Advice to a Mother on the Management of Her ChildrenChavasse, Pye Henry
Science
Advice to a Mother on the Management of Her Children
Chavasse, Pye Henry
Child care; Children -- Health and hygiene; Infants -- Health and hygiene
I disapprove of it: his young blood does not require to be inflamed,
and his sensitive nerves excited, with wine; and, if he he delicate, I
should be sorry to endeavour to strengthen him by giving him such an
inflammable fluid. If he be weakly, he is more predisposed to put on
either fever or inflammation of some organ; and, being thus
predisposed, wine would be likely to excite either the one or the
other of them into action.
"Wine and youth are fire upon fire."--_Fielding._
A parent ought on no account to allow a boy to touch spirits, however
much diluted; they are, to the young, still more deadly in their
effects than wine.
334. _Have you any objection to a youth drinking tea_?
Not at all, provided it be not _green_ tea, that it be not made
strong, and that it have plenty of milk in it. Green tea is apt to
make people nervous, and boys and girls ought not even to know what it
is to be nervous.
335. _Do you object to supper for a youth_?
Meat suppers are highly prejudicial. If he be hungry (and if he have
been much in the open air, he is almost sure to be), a piece of bread
and cheese, or of bread and butter, with a draught either of new milk
or of table beer, will form the