304 THE POPULAR SCIENCE MONTHLY. 



themselves would conspire to further its purposes and bar the boun- 

 dary between virtue and vice which conscience often guards in vain. 

 The temptations that beset the path of the adult convert do not exist 

 for the wards of Nature. To the palate of a normal child, alcohol is 

 as unattractive as corrosive sublimate ; the enforced inactivity of our 

 limbs, which afterward becomes dyspeptic indolence, is as irksome to 

 a healthy boy as to a wild animal, and a young Indian would prefer 

 the open air of the stormiest winter night to the hot miasma of our 

 tenement-houses. Few smokers can forget the effects of the diffident 

 first attempt the revolt of the system against the incipience of a viru- 

 lent habit. The same with other abuses of our domestic and social 

 life. If we would preserve the purity of our physical conscience, we 

 might refer all hygienic problems to an unerring oracle of Nature. 



The appearance of the eye-teeth (cuspids) and lesser molars marks 

 the end of the second year as the period when healthy children may be 

 gradually accustomed to semi-fluid vegetable substances. Till then, 

 milk should form their only sustenance. As a substitute for the nour- 

 ishment of their mother's breast, cow's-milk, mixed with a little water 

 and sugar, is far superior to all patent paps, Liebig's compounds, and 

 baby-soups, which often induce a malignant attack of the dysenteric 

 complaint known as " bowel-fever " or " weaning-brash," unless palli- 

 ated by still more condemnable astringents and soothing-sirujDS. In 

 France the professional wet-nurses of the Pays de Vaud are generally 

 engaged as nourrices de deux arts ; but mothers whose employment 

 does not interfere with their inclination in this respect may safely nurse 

 their children for a much longer period. The wives of the sturdy Ar- 

 gyll peasants rarely wean a bairn before its claim is disputed by the 

 next youngster ; and the stoutest urchin of five years I ever saw was the 

 son of a poor Servian widow, who still took him to her breast like a 

 baby. Animals suckle their young till they are able to digest the un- 

 modified solid food of the species ; and the best method with wean- 

 lings, therefore, is perhaps that of the Ionian-Islanders, whose toddling 

 infants, as Dr. Bodenstedt noticed, partake of the simple repast of their 

 parents unleavened maize-cakes and dried figs and are often permit- 

 ted to exercise their teeth on a fresh-plucked ear of sugar-corn. But, 

 in countries where the repast of parents is anything but simple, the best 

 food for young children is a porridge of milk and boiled rice or oat- 

 meal, with a little sugar, perhaps, or a few spoonfuls of apple-butter in 

 summer-time. Of such simple dishes a child may be permitted to eat* 

 its fill, but they should be served at regular intervals and never be taken 

 hot. Heating our food is one of the many devices for disguising its 

 natural taste, and sipping hot and cold drinks, turn about, is far more 

 injurious to the teeth than \h^ penchant for sweetmeats which children 

 share with savages and monkeys. Beginning with five light meals a 

 day, the number may be gradually reduced to three, after which a 

 system of fixed hours should be strictly observed, till the symptoms of 



