+perspiration, are all hindered. And even so far as the various internal
+organs of the body _are_ active, they act at a great disadvantage. The
+blood which they "work up," is bad blood, and must be so, as long as the
+lungs do not have free play. Hence may and do arise all sorts of
+diseases; especially diseases of OBSTRUCTION; and such as are often very
+difficult of removal.
+
+What can be a more pitiable sight than some modern girls going home from
+school or church in winter? Thinly clad, the blood is all driven from
+the surface upon the internal organs, and what remains is so loaded with
+carbon, which the lungs ought but cannot discharge, that her skin has a
+leaden hue; her teeth chatter; her very heart is chilled in her panting,
+frozen bosom; she cannot run, and if she could, she must not, for it
+would be vulgar! Every mother should shrink from the sight of such a
+picture.
+
+
+
+
+CHAPTER V.
+
+CLEANLINESS.
+
+Physiology of the human skin. Of checking perspiration. Diseases thus
+produced. "Dirt" not "healthy." How the mistake originated. "Smell of
+the earth." Effect of uncleanliness on the morals. Filthiness produces
+bowel complaints. Changing dress for the sake of cleanliness.
+
+
+No mother will ever pay that attention to cleanliness which its
+importance to health and happiness demands, till she perceives its
+necessity. And she will never perceive that necessity till she has
+studied attentively the machinery of the human frame--and especially its
+wonderful covering.
+
+The skin is pierced with little openings or _pores_, so numerous that
+some have reckoned them at a million to every square inch. At all
+events, they are so small that the naked eye can neither distinguish nor
+count them; and so numerous, that we cannot pierce the skin with the
+finest needle without hitting one or more of them.
+
+When we are in perfect health, and the skin clean, a gentle moisture or
+mist continually oozes through these pores. This process is called
+_perspiration_; and the moisture which thus escapes, the _matter_ of
+perspiration.
+
+Perspiration may be checked in two ways. 1. by filth on the skin; 2. by
+what is commonly called taking cold--for taking cold essentially
+consists in chilling the skin to such a degree as to stop, for some
+time, the escape of this moisture. Most persons have doubtless observed,
+that in the first stages of a cold, they frequently have a very dry
+skin. Whereas, when we are in health, the skin usually feels moist.
+
+Our health is not only endangered, and a foundation laid for fevers,
+rheumatisms, and consumptions, by stopping the pores of the skin with
+dirt, or anything else, but there is also danger from another and a very
+different source.
+
+The blood, in its circulation through the body, is constantly becoming
+impure; and as it thus comes back impure to the heart, is as constantly
+sent to the lungs, where it comes in close contact with the air which we
+breathe, and is purified. But this same purifying process which goes on
+in the lungs, goes on, too, if the skin is in a pure, free, healthy
+condition, all over the surface of the body. If it is not--if the skin
+cannot do this part of the work--an additional burden is thus laid on
+the lungs, which in this way soon become so overworked, that they
+cannot perform their own proportion of the labor. And whenever this
+happens, the health must soon suffer.
+
+The strange belief, that "dirt is healthy," has much influence on the
+daily practice of thousands of those who are ignorant of the human
+structure, and the laws which govern and regulate the animal economy. It
+has probably originated in the well-known fact, that those children who
+are allowed to play in the dirt, are often as healthy--and even _more_
+healthy--than those who are confined to the nursery or the parlor.
+
+Now, while it is admitted that this is a very common case, it is yet
+believed that the former class of children would be still more vigorous
+than they now are, if they were kept more cleanly, or were at least
+frequently washed. It is not the dirt which promotes their health, but
+their active exercise in the open air; the advantages of which are more
+than sufficient to compensate for the injury which they sustain from the
+dirt. That is to say, they retain, in spite of the dirt, better health
+than those who are denied the blessings of pure air and abundant
+exercise, and subjected to the opposite extreme of almost constant
+confinement.
+
+There is something deceitful, after all, in the ruddy, blooming
+appearance of those children who are left by the busy parent to play in
+the road or field, without attention to cleanliness. If this were not
+so, how comes it to pass that they suffer much more, not only from
+chronic, but from acute diseases, than children whose parents are in
+better circumstances?
+
+I am the more solicitous to combat a belief in the salutary tendency of
+an unclean skin, because I know it prevails to some extent; and because
+I know also, both from reason and from fact, that it is a gross error.
+
+It is, however, true, that years sometimes intervene, before the evil
+consequences of dirtiness appear. The office of the vessels of the skin
+being interrupted, an increase of action is imposed on other parts,
+especially on those internal organs commonly called glands, which action
+is apt to settle into obstinate disease. Hence, at least when aided by
+other causes, often arise, in later life, after the source of the evil
+is forgotten, if it were ever suspected, rheumatism, scrofula, jaundice,
+and even consumption.
+
+There is a strange notion abroad, that the _smell_ of the earth is
+beneficial, especially to consumptive persons. I honestly believe,
+however, that it is more likely to create consumption than to cure it.
+Besides, in what does this smell consist? Do the silex, the alumine, and
+the other earths, with their compounds, emit any odor? Rarely, I
+believe, unless when mixed with vegetable matter. But no gases
+necessary to health are evolved during the decomposition of vegetable
+matter; on the contrary, it is well known that many of them tend to
+induce disease.
+
+I am thoroughly persuaded that too much attention cannot be paid to
+cleanliness; and the demand for such attention is equally imperious in
+the case of those who cultivate the earth, or labor in it, or on stone,
+during the intervals of their useful avocations, as in the case of those
+individuals who follow other employments.
+
+I must also protest against the doctrine, that the smell or taste of the
+earth, much less a coat of it spread over the surface, and closing up,
+for hours and days together, thousands and millions of those little
+pores with which the Author of this "wondrous frame" has pierced the
+skin, can have a salutary tendency.
+
+The opinion has been even maintained, that uncleanly habits are not only
+unfavorable to health, but to morality. There can be no doubt that he
+who neglects his person and dress will be found lower in the scale of
+morals, other things being equal, than he who pays a due regard to
+cleanliness.
+
+Some have supposed that a disposition to neglect personal cleanliness
+was indicative of genius. But this opinion is grossly erroneous, and
+has well nigh ruined many a young man.
+
+I am far from recommending any degree of fastidiousness on this subject.
+Truth and correct practice usually lie between extremes. But I do and
+must insist, that the connection between cleanliness of body and purity
+of moral character, is much more close and direct than has usually been
+supposed.
+
+But to return to the more immediate effects of cleanliness on health.
+There is one class of diseases in particular which, in an eminent
+degree, owe their origin to a neglect of cleanliness. I refer to the
+bowel complaints so common among children during summer and autumn.
+Except in case of teething, the use of unripe fruits, or the _abuse_ of
+those which are in themselves excellent, it is probable that more than
+half of the bowel complaints of the young are either produced or greatly
+aggravated by a foul skin.
+
+The importance of washing the whole body in water will be insisted on in
+the chapter on Bathing; it is therefore unnecessary to say anything
+farther on that subject in this place, except to observe that whether
+the washings of the body be partial or general, they should be thorough,
+so far as they are carried. There are thousands of children who, in
+pretending to wash their hands and face, will do little more than wet
+the inside of their hands, and the tips of their noses and ears unless
+great care is taken.
+
+Few things are more important than suitable changes of dress. There are
+those, who, from principle, never wear the same under-garment but one
+day without washing, either in summer or winter; and there are others
+who, though they may wear an article without washing two or three
+successive days, take care to change their dress at night--never
+sleeping in a garment which they have worn during the day.
+
+It is a very common objection to suggestions like these, that they will
+do very well for those who have wealth, but not for the poor;--that
+_they_ have neither the time nor the means of attending to them. How can
+they change their clothes every day? we are asked. And how can they
+afford to have a separate dress for the night?
+
+There must be retrenchment in some other matters, it is admitted. In
+order to find time for more washing, or money to pay others for the
+labor, the poor must deny themselves a few things which they now
+suppose, if they have ever thought at all on the subject, are conducive
+to their happiness--but which are in reality either useless or
+injurious. Something may be saved by a reasonable dress, as I have
+already shown. Other items of expense, which might be spared with great
+advantage to health and happiness, and applied to the purpose in
+question, will be mentioned in the chapter on Food and Drink.
+
+
+
+
+CHAPTER VI.
+
+ON BATHING.
+
+Danger of savage practices. Rousseau. Cold water at birth. First washing
+of the child. Rules. Temperature. Bathing vessels. Unreasonable fears.
+Whims. Views of Dr. Dewees. Hardening. Rules for the cold bath. Securing
+a glow. Coming out of the bath. Local baths. Shower bath. Vapor bath.
+Sponging. Neglect of bathing. The Romans. Treatment of children compared
+with that of domestic animals.
+
+
+Some of the hardy nations of antiquity, as well as a few savage tribes
+of modern times, have been accustomed to plunge their new-born infants
+into cold water. This is done for the two-fold purpose of washing and
+hardening them.
+
+To all who reason but for a moment on this subject, the danger of such a
+practice must be obvious. So sudden a change from a temperature of
+nearly 100 of Fahrenheit to one quite low, perhaps scarcely 40, must
+and does have a powerful effect on the nervous system even of an adult;
+but how much more on that of a tender infant? We may form some idea of
+this, by the suddenness and violence of its cries, by the sudden
+contractions and relaxations of its limbs and body, and by its
+palpitating heart and difficult breathing.
+
+Every one's experience may also remind him, that what produces at best a
+momentary pain to himself, cannot otherwise than be painful to the
+infant. In making a comparison between adults and infants, however, in
+this respect, we should remember that the lungs of the infant do not get
+into full and vigorous action until some time after birth; and that, on
+this account, the hold they have on life is so feeble, that any powerful
+shock, and especially that given by the cold bath, is ten times more
+dangerous to them than to adults, or even to infants themselves, after a
+few months have elapsed.
+
+It is surprising to me that so sensible a writer as Rousseau generally
+is on education, should have encouraged this dangerous practice; and
+still more so that many fathers even now, blinded by theory, should
+persist in it, notwithstanding the pleadings of the mother or the nurse,
+and the plainest dictates of common sense and common prudence.[Footnote:
+Nothing is intended to be said here, which shall encourage unthinking
+nurses or mothers in setting themselves against measures which have been
+prescribed by higher authority,--I mean the physician. There are cases
+of this kind, where it requires all the resolution which a father,
+uninterrupted, can summon to his aid, to administer a dose or perform a
+task, on which he knows the existence of his child may be depending: but
+when the thoughtless entreaties of the mother or nurse are interposed,
+it makes his condition most distressing. Mothers, in such cases, ought
+to encourage rather than remonstrate. They who _do not_, are guilty of
+cruelty, and--perhaps--of infanticide.]
+
+A child plunged into cold water at birth, by those whose theories carry
+them so far as to do it even in the coldest weather, has sometimes been
+twenty-four hours in recovering, notwithstanding the most active and
+judicious efforts to restore it. In other instances the results have
+been still more distressing. Dr. Dewees is persuaded that he has "known
+death itself to follow the use of cold water," in this way--I believe he
+means _immediate_ death--and adds, with great confidence, that he has
+"repeatedly seen it require the lapse of several hours before reaction
+could establish itself; during which time the pale and sunken cheeks and
+livid lips declared the almost exhausted state" of the infant's
+excitability.[Footnote: "Dewees on children" p. 72.]
+
+We need not hesitate to put very great confidence in the opinion here
+expressed; for besides being a close and just observer of human nature,
+Dr. D. has had the direction and management, in a greater or less
+degree, of several thousands of new-born infants.
+
+Nothing, indeed, in the whole range of physical education, seems better
+proved, than that while some few infants, whose constitutions are
+naturally very strong, are invigorated by the practice in question,
+others, in the proportion of hundreds for one, who are _less_ robust,
+are injured for life; some of them seriously.
+
+Nor will spirits added to the water make any material difference. I am
+aware that there is a very general notion abroad, that the injurious
+effects of cold water, in its application both internally and
+externally, are greatly diminished by the addition of a little spirit;
+but it is not so. Does the addition of such a small quantity of spirit
+as is generally used in these cases, materially alter the temperature?
+Is it not the application of a cold liquid to a heated surface, still?
+Can we make anything else of it, either more or less?
+
+I do not undertake to say, that the cold bath may not be so managed in
+the progress of infancy, as to make it beneficial, especially to strong
+constitutions. It is its indiscriminate application to all new-born
+children, without regard to strength of constitution, or any other
+circumstances, that I most strenuously oppose. Of its occasional use,
+under the eye of a physician, and by parents who will discriminate, I
+shall say more presently.
+
+Our first duty on receiving a new inhabitant of the world is, to see
+that it is gently but thoroughly washed, in moderately warm soft water,
+with fine soap. Special attention should be paid to the folds of the
+joints, the neck, the arm pits, &c. For rubbing the body, in order to
+disengage anything which might obstruct the pores, or irritate or fret
+the skin, nothing can be preferable to a piece of soft sponge or
+flannel. Though the operation should be thorough, and also as rapid as
+the nature of circumstances will permit, all harshness should be
+avoided. When finished, the child should be wiped perfectly dry with
+soft flannel.
+
+While the washing is performed, the temperature of the room should be
+but a few degrees lower than that of the water; and the child should not
+be exposed to currents of cold air. If the weather is severe, or if
+currents of air in the room cannot otherwise be avoided, the dressing,
+undressing, washing, &c., may be done near the fire. And I repeat the
+rule, it should always be done with as much rapidity as is compatible
+with safety.
+
+Here will be seen one great advantage of simplicity in the form of
+dress. If the more rational suggestions of our chapter on that subject
+are attended to, it will greatly facilitate the process of washing, and
+the subsequent daily process of bathing, which I am about to recommend
+to my readers.
+
+This washing process is also an introduction to bathing. For it should
+be repeated every day; but with less and less attention to the washing,
+and more and more reference to the bathing. How long the child should
+stay in the bath, must be left to experience. If he is quiet, fifteen
+minutes can never be too long; and I should not object to twenty. If
+otherwise, and you are obliged to remove him in five minutes, or even in
+three, still the bathing will be of too much service to be dispensed
+with.
+
+Nothing should be mixed with the water, if the infant is healthy, except
+a little soap, as already mentioned. Some are fond of using salt; but it
+is by no means necessary, and may do harm.
+
+The proper hour for bathing is the early part of the day, or about the
+middle of the forenoon. This season is selected, because the process,
+manage it as carefully as we may, is at first a little exhausting. As
+the child grows older, however, and not only becomes stronger, but
+appears to be actually refreshed and invigorated by the bath, it will be
+advisable to defer it to a later and later hour. By the time the babe is
+three months old, particularly in the warm season, the hour of bathing
+may be at sunset.
+
+The degree of heat must be determined, in part, by observing its effect
+on the child; and in part by a thermometer. For this, and for other
+purposes, a thermometer, as I have already more than hinted, is
+indispensable in every nursery. Our own sensations are often at best a
+very unsafe guide. There is one rule which should always be
+observed--never to have the temperature of the bath below that of the
+air of the room. If the thermometer show the latter to be 70, the bath
+should be something like 80; perhaps with feeble children, rather more.
+
+Great care ought always to be taken to proportion the air of the room
+and the water of the bath to each other. If, for example, the
+temperature of the room have been, for some time, unusually warm, that
+of the water must not be so low as if it had been otherwise. On the
+contrary, if the room have been, for a considerable time, rather cool,
+the bath may be made several degrees cooler than in other circumstances.
+But in no case and in no circumstances must a _warm_ bath--intended as
+such, simply--be so warm or so cold, as to make the child uncomfortable;
+whether the temperature be 70, 80, or 90.
+
+It is hardly necessary to add, that in bathing a young child, the vessel
+used for the purpose should be large enough to give free scope to all
+the motions of its extremities. Most children are delighted to play and
+scramble about in the water. I know, indeed, that the contrary sometimes
+happens; but when it does, it is usually--I do not say _always_--because
+the countenances of those who are around express fear or apprehension;
+for it is surprising how early these little beings learn to decipher our
+feelings by our very countenances.
+
+Some of our readers may be surprised at the intimation that there are
+mothers and nurses who have fears or apprehensions in regard to the
+effects of the warm bath; but others--and it is for such that I write
+this paragraph--will fully understand me. I have been often surprised at
+the fact, but it is undoubted, that there is a strong prejudice against
+warm bathing, in many parts of the country. In endeavoring to trace the
+cause, I have usually found that it arose from having seen or heard of
+some child who died soon after its application. I have had many a parent
+remonstrate with me on the danger of the warm bath; and this, too, in
+circumstances when it appeared to me, that the child's existence
+depended, under God, on that very measure. Perhaps it is useless in such
+cases, however, to reason with parents on the subject. The medical
+practitioner must do his duty boldly and fearlessly, and risk the
+consequences.
+
+But as I am writing, not for persons under immediate excitement, but for
+those that may be reasoned with, it is proper to say, that in medicine,
+the warm bath is so often used in extreme cases, and as a last resort,
+even when death has already grasped, or is about to fix his grasp on the
+sufferer, that it would be very strange if many persons _did not_ die,
+just after bathing. But that the bathing itself ever produced this
+result, in one case in a thousand, there is not the slightest reason for
+believing. [Footnote: Let me not be understood as intimating that, the
+general neglect of bathing, of which I complain so loudly, is _chiefly_
+owing to this unreasonable prejudice, though this no doubt has its sway.
+On the contrary, I believe it is much oftener owing to ignorance,
+indolence, and parsimony.]
+
+There are many more whims connected with bathing, as with almost
+everything else, which it were equally desirable to remove. Some nurses
+and mothers think that if the child's skin is wiped dry after bathing,
+it will impair, if not destroy, the good effects of the operation.
+Others still, shocking to relate, will even put it to bed in its wet
+clothes; this, too, from principle. Not unlike this, is the belief, very
+common among adults, that if we get our clothes wet--even our
+stockings--we must, by all means, suffer them to dry on us; a belief
+which, in its results, has sent thousands to a premature grave--and,
+what is still worse, made invalids, for life, of a still greater number.
+
+I am aware, that in rejecting the indiscriminate cold bathing of
+infants, I am treading on ground which is rather unpopular, even with
+medical men; a large proportion of whom seem to believe that the
+practice may be useful. But I am not _wholly_ alone. Dr. Dewees--of
+whose large experience I have already spoken--and some others, do not
+hesitate to avow similar sentiments.
+
+The objections of Dr. Dewees to cold bathing are the following. 1. There
+often exists a predisposition to disease, which cold bathing is sure to
+rouse to action. Or if the disease have already begun to affect the
+system, the bath is sure to aggravate it. 2. Some children have such
+feeble constitutions that they are sure to be permanently weakened by
+it, rather than invigorated. 3. To those in whom there is the tendency
+of a large quantity of blood to the head, lungs, liver, &c., it is
+injurious. 4. In some, the shock produces a species of syncope, or
+catalepsy. 5. The _reaction_, as shown by the heat which follows the
+cold bath, is, in some cases, so great as to produce a degree of fever,
+and consequent debility. 6. It never answers the purposes of
+cleanliness--one great object of bathing--so well as the warm bath. 7.
+It is always unpleasant or painful to the child; especially at first. 8.
+It sometimes produces severe pain in the bowels.
+
+This is a very formidable list of objections; and certainly deserves
+consideration. There is one statement made by Dr. D. in the progress of
+his remarks on this subject, in which I do not concur. He says--"The
+object of all bathing is to remove impurities arising from dust,
+perspiration, &c., from the surface; that the skin may not be obstructed
+in the performance of its proper offices."
+
+But the object of cold bathing, with many, is to _harden_; consequently
+it is not true that cleanliness is the _only object_. If he means, even,
+that cleanliness is the only _legitimate_ object of all bathing, I shall
+still be compelled to dissent.
+
+If the cold bath could be used, always, by and with the direction of a
+skilful physician, I believe its occasional use might be rendered
+salutary. And although as it is now commonly used, I believe its effects
+are almost anything but salutary, I do not deny that if its use were
+cautiously and gradually begun, and judiciously conducted, it might be
+the means of making children who are already robust, still more hardy
+and healthy than before, and better able to resist those sudden changes
+of temperature so common in our climate, and so apt to produce cold,
+fever, and consumption.
+
+Cold bathing, in the hands of those who are ignorant of the laws of the
+human frame--and such unfortunately and unaccountably most fathers and
+mothers are--I cannot help regarding as a highly dangerous weapon; and
+therefore it is, that in view of the whole subject, I cannot recommend
+its general and indiscriminate use.
+
+If there are individuals, however, who are determined to employ it, in
+the case of their more vigorous children, and without the advice or
+direction of their family physician, I beg them to attend to the
+following rules or principles, expressed as briefly as possible.
+
+In no ordinary case whatever, is the cold bath useful, unless it is
+succeeded by that degree of warmth on the surface of the body which is
+usually called a _glow_. This is a leading and important principle. The
+contrary, that is, the injurious effects of cold bathing--its
+_immediate_ bad effects, I mean--are shown by the skin remaining pale
+and shrivelled after coming out of the bath, by its blue appearance, and
+by its coldness, as well as by a sunken state of the eyes, and much
+general languor.
+
+To secure this point--I mean the GLOW--it is indispensably important to
+begin the use of cold water gradually; that is, to use it at first of
+so high a temperature as to produce only a slight sensation of cold, and
+to take special care that the skin be immediately wiped very dry, and
+the temperature of the room be quite as high as usual. Afterward the
+water may be cooled gradually, from week to week, though never more than
+a degree or two at once.
+
+It will probably be unsafe to commence this practice of cold
+bathing--even in the case of the most robust children--until they are at
+least six months of age.
+
+The appropriate season will be the middle of the forenoon, the hour when
+the system is usually the most vigorous, and at which we shall be most
+likely to secure a reaction. At first, twice or three times a week are
+as often as it will be safe to repeat it. Some writers recommend it
+twice a day; but once is enough, under any ordinary circumstances.
+
+The method at first is, to give the infant a single plunge. Afterward,
+when he becomes older, and more inured to it, he may be plunged several
+times in succession.
+
+On taking him out of the bath, the skin should be wiped perfectly dry,
+as in the case of the warm bath, and with the same or an increased
+degree of attention to other circumstances--the temperature of the
+room, the avoiding currents of air, &c. He should next be put in a soft,
+warm blanket, and be kept for some time in a state of gentle motion; and
+after a little time, should be dressed.
+
+I have already mentioned the importance of avoiding the manifestation of
+fear, when we bathe a child; and the caution is particularly necessary
+in the administration of the cold bath. Some writers even recommend,
+that during the whole process of undressing, bathing, exercising, and
+dressing, singing should be employed. There is philosophy in this
+advice, and it is easily tried; but I cannot speak of it from
+experience.
+
+There is one thing which may serve to calm our apprehensions--if we have
+any--of danger; which is, that though the child's lungs are feeble at
+first, from their not having been, like the heart, accustomed to
+previous action, yet when they get fairly into motion and action, and
+the child is a few months old, they are probably as strong, if not
+stronger, in proportion, than those of adults.
+
+Bathing in cold water should never be performed immediately after a full
+meal. Neither is it desirable to go to the contrary extreme, and bathe
+when the stomach has been long empty; nor when the child's mental or
+bodily powers are more than usually exhausted by fatigue.
+
+Although I have given these rules for those who are determined to use
+the cold bath with their children, yet, for fear I shall be
+misunderstood, I must be suffered to repeat, in this place, that,
+uninformed as people generally are in regard to physiology, I cannot
+advise even its moderate use. On the contrary, I would gladly dissuade
+from it, as most likely, in the way it would inevitably be used, to do
+more harm than good.
+
+There is no sort of objection to what might be called local bathing with
+cold water. If the child's head is hot at any time, the temples, and
+indeed the whole upper part of the head, may be very properly wet with
+moderately cold water--taking care to avoid wetting the clothes. But
+avoid, by all means, the common but foolish practice of putting spirits
+in the water.
+
+A tea-spoonful of cold water cannot be too early put into the mouth of
+the infant. The object is to cleanse or rinse the mouth; and the process
+may be aided by wiping it out with a piece of soft linen rag. If a part
+or all of the water should be swallowed, no harm will be done. This
+practice, commenced almost as soon as children are born, has saved many
+a sore mouth.
+
+There are other forms of bathing besides those already mentioned; among
+which are the shower bath, the vapor bath, and the medicated bath. The
+shower bath--for which purpose the water is commonly used cold--is but
+poorly adapted to the wants of infants. The shock is much greater than
+the common cold bath, and more apt to frighten; and fear is unfavorable
+to reaction, or the production of a genial glow.
+
+The vapor bath is much better; and probably has quite as good an effect
+as the common warm bath. The trouble and expense of procuring the
+necessary apparatus is somewhat greater, however, as a mere bathing tub
+costs but little, and can be made by every father who possesses common
+ingenuity. But whatever may be the expense, it is indispensable in every
+family; and whenever the pores of the skin are obstructed, a vapor
+bathing apparatus is equally desirable.
+
+The medicated vapor bath is sometimes used; but I am not now treating of
+infants who are sick, but of those who are in a state of health.
+
+The common warm bath is sometimes medicated by putting in salt. This, of
+course, renders the water more stimulating to the skin; but except when
+the perspiration is checked, or the skin peculiarly inactive from some
+other cause--in other words, unless we are sick--it is seldom expedient
+to use it.
+
+There is one substitute for the bathing tub, in the case of the cold
+bath. I refer to the use of a wet cloth or sponge, applied rapidly to
+the whole surface of the body. When this is done, the skin should be
+wiped thoroughly dry immediately afterwards, as in the case of complete
+immersion.
+
+The application of either a cloth or a sponge, filled with warm water,
+to the skin, in this manner, even if continued for several minutes
+together, is less efficacious than a continuous immersion. I repeat
+it--no family ought to be without conveniences for bathing in warm water
+daily. I speak now of every member of the family, young and old, as well
+as the infant; and I refer particularly to the summer season: though I
+do not think the practice ought to be wholly discontinued during the
+winter.
+
+It will still be objected that this care of, and attention to the young,
+in reference to health--this provision for bathing daily, and care to
+see that it is performed--can never be afforded by the laboring portion
+of the community. But I shall as strenuously insist on the contrary; and
+trust I shall, in the sequel, produce reasons which will be
+satisfactory.
+
+The great difficulty is, to convince parents that these things are
+vastly more productive of health and happiness to their children--more
+truly necessaries--than a great many things for which they now expend
+their time and money. There is, and always has been--except, perhaps,
+among the Jews, in the earliest periods of the history of that wonderful
+nation--a strange disposition to overlook the happiness of the young. It
+is not necessary to represent this dereliction as peculiar to modern
+times, for we find traces of the same thing thousands of years ago.
+
+The Roman emperors--Dioclesian in particular--could make provision for
+bathing, to an extent which now astonishes us; but for whom? For whom, I
+repeat it, was incurred the enormous expense of fitting up and keeping
+in repair accommodations for bathing at once 18,000 people? For adults;
+and for adults alone. I do not say that children were not admitted, in
+any case; but I say they were not contemplated in these arrangements.
+Nothing was done--not a single thing--that would not have been done, had
+there been no child under ten years of age in the whole empire.
+
+And what better than this do WE, now? We make provision for the
+happiness of the adult. The most indigent person will find time and
+money to spend for the gratification of his own senses, his pride, or
+his curiosity; but his children--they may be overlooked! Or, if he has
+an eye to the future happiness of his child, he conceives that he is
+promoting it in the best possible degree, by endeavoring to lay up a few
+dollars for his use, after his character is formed--at a period, as it
+too often happens, when money will do him little good, since it can
+neither purchase health, peace of mind, nor reputation.
+
+Far be it from me to say, that the poor--ground into the dust as they
+are, by the force of circumstances operating with their own concurrence,
+to make them ignorant, vicious, or miserable--can do for their children
+all that is desirable. By no means. But they have it in their power to
+do much more than they are at present doing. They have it in their
+power, at least, to use the same good sense in the management of the
+human being that they do in that of a pig, a calf, or a colt, or even a
+young vegetable. No parent, let him be ever so poor, is found in the
+habit of neglecting either of these in proportion to its infancy, and of
+exerting himself only in proportion as it grows older. Common sense
+tells him that the contrary is the true course; that however poor he may
+be, he will be still poorer, if he do not take special pains with the
+young animal, to rear it and with the young vegetable, to give it the
+right direction, by keeping down the weeds, and pruning and watering it.
+And I say again, that however deserving of censure the wealthy of a
+Christian community may be in not directing the ignorant and vicious
+into the right path, and in not expending more of their wealth on those
+who are poor, in elevating their minds and their manners, and promoting
+their health, still the latter are inexcusable for their present neglect
+of their infant offspring, while they would not think of neglecting, on
+the same principle, the offspring of their domestic animals.
+
+
+
+
+CHAPTER VII.
+
+FOOD.
+
+SEC. 1. General principles.--SEC. 2. Conduct of the mother.--SEC. 3.
+Nursing--rules in regard to it.--SEC. 4. Quantity of food. Errors.
+Over-feeding. Gluttony.--SEC. 5. How long should milk be the child's
+only food?--SEC. 6 Feeding before teething. Cow's milk. Sucking bottles.
+Cleanliness. Nurses.--SEC. 7. Treatment from teething to weaning.--SEC.
+8. Process of weaning-rules in regard to it.--SEC. 9. First food to be
+used after weaning. Importance of good bread. Other kinds of food.--SEC.
+10. Remarks on fruit.--SEC. 11. Evils and dangers of confectionary.--SEC.
+12. Mischiefs of pastry.--SEC. 13. Crude and raw substances.
+
+
+SEC. 1. _General Principles._
+
+The mother's milk, in suitable quantity, and under suitable regulations,
+is so obviously the appropriate food of an infant during the first
+months of its existence, that it seems almost unnecessary to repeat the
+fact. And yet the violations of this rule are so numerous and constant,
+as to require a few passing remarks.
+
+There are some mothers who seem to have a perfect hatred of children;
+and if they can find any plausible apology for neglecting to nurse them,
+they will. Few, indeed, will publicly acknowledge a state of feeling so
+unnatural; but there are some even of such. On the latter, all argument
+would, I fear, be utterly lost. Of the former, there may, be hope.
+
+They tell us--and they are often sustained by those around them--that it
+is very inconvenient to be so confined to a child that they cannot leave
+home for a little while. Can it be their duty--for in these days, when
+virtue and religion, and everything good, are so highly complimented, no
+people are more ready to talk of _duty_ than they who have the least
+regard to it--can it be their duty, they ask, to exclude themselves from
+the pleasures and comforts of social life for half or two thirds of
+their most active and happy years? Ought they not to go abroad, at least
+occasionally? But if so, and their children have no other source of
+dependence, must they not suffer? Is it not better, therefore, that they
+should be early accustomed to other food, for a part of the time?
+Besides, they may be sick; and then the child must rely on others; and
+will it not be useful to accustom it early to do so?
+
+Perhaps few mothers are conscious that this train of reasoning passes
+through their minds. But that something like it is often made the
+occasion of substituting food which is less proper, for that furnished
+by Divine Providence, there cannot be a doubt. And the mischief is, that
+she who has gone so far, will not scruple, ere long, to go farther. And,
+strange and unnatural as it may seem, that mothers should turn over
+their children to be nursed wholly by others, in order to get rid of the
+inconvenience of nursing them at their own bosoms, it is only carrying
+out to its fullest extent, and reducing to practice, the train of
+reasoning mentioned above.
+
+Nor is it necessary that I should stop here to denounce a course of
+conduct so unchristian and savage. I know it is very common in some
+countries; and those American mothers who ape the other eastern
+fashions, or countenance their sons and daughters in doing it, will not
+be slow to imitate this also--especially as it is a very _convenient_
+fashion. And I question whether I shall succeed in reasoning them out of
+it. Habit, both of thought and action, is exceedingly powerful. I will,
+therefore, confine myself chiefly to those efforts at prevention, from
+which much more is to be hoped, in the present state of society, than
+from direct attempts at cure.
+
+It will be soon enough to leave a child with another person, when the
+mother is actually sick, or unavoidably absent; or when some other
+adequate cause is known to exist. We are to be governed, in these and
+similar cases, by general rules, and not by exceptions. The general
+rule, in the present case, is, that mothers can nurse their own
+children; and, if they have the proper disposition, that they can do it
+uninterruptedly.
+
+But those who are so ready to become counsellors on these occasions,
+will tell us, perhaps, that the child must be "fed to spare the mother."
+That is to say, nursing weakens the mother, and the child must be taken
+away, a part of the time, to save her strength.
+
+Now it may safely be doubted whether the process of nursing, in itself
+considered, does weaken, at all. The Author of nature has made provision
+for the secretion (formation) of the milk, whether the child receives it
+or not. If it is not taken by the child, or drawn off in some other way,
+one of two things must follow;--either it must be taken up by what are
+called absorbent vessels, and carried into the circulation, and chiefly
+thrown out of the system as waste matter, or it will prove a source of
+irritation, if not of inflammation, to the organs themselves which
+secrete it. In both cases, the strength of the mother is quite as likely
+to be taxed, as if the child received the milk in the way that nature
+intended.
+
+Besides, on this very principle, the plan of saving a mother's strength
+by requiring another to nurse for her, is but saying that we will weaken
+one person to save another. Or if we feed the child, to "spare its
+mother," what is this, in practice, but to say that the works of the
+Creator are very imperfect; and that he has thrown upon the mass of
+mankind a task to which they are not equal? For the mass of mankind are
+poor; and the poor, having neither the means nor the time to escape the
+duties in question, must submit to them, while their more wealthy
+neighbors escape.
+
+But it is idle to defend customs so monstrous. They admit of no defence
+that has the slightest claim to solidity. The general rule then is, that
+mothers should nurse their own children.
+
+
+SEC. 2. _Conduct of the Mother._
+
+Originally it was not my intention to give directions, in this volume,
+in regard to the food, drink, &c., of the mother while nursing; but
+repeated solicitations on this point, have led me to the conclusion that
+a few general principles may be very properly introduced.
+
+The future health, and even the moral well-being of the child, depend
+much more on the proper management of the mother herself than is usually
+supposed. How, indeed, can it be other wise? How can the mother's blood
+be constantly irritated with improper food and drink, without rendering
+the milk so? And how can a child draw, daily and hourly, from this
+feverish fountain, without being affected, not only in his physical
+frame, but in his very temper and feelings?
