It is a fact, that tea and coffee are, at first, seldom or never agreeable to children. It is the mixture of milk, sugar, and water, that reconciles them to a taste, which in this manner gradually becomes agreeable. Now, suppose that those who provide for a family conclude that it is not _their_ duty to give up entirely the use of stimulating drinks, may not the case appear different, in regard to teaching their children to love such drinks? Let the matter be regarded thus:--The experiments of physiologists all prove, that stimulants are not needful to health, and that, as the general rule, they tend to debilitate the constitution. Is it right, then, for a parent to tempt a child to drink what is not needful, when there is a probability that it will prove, to some extent, an undermining drain on the constitution? Some constitutions can bear much less excitement than others; and, in every family of children, there is usually one, or more, of delicate organization, and consequently peculiarly exposed to dangers from this source. It is this child who ordinarily becomes the victim to stimulating drinks. The tea and coffee which the parents and the healthier children can use without immediate injury, gradually sap the energies of the feebler child, who proves either an early victim, or a living martyr to all the sufferings that debilitated nerves inflict. Can it be right, to lead children, where all allow that there is some danger, and where, in many cases, disease and death are met, when another path is known to be perfectly safe? Of the stimulating drinks in common use, _black tea_ is least injurious, because its flavor is so strong, in comparison with its narcotic principle, that one who uses it, is much less liable to excess. Children can be trained to love milk and water sweetened with sugar, so that it will always be a pleasant beverage; or, if there are exceptions to the rule, they will be few. Water is an unfailing resort. Every one loves it, and it is perfectly healthful. The impression, common in this Country, that _warm drinks_, especially in Winter, are more healthful than cold, is not warranted by any experience, nor by the laws of the physical system. At dinner, cold drinks are universal, and no one deems them injurious. It is only at the other two meals that they are supposed to be hurtful.