550 ANNUAL BEPORT SMITHSONIAN INSTITUTION, 1921. 



must not be exclusive and that each system has its advantages. In 

 a report presented to the National Committee on Social Hygiene in 

 1919, Ave showed that there is a place for using all the vaunted plans 

 of education, simultaneously or successively, by adapting them to the 

 social station and to the age of individuals. It is evident that we 

 would not use the same methods in dealing with a baby, a young 

 child, and an adult. 



In the case of the infant, the nurslings, the bottle fed, or those 

 already weaned, it is the mother who gives them their alimentary 

 education and who teaches them hygienic habits. It is therefore to 

 the mother and to the nurse that the doctor's advice is addressed. 

 This is the affair of the specialist in pediatrics, whether obstetrician, 

 pediatrist, or hygienist, whether infirmary attendants, nurses, or 

 specialized nursemaids. The education is given in the family, at the 

 dispensary, at the infant asylum, or at the day nursery. For the 

 nursling, much has already been done. Establishments such as the 

 Institut de Porchefontaine and the new Institut de Puericulture, or- 

 ganized by the State, render great service by spreading, through pre- 

 cept and practice, correct principles of infant alimentation. 



Once past this first period of life, the alimentation of the child 

 is left somewhat to chance. And yet it is not less important. During 

 the first years, whether the child is brought up at home or goes to 

 the kindergarten, its education should be begun. It is either direct 

 or indirect. Direct, if it is addressed to the child itself through prac- 

 tice, through example, through games, through little alimentary 

 lessons, through "health chores"; indirect, if the instruction is ad- 

 dressed to the parents, by means of lectures, sample dietaries, post- 

 ers, and pamphlets. 



Later, during childhood and adolescence, the education of boys and 

 girls should be given in the schools by means of theoretical and 

 practical lessons. It is the girls especially who should be addressed, 

 since they are destined to become the nurses and the housekeepers; be- 

 sides the rules of alimentation, it is desirable to teach them cooking, 

 domestic economy, and the conduct of the household. 



It is important in giving this alimentary instruction not to fall 

 into pedantry and not to try to put the question of nourishment into 

 sterile formulas, intelligible only to scientists. It is above all by 

 practice and by example that we should proceed ; theoretical instruc- 

 tion should be only an explanation of the facts. 



During the first six or seven years of its life, the child is usually 

 kept in the home with its parents. In ordinarj 7 families, it is prefer- 

 able that the child should not appear at the family table and that 

 it be raised apart, in the nursery. If it sits at the table with the 

 parents, they assume responsibility for its alimentary education — a 