+
+It is not enough that we adopt the principles already insisted on by
+some of our wisest medical men, and even by one or two medical
+societies,[Footnote: Those of Connecticut and New Hampshire.] that
+children in this way often acquire a propensity for exciting drinks,
+that may end in their downright intemperance. What if it should not, in
+every case, proceed quite so far as to make the child a drunkard? If it
+but lays the foundation of a constitutional fondness for _excitements_,
+it tends to disease. Indeed that, in itself, is a disease; and one, too,
+which is destroying more persons every year than the cholera, or even
+the consumption. Consumption has at most only slain her tens of
+thousands [Footnote: About 40,000 a year, in the United States, as nearly
+as it can be estimated.] a year; but a fondness for exciting food and
+drink--innocent and harmless as it is often supposed to be, and
+therefore only the more dangerous a foe--does not fail to slay every
+year, directly or indirectly, its hundreds of thousands. At least this
+is my own opinion.
+
+Why, where can you find the individual who is not a slave to this
+perpetual rage within--this perpetual cry, "Who will show us any"
+physical "good"? Who, in this land of abundance, will eat or drink plain
+things? Who will eat simple bread, meat, potatoes, rice, pudding,
+apples, &c. or drink simple water? A few instances may be found, of
+late, in which people confine themselves to simple water for drink; but
+they are rather rare. And no wonder. They _must_ be rare so long as an
+unnatural thirst is kept up everywhere by the most exciting and most
+strange mixtures of food. Where, I again ask, is the person who will eat
+and relish plain bread, plain meat, plain puddings, &c.? Certainly not
+in the nursery. No young mother--scarcely one I mean--will, for a single
+meal, confine herself to a piece of bread, the sweetest and best food in
+the whole world, unless it is hot, or toasted, or soaked, or buttered. A
+natural, healthy appetite, is as rare a thing on our planet, almost, as
+an inhabitant of the sun or moon.
+
+I have seen more than one mother made sick by using, while nursing,
+improper food and drink. I have known milk punch, taken by
+stealth--(because how could the mother, it was said, ever have a supply
+of food for her poor child without it!)--to kindle a fever that came
+very near burning up the mother and child both. And yet, if I have once
+or twice succeeded in convincing the mother that she was only suffering
+the natural punishment of her own transgressions, I have never, so far
+as I now recollect, succeeded in making her believe that her iniquities
+were visited upon her unoffending infant.
+
+There is everywhere the most painful apathy on this most painful
+subject. We see little children of all ages, everywhere, the victims of
+debility, and pain, and suffering, and disease and death, and yet we
+very seldom seem to search for one moment for the causes of this
+premature destruction. In fact most parents--even many intelligent
+mothers--at once stare, if you attempt to inquire into the causes of
+their child's death, as if it was either a kind of sacrilege, or an
+impeachment of their own parental affection. Diseases, even at this day,
+with the sun of science blazing in meridian splendor, they seem to
+regard as the judgments of heaven; and to think of tracing out the
+causes of the early death of half our race, is, in their estimation, not
+only idle, but wicked.
+
+Yet this is obviously one of the first steps, every, where, which
+philanthropy demands; to say nothing of the demands of christianity. It
+is the first step for the physician, the first step for the educator,
+the first step for the parent, and above all, the mother. Nay; more--we
+must not suppress so great and important a truth--it is the first step
+for the legislator and the minister. What sense is there in continuing,
+century after century, and age after age, to expend all our efforts in
+merely _mending_ the diseased half of mankind, when those same efforts
+are amply sufficient, if early and properly applied, not only to
+continue the lives of the whole, but to make them _whole beings_,
+instead of passing through life mere _fragments_ of humanity?
+
+But I must not forget that this is merely a small manual, not intended
+for those who make it their profession to teach the laws of God and man,
+but simply for young mothers. For the sake of erring humanity, would
+that I could, but for one moment, divest myself of the idea, that in
+writing for the young mother I am not writing for legislators and
+ministers! Would that I could banish from my mind the deep conviction
+that the mother is everywhere far more the law-giver to her infant--far
+more the arbiter of the present and eternal destiny of her child--than
+he who is more commonly regarded as such.
+
+Every mother owes it, not only to herself--for on this part she is not
+_wholly_ forgetful--but to her offspring, to abstain, during the period
+of nursing at least, from all causes which tend to produce a feverish
+state of her fluids. Among these are every form of premature exertion,
+whether in sitting up, laboring, conversing, or even thinking. It is of
+very great importance that both the body and the mind should be kept
+quiet; and the more so, the better.
+
+Among the particular causes of fever to the young mother, Dr. Dewees
+enumerates spirits, wine, and other fermented liquors, a room too much
+heated, closed curtains, confined air, too much exposure, and too much
+company; and during the early period of confinement, broths and animal
+food.
+
+There is nothing which he insists on more strongly, than the importance
+of fresh air. Indeed, the practice of confining a nursing woman in a
+space scarcely six feet square, and excluding the air surrounding her by
+curtains and closed windows, and subjecting her to the necessity of
+breathing twenty times the air that has already been as often
+discharged, filled with poison, from her lungs, is not too strongly
+reprobated by Dr. Dewees, or anybody else. But I have spoken of these
+things in the chapter which treats on "The Nursery." I would only
+observe, on this point, that if I were asked what one thing is most
+indispensable to the health of the nursing woman, I would reply, Fresh
+air; and if asked what were the second and third most important things,
+I would still repeat--in imitation of the orator of old, in regard to
+another subject--Fresh air, Fresh air.
+
+This important ingredient in human happiness, and especially in the
+happiness of the young mother and her tender infant, can usually be had
+within doors, if pains enough be taken. But if the weather is fine and
+in every respect favorable, a woman who is in tolerable health may
+venture abroad a little in about three weeks after her confinement, and
+sometimes even in two. Whether her exercise be without or within doors,
+however, she should be effectually protected against chills, and against
+the influence of currents of cold air.
+
+It has been incidentally stated, that Dr. Dewees objects to the mother's
+use, during her early period of nursing, of broths and animal food. This
+is about as much as we could reasonably expect from one who belongs to a
+profession whose members are, almost without exception, enslaved to the
+practice of flesh-eating. But even this advice of his, if duly followed,
+would be a great advance upon the practice which generally prevails.
+There is so universal a belief among females that they demand, at this
+period of their existence, not only a larger quantity of food than
+usual, but also that which is more stimulating in its quality, as almost
+to forbid the hopes of making much impression upon their minds. Many
+young mothers seem to consider themselves as licensed, during a part of
+their lives, not only to eat immoderately, and even to gluttony, but
+also to swallow almost every species of vile trash which a vile world
+affords.
+
+How long will it be, ere the mother can be induced to take as much pains
+to select the most appropriate and most healthy aliment for herself and
+her child, as she now does that which is demanded by a capricious
+appetite, without the smallest reference to fitness or digestibility!
+How long will it be ere the mother can be brought to believe and feel
+that, in every step she takes, she is forming the habitation of an
+immortal spirit--a spirit, too, whose character and destiny, both
+present and eternal, must depend, in no small degree, upon the character
+of the dwelling it occupies while passing through this stage of earthly
+existence! How long will it be, before mothers can be made to believe
+even these two simple truths, that the nourishment, which the human
+being actually receives, is not always in exact proportion to the
+quantity of nutritious food which he throws into his stomach, and that
+the diet is always best for both mother and child, which is least
+exciting.
+
+The Charleston Board of Health, during the existence of cholera in that
+city in 1836, publicly announced that the "best food is the least
+exciting," and this great truth is just as true in all other places and
+circumstances on the globe as it was then in South Carolina. And though
+I am far from believing that health depends more on food and drink than
+on all other things put together, as many seem to suppose, yet I am
+entirely of opinion that he who should devote himself successfully to
+the work of applying this truth, in all its bearings, to the dietetic
+practice of all mankind, would do more for their reformation--yes, and
+their salvation too--than has yet been done by any merely _human_ being,
+since the first day of the creation.
+
+
+SEC. 3. _Nursing--how often._
+
+Many lay it down, as an invariable rule, that no system can be pursued
+with a child till it is six months old; and it must be admitted by all,
+that for several months after birth there are serious difficulties in
+the way of determining, with any degree of precision, how often a child
+should be nursed or fed. Still, there are a few rules of universal
+application; some of which are here presented.
+
+1. A child should never be nursed, merely to quiet it; for if this be
+done, it will soon learn to cry, whenever it feels the slightest
+uneasiness, not only from hunger, but from other causes; merely to be
+gratified with nursing. Besides, if its cries should happen to be from
+illness, it is ten to one but the reception of anything into the stomach
+will do harm instead of good.
+
+2. The stomach, like every other organ in the body which is muscular,
+must have time for rest; and this in the case of children as well as
+adults. But to nurse them too frequently is in opposition to this rule,
+and therefore of evil tendency.
+
+3. For reasons which may be seen by the last rule, there should be
+regular seasons for nursing, and these should be adhered to, especially
+by night. When very young, once in three hours may not be too frequent;
+I believe that it is seldom proper to nurse a child more frequently than
+this. But whenever three hours becomes a suitable period by day, once in
+four hours will be often enough by night. I will not undertake to say at
+what precise age children should be nursed at intervals of three and
+four hours each; because some children are older, _constitutionally_, at
+three months, than others are at four.
+
+There is one grand mistake, however, against which I must caution young
+mothers; which is, not to indulge the vain expectation that feeble
+infants will become robust, in proportion to their indulgence. On the
+contrary, it is the more necessary to be strict with feeble children,
+_because_ they are feeble. To keep them hanging at the breast to
+invigorate them, is the very way to counteract our own intentions, and
+defeat our own purpose. Seasons of entire rest are even more important
+to their stomachs than to those of other persons.
+
+4. But in order to secure intervals of rest, both to the strong and the
+feeble, we must avoid the pernicious habit of giving infants pap, and
+other delicacies, "between meals." Many a child's health is ruined by
+this practice. Nothing should be put into their stomachs for many
+months--if they are in health--but the mother's milk.
+
+"This," says Dr. Dunglison, "is the sole food of the infant, and is
+consequently sufficiently nutrient to maintain life, and to minister to
+the growth, during the earliest periods of existence." [Footnote:
+Elements of Hygiene, page 271.] In another place, he says, "Milk is an
+appropriate nourishment at all ages, and is more so the nearer to
+birth."
+
+
+SEC. 4. _Quantity of Food._
+
+"We all know," says Dr. Dewees, "how easily the stomach may be made to
+demand more food than is absolutely required; first, by the repetition
+of aliment, and secondly, by its variety;--therefore both of these
+causes must be avoided. The stomach, like every other part, can, and
+unfortunately does, acquire habits highly injurious to itself; and that
+of demanding an unnecessary quantity of aliment is not one of the least.
+It should, therefore, be constantly borne in mind, that it is not the
+quantity of food taken into the stomach, that is available to the proper
+purposes of the system; but the quantity which can be digested, and
+converted into nourishment fit to be applied to such purposes."
+
+There is a great deal of truth in these remarks; and especially in the
+closing one, that not all which is taken into the stomach is digested.
+It is highly probable, that the least quantity which is usually given to
+an infant is more than sufficient for the purposes of digestion; and
+that nearly every child in the arms of its mother, is over-fed.
+
+I know it has been said, by some physicians--and by those who are
+sensible men, in other respects, too--that the child's stomach is a
+pretty correct guide in regard to quantity. If we give it too much, say
+they, it will reject it;--as if that were an end of the matter.
+
+But it is not so. It is by no means harmless to fill the child's stomach
+as full as is possible without overflowing. Such a process, though it
+should not create disease directly, would produce a gluttonous habit.
+The stomach, being muscular, may be increased in size by use, like all
+other muscular organs. The hands, the arms, the legs, the feet, the
+fleshy portions of the face, even, may be disproportionally enlarged by
+constant use. Thus a sailor, who uses his hands and arms much more than
+his legs and feet, has the former unusually large; one who is much
+accustomed to walking, has large feet; and in a tailor, who from
+childhood uses his lower limbs comparatively little, they are both small
+and slender. On the same principle, the stomach, by inordinate use, and
+by carrying unreasonable loads, may be made nearly twice as large as
+nature intended, and may demand twice as much food. And I have no doubt
+that the bulk of mankind, young and old, eat about twice as much as
+nature, unperverted, would require.
+
+If the suggestions of our last section are duly attended to, one of the
+causes which lead the stomach to demand an unreasonable quantity of food
+will be avoided--I mean the too frequent "repetition of aliment." And if
+we never depart from the general rule, already laid down, not to give
+the infant anything but its mother's milk, we shall escape the evils
+incident to variety.
+
+
+SEC. 5. _How long should milk be the only food._
+
+On this point, there is a great diversity of opinion. Perhaps the most
+approved role, of universal application, is, that the first change
+should be made in the child's diet, when the teeth begin to appear.
+
+This period, it is well known, cannot be fixed to any particular age,
+but varies from the fifth to the twelfth month.
+
+Some mothers, who have borne with me patiently to this place, will
+probably here object. "What child," they will ask, "would ever have any
+strength, brought up so?" Not only a little pap and gruel is, in their
+estimation, necessary, long before this period, but even many choice
+bits of meat.
+
+Now I am very sure, that these choice bits--whatever they may be--given
+to a child before it has teeth, not only do no good, but actually do
+mischief. Indeed, that which does no good in the stomach must do harm,
+of course; since it is not only in the way, but acts like a foreign body
+there, producing more or less of irritation.
+
+I ought to state, in this place, that many people--mothers among the
+rest--have very inadequate ideas of digestion. They appear to have no
+farther notion of the digestive process than that it consists in
+reducing to a pulp the substances which are swallowed; and hence,
+whatever is reduced to a pulp, they regard as being digested. Whereas
+nothing is better known to the anatomist and physiologist, than that
+this--the formation of _chyme_ in the stomach--constitutes only a very
+small part of the digestive process. The chyme must pass into the
+duodenum and other portions of intestine beyond the stomach, and be
+retained there for some time, before it will form perfect chyle.
+
+This is a more important part of the work of digestion than even the
+former. For, suppose the chyme to be perfect, though even this may be
+mere pulp, rather than chyme, and suppose it pass quietly along into the
+duodenum and other small intestines. All this process, thus far, may go
+on naturally enough, and yet the chyle may not be well formed, and the
+chymous mass may find its way out of the system without answering any of
+the purposes of nutrition. For no matter how well the food is dissolved
+in the stomach, if it do not become good and proper chyle, the blood
+which is formed will not be good and perfect blood; or, lastly, if it
+_seem_ to make good blood, it may still be faulty, so that the
+particles which should be applied to build up or repair the system, are
+either not used, or if used, answer the purpose but imperfectly.
+
+We hence see how little prepared a large proportion of the community,
+are, to judge of the digestibility or fitness of a substance for
+infants, by their own observation and experience merely; and how much
+more wisely they act, in contenting themselves with giving them--at
+least until they have teeth--such food only as the Author of nature
+seems to have assigned them; especially when thus course, is precisely
+that which is recommended or sanctioned by nearly every judicious
+physician, as well as by almost all our writers on health.
+
+
+SEC. 6. _On Feeding before Teething._
+
+Having laid down the general rule, that until the appearance of teeth,
+the sole food of an infant should be the milk of its own mother, I
+proceed to speak of some of the more common exceptions to it.
+
+EXCEPTION 1.--The first of these is when the supply furnished by the
+mother is scanty. There may be two causes of the scantiness of this
+supply; 1st, the want of suitable nourishment by the mother; and, 2dly,
+a feeble constitution, or bad health. In the former case, it should be
+her first object, as it undoubtedly will be that of her physician, to
+improve the quality of her diet; and in the latter, to restore her
+health, or at least invigorate her constitution.
+
+In regard to the proper diet of a _mother_, as such, as well as the
+general management which her case requires, a volume might be written
+without exhausting the subject. But I have already said as much on this
+subject, in another place, as my limits will permit.
+
+But we cannot wait for the mother's health to improve, and allow the
+infant to suffer, in the mean time, for a due supply of food. The
+appropriate question now is, How shall such a supply be furnished?
+
+This should be done by means of an article resembling in its properties,
+as closely as possible, the mother's milk. For this purpose, we have
+only to mix with a suitable quantity of new cow's milk, one third of
+water, and sweeten it a little with loaf sugar. This is to be given to
+the child, at suitable intervals, and in proper quantities, by means of
+a common sucking bottle. It is, indeed, sometimes given with the spoon;
+but the bottle is better.
+
+To the question, whether the child should be confined to this, till the
+period of weaning, Dr. Dewees answers, No. I am surprised at this; and
+my surprise is increased, when I find him, almost in the very next
+breath, urging with all his might, numerous reasons against the very
+common notion, that children in early life require a variety of food. He
+even insists on the importance of confining the child to a single
+article of food when it is practicable. Yet he has not given us so much
+as one reason why it is not practicable in the case before us; but has
+gone on to speak of barley water, gum arabic water, rice water,
+arrowroot, &c. I venture, therefore, to dissent from him, and to answer
+the foregoing question in the affirmative. When one good and substantial
+reason can be given for _change_, the decision will, however, be
+reconsidered.
+
+I have already stated the general rule for preparing this substitute for
+the mother's milk. But there are several minor directions, which may be
+useful to those who are wholly without experience on the subject.
+
+If possible, the milk used should not only be just taken from the cow,
+but should always be from the _same_ cow; for it is well known, that the
+quality of milk often differs very materially, even among cows feeding
+in the same pasture, or from the same pile of hay; and the stomach
+becomes most easily reconciled to the mixture when it is uniform in its
+qualities. Great care should also be taken to see that the cow whose
+milk is used is young and healthy.
+
+The mixture should not be prepared any faster than it is wanted, and
+should always be prepared in vessels perfectly clean and sweet, and
+given as soon as possible after it is prepared, to prevent any degree of
+fermentation. It is never so well to heat it by the fire. If taken from
+the cow just before it is used, and if the water to be added is warm
+enough, the temperature will hardly need to be raised any higher.
+
+When it is impracticable, in all cases, to take milk for this purpose
+immediately from the cow, it should be kept, in winter, where it will
+not freeze; and in summer, where there will be no tendency to acidity.
+
+Some mothers and nurses are addicted to the practice of passing the food
+through their own mouths, before they give it to the child--with a view,
+no doubt, to see that it is at a proper temperature. This practice is
+not only wholly unnecessary, but altogether disgusting, and even
+ridiculous. A thermometer would answer every purpose; and save even the
+trouble of another disgusting practice--that of blowing it with the
+breath.
+
+The most proper season for giving the child this preparation, is
+immediately after it has been nursing. It is better for both mother and
+child, that the latter should nurse just as often as though the supply
+of food was adequate to his wants. And when his first supply is
+exhausted, then let him make up his meal from the sucking bottle. The
+great advantage of this plan is, that he will not be so likely in this
+way to be over-fed. If he is really needy, he will accept the bottle,
+even if he do not like it quite so well; if he refuse it, let him go
+without till he is hungry enough to receive it.
+
+In regard to the water used in the preparation, only one thing needs to
+be said; which is, that it should be pure. If it is not, it should by
+all means be boiled. The sugar used should be of the very best kind; and
+the quantity not large; since if the preparation be too sweet, it
+readily becomes acid in the stomach.
+
+There has been, and still is, a controversy going on among medical men,
+whether sugar is or is not hurtful to the young. "Who shall decide, when
+doctors disagree?" has often been asked. Without undertaking the task
+myself, I may perhaps be permitted to say, that I cannot see any reason
+why a substance so pure, and so highly nutritious as sugar--if given in
+very small quantity only--should prove injurious: though I do not regard
+the reasoning of Dr. Dewees as very conclusive on the subject, when, in
+reply to Dr. Cadogan, he has the following language--"If sugar be
+improper, why does it so largely enter into the composition of the early
+food of all animals? It is in vain that physicians declaim against this
+article, since it forms between seven and eight per cent of the mother's
+milk."--Now with me, the fact that milk and almost all other kinds of
+food are furnished with a measure of this substance, is the strongest
+reason I am acquainted with for making no additions. I believe, however,
+that they may sometimes be made, but not for these reasons.
+
+EXCEPTION 2.--The second striking exception to the general rule that has
+been laid down, is when the mother is unable to nurse her own child from
+positive ill health, or when circumstances exist which render it
+obviously improper that she should do it. The following are some of the
+circumstances which render such a departure from nature indispensable.
+
+1. When the mother is affected strongly with a hereditary disease, such
+as consumption or scrofula; or when her constitution is tainted, as it
+were, with venereal disease, or other permanent affections.
+
+2. When nursing produces, uniformly, some very troublesome or dangerous
+disease in the mother; as cough, colic, &c.
+
+3. There are a few instances in which the milk of the mother, owing to
+an unknown cause, has been found by experience to disagree with the
+child. In these circumstances, it is the unquestionable duty of the
+mother to resort wholly to feeding.
+
+4. Sometimes the milk, at first abundant, fails suddenly, owing to some
+accidental or constitutional defect; and this failure becomes habitual.
+In all these circumstances, the proper resort is to a sucking bottle, or
+a hired nurse. I generally prefer the latter. The cases which seem to me
+to admit of the former, will be pointed out in the next section.
+
+"When the bottle is used," says Dr. Dewees, "much care is requisite to
+preserve it sweet and free from all impurities, or the remains of the
+former food, by which the present may be rendered impure or sour; for
+which purpose a great deal of caution must be observed."
+
+The business of feeding a child, whether by the bottle or the spoon,
+should never be hurried: the slower it is, the better. We should stop
+from time to time, during the process. Nor should the nourishment be
+given while lying down; it is much more pleasant, as well as more safe,
+to sit up.
+
+A few thoughts more on the character and condition of the milk which we
+give to the young, will conclude the second division of this section.
+
+Some are fond of boiling milk for infants; but to this I am decidedly
+opposed, so long as they are in health. Boiling takes away, or appears
+to take away, some of the best properties of the milk.
+
+It is true that milk which is boiled does not turn sour so readily in
+hot weather; but it is quite unnecessary to boil milk in the common
+manner in order to present its changing, since such a result can be
+prevented by another process. You have only to put your milk in a
+kettle, cover it closely, and heat it quickly to the boiling point, and
+then remove and cool it as speedily as possible. This plan prevents the
+rising to the surface of that coat or pellicle which contains some of
+the most valuable properties of the milk.
+
+I have already said that it was as necessary that the stomach should
+have rest as any other muscular organ. Some writers say that the infant
+should be kept perfectly quiet, at least half an hour, after each meal.
+This is certainly necessary with feeble children, but I question its
+necessity in the case of those who are strong and robust. I would not
+recommend, however, nor even tolerate, for one moment, the absurd
+practice of _jolting_, so common with a few ignorant nurses and,
+mothers, as if they could jolt down the food in the stomach with just as
+much safety as they can shake down the contents of a farmer's bag of
+produce. Such mothers as these should go and reside among the native
+tribes of Indians in Guiana, in South America, where they make it a
+point not only to stuff their children's stomachs as long as they will
+hold, but actually to shake it down.
+
+Little less absurd than jolting is the custom of tossing a child high,
+in quick succession, which is practised not only after meals, but at
+other times. But on this point, I have treated elsewhere.
+
+Some give the sucking bottle to children as a plaything. This is just
+about as wise a practice as that of giving them books as playthings.
+Both are done, usually, to save the time and trouble of those whose
+office it is to devote their time to the very purpose of managing and
+educating their offspring. The evil, however, of suffering the child to
+have the bottle when it pleases is, that he will thus be tasting food so
+often as to interfere with and disturb the process of digestion, to his
+great and lasting injury. For in this way, a part of the food will pass
+from the stomach into the bowels unchanged, or at least but imperfectly
+digested, where it is liable to become sour, and cause disease. It is
+not to be doubted that many diarrhoeas, as well as, other bowel
+affections, are produced in this way. Children that are always eating
+are seldom healthy; and we may hence see the reason.
+
+In speaking of the importance of keeping the bottle, from which a child
+takes his food, perfectly clean and sweet, I ought to have extended the
+injunction much farther. There is a degree of slovenliness sometimes
+observable in those who manage children, both when they are sick and
+when they are in health, which even common sense cannot and ought not to
+tolerate. Every vessel which is used in preparing or administering
+anything for children, ought, after we have used it, to be immediately
+and effectually cleansed. How shocking is it to see dirty vessels
+standing in the nursery from hour to hour, becoming sour or impure! How
+much more so still, to see food in copper vessels, or in the red earthen
+ones, glazed with a poisonous oxyd! I speak now more particularly of
+vessels in which food is given; for with the administration of medicine,
+and nursing the sick, I do not intend in this volume to interfere.
+
+EXCEPTION 3.--We come now to the consideration of those cases--for such
+it will not be doubted there are--where a hired nurse is to be preferred
+to feeding by the hand.
+
+Before proceeding farther, however, it is important to say, that if a
+nurse could always be procured whose health, and temper, and habits were
+good, who had no infant of her own, and who would do as well for the
+infant, in every respect, as his own mother, it would be preferable to
+have no feeding by the hand at all.
+
+But such nurses are very scarce. Their temper, or habits, or general
+health, will often be such as no genuine parent would desire, and such
+as they ought to be sorry to see engrafted, in any degree, on the child.
+For even admitting what is claimed by some, that the temper of the nurse
+does _not_ affect the properties of the milk, and thus injure the child
+both physically and morally, still much injury may and inevitably will
+result from the influence of her constant presence and example.
+
+Others have infants of their own, in which case either their own child
+or the adopted one will suffer; and in a majority of cases, it can
+scarcely be doubted _which_ it will be. And I doubt the morality of
+requiring a nurse, in these cases, to give up her own child wholly. If
+_one_ must be fed, why not our own, as well as that of another?
+
+The only cases, then, which seem to me to justify the employment of a
+nurse, are where she possesses at least the qualifications above
+mentioned; and as these are rare, not many nurses, of course, would on
+this principle be employed. But when employed, it is highly desirable
+that the following rules should be observed:
+
+1: The nurse should suckle the child at both breasts; otherwise he is
+liable to acquire a degree of crookedness in his form. There is another
+evil which sometimes results from the too common neglect of this rule,
+which is, that it endangers the deterioration of the quality of the
+milk.
+
+2. The milk which is thus substituted for that of the mother, should be
+as nearly as possible of the same age as the child who is to receive it.
+It should be remembered, however, that the milk is not so good after the
+twelfth or thirteenth month, nor _quite_ so good under the third.
+
+3. When the parent or some trusty and confidential friend can, without
+the aid of interested spies and emissaries, have an eye to the general
+treatment, and especially to the moral management, it should be done;
+for even the best nurses may so differ in their principles, manners and
+habits from the parent, that the latter would deem it preferable to
+withdraw the child, and resort at once to feeding.
+
+
+SEC. 7. _From Teething to Weaning._
+
+This period will, of course, be longer or shorter according as the teeth
+begin to appear earlier or later, and according to the time when it is
+thought proper to wean.
+
+On few points, perhaps, has there existed a greater diversity of opinion
+than in regard to the age most proper for weaning. The limits of this
+work do not permit a thorough discussion of the question; and I shall
+therefore be very brief in my remarks on the subject.
+
+Dr. Cullen, whose opinion on topics of this kind is certainly entitled
+to much respect, thought that less than seven, or more than eleven
+months of nursing was injurious. Yet in some countries, and even in some
+parts of our own, the period is extended by the mother, from choice, to
+two years. And although the milk is not so good after the thirteenth or
+fourteenth month, I have never either known or heard that any evil
+consequences followed from the practice.
+
+Dr. Loudon, a recent writer, observes, that the period of nursing has a
+great influence over the numbers of mankind in various countries, as is
+evinced by numerous facts. He adduces proofs of this, position. Thus, he
+says, in China, where the population is excessive, and the inhuman
+practice of infanticide is common, they wean a child as soon as it can
+put its hand to its mouth. On the other hand, the Indians of North
+America do not wean their children until they are old and strong enough
+to run about: generally they are suckled for a period of more than two
+years.
+
+He then enters into a physiological inquiry why it is that British
+mothers do not usually suckle their children longer than ten months. He
+seems--though he does not give us his precise opinion--to think that, in
+all ordinary cases, the period of nursing ought to be protracted to two
+or three years, and that perhaps it would be better still to extend it
+to four or five. His remarks are so excellent, and withal so curious,
+and their tendency so humane, that we venture to insert one or two of
+his paragraphs entire.
+
+"Certain it is, that the milk does not diminish particularly at that
+time, (ten months,) so far as regards quantity; and from the health of
+children reared without spoon-meat beyond this time, it as certainly
+undergoes no change in its quality. Children are sometimes so old before
+weaning, as to be able to ask for the breast; and it has not been
+remarked that the health of mothers, thus suckling, was in any way worse
+than that of their neighbors. Altogether, then, it may be asserted, that
+a mother is likely to enjoy better health, and to be less liable to
+sickness and death during lactation, than during pregnancy.
+
+"Many women believe, or affect to believe, that the weakness they labor
+under arises from some latent moral or physical cause; but this weakness
+is not attributed to lactation in the earlier months of suckling,
+because the mother then considers herself fulfilling a necessary duty,
+which her constitution, for so long, is well able to bear. So soon,
+however, as the period of lactation has passed over, as it is
+established by custom or fashion, she imagines she is exceeding the
+intentions of nature, and she forthwith concludes that the continuance
+of suckling is the cause of her uncomfortable sensations. This whim
+being entertained, the child is weaned, and too often becomes the victim
+of a most reprehensible delusion.
+
+"Since nature has furnished the mother with milk for a longer period
+than custom demands, it is evident that some good purpose for the mother
+and child was intended in this arrangement. Had it been otherwise, the
+secretion of milk would stop at a definite time, in like manner as the
+period of gestation is definite. That a child, in comparison with the
+young of the lower animals, is so long unable to provide for itself,
+strongly tends to corroborate the proofs already advanced--that nature
+originally had in view a more protracted period for lactation than is
+now allowed.
+
+"Some writers, following the laws of nature, as they interpreted them,
+fixed the period of weaning at fifteen months, when the infant has got
+its eight incisors and four canine teeth. There are well-authenticated
+instances of mothers having suckled their children for three, four,
+five, and even seven consecutive years; we ourselves have known cases
+of lactation being prolonged far three and for four years, with the
+happiest results."
+
+It appears to me better, therefore, that the child should be nursed, in
+all ordinary cases, from twelve to fifteen months; and when there are no
+special objections, about two years. As the change, whenever it is made,
+and however gradual it may be, is an important one, in its effects on
+the stomach and bowels, it is better to wean a little earlier or a
+little later, than to do so just at the close of summer or beginning of
+autumn, at which season bowel complaints are most common, most severe,
+and most dangerous. It is sufficiently unfortunate that teething should
+commence just at this period; but when we add another cause of irregular
+action, which we can control, to one which we _cannot_, we act very
+unwisely.
+
+I have already observed that we may begin to feed children when the
+teeth begin to appear. By this is not meant that we should do so while
+the system is under the irritation to which teething usually, or at
+least often, subjects it. But when this is over, and a few teeth have
+appeared, it is usually a proper time to commence our operations.
+
+The first food given should be precisely of the kind which has been
+recommended for those children who are fed by the hand. The rules and
+restrictions by which we are to be guided, are the same, except in one
+point, which is, that in the case we are now considering, the child
+should be fed _between nursing_.
+
+Let not parents be anxious about their healthy children under two years,
+who have a supply of good milk, either from the mother or from the cow.
+For those that are feeble, a physician may and ought to prescribe--not
+medicine, but appropriate food, drink, &c.
+
+When the grinding teeth have cut through, if we have any doubts in
+regard to the nutritive qualities of the food we are giving, we may
+improve it by adding, instead of the one third of pure water, a similar
+quantity of gum arabic water, barley water, or rice water. Some use a
+little weak animal broth; but this is unnecessary, and I think, on the
+whole, injurious, except for purposes strictly medicinal.
+
+This course is so simple, and so far removed from that which is
+generally adopted, that few mothers will probably be willing to pursue
+it with perseverance, especially when the teeth appear very late. Those
+who are, however, will be richly rewarded, in the end, in the
+advantages; which will accrue to the child's health, and the vigor it
+will ensure to his constitution.
+
+
+SEC. 8. _During the process of Weaning._
+
+It has already been shown that, in weaning, some regard should be had to
+the season of the year; and that the end of summer and beginning of fall
+are of all periods the most unfavorable. The best time, on every
+account, is in the spring--in March, April, May, or June; and the next
+best is during the months of October and November. But December, January
+and February are better than July, August and September.
+
+Weaning should never be sudden. We may safely and properly call upon
+those who are addicted to snuff or opium taking, tobacco chewing, rum
+drinking, and other habits which are purely artificial, to break
+off--_to wean themselves_--suddenly; since _they_ can do so with
+considerable safety, and will seldom have the courage or the
+perseverance to do it otherwise. But with the child, in regard to his
+food, such a course will not be advisable. If we regard his future
+health or happiness, he must be weaned gradually.
+
+The first proper step will be to give the child a little larger quantity
+of the cow's milk and gum arabic mixture, between nursings, at the same
+time increasing very gradually the intervals of nursing. When the
+intervals become six hours distant from each other, it will be best to
+add a little good bread to the milk with which it is fed, about two or
+three times a day. Arrowroot jelly, if he can be made to relish it, will
+be highly useful; but if not, some boiled rice, into which a little
+arrowroot has been sprinkled while boiling, may be added to his milk.
+
+It may be worth the attempt to excite an aversion in the child to
+nursing his mother, so that be will refuse to nurse, if possible, of his
+own accord. This aversion may be excited by such an application of
+aloes, or some other offensive substance, as will cause him to withdraw
+himself from the breast as soon as he tastes it.
+
+A serious mistake is often made, in connection with weaning, in giving
+the child not only too much food, but that which is too solid, or too
+rich. This mistake has undoubtedly grown out of the belief that his
+feeble condition _requires_ it; whereas the truth is, that he neither
+needs food at this period, nor is capable of digesting it. For let us be
+as judicious in the process of weaning as we may, the tone of the
+child's stomach will be somewhat reduced, or in other words, its powers
+of digestion will be weakened by it; and to give it strong food, or
+overload it with that which is weaker, is not only unreasonable and
+unphilosophical, but cruel. And if there should be a tendency in the
+child's constitution to rickets, scrofula, consumption, and other
+wasting diseases, such a course would be likely to bring them on, and
+destroy life.
+
+"When milk will agree," says Dr. Dewees, "there is no food so proper. It
+may be employed in any of its combinations, with good wheaten bread,
+rice, sago, &c., only remembering that when either of these articles is
+found to agree, it should be continued perseveringly, until it may
+become offensive. In this case, some new combination may be required." I
+do not see the necessity of continuing one kind of food till it
+_offends_. Besides, I do not believe that these simple articles of food
+are apt to become offensive to stomachs that have not already been
+spoiled. But whether a single dish should or should not come to be
+offensive, I greatly prefer an occasional change.
