2040. Crying
If we Inquire into the Cause which produces the crying of infants, we shall find that it seldom originates from pain, or uncomfortable sensations, for those who are apt to imagine that such causes must
always
operate on the body of an infant, are egregiously mistaken; inasmuch as they conceive that the physical condition, together with the method of expressing sensations, is the same in infants and adults.
2041. Difference
It requires, however, no demonstration to prove that the state of the former is essentially different from that of the latter.
2042. Power
In the First Year of Infancy, many expressions of the tender organs are to be considered only as efforts of manifestations of power.
2043. Exertions
We observe, for instance, that a child, as soon as it is undressed, or disencumbered from swaddling clothes, moves its arms and legs, and often makes a variety of strong exertions; yet no reasonable person would suppose that such attempts arise from a preternatural or oppressive state of the little agent.
2044. Exercise
It is therefore equally absurd to draw an unfavourable inference from every inarticulate cry; because, in most instances, these vociferating sounds imply the effort which children necessarily make to display the strength of their lungs, and exercise the organs of respiration.
Haste Makes Waste.
2045. Functions
Nature has wisely ordained that by these very efforts the power and utility of functions so essential to life should be developed, and rendered more perfect with every inspiration.
2046. Development of the Breast
Hence it follows, that those over-anxious parents or nurses, who continually endeavour to prevent infants crying do them a material injury; for, by such imprudent management, their children seldom or never acquire a perfect form of the breast, while the foundation is laid in the pectoral vessels for obstructions and other diseases.
2047. Independent
Independently of any particular causes, the cries of children, with regard to their general effects, are highly beneficial and necessary.
2048. Sole Exercises
In the First Period of Life, such exertions are almost the only exercises of the infant; thus the circulation of the blood, and all the other fluids, is rendered more uniform; digestion, nutrition, and the growth of the body are thereby promoted; and the different secretions, together with the very important office of the skin, or insensible perspiration, are duly performed.
2049. Extremely Improper
It is Extremely Improper to consider every noise of an infant as a claim upon our assistance, and to intrude either food or drink, with a view to satisfy its supposed wants. By such injudicious conduct, children readily acquire the injurious habit of demanding nutriment at improper times, and without necessity; their digestion becomes impaired; and consequently, at this early age, the whole mass of the fluids is gradually corrupted.
2050. Cold
Sometimes, however, the Mother or Nurse removes the child from its couch, carries it about frequently in the middle of the night, and thus exposes it to repeated colds, which are in their effects infinitely more dangerous than the most violent cries.
2051. Indulgence
We learn from Daily Experience, that children who have been the least indulged, thrive much better, unfold all their faculties quicker, and acquire more muscular strength and vigour of mind, than those who have been constantly favoured, and treated by their parents with the most solicitous attention: bodily weakness and mental imbecility are the usual attributes of the latter.
2052. Free and Independent Agent
The First and Principal Rule of education ought never to be forgotten—that man is intended to be a free and independent agent; that his moral and physical powers ought to be
spontaneously
developed; that he should as soon as possible be made acquainted with the nature and uses of all his faculties, in order to attain that degree of perfection which is consistent with the structure of his organs; and that he was not originally designed for what we endeavour to make of him by artificial aid.
2053. Guide and Watch
The Greatest Art in educating children consists in a continued vigilance over all their actions, without ever giving them an opportunity of discovering that they are guided and watched.
2054. Instances
There are, however, Instances in which the loud complaints of infants demand our attention.
2055. Causes
Thus, if their Cries be unusually violent and long continued, we may conclude that they are troubled with colic pains; if, on such occasions, they move their arms and hands repeatedly towards the face, painful teething may account for the cause; and if other morbid phenomena accompany their cries, or if these expressions be repeated at certain periods of the day, we ought not to slight them, but endeavour to discover the proximate or remote causes.
2056. Sleep
Infants cannot Sleep too Long; and it is a favourable symptom when they enjoy a calm and long-continued rest, of which they, should by no means be deprived, as this is the greatest support granted to them by by nature.
