A great deal more of the comfort of the child and its future good habits is settled within the first month of its life than is suspected by those who have had little to do with the care of babies. If it is started with regular habits of eating and sleeping, is from the beginning accustomed to lie in its cradle or crib instead of being held in the arms constantly and lifted and rocked at its first whimper, it takes such treatment for granted and forms no habit of making demands for that which is difficult for the attendant always to supply and does no good to the child to receive. With a delicate or sickly babe the same strict rules cannot be enforced as with a healthy infant, and yet even a puny child is better off if kept to a steady regimen than if fed, taken up, and put down at uncertain intervals, and allowed to accumulate a crop of irregular fashions of eating and sleeping. Sometimes the struggle to implant a sense of law and order is a difficult undertaking when the ill health of the child or the carelessness of the first nurse has brought it into bad ways, but persistence in the effort is worth while for the sake of the comfort success is bound to bring later to all concerned. The periods of feeding are determined by the doctor, to begin with, and the space between them is gradually widened as the child grows older. The system which should be the guide of the housekeeper in her home has as large a field of usefulness applied to children as anywhere else. The baby should be washed and dressed at a regular hour; the time for its meals and its outing should be invariable; the hour for undressing it, washing it, and making it ready for bed should never vary except in cases of rare exigency. If it is a healthy child it will fall naturally into the habit of taking a morning nap after the bath and the meal, of waking at a certain time, and then of lying comfortably in the bed or on a couch or in its carriage with no wails to be lifted and walked with. Modern medical science has declared that the less handling a little baby receives the better for it, and that for some months its growth should be in most respects as much like that of a vegetable as possible. As the child gets older and begins to use its limbs it will be good for it to be exercised rather more, but nature is a pretty safe guide to follow in this respect. The baby who is well and normal is not slow to show its growth and progress, and it is far wiser for the parent to be led by these than to attempt to hurry development either of body or of mind. The child will assert itself soon enough, and so decidedly as to leave no room for doubt as to its proclivities.