REPRODUCTION, PUBERTY AND LONGEVITY. 245 



strengthen the good. While a child should be guided it should not be 

 overguided. If a child is to grow up and be able to produce healthy 

 children late in life, it needs a physical development more than it 

 needs a mental one. This physical development comes best through 

 outdoors romp and play, and much more in the mud and dirt 

 than is at all agreeable to parents. No greater error can be made 

 than to keep a child aways dressed for company and crowded in 

 its studies. Such a course may produce a show animal, but it is 

 destruction to the next ' generation. Growth, both of body and 

 mind, is a slow process, and a forced growth ends in early decay. 

 This is but another illustration of the fact that those animals which 

 are slowest in arriving at maturity are the strongest. 