2057. Faster Life
A Child lives comparatively much faster than an adult; its blood flows more rapidly; every stimulus operates more powerfully; and not only its constituent parts, but its vital resources also, are more speedily consumed.
Do a Little Well, and You Do Much.
2058. Aid of Sleep
Sleep promotes a more Calm and Uniform Circulation of the blood; it facilitates the assimilation of the nutriment received, and contributes towards a more copious and regular deposition of alimentary matter, while the horizontal posture is the most favourable to the growth and development of the child.
2059. Proportion
Sleep ought to be in Proportion to the age of the infant. After the age of six months, the periods of sleep, as well as all other animal functions, may in some degree be regulated; yet, even then, a child should be suffered to sleep the whole night, and several hours both in the morning and in the afternoon.
2060. Night Preferable
Mothers and Nurses should endeavour to accustom infants, from the time of their birth, to sleep in the night preferably to the day, and for this purpose they ought to remove all external impressions which may disturb their rest, such as noise, light, &c., but especially not to obey every call for taking them up, and giving food at improper times.
2061. Day Sleep
After the Second Year of their age, children will not instinctively require to sleep in the forenoon, though after dinner it may be continued to the third and fourth year of life, if the child shows a particular inclination to repose; because, till that age, the full half of life may safely be allotted to sleep.
2062. Proportion of Sleep
From that period, however, sleep ought to be shortened for the space of one hour with every succeeding year, so that a child of seven years old may sleep about eight, and not exceeding nine hours: this proportion may be continued to the age of adolescence, and even manhood.
2063. Gradual Awakening
To awaken Children from their sleep with a noise, or in an impetuous manner, is extremely injudicious and hurtful; nor is it proper to carry them from a dark room immediately into a glaring light, or against a dazzling wall; for the sudden impression of light debilitates the organs of vision, and lays the foundation of weak eyes, from early infancy.
2064. Room for Sleeping
A Bedroom or Night Nursery ought to be spacious and lofty, dry, airy, and not inhabited through the day.
2065. No Contamination
No Servants, if possible, should be suffered to sleep in the same room, and no linen or washed clothes should ever be hung there to dry, as they contaminate the air in which so considerable a portion of infantile life must be spent.
2066. Consequences
The Consequences attending a vitiated atmosphere in such rooms are serious, and often fatal.
2067. Feather Beds
Feather Beds should be banished from nurseries, as they are unnatural and debilitating contrivances.
2068. Windows
The Windows should never be opened at night, but may be left open the whole day in fine clear weather.
2069. Position of Bedstead
Lastly, the Bedstead must not be placed too low on the floor; nor is it proper to let children sleep on a couch which is made without any elevation from the ground; because the most mephitic and pernicious stratum of air in an apartment is that within one or two feet from the floor, while the most wholesome, or atmospheric air, is in the middle of the room, and the inflammable gas ascends to the top.
2070. Cookery for Children
2071. Food for an Infant
Take of fresh cow's milk, one tablespoonful, and mix with two tablespoonfuls of hot water; sweeten with loaf sugar, as much as may be agreeable. This quantity is sufficient for once feeding a new-born infant; and the same quantity may be given every two or three hours,—not oftener,—till the mother's breast affords natural nourishment.
2072. Milk for Infants Six Months Old
Take one pint of milk, one pint of water; boil it, and add one tablespoonful of flour. Dissolve the flour first in half a teacupful of water; it must he strained in gradually, and boiled hard twenty minutes. As the child grows older, one-third water. If properly made, it is the most nutritious, at the same time the most delicate food that can be given to young children.
2073. Broth
Broth, made of mutton, veal, or chicken, with stale bread toasted, and broken in, is safe and wholesome for the dinners of children when first weaned.
2074. Milk
Milk, fresh from the cow, with a very little loaf sugar, is good and safe food for young children. From three years old to seven, pure milk, into which stale bread is crumbled, is the best breakfast and supper for a child.
2075. For a Child's Luncheon
Good sweet butter, with stale bread, is one of the most nutritious, at the same time the most wholesome articles of food that can be given children after they are weaned.
