CHILDHOOD FROM A MEDICAL STANDPOINT. 729 



factor in the evolution of the individual we touch at this point. 

 We need the mother's influence and the father's influence in the 

 family, and also the influence of the children on each other. 

 First children, last children, only children, children of small and 

 large families, all have their special attributes and defects. The 

 child is receiving and adjusting every instant, impressions that 

 will positively determine not only his future career but his bodily 

 structure. Parents and care-takers must see that these im- 

 pressions are useful and true. The means in the control of the 

 physician are as nothing compared to home influences and con- 

 ditions in shaping a healthy mind and body. The reactions most 

 frequently evoked will be the dominating ones. As Bacon puts 

 it : " Therefore since Custome is the principle Magistrate of a Man's 

 life ; let Men by all Means endeavour to obtain good Customes. 

 Certainly Custome is most perfect when it beginneth in Young 

 Years. This we call Education ; which is in effect but an early 

 Custome " ; or as another says : " In the conduct of life, habits 

 count for more than maxims, because habit is a living maxim, be- 

 come flesh and instinct. To reform one's maxims is nothing ; it 

 is but to change the title of the book. To learn new habits is 

 everything, for it is to reach the substance of life. Life is but a 

 tissue of habits " (Amiel's Journal, page 7). All of which applies 

 as cogently to the physical as to the mental. " Nothing has ever 

 been invented to take the place of a ' bringing up.' " The home 

 has been compared to the ship-yard where the vessel's construction 

 is slowly and painstakingly elaborated step by step, so that the 

 structure may be able to outride the strains and disintegrating 

 tendencies that are sure to attack it later, just as the growing hu- 

 man organism is built up, under fostering influences, by the grad- 

 ual incorporation of helpful habits and useful physical reactions. 

 Self-control and transparent honesty in the parent are as essential 

 as obedience and self-reliance in the child. " He that will have a 

 cake of the wheat must tarry in the grinding." The child does 

 not exist who can grow up natural or healthy without a fair 

 share of wholesome neglect and judicious exposure. Few real- 

 ize the tremendous risk of over-caution and over-attention. A 

 youngster is invariably happier with few and simple playthings 

 than with a multitude of complicated toys. There is no such 

 good fun or good training as making one's self useful, and it is 

 cruelty to deprive the child of this pleasure and stimulus. Let 

 the brain and body be trained through hand, foot, and eye. 

 Dump a load of sand into the back yard and let the children roll 

 in it. Give the boys a carpenter's bench ; encourage the girls to 

 do housework. Where possible, let both boy and girl have a little 

 garden-patch, if only a few feet square, and the care of a few 

 plants. A woman in her home, a man in his garden : this seems 



