ON ELEMENTARY EDUCATION. 7 



together, beginning with the very commencement of our being. 

 Physical education should actually commence before birth, prospec- 

 tively, in the temperate and healthful habits of the mother, the 

 avoidance by her of stimulants, physical and moral, the tranquil 

 exercise and engagement of all her faculties. Much evil results 

 from an opposite course, and great is the responsibility. From the 

 moment of birth, that the being may possess a vigorous frame of 

 body and the concomitant sound health — without which every spe- 

 cies of moral and intellectual exercise is cramped and frustrated — 

 he must be subjected to such processes of management, and after- 

 wards trained to such habits of food, muscular exercise, cleanliness, 

 and respiration of fresh air, as have been ascertained to conduce to 

 health and strength. 



Moral education will, as above stated, commence at the same 

 time with physical. For the sake of himself and society, man 

 must be habituated, from the dawn of consciousness and feeling, to 

 the moderate activity and proper regulation of the inferior feelings 

 of our nature ; and gradually to the due exercise of the moral sen- 

 timents of mercy, justice, and truth towards his fellOw beings, and 

 veneration towards his Almighty Creator and the objects of his 

 faith. In time, as his intellectual faculties develope themselves, he 

 ought to be instructed in the theory and impressed with the higher 

 functions of that morality in which he has been previously trained 

 and exercised. 



Intellectual education, beginning almost at birth, in the proper 

 direction of the senses and observing powers, will proceed elemen- 

 tarily, in exercising the human powers and storing them with that 

 knowledge of Creation and the nature of things which all sane hu- 

 man beings were intended, by the very endowment of their minds 

 with the necessary powers, to acquire. 



Physical, moral, and intellectual education, then, for all ages, 

 from birth to fourteen years, may be said to have three periods, 

 when different degrees of it will be applicable ; namely, cradle edu- 

 cation, infant education, and juvenile education. 



Cradle Education is new in practice, and new even as a 

 term. The nurse must here be the educator ; and it concerns soci- 

 ety and human happiness more than is at first apparent that nurses, 

 including mothers, should be fitted, more than they have ever been, 

 for this delicate and important office. Many an infant is sent to its 

 grave by ignorance in its nurse of those simple organic laws ne- 

 cessary to its safety and comfort, which may be easily known and 

 practised. A large proportion of the children born in this country 