2076. Milk Porridge
Stir four tablespoonsfuls of oatmeal, smoothly, into a quart of milk, then stir it quickly into a quart of boiling water, and boil up a few minutes till it is thickened: sweeten with sugar. Oatmeal, where it is found to agree with the stomach, is much better for children, being a mild aperient as well as cleanser; fine flour in every shape is the reverse. Where biscuit-powder is in use, let it be made at home; this, at all events, will prevent them getting the sweepings of the baker's counters, boxes, and baskets, All the waste bread in the nursery, hard ends of stale loaves, &c., ought to be dried in the oven or screen, and reduced to powder in the mortar.
2077. Meats for Children
Mutton and poultry are the best. Birds and the white meat of fowls are the most delicate food of this kind that can be given. These meats should be slowly cooked, and no gravy, if made rich with butter, should be eaten by a young child, Never give children hard, tough, half-cooked meats, of any kind.
2078. Vegetables for Children. Eggs, &c.
For children rice ought to be cooked in no more water than is necessary to swell it; apples roasted, or stewed with no more water than is necessary to steam them; vegetables so well cooked as to make them require little butter, and less digestion; eggs boiled slowly and soft. The boiling of milk ought to be directed by the state of the bowels; if flatulent or bilious, a very little currie-powder may be given with vegetables with good effect. Turmeric and the warm seeds (not hot peppers) are also particularly useful in such cases.
2079. Potatoes and Peas
Potatoes, particularly some kinds, are not easily digested by children; but this may be remedied by mashing them very fine, and seasoning them with salt and a little milk. When peas are dressed for children, let them be seasoned with mint and salt, which will take off the flatulency. If they are old, let them be pulped, as the skins cannot be digested by children's stomachs. Never give them vegetables less stewed than would pulp through a cullender.
2080. Rice Pudding With Fruit
In a pint of new milk put two large spoonfuls of rice, well washed; then add two apples, pared and quartered, or a few currants or raisins. Simmer slowly till the rice is very soft, then add one egg beaten to bind it: serve with cream and sugar.
2081. Puddings and Pancakes for Children
Sugar and egg, browned before the fire, or dropped as fritters into a hot frying-pan, without fat, will make a nourishing meal.
2082. To prepare Fruit for Children
A far more wholesome way than in pies or puddings, is to put apples sliced, or plums, currants, gooseberries, &c., into a stone jar, and sprinkle among them as much sugar as necessary. Set the jar in the oven, with a teacupful of water to prevent the fruit from burning, or put the jar into a saucepan of water till its contents be perfectly done, Slices of bread or some rice may be put in to the jar to eat with the fruit.
Honest Loss is Preferable to Shameful Gain.
2083. Rice and Apples
Core as many nice apples as will fill the dish; boil them in light syrup; prepare a quarter of a pound of rice in milk with sugar and salt; put some of the rice in the dish, put in the apples, and fill up the intervals with rice; bake it in the oven till it is a fine colour.
2084. A nice Apple Cake for Children
Grate some stale bread, and slice about double the quantity of apples; butter a mould, and line it with sugar paste, and strew in some crumbs, mixed with a little sugar; then lay in apples, with a few bits of butter over them, and so continue till the dish is full; cover it with crumbs, or prepared rice; season with cinnamon and sugar. Bake it well.
2085. Fruits for Children
That fruits are naturally healthy in their season, if rightly taken, no one who believes that the Creator is a kind and beneficent Being can doubt. And yet the use of summer fruits appears often to cause most fatal diseases, especially in children. Why is this? Because we do not conform to the natural laws in using this kind of diet. These laws are very simple, and easy to understand. Let the fruit be ripe when you eat it; and eat when you require
food
. Fruits that have
seeds
are much more wholesome than the
stone
fruits. But all fruits are better, for very young children, if baked or cooked in some manner, and eaten with bread. The French always eat bread with raw fruit. Apples and winter pears are very excellent food for children,—indeed, for almost any person in health,—but best when eaten for breakfast or dinner. If taken late in the evening, fruit often proves injurious. The old saying, that apples are
gold in the morning, silver at noon, and lead at night
, is pretty near the truth. Both apples and pears are often good and nutritious when baked or stewed, and when prepared in this way are especially suitable for those delicate constitutions that cannot bear raw fruit. Much of the fruit gathered when unripe might be rendered fit for food by preserving in sugar.
