CHILDRKX. AM) HoW TO HEAR THEM. 117 



and the applications of those laws to the conditions which are laws also 

 in which man and the particular bodies and substances around him are 

 placed ; nor, it is manifest, should science concern us more than that 

 which relates to the conditions on which organic life is held by each in- 

 dividual." 



(Chilbrcn, anb |)oto to JUar \thcm. 



2 , 

 iWs&. y^r 



T is a well-known fact that some of the greatest blessings we 

 enjoy are the least appreciated, and this may be truly said 

 of light. We are so accustomed to it that we fail to re- 

 member its importance, though did we but recollect that it 

 is synonymous with life, we could not fail to be sensible of 

 the inestimable value of this essential of our being. 



Deprived of its wholesome and enlivening stimulus, child- 

 ren become pale and sickly in appearance, the blood is im- 

 perfectly oxygenated, and a proneness to disease or debility 

 immediately arises. 



A dark, dull room, or one from which light is more or less exclud 

 should by all means be avoided, for it is injurious alike to the eyes, health 

 and spirits of children. But necessary as light is (it is the natural f 



he eye), it requires regulating according to the age. During early 



infancy tli- eyes should not be exposed to a concentrated or strong light ; 



-mi's li.irht should be softened l>y window blinds, and an infant oiujht 



In -Id too near a lamp or candle. 



Th'- .-laments in favour of the beneficial effects of light are found 



in the farts that nearly tln> whole of the vegetable kingdom will cease to 

 t'ourish if deprived of it, and that those children brought up in the dreary 

 dark slums although quite as well fed as those of an agricultural 



inv;iri;il']y puny, sickly creatures, without a vestige of colour 

 in thi-ir cli--ks. t 



Tm. IM I;M( lous CUSTOM which obtains so much amongst the lower and 



middl.- c 'i th.- suburbs of living almost entirely in the bMemenl 



>m cannot be too strongly condemned, when-, as is invariably 



asr. it is dark. The room that i- moM in us should In- ' the best 