+
+Buchan, in his Advice to Mothers, has recommended it to them to boil
+bread for their infants, in water. It should not, for this purpose--nor
+indeed for any other--be new; it is best at one or two days, old. It may
+be boiled in a small quantity of water, or what is still better, of
+milk; or it may be steamed till it becomes soft and light, almost like
+new bread, but without any of the objectionable properties of that which
+is wholly new. To bread, thus prepared, is to be added a suitable
+quantity of milk, fresh from the cow, and a little diluted with water,
+but not boiled.
+
+But as there may be, here and there, at any age, a stomach with which
+milk, with bread, or rice, or sago, will not agree--though I think they
+must be very rare cases--we may be allowed to substitute for it a
+solution of "gum arabic, in the proportion of an ounce to a pint of
+water," to which may be added a little sugar; and if the child is old
+enough to observe the color, just milk enough to change the appearance.
+Another preparation for the same purpose consists of rennet whey, a
+little sweetened, and "disguised, if necessary, as just stated."
+
+The health of the mother, too, during the period of weaning, often needs
+great attention. Let her avoid medicine, however, if possible. A due
+regard to food, drink, exercise, and rest of body and mind, &c., will
+usually be found more effective, as well as more permanently
+efficacious.
+
+
+SEC. 9. _Food subsequently to Weaning._
+
+You will allow me to introduce in this place, some of the sentiments of
+Dr. Cadogan, an English physician, from a little work on the management
+of children. [Footnote: Though Dr. C.'s remarks will apply more closely
+to England in 1750, they are by no means inapplicable to the United
+States in 1837.] I do it with the more pleasure because, though he wrote
+almost a century ago, he urges the same general principles on which I
+have all along been insisting: hence it will be seen that mine are no
+new-fangled notions. His remarks refer to the young of every age, but
+chiefly to early infancy and childhood. It will be found necessary, in
+some instances, to abridge, but I shall endeavor not to misrepresent the
+Doctor's views.
+
+       *       *       *       *       *
+
+"Look over the bills of mortality. Almost half of those who fill up that
+black list, die under five years of age; so that half the people that
+come into the world go out of it again, before they become of the least
+use to it or to themselves. To me, this seems to deserve serious
+consideration.
+
+"It is ridiculous to charge it upon nature, and to suppose that infants
+are more subject to disease and death than grown persons; on the
+contrary, they bear pain and disease much better--fevers especially; and
+for the same reason that a twig is less hurt by a storm than an oak.
+
+"In all the other productions of nature, we see the greatest vigor and
+luxuriancy of health, the nearer they are to the egg or bud. When was
+there a lamb, a bird, or a tree, that died because it was young? These
+are under the immediate nursing of unerring nature; and they thrive
+accordingly.
+
+"Ought it not, therefore, to be the care of every nurse and every
+parent, not only to protect their nurslings from injury, but to be well
+assured that their own officious services be not the greatest evils the
+helpless creatures can suffer?
+
+"In the lower class of mankind, especially in the country, disease and
+mortality are not so frequent, either among adults or their children.
+Health and posterity are the portion of the poor--I mean the laborious.
+The want of superfluity confines them more within the limits of nature;
+hence they enjoy the blessings they feel not, and are ignorant of their
+cause.
+
+"In the course of my practice, I have had frequent occasion to be fully
+satisfied of this; and have often heard a mother anxiously say, 'the
+child has not been well ever since it has done puking and crying.'
+
+"These complaints, though not attended to, point very plainly to the
+cause. Is it not very evident that when a child rids its stomach of its
+contents several times a day, it has been overloaded? While the natural
+strength lasts, (for every child is born with more health and strength
+than is generally imagined,) it cries at or rejects the superfluous
+load, and _thrives apace_; that is, grows very fat, bloated, and
+distended beyond measure, like a house lamb.
+
+"But in time, the same oppressive cause continuing, the natural powers
+are overcome, being no longer able to throw off the unequal weight. The
+child, now unable to cry any more, languishes and is quiet.
+
+"The misfortune is, that these complaints are not understood. The child
+is swaddled and crammed on, till, after gripes, purging, &c., it sinks
+under both burdens into a convulsion fit, and escapes farther torture.
+This would be the case with the lamb, were it not killed, when full fat.
+
+"That the present mode of nursing is wrong, one would think needed no
+other proof than the frequent miscarriages attending it, the death of
+many, and the ill health of those that survive. But what I am going to
+complain of is, that children, in general, are over-clothed and
+over-fed, and fed and clothed improperly. To these causes I attribute
+almost all their diseases.
+
+"But the feeding of children is much more important to them than their
+clothing. Let us consider what nature directs in the case. If we follow
+nature, instead of leading or driving her, we cannot err. In the
+business of nursing, as well as physic, art, if it do not exactly copy
+this original, is ever destructive.
+
+"If I could prevail, no child should ever be crammed with any unnatural
+mixture, till the provision of nature was ready for it; nor afterwards
+fed with any ungenial diet whatever, at least for the _first three
+months_; for it is not well able to digest and assimilate other elements
+sooner.
+
+"I have seen very healthy children that never ate or drank anything
+whatever but their mother's milk, for the first ten or twelve months.
+Nature seems to direct to this, by giving them no teeth till about that
+time. The call of nature should be waited for to feed them with anything
+more substantial; and the appetite ought ever to precede the food--not
+only with regard to the daily meals, but those changes of diet which
+opening, increasing life requires. But this is never done, in either
+case; which is one of the greatest mistakes of all nurses.
+
+"When the child requires more solid sustenance, we are to inquire what
+and how much is most proper to give it. We may be well assured there is
+a great mistake either in the quantity or quality of children's food, or
+both, as it is usually given them, because they are made sick by it; for
+to this mistake I cannot help imputing nine in ten of all their
+diseases.
+
+"As to quantity, there is a most ridiculous error in the common
+practice; for it is generally supposed that whenever a child cries, it
+wants victuals: it is accordingly fed ten or twelve or more times in a
+day and night. This is so obvious a misapprehension, that I am surprised
+it should ever prevail.
+
+"If a child's wants and motions be diligently and judiciously attended
+to, it will be found that it never cries, but from pain. Now the first
+sensations of hunger are not attended with pain; accordingly, a very
+young child that is hungry will make a hundred other signs of its want,
+before it will cry for food. If it be healthy, and quite easy in its
+dress, it will hardly ever cry at all. Indeed, these signs and motions I
+speak of are but rarely observed, because it seldom happens that
+children are ever suffered to be hungry.[Footnote: That which we
+commonly observe in them, in such cases, and call by the name of hunger,
+the Doctor, I suppose would regard as morbid or unnatural feeling,
+wholly unworthy of the name of HUNGER.]
+
+"In a few, very few, whom I have had the pleasure to see reasonably
+nursed, that were not fed above two or three times in twenty-four hours,
+and yet were perfectly healthy, active, and happy, I have seen these
+signals, which were as intelligible as if they had spoken.
+
+"There are many faults in the quality of children's food.
+
+"1. It is not simple enough. Their paps, panadas, gruels, &c. are
+generally enriched with sugar, spices, and other nice things, and
+sometimes a drop of wine--none of which they ought ever to take. Our
+bodies never want them; they are what luxury only has introduced, to the
+destruction of the health of mankind.
+
+"2. It is not enough that their food should be simple; it should also be
+light. Many people, I find, are mistaken in their notions of what is
+light, and fancy that most kinds of pastry, puddings, custards, &c. are
+light; that is, light of digestion. But there is nothing heavier, in
+this sense, than unfermented flour and eggs, boiled hard, which are the
+chief ingredients in some of these preparations.
+
+"What I mean by light food--to give the best idea I can of it--is, any
+substance that is easily separated, and soluble in warm water. Good
+bread is the lightest thing I know, and the fittest food for young
+children. Cows' milk is also simple and light, and very good for them;
+but it is often injudiciously prepared. It should never be boiled; for
+boiling alters the taste and properties of it, destroys its sweetness,
+and makes it thicker, heavier, and less fit to mix and assimilate with
+the blood."
+
+       *       *       *       *       *
+
+It is hardly necessary for me to repeat, that in these general views of
+Dr. C., with a few exceptions, I entirely concur; indeed some of them
+have already been presented. But I have expressed my doubts of the
+soundness of his conclusion in regard to sugar. Used with food, in very
+small quantity, by persons whose stomachs are already in a good
+condition, both sugar and molasses, especially the former, appear to me
+not only harmless, but wholesome and useful.
+
+On the subject of simplicity in children's food, I should be glad to
+enlarge. There is nothing more important in diet than simplicity, and
+yet I think there is nothing more rare. To suit the fashion, everything
+must be mixed and varied. I have no objection to variety at different
+meals, both for children and adults; indeed I am disposed to recommend
+it, as will be seen hereafter. But I am utterly opposed to any
+considerable variety at the same meal; and above all, in a single dish.
+The simpler a dish can be, the better.
+
+But let us look, for a moment, at the dishes of food which are often
+presented, even at what are called plain tables.
+
+Meats cannot be eaten--so many persons think--without being covered
+with mustard, or pepper, or gravy--or soaked in vinegar; and not a few
+regard them as insipid, unless several of these are combined. Few people
+think a piece of plain boiled or broiled muscle (lean flesh) with
+nothing on it but a little salt, is fit to be eaten. Everything, it is
+thought, must be rendered more stimulating, or acrid; or must be
+swimming in gravy, or melted fat or butter.
+
+Bread, though proverbially the staff of life, can scarcely be eaten in
+its simple state. It must be buttered, or honied, or toasted, or soaked
+in milk, or dipped in gravy. Puddings must have cherries or fruits of
+some sort, or spices in them, and must be sweetened largely. Or
+perhaps--more ridiculous still--they must have suet in them. And after
+all this is done, who can eat them without the addition of sauce, or
+butter, or molasses, or cream? Potatoes, boiled, steamed or roasted,
+delightful as they are to an unperverted appetite, are yet thought by
+many people hardly palatable till they are mashed, and buttered or
+gravied; or perhaps soaked in vinegar. In short, the plainest and
+simplest article for the table is deemed nearly unfit for the stomach,
+till it has been buttered, and peppered, and spiced, and perhaps
+_pearlashed_. Even bread and milk must be filled with berries or fruits.
+Where can you find many adults who would relish a meal which should
+consist entirely of plain bread, without any addition; of plain
+potatoes, without anything on them except a little salt; of a plain rice
+pudding, and nothing with it; or of plain baked or boiled apples or
+pears? And _could_ such persons be found, how many of them would bring
+up their children to live on such plain dishes?
+
+It need not be wondered at, that a palate which has been so long tickled
+by variety, and by so many stimulating mixtures of food, should come to
+regard cold water for drink as insipid; and should feel dissatisfied
+with it, and desirous of boiling some narcotic or poisonous herb in it,
+or brewing it with something which will impart to it more or less of
+alcohol. The wonder is, not that some of our epicures become drunkards,
+but that all of them do not.
+
+Dr. Cadogan alludes to a sad mistake everywhere made about _light_ food;
+and condemns, very justly, hard-boiled custards, pastry, &c. It is very
+strange that these substances--for these are among the injurious
+articles which I call mixtures--should ever have obtained currency in
+the world, to the exclusion of bread, which, as the same writer justly
+says, is among the lightest articles of food which are known.
+
+It is strange, in particular, what views people have about bread.
+Judging from what I see, I am compelled to believe that there are few
+who regard it in any other light than as a kind of necessary evil. They
+appear to eat it, not because they are fond of it, by itself, but
+because they _must_ eat it; or rather, because it is a fashionable
+article; and not to make believe they eat it, at the least, would be
+unfashionable. They will get rid of it, however, when they can. And when
+they must eat it, they soak it, or cover it with butter or milk, or
+something else which will render it tolerable--or toast it. And use it
+as they may, it must be hot from the oven. After it is once cold, very
+few will eat it. The idea, above all, of making a full meal of simple
+cold bread, twenty-four hours old, would be rejected by ninety-nine
+persons in a hundred; and by some with abhorrence.
+
+People not only dislike bread, but regard it as unnutritious. I have
+heard many a fond parent say to the child who ate no meat, and seemed to
+depend almost wholly on bread--"Why, my dear child, you will starve if
+you eat no meat. Do at least put some butter on your bread or your
+potatoes." A thousand times have I been admonished, when eating my
+vegetable dinner during the hot and fatiguing days of summer--for I was
+bred to the farm, and ate little or no meat till I was fourteen years
+of age--to eat more butter, or cheese, or something that would give me
+strength; for I could not work, they said, without something more
+nourishing than bread and the other vegetables. And yet few if any boys
+of my age did more work, or performed it better, or with more ease, than
+myself. And I early observed the same thing in other vegetable eaters.
+
+The truth is, there is nothing in the world better adapted to the daily
+wants of the human stomach than good bread; and few things more
+nutritious. There may be a little more nutriment in eggs or jelly; but
+if the former are hard-boiled, the stomach cannot digest them; and fat
+meat of any kind is digested with great difficulty. Indeed it is
+doubtful whether stomachs in temperate climates digest fat at all. They
+may dissolve it, but that is not making good chyle of it. They may even
+reduce it to chyle; _but chyle is not blood_. Fat may slip through the
+system without much of it _adhering_; and I think it pretty evident that
+it usually does so.
+
+The muscle--the lean part of animals--may be nearly as nutritious as
+good bread, and is more easily digested. But it is very far from being
+proved that, for the healthy, those things are always best which are
+most easily digested. Nobody will pretend that potatoes are better for
+us than bread; and yet the experiments of Dr. Beaumont seem to prove
+that boiled or roasted potatoes are much more quick and easy of
+digestion than bread of the first and best quality. Even over-boiled
+eggs and raw cabbage, bad as they are, are dissolved in the stomach, and
+appear to be digested as quick, if not quicker, than good wheat bread.
+But nobody in the world will pretend they form more wholesome food.
+Neither is meat--even _lean_ meat--necessarily more wholesome, or better
+calculated to give strength than bread, simply be cause it is more
+quickly and easily digested. It would be nearer the truth to say, that
+those substances which digest slowest (provided they do not irritate)
+are best adapted to the wants of the human stomach.
+
+The philosopher LOCKE--perhaps from his knowledge of medicine--gives
+some excellent directions on this subject. "Great care should be used,"
+be says, that the child "eat bread plentifully, both alone and with
+everything else; and whatever he eats that is solid, make him chew it
+well." This writer, by the way, supposed that the teeth were made to be
+used in beating our food; and that we ought neither to swallow it
+without chewing, as is customary in our busy New England, nor to mash or
+soak it in order to save the labor of mastication--a practice almost
+equally universal. But let us hear his own words.
+
+"As for his diet, it ought to be very plain and simple; and if I might
+advise, flesh should be forborne, at least till he is two or three years
+old. But of whatever advantage this may be to his future health and
+strength, I fear it will hardly be consented to by parents, misled by
+the custom of eating too much flesh themselves, who will be apt to think
+their children--as they do themselves--in danger to be starved; if they
+have not flesh at least twice a day. This I am sure, children would
+breed their teeth with much less danger, be freer from diseases while
+they were little, and lay the foundations of a healthy and strong
+constitution much surer, if they were not crammed so much as they are,
+by fond mothers and foolish servants, and were kept wholly from flesh
+the first three or four years of their lives."
+
+Were Locke still living, I should like to interrogate him at this
+place. He first speaks of giving children no meat till they are two or
+three years old; and then afterwards extends the period to three or
+four. The question I would put is this: If the child is healthier
+without meat till he is three or four years old, why not till he is
+thirteen or fourteen; or even till thirty, or forty, or seventy? And is
+not Professor Stuart, of Andover--a meat eater himself, and an advocate
+for its moderate use by those who have already been trained to the use
+of it--is not the Professor, I say, more than half right when he
+asserts, as I have heard him, that it may be well to train all children,
+from the first, to the exclusive use of vegetable food?
+
+I have a few more extracts from Locke, particularly on the subject of
+bread.
+
+"I should think that a good piece of well made and well baked brown
+bread would be often the best breakfast for my young master. I am sure
+it is as wholesome, and will make him as strong a man, as greater
+delicacies; and if he be used to it, it will be as pleasant to him.
+
+"If he, at any time, call for victuals between meals, use him to nothing
+but dry bread. If he be hungry more than wanton, bread will go down; and
+if he be not hungry, it is not fit that he should eat. By this you will
+obtain two good effects. First, that by custom he will come to be in
+love with bread; for, as I said, our palates and stomachs, too, are
+pleased with the things we are used to. Another good you will gain
+hereby is, that you will not teach him to eat more nor oftener than
+nature requires.
+
+"I do not think that all people's appetites are alike; some have
+naturally stronger and some weaker stomachs. But this I think, that
+many are made gormands and gluttons by custom, that were not so by
+nature. And I see, in some countries, men as lusty and strong, that eat
+but two meals a day, as those that have set their stomachs, by a
+constant usage, to call on them for four or five.
+
+"The Romans usually fasted till supper, the only set meal, even of those
+who ate more than once in a day; and those who used breakfasts, as some
+did at eight, same at ten, others at twelve of the clock, and some
+later, neither ate flesh nor had anything made ready for them.
+
+"Augustus, when the greatest monarch on the earth, tells us he took a
+piece of dry bread in his chariot; and Seneca, in his 83d epistle,
+giving an account how be managed himself when he was old, and his age
+permitted indulgence, says that he used to eat a piece of dry bread for
+his dinner, without the formality of sitting to it. Yet Seneca, as it is
+well known, was wealthy.
+
+"The masters of the world were brought up with this spare diet, and the
+young gentlemen of Rome felt no want of strength or spirit because they
+ate but once a day. Or if it happened by chance that any one could not
+fast so long as till supper, their only set meal, he took nothing but a
+bit of dry bread, or at most a few raisins or some such slight thing
+with it, to stay his stomach. And more than one set meal a day was
+thought so monstrous that it was a reproach, as low as Caesar's time, to
+make an entertainment, or sit down to a table, till towards sunset.
+Therefore I judge it most convenient that my young master should have
+nothing but bread for breakfast. I impute a great part of our diseases
+in England to our eating too much flesh, and too little bread. Dry
+bread, though the best nourishment, has the least temptation."
+
+I shall not undertake to defend all the sentiments of Mr. Locke in these
+extracts; but in regard to the main point--the nutritive properties and
+wholesome tendency of bread, and the importance of making it a principal
+article of diet for children--I think his views are just. In short, they
+do not differ, substantially, from those of a large proportion of the
+best writers on this subject in every country, during the last three
+hundred years. As if with one voice, they dissuade from the use of too
+much animal food for the young, and encourage the use of a larger
+proportion of vegetable food--bread, plain puddings, rice, potatoes,
+turnips, beets, apples, pears, &c., and milk.
+
+Yet they all, or nearly all, seem to write just as if they did not
+expect to be believed; or if believed, to be followed. They seem to
+regard mankind as so inveterately attached to old habits, and so much
+addicted to flesh eating, that there is little hope of reclaiming them.
+
+Now, though my opinions are no more entitled to respect than many of
+theirs, I hope for greater success than they appear to do. I expect that
+many young mothers who read this work, will be led to think and inquire
+further on the subject; and if they find that the views here advanced
+are in accordance with reason, and common sense, and higher authority, I
+am not without hope that they will reform, and do what they can to
+reform their neighbors.
+
+I have dwelt the longer, in this section, on the _general_ principles of
+diet, because I am of opinion that whatever is true, on this subject, in
+regard to the diet of children, soon after weaning, is equally, or
+nearly equally applicable to the whole of childhood, youth, manhood and
+age. It is not true that one period of life, and one mode of employment,
+demands a diet essentially different from that which is demanded at
+another period, and in other circumstances; provided always, that the
+individual is in health. Occasional instances of the kind, there may be;
+but they are not numerous.
+
+The digestive powers of the young are more nearly as strong as those of
+the adult than is usually admitted, and they are much more active. They
+require a less quantity of food, undoubtedly; and they should be fed at
+shorter intervals. But as a general rule, what is best for them, as
+regards its quality, at three years old, is best for them at thirty; or,
+should they live so long, at ninety. I repeat it; there is very little
+difference in the nature of the food required ever after teething.
+
+Let me not be understood as saying that the strong, and the robust, and
+the active cannot digest food which the weak, and enervated, and
+indolent cannot. Undoubtedly they can. But this does not prove that they
+_ought_ to do it. It does not prove that their strength and vigor were
+not given them for other purposes than to be expended on the poorer
+substances for food, when they might have better. Nor is it true, as
+often pretended, that the hard laborer needs either more food, or that
+which is of a stronger quality, just in proportion to the severity of
+his labor. The man or the child who labors moderately, just sufficient
+for the purposes of health, and labors with his hands in the open air,
+needs rather _more_ food than the indolent or the sedentary, or those
+who labor to excess; but not that which is of a stronger quality. It is
+he who labors to excess--if any difference of quality were required at
+all--who should eat milder food, as well as less in quantity.
+
+Some physicians there are who tell us that all mankind would live
+longer, as well as be more healthful, if they ate nothing but bread, and
+drank nothing but water. It may be so, but I do not believe it. Water,
+as I shall show hereafter, is indeed the only appropriate drink; but I
+do not believe that bread, even after the second year, is in all cases
+and circumstances the best food. Besides that the experiments of
+Majendie and other physiologists go a little way--though not far, I
+confess--to prove that animals generally, (and if so, why not man, as
+well as the rest?) thrive best with some degree of variety in their
+food, it seems to me more in accordance with the general intentions of
+the Creator, so far as we can discover what they are.
+
+While, therefore, I deny that either milk or bread is better, in all
+cases, for human sustenance, than any other articles of food, I must, at
+the same time, be permitted to regard them as among the best, and as
+deserving more general attention. Every infant, after leaving the
+breast, should, as it seems to me, make bread, in some of its forms, a
+chief article of food.
+
+This article, so justly and emphatically called the staff of life, may
+be found in almost every country. Common sense seems to have dictated
+the propriety of its use; though fashion has often led us to overlook
+or despise it--like air, and fire, and water, and nearly every other
+common but indispensable blessing.
+
+The best kind of bread is made from wheat, the worst from bark,
+saw-dust, &c. Wood and bark afford so little nutriment, that it is only
+in such countries as Norway, Sweden, Lapland. Iceland, Greenland, and
+Siberia, that the inhabitants can be induced to make use of them. Here
+they are often useful; either because people cannot get food which is
+better, or to blend with their fat or oily animal food. For it should
+never be forgotten, that healthy digestion requires a large proportion
+of innutritious matter along with the pure nutriment. In order to make
+bread from wheat, the meal should not be bolted. If it seems to contain
+particles which are too coarse, it may be well to pass it through a
+coarse family sieve; but the best bread I have ever eaten, as well as
+the cleanest and neatest, was not sifted at all.
+
+I know there is an almost universal prejudice against this sort of
+bread. Some complain that it scratches their throats; others, that it is
+tasteless; and others still, that it does not agree with them. With
+others there is another objection--which is that bread of this sort has
+sometimes been called _dyspepsia_ bread; and with others still, that it
+has been called _Graham_ bread. Either of these appellations seems
+sufficient to condemn it.
+
+Now as to the harshness, this is owing to its being made of bad
+materials, or to its being baked too hard, or kept too long. Much of
+what they call dyspepsia bread, in our cities, is evidently made by
+mixing the bran and flour of wheat after they have been once separated;
+besides which, in not a few cases, the finest of the flour appears to be
+taken away. Now bread made of such materials thus combined, will always
+be darker colored, as well as harsher, than when made from the wheat,
+simply ground without any bolting, and wet up in the usual manner. Such
+bread is best two or three days old. After four days, it becomes dry and
+somewhat harsh.
+
+They who complain that such bread is insipid, are persons whose
+appetites have been injured by food which is high-seasoned; and who, if
+they eat bread at all, must eat it hot, or soaked in butter. No wonder
+such persons do not like plain bread, and say it is tasteless. But it
+must not be denied that bakers often suffer this kind of bread to be
+over-risen, in order to make it sufficiently light and porous. This
+renders it less tasteful, and from the saleratus they use, less
+wholesome.
+
+No child who has been accustomed, from the first, to good wheaten bread,
+made of unbolted meal, and not less than one day old, will ever prefer
+any other, until he has been rendered capricious on this subject, and
+wishes to change for the sake of changing, or until he has been misled
+by surrounding example. I speak from observation when I say that
+infants, whose habits have not been depraved, will not prefer hot bread
+of any kind. "It is hot, mother," I have heard them say, as an apology
+for refusing a piece of bread; but never, "It is cold," or "It is too
+old."
+
+It is the epicurean--it is he with whom it is a sufficient objection to
+any kind of food whatever, that he has used it for several successive
+meals or days--that is most ready to complain of good bread. He whose
+habits are correct, and who is the more unwilling to change any of his
+articles of diet, the longer he has been in the use of them, and who
+only changes them, or uses variety, from principle--he, I say, will
+never complain of harshness or want of taste in good wheat bread; nor
+will it be an objection of weight with him that _Mr. Graham_ has
+recommended it, or that it has either prevented or cured _dyspepsia_.
+
+Nor will the epicurean himself complain that bread is insipid, after
+being confined to it for a month or six weeks. He will then find a
+sweetness in it, for which he had long sought in vain in the more
+delicate and costly viands of a luxurious, and expensive, and
+unchristian modern table.
+
+It is they only who observe simplicity, and confine themselves to very
+plain food, who truly enjoy pleasure in eating. The bulk of mankind
+benumb their sense of taste by their high-seasoned, over-stimulating
+food and drink, and by such constant variety and strange mixtures; and
+thus, in their eager cry, "Who will show us any good?" they actually
+enjoy less than he who eats plain food, and is contented with it.
+
+Bread of all kinds is greatly improved in whiteness and pleasantness by
+being wet with milk; though even when wet with nothing but water, there
+is a solid and rational sweetness to it, of which the despisers of
+bread, and devourers of much flesh and condiments never dreamed, and
+never will dream, till they reform their habits.
+
+If children are furnished with good bread, on the plan of Mr. Locke,
+there is no doubt that they will relish it most keenly; that their
+attachment to it will strengthen, and that unless we give them other
+food occasionally, from principle, or seduce them by depraving their
+tastes, they will continue it through life. "Train up a child in the way
+he should go, and when he is old he will not depart from it," is a
+general rule, and has as few exceptions, when applied to the diet of a
+child, as when it is applied to his moral tastes and preferences.
+
+With those parents who, though convinced of the justness of the views
+here advanced, have already trained their children in the way they
+should _not_ go, but are anxious to retrace their steps as far as
+possible, there will here be a difficulty. "Our children," they will
+say, "do not, at present, _relish_ the kind of bread you speak of; and
+how shall we bring them to do so? or is the thing indeed possible?"
+
+The answer to these inquiries is easy. Such parents have only to confine
+their children to the kinds of food which they deem proper for them, a
+few weeks or a few months, and they will soon relish them. If those who
+are old enough to be convinced can be brought to unite heartily in the
+change, and to endeavor to be pleased with it, the work of reformation
+will be more pleasant and probably more speedy. I have never found any
+difficulty of bringing myself to relish in a very short time an article
+of food for which I had no relish before, and to which I had even a
+dislike, provided I was thoroughly convinced it was best for me, and was
+earnest in the desire of change--except sweet oil, to which I was about
+six months in becoming reconciled.
+
+It is with physical, as with moral habits, in their formation. We
+should fix on what we believe, from experience, observation, and divine
+and human testimony, is best for us, and habit will soon render it
+agreeable. It is important, even to health, that food should be
+agreeable; but as I have already said, what we know to be best for us
+will soon become agreeable, if we confine ourselves to it; and to our
+children also, if we confine them to it, in like manner.
+
+Next to bread made of wheat--when that cannot be procured--is a mixture
+of wheat and Indian meal; but the proportion of the latter should be the
+smallest. Wheat, rye, and Indian, in the proportion of one third of
+each, make excellent bread, sometimes called _third_ bread. Rye and
+Indian make a tolerable bread. Rye alone is not so good. The want, in
+the latter, of the vegetable principle called gluten, makes its general
+use of very questionable propriety.
+
+Indian meal alone, baked in cakes by the fire, if eaten only in small
+quantities, is a very nutritious and by no means unwholesome bread. But
+its sweetness, and the general fondness which people who are accustomed
+to its use have for it, lead them to eat it in too large proportions, if
+they use it while it is warm. In these circumstances, it proves itself
+too active for the stomach and bowels. If warm, six ounces is as much
+as a hearty adult ought to eat of it at once; and children should of
+course take much less. It is less active on the bowels, and scarcely
+less agreeable, as soon as we become accustomed to it, if eaten when it
+is cold--even if baked in loaves, in the oven.
+
+Potatoes, added to unbolted wheat flour, make excellent bread; and so,
+as I am informed, does rice. Of the latter, however, I have never eaten.
+Oats and barley, and many other grains and substances, will make bread;
+but it is of an inferior kind.
+
+The question may again recur, after this extended series of remarks,
+whether I intend to confine the young almost exclusively to bread, in
+one or another of its forms. We shall see how this is, presently.
+
+While bread, therefore, should constitute a part, at least, and
+sometimes the whole of a meal, a great variety of other articles are not
+only admissible, but desirable. Among these may be mentioned plain
+puddings.
+
+One of the most wholesome puddings is made of Indian meal, enclosed in a
+bag and boiled. Nearly allied to this is the common hasty pudding; but
+the last is less wholesome, because it requires less chewing; and it
+ought to have been observed, before now, that after weaning, any food
+is digested better which has undergone the process of thorough
+mastication.
+
+Boiled rice, though hardly to be regarded as a pudding, is very
+nutritious, and very easy of digestion. I am not without doubts,
+however, in regard to the utility of a large proportion of rice, as
+food. A dinner of it, two or three times a week, I believe to be
+wholesome; but used too frequently, it seems to me not active enough for
+the stomach and bowels; having in this respect precisely a contrary
+effect to that of warm Indian cakes. The common notion that rice has a
+tendency to make people blind, is entirely unfounded. Its worst effect
+is when eaten without being boiled through. In such cases, I have known
+it to do mischief; perhaps because it was swallowed without much
+chewing. Some grind it, and use the flour; but I cannot recommend it to
+be used in this manner.
+
+The best pudding in the world is a loaf of bread, (What!--you will
+say--bread again?) three or four or five days old, boiled, or rather
+_steamed_, in milk. All kinds of bread are excellent for this purpose,
+but wheat and Indian are the best. They are excellent even without
+milk--that is, simply steamed.
+
+Puddings made of the flour of wheat, rye, buckwheat, &c., are less
+wholesome than those which have been already mentioned. And all sorts
+of puddings are less wholesome, when eaten as hot as our unreasonable
+fashions require, than when their temperature is quite below that of our
+bodies. I would not have them so cold as to chill us, for this would be
+to go to the other, though less dangerous extreme; but they ought to be
+cool. Too much heat is an unnatural stimulus, likely to leave more or
+less debility behind it. In addition to this, those who eat hot food are
+more exposed to take cold, in consequence of it.
+
+With none of these puddings ought we to mix any fruits, green or
+dried--not even raisins. Some of the more important properties of nearly
+every kind of fruit or berry are lost by boiling, unless we eat the
+water in which they are boiled, and save the vapor which would otherwise
+escape. I am not in favor of boiled fruit generally, especially if
+boiled in puddings.
+
+Puddings, like most other kinds of food--even bread--may be slightly
+salted: not that this is indispensable, but because the balance of human
+testimony is in its favor. The argument that we evidently need salt
+because the other animals require it, is without much weight. The other
+animals do not _generally_ require or use it.[Footnote: Some
+considerable savage nations use no salt, and a few have a strong
+aversion to it.] The cases so often triumphantly mentioned, where
+animals appear to thrive better from the use of it, are only exceptions
+to the general rule, nor are they very numerous in comparison with the
+whole race of animals. Still I have no objections to its moderate use.
+It may be useful in preventing worms; though there are doubts even of
+that. In large quantities, it is unquestionably hurtful.
+
+But neither fruits nor berries--permit me to repeat the sentiment--no,
+nor any such thing as cinnamon or spices, nor even sugar or molasses in
+any considerable quantity, should go into the composition of any sort of
+pudding. If the puddings are not sweet enough without, it is better to
+add a little sugar or molasses on your plate. Nor should sauces, or
+cream, or butter, or suet be used in or upon them; though of all these
+substances, cream is least injurious. Nutmegs, grated cheese, &c., are
+unnecessary and hurtful. Cheese should never be eaten, in any way.
+
+There is one thing, however, which may be eaten in moderate quantity
+with all sorts of puddings and with bread; I mean milk. I say eaten
+_with_, for it is better never to put these substances, nor indeed any
+other, _into_ the milk. The bread, pudding, &c., should be eaten by
+itself, and the milk by itself, also. In this way we shall not be liable
+to cheat the teeth out of what is justly their due, and then make the
+deranged stomach and general system pay for it.
+
+Potatoes are a good article of diet--to be used once a day--though they
+are not very nutritious. They are best either steamed or roasted in the
+ashes. They are also excellent when boiled. Turnips are also good.
+Onions are not so useful as is generally supposed, except for the
+purposes of medicine.
+
+Beets; in small quantity, and carrots and asparagus, and above all,
+beans and peas--but not their pods--are tolerable food once a day,
+during most of the year, except it be the middle of the winter. But
+neither these, nor potatoes, nor any other vegetables, ought to be
+cooked in any way with fat, or fat meat, or butter; or be mashed after
+they are cooked, or eaten with oil or butter.
+
+If there be an exception to this general rule--which may seem to be
+rather sweeping--it should be in favor of a little sweet oil on rice, or
+on bread puddings. But the common practice, founded upon the apparent
+belief that we can scarcely eat anything until it is well covered with
+lard or butter, is quite objectionable--nay, it is even disgusting. No
+pure stomach would ever prefer oily bread, or pudding, or beans, or
+peas; and most people would abhor the sight of such a strange
+combination, were not habit, in its power to change our very nature,
+almost omnipotent.
+
+
+SEC. 10. _Remarks on Fruit._
+
+There is a very great diversity of opinion on the subject of fruit. Some
+maintain that all fruit, even in the most ripe and perfect state, is of
+doubtful utility, especially for children. Others say none is hurtful,
+if ripe, and eaten in moderate quantity. Some require care in making a
+proper selection; but here again, in regard to what constitutes a proper
+selection, there is a difference of opinion. Some consider fruits easy
+of digestion; others believe they are digested only with very great
+difficulty.
+
+When the cholera prevailed in the large cities of the United States, a
+majority of the physicians believed all fruits, even those which were
+ripe, to be injurious in their tendency. But it was insisted by the
+minority--I think very justly--that whenever fruit appeared to be
+injurious, it was accidental--that is, the disease, being prepared to
+make its attack just at that time, happened to do so immediately after
+the use of fruit, rather than something else, and especially in the
+_season_ of fruits--or on account of excess; or (which was certainly
+the case in some instances) because the quality of the fruit was bad.
