CHILDHOOD FROM A MEDICAL STANDPOINT. 727 



between himself and the outer world, beyond the tread-mill round 

 of special or formal pursuits which necessarily occupy much of 

 his attention. Many fail to appreciate the importance of this in- 

 dispensable natural culture, and endeavor to supplant the spon- 

 taneous by the formal. I know of a little girl whose interest in 

 flowers was destroyed by an attempt to teach her technical botany 

 at too early an age, forgetting that it means more to love flowers 

 than to know botany. In another case the attempt was made to 

 substitute history for a boy's ordinary reading, with the result of 

 spoiling the boy. On reaching manhood his favorite author was 

 E. P. Roe. 



Correct mental reactions must be based upon correct physical 

 reactions, which are naturally evoked by a free open-air life. As 

 Lowell puts it : u The driving-wheels of all-powerful Nature are 

 in the back of the head. . . . But it is ill with a nation when the 

 cerebrum sucks the cerebellum dry, for it can not live by intellect 

 alone. The broad foreheads always carry the day at last, but 

 only when they are based on or buttressed with massive hind- 

 heads. . . . Moreover, brain is always to be bought, but passion 

 never comes to market." 



The city boy's supplemental training at school is far from 

 perfect, but his fundamental, unstudied training by contact with 

 Nature in the free use of his proper activities is wofully deficient. 

 If restricted to the city, he can hardly become familiar with any 

 natural objects but a few animals, building materials, and food- 

 stuffs; his notion of such fundamental objects as the sky or 

 horizon must be extremely hazy. His relations with people, or at 

 least with certain individuals, are likely to be too close ; he can 

 not escape from them, and is over-stimulated or overpowered. 

 This leads me to speak of family life as we observe it, perhaps 

 the most important factor of all in the child's development, physi- 

 cal as well as mental and moral. 



It is sometimes claimed that women are not as good house- 

 keepers and home-makers as formerly, and if this be true it is not 

 altogether their fault. It is not to be denied that the number of 

 families in New York, for instance, is far in excess of the number 

 of homes. The tendency with us is for the mistress of the house 

 to participate less and less in the details of household manage- 

 ment, and much of the work is left to hirelings inside and outside 

 of the premises. The desire to diminish some of the difficulties of 

 city housekeeping has caused the wholesale introduction of flats, 

 which are, as a rule, cramped and poorly lighted, and, to say the 

 least, ill adapted for the rearing of children. Rooms in suites 

 have made it possible to dispense with the kitchen and its auto- 

 crat, and the disintegration of the home is complete in boarding- 

 houses and hotels. The promiscuity of the tenement is equally 



