"The way to learn how to write without ruled lines, isto 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.
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.
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.
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 toquality, 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 thesakeof 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 aperfectbeing. 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 beingallsecured.
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 iswork—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.
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, andnot 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 thelatterbegin 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.
"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 thatthe 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!
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, eventhinking—are natural processes, deny the utility of all rules respectingthemalso. 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 thesakeof 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 leasthalfdone; 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.
Generally speaking, the night is the appropriate season for repose; but in early infancy, it iseveryhour. 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.
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 ispeculiarlyunhealthy 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 beingoldshould 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.