+
+At present, the _weight_ of testimony on this subject--estimating
+according to talent, and not according to numbers--is in favor of good
+fruit, used with moderation--even in the face of the cholera. Dr.
+Dunglison--one of the last to adopt such an opinion--appears to be in
+its favor.
+
+On several points, in regard to fruit, I believe that among medical men
+there is no essential difference of opinion. As I always prefer, in
+controversies, to see in how many things antagonists agree, before
+proceeding to the points in which they differ, I will here endeavor to
+enumerate them.
+
+1. All unripe fruits, especially, if eaten raw and uncooked--let the
+season, or prevalent disease, or individual, be what or who it may--are
+unwholesome.
+
+2. Excess, in the use of the most wholesome fruits, under any
+circumstances, is also injurious.
+
+3. Fruits, eaten immediately after a full meal, when the stomach is in
+an improper condition for receiving anything more, contribute to
+overtask the digestive powers, and must hence produce more or less of
+injury.
+
+4. The skins and kernels of the larger fruits are unwholesome, because
+indigestible. The skins of fruits, if beaten or masticated finely; may
+appear to be digested, because dissolved; but I have already endeavored
+to show that solution is not always digestion.
+
+5. Fruits of all kinds are most wholesome in their own country, and in
+their own appropriate season.
+
+6. Dried fruits are less wholesome than fresh.
+
+7. Fruit of all kinds should be withheld from infants, until they have
+teeth.
+
+Thus far, as I have already said, all agree; at least so far as I know.
+There are several other points on which medical men are generally
+agreed, though not universally. One of these is, that fruits, if eaten
+at all, should usually form a part of a regular meal. Another is, that
+it is better not to eat them immediately before going to bed.
+
+There are contradictory opinions among the mass of the community,
+physicians as well as others, on the general intention of our summer
+fruits. From the fact that children's diseases prevail more at the
+season of the year when fruits are more abundant, many think the fruits
+are the immediate cause of them. Others, and with better reason, suppose
+that the latter are intended by the Author of nature to check or prevent
+the bowel diseases of summer.
+
+Nothing, certainly, is more unnatural than to suppose that at the very
+season of the year when so many other influences combine to awaken a
+tendency to disease in the human system, the Creator should place before
+our eyes an abundance of fruits, inviting us by all their cooling and
+tempting properties, only to do us mischief. On the contrary, it seems
+to me much more probable that many of them were designed for our
+moderate use. In what quantity, under what circumstances, and which are
+best, it is left to human experience to determine.
+
+Some say that fruit should never be eaten in the morning, before
+breakfast. Now everything I know of the human constitution, together
+with what I have learned from experience and observation, has been for
+years leading me to the contrary opinion. Indeed, I am most fully
+convinced, that of all periods for eating fruit, whether we use it alone
+or make it a part of our regular meals, the morning, soon after we rise,
+is the most favorable. [Footnote: I ought to remark, that as the morning
+is the best time for eating _good_ fruit, so it is the very worst time
+for eating it if _not_ good; and as a large proportion of that which is
+eaten is unripe, or otherwise bad, this may account for the general
+prejudice against eating it at this period.] My reasons are as follows:
+
+1. The rest and sleep of the preceding night has restored our general
+vigor, and consequently has invigorated the stomach, so that digestion
+will be more easily and perfectly accomplished.
+
+2. We have been, at our rising, so long without food on our stomachs,
+that they are not likely to be oppressed by a moderate quantity of good,
+ripe, wholesome fruit. In the course of our waking hours, meals follow
+each other in such quick succession, and there is so much variety, even
+at the plainest tables, to tempt us to excess, that there is more danger
+of injury from the addition of fruit than at our first rising.
+
+3. I have never known any one to receive injury from the use of fruit in
+this way, provided no other circumstance in relation to quantity,
+quality, &c. had been disregarded. In my own case, the practice has, on
+the contrary, seemed beneficial.
+
+4. There is one reason in favor of this practice which perhaps would
+have less weight, if people rose as early in the morning as they ought;
+or, in the language of Dr. Franklin to the inhabitants of Paris, if they
+knew that the sun gives light as soon as he rises. I allude to the
+demand which I conceive that the stomach makes for something, after so
+long fasting, and the pernicious custom of late breakfasts. I am
+persuaded that it is advisable to eat something nearly as soon as we
+rise, be it never so early; and if we can get nothing else for
+breakfast, and have not accustomed ourselves to relish a piece of good
+bread, or some other simple thing, which requires no labor of
+preparation, I think it perfectly proper to eat a small quantity of
+fruit.
+
+We come now to the particular consideration of some of those fruits
+which universal experience has shown to be the most salutary.
+
+Of all these, none is more wholesome than the apple. There is indeed a
+great diversity in the quality even of this single article. Sweet apples
+are the most nutritious; but perhaps those which are gently acid, and at
+the same time mealy, are rather more cooling, and when eaten raw, and in
+the heat of summer, not less wholesome.
+
+Apples which come to maturity very early in the season appear, as a
+general rule, to be less rich, and even less perfect, than those which
+ripen later. In view of this fact, some writers have endeavored to
+dissuade us from their use; and among others, Mr. Locke. We may judge a
+little what his opinions were, from his concluding remarks on the
+subject:--"I never knew apples hurt anybody," says he, "after October."
+
+But although neither apples nor any other fruits which ripen uncommonly
+early are quite so good as those which come in a little later, yet I do
+not think they are to be wholly rejected, unless they have been raised
+in hot houses. Fruits, and indeed vegetables in general, whose maturity
+is hastened by artificial processes, must be less wholesome than when
+brought to perfection in nature's own appropriate time and manner. I
+ought to say, however, very distinctly, that of the fruits of any
+particular tree, those which first ripen are always the worst; for they
+are usually wormy, or otherwise defective.
+
+Most of the fruit, as well as other vegetables, brought to our city
+markets in this country, is utterly unfit to be eaten. Sometimes it is
+immature; sometimes it has a hot house maturity; sometimes it has been
+picked so long that it has begun to decay. Many fruits--berries
+especially--are in perfection for a very short period only. Mulberries,
+for example--one kind especially--are not in perfection long enough to
+carry to the market house, even though the distance were very small.
+Luckily, however, very few mulberries are eaten. But the raspberry and
+strawberry, if perfect when gathered, have usually begun to decay,
+before they are purchased. That this appears to be rather unfrequent, is
+because they are gathered before they are ripe.
+
+Dr. Dewees regards most fruits as difficult of digestion. I do not think
+they are so, if perfect and ripe. The experiments of Dr. Beaumont, so
+far as they prove any general principle, show conclusively that mellow
+sweet apples are more quickly digested than any kind of vegetable food
+whatever, except rice and sago. But even admitting they were slow of
+digestion, I do not think--as I have already shown in another
+place--that they ought on that account to be excluded. Besides, my
+opinion differs from that of Dr. D. in regard to the strength of the
+digestive powers of children. After teething, they seem to me to be able
+to digest any substances which adults can; and with as little
+difficulty.
+
+But to return:--No fruit is in perfection longer than the apple.
+Besides, no fruit appears to be less injured in its nature and
+properties by picking it a little before it is ripe, and preserving it
+during the winter. It is on this account, more perhaps than any other,
+that I value it more highly than all other fruits united.
+
+Apples may be used either raw or cooked. In either case, the skins and
+seeds should be avoided, as has been before suggested. I am not ignorant
+that WILLICH, in his "Lectures on Diet and Regimen"--an excellent work,
+in the main--says that the seeds ought to be eaten; but I believe few
+physiologists would comply with his injunction, especially when it is
+considered that he recommends, in the same connection, that we swallow
+the stones of cherries and plums. Strange how far our theories will
+sometimes carry us!
+
+The apple is excellent when roasted or baked, especially the sweet
+apple. It is very common, in some places, to eat baked sweet apples with
+milk; and the practice is by no means a bad one. Indeed, baked or raw
+apples might be advantageously made a part of at least one of our meals
+every day. There is said to be a miserly farmer--a single gentleman--in
+the western part of the state of Massachusetts, who has lived on nothing
+but apples for his food, and water for his drink, about forty years. And
+yet he is said to enjoy the most perfect health. I do not propose this
+as an example worthy of imitation; but it shows that apples maybe made
+to subserve an important purpose in diet. And though I have more than
+once expressed an opinion highly unfavorable to the exclusive use of any
+one article of diet, yet if I were to confine myself to any one thing, I
+know of nothing except bread that I should prefer to good apples. Still,
+however, I prefer a variety--sweet, sour, early, late, &c.; and I should
+use them raw, roasted, baked, made into sauce with new or unfermented
+cider, and boiled. Good apples, eaten raw, with bread, form not only a
+very wholesome, but, to an unperverted appetite, a most delicious
+dinner.
+
+Much has been said about cutting down orchards; but the whole seems to
+me idle--for if the fruit is of a good quality, it may be used as food,
+either for man or beast. And if not good, the trees ought either to be
+destroyed or replaced by those that will produce fruit which is
+better--even if the object were to make it into cider. I have said that
+apples may be used both by man and beast. It is well known that most
+domestic animals thrive well on good apples, especially sweet ones. Very
+tolerable molasses is also sometimes made from sweet apples.
+
+Nearly everything which has been said above in regard to apples, will
+apply to pears. The best varieties of this excellent fruit are quite as
+nutritious and as wholesome as the apple; and as much improved for the
+table by baking. I believe, however, that no cheap process has yet been
+devised for keeping them as long in the winter. They may be preserved in
+the form of sauce, prepared in the same way with common apple sauce. The
+skins, of many kinds of pears are less injurious than those of apples;
+but even the skins of pears need not be eaten.
+
+Some kinds of peaches are tolerably wholesome; but the stringy character
+of their pulp appears to me to render them less so than apples and
+pears, though I am not confident on this point. But if used at all, they
+should be used in less quantity at one time. Tempting as their flavor
+is, I seldom eat them, when I can get apples and pears; holding myself
+in duty bound to use the _best_, even of the fruits.
+
+"Fruit," says Mr. Locke, "makes one of the most difficult chapters in
+the government of health, especially that of children. Our first parents
+ventured Paradise for it; and it is no wonder our children cannot stand
+the temptation, though it cost them their health. The regulation of this
+cannot come under any one general rule; for I am by no means of their
+mind who would keep children wholly from fruit, as a thing totally
+unwholesome for them, by which strict way they make them but the more
+ravenous after it, to eat good or bad, ripe or unripe, all that they can
+get, whenever they come at it.
+
+"Melons, peaches, most sorts of plums, and all sorts of grapes, in
+_England_, I think children should be wholly kept from, as having a very
+tempting taste, in a very unwholesome juice, so that if it were
+possible, they should never so much as see them, or know that there was
+any such thing. But strawberries, cherries, gooseberries and currants,
+when thoroughly ripe, I think may be pretty safely allowed them."
+
+Excellent as these remarks are, in general, I do not like his entire
+interdiction of the use of melons, peaches, plums, and grapes, even in
+England. Peaches, to be sure, as they come at a season when apples or
+pears, or both of them--which are more wholesome than peaches--are
+abundant, may be better omitted, delicious as they are to the taste; and
+I do not think very highly of plums. But melons, in very moderate
+quantity, and grapes, if we eat nothing but the ripe pulp, rejecting
+both the husk and the interior hard part, including the seeds, are, I
+think, useful and wholesome. On the other hand, I should never place
+cherries and gooseberries in the same list with strawberries; for the
+latter are, if I may use the expression, infinitely the most wholesome.
+
+Many seem to think that not to eat all sorts of fruits is to despise, or
+at least to treat with neglect the gifts of God, intended for our
+reception; by which they mean, if they mean anything, that the use of
+all sorts of fruits is already found out, even in the present
+comparative infancy of the world. Now I do not suppose that God has made
+anything in vain--absolutely so--though I do not think we have found out
+the true uses of half the things which he has made and given us. And
+among those things of which we are yet ignorant, are some of the fruits.
+I do not believe it follows, necessarily, that because fruits are
+created, we are obliged to use them all.
+
+Besides, if this is a rule, it is one which nobody follows. Every one
+uses more of some sorts, and fewer of others; and a large proportion of
+the community entirely reject some kinds. Now if the statement commonly
+made, that all fruits are the gifts of God, and ought therefore to be
+used by all persons, is correct, those who make the statement ought to
+conform to it as a rule of their lives, and to eat all kinds of fruit
+which the season and country affords; and not only eat all kinds, but
+see that the whole of every kind is consumed; since to waste any portion
+is to slight the good gifts of God.
+
+The result then is, that we cannot obey such a rule; but are driven back
+to the mode which common sense dictates, which is, to make a selection,
+using some, and rejecting others. And the value of studying the nature
+of these fruits, by examining the experience of mankind in regard to
+them, consists in the aid thus afforded us in making our selection
+wisely.
+
+There is one very common error in the use of the smaller summer fruits,
+such as strawberries, whortleberries, currants, &c., which is that of
+mixing cream, wine, spices, sugar, &c., with them. We are thus tempted
+to eat too great a quantity at once. Besides--which is a worse evil--we
+change the proportions of the saccharine parts, and thus do all in our
+power, by increasing a similarity in all fruits, to destroy that
+agreeable variety which God has established, and which is probably
+salutary.
+
+
+SEC. 11. _Confectionary._
+
+By confectionary we here mean the substances usually sold at those shops
+in our cities distinguished by the general name of confectionaries, and
+which consist either wholly of sugar, or of sugar and some other
+substances combined.
+
+As to the use of a moderate quantity of pure sugar at our meals, whether
+it is procured at a confectioner's shop or elsewhere, I do not know that
+there is any strong objection to it; though I believe that it cannot be
+regarded as indispensable to health--for were that the fact, it seems to
+me to imply something short of infinite wisdom in the creation of
+articles destined for our sustenance. But I have spoken on this subject
+elsewhere.
+
+A part, however, of the contents of the confectionary shop are actually
+poisonous. I refer to those things which are either frosted, as it is
+called, or colored. The substances applied to the sugar for this purpose
+are usually some mineral or vegetable poison; although the fact of its
+being a poison may not always be known to the manufacturer. The most
+unhappy consequences have occasionally followed the use of
+confectionary, when poisoned in this manner. A family of four persons,
+in New York, were made sick in this way in March of year before last,
+and some of them came very near losing their lives. The "frosting" which
+caused the mischief was pronounced by eminent chemists to be one fifth
+rank poison.[Footnote: It is to be remembered that those who eat
+confectionary so slightly poisoned that it does not make them sick at
+once, may nevertheless be as much injured in their constitutions as they
+who are poisoned outright. In the latter case, the poison is in part
+thrown out of the body; in the former, it remains in it much longer--and
+therefore more surely, though more slowly, accomplishes the work of
+destruction.] The coloring substances used are sometimes poisonous, as
+well as the frosting.
+
+Some of the articles sold at these shops consist of sugar mixed with
+paste. Others are called sweetmeats; that is, fruits, or rinds of
+fruits, preserved in sugar. All these substances, I believe, without
+exception, are injurious.
+
+The great evils of confectionary yet remain to be mentioned. These are
+of three kinds, physical, mental and moral.
+
+Some of the _physical_ evils have, it is true, just been mentioned; but
+there is another evil of still greater magnitude. Young people who eat
+confectionary, commonly eat it between meals. This produces mischief in
+two ways. First, it keeps the stomach at work when it ought to rest; for
+this, like every other muscular organ, requires its seasons of repose.
+Secondly, it destroys gradually the appetite; so that when the regular
+meal arrives, the accustomed keenness of appetite does not come with it.
+And the consequence is, not so much that we do not eat enough, as that
+we are fastidious, and eat a little of this, then a little of that; and
+usually select the worst things. We are not hungry enough to make a meal
+of a single article of plain food. And this evil goes on increasing, as
+long as we have access to the confectionary shop. These statements
+describe the case of thousands of pupils, of both sexes, at our schools
+and seminaries.
+
+The _intellectual_ evil resulting from the use of confectionary consists
+in the fondness for excitement which is produced. You will seldom find a
+person who depends daily and almost hourly on some excitement to his
+appetite and stomach, and is not satisfied with plain food, who will
+content himself to _study_ without unnatural excitements of the mind.
+Duty to himself or to others will not move him. He must have before him
+the hope of reward, or the fear of punishment. He must be moved by
+emulation or ambition, or some other questionable or wicked motive or
+passion.
+
+But the _moral_ results, to the young, of using confectionary, are still
+more dreadful. I do not here refer to the danger of meeting with bad
+company at the shops themselves, or of going from these places of
+pollution _directly_ to the grog-shop, the gambling-house, or the
+brothel; though there is danger enough, even here. But I allude to the
+tendency which a habit of not resting satisfied with plain food, but of
+depending on exciting things, has, to make us dissatisfied with plain
+moral enjoyments--the society of friends, and the quiet discharge of our
+duty to God and our neighbor. Just in proportion as we gratify our
+propensity for excitement at the confectioner's shop, just in the same
+proportion do we expose ourselves to the, danger of yielding to
+temptation, should other gratifications present themselves. The young of
+both sexes who are in the use of confectionary, are on the high road to
+gluttony, drunkenness, or debauchery; perhaps to all three. I do not say
+they will certainly arrive there, for circumstances not quite miraculous
+may pluck them as "brands from the burning;" but I do not hesitate to
+say that such is the inevitable tendency; and I call on every mother and
+teacher who reads this section, to beware of confectionaries, and see,
+if possible, that the young never set foot in them. They are a road
+through which thousands pass to the chamber of death--death to the
+immortal spirit, as well as to the body, its vehicle.
+
+More might be added--for this is an important subject--but I trust I
+have said enough. Those who have read and believe what I have written,
+if they remain wholly unaffected and unmoved, would not be roused to
+effort were anything to be added.
+
+
+SEC. 12. _Pastry._
+
+Dr. Paris, a distinguished British writer on diet, says that all pastry
+is "an abomination." And yet, go where we will, we find it often on the
+table. Hardly any one, whether old or young, attempts to do without it.
+
+There are indeed some, who will not eat pie-crust, or high-seasoned
+cakes formed of paste; but yet will not hesitate to eat hot bread, or
+rolls, or biscuits made of wheat flour, bolted. Now what is this but
+paste? If we could see the contents of the stomach, an hour after the
+mass is swallowed, we should find it to be paste, and _mere_ paste.
+
+And yet the evil is increasing everywhere. So generally is this true,
+that a person who refuses to eat hot bread, or cake, or biscuit, is
+deemed singular. He who ventures to lift his voice against it is deemed
+an ascetic or a visionary. But such a voice must be raised, and heard,
+too, whether its monitions are or are not regarded.
+
+Pastry is less objectionable, however, when used in the form of hot
+bread, &c., than when butter or fat is mixed with it. Then it becomes
+one of the most indigestible substances in the world. Besides, it not
+only tries the patience of the stomach, but according to Willich, whose
+authority ranks high, it tends to produce diseases of the skin,
+especially a disease which he calls "copper in the face," and which he
+pronounces incurable.
+
+I know not whether the eruptions so common on the faces of young people
+in this country, and especially of young men, are in every instance
+either produced or aggravated by pastry; but I am very sure of one
+thing, viz., that those who are in the use of pastry, and have eruptions
+of the skin of any kind, will not be apt to get well, as long as they
+continue the use of this objectionable substance.
+
+Physicians are often consulted about eruptions on the face. When they
+assign the real cause, which is undoubtedly connected with the improper
+gratification of some of the appetites, in one way or another, it is
+seldom that the patient has self-command enough to follow his
+prescription of temperance or abstinence. Mothers, it is yours to
+prevent this mischief;--first, by establishing correct physical habits;
+secondly, by teaching your children the great duty of self-denial--not
+only by precept, but by your own good example.
+
+
+SEC. 13. _Crude or Raw Substances._
+
+I have reserved this section for remarks on certain articles used at our
+fashionable modern tables, of which I could not well find it convenient
+to speak elsewhere. And first, of SALADS, and HERBS used in cooking;
+such as asparagus, artichokes, spinage, plantain, cabbage, dock,
+lettuce, water-cresses, chives, &c.
+
+Several of these substances are often eaten raw, in which state they are
+exceedingly indigestible, at the best; and they are rendered still more
+beyond the reach of the powers of the stomach, by the oil or vinegar
+which is added to them. Boiled, they are more tolerable; especially
+asparagus. In the midst, however, of such an abundance of excellent food
+as this country affords, it is most surprising that anybody should ever
+take it into their heads to eat such crude substances; and above all,
+that they should fill children's stomachs with them. What child, with an
+unperverted appetite, would not prefer a good ripe apple, or peach, or
+pear, to the most approved raw salads?--and a good baked one, to the
+best boiled asparagus?
+
+NUTS, in general, are probably made for other animals rather than man;
+though of this we cannot in the present infancy of human knowledge be
+quite certain. But if any of them were intended, by the Creator, for
+man, it is the chesnut; and this should be boiled. Boiled chesnuts are
+used as food, in many parts of southern Europe; and to a very
+considerable extent.
+
+SPICES, as they are sometimes called, such as nutmeg, mace, pepper,
+pimento; cubebs, cardamoms, juniper berries, ginger, calamus, cloves,
+cinnamon, caraway, coriander, fennel, parsley, dill, sage, marjoram,
+thyme, pennyroyal, lavender, hyssop, peppermint, &c., are unfit for the
+human stomach--above all in infancy--except as medicines.
+
+There are several other vegetables equally objectionable with the last,
+though they cannot be classed under the same head. Such are mustard,
+horseradish, raw onions, garlic, cucumbers, and pickles. No appetite
+which has not been accustomed to these substances in early infancy, will
+ever require them. Not that they may not sometimes be useful in enabling
+the stomach--at every age--to get rid of certain substances with which
+it has been improperly or unreasonably loaded;--this is undoubtedly the
+fact; ardent spirits would do the same. And it is with a view to some
+such effect, generally, that medical writers have spoken in their favor.
+Some of them stimulate the stomach to get rid of a load of _green_
+fruit; others, of a load of _fat_ or _salt_ food; others, again,
+of too large a _quantity_ of food which is naturally wholesome.
+
+But in all these cases, they should be considered, not as food, but as
+medicine; and we ought to call them by their right name. And if we
+withhold the cause of the disease, there will be no need of the
+medicine.
+
+
+
+
+CHAPTER VIII.
+
+DRINKS.
+
+Infants need little drink. Adults, even, generally drink to cool
+themselves. Simple water the best drink. Opinions of Dr. Oliver and Dr.
+Dewees. Animal food increases thirst. Only one real drink in the world.
+The true object of all drink. Tea, coffee, chocolate, beer, &c. Milk and
+water, molasses and water, &c. Cider, wine, and ardent spirits. Bad food
+and drink the most prolific sources of disease. Children naturally
+prefer water. Danger of hot drinks. Cold drinks. Mischief they produce.
+Caution to mothers. Extracts. Drinking cold water, while hot.
+
+
+Children need little if any drink, so long as their food is nothing but
+milk; nor indeed for some time afterward, unless they are indulged in
+the use of animal food. Adults, even, very seldom drink merely to quench
+natural thirst. In the summer, people usually drink either to cool
+themselves, or to gratify a thirst which is wholly artificial. Tea,
+coffee, beer, cider, and most other common drinks, when not used for the
+sake of their coolness, are drank, both in winter and summer, for this
+purpose.
+
+That this is the fact, we have the most abundant and unequivocal
+evidence. I know that much is said of the demand which a profuse
+perspiration creates among hard laborers in the summer. Such a sudden
+abstraction of a large amount of fluid requires, it is said, a
+proportional supply, or life would soon become extinct. Yet there are
+many old men who have perspired profusely at their labor all their days,
+and yet have drank nothing at all, except their tea, morning and
+evening; and perhaps have eaten, for one or two of their meals daily, in
+summer, a bowl of bread and milk. And some of them are among the most
+remarkable instances of longevity which the country affords.
+
+How the system acquires a sufficient supply of moisture to keep up good
+health, in these cases, I do not pretend to determine: perhaps it is
+through the medium of the lungs. But at any rate, it can obtain it
+without our drinking for that sole purpose, to the great danger of
+exciting liver complaints, diarrhoea, dyspepsia, colds, rheumatisms, and
+fevers.
+
+But if adults who perspire freely do not require much drink, children
+certainly do not; and above all, young children. And if they do require
+any thing, it is only simple water. The following remarks of Dr. Oliver,
+of Hanover, N.H., are extracted from Dr. Mussey's late Prize Essay on
+Ardent Spirits:
+
+"Who has not observed the extreme satisfaction which children derive
+from quenching their thirst with pure water? And who that has perverted
+his appetite for drink, by stimulating his palate with bitter beer, sour
+cider, rum and water, and other beverages of human invention, but would
+be a gainer, even on the score of mere animal gratification, without any
+reference to health, if he could bring back his vitiated taste to the
+simple relish of nature?
+
+"Children drink because they are dry. Grown people drink, whether dry or
+not, because they have discovered a way of making drink pleasant.
+Children drink water because this is a beverage of nature's own brewing,
+which she has made for the purpose of quenching a natural thirst. Grown
+people drink anything but water, because this fluid is intended to
+quench only a natural thirst; and natural thirst is a thing which they
+seldom feel."
+
+There is a great deal of truth, as well as of sound philosophy, in these
+two paragraphs, and little less of truth in the following paragraph from
+Dr. Dewees:
+
+"We have witnessed very often, with sorrow, parents giving to their
+young children wine, or other stimulating liquors. Nature never intended
+anything stronger than water to be the drink for children. This they
+enjoy greatly; and much advantage is occasionally experienced from its
+use, especially after they have commenced the use of animal food."
+
+Two things are to be observed in the last remarks, which are, that
+children demand drink of any kind but seldom, and that even this
+occasional demand is often the special result of the use of animal food.
+Here comes out an important secret. It is the use of animal food, to a
+very great degree, in adults and children both, that creates so much of
+that unnatural thirst which prevails in the community. When we shall
+come to lay aside animal food, in childhood, youth, manhood and age,
+much that is now _called_ thirst will be banished; and much of the
+intemperance and other kinds of sensuality which follow in its train.
+
+It has been sometimes said that there is but one kind of drink in the
+world--and that is water. This is strictly, or rather _physiologically_
+true. For, though many mixtures are _called_ drinks, it is only the
+water which they contain that answers any of the legitimate purposes for
+which drink was intended by the Creator.
+
+The object of drink, besides quenching our thirst, or rather _while_ it
+quenches it, is, not to be digested, like food, but to pass directly
+from the stomach into the blood-vessels, and dilute and temper the
+blood, rendering it more fit to answer the great purpose of sustaining
+life and health. Now, there is nothing that can do this but water.
+Alcohol cannot do it, nor can turpentine, oil, quicksilver, melted lead,
+or any other liquid.
+
+Tea, coffee, chocolate, small beer, soda water, lemonade, &c., which are
+nearly all water, quench the thirst very well, it is true; but not quite
+so well as water alone would. The narcotic principle of the first two,
+the alcoholic principle of the fourth, and the mucilage, nutriment,
+acid, and alkali of the rest, are in the way; for thirst would be
+quenched still better without them, even when it is of an unnatural
+kind.
+
+Indeed, the same or similar remarks may be made in regard to all other
+mixtures which are usually proposed as drinks. Even milk and water,
+molasses and water, &c., in favor of which so much is said, are
+objectionable, as mere drinks. Not that they contain anything poisonous,
+but they evidently contain nutriment; and even this, except as a part or
+the whole of a regular meal, does harm; for it sets the stomach at work
+when it needs repose. Mere drink, as I have already said, is never
+digested.
+
+But if the drinks above mentioned, and even milk and water, are
+objectionable, what shall we say of cider, wine, and ardent
+spirits?--substances which contain, the latter one half, and the two
+former from one twentieth to one fourth alcohol. Surely, nobody will
+deny that these substances ought, at all events, to be banished from the
+nursery. And yet we occasionally find them there, not only for the use
+of the mother, to the ruin of the child, indirectly--but also, in some
+of their smoother forms, for the use of the child itself.
+
+I would not lay too much stress on food and drink; for, as I have
+already observed, more than once, the causes of infantile ill health and
+mortality are numerous. Still I must insist that, of all the sources of
+disease, these are the most prolific. Much is done towards ruining the
+health of children by the improper food and drink of the mother. But
+when, in addition to all this, the children themselves are early fed
+with animal food, and with stimulating drinks--punch, coffee, tea,
+&c.--and an artificial thirst is early excited and rendered habitual,
+their destruction, for time and eternity, is almost inevitable.
+
+Very few children relish any drink but water, or sweetened water, at
+first; and where they do, it is probably hereditary. I have been struck
+with their tastes and preferences; nor less with the folly of those
+around them, in endeavoring to change them, by requiring them--almost
+always against their will--to sip a little coffee, or a little tea, or
+a little lemonade; or, it may be, a little toddy. Such children _may_
+escape the death of the drunkard or the debauchee; but if they do, it
+will not be through the instrumentality of the parents.
+
+I am very much opposed to giving children hot drinks of any kind. If
+they are to drink substances which are injurious, as tea or coffee, let
+them be cool. I do not say _cold_, for that would be going to the other
+extreme. But no drink, in any ordinary case, should be above the heat of
+our bodies; that is, about 98 degrees of Fahrenheit's thermometer. Yet
+the precautions of this paragraph will be almost unnecessary, if
+children are confined--as they ought to be, and would be, did we not go
+out of our way to teach them otherwise--to water, as their only drink.
+Cold water is almost always preferred. Not one child in a thousand would
+ever prefer it hot, until his taste had been perverted. No writer has
+inveighed more against hot drinks of every kind, than the late William
+Cobbett--and, as I think, with more justice.
+
+But, in avoiding one rock, we must not, as has already been intimated,
+make shipwreck on another. Hot drinks, though they injure the powers of
+the stomach, and by that means and through that medium, are one
+principal cause of the almost universal early decay of teeth, are yet
+less injurious, or at least less dangerous, immediately, than cold ones.
+Mr. Locke, in speaking of the sports of a child, in the open air, has
+the following quaint, but judicious remarks:
+
+"Playing in the open air has but this one danger in it, that I know; and
+that is, that when he is hot with running up and down, he should sit or
+lie down on the cold or moist earth. This, I grant, and drinking cold
+drink, when they are hot with labor or exercise, brings more people to
+the grave, or to the brink of it, by fevers and other diseases, than
+anything I know. These mischiefs are easily enough prevented when he is
+little, being then seldom out of sight. And if, during his childhood, he
+be constantly and rigorously kept from sitting on the ground, or
+drinking any cold liquor, while he is hot, the custom of forbearing,
+grown into _habit_, will help much to preserve him, when he is no longer
+under his maid's or tutor's eye.
+
+"More fevers and surfeits are got by people's drinking when they are
+hot, than by any one thing I know. If he (the child) be very hot, he
+should by no means _drink_; at least a good piece of bread, first to be
+eaten, will gain time to warm his drink _blood hot_, which then he may
+drink safely. If he be very dry, it will go down so warmed, and quench
+his thirst better; and if he will not drink it so warmed, abstaining
+will not hurt him. Besides, this will teach him to forbear, which is a
+habit of the greatest use for health of mind and body too."
+
+The last remarks are full of wisdom. Mothers may depend upon it, that
+every indulgence to which they accustom their children paves the way for
+_habitual_ indulgence; and has a tendency to lead, indirectly, to
+indulgence in other matters; and, on the contrary, every self-denial
+which they can lead children to exercise, voluntarily--even in these
+every-day matters of food, drink, exercise, &c. is so much gained in the
+great work of self-denial and the resisting of temptation in matters of
+higher importance. But I must not moralize too long; having dwelt on
+this same point under the head Confectionary. I proceed, therefore, to
+make a few more extracts from Mr. Locke:
+
+"Not being permitted to _drink_ without eating, will prevent the custom
+of having the cup often at his nose; a dangerous beginning."
+
+"Men often bring habitual hunger and thirst on themselves by custom."
+
+"You may, if you please, bring any one to be thirsty every hour."
+
+"I once lived in a house, where, to appease a froward child, they gave
+him _drink_ as often as he cried, so that he was constantly bibbing.
+And though he could not speak, yet he drank more in twenty-four hours
+than I did."
+
+"It is convenient, for health and sobriety, to drink no more than
+natural thirst requires; and he that eats not salt meats, nor drinks
+strong drink, will seldom thirst between meals."
+
+Great mischief is often done to their health by children at school; and
+one instance of this is, in getting violently heated with exercise, and
+then pouring down large quantities of cold water to cool themselves. I
+once made it a habitual rule for pupils, that they must drink water, if
+they drank it at all, on leaving their seats to go to their plays, but
+not afterwards: and I was so situated that I could prevent the law from
+being broken, as there was no spring or well to which they could have
+access, privately. And though they thought the rule rather severe, I
+have no doubt it saved them from much injury, and perhaps sometimes from
+sickness.
+
+
+
+
+CHAPTER IX.
+
+GIVING MEDICINE.
+
+"Prevention" better than "cure." Nine in ten infantile diseases caused
+by errors in diet and drink. Signs of failing health. Causes of a bad
+breath. Flesh eaters. Gormandizers. General rule for preventing disease.
+When to call a physician.
+
+
+So much error prevails in regard to the medical management of the young,
+that a volume might be written without exhausting the subject.[Footnote:
+Such a volume is in preparation. It is intended as a companion to the
+present.] My present limits and plan allow of only a few remarks, and
+those must be general.
+
+That "an ounce of prevention is worth a pound of cure," has so long ago
+become a proverb, that it seems almost idle to repeat the sentiment. And
+yet it is to be feared that very few receive it as a practical truth, in
+the management of children. Now nothing is more certain than that it is
+easier, as well as more humane, to prevent diseases than to cure them.
+
+I have elsewhere mentioned the opinion of a very eminent physician,
+that nine in ten of children's diseases may be imputed to error with
+regard to the quantity or the quality of their food. For myself, I am by
+no means certain that nine out of ten is the exact proportion, though I
+think the number is, at all events, very large. Few children, or even
+grown persons, are seized with disease suddenly. Their progress towards
+it is always gradual, and sometimes imperceptible. To a physician of any
+tolerable degree of skill, however, there is no difficulty in observing
+and pointing out the first steps towards illness; in those whose habits
+of life are well known to him; and of foretelling the consequence.
+
+But since parents and nurses are not so well qualified as physicians to
+make these observations, I will endeavor to point out a few certain
+signs and symptoms by which they may know a child's health to be
+declining, even before be appears to be sick.--For if these are
+neglected, the evil increases, goes on from bad to worse, and more
+violent and apparent complaints will follow, and perhaps end in
+incurable diseases, which a timely remedy, or a slight change in the
+diet and manner of life, would have infallibly prevented.
