FARMERS' INSTITUTES. 163 



quired varies somewhat also, but within narrower limits. A simple 

 way of getting at it roughly would be to divide the food for a sample 

 day in ten parts; of these one should be fat, two proteid and the le 

 mainder starch and sugar. In tabulated form this would be: 



Fat 1 



Proteid 2 



Starch and sugar 7 



10 



It is well to decide upon the amount of proteid and fat with care, 

 allowing the child to ''fill up" with the less harmful substance, starch, 

 in the form of bread and grains. Mothers have usually thus looked 

 after their children's food, and yet do we not all remember the raven'ng 

 hunger from which we suffered as growing children? If these four fotd 

 substances well cooked, in right proportions and in necessary amount, 

 had been given us each day, it is fairly safe to say we should not have 

 suffered thus. The well-fed child becomes reasonably and actively 

 hungry, but not painfully so. His body cells do not cry out in agony for 

 food, because they are not starved. 



One word more must be said before leaving the subject of foods, and 

 that is in reference to the importance of the free use of water as a 

 beverage. The body is three-quarters water. It is always losing it in 

 large amounts. It can become accustomed to conducting its work with a 

 meagre supply of water, but it cannot do it economically without one or 

 two quarts a day, taken between meals. The beer of the German, and 

 the light wine which the French drink, supplies the body with water, 

 and it finds it easier to get rid of the harmful constituents than to get 

 on without. the water. We in America should be wiser than they and 

 take the water without its harmful adjuncts. We might then be as 

 strong as our beer and wine drinking neighbors, "other things being 

 equal." 



CLEANLINESS OF BODY AND CLOTHING. 



It should not be necessary in this last part of the nineteenth century 

 to say anything about the importance to the child's physical nature of a 

 clean skin, nor of the value to his moral nature of clean clothing outside 

 and beneath the surface. 



We live, however, by standards, and our standard in America of 

 personal cleanliness is without doubt too low. For instance, the mass 

 of home-makers today have a notion, derived probably from ancestors 

 who carried water for drinking and domestic purposes half a mile or 

 so, from a town well, that a full bath once a week is enough for a child, 

 if his face and hands are kept visibly clean. Now the fact is, that to 

 keep a child's body even reasonably clean, he should, with his active 

 skin pouring its waste out in an almost constant stream, be washed at 

 least once a day completely. We should change our standard of clean- 

 liness now we have good cisterns and hydrants pouring water without 

 effort into utensils light and easy to carry, and with bath tubs even 

 which make the transportation of water unnecessary. 



The result will be stronger bodies and better smelling school rooms, 

 fewer cases of contagious diseases and better morals. 