2086. Ripe Currants
Ripe Currants are excellent food for children. Mash the fruit, sprinkle with sugar, and let them eat freely, taking some good bread with the fruit.
2087. Blackberry Jam
Gather the fruit in dry weather; allow half a pound of good brown sugar to every pound of fruit; boil the whole together gently for an hour, or till the blackberries are soft, stirring and mashing them well. Preserve it like any other jam, and it will be found very useful in families, particularly for children, regulating their bowels, and enabling you to dispense with cathartics. It may be used in the ordinary way in roll-over puddings, and for tarts, or spread on bread instead of butter; and even when the blackberries are bought, it is cheaper than butter. In the country every family should preserve at least half a peck of blackberries.
2088. Blackberry Pudding or Pie
Pudding or pie made of blackberries only, or of blackberries and apples mixed in equal proportions is excellent. For suitable suet crust see
par
.
1269
. and for puff paste see
par
.
1257
.
2089. To make Senna and Manna Palatable
Take of senna leaves and manna a quarter of an ounce of each, and pour over them a pint of boiling water; when the strength is abstracted, pour the infusion over from a quarter to half a pound of prunes and two large tablespoonfuls of West India molasses. Stew the whole slowly until the liquid is nearly absorbed. When cold it can be eaten with bread and butter, without detecting the senna, and is excellent for children when costive.
2090. Discipline of Children
Children should not be allowed to ask for the same thing twice. This may be accomplished by parents, teacher, or whoever may happen to have the management of them, paying attention to their little wants, if proper, at once, when possible. Children should be instructed to understand that when they are not answered immediately, it is because it is not convenient. Let them learn patience by waiting.
Care in Summer, Comfort in Winter.
2091. My Wife's Little Tea Parties
My wife is celebrated for her little parties,—not tea parties alone, but dinner parties, pic-nic parties, music parties, supper parties—in fact, she is vhe life and soul of
All Parties,
which is more than any leading politician of the day can boast. But her great
forte
is her little tea parties—praised and enjoyed by everybody. A constant visitor at these little parties is Mrs. Hitching (spoken of elsewhere), and before a certain epoch in her life (
See par.
215
) she was wont to remark that she " never knew
h
any one who understood the
h
art of bringing so many
h
elegancies together" as my wife. Nobody makes tea like her, and how she makes it she will impart at a future time. But for her little "nick nacks," as she calls them, which give a variety and a charm to the tea-table without trenching too deeply upon our own pocket, she has been kind enough to give a few receipts upon the present occasion.
2092. Good Plum Cake
One pound of flour, quarter of a pound of butter, quarter of a pound of sugar, quarter of a pound of currants, three eggs, half a pint of milk, and a small teaspoonful of carbonate of soda or baking powder. The above is excellent. The cakes are always baked in a common earthen
flower-pot saucer
, which is a very good plan.
2093. Gingerbread Snaps
One pound of flour, half a pound of treacle, half a pound of sugar, quarter of a pound of butter, half an ounce of best prepared ginger, sixteen drops of essence of lemon, potash the size of a nut dissolved in a tablespoonful of hot water.
2094. Drop Cakes
One pint of flour, half a pound of butter, quarter of a pound of pounded lump sugar, half a nutmeg grated, a handful of currants, two eggs, and a large pinch of carbonate of soda, or a little baking powder. To be baked in a slack oven for ten minutes or a quarter of an hour. The above quantity will make about thirty excellent cakes.
2095. A very Nice and Cheap Cake
Two pounds and a half of flour, three quarters of a pound of sugar, three quarters of a pound of butter, half a pound of currants or quarter of a pound of raisins, quarter of a pound of orange peel, two ounces of caraway seeds, half an ounce of ground cinnamon or ginger, four teaspoonfuls of carbonate of soda or some baking powder; mixed well, with rather better than a pint of new milk. The butter must be well melted previous to being mixed with the ingredients.
2096. "Jersey Wonders"