+
+"The first tendency to disease," says Dr. Cadogan, "may be observed in a
+child's breath. It is not enough that the breath is not offensive; it
+should be sweet and fragrant, like a nosegay of fresh flowers, or a pail
+of new milk from a young cow that feeds upon the sweetest grass of the
+spring; and this as well at first waking in the morning, as all day
+long." [Footnote: Buchan's "Advice to Mothers," pages 337, 388]
+
+There is much of truth in these remarks; but if they are wholly true,
+then very few children are perfectly healthy. For no child that eats
+much animal food of any sort, or, what amounts to nearly the same thing,
+much butter or gravy, will long retain the fragrant breath here alluded
+to. Who has not observed the difference in this respect, between animals
+in general which feed on flesh, and those which feed on grass? And
+whether it is the character of their respective food that makes the
+difference or not, it is also true that there is nearly as much
+difference of breath between _men_ who use animal food and those who do
+not, as between other animals. The breath of some of our enormous meat
+eaters would almost remind one of a slaughter house.
+
+Nor is it the quality of food alone, that will induce a foul breath,
+either in adults or infants. He who swallows such enormous quantities,
+even of plain food, as by overloading and fatiguing the stomach, tend
+gradually to debilitate it, will produce the same effect. The enormous
+feeders of this full feeding country, whether they are young or old,
+whether they inhabit the mountain or the vale, and whether they feed on
+animal food or not, have generally a bad breath; and if they seldom
+offend, it is because few feed otherwise. And it is not too much--in my
+own opinion--to say of this whole class of gormandizers, no less than of
+the flesh eaters, that they have laid for themselves the foundation of
+future disease.
+
+One general rule may here be distinctly laid down. As a child's breath
+becomes hot and feverish, or strong, or acid, we may be certain that
+"digestion and surfeit have fouled and disturbed the blood; and now is
+the time to apply a proper remedy, and prevent a train of impending
+evils. Let the child be restrained in its food. Let it eat less, live
+upon milk or thin broth for a day or two, and be carried (or walk if it
+is able) a little more than usual in the open air." [Footnote: Advice to
+Mothers, page 338]
+
+This rule is the more important, because, if duly persevered in, it will
+generally prevent disease, and save the trouble and evil consequences of
+taking medicine at all. Meanwhile it will be advisable to call in a
+physician--not to give drugs, but to prevent the necessity of giving
+them. There is a foolish fear abroad that physicians, if called before a
+person is violently sick, will dose him with their drugs, as a matter of
+course, till they _make_ him sick. But this, no judicious physician will
+ever do. It may _have been_ done, though I believe it has been seldom.
+The more general course is to defer calling for medical advice, till it
+is too late to use preventive means; and medicine is then resorted to by
+the physician as a sort of necessary evil.
+
+A judicious physician, seasonably called in, would in many instances
+save a severe fit of sickness, besides a great deal of expense, both of
+time and money.
+
+But if the first symptoms of approaching disease are overlooked--if the
+child is fed, or rather crammed; with solid food as much as ever--and if
+no medical advice is sought, his sleep will soon become disturbed; he
+will be talking, starting, and tumbling about, and will have frightful
+dreams; or he will at other times be found smiling and laughing. To
+these, in the end, may be added, loss of appetite, paleness, emaciation,
+weakness, cough, and consumption; or colics, worms, and convulsions.
+
+I do not undertake to say that the most judicious parental management,
+aided by the greatest medical skill, will always prevent disease; far
+from it. The child may and undoubtedly sometimes does inherit a tendency
+to a particular disease; or he may be made sick by error in regard to
+dress, exercise, &c. But so long as nine tenths of the disease and early
+mortality of the young might be prevented by due attention to all these
+means combined, so long will it be necessary to reiterate the sentiments
+of the present section.
+
+
+
+
+CHAPTER X
+
+EXERCISE.
+
+SEC. 1. Objections to the use of cradles.--SEC. 2. Carrying in the
+arms--its uses and abuses.--SEC. 3. Creeping--why useful--to be
+encouraged.--SEC. 4. Walking--general directions about it.--SEC. 5.
+Riding abroad in carriages.--SEC. 6. Riding on horseback--objections.
+Riding schools.
+
+
+This subject may be considered under the following heads: ROCKING IN THE
+CRADLE; CARRYING IN THE ARMS; CREEPING; WALKING; RIDING IN A CARRIAGE;
+AND RIDING ON HORSEBACK. These I shall consider in their order.
+
+
+
+SEC. 1. _Rocking in the Cradle._
+
+There are two opinions in regard to the use of the cradle in the
+nursery. Some condemn it altogether; others think its occasional use
+highly proper. Those who condemn it, do it chiefly on the ground that it
+produces a whirling motion of the brain, which, while it inclines to
+giddiness and lulls to sleep, disturbs, in some degree, the process of
+digestion.
+
+It seems to me that there is weight to this objection; and although the
+cradle has been extensively used without producing any obviously evil
+effects, I should greatly prefer to have it universally laid aside. As
+far as mere amusement is demanded, it is quite unnecessary, since there
+are so many amusements which are far better. As a means of inducing
+sleep, I am still more strongly opposed to it; for if a child be
+rationally treated in every other respect, it will never need artificial
+means to induce it to sleep. Nature will then be the most appropriate
+directress in this matter.
+
+If there is a cradle in a nursery, it is almost always full of clothes
+loaded with air more or less impure, and the child is buried in it more
+than is compatible with health, even in the judgment of the mother or
+the nurse; for so convenient is its use, and so great the temptation to
+keep the child in it, that he will often be found soaking there a large
+proportion of his time. Every one knows that the air has not so free
+access to a child in the cradle as elsewhere, especially if it have a
+kind of covering or hood to it, as we often see. Besides, the cradle is
+a piece of furniture which takes up a great deal of space in the
+nursery; and every one who has made the trial effectually, will, it
+seems to me, greatly prefer its room to its company.
+
+If any cradle is to be used, those are best which are suspended by
+cords, and are swung, rather than rocked. And this swinging should be in
+a line with the body of the child as much as possible; as this motion is
+less likely to produce injury than its opposite.
+
+
+SEC. 2. _Carrying in the Arms._
+
+This is the most appropriate exercise for the first two months of
+existence; and indeed, one of the best for some time afterward.
+
+Although a healthy, thriving child ought to sleep, for some time after
+birth, from two thirds to three fourths of his time, yet it should never
+be forgotten that the demand for proper exercise during the rest of the
+time, is not the less imperious on this account; but probably the more
+so.
+
+I have already mentioned the importance of bathing, which is one form of
+exercise, and of gentle motion in the arms, immediately afterward. The
+same gentle motion should be often repeated during the day; care being
+taken to hold the child in such a position as will be easy to him, and
+favorable to the free exercise of all his limbs and muscles.
+
+There are many mothers and nurses, who not only rejoice that the infant
+inclines to sleep a great deal, since it gives them more liberty, but
+who take pains to prolong these hours beyond what nature requires, by
+artificial means. I refer not only to the use of the cradle, but to
+means still more artificial--the use of cordials and opiates, to which I
+have already adverted. But whatever the means used may be, they defeat
+the purposes of nature, and are in the highest degree reprehensible.
+Nothing but the most chilling poverty should prevent the mother from
+having the child--for a few weeks of its first existence at least--in
+her own arms, nearly all the time which is not absolutely demanded for
+repose. She should even invite it to wakefulness, rather than encourage
+sleep.
+
+Attention to exercise ought to be commenced before the child is more
+than ten days old. For this purpose he should be placed on his back, on
+a pillow, in order that the body may rest at as many points as possible.
+In this position he has the opportunity to move his limbs with the most
+perfect freedom, and to exercise his numerous muscles. There is nothing
+more important to the infant--not even sleep itself--than the action of
+all his muscles; and nothing contributes more to his rapid growth.
+
+At first, the body should be kept, while on the arm, in nearly a
+horizontal position, with the head perhaps a very little elevated; but
+after a few weeks, it will be proper to change the position for a small
+part of the time; placing the body so that it may form an angle of a few
+degrees with the horizon. When this is done, however, it should always
+be by placing the hand against the shoulders and head, in such a manner
+as to support well the back; for it is extremely injurious to suffer the
+feeble spine to sustain, at this early period, any considerable weight.
+
+Still more erroneous is the practice of some careless nurses, of
+carrying the child quite upright a part of the time, almost without any
+support at all. There can be no doubt that the spinal column of many a
+child is injured for life in this way. There can be no apology for such
+things.
+
+But it is not sufficient to denounce, merely, the custom of holding the
+infant's body in an erect position. Every inquiring mother--and it is
+for such, and no other, that I write--will naturally and properly ask
+the reason why.
+
+The child is not born with all its bones solid. Some are mere cartilage
+for a considerable time. This is the case with the bones of the back.
+Now every person must see that the weight of the child's head and
+shoulders, resting for a considerable time on the slender cartilaginous
+spinal column, may easily bend it. And a curvature, thus given, may, and
+often does, deform children for life.
+
+Dr. Dewees mentions a nurse who, from a foolish fondness for displaying
+them, made the children consigned to her charge sit perfectly upright
+before they were a month old. It is truly ludicrous, he says, to see the
+little creatures sitting as straight as if they were stiffened by a back
+board. It is truly _horrible_, I should say, rather than ludicrous.
+Crooked spines must be the inevitable consequence, if nothing worse.
+
+The practice of bracing children, as it is called, by straps, back
+boards, corsets, &c., where it has produced any effect at all, has
+always had a tendency to crook the spine. This may be seen first, by
+observing one shoulder to be lower than the other, and next by a
+projection of the part of the shoulder blades next to the spine.
+Whenever these changes begin to appear, it is time to send for a
+physician, though it may often be too late to effect a cure. But on the
+general subject of bracing and corseting, I have treated at sufficient
+length elsewhere.
+
+There is another error committed in carrying children in the arms. The
+head of the infant is often permitted either to hang constantly on one
+side, or to roll about loosely; as if it hardly belonged to the body.
+In the former case there is danger of producing a habit of holding the
+head upon one side, which it will be very difficult to overcome; in the
+latter, the spinal marrow itself may be injured--which would produce
+alarming and perhaps fatal consequences.
+
+But all these evils, as has already been said, may be prevented, if the
+hand is placed so as to support the head and shoulders. Let not the
+mother, however, who reads this work, trust the matter wholly to a
+nurse; she must see to it herself; else she incurs a most fearful
+responsibility. The suggestions I have made are the more important in
+the case of children either very fleshy or very feeble, and of those
+disposed to rickets or scrofula; but they are important to all.
+
+I have said that the motion of the child, on the arm, should be gentle.
+Many are in the habit of tossing infants about. There can be no
+objection to a slight and slow movement up and down, for a minute or so
+at a time; indeed, it is rather to be recommended, as likely to give
+strength and vigor no less than pleasure to the child. But when such
+movements are carried to excess, so as to frighten the child, they are
+highly reprehensible. The shock thus produced to the nervous system has
+sometimes been so great as to produce sudden death. Nor is it safe to
+run, jump, or descend stairs hastily or violently, with a child in our
+arms; and for similar reasons.
+
+Infants should not be carried always on the same arm, for there is
+danger of contracting a habit of leaning to one side, and thus of
+becoming crooked. On this account, the arm on which they rest should be
+often changed. Nor should they be grasped too firmly. A skilful mother
+will hold a child quite loosely, with the most perfect safety; while an
+inexperienced one will grasp him so hard as to expose the soft bones to
+be bent out of their place, and yet be quite as liable to let him fall
+as she who handles him with more ease and freedom.
+
+
+SEC. 3. _Creeping._
+
+"Mankind must creep before they can walk," is an old adage often used to
+remind us of that patient application which is so indispensable to
+secure any highly important or valuable end. But it is as true
+literally, as it is figuratively. The act of creeping exercises in a
+remarkable degree nearly all the muscles of the body; and this, too,
+without much fatigue.
+
+Some mothers there indeed are, who think it a happy circumstance if a
+child can be taught to walk without this intermediate step. But such
+mothers must have strange ideas of the animal economy. They must never
+have thought of the pleasure which creeping affords the mind, or of the
+vigor it imparts to the body.
+
+Children are wonderfully pleased with their own voluntary efforts. What
+they can do themselves, yields them ten-fold greater pleasure than if
+done by the mother or the nurse. Yet the latter are exceedingly prone to
+forget or overlook all this--and to say, at least practically, that the
+only proper efforts are those to which themselves give direction.
+
+They are moreover exceedingly fond of display. Some mothers seem to
+act--in all they do with and for children--as if all the latter were
+good for, was display and amusement. They feed them, indeed, and strive
+to prolong their existence; but it appears to be for similar reasons to
+those which would lead them to take kind care of a pet lamb.
+
+It is on this account that they dress them out in the manner they do,
+strive to make them sit up straight, and prohibit their creeping. It is
+on this account too, as much perhaps as any other, that go-carts and
+leading strings are put in such early requisition. The contrary would be
+far the safer extreme; and the parent who keeps his child scrambling
+about upon the back as long as possible, and when he cannot prevent
+longer an inversion of this position, retains him at creeping as long
+as is in his power, is as much wiser, in comparison with him who urges
+him forward to make a prodigy of him, as he is who, instead of making
+his child a prodigy in mind or morals at premature age, holds him back,
+and endeavors to have his mental and moral nature developed no faster
+than his physical frame.
+
+I wish young mothers would settle it in their minds at once, that the
+longer their children creep the better. They need have no fears that the
+force of habit will retain them on their knees after nature has given
+them strength to rise and walk; for their incessant activity and
+incontrollable restlessness will be sure to rouse them as early as it
+ought. Least of all ought the difficulty of keeping them clean, to move
+them from the path of duty.
+
+Children who are allowed to crawl, will soon be anxious to do more. We
+shall presently see them taking hold of a chair or a table, and
+endeavoring to raise themselves up by it. If they fail in a dozen
+attempts, they do not give up the point; but persevere till their
+efforts are crowned with success.
+
+Having succeeded in raising themselves from the floor, they soon learn
+to stand, by holding to the object by which they have raised themselves.
+Soon, they acquire the art of standing without holding; [Footnote: The
+art of standing, which consists in balancing one's self, by means of the
+muscles of the body and lower limb--simple as it may seem to those who
+have never reflected on the subject--is really an important acquisition
+for a child of twelve or fifteen months. No wonder they feel a conscious
+pride, when they find themselves able to stand erect, like the world
+around them.] ere long they venture to put forward one foot--they then
+repeat the effort and walk a little, holding at the same time by a
+chair; and lastly they acquire, with joy to them inexpressible and to us
+inconceivable, the art of "trudging" alone.
+
+When children learn to walk in nature's own way, it is seldom indeed
+that we find them with curved legs, or crooked or clubbed feet. These
+deformities are almost universally owing either to the mother or the
+nurse.
+
+Let me be distinctly understood as utterly opposed, not only to
+go-carts, leading strings, and every other _mechanical_ contrivance, to
+induce children to walk before their legs are fit for it, but to efforts
+of every kind, whose main object is the same. Teaching them to walk by
+taking hold of one of their hands, is in some respects quite as bad as
+any other mode; for if the child should fall while we have hold of his
+hand, there is some danger of dislocating or otherwise injuring the
+limb.
+
+Falls we must expect; but if a child is left to his own voluntary
+efforts as much as possible, these falls will be fewer, and probably
+less serious, than under any other circumstances.
+
+
+SEC. 4. _Walking._
+
+"The way to learn how to write without ruled lines, is _to rule_," was
+the frequent saying of an old schoolmaster whom I once knew; and I may
+say with as much confidence and with more truth, that "the way for a
+child to learn to walk alone, is to hold by things."
+
+I have anticipated, in previous pages, much of what might have otherwise
+been contained in this section. A few additional remarks are all that
+will be necessary.
+
+At first, the nursery will be quite large enough for our young
+pedestrian. Much time should elapse before he is permitted to go abroad,
+upon the green grass;--not lest the air should reach him, or the sun
+shine upon his face and hands, but because the surface of the ground is
+so much less firm and regular than the floor, that he ought to be quite
+familiar with walking on the latter, in the first place.
+
+But when he can walk well in the play ground, garden, fields, and
+roads, it is highly desirable that he should go out more or less every
+day, when the weather will possibly admit; nor would I be so fearful as
+many are of a drop of rain or dew, or a breath of wind. For say what
+they will in favor of riding, sailing, and other modes of exercise,
+there is none equal to walking, as soon as a child is able;--none so
+natural--none, in ordinary cases, so salutary. I know it is unpopular,
+and therefore our young master or young miss must be hoisted into a
+carriage, or upon the back of a horse, to the manifest danger of health
+or limbs, or both.
+
+Who of us ever knew a herdsman or a shepherd who found it for the health
+and well-being of the young calf or lamb to hoist it into a carriage,
+and carry it through the streets, instead of suffering it to walk? Such
+a thing would excite astonishment; and the man who should do it would be
+deemed insane. The health and growth of our young domestic animals is
+best promoted by suffering them to walk, run, and skip in their own way.
+They ask no artificial legs, or horses, or carriages. But would it not
+be difficult to find arguments in favor of carrying children about, when
+they are able to walk, which would not be equally strong in favor of
+carrying about lambs and calves and pigs.
+
+This is the more remarkable from the consideration, elsewhere urged,
+that in general we take more rational pains about the physical
+well-being of domestic animals, than of children. However, it will be
+seen, on a little reflection, that the number of those who carry
+children about, is, after all, very inconsiderable. The greater portion
+of the community regard it as too troublesome or costly; and if poverty
+brought with it no other evils than a permit to children to walk on the
+legs which the Creator gave them, it could hardly be deemed a
+misfortune.
+
+It is scarcely necessary to add that there will be nothing gained to the
+young--or to persons of any age--from walks which are very long and
+fatiguing. Walking should refresh and invigorate: when it is carried
+beyond this, especially with the young child, we have passed the line of
+safety.
+
+
+SEC. 5. _Riding in Carriages._
+
+It will be seen by the foregoing section, that I am not very friendly to
+the use of carriages for the young, after they can walk. Before this
+period, however, I think they may be often serviceable; and there are
+occasional instances which may render them useful afterward. On this
+account, I have thought it might be well to give the following general
+directions.
+
+Carriages for children should be so constructed as not to be liable to
+overset. To this end, the wheels must be low, and the axle unusually
+extended. The body should be long enough to allow the child to lie down
+when necessary; and so deep that he may not be likely to fall out.
+Everything should be made secure and firm, to avoid, if possible, the
+danger of accidents.
+
+The carriage should be drawn steadily and slowly; not violently, or with
+a jerking motion. Such a place should be selected as will secure the
+child--if necessary--from the full blaze of a hot sun. This point might
+indeed be secured by having the carriage covered; but I am opposed to
+covered carriages, for children or adults, unless we are compelled to
+ride in the rain.
+
+While the child is unable to sit up without injury, and even for some
+months afterwards, he ought by all means to lie down in a carriage,
+because it requires more strength to sit in a seat which is moving, than
+in a place where he is stationary. In assuming the horizontal position,
+in a carriage, a pillow is needed, and such other arrangements as will
+prevent too much rolling.
+
+After the child's strength will fairly permit, he may sit up in the
+carriage, but he ought still to be secured against too much motion. As
+his strength increases, however, the latter direction will be less and
+less necessary. I need not repeat in this place, (had I not witnessed so
+many accidents from neglect,) the caution recently given, that great
+care should be taken to prevent the child from falling out of the
+carriage.
+
+While children are riding abroad in cold weather, much pains should be
+taken to see that they are suitably clothed. It is well to keep them in
+motion, while they are in the carriage, and especially to guard against
+their falling asleep in the open air, until they have become very much
+accustomed to being out in it.
+
+It has been said by some writers, that a ride ought never to exceed the
+length of half an hour; but no positive rule can be given, except to
+avoid over-fatigue.
+
+
+SEC. 6. _Riding on Horseback._
+
+While children are very young, I think it both improper and unsafe to
+take them abroad on horseback; I mean so long as they are in health. In
+case of disease, this mode of exercise is sometimes one of the most
+salutary in the world. But after boys are six or seven years old, and
+girls ten, if they are ever to practise horsemanship, it is time for
+them to begin; both because they are less apt to be unreasonably timid
+at this age, and because they learn much more rapidly.
+
+So few parents are good horsemen, that if there is a riding school at
+hand, I should prefer placing a child in it at once. But I wish to be
+distinctly understood, that I do not consider it a matter of importance,
+especially to females, that they should ever learn to ride at all.
+
+Some of the principal objections to riding on horseback, by boys, as an
+ordinary exercise, are the following:
+
+1. Walking, as I have already intimated, is one of the most HEALTHY
+modes of exercise in the world. It is nature's exercise; and was
+unquestionably in exclusive use long before universal dominion was given
+to man, if not for many centuries afterward; and I believe it would be
+very difficult to prove that it interfered at all with human longevity;
+for the first of our race lived almost a thousand years.
+
+2. Young children, in riding on horseback, are rather apt to acquire,
+rapidly, the habit of domineering over animals. It seems almost needless
+to say how easy the transition is, in such cases, should opportunity
+offer, from tyranny over the brute slave, to tyranny over the human
+being. There are slave-holders in the family and in the school, as well
+as elsewhere. It is the SPIRIT of a person which makes him either a
+tyrant or slave-holder. And let us beware how we foster this spirit in
+the children whom God has given us.
+
+
+
+
+CHAPTER XI.
+
+AMUSEMENTS.
+
+Universal need of amusements. Why so necessary. Error of schools. Error
+of families. Infant schools, as often conducted, particularly injurious.
+Lessons, or tasks, should be short. Mistakes of some manual labor
+schools. Of particular amusements in the nursery. With small wooden
+cubes--pictures--shuttlecock--the rocking horse--tops and
+marbles--backgammon--checkers--morrice--dice--nine-pins--skipping the
+rope--trundling the hoop--playing at ball--kites--skating and
+swimming--dissected maps--black boards--elements of letters--dissected
+pictures.
+
+
+However heterodox the concession may be, I am one of those who believe
+amusements of some sort or other to be universally necessary. Indeed I
+cannot possibly conceive of an individual in health, whatever may be the
+age, sex, condition, or employment, who does not need them, in a greater
+or less degree.
+
+Now if by the term amusement, I merely meant employment, nobody would
+probably differ from me--at least in theory. Every one is ready to admit
+the importance of being constantly employed. A mind unemployed is a
+VACANT mind. And a vacant or idle mind is "the devil's work-shop;" so
+says the proverb.
+
+By amusement, however, I mean something more than mere employment; for
+the more constantly an adult individual is employed, the greater,
+generally, is his demand for amusement. Indolent persons have less need
+of being amused than others; but perhaps there are few if any persons to
+be found, who are so indolent as not to think continually, on one
+subject or another. And it is this constant thinking, more than anything
+else, that creates the necessity of which I am speaking. The mere
+drudge, whether biped or quadruped--he, I mean, whose thinking powers
+are scarcely alive--has little need of the relief which is afforded by
+amusement.
+
+The young of all animals--man among the rest--appear to have such an
+instinctive fondness for amusement, that so long as they are
+unrestrained, they seldom need any urging on this point. In regard to
+_quality_, the case is somewhat different. In this respect, most
+children require attention and restraint; and some of them a great deal
+of it.
+
+But what is the nature of the amusement which adults--nay, mankind
+generally--require? I answer, it is relief from the employment of
+thinking. For it is not that mankind do not really think at all, that
+moralists complain so loudly. When they tell us that men will not
+think, they mean that they will not think as rational beings. They
+think, indeed; and so do the ox, and the horse, and the dog, and the
+elephant--but not as rational men ought to do; and this it is that
+constitutes the burden of complaint. But you will probably find few
+persons belonging to the human species who do not think constantly, at
+least while awake; and whose mental powers do not become fatigued, and
+demand relief in amusement.
+
+Children's minds are so soon wearied by a continuous train of thinking,
+even on topics which are pleasing to them, that they can seldom he
+brought to give their attention to a single subject long at once. They
+require almost incessant change; both for the sake of relief, and to
+amuse for the _sake_ of amusement. And it is, to my own mind, one of
+the most striking proofs of Infinite Wisdom in the creation of the human
+mind, that it has, during infancy, such an irresistible tendency to
+amusement.
+
+How greatly do they err, who grudge children, especially very young
+children, the time which, in obedience to the dictates of their nature,
+they are so fond of spending in sports and gambols! How much more
+rational would it be to encourage and direct them in their amusements!
+And how exceedingly unwise is the practice, whenever and wherever it
+exists, of confining them to school rooms and benches, not only for
+hours, but for whole half days at once.
+
+If individuals and circumstances were everywhere combined, with the
+special purpose to oppose the intentions of nature respecting the human
+being, at every step of his progress from the cradle to maturity, and
+from maturity to the grave, I hardly know how they could contrive to
+accomplish such a purpose more effectually than it is at present
+accomplished. But it is proper that I should here explain a little.
+
+All our family arrangements tend to repress amusement. Everything is
+contrived to facilitate business--especially the business or employments
+of adults. The child is hardly regarded as a human being,--certainly not
+as a _perfect_ being. He is considered as a mere fragment; or to change
+the figure, as a plant too young to be of any real service to mankind,
+because too young to bear any of its appropriate fruits. Whereas, in my
+opinion, both infancy and childhood, at every stage, should bring forth
+their appropriate fruits. In other words, the child of the most tender
+years should be regarded as a whole, and not as the mere fragment of a
+being; as a perfect member of a family--occupying a full and complete,
+only a more limited sphere than older members: and all the rules and
+regulations and arrangements of the family should have a reference to
+this point. So long as a child is reckoned to be a mere cipher in
+creation, or at most, as of no more practical importance, till the
+arrival of his twenty-first birth day, or some other equally arbitrary
+period, than our domestic animals--that is, of just sufficient
+consequence to be fed, and caressed, and fondled, and made a pet of--so
+long will our arrangements be made with reference to the comfort and
+happiness of adults. There may indeed be here and there a child's chair,
+or a child's carriage, or newspaper, or book; but there will seldom be,
+except by stealth, any free juvenile conversation at the table or the
+fireside. Here the child must sit as a blank or cypher, to ruminate on
+the past, or to receive half formed and passive impressions from the
+present.
+
+The arrangements of the infant school, also, seem designed for the same
+purpose--to repress as much as possible the infantile desire for
+amusement. Not that this was their original, nor that it now is their
+legitimate intention. Their legitimate object is, or should be, not to
+develope the intellect by over-working the tender brain, but to promote
+cheerfulness and health and love and happiness, by well contrived
+amusements, conducted as much as possible in the open air; and by
+unremitting efforts to elicit and direct the affections.
+
+Infant schools should repress rather than encourage the hard study of
+books. Lessons at this age should be drawn chiefly from objects in the
+garden, the field, and the grove; from the flower, the plant, the tree,
+the brook, the bird, the beast, the worm, the fly, the human body--the
+sun, or the visible heavens. These lessons, whether given by the parent,
+as constituting a part of the family arrangements, or by the infant or
+primary school teacher, should, it is true, be regarded for the time
+being as study, but they should never be long; and they should be
+frequently relieved by the most free and unrestrained pastimes and
+gambols of the young on the green grass, or beside the rippling stream,
+uninfluenced, or at least unrepressed, by those who are set over them.
+
+The public or common school, overlooking as it does any direct attempts
+to make provision for the amusement of the pupils, even during the
+scanty recess that is afforded them once in three hours, would appear to
+a stranger on this planet, at first sight, to be designed as much as
+possible to defeat every intention of nature with reference to the
+growth of the human frame. For we may often travel many hundred miles
+and not see so much as an enclosed play ground; and never perhaps any
+direct provision for particular and more favorable amusements.
+
+I might speak of other schools and places of resort for children, and
+proceed to show how all our arrangements appear to be the offspring of a
+species of utilitarianism which rejects every sport whose value cannot
+be estimated in dollars and cents. I might even refer to those schools
+of our country where these ultra utilitarian notions are carried to an
+extent which excludes amusing conversation or reading even during
+meal-time; and devotes the hours which were formerly spent in
+recreation, to manual labor of some productive kind or other.--But I
+forbear. Enough has been said to illustrate the position I have taken,
+that there is in vogue a system which bears the marks of having been
+contrived, if not by the enemies of our race, either openly or covertly,
+at least by those whom ignorance renders scarcely less at war with the
+general happiness.
+
+Now I would not deny nor attempt to deny that change of occupation of
+body or mind is of itself an amusement, and one too of great value.
+Undoubtedly it is so. To some children, studies of every kind are an
+amusement; and there are few indeed to whom none are so. Labor, with
+many, when alternated with study, is amusing. And yet, after all, unless
+such labors are performed in company, where light and cheerful
+conversation is sure to keep the mind away from the subjects about
+which it has just been engaged, I am afraid that the purposes for which
+amusements were designed, are very far from being _all_ secured.
+
+But perhaps I am dwelling too long on the general principle that people
+of every age, and children in particular, need, and must have
+amusements, whether they are of a productive kind or not; and that it is
+very far from being sufficient, were it either practicable or desirable,
+to turn all study and labor into amusement. [Footnote: I will even say,
+more distinctly than I have already done, that however popular the
+contrary opinion may be, neither study nor work ought to be regarded as
+mere amusement. I would, it is true, take every possible pains to render
+both work and study agreeable; but I would at the same time have it
+distinctly understood, that one of them is by no means the other; that,
+on the contrary, work is _work_--study, _study_--and amusement,
+_amusement_.] My business is with those who direct the first dawnings
+of affection and intellect. Principles are by no means of less importance
+on this account; but the limits of a work for young mothers do not admit
+of anything more than a brief discussion of their importance.
+
+I will now proceed to speak of some of the more common amusements of the
+nursery.
+
+I have seen very young children sit on the floor and amuse themselves
+for nearly half an hour together, with piling up and taking down small
+wooden cubes, of different sizes. Some of them, instead of being cubes,
+however, may be of the shape of bricks. Their ingenuity, while they are
+scarcely a year or two old, in erecting houses, temples, churches, &c.,
+is sometimes surprising. Girls as well as boys seem to be greatly amused
+with this form of exercise; and both seem to be little less gratified in
+destroying than in rearing their lilliputian edifices.
+
+Next to the latter kind of amusement, is the viewing of pictures. It is
+surprising at what an early age children may be taught to notice
+miniature representations of objects; living objects especially.
+Representations of the works of art should come in a little later than
+those of things in nature. I know a father who prepares volumes of
+pictures, solely for this purpose; though he usually regards them not
+only as a source of amusement to children, but as a medium of
+instruction.
+
+Battledoor or shuttlecock may be taught to children of both sexes very
+early; and it affords a healthy and almost untiring source of amusement.
+It gives activity as well as strength to the muscles or moving powers,
+and has many other important advantages. There is some danger, according
+to Dr. Pierson [Footnote: See his Lecture before the American Institute
+of Instruction] of distorting the spine by playing at shuttlecock too
+frequently and too long; but this will seldom be the case with little
+children in the nursery. Neither shuttlecock nor any other amusement
+will secure their attention long enough to injure them very much.
+
+Perhaps this exercise comes nearer to my ideas of a perfect amusement
+than almost any which could be named. The mind is agreeably occupied,
+without being fatigued; and if the amusements are proportioned to the
+age and strength of the child, there is very little fatigue of the body.
+It gives, moreover, great practical accuracy to the eye and to the hand.
+
+A rocking-horse is much recommended for the nursery. I have had no
+opportunity for observing the effects of this kind of amusement; but if
+it is one half as valuable as some suppose, I should be inclined to
+recommend it. But I am opposed to fostering in the rider lessons of
+cruelty, by arming him with whips and spurs. If the young are ever to
+learn to ride, on a living horse, the exercises of the rocking-horse
+will, most certainly, be a sort of preparation for the purpose.
+
+Tops and marbles afford a great deal of rational amusement to the young;
+and of a very useful kind, too. Spinning a top is second to no exercise
+which I have yet mentioned, unless it is playing at shuttlecock.
+
+Dr. Dewees recommends a small backgammon table, with men, but without
+dice. He says, also, that "children, as soon as they are capable of
+comprehending the subject, should be taught draughts or checkers. This
+game is not only highly amusing, but also very instructive." In another
+place he heaps additional encomiums upon the game of checkers. "It
+becomes a source of endless amusement," he says, "as it never tires, but
+always instructs." Of exercises which instruct, however, as well as
+amuse, I shall speak presently.
+
+The amusements called "morrice," "fox and geese," &c., with which some
+of the children of almost every neighborhood are more or less
+acquainted, are of the same general character and tendency as checkers.
+So is a play, sometimes, but very improperly, called dice, in which two
+parties play with a small bundle of wooden pins, not unlike knitting
+pins in shape, but shorter.
+
+The writer to whom I have referred above recommends nine-pins and balls
+of proper size, as highly useful both for diversion and exercise. If
+they can be used without leading to bad habits and bad associations, I
+think they may be useful.
+
+For girls, who demand a great deal more of exercise, both within doors
+and without, skipping the rope is an excellent amusement. So also is
+swinging. Both of these exercises may be used either out of doors, or
+in the nursery.
+
+Trundling a hoop I have always regarded as an amusing out-of-door
+exercise; and I am not sorry when I sometimes see girls, as well as
+boys, engaged in it, under the eye of their mothers and teachers.
+
+Playing ball, of which there are many different games, and flying kites,
+employ a large proportion if not all of the muscles of the body, in such
+a manner as is likely to confirm the strength, and greatly improve the
+health. The same may be said of skating in the winter, and swimming in
+the summer. But these last are exercises over which the mother cannot,
+ordinarily, have very much control.
+
+Under the head of amusements, it only remains for me to speak of a few
+juvenile employments of a mixed nature. Of these I shall treat very
+briefly, as they are a branch of the subject which does not necessarily
+come within the compass of my present plan. They are exercises, too,
+which should more properly come under the head of Infantile Instruction.
+
+Dissected maps afford children of every age a great fund of amusement;
+but much caution is necessary, with those that are very young, not to
+discourage or confound them by showing them too many at once. Thus if
+we cut in pieces the map of one of the smaller United States, at the
+county lines, or the whole United States, at the state lines, it is
+quite as many divisions as they can manage. Cut up as large a state,
+even, as Pennsylvania or New York is, into counties, and try to lead
+them to amuse themselves by putting together so large a number, many of
+which must inevitably very closely resemble each other, and it is ten to
+one but you bewilder, and even perplex and discourage them. The same
+results would follow from cutting up even the whole of a large county,
+or a small state, into towns. I have usually begun with little children,
+by requiring them to put together the eight counties of the small state
+of Connecticut. In this case the counties are not only few, but there is
+a very striking difference in their shape.
