THE SCIENCE OF HAPPINESS 



Perhaps it will not be amiss, in this day of nervous 

 disorders, if I say a few words more specifically about 

 the home training of the child whose " nervous " tem- 

 perament places it in danger of some such unfortunate 

 culmination as that just outlined. 



For obvious reasons, great heed should be given to 

 hygienic measures, looking to the physical development 

 of such a child. Its dietary should be made to include 

 nutritious foods, to the restriction of the appetite-cloying 

 sweets and other unwholesome things its own taste 

 would select. Stimulants of every kind, including tea, 

 coffee, and spices, should be absolutely interdicted. 

 Systematic effort should be made to secure for such a 

 child the exercise which the normal child gains un- 

 thinkingly in its games; for if left to itself, the nervous 

 child often prefers to brood rather than play. And 

 above all, good habits of sleeping should be inculcated 

 from the first, for in later life insomnia is the peren- 

 nial curse of the nervous temperament. 



But the details as to all these things must vary with 

 individual cases, and should be entrusted to the family 

 physician. Indeed, the entire education of the ner- 

 vous child should be accomplished under medical super- 

 vision, even though, as is quite commonly the case, the 

 child is but little subject to attacks of acute illness, and 

 is generally regarded as having more than average 

 health. 



In a word, an unceasing effort should be made to 

 mould the mind of the nervous child toward the model 

 set by the average mind of the average child, the only 

 normal standard. And let me again urge that this 



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