+
+A black board and a piece of chalk, along with a little ingenuity on the
+part of the mother, will furnish the child with an almost endless
+variety of amusement. Let him attempt to imitate almost any object which
+interests him, whether among the works of nature or art. However rude
+his pictures may be, do not laugh at, but on the contrary, endeavor to
+encourage him. He may also be permitted to imitate letters and figures.
+The elements of letters, too, both printed and written, may be given
+him, and he may be required to put them together. Dissected pictures, as
+well as dissected maps and letters, are useful, and to most children,
+very acceptable.
+
+In short, the devices of an ingenious, thinking mother, for the
+amusement of her very young children, are almost endless; and the great
+danger is, that when a mother once enters deeply into the spirit of
+these exercises, she will substitute them for those much more healthy
+ones which have been already mentioned, such as require muscular
+activity, or may be performed in the open air.
+
+
+
+
+CHAPTER XII.
+
+CRYING.
+
+Its importance. Danger of repressing a tendency to cry. Anecdote from
+Dr. Rush. Physiology of crying. Folly of attempting wholly to suppress
+it.
+
+
+"Crying," says Dr. Dewees, "should be looked upon as an exercise of much
+importance;" and he is sustained in this view by many eminent medical
+writers.
+
+But people generally think otherwise. Nothing is more common than the
+idea that to cry is unbecoming; and children are everywhere taught, when
+they suffer pain, to brave it out, and _not cry_. Such a direction--to
+say nothing of its tendency to encourage hypocrisy--is wholly
+unphilosophical. The following anecdote may serve in part to illustrate
+my meaning. It is said to have been related by Dr. Rush.
+
+A gentleman in South Carolina was about to undergo a very painful
+surgical operation. He had imbibed the idea that it was beneath the
+dignity of a man ever to say or do anything expressive of pain. He
+therefore refused to submit to the usual precaution of securing the
+hands and feet by bandages, declaring to his surgeon that he had nothing
+to fear from his being untied, for he would not move a muscle of his
+body. He kept his word, it is true; but he died instantly after the
+operation, from apoplexy.
+
+There is very little doubt, in the mind of any physiologist, in regard
+to the cause of apoplexy in this case; and that it might have been
+prevented by the relief which is always afforded by groans and tears.
+
+It is, I believe, very generally known, that in the profoundest grief,
+people do not, and cannot shed tears; and that when the _latter_ begin
+to flow, it affords immediate relief.
+
+I do not undertake to argue from this, that crying is so important,
+either to the young or the old, that it is ever worth while to excite or
+continue it by artificial means; or that a habit of crying, so easily
+and readily acquired by the young, is not to be guarded against as a
+serious, evil. My object was first to show the folly of those who
+denounce all crying, and secondly, to point out some of its
+advantages--in the hope of preventing parents from going to that extreme
+which borders upon stoicism.
+
+One of the most intelligent men I ever knew, frequently made it his
+boast that he neither laughed nor cried on any occasion; and on being
+told that both laughing and crying were physiologically useful, he only
+ridiculed the sentiment.
+
+Crying is useful to very young infants, because it favors the passage of
+blood in their lungs, where it had not before been accustomed to travel,
+and where its motion is now indispensable. And it not only promotes the
+circulation of the blood, but expands the air-cells of the lungs, and
+thus helps forward that great change, by which the dark-colored impure
+blood of the veins is changed at once into pure blood, and thus rendered
+fit to nourish the system, and sustain life.
+
+But this is not all. Crying strengthens the lungs themselves. It does
+this by expanding the little air-cells of which I have just spoken, and
+not only accustoms them to being stretched, at a period, of all others,
+the most favorable for this purpose, but frees them at the same time
+from mucus, and other injurious accumulations.
+
+They, therefore, who oppose an infant's crying, know not what they do.
+So far is it from being hurtful to the child, that its occasional
+recurrence is, as we have already seen, positively useful. Some
+practitioners of medicine, in some of the more trying situations in
+which human nature can be placed, even encourage their patients to
+suffer tears to flow, as a means of relief.
+
+Infants, it should also be recollected, have no other language by which
+to express their wants and feelings, than sighs and tears. Crying is not
+always an expression of positive pain; it sometimes indicates hunger and
+thirst, and sometimes the want of a change of posture. This last
+consideration deserves great attention, and all the inconveniences of
+crying ought to be borne cheerfully, for the sake of having the little
+sufferer remind us when nature demands a change of position. No child
+ought to be permitted to remain in one position longer than two hours,
+even while sleeping; nor half that time, while awake; and if nurses and
+mothers will overlook this matter, as they often do, it is a favorable
+circumstance that the child should remind them of it.
+
+Crying has been called the "waste gate" of the human system; the door of
+escape to that excess of excitability which sometimes prevails,
+especially among children and nervous adults. To all such persons it is
+healthy--most undoubtedly so; nor do I know that its occasional
+recurrence is injurious to any adult--a fastidious public sentiment to
+the contrary notwithstanding.
+
+Some have supposed, that what is here said will be construed by the
+young mother into a license to suffer her child to cry unnecessarily.
+Perhaps, say they, she is a laboring woman, and wishes to be at work.
+Well, she lays down her child in the cradle, or on the bed, and goes to
+her work. Presently the child, becoming wet perhaps, begins to cry, as
+well he might. But, instead of going to him and taking care of him, she
+continues at her employment; and when one remonstrates against her
+conduct as cruelty, she pleads the authority of the author of the "Young
+Mother."
+
+All this may happen; but if it should, I am not answerable for it. I
+have insisted strongly on guarding the child against wet clothing, and
+on watching him with the utmost care to prevent all real suffering.
+Mothers, like the specimen here given, if they happen to have a little
+sensibility to suffering, and not much love of their offspring,
+generally know of a shorter way to quiet their infants and procure time
+to work, than that which is here mentioned. They have nothing to do but
+to give them some cordial or elixir, whose basis is opium. Startle not,
+reader, at the statement;--this abominable practice is followed by many
+a female who claims the sacred name of mother. And many a wretch has
+thus, in her ignorance, indolence or avarice, slowly destroyed her
+children!
+
+I repeat, therefore, that I do not think my remarks on crying are
+necessarily liable to abuse; though I am not sure that there are not a
+few individuals to be found who may apply them in the manner above
+mentioned--an application, however, which is as far removed from the
+original intention of the author, as can possibly be conceived.
+
+
+
+
+CHAPTER XIII.
+
+LAUGHING.
+
+"Laugh and be fat." Laughing is healthy. A common error. Monastic
+notions yet too prevalent on this subject.
+
+
+Laughing, like crying, has a good effect on the infantile lungs; nor is
+it less salutary in other respects. "Laugh and be fat," an old adage,
+has its meaning, and also its philosophy.
+
+There is an excess, however, to which laughing, no less than crying, may
+be carried, and which we cannot too carefully avoid. But how little to
+be envied--how much to be pitied--are they who consider it a weakness
+and a sin to laugh, and in the plenitude of their wisdom, tell us that
+_the Saviour of mankind never laughed_. When I hear this last assertion,
+I am always ready to ask, whether the individual who makes it has read a
+new revelation or a new gospel; for certainly none of the sacred books
+which I have seen give us any such information.
+
+But I will not dwell here. The common notion on this subject, if not
+ridiculous, is certainly strange. I will only add, that, come into vogue
+as it might have done, there is no opinion more unfounded than the very
+general one among adults, that children should be uniformly grave; and
+that just in proportion as they laugh and appear frolicsome, just in the
+same proportion are they out of the way, and deserving of reprehension.
+
+It is strange that it should be so, but I have seen many parents who
+were miserable because their children were sportive and joyful. Oh, when
+will the days of monkish sadness and austerity be over; and the public
+sentiment in the christian world get right on this subject!
+
+
+
+
+CHAPTER XIV
+
+SLEEP.
+
+General remarks. Hints to fathers.--SEC. 1. Proper hours for repose.
+Dark rooms. Noise.--SEC. 2. Place for sleeping. Sleeping
+alone--reasons.--SEC. 3. Purity of the air in sleeping rooms.--SEC. 4.
+The bed. Objections to feathers. Other materials.--SEC. 5. The covering
+of beds. Covering the head.--SEC. 6. Night Dresses. Robes.--SEC. 7.
+Posture of the body in sleep.--SEC. 8. State of the mind.--SEC. 9.
+Quality of sleep.--SEC. 10. Quantity of sleep.
+
+
+Not a few persons consider all rules relative to sleep as utterly
+futile. They regard it as so much of a natural or animal process, that
+if we are let alone we shall seldom err, at any age, respecting it.
+Rules on the subject, above all, they regard as wholly misplaced.
+
+Those who entertain such views, would do well, in order to be
+consistent, to go a little farther; and as breathing and eating and
+drinking--nay, even _thinking_--are natural processes, deny the utility
+of all rules respecting _them_ also. Perhaps they would do well,
+moreover, to deny that rules of any sort are valuable. But would not
+this have the effect to bar the door perpetually against all human
+improvement? Would it not be equivalent to saying, to a half-civilized,
+because only half-christianized community--Go on with your barbarous
+customs, and your uncleanly and unthinking habits, forever?
+
+But I have not so learned human nature. I regard man as susceptible of
+endless progression. And I know of no way in which more rapid progress
+can be made, than by enlightening young mothers on subjects which
+pertain to our physical nature, and the means of physical improvement.
+Not for the _sake_ of that perishable part of man, the frame, but
+because it is nearly in vain to attempt to improve the mind and heart,
+without due attention to the frame-work, to which mind and heart, for
+the present, are appended, and most intimately related.
+
+Let it be left to fathers to study the improvement of hounds and horses
+and cattle, and at the same time to think themselves above the concerns
+of the nursery. We may, indeed, read of a Cato once in three thousand
+years, who was in the habit of quitting all other business in order to
+be present when the nurse washed and rubbed his child. But our passion
+for gain, in the present age, is so much more absorbing and
+soul-destroying than the passion for military glory, that we cannot
+expect many Catos. Oh no. All, or nearly all, must devolve on the
+mother. The father has no time to attend to his children! What belongs
+to the mother, if she can be duly awakened, may be at least _half_ done;
+what belongs to the father, must, I fear, be left undone.
+
+I am accustomed to regard every day--even of the infant--as a miniature
+life. I am, moreover, accustomed to consider mental and bodily vigor,
+not only for each separate day, but for life's whole day, as greatly
+influenced by the circumstances of sleep; the HOUR, PLACE, PURITY OF THE
+AIR, THE BED, THE COVERING, DRESS, POSTURE, STATE OF THE MIND, QUALITY,
+QUANTITY, AND DURATION.
+
+
+SEC. 1. _Hour for Repose._
+
+Generally speaking, the night is the appropriate season for repose; but
+in early infancy, it is _every_ hour. I have already spoken of the vast
+amount of sleep which the new-born infant requires, as well as of many
+other circumstances connected with it, requiring our attention. Suffer
+me, however, to enlarge, at the risk of a little repetition.
+
+What time the infant is awake, should be during the day. It is of very
+great importance, in the formation of good habits, that he should be
+undressed and put to bed, at evening, with as much regularity as if be
+had not slept during the day for a single moment. It is also important
+that he be permitted to sleep during the whole night, as uninterruptedly
+as possible; and that when he is aroused, to have his position or
+diapers changed, or to receive food, it should be done with little
+parade and noise, and with as little light as possible. All persons, old
+as well as young, sleep more quietly in a dark room, than in one where a
+light is burning.
+
+I am well aware that the course here recommended, may be carried to an
+excess which will utterly defeat the object intended, since there are
+children to be found, who are so trained in this respect, that the
+lightest tread upon the floor will awake, and perhaps frighten them. But
+this is an excess which is not required. All that is necessary during
+the night, is a reasonable degree of silence, in order to induce the
+habit of continued rest, if possible. In the day time, on the contrary,
+fatigue will impel a child to sleep occasionally, even in the midst of
+noise. I am not sure that the habit of sleeping in the midst of noise is
+not worth a little pains on the part of the mother. Nor is it improbable
+that a habit of this kind, once acquired by the infant, might ultimately
+be extended to the night, so that over-caution, even in regard to that
+season, might gradually be laid aside.
+
+Dr. North, a distinguished medical practitioner in Hartford, Conn.,
+confirms the foregoing sentiments; and adds, that he deems it an
+imperious duty of those parents who wish well to their infants, to form
+in them the habit of sleeping when fatigued, whether the room be quiet
+or noisy. With his children, no cradles or opiates are needed or used.
+
+
+SEC. 2. _Place._
+
+For some time after its birth, the infant should sleep near its mother,
+though not in the same bed. The bedstead should be of the usual height
+of bedsteads, and should be enclosed with a railing sufficient to secure
+the infant from falling out, but not of such a structure as to hinder,
+in any degree, a free circulation of the air.
+
+The reasons why a child ought to sleep alone, and not with the mother or
+nurse, are numerous; but the following are the principal;
+
+1. The heat accumulated by the bodies of the mother and child both, is
+often too great for health.
+
+2. The air is too impure. I have already spoken of the change in the
+purity of the air which is produced by breathing in it. It is bad
+enough for two adults to sleep in the same bed, breathing over and over
+again the impure air, as they must do more or less, even if the bed is
+very large;--but it is still worse for infants. Their lungs demand
+atmospheric air in its utmost purity; and if denied it, they must
+eventually suffer.
+
+3. But besides the change of the air by breathing, the surface of the
+body is perpetually changing it in the same manner, as was stated in the
+chapter on Ventilation. Now a child will almost inevitably breathe a
+stream of this bad air, as it issues from the bed; and what is still
+worse, it is very apt, in spite of every precaution, to get its head
+covered up with the clothes, where it can hardly breathe anything else.
+This, if frequently repeated, is slow but certain death;--as much so as
+if the child were to drink poison in moderate quantities.
+
+Let me not be told that this is an exaggeration; that thousands of
+mothers make it a point to cover up the beads of their infants; and that
+notwithstanding this, they are as healthy as the infants of their
+neighbors. I have not said that they would droop and die while infants.
+The fumes of lead, which is a certain poison, may be inhaled, and yet
+the child or adult who inhales them may live on, in tolerable health,
+for many years. But suffer he must, in the end, in spite of every effort
+and every hope. So must the child, whose head is covered habitually
+with the bed clothing, where it is compelled to breathe not only the air
+spoiled by its own skin, but also that which is spoiled by the much
+larger surface of body of the mother or nurse.
+
+But I have proof on this subject. Friedlander, in his "Physical
+Education," says expressly, that in Great Britain alone, between the
+years 1686 and 1800, no less than 40,000 children died in consequence of
+this practice of allowing them to sleep near their nurses. I was at
+first disposed to doubt the accuracy of this most remarkable statement.
+But when I consider the respectability of the authority from which it
+emanated, and that it is only about 350 a year for that great empire, I
+cannot doubt that the estimate is substantially correct. What a
+sacrifice at the shrine of ignorance and folly!
+
+It should be added, in this place, both to confirm the foregoing
+sentiment, and to show that British mothers and nurses are not alone,
+that Dr. Dewees has witnessed, in the circle of his practice, four
+deaths from the same cause. If every physician in the United States has
+met with as many cases of the kind, in proportion to his practice, as
+Dr. D., the evil is about as great in this country as Dr. F. says it is
+in Great Britain.
+
+If a child sleeps alone, it cannot of course be liable to as much
+suffering of this kind as if it slept with another person; though much
+precaution will still be necessary to keep its head uncovered, and
+prevent its inhaling air spoiled by its own lungs and skin.
+
+4. There is one more evil which will be avoided by having a child sleep
+alone. Many a mother has seriously injured her child by pressure. I do
+not here allude to those monsters in human nature, whose besotted habits
+have been the frequent cause of the suffocation and death of their
+offspring, but to the more careful and tender mother, who would sooner
+injure herself than her own child. Such mothers, even, have been known
+to dislocate or fracture a limb![Footnote: There may be instances where
+the debility of an infant will be so great that the mother or a nurse
+must sleep with it, to keep it warm. But such cases of disease are very
+rare.]
+
+To cap the climax of error in this matter, some mothers allow their
+infants to lie on their arm, as a pillow. This practice not only exposes
+them to all or nearly all the evils which have been mentioned, but to
+one more; viz. the danger of being thrown from the bed.
+
+A young mother, with whom I was well acquainted, was sleeping one night
+with her infant on her arm, when she made a sudden and rather violent
+effort to turn in the bed, in doing which she threw the child upon the
+floor with such violence as to fracture its little skull, and cause its
+death.
+
+Enough, I trust, has now been said to convince every reasonable young
+mother, where absolute poverty does not preclude comfort and health,
+that her child ought never to be permitted to sleep in the same bed with
+her; but that it should be placed on a bedstead by itself at a short
+distance from her, and properly guarded from accidents--and above all,
+from inhaling impure air.
+
+At a suitable age, a child may be removed from the nursery to a separate
+chamber. Here, if the circumstances permit, it should still sleep by
+itself; and if the bedstead be somewhat lower than ordinary, and the
+room be not too small, it will need no watching.
+
+Perhaps this may be the proper place to say that there are more reasons
+than one--and some of them are of a moral nature, too--why a child
+should continue to sleep alone, after it leaves the nursery. Nor is it
+sufficient to prohibit its sleeping with younger persons, and yet crowd
+it into the bed with an aged grandfather or grandmother, or with both.
+There is no excuse for a course like this, except the iron hand of
+necessity. And even then, I should prefer to have a child of mine sleep
+on the hard floor, at least during the summer season, rather than with
+an aged person.
+
+Let it not be supposed I have imbibed the fashionable idea that it is
+_peculiarly_ unhealthy for the young to sleep with the old. I know this
+doctrine has many learned advocates. And yet I doubt its correctness. I
+believe that the manners and habits of the old may injure the young who
+sleep with them, and I know that they render the air impure, like other
+people. But I cannot see why the mere circumstance of their being _old_
+should be a source of unhealthiness to their younger bed-fellows. Still
+I say, that there are reasons enough against the practice I am opposing,
+without this.
+
+Some parents allow dogs and cats to sleep with children. Others have a
+prejudice against cats, but not against dogs. The truth is, that they
+both contaminate the air by respiration and perspiration, in the same
+manner that adults do. And aside from the fact that they are often
+infested by lice and other insects, and addicted to uncleanly habits,
+they ought always to be excluded, and with iron bars and bolts, if
+necessary, from the beds of children. But of this, too, I have treated
+elsewhere.
+
+
+SEC. 3. _Purity of the Air._
+
+The general importance of pure air has been mentioned. I have spoken of
+the elements of the atmosphere in which we live, of the manner in
+which it may be vitiated, and the consequences to health. I have
+shown--perhaps at sufficient length--the impropriety of washing, drying,
+and ironing clothes in the room where a child is kept; of cooking in the
+room, especially on a stove; of suffering the floor or clothes,
+particularly those of the child, to remain long wet, in the room; of
+smoking tobacco, using spirits, burning oil with too long a wick, &c.
+
+All which has thus been said of the purity of the air of the nursery
+generally, is applicable to that of all sleeping rooms. It is an
+important point gained, when we can secure a nursery with folding doors
+in the centre, so as, when we please, to make two rooms of it. In that
+case, the division in which the bed is, can be completely ventilated a
+little before night, and thus be comparatively pure for the reception of
+both the mother and the child.
+
+Shall the windows and doors where a child sleeps, be kept closed; or
+shall they be suffered to remain open a part or the whole of the night?
+This must be determined by circumstances. If there are no doors but
+such as communicate with apartments whose air is equally impure with
+that in which the child is, it is preferable to keep them closed. If the
+windows cannot be opened without exposing the child to a current of air,
+it is perhaps the less of two evils, not to open them.
+
+But we are not usually driven to such extremities. In some instances,
+windows are constructed--and all of them ought to be--so that they can
+be lowered from the top. When this is not the case, something can be
+placed before the window to break the current, so that it need not fall
+directly upon the child. Closing the blinds will partially effect this,
+where blinds exist.
+
+I have known many an individual who was in the habit of sleeping with
+his windows open during the whole year, and without any obvious evil
+consequences. Dr. Gregory was of this habit. But if adults--not trained
+to it--can acquire such a habit with impunity, with how much more safety
+could children be trained to it from the very first year. Macnish says,
+"there can be no doubt that a gentle current pervading our sleeping
+apartments, is in the highest degree ESSENTIAL TO HEALTH."
+
+This consideration--I mean the impurity of sleeping rooms, even after
+every precaution has been used to keep them ventilated--affords one
+of the strongest inducements to going abroad early in the morning
+(especially when there is no other room which either adults or children
+can occupy) while the nursery or chamber is aired and ventilated. The
+utility of _rising_ early, I hope no one can doubt; but some have doubts
+of the propriety of going abroad, till the dew has "passed away." Such
+should be reminded, by the foregoing train of remarks, that early
+walking may be a choice of evils; and that if it _is_ on the whole
+advantageous to adults, it cannot be less so to children. And as soon as
+the sun has chased away the vapors of the night, if the weather is
+tolerable, most children should be carried abroad.
+
+
+SEC. 4. _The Bed._
+
+This should never be of feathers. There are many reasons for this
+prohibition, especially to the feeble.
+
+1. They are too warm. Infants should by all means be kept warm enough,
+as I have all along insisted. But excess of heat excites or stimulates
+the skin, causing an unnatural degree of perspiration, and thus inducing
+weakness or debility.
+
+2. When we first enter a room in which there is a feather bed which has
+been occupied during the night, we are struck with the offensive smell
+of the air. This is owing to a variety of causes; one of which probably
+is, that beds of this kind are better adapted to absorb and retain the
+effluvia of our bodies. But let the causes be what they may, the effects
+ought, if possible, to be avoided; for both experience and authority
+combine to pronounce them very injurious.
+
+3. Feather beds--if used in the nursery--will inevitably discharge more
+or less of dust and down; both of which are injurious to the tender
+lungs of the infant.
+
+Mattresses are better for persons of every age, than soft feather beds.
+They may be made of horse hair or moss; but hair is the best. If the
+mattress does not appear to be warm enough for the very young infant, a
+blanket may be spread over it. Dr. Dewees says that in case mattresses
+cannot be had, "the sacking bottom" may be substituted, or "even the
+floor;" at least in warm weather: "for almost anything," he adds, "is
+preferable to feathers."
+
+Macnish, in his "Philosophy of Sleep," objects strongly to air beds, and
+says that he can assert "from experience," that they are the very worst
+that can possibly be employed. My theories--for I have had no experience
+on the subject--would lead me to a similar conclusion. A British
+writer of eminence assures us that the higher classes in Ireland, to a
+considerable extent, accustom themselves and their infants to sleep on
+bags of cut straw, overspread with blankets and a light coverlid; and
+that the custom is rapidly finding favor. I have slept on straw, both in
+winter and summer, for many years, yet I am always warm; and those who
+know my habits say I use less _covering_ on my bed than almost any
+individual whom they have ever known.
+
+I have no hostility to soft beds, especially for young children and feeble
+adults, could softness be secured without much heat and relaxation
+of the system. On the contrary, it is certainly desirable, in itself,
+to have the bed so soft that as large a proportion of the surface of
+the body may rest on it as possible. But I consider hardness as a
+much smaller evil than feathers.
+
+It is worthy of remark how generally physicians, for the last hundred
+years, have recommended hard beds, especially straw beds or hair
+mattresses, to their more feeble and delicate patients. This fact might
+at least quiet our apprehensions in regard to their tendency on those
+who are accustomed to them in early infancy.
+
+Some writers on these subjects appear to doubt whether, after all that
+they say, they shall have much influence on mothers in inducing them to
+give up feather beds for their infants. But they need not be so
+faithless. Multitudes have already been reformed by their writings; and
+multitudes larger still would be so, could they gain access to them. It
+is a most serious evil that they are often so written and published that
+comparatively few mothers will ever possess them.
+
+The pillow, as well as the bed, should be rather hard; and its thickness
+should be much less than is usual, or we shall do mischief by bending
+the neck, and thus compressing the vessels, and obstructing the
+circulation of the blood. But on this subject I will say more, when I
+come to treat on "Posture."
+
+The child's bed should not be placed near the wall, on account of
+dampness. There is also, during the summer, another reason. Should
+lightning strike the house, it will be much more apt to injure those who
+are near the wall than other persons; as it seldom leaves the wall to
+pass over the central part of the room.
+
+Curtains are not only useless, but injurious. They prevent a free
+circulation of the air. Everything which has this tendency must be
+studiously guarded against, in the management of infants.
+
+Nothing is more injurious to the old or the young than damp beds and
+damp covering. It behoves, especially, all those who have the care of
+infants, to see that everything about their beds is thoroughly dry. The
+walls and clothes should also be dry; and wet clothes should never be
+hung up in the room. By neglecting these precautions, colds,
+rheumatisms, inflammations, fevers, consumptions, and death, may ensue.
+Many a person loses his health, and not a few their lives, in this way.
+The author of this work was once thrown into a fever from such a cause.
+
+Warming the bed is, in all cases, a bad practice. While in the nursery,
+if the air be kept at a proper temperature, there will be no need of it;
+after the child is assigned to a separate chamber, its enervating
+tendency would result in more evil than good. It is better to let the
+bed became gradually heated by the body, in a natural and healthy way.
+
+No person, and above all, no infant, should be suffered to sleep in a
+bed that has been recently occupied by the sick. The bed and all the
+clothes should first be thoroughly aired. Could we see with our eyes at
+once, how rapidly these bodies of ours fill the air, and even the beds
+we sleep in, with carbonic acid and other hurtful gases and impurities,
+even while in health, but much more so in sickness, we should be
+cautious of exposing the lungs of the tender infant, in such an
+atmosphere, until everything had been properly cleansed, and the
+apartments properly ventilated.
+
+
+SEC. 5. _The Covering._
+
+The covering of the bed should be sufficiently warm, but never any
+warmer than is absolutely necessary to protect the child from
+chilliness. The lightest covering which will secure this object is the
+best. Perhaps there is nothing in use that, with so little weight,
+secures so much heat as what are called "comfortables."
+
+The clothes should not be "tucked up" at the sides and foot of the bed
+with too much care and exactness. For when the bed is once warmed
+thoroughly with the child's body, the admission of a little fresh air
+into it, when he elevates or otherwise moves his limbs, can do no harm,
+but _may_ do much of good, in the way of ventilation. I deem it
+important, moreover, to inure children very early to little partial
+exposures of this kind.
+
+Those mothers who, from over-tenderness, and want of correct information
+on the subject, pursue a contrary course, and consider it as almost
+certain death to have a particle of fresh air reach the bodies of their
+infants during their slumbers, are generally sure to outwit themselves,
+and defeat their very intentions. For by being thus tender of their
+children, it often turns out that whenever the mother is ill, or when on
+any other account she ceases to watch over them--and such times must,
+in general, sooner or later come--they are much more liable to take cold
+or sustain other injury, should they be exposed, than if they had been
+treated more rationally.
+
+I knew a mother who would not trust her children to take care of their
+own beds on retiring to rest, as long as they remained in her house,
+even though they were twenty or thirty years old. But they had no better
+or firmer constitutions than the other children of the same
+neighborhood.
+
+Hardly anything can be more injurious than covering the head with the
+bed clothes; and yet some mothers and nurses cover, in this way, not
+only their own heads, but those of their children. I have elsewhere
+shown how impure the air is, which is imprisoned under the bed clothes.
+I hope those mothers who are willing to destroy _themselves_ by covering
+up their heads while they sleep, will at least have mercy on their
+unoffending infants.
+
+
+SEC. 6. _Night Dresses._
+
+The grand rule on this point is, to wear as little dress during sleep as
+possible. Some mothers not only suffer their infants to sleep in the
+same shirt, cap, and stockings that they have worn during the day, but
+add a night gown to the rest. No cap should be worn during the night,
+any more than in the day time. Or if the foolish practice has been
+adopted for the day, it should be discontinued at night. It is enough
+for those adults whose long hair would otherwise be dishevelled, to wear
+night caps, and subject themselves, as they inevitably do, to catarrh
+and periodical headache. Children's heads should have nothing on them by
+night; nor even by day, except to defend them from the rain or the hot
+rays of the sun.
+
+The stockings, too, should be wholly laid aside at night, unless in the
+case of those who are feeble, apt to have their feet cold, or
+particularly liable to bowel complaints. Such may be allowed to sleep in
+their stockings, but not in those which have been worn all the day.
+
+Indeed, neither children nor adults should ever wear a single garment in
+the night which they have worn during the day. The reason is, that there
+are too many causes of impurity in operation while we sleep, without our
+wearing the clothes in which we have been perspiring during the
+day-time--and which must be already more or less filled with the
+effluvia of our bodies.
+
+It is a very easy thing to have a loose night gown to supply the place
+of the shirt we have worn during the day; and if nothing else is
+convenient, a spare shirt will answer. But both a night gown and shirt
+should never be admitted, especially in warm weather. The garment to
+supply the place of the shirt during the night, may be of calico in the
+summer, and of flannel in the winter.
+
+The collar and wristbands of this night dress should be loose; and the
+whole garment should be large and long. No article of dress should ever
+press upon our bodies, so as in the least to impede the circulation; and
+for this reason it is, that writers on physical education have inveighed
+so much against cravats, straps, garters, &c. This caution, so important
+to all, is doubly so to young mothers, on whom devolves the management
+of the tender infant.
+
+When the child has been perspiring freely during the evening, just
+before he is undressed, or when he has just been subjected to the warm
+bath, it may be well to use a little care in undressing and exchanging
+clothes, to prevent taking cold;--though it should ever be remembered,
+that those children who are managed on a rational system will bear
+slight exposures with far more safety, than they who have been managed
+at random--sometimes, indeed, with great tenderness, but at others,
+wholly neglected.
+
+
+SEC. 7. _Posture of the Body._
+
+In early infancy, children who are not stuffed rather than fed, may
+occasionally be permitted to sleep on their backs, especially if they
+incline to do so. But it will be well to encourage them to sleep on one
+side, as soon as you can without great inconvenience.
+
+The right side, as a general rule, is preferable; because the stomach,
+which lies towards the left side, is thus left uncompressed, and
+digestion undisturbed. I would not, however, require a child to lie
+always on the right side, but would occasionally change his position,
+lest he should become unable to sleep at all, except in a particular
+manner.
+
+I have said elsewhere, that the head ought to be a little raised,
+especially if the child is liable to diseases of the brain. But this
+remark, rather hastily thrown out, requires explanation.
+
+There is so much blood sent by the heart to the head and upper parts of
+the system of infants, as to predispose those parts, especially the
+brain, to disease. In a horizontal position of the body, there is more
+blood sent to the brain than when the body is erect. This will show the
+reader, at once, that if the infant is peculiarly exposed to diseases
+of the brain--and it certainly is so--he ought to remain in a horizontal
+posture as little as possible, except during sleep; and that even then
+it is desirable to make his bed in such a manner as to elevate the head
+and shoulders as much as we can without compressing the lungs, or
+obstructing the circulation in the neck.
+
+I recommend, therefore, to raise the head of an infant's bedstead a
+little higher than the foot; though not so much as to incline him to
+slide downwards into the bed, for that would be to produce one evil in
+curing another.
+
+Sir Charles Bell thinks that the common disease of infants called
+_diabetes_, arises from their being permitted to sleep on their backs;
+and that by breaking up the habit of lying in this position, and
+accustoming them to lie on their sides, we shall prevent it. I doubt
+whether the effect here referred to, is ever the result of such a cause.
+Still I am as much opposed to the _habit_ of sleeping on the back, as
+Sir Charles Bell. It is quite injurious to free respiration.
+
+Closely allied to the subject of bodily position in general, is the
+state of particular organs; especially the stomach and the senses. I
+have already intimated that in order to have an infant sleep quietly, it
+is desirable to darken the room. This is the more necessary, where
+infants are unnaturally wakeful. In such cases, not only light should
+be excluded from the eye, but sounds from the ear, odors from the
+nostrils, &c. A remarkably full stomach is in the way of going quietly
+to sleep, whether the person be old or young. Neither infants nor adults
+ought to take food for some time previous to their going to sleep for
+the night. Great bodily heat, as well as too great cold, is also
+unfavorable. If too hot, the temperature of the infant should be
+somewhat reduced by exposure to the air; if too cold, it should be
+raised in a natural, healthy, and appropriate manner.
+
+
+SEC. 8. _State of the Mind._
+
+In giving directions how to procure pleasant dreams, Dr. Franklin
+mentions as a highly important requisition, the possession of a quiet
+conscience. A wise prescription, no doubt.
+
+But infants, as well as adults, in order to sleep quietly, should have
+their minds and feelings in a state of tranquillity. The youngest child
+has its "troubles;" and it is highly important, if not indispensable, to
+_healthy_ sleep, that the mother take all reasonable pains to remove
+them before sleep is induced.
+
+We sometimes hear about children crying themselves to sleep, as if it
+were a matter of no consequence; and sometimes, as if it were, on the
+contrary, rather desirable. But is the sleep of an adult satisfying, who
+goes to bed in trouble, and only sleeps because nature is so exhausted
+that she cannot bear the protracted watchfulness any longer? Why then
+should we expect it, in the case of the infant?
+
+I know an excellent father who is so far from believing this doctrine,
+that he silences the cries of his child by the word of command--and
+believes that in so doing, he promotes both his health and his
+happiness. He would no more let him cry himself to sleep than he would
+let him cough himself to sleep; though both crying and coughing, in
+their places, may be and undoubtedly are salutary.
+
+Whatever may be the age and circumstances of an individual, he ought to
+retire for rest with a cheerful mind. All anxiety about the future, all
+regret about the past, all plans even, in regard to the business or
+amusement of the morrow, should be kept wholly out of the mind. We
+should yield ourselves up to the arms of sleep with the same quietude as
+if life were finished, and we had nothing more to do or think of.
+
+
+SEC. 9. _Quality of Sleep._
+
+The soundness, as well as other qualities, of sleep, differs greatly in
+different individuals; and even in the same night, with the same
+individual in different circumstances. The first four or five hours of
+sleep are usually more sound than the remainder. Hardly anything will
+interrupt the repose of some persons during the early part of the night,
+while they awake afterwards at the slightest noise or movement--the
+chirping of a cricket, or the playing of a kitten.
+
+In profound sleep, we probably dream very little, if at all; but in
+other circumstances, we are constantly disturbed by dreaming, and
+sometimes start and wake in the greatest anxiety or horror.
+
+Nightmare is generally accompanied by dreams of the most distressing
+kind. We imagine a wild beast, or a serpent in pursuit of us; or a rock
+is detached from some neighboring cliff, and is about to roll upon and
+crush us; and yet all our efforts to fly are unavailing. We seem chained
+to the spot; but while in the very jaws of destruction, perhaps we
+awake, trembling, and palpitating, and weary, as if something of a
+serious nature had really happened.
+
+In the case of nightmare, it is more than probable that we fall asleep
+with our stomachs too heavily loaded with food, or with a smaller
+quantity of that which is highly indigestible. Or it may sometimes arise
+from an improper position of the body, such as disturbs the action of
+the stomach or lungs, or of both these organs. Lying on the back, when
+we first go to sleep, is very apt to produce nightmare.
+
+But distressing dreams often follow an evening of anxious cares,
+especially if those cares preyed upon us for the last half hour; and
+also after late suppers, even if they are light--and late reading. Hence
+the injunctions of the last section. Hence, too, the importance of
+taking our last meal two or three hours before sleep, and of engaging,
+during these hours, in cheerful conversation, and in the social and
+private duties of religion. Family and private worship, in the evening,
+are enjoined no less by philosophy than they are by christianity; and
+every young mother will do well to understand this matter, and train her
+offspring accordingly.
+
+"That sleep from which we are easily roused, is the healthiest," says
+Macnish. "Very profound slumber partakes of the nature of apoplexy." I
+should say, rather, that a medium between the two extremes is
+healthiest. Profound apoplectic sleep, I am sure, is injurious; but
+that from which we are too easily roused cannot, it seems to me,
+be less so. Thus, I have often gone to sleep with a resolution
+to wake at a certain hour, or at the striking of the clock;
+and have found myself able to wake at the proposed time, almost
+without one failure in twenty instances where I have made the trial. But
+my sleep was obviously unsound, and certainly unsatisfying. The desire
+to awake at a certain moment or period, seemed to buoy me above the
+usual state of healthy sleep, and render me liable to awake at the
+slightest disturbance. Were it not for sacrificing the ease of others,
+it would be far better, in such cases, to rely upon some person to wake
+us, instead of charging our own minds with it.
+
+The quality of our sleep will be greatly affected by the quantity. But
+this thought, if extended, would anticipate the subject of our next
+section; so easily does one thing, especially in physical education, run
+into or involve another. I will therefore, for the present, only say
+that if we confine ourselves to a smaller number of hours than is really
+required, our sleep becomes too sound to be quite healthy, as if nature
+endeavored to make up in quality, for want of due quantity. On the
+contrary, if we attempt to sleep longer than is really necessary to
+restore us, the quality of our sleep is not what it ought to be; for we
+do not sleep soundly enough.
+
+The silence and darkness of the night tend to induce sleep of a better
+quality than the noise and activity of day. It is unquestionably
+desirable that children should be able to sleep, at least occasionally,
+without absolute quiet. And yet such sleep cannot be sufficiently sound
+to answer the purposes of health, if frequently repeated.
+
+Hence it is, perhaps--at least in part--that the maxim has obtained
+currency, that one hour of sleep before midnight is worth two afterward.
+The comparison has probably been made between the quiet and darksome
+hours of evening and those which followed daybreak, when light, and
+music, and bustle conspire, as they should, to make us wakeful. No
+person can sleep as soundly and as effectually, when light reaches his
+closed eyes, and sounds strike his ears, as in darkness and silence. He
+may sleep, indeed, under almost any circumstances, when fatigue and
+exhaustion demand it; but never so profoundly as when in absolute
+abstraction of light, and complete quiet.
+
+
+SEC. 10. _Quantity._
+
+On this point much might be said, without exhausting the subject. But I
+have already observed that infants, when first born, require to sleep
+nearly their whole time. As they advance in years, the necessity for
+sleep; however, diminishes, until they come to maturity, when it remains
+for many years nearly stationary. In advanced age, the necessity for
+sleep again increases, till we reach the extremest old age, or what is
+usually called second childhood, when we again sometimes sleep nearly
+the whole time.
+
+I have already remarked that much might be said on this subject; but I
+do not think that the present occasion requires it. If the suggestions
+which are made in the chapter on "Early Rising" should receive the
+attention I flatter myself they merit, I do not believe children would
+often sleep too long. If, on the contrary, they are suffered to lie late
+in the morning, and then sit up late in the evening, all healthful
+habits and tendencies will he so deranged or broken up, that nature, in
+her indications, will by no means prove the unerring guide which she is
+wont to do in other circumstances.
+
+A few thoughts here, on the quantity of sleep required by the young
+after they approach maturity, may not be misplaced.
+
+Jeremy Taylor thought that for a healthy adult, three hours in
+twenty-four were enough for all the purposes of sleep. Baxter thought
+four hours about a reasonable time; Wesley, six; Lord Coke and Sir Wm.
+Jones, seven; and Sir John Sinclair, eight. These were the _theories_ of
+men who were all eminent for their learning, and most of them for their
+piety. How far their _practice_ corresponded with their theories, we are
+not, in every instance, told.
+
+But to come to the practice of several persons who have been
+distinguished in the world. General Elliot, one of the most vigorous men
+of his age, though living for his whole life on nothing but vegetables
+and water, and who at sixty-four had scarcely begun to feel the
+infirmities of old age, slept but four hours in twenty-four. Frederick
+the Great of Prussia, and the illustrious British surgeon, John Hunter,
+slept but five hours a day. Napoleon Bonaparte, for a great part of his
+life, slept only four hours; and Lord Brougham is said to require no
+more. Others, in numerous instances, require but six hours. But there
+are others still, who consume eight.
+
+The conclusion--in my own mind--is, that with a good constitution and
+active habits, men may habituate themselves to very different quantities
+of sleep. Still I think that six hours are little enough for most
+persons; and if a child, on arriving at maturity, is not inclined to
+sleep much longer than that, I should not regard him as wasting time.
+Most persons, it appears to me, require six hours of sound sleep in
+twenty-four;--I mean between the ages of twenty and seventy.
+
+Macnish is the most liberal modern writer I am acquainted with, in his
+allowance of time for sleep. Speaking of the wants of adults he
+says--"No person who passes only eight hours in bed can be said to waste
+his time in sleep." Yet he obviously contradicts himself on the very
+same page; for he says expressly, that when a person is young, strong
+and healthy, an hour or two less may be sufficient. But an hour or two
+less than eight hours reduces the amount to seven or six hours. And
+taking the whole period of life, to which he probably refers--say from
+eighteen to forty--into consideration, there is a very considerable
+difference between six hours and eight hours a day. If six hours are
+"sufficient," it cannot be right to sleep eight hours.
+
+Let us here make a few estimates. If six hours are sufficient for sleep
+between the ages of eighteen and forty, he who sleeps eight hours a day,
+actually loses 16,060 hours--equal to nearly two whole years of life, or
+about two years and three quarters of time in which we are usually
+awake. This, in the meridian of life, is not a small waste. Permit it to
+every person now in the United States, and the sum total of wasted time
+to a single generation, would be 25,649,098 years--equal to the average
+duration of the lives of 854,970 persons. The value of this time, as a
+commodity in the market, at a low estimate--only forty dollars a
+year--would be over A THOUSAND MILLIONS of DOLLARS! And its value, for
+the purposes of mental and moral improvement, cannot be estimated except
+in ETERNITY!
+
+Every young mother must derive from these considerations a motive to
+discourage all unnecessary waste of time in sleep; while no one, as I
+trust, will forget that to sleep too little is also dangerous to health,
+and prejudicial to the general happiness.
+
+
+
+
+CHAPTER XV.
+
+EARLY RISING.
+
+All children naturally early risers. Evils of sitting up late at night.
+Excitements in the evening. The morning, by its beauties, invites us
+abroad. Example of parents. Forbidding children to rise early. Keeping
+them out of the way. How many are burnt up by parental neglect.
+"Lecturing" them. What is an early hour?
+
+
+Some writer--I do not recollect who--has said that all children are
+naturally early risers. And I cannot help coming to the same conclusion.
+That they are not so, is no more proved from the fact that as things now
+are they are generally found addicted to the contrary habit, than the
+very general neglect of milk among the higher classes of our citizens,
+proves that they have not a natural relish for it--when every one knows
+that at our first setting out in life, milk is, almost without
+exception, the sole article of human sustenance.
+
+One of the great difficulties in the way of early rising, as I have
+already had occasion to say, is late sitting up. If children are not
+accustomed to retire till nine or ten o'clock, nor then until they have
+been subjected to all the excitements pertaining to fashionable
+life--company, heated and impure air, stimulating drink, fruits,
+high-seasoned food, and perhaps music--and are become actually feverish,
+no one but an ignorant person or a brute ought to expect them to rise
+early. Indeed, whatever may have been the cause, and whether it have
+operated on high or low life, late retiring will inevitably result in
+late rising. The current may be turned out of its course a little while,
+it is true, but not always. It will ere long return to its accustomed
+channel; perhaps to renew its course with increased pertinacity.
+
+Everything, in the morning, naturally invites to early rising. The
+pleasant light, the music, at certain seasons, of some of the animated
+tribes, and the joy which we feel in activity, and in the society of
+those whom we love, all conspire to rouse us. If we have retired late,
+however, and especially in a feverish condition, so that when we wake we
+feel wretched, and, as sometimes happens, more fatigued than when we lay
+down, other collateral motives may be needed.
+
+I have said that everything invites us, in the morning, to rise early;
+but it was upon the presumption that our parents, and brothers, and
+sisters set us a good example. If parents and other friends lie in bed
+late themselves, can anything else be, expected of children? Admitting,
+even, that they rise early themselves, if they never speak of early
+rising as a pleasure, and connect along with it, in their children's
+minds, pleasant associations, they would be unreasonable to expect
+otherwise than that their children should cling to the morning couch,
+till they are fairly compelled to rise as a relief from pain and
+uneasiness.
+
+But when parents go farther than this, and actually discourage their
+children from rising early, and use every means in their power short of
+actual punishment--and sometimes even that--to make them lie still till
+breakfast, in order that they may be out of the way, what shall we say?
+And what is to be expected as the result?
+
+There is hope, however, under the last circumstances. People sometimes
+carry things to an extreme that defeats their very purposes. Thus it
+occasionally is, in the case before us. This forbidding children to rise
+early, and threatening them if they do, sometimes excites their
+curiosity, and leads them to the forbidden course of conduct, simply
+_because_ it is forbidden. Not a few persons among us possess the
+disposition to be governed by what has sometimes been called the "rule
+of contrary."
+
+I might stop here to show that there is nothing so well calculated to
+develope and improve the mind and heart, even of parents themselves, as
+the society of those whom God gives them to train for Him and their
+country. I might show that not a few of those traits of character which
+render the company of many old persons rather irksome, especially to the
+young, have their origin in their neglect of the young, and of keeping
+up, as long as circumstances will possibly admit, juvenile feelings,
+actions, and habits.
+
+And yet what do we too often witness in life? Is not every effort made
+to induce the young to lie in bed late that they may be out of the way?
+Are they not placed, as soon as possible after they are up, with the
+servants--if unfortunately there are any in the family--that they may be
+out of the way? Are they not required to breakfast, and dine, and sup
+elsewhere, if possible, that they may be out of the way? Do we not send
+them to school, even the Sabbath school, to get them out of the way? Do
+not some mothers even dose their infants with stupifying medicines to
+lull them to sleep, in order to have them out of the way? And to crown
+all, though they are quite too often permitted to sit up late in the
+evening, to enjoy that society which they are denied so great a part of
+the day-time, are they not occasionally put to bed early that they may
+be out of the way, and that the parents may attend late parties, to
+indulge in immoral or unhealthy habits?
+
+In the last instance, they are indeed sometimes put out of the way, in
+the result--and with a vengeance. Many a child, nay, many thousands of
+children, are burnt up yearly, while their parents are gone abroad in
+the evening in quest of that enjoyment which ought to be found in the
+bosom of their families. "In Westminster, a part of London, containing
+less than two hundred thousand inhabitants, one hundred children were
+thus destroyed, during a single year." And the moral results which
+occasionally happen are a thousand times worse than burning. But enough
+of this.
+
+The common practice of lecturing the young on the importance of early
+rising, may have a good effect on a few; but in general, it is believed
+to produce the contrary result. It is, in short, to sum up the whole
+matter, the influence of parental example, and the speaking often of the
+happiness which early rising affords, with perhaps the occasional
+indulgence of the child in a pleasant morning walk, which, if he retires
+early enough, are almost certain to produce in him the valuable habit of
+early rising.
+
+But what is an early hour? Some call it early, when the sun is one hour
+high; some at sunrise; others, when they hear of an early riser,
+suppose he must be one who rises at least by daybreak.
+
+Midnight is, of course, as near the middle of the night as any hour; and
+he who goes to bed four or five hours before midnight, will never
+complain of those who insist that _he_ is not an early riser who is not
+up by four or five o'clock. In summer, no adult ought to lie in bed
+after four o'clock, and no child, except the mere infant, after five.
+
+Much is said by a few writers, especially Macnish, of the danger of
+rising before the sun has attained a sufficient height above the horizon
+to chase away the vapors, and remove the dampness. But I must insist
+upon earlier rising than this, though we should not choose to venture
+abroad. Invigorated and restored as we are by sleep, I cannot think that
+the dampness of the morning air is more injurious than the foul air of
+some of our sleeping rooms.
+
+
+
+
+CHAPTER XVI.
+
+HARDENING THE CONSTITUTION.
+
+Mistakes about hardening children. Their clothing. Much cold enfeebles.
+The Scotch Highlanders. The two extremes equally fatal--over-tenderness
+and neglect. An interesting anecdote from Dr. Dewees.
+
+
+While I have been very particular in enjoining on my readers the
+importance of thoroughly ventilating their dwellings, I have also
+insisted upon the necessity of taking children abroad, as much as
+possible. Not, however, to harden them, so much as to give them a more
+free access to air and light than they can have at home; and also--when
+they are old enough--to cultivate the faculties of attention,
+comparison, &c.
+
+The practice of attempting to harden children by frequent exposure to
+air much colder than that to which they have been accustomed, without
+sufficient additional clothing, is open to the same objections which
+have been brought against cold bathing. Under the management of a
+judicious medical practitioner, it may do great good to a few
+constitutions; but its indiscriminate use would injure a thousand
+infants for one who was benefited.
+
+True it is that if the child is protected against cold, no harm, but on
+the contrary much good may result, from carrying him abroad into the
+fresh air, even in very cold weather. But what can be more painful than
+to see the little sufferers carried along when their limbs are purple,
+or benumbed with cold? And how idle it is to hope that such exposure
+hardens or improves the constitution!
+
+It is on the same mistaken principle that many adults go thinly clad,
+late in the fall. I have seen men in November and December beating and
+rubbing their hands, who, on being asked why they did not wear mittens,
+replied, that if they should wear one pair of mittens so early in the
+season, they should want two in the winter.
+
+Now I cheerfully admit that to put on additional clothing before the
+severity of the weather demands it, actually produces the effect here
+supposed; but to endure severe cold, on the contrary, never hardens
+anybody. Nay, more, it enfeebles. Cold, when combined with the evils of
+_poverty_, produces more mischief and destroys more lives than any one
+disease in the whole catalogue of human maladies.
+
+Adam Smith says that it is not uncommon for mothers in the Highlands of
+Scotland, who have borne twenty children, to have only two of them
+alive.
+
+It may be difficult to say whether children are oftener destroyed by
+over-tenderness than by neglect, and the evils incident to poverty. Both
+extremes are common; while the happy medium--that of conducting a
+child's education upon the principles of physiology, is rarely known,
+and still more rarely followed.
+
+I have been much amused, and not a little instructed, by the following
+anecdote on this point, from Dr. Dewees:
+
+We were speaking with a lady who had lost three or four children with
+"croup," who informed us she was convinced, from absolute experiment,
+that there was nothing like exposure to all kinds of weather to protect
+and harden the system. By her first plan of managing her children, which
+was by keeping them very warmly clad, she said she lost several by the
+croup; but since she had adopted the opposite scheme, her children had
+been perfectly healthy, and never had betrayed the slightest disposition
+to that terrible disease which had robbed her of her children.
+
+Perhaps, madam, we observed, you did not, in making your first
+experiments, attend to a number of details which might be thought
+essential to the plan. You did not probably take the proper precautions
+when you sent them into the cold air, or observe what was important for
+them when they returned from it.
+
+"Oh, yes," she replied, "I took every possible care when they, were
+going out. I always made them wear a very warm great coat, well lined
+with baize, and a fur cape or collar. I always made them wear a
+'comfortable' round their necks, made of soft woollen yarn. And as for
+their feet, they were always protected by socks or over-shoes lined with
+wool or fur, as the weather might be wet or dry."
+
+Do you believe, madam, they were kept at a proper degree of warmth by
+these means?
+
+"Oh, certainly. Indeed, rather too warm; for they would often be in a
+state of perspiration, they told me, when in the open air; especially if
+they ran, slid, or skated."
+
+And what was done when they were thus heated?
+
+"Oh, they got cool enough before they reached home."
+
+And would they receive no injury in passing from this state of
+perspiration to that of chill?
+
+"Not at all; for when this happened, I always made them take a little
+warm brandy, or wine and water, and made them toast their feet well by
+the fire." [Footnote: This absurd custom is a fruitful source of that
+distressing condition of the hands and feet, in winter, called
+"chilblains."]
+
+Did they sleep in a cold or warm room?
+
+"In a warm room. A good fire was always made in the stove before they
+went to bed, which kept them quite warm all night."
+
+Would they never complain of being cold towards morning, when the stove
+had become cold?
+
+"Yes, certainly; but then there were always at hand additional
+bed-clothes, with which they could cover themselves."
+
+And did they always do it?
+
+"Oh, I suppose so."
+
+Well, madam, how did you carry your second plan into execution, which
+you say was attended with such happy results?
+
+"I began by not letting them put on their great coats, except when the
+weather was so cold as to require this additional covering, and did not
+permit them to wear a 'comfortable' or fur round their necks. I took
+away their over-shoes, and if their feet chanced to get wet, (for they
+were always provided with good sound shoes,) the shoes were immediately
+changed, if they were at home. If the weather was wet, or unusually
+cold, they were permitted to wear their great coats, but not without.
+If they came home very cold, they were not allowed to approach the fire
+too soon. I gave them no warm, heating drinks, and accustomed them to
+sleep in rooms without fire."
+
+Who does not recognize, in this second plan for the enjoyment of air and
+exercise, as judicious a plan of physical education, so far as it goes,
+as can well be pointed out? We were so successful as to convince this
+lady, in a very short time, that our own plan of exposing the body was
+precisely the one she had pursued with so much success.
+
+We also inquired of her what plan she pursued with her children, when
+too young to be submitted to the rules just mentioned. She informed us
+that it was the same system throughout, only the details varied as
+circumstances of age, &c. made it necessary. That is, she sent her
+children into the open air at very early periods of their lives,
+provided in summer it was neither too wet nor too warm; in winter, when
+the air was mild, dry and clear--but always carefully wrapped up, that
+their little extremities might not suffer from cold. She never suffered
+them to sleep in the open air, if it could be avoided; to prevent which,
+as much as possible, she constantly charged the nurse to bring the
+children home, as soon as she found them disposed to sleep, unless it
+was when they were very young, at which time it was impossible to guard
+against it.
+
+And when her children were sufficiently old to walk, she took care to
+prepare them properly for it, whether it might be in warm, cold, or
+moderate weather. She never sent them abroad for pleasure at the risk of
+encountering a storm of any kind; nor permitted them to walk at the
+hazard of getting wet or very muddy feet.
+
+Were the constitutions of your children pretty much the same? we
+demanded of this lady.
+
+"No; one of my boys was extremely feeble, from his very birth."
+
+Did you treat him precisely as you did the others?
+
+"Yes, as far as regarded principles; that is, I permitted him to bear as
+much of cold, heat or wet as his constitution would endure without pain
+or injury. The degrees, however, were very different from those his
+brothers bore, had they been determined by the measurement of the
+thermometer, but precisely the same in effect, as far as could be
+ascertained by consequences. Thus, if he were exposed to the same
+temperature as his brothers, he experienced no more inconvenience from
+it, when it was very low, than they, because he had additional covering
+to protect him."
+
+
+
+
+CHAPTER XVII.
+
+SOCIETY.
+
+Duty of mothers in this matter. Children prefer the society of parents.
+Importance of other society. Necessity of society illustrated. Early
+diffidence. Selecting companions for children. Moral effects of society
+on the young. Parents should play with their children.
+
+
+Every mother is unquestionably as much bound to have an eye to the
+society of her child, as to his food, drink or clothing. And if the
+quality, amount and general character of the latter are important, those
+of the former are by no means less so.
+
+It is indeed true that many a child has been happy, in a degree, in the
+society of its mother alone, where the father was seldom seen, and the
+brothers and sisters never. And it is equally true; that a few children
+have so far preferred the society of their parents alone, as to become
+disinclined to other society. But cases of this kind are only as
+exceptions to the general rule; and are probably monstrous formations
+of character. I cannot believe that any child, rightly educated, would
+prefer the society of none but its parents, or even its parents and
+brothers and sisters.
+
+A French author has written a considerable volume on the importance of
+what he calls _gaiety_, but which he should prefer to call cheerfulness.
+Among the rest, he maintains that it is indispensable to the best
+health. But if so--and I do not doubt it--then it ought to be encouraged
+in children, and the earlier the better. Now there is no way to
+encourage cheerfulness in the young so effectually as by indulging them
+with considerable society.
+
+That the thing may be carried to excess, I have no doubt. I have seen
+mothers who permitted their children to play with their mates till they
+became excited, and were thus led to continue their sports, not only
+farther than cheerfulness and health demanded, but until they were
+excessively fatigued, and almost made sick. And I believe that the
+excitement of numbers, in infant and other schools, may be so great as
+to be injurious, rather than salutary. Still I think these are rare
+cases.
+
+Truth usually lies somewhere between extremes. To keep a child,
+especially a boy, always in the nursery, or even in the parlor with his
+mother, is one extreme; and to let him go abroad continually, till his
+home and its smaller circle become insipid, is the other. A child
+properly trained will _usually_ prefer home, and only desire to go
+abroad occasionally. He will rather need urging in the matter than
+require restraint.
+
+But he must, at any rate, be taught to be sociable, not only for the
+salve of cheerfulness and the consequent health, but for the sake of his
+manners, his mind, and his morals.
+
+If it is a matter of indifference, in the formation of human character,
+whether we mix in society or not, then, for anything I can see, an
+improvement might be proposed in the construction of the material
+universe. Instead of forming the planets so large--and this earth among
+the rest--each might have been divided into hundreds of millions; and
+every human being might have had a little planet, and an immortality,
+exclusively his own. Such an arrangement would certainly prevent a great
+many evils; and, among the rest, a great deal of quarrelling and
+bloodshed.
+
+But divine wisdom is higher than human wisdom, and one world to hundreds
+of millions of human beings has been made, instead of giving to each
+individual of the universe a little world of his own, in which he might
+have reigned sole monarch, and only wept, with Alexander, because none
+of the other worlds were within his grasp. Where a family is already
+large, other society will be unnecessary for some time; but where it
+consists of a mother only, although her society is always to be
+considered of the _first_ importance, I cannot but think she ought to
+take great pains to introduce her child occasionally to the company of
+other children.
+
+That diffidence, which almost destroys the influence and the happiness
+of many individuals, is often cherished, if not created, by too much
+seclusion. Where there is a natural constitution which predisposes the
+child to timidity and diffidence, the danger is greatly increased; and
+parents should take unwearied pains to guard against it.
+
+It is hardly necessary for me to say, that great care should also be
+used in selecting the companions of children. Their character will be
+greatly influenced for life by their earlier associates. Friendships
+between children are sometimes formed, while playing together, which are
+interrupted only by death. Those parents who are so fond of controlling
+the choice of their sons and daughters in regard to a companion for
+life, at a period when control is generally resisted, would do well to
+take a hint from what has here been suggested. There is no doubt but
+they might often--very often--give such a direction to the embryo
+affections of their infants and children, as would terminate only with
+their existence.
+
+It is still less necessary to advert, in a work like this, to the effect
+which much observation and experience shows good society to have on
+purity, both physical and moral. Every one must have observed its
+tendency to form habits of cleanliness, not to say neatness. There may
+be excess, even in this. Young persons, of both sexes, often spend too
+much time in preparing their dress for the reception or the visiting of
+their friends. Still this is only the abuse of a good thing. Nor is it
+less true, though it may be less obvious, that moral purity is more
+likely to be secured where children and youth of both sexes associate a
+great deal, from the earliest infancy. [Footnote: If this principle be
+correct, what is the tendency of our numerous schools, which are
+exclusively for one sex? Must there not be latent evil to counterbalance
+some of the seeming good? For myself, I doubt whether moral character
+can ever be formed in due proportion and harmony, where this separation
+long exists.] There are tremendous cases of declension on record, which
+establish this point beyond the possibility of debate.
+
+To say that the mother--and indeed both parents--ought to form a part of
+the playing circle of the youngest children, in order to watch their
+opening dispositions, to check what may be improper, and encourage what
+ought to be encouraged, would be only to repeat what has often been
+recommended by the best writers on education--but which must be
+repeated, again and again, till it leaves an impression, especially on
+CHRISTIAN parents. It is strange that many regard this matter as they
+do, and appear not only ashamed to be seen sporting with their children,
+but almost ashamed to have their children thus occupied. They might as
+well be ashamed of the gambols of the kitten or the lamb; or of the
+grave mother, as she turns aside occasionally to join in its frolics.
+When will parents be willing to take lessons in education from that
+brute world which they have been so long accustomed to overlook or
+despise?
+
+
+
+
+CHAPTER XVIII.
+
+EMPLOYMENTS.
+
+Influence of mothers over daughters. Anecdote of Benjamin West. Anecdote
+of a poor mother. Of set lessons and lectures. Daughters under the
+mother's eye. Why young ladies, now-a-days, dislike domestic
+employments. Miserable housewives--not to be wondered at. Mistake of one
+class of men. Mr. Flint's opinion.
+
+
+One important and never-to-be-forgotten employment of the young is the
+cultivation of their minds; and another, that of their morals. But my
+present purpose is only to speak of those employments denominated
+manual, or physical.
+
+It is obvious, at the first glance, that the influence of the mother, in
+our own country, at least, will be less over boys than over girls. We
+leave it to savages and semi-savages to employ their females, and even
+their mothers, in hard manual labor. Here, in America, what I should say
+on the employment of boys would be more properly addressed to the YOUNG
+FATHER.
+
+There are some exceptions to the general truth contained in the last
+paragraph. Many a mother has--unconsciously at the time, but with no
+less certainty than if she had done it intentionally--given a direction
+to the whole current of her son's life; and this, too, at a very early
+period. The mother of Benjamin West, the painter, if she did not give
+the first tendency to his favorite pursuit, while he was yet a mere
+child, at the least greatly confirmed him in it, by the manner of
+expressing her surprise at one of his early performances. "My mother's
+kiss," on that occasion, said he, "made me a painter." Nor are facts of
+the same general character by any means uncommon.
+
+I know a poor mother who, in the absence of her husband at his weekly
+or monthly labors, used to detain her eldest boy, then almost an
+infant, from going to bed in the evening till her day's work was
+finished--because, in her loneliness, she wanted his company--by telling
+stories of eminent men, and especially of distinguished philanthropists,
+until she had unconsciously kindled in him a philanthropic spirit, which
+will not cease to burn till his death.
+
+But it is in forming the predilections of daughters for their destined
+employments, that mothers are especially influential. Not so much by
+their set lessons or lectures, however, as by the force of continued
+example. No mother who sends her child away to be nursed, and
+subsequently to her return seizes on every possible opportunity to keep
+her out of the way and out of her sight, will be likely to give her any
+choice of employment, or indeed any fondness for employment at all.
+
+Nor is it sufficient that she keep her daughter constantly under her
+eye, with a view to qualify her for the duties of a housewife, if the
+daughter see as plainly as in the light of mid-day, that the mother
+dislikes the employment herself. She must love what she would have her
+daughter love, and even what she would have her understand. Nor is it
+sufficient that she _affect_ a fondness for the employment; her love for
+it must be real. Little girls have keener eyes and better judgments than
+some mothers seem willing to believe or to admit.
+
+Many persons seem greatly surprised that the young ladies of modern days
+have so little fondness for domestic life and domestic duties. How few,
+it is often said, will do their own housework, if they can possibly get
+a train of domestics around them; even though the care and oversight of
+the domestics themselves gear them out more rapidly than bodily labor
+would.
+
+But there is a reason for this hostility to domestic employments. It is
+because mothers, almost universally, consider their occupations as mere
+drudgery, and bring up their children in the same spirit. And what else
+could be expected as the result? It would be an anomaly in the history,
+of human nature, if the female members of families were to grow up in
+love with ordinary domestic avocations, when they have been accustomed
+to see their mothers, and nurses, and elder sisters complaining and
+fretting while engaged in them; and showing by their actions, no less
+than by their words, that they regarded themselves as miserable and
+wretched.
+
+No wonder so many girls, of the present day, make miserable housewives.
+No wonder a factory, a book-bindery, or a shoemaker's shop, is
+considered preferable to the kitchen. No wonder the world degenerates,
+because females, no longer healthfully employed, become pale and sickly,
+spreading gloom and misery all around them, and transmitting the same
+ills which themselves suffer to those who come after them.
+
+It is true, the guilt of this dereliction must not be charged wholly on
+mothers; though they ought, unquestionably, to bear a large share of it.
+Those who have, and ought to have, much influence in society,
+erroneously, and I suppose thoughtlessly, help mothers along in their
+evil ways. If there were a universal combination between certain classes
+of mankind and the whole race of mothers, to ruin, rather than be
+instrumental of reforming mankind, and of saving their deathless souls,
+I hardly know how they could invent a much better, or at least a much
+more certain plan, than that now in operation. So long as those who take
+the lead in society, and govern the fashion in this matter, as others
+govern it in the matter of dress, refuse, as a general rule, to form
+alliances for life, except with those who practically despise house-hold
+concerns--and so long as our houses are filled with domestics, whose
+object is to aid these spoiled mothers, but whose real effect is to
+complete their ruin, and accelerate the ruin of mankind--just so long
+will human progress towards perfection be retarded.
+
+If mothers were in love with their occupations, and their daughters knew
+it, then to the influence of a good example they could add many lessons
+of instruction. These might be given in the way of natural, unstudied
+conversation, and thus be not only heard with attention, but sink deep.
+If the world is ever to be reformed, says Mr. Flint, in his Western
+Review, woman, sensible, enlightened, well educated and principled, must
+be the original mover in the great work. Every one who has considered
+well the extent and nature of female influence, will concur in the
+sentiment; and if he have one remaining particle of devotion to the
+Father of spirits, he will send up the most fervent petitions to his
+throne of mercy in behalf of this often depressed or enslaved half of
+the human race, that they may speedily be emancipated, and become as
+conspicuous in human redemption, as they have sometimes been in human
+condemnation.
+
+
+
+
+CHAPTER XIX.
+
+EDUCATION OF THE SENSES.
+
+Improving the senses. Examples of improvement. SEC. 1. Hearing--how
+injured--how improved.--SEC. 2. Seeing--how injured.--SEC. 3. Tasting
+and smelling--how benumbed--how preserved.--SEC. 4. Feeling. The blind.
+Hints to parents. Education of both hands.
+
+
+Man is much less useful and happy in this world than he would be, if
+more pains were taken by parents and teachers, as well as by himself, to
+cultivate his senses--hearing, seeing, feeling; tasting, and
+smelling--and to preserve their rectitude.
+
+The extent to which the senses can be improved or exalted, can best be
+understood by observing how perfect they become when we are compelled to
+cultivate them. Thus the blind, who are obliged to cultivate hearing,
+feeling, and smelling, often astonish us by the keenness of these
+senses. They will distinguish sounds--especially voices--which others
+cannot; and with so much accuracy, as to remember for several years the
+voice of a person in a large company, which they hear but once. They
+will also distinguish small pieces of money, different fabrics and
+qualities of cloth, &c.; and, in walking, often ascertain, by the
+feeling of the air, or by other sensations, when they approach a
+building, or any other considerable body. So the North American Indian,
+whose habits of life seem to require it, can hear the footsteps of an
+approaching enemy at distances which astonish us. So also the deaf and
+dumb are very keen-sighted, and generally make very accurate
+observations. Any reader who is sceptical in regard to the cultivation
+of the senses, would do well to consult the account of Julia Brace, the
+deaf and dumb and blind girl, as published in some of the early volumes
+of the "Annals of Education."
+
+But it is hardly necessary to resort to the blind, or to savages, or to
+the deaf and dumb, in order to prove man's susceptibility in this
+respect. We may be reminded of the same fact by observing with what
+accuracy the merchant tailor can distinguish, by feeling, the quality of
+his goods; how quick a painter, an engraver, or a printer, will discover
+errors in painting or printing, which wholly escape ordinary readers or
+observers; and how quick the ear of a good musician will discover the
+existence and origin of a discordant sound in his choir.
+
+Now I do not undertake to say or prove, that mankind would be better or
+happier for having their senses all cultivated in the highest possible
+degree; though I am not sure that this would not be the case. But so
+long as a large proportion of our ideas enter our minds through the
+medium of the five senses, it is desirable that something should be done
+to perfect them, instead of overlooking the whole subject. What mothers
+ought to do in this matter, deserves, therefore, a brief consideration.
+
+
+SEC. 1. _Hearing._
+
+The suggestion, in another place, to keep away caps from the child's
+head, if duly attended to, is one means of perfecting, or at least of
+preserving, the sense of hearing. For caps, by the heat they produce to
+a part which cannot safely endure an increase of temperature, greatly
+expose children to catarrhal affections; and many a catarrh has laid the
+foundation for dulness of hearing, if not of actual deafness.
+
+The ears should be kept clean. If washed sufficiently often, and
+syringed once a week with warm milk and water, or with very weak
+soap-suds, gently warmed, the cerumen or ear wax will hardly be found
+accumulated in such masses as to produce deafness. And yet such
+accumulations, with such consequences, are by no means uncommon. It is
+not long since a young man with whom I am acquainted, applied to an
+eminent surgeon of Boston, on account of deafness in one ear, which had
+become quite troublesome, and as it was feared, incurable. Syringing
+with a large and strong syringe disengaged a large mass of cerumen, and
+hearing was immediately restored.
+
+Children should be taught to distinguish sounds with closed eyes, or
+blindfolded. We may strike on various objects, and ask them to tell what
+we struck, &c. This will lead them to _observe_ sounds; and will perfect
+their hearing in a remarkable degree.
+
+There are also advantages to be derived from accustoming a child to a
+great variety of sounds; both as regards their strength and character.
+But this must only be occasional; for if the ear be constantly
+accustomed to sounds of any kind, and more especially those which are
+harsh or loud, the organ of hearing is liable to sustain injury. Music,
+as it is now beginning to be taught to children in our schools, will do
+much, I think, to improve the faculty of hearing.
+
+
+SEC. 2. _Seeing._
+
+The sight, says Addison, is the most perfect of all our senses; and this
+is unquestionably true. But it is more or less perfect, in different
+individuals, according to the early education they have received.
+Sometimes, it is true, we are born near-or dim-sighted; but such cases
+are comparatively rare.
+
+The question is sometimes asked why there are so many persons,
+now-a-days, who lose their sight, become near-sighted, &c. very young.
+It may be difficult to answer this question fully; yet I cannot help
+thinking that the following are some of the causes.
+
+1. The great heat of our apartments, which, together with late hours and
+much lamp light, affects the eyes unpleasantly, is believed to be among
+the more prominent causes of early decay of sight. Formerly, our
+apartments were neither so steadily nor so generally heated; and we rose
+earlier, and consequently went to bed earlier.
+
+2. The fine print of a large proportion of our books, especially our
+school books, has done immense injury. I do not believe that reading
+fine print, occasionally, for a few moments at a time, or reading by a
+very strong or very weak light in the same way, does harm. On the
+contrary, I think it may strengthen and improve the sight. It is the
+long continuance of these things that does the mischief; and the
+mischief thus done is immense. I rejoice that printers and publishers
+are beginning of late to use much larger type than they have done for
+some years past.
+
+3. The early use of spectacles does mischief--I mean before they are
+needed. After they begin to be needed, there is no advantage in delaying
+to use them, as some do, for fear they shall wear them too soon. This is
+about as wise as the practice of going cold to harden ourselves.
+
+4. Reading when we are fatigued, or ill, or have a very full stomach, is
+another way to injure the sight.
+
+5. Rubbing the eyes with the fingers, or with anything else, does
+inevitable mischief. The Germans have a proverb which says--"Never touch
+your eye, except with your elbow." There is much of good sense in it.
+
+In short, there are a thousand ways in which that delicate organ, the
+human eye, may sustain injury; and nearly as many in which it may be
+strengthened, cultivated, and improved. But my limits merely permit me
+to add, that the frequent but gentle application of water to the eye,
+several times a day, at such a temperature as is most agreeable--but
+cold, when it can be borne--is one of the best preservatives of sight
+which the world affords.
+
+Connected alike with physical and intellectual education, is the
+practice of measuring by the eye heights, distances, superfices,
+weights, and solids. It is not difficult to train the eye to an accuracy
+in this matter which would astonish the uninstructed.
+
+
+SEC. 3. _Tasting and Smelling._
+
+I do not know that it is worth our while to take pains, by any direct
+methods, to cultivate the organs of taste or smell; but I think it
+proper, at the least, to preserve their original rectitude.
+
+Many, I know, undertake to say, that were it not for our errors in
+regard to food and drink, and were it not, in particular, for the
+multitude of strange mixtures which tend to benumb those two senses, we
+might determine the qualities of food and drink--whether they are
+favorable or adverse--by means of taste and smell, like the animals. But
+I do not believe this. The Creator has substituted reason, in us, for
+instinct in the brute animals. It is not necessary that we should
+possess the latter, when the former is so manifestly superior to it; and
+accordingly I do not believe that it is given us, or any of that
+acuteness of sensation which exists in the dog, the tiger, the vulture,
+&c.--and which so closely resembles it.
+
+There can be no doubt--no reasonable doubt, certainly--that the wretched
+customs of modern cookery benumb the senses of taste and smell, more or
+less, and that high-seasoned food, condiments, and stimulating drinks do
+the same; and should for this reason, were it for no other, be
+studiously avoided.
+
+Closely connected with the organ of taste are the TEETH. A volume might
+profitably be written on these--as on the eye. But I will only say that
+they should be kept perfectly clean, either by rinsing or brushing, or
+both, especially after eating; that they should be permitted to chew all
+our food, instead of merely standing by as silent spectators to the
+passage of that which is mashed, soaked, chopped, &c.; that they should
+not be picked or cleaned with pins, or other equally hard instruments;
+that they should not be used to crack nuts or other hard, indigestible
+substances; and that the stomach, with which they are apt to sympathize
+very strongly, should also be kept in a good and healthy condition.
+
+
+SEC. 4. _Feeling._
+
+Corpulence and slovenliness are generally among the more prolific
+sources of a want of acuteness in feeling. The first is a disease, and
+may be avoided by a proper diet, and by active mental and bodily
+employment. Slovenliness we may of course avoid, whenever there is a
+wish to do so, and an abundance of water.
+
+But the sense of feeling, or especially that accumulation of it which we
+call TOUCH, and which seems to be specially located in the balls of the
+fingers and on the palm of the hand, is susceptible of a degree of
+improvement far beyond what would be the natural result of cleanliness,
+and freedom from plethora or corpulence.
+
+I have already alluded, in my general remarks at the head of this
+chapter, to the acuteness of this sense in the blind, as well as in the
+dealer in cloths. I might add many more illustrations, but a single one,
+in relation to the blind, which was accidentally omitted in that place,
+will be sufficient.
+
+The blind at the Institution in this city, as well as in other similar
+institutions, are now taught to read and write with considerable
+facility. But how? Most of my readers may have heard how they read, but
+I will describe the process as well as I can. A description of their
+method of writing is more difficult.
+
+The letters are formed by pressing the paper, while quite moist, upon
+rather large type, which raises a ridge in the line of every letter, and
+which remains prominent after the paper is dry. In order to read, the
+pupil has to feel out these ridges. A circular ridge on the paper he is
+told is O; a perpendicular one, I; a crooked one, S; &c. They read music
+and arithmetic printed in a similar manner. A few months of practice, in
+this way, will enable an ingenious youth to read with considerable ease
+and despatch.
+
+Now if nothing is wanting but a little training to render the touch so
+accurate, would it not be useful to train every child to judge
+frequently of the properties of bodies by this sense? And cannot every
+one recall to his mind a thousand situations in which a greater accuracy
+of this sense would have saved him much inconvenience, as well as
+afforded him no little pleasure?
+
+I shall conclude this section with a few remarks on the HAND. The custom
+of neglecting, or almost neglecting the left hand, though nearly
+universal, in this country at least, appears to me to be
+wrong--decidedly so. For although more blood may be sent to the right
+arm than to the left, as physiologists say, yet the difference is not as
+great at birth as it is afterward; so that education either weakens the
+one or strengthens the other.
+
+Besides this, we occasionally find a person who is left-handed, as it is
+called; that is, his left hand and arm are as much larger and stronger
+than the right, as the right is usually stronger than the left. How is
+this? Do we find a corresponding change in the internal structure? But
+suppose it could be ascertained that such a change did exist, which I
+believe has never been done, the question would still arise whether the
+difference was the same at birth, or whether the more frequent use of
+the left hand has not, in part, produced it.
+
+I do not mean, here, to intimate that a more frequent use of the left
+hand than the right would make new blood-vessels grow where there were
+none before. But it would certainly do one thing; it would make the same
+vessels carry more blood than they did before, which is, in effect,
+nearly the same thing:--for the more blood in the limb, as a general
+rule, the more strength--provided the limb is in due health and
+exercise.
+
+The inference which I wish the reader to make from all this is, that
+since the left hand and arm, by due cultivation, and without essential
+difference or change of structure to begin with, can occasionally be
+made stronger than the right, it is fair to conclude that it may, if
+found desirable, be always rendered more nearly equal to it than, in
+adult years, we usually find it.
+
+The question is now fairly before us--Is such a result desirable? I
+maintain that it is; and shall endeavor to show my reasons.
+
+How often is one hand injured by an accident, or rendered nearly useless
+by disease? But if it should be the right, how helpless it makes us! The
+man who is accustomed to shave himself, must now resort to a barber. If
+he is a barber himself, or almost any other mechanic, his business must
+be discontinued. Or if he is a clerk, he cannot use his left hand, and
+must consequently lose his time. Or if amputation chances to be
+performed on a favorite arm, how entirely useless to society we are,
+till we have learned to use the other! It not only takes up a great deal
+of valuable time to acquire a facility of using it, but if we are
+already arrived at maturity, we can never use it so well as the other,
+during our whole lives; because it is too late in life to increase its
+size and strength much by constant exercise. Whereas in youth, it might
+have been done easily.
+
+Is it not then important--for these and many more reasons--to teach a
+child to use with nearly equal readiness, both of his hands? But if so,
+who can do it better than the mother? And when can it be better done
+than in the earliest infancy? When is the time which would be devoted to
+it worth less than at this period?
+
+
+
+
+CHAPTER XX.
+
+ABUSES.
+
+Bad seats for children at table and elsewhere. Why children hate Sunday.
+Seats at Sabbath school--at church--at district schools. Suspending
+children between the heavens and the earth. Cushions to sit on. Seats
+with backs. Children in factories. Evils produced. Bodily punishment.
+Striking the heads of children very injurious. Beating across the middle
+of the body. Anecdote of a teacher. Concluding advice to mothers.
+
+
+It is difficult to determine, in regard to many things which concern the
+management of the young, whether they belong most properly to moral or
+physical education; so close is the connection between the two, and so
+decidedly does everything, or nearly everything which relates to the
+management of the body, have a bearing upon the formation of moral
+character. This work might be extended very much farther, did it comport
+with my original plan. But I hasten to close the volume, with a few
+thoughts on certain abuses of the body, which prevail to a greater or
+less extent in families and schools; and to which I have not adverted
+elsewhere.
+
+The seats of children are usually bad, both at table and elsewhere. It
+seems not enough that we condemn them to the use of knives, forks,
+spoons, &c., of the same size with those of adults. We go farther; and
+give them chairs of the same height and proportion with our own. There
+are a few exceptions to the truth of this remark. Here and there we see
+a child's chair, it is true--but not often.
+
+But how unreasonable is it to seat a child in a chair so high that his
+feet cannot reach the floor; and so constructed that there is no outer
+place on which the feet can rest. What adult would be willing to sit in
+so painful a posture, with his legs dangling? No wonder children dislike
+to sit much, in such circumstances. And it is a great blessing to both
+parent and child that they do. No wonder children hate the Sabbath,
+especially in those families where they are compelled to keep the day
+holy by sitting motionless! Sabbath schools, though they bring with them
+some evil along with a great deal of good, are a relief to the young in
+this particular--especially if their seats are more comfortable
+elsewhere than at home. They consider it much more tolerable to spend
+the morning and intermission of the day in going and returning from
+Sabbath school, than in constant and close confinement. They prefer
+variety, and the occasional light and air of heaven, to monotony and
+seclusion and silence.
+
+It happens, however, that the seats at the Sabbath school and at church,
+are not always what they should be; nor, so far as church is concerned,
+do I see that this evil can be wholly avoided. Children usually sit with
+their parents, in the sanctuary--and they ought to do so: and the height
+of the seats cannot, of course, accommodate both. If there is a building
+erected solely for the use of the Sabbath school, the seats may be
+constructed accordingly, without seriously incommoding anybody; but in
+the church, I do not see, as I have once before observed, how the evil
+can be remedied.
+
+The greatest trouble in regard to seats, however, is at the day school;
+especially in our district or common schools. There, it is usual for
+children to be confined six hours a day--and sometimes two in
+succession--to hard, narrow, plank seats, a large proportion of which
+are without backs, and raised so high that the feet of most of the
+pupils cannot possibly touch the floor. There, "suspended," as I have
+said in another work, [Footnote: See a "Prize Essay," on School Houses,
+page 7.] "between the heavens and the earth, they are compelled to
+remain motionless for an hour or an hour and a half together."
+
+I have also shown, in the same essay, that in regard to the desks, and
+indeed many other things which pertain to, or are connected with the
+school, very little pains is taken to provide for the physical welfare
+or even comfort of the pupils; and that a thorough reform on the subject
+appears to be indispensable.
+
+When I speak of hard plank seats, let me not be understood as hinting at
+the necessity of cushions. When I wrote the essay above mentioned, I did
+indeed believe that they were desirable. But I am now opposed to their
+use, either by children or adults, even where a laborious employment
+would seem to demand a long confinement to this awkward and unnatural
+position. If our seats are cushioned, we shall sit too easily. I believe
+that our health requires a hard seat; because its very hardness inclines
+us to change, frequently, our position.
+
+But if we must sit, be it ever so short a time, our seats should always
+have backs; and those which are designed for children, should not be so
+high as to render them uncomfortable. Nor should the backs of seats be
+so high as they usually are, either for children or adults. They should
+never come much higher than the middle of the body. If they reach the
+shoulders, they either favor a crouching forward, or interfere with the
+free action of the lungs.
+
+This might be deemed a proper place for saying something on the position
+of children in manufactories. But here a world of abuse opens upon my
+view, the full development of which demands a large volume. How many
+crooked spines, emaciated bodies, decaying lungs, as well as scrofulas,
+fevers, and consumptions, are either induced or accelerated by these
+unnatural employments! I mean they are unnatural for the _young_. As to
+employing adults in them, I have nothing at present to say. But when I
+think of the cruel custom of placing children in these places, whose
+bodies--and were this the place, I might add, _minds_--are immature, and
+especially girls, I am compelled, by the voice of conscience, and, as I
+trust, by a regard to those laws which God has established in our
+physical frames, but which are yet so strangely violated, to protest
+against it. Better that no factories should exist, than that children
+should be ruined in them as they now are. Better by far that we should
+return, were it possible, to the primitive habits of New England--to
+those by-gone days when mothers and daughters made the wearing apparel
+of themselves and their families--when, if there was less of
+intellectual cultivation, and less money expended for luxuries and
+extravagances, there was much more of health and happiness.
+
+There is one more species of abuse to which, in closing, I wish to
+direct maternal attention. I allude to injudicious modes of inflicting
+corporal punishment.
+
+Let me not be understood to appear, in this place, as the advocate of
+bodily punishments of any kind; for if they are even admissible under
+some circumstances, I am fully convinced that in the way in which they
+are commonly administered, they do much more harm than good.
+
+But leaving the question of their utility, in the abstract, wholly
+untouched, and taking it for granted, for the present, that they are--as
+is undoubtedly the fact--sometimes employed, and will continue to be so
+for a great while to come, I proceed to speak of their more flagrant
+abuses.
+
+Among these, none are more reprehensible than blows of any kind on the
+head. Even the rod is objectionable for this purpose, since it exposes
+the eyes. But the hand--in boxing the ears or striking in any way--is
+more so. The bones of the head, in young children, are not yet firmly
+knit together, and these concussions may injure the tender brain. I
+know of whole families, whose mental faculties are dull, as the
+consequence--I believe--of a perpetual boxing and striking of the head.
+Some individuals are made almost idiots, in this very manner.--But the
+worst is not yet told. Many teachers are in the habit of striking their
+pupils' heads with thick heavy books; and with wooden rules. I have seen
+one of the latter, of considerable size and thickness, broken in two
+across the head of a very small boy; and this, too--such is the public
+mind--in the presence of a mother who was paying a visit to the school.
+I have seen parents and masters strike the heads of their children with
+pieces of wood, of much larger size;--in one instance with a common
+sized tailor's press-board; in another with the heavy end of a wooden
+whip-handle, about an inch in diameter.
+
+Children are sometimes severely beaten across the middle of the
+body--the region where lie the vital organs--the lungs, the heart, the
+liver, &c. They are sometimes beaten too, across the joints, or in any
+place that the excited, perhaps passionate teacher or parent can reach.
+Rules and books are thrown with violence at pupils in school. There is a
+story in the "Annals of Education," Vol. IV. at page 28, of a teacher
+who threw a rule at a little boy, six years old, which struck him with
+great force, within an inch of one of his eyes. Had it struck a little
+nearer to his nose, it would, in all probability, have destroyed his
+left eye.
+
+       *       *       *       *       *
+
+But without extending these remarks any farther, every intelligent
+mother who reads what I have already written, will see, as I trust, the
+necessity of properly informing herself on the great subject of physical
+education; and of being better prepared than she has hitherto been for
+acquitting herself, with satisfaction, of those high and sacred
+responsibilities which, in the wise arrangements of Nature and
+Providence, devolve upon her.
+
+
+
+
+
+End of the Project Gutenberg EBook of The Young Mother, by William A. Alcott
+
+*** END OF THIS PROJECT GUTENBERG EBOOK THE YOUNG MOTHER ***
+
+***** This file should be named 10482.txt or 10482.zip *****
+This and all associated files of various formats will be found in:
+        https://www.gutenberg.org/1/0/4/8/10482/
+
+Produced by Stan Goodman and PG Distributed Proofreaders
+
+Updated editions will replace the previous one--the old editions
+will be renamed.
+
+Creating the works from public domain print editions means that no
+one owns a United States copyright in these works, so the Foundation
+(and you!) can copy and distribute it in the United States without
+permission and without paying copyright royalties.  Special rules,
+set forth in the General Terms of Use part of this license, apply to
+copying and distributing Project Gutenberg-tm electronic works to
+protect the PROJECT GUTENBERG-tm concept and trademark.  Project
+Gutenberg is a registered trademark, and may not be used if you
+charge for the eBooks, unless you receive specific permission.  If you
+do not charge anything for copies of this eBook, complying with the
+rules is very easy.  You may use this eBook for nearly any purpose
+such as creation of derivative works, reports, performances and
+research.  They may be modified and printed and given away--you may do
+practically ANYTHING with public domain eBooks.  Redistribution is
+subject to the trademark license, especially commercial
+redistribution.
+
+
+
+*** START: FULL LICENSE ***
+
+THE FULL PROJECT GUTENBERG LICENSE
+PLEASE READ THIS BEFORE YOU DISTRIBUTE OR USE THIS WORK
+
+To protect the Project Gutenberg-tm mission of promoting the free
+distribution of electronic works, by using or distributing this work
+(or any other work associated in any way with the phrase "Project
+Gutenberg"), you agree to comply with all the terms of the Full Project
+Gutenberg-tm License (available with this file or online at
+https://gutenberg.org/license).
+
+
+Section 1.  General Terms of Use and Redistributing Project Gutenberg-tm
+electronic works
+
+1.A.  By reading or using any part of this Project Gutenberg-tm
+electronic work, you indicate that you have read, understand, agree to
+and accept all the terms of this license and intellectual property
+(trademark/copyright) agreement.  If you do not agree to abide by all
+the terms of this agreement, you must cease using and return or destroy
+all copies of Project Gutenberg-tm electronic works in your possession.
+If you paid a fee for obtaining a copy of or access to a Project
+Gutenberg-tm electronic work and you do not agree to be bound by the
+terms of this agreement, you may obtain a refund from the person or
+entity to whom you paid the fee as set forth in paragraph 1.E.8.
+
+1.B.  "Project Gutenberg" is a registered trademark.  It may only be
+used on or associated in any way with an electronic work by people who
+agree to be bound by the terms of this agreement.  There are a few
+things that you can do with most Project Gutenberg-tm electronic works
+even without complying with the full terms of this agreement.  See
+paragraph 1.C below.  There are a lot of things you can do with Project
+Gutenberg-tm electronic works if you follow the terms of this agreement
+and help preserve free future access to Project Gutenberg-tm electronic
+works.  See paragraph 1.E below.
+
+1.C.  The Project Gutenberg Literary Archive Foundation ("the Foundation"
+or PGLAF), owns a compilation copyright in the collection of Project
+Gutenberg-tm electronic works.  Nearly all the individual works in the
+collection are in the public domain in the United States.  If an
+individual work is in the public domain in the United States and you are
+located in the United States, we do not claim a right to prevent you from
+copying, distributing, performing, displaying or creating derivative
+works based on the work as long as all references to Project Gutenberg
+are removed.  Of course, we hope that you will support the Project
+Gutenberg-tm mission of promoting free access to electronic works by
+freely sharing Project Gutenberg-tm works in compliance with the terms of
+this agreement for keeping the Project Gutenberg-tm name associated with
+the work.  You can easily comply with the terms of this agreement by
+keeping this work in the same format with its attached full Project
+Gutenberg-tm License when you share it without charge with others.
+
+1.D.  The copyright laws of the place where you are located also govern
+what you can do with this work.  Copyright laws in most countries are in
+a constant state of change.  If you are outside the United States, check
+the laws of your country in addition to the terms of this agreement
+before downloading, copying, displaying, performing, distributing or
+creating derivative works based on this work or any other Project
+Gutenberg-tm work.  The Foundation makes no representations concerning
+the copyright status of any work in any country outside the United
+States.
+
+1.E.  Unless you have removed all references to Project Gutenberg:
+
+1.E.1.  The following sentence, with active links to, or other immediate
+access to, the full Project Gutenberg-tm License must appear prominently
+whenever any copy of a Project Gutenberg-tm work (any work on which the
+phrase "Project Gutenberg" appears, or with which the phrase "Project
+Gutenberg" is associated) is accessed, displayed, performed, viewed,
+copied or distributed:
+
+This eBook is for the use of anyone anywhere at no cost and with
+almost no restrictions whatsoever.  You may copy it, give it away or
+re-use it under the terms of the Project Gutenberg License included
+with this eBook or online at www.gutenberg.org
+
+1.E.2.  If an individual Project Gutenberg-tm electronic work is derived
+from the public domain (does not contain a notice indicating that it is
+posted with permission of the copyright holder), the work can be copied
+and distributed to anyone in the United States without paying any fees
+or charges.  If you are redistributing or providing access to a work
+with the phrase "Project Gutenberg" associated with or appearing on the
+work, you must comply either with the requirements of paragraphs 1.E.1
+through 1.E.7 or obtain permission for the use of the work and the
+Project Gutenberg-tm trademark as set forth in paragraphs 1.E.8 or
+1.E.9.
+
+1.E.3.  If an individual Project Gutenberg-tm electronic work is posted
+with the permission of the copyright holder, your use and distribution
+must comply with both paragraphs 1.E.1 through 1.E.7 and any additional
+terms imposed by the copyright holder.  Additional terms will be linked
+to the Project Gutenberg-tm License for all works posted with the
+permission of the copyright holder found at the beginning of this work.
+
+1.E.4.  Do not unlink or detach or remove the full Project Gutenberg-tm
+License terms from this work, or any files containing a part of this
+work or any other work associated with Project Gutenberg-tm.
+
+1.E.5.  Do not copy, display, perform, distribute or redistribute this
+electronic work, or any part of this electronic work, without
+prominently displaying the sentence set forth in paragraph 1.E.1 with
+active links or immediate access to the full terms of the Project
+Gutenberg-tm License.
+
+1.E.6.  You may convert to and distribute this work in any binary,
+compressed, marked up, nonproprietary or proprietary form, including any
+word processing or hypertext form.  However, if you provide access to or
+distribute copies of a Project Gutenberg-tm work in a format other than
+"Plain Vanilla ASCII" or other format used in the official version
+posted on the official Project Gutenberg-tm web site (www.gutenberg.org),
+you must, at no additional cost, fee or expense to the user, provide a
+copy, a means of exporting a copy, or a means of obtaining a copy upon
+request, of the work in its original "Plain Vanilla ASCII" or other
+form.  Any alternate format must include the full Project Gutenberg-tm
+License as specified in paragraph 1.E.1.
+
+1.E.7.  Do not charge a fee for access to, viewing, displaying,
+performing, copying or distributing any Project Gutenberg-tm works
+unless you comply with paragraph 1.E.8 or 1.E.9.
+
+1.E.8.  You may charge a reasonable fee for copies of or providing
+access to or distributing Project Gutenberg-tm electronic works provided
+that
+
+- You pay a royalty fee of 20% of the gross profits you derive from
+     the use of Project Gutenberg-tm works calculated using the method
+     you already use to calculate your applicable taxes.  The fee is
+     owed to the owner of the Project Gutenberg-tm trademark, but he
+     has agreed to donate royalties under this paragraph to the
+     Project Gutenberg Literary Archive Foundation.  Royalty payments
+     must be paid within 60 days following each date on which you
+     prepare (or are legally required to prepare) your periodic tax
+     returns.  Royalty payments should be clearly marked as such and
+     sent to the Project Gutenberg Literary Archive Foundation at the
+     address specified in Section 4, "Information about donations to
+     the Project Gutenberg Literary Archive Foundation."
+
+- You provide a full refund of any money paid by a user who notifies
+     you in writing (or by e-mail) within 30 days of receipt that s/he
+     does not agree to the terms of the full Project Gutenberg-tm
+     License.  You must require such a user to return or
+     destroy all copies of the works possessed in a physical medium
+     and discontinue all use of and all access to other copies of
+     Project Gutenberg-tm works.
+
+- You provide, in accordance with paragraph 1.F.3, a full refund of any
+     money paid for a work or a replacement copy, if a defect in the
+     electronic work is discovered and reported to you within 90 days
+     of receipt of the work.
+
+- You comply with all other terms of this agreement for free
+     distribution of Project Gutenberg-tm works.
+
+1.E.9.  If you wish to charge a fee or distribute a Project Gutenberg-tm
+electronic work or group of works on different terms than are set
+forth in this agreement, you must obtain permission in writing from
+both the Project Gutenberg Literary Archive Foundation and Michael
+Hart, the owner of the Project Gutenberg-tm trademark.  Contact the
+Foundation as set forth in Section 3 below.
+
+1.F.
+
+1.F.1.  Project Gutenberg volunteers and employees expend considerable
+effort to identify, do copyright research on, transcribe and proofread
+public domain works in creating the Project Gutenberg-tm
+collection.  Despite these efforts, Project Gutenberg-tm electronic
+works, and the medium on which they may be stored, may contain
+"Defects," such as, but not limited to, incomplete, inaccurate or
+corrupt data, transcription errors, a copyright or other intellectual
+property infringement, a defective or damaged disk or other medium, a
+computer virus, or computer codes that damage or cannot be read by
+your equipment.
+
+1.F.2.  LIMITED WARRANTY, DISCLAIMER OF DAMAGES - Except for the "Right
+of Replacement or Refund" described in paragraph 1.F.3, the Project
+Gutenberg Literary Archive Foundation, the owner of the Project
+Gutenberg-tm trademark, and any other party distributing a Project
+Gutenberg-tm electronic work under this agreement, disclaim all
+liability to you for damages, costs and expenses, including legal
+fees.  YOU AGREE THAT YOU HAVE NO REMEDIES FOR NEGLIGENCE, STRICT
+LIABILITY, BREACH OF WARRANTY OR BREACH OF CONTRACT EXCEPT THOSE
+PROVIDED IN PARAGRAPH F3.  YOU AGREE THAT THE FOUNDATION, THE
+TRADEMARK OWNER, AND ANY DISTRIBUTOR UNDER THIS AGREEMENT WILL NOT BE
+LIABLE TO YOU FOR ACTUAL, DIRECT, INDIRECT, CONSEQUENTIAL, PUNITIVE OR
+INCIDENTAL DAMAGES EVEN IF YOU GIVE NOTICE OF THE POSSIBILITY OF SUCH
+DAMAGE.
+
+1.F.3.  LIMITED RIGHT OF REPLACEMENT OR REFUND - If you discover a
+defect in this electronic work within 90 days of receiving it, you can
+receive a refund of the money (if any) you paid for it by sending a
+written explanation to the person you received the work from.  If you
+received the work on a physical medium, you must return the medium with
+your written explanation.  The person or entity that provided you with
+the defective work may elect to provide a replacement copy in lieu of a
+refund.  If you received the work electronically, the person or entity
+providing it to you may choose to give you a second opportunity to
+receive the work electronically in lieu of a refund.  If the second copy
+is also defective, you may demand a refund in writing without further
+opportunities to fix the problem.
+
+1.F.4.  Except for the limited right of replacement or refund set forth
+in paragraph 1.F.3, this work is provided to you 'AS-IS," WITH NO OTHER
+WARRANTIES OF ANY KIND, EXPRESS OR IMPLIED, INCLUDING BUT NOT LIMITED TO
+WARRANTIES OF MERCHANTIBILITY OR FITNESS FOR ANY PURPOSE.
+
+1.F.5.  Some states do not allow disclaimers of certain implied
+warranties or the exclusion or limitation of certain types of damages.
+If any disclaimer or limitation set forth in this agreement violates the
+law of the state applicable to this agreement, the agreement shall be
+interpreted to make the maximum disclaimer or limitation permitted by
+the applicable state law.  The invalidity or unenforceability of any
+provision of this agreement shall not void the remaining provisions.
+
+1.F.6.  INDEMNITY - You agree to indemnify and hold the Foundation, the
+trademark owner, any agent or employee of the Foundation, anyone
+providing copies of Project Gutenberg-tm electronic works in accordance
+with this agreement, and any volunteers associated with the production,
+promotion and distribution of Project Gutenberg-tm electronic works,
+harmless from all liability, costs and expenses, including legal fees,
+that arise directly or indirectly from any of the following which you do
+or cause to occur: (a) distribution of this or any Project Gutenberg-tm
+work, (b) alteration, modification, or additions or deletions to any
+Project Gutenberg-tm work, and (c) any Defect you cause.
+
+
+Section  2.  Information about the Mission of Project Gutenberg-tm
+
+Project Gutenberg-tm is synonymous with the free distribution of
+electronic works in formats readable by the widest variety of computers
+including obsolete, old, middle-aged and new computers.  It exists
+because of the efforts of hundreds of volunteers and donations from
+people in all walks of life.
+
+Volunteers and financial support to provide volunteers with the
+assistance they need, is critical to reaching Project Gutenberg-tm's
+goals and ensuring that the Project Gutenberg-tm collection will
+remain freely available for generations to come.  In 2001, the Project
+Gutenberg Literary Archive Foundation was created to provide a secure
+and permanent future for Project Gutenberg-tm and future generations.
+To learn more about the Project Gutenberg Literary Archive Foundation
+and how your efforts and donations can help, see Sections 3 and 4
+and the Foundation web page at https://www.pglaf.org.
+
+
+Section 3.  Information about the Project Gutenberg Literary Archive
+Foundation
+
+The Project Gutenberg Literary Archive Foundation is a non profit
+501(c)(3) educational corporation organized under the laws of the
+state of Mississippi and granted tax exempt status by the Internal
+Revenue Service.  The Foundation's EIN or federal tax identification
+number is 64-6221541.  Its 501(c)(3) letter is posted at
+https://pglaf.org/fundraising.  Contributions to the Project Gutenberg
+Literary Archive Foundation are tax deductible to the full extent
+permitted by U.S. federal laws and your state's laws.
+
+The Foundation's principal office is located at 4557 Melan Dr. S.
+Fairbanks, AK, 99712., but its volunteers and employees are scattered
+throughout numerous locations.  Its business office is located at
+809 North 1500 West, Salt Lake City, UT 84116, (801) 596-1887, email
+business@pglaf.org.  Email contact links and up to date contact
+information can be found at the Foundation's web site and official
+page at https://pglaf.org
+
+For additional contact information:
+     Dr. Gregory B. Newby
+     Chief Executive and Director
+     gbnewby@pglaf.org
+
+Section 4.  Information about Donations to the Project Gutenberg
+Literary Archive Foundation
+
+Project Gutenberg-tm depends upon and cannot survive without wide
+spread public support and donations to carry out its mission of
+increasing the number of public domain and licensed works that can be
+freely distributed in machine readable form accessible by the widest
+array of equipment including outdated equipment.  Many small donations
+($1 to $5,000) are particularly important to maintaining tax exempt
+status with the IRS.
+
+The Foundation is committed to complying with the laws regulating
+charities and charitable donations in all 50 states of the United
+States.  Compliance requirements are not uniform and it takes a
+considerable effort, much paperwork and many fees to meet and keep up
+with these requirements.  We do not solicit donations in locations
+where we have not received written confirmation of compliance.  To
+SEND DONATIONS or determine the status of compliance for any
+particular state visit https://pglaf.org
+
+While we cannot and do not solicit contributions from states where we
+have not met the solicitation requirements, we know of no prohibition
+against accepting unsolicited donations from donors in such states who
+approach us with offers to donate.
+
+International donations are gratefully accepted, but we cannot make
+any statements concerning tax treatment of donations received from
+outside the United States.  U.S. laws alone swamp our small staff.
+
+Please check the Project Gutenberg Web pages for current donation
+methods and addresses.  Donations are accepted in a number of other
+ways including including checks, online payments and credit card
+donations.  To donate, please visit: https://pglaf.org/donate
+
+
+Section 5.  General Information About Project Gutenberg-tm electronic
+works.
+
+Professor Michael S. Hart was the originator of the Project Gutenberg-tm
+concept of a library of electronic works that could be freely shared
+with anyone.  For thirty years, he produced and distributed Project
+Gutenberg-tm eBooks with only a loose network of volunteer support.
+
+Project Gutenberg-tm eBooks are often created from several printed
+editions, all of which are confirmed as Public Domain in the U.S.
+unless a copyright notice is included.  Thus, we do not necessarily
+keep eBooks in compliance with any particular paper edition.
+
+Each eBook is in a subdirectory of the same number as the eBook's
+eBook number, often in several formats including plain vanilla ASCII,
+compressed (zipped), HTML and others.
+
+Corrected EDITIONS of our eBooks replace the old file and take over
+the old filename and etext number.  The replaced older file is renamed.
+VERSIONS based on separate sources are treated as new eBooks receiving
+new filenames and etext numbers.
+
+Most people start at our Web site which has the main PG search facility:
+
+     https://www.gutenberg.org
+
+This Web site includes information about Project Gutenberg-tm,
+including how to make donations to the Project Gutenberg Literary
+Archive Foundation, how to help produce our new eBooks, and how to
+subscribe to our email newsletter to hear about new eBooks.
+
+EBooks posted prior to November 2003, with eBook numbers BELOW #10000,
+are filed in directories based on their release date.  If you want to
+download any of these eBooks directly, rather than using the regular
+search system you may utilize the following addresses and just
+download by the etext year.
+
+     https://www.gutenberg.org/etext06
+
+    (Or /etext 05, 04, 03, 02, 01, 00, 99,
+     98, 97, 96, 95, 94, 93, 92, 92, 91 or 90)
+
+EBooks posted since November 2003, with etext numbers OVER #10000, are
+filed in a different way.  The year of a release date is no longer part
+of the directory path.  The path is based on the etext number (which is
+identical to the filename).  The path to the file is made up of single
+digits corresponding to all but the last digit in the filename.  For
+example an eBook of filename 10234 would be found at:
+
+     https://www.gutenberg.org/1/0/2/3/10234
+
+or filename 24689 would be found at:
+     https://www.gutenberg.org/2/4/6/8/24689
+
+An alternative method of locating eBooks:
+     https://www.gutenberg.org/GUTINDEX.ALL
+
+
diff --git a/old/10482.zip b/old/10482.zip
new file mode 100644
index 0000000..7fae723
--- /dev/null
+++ b/old/10482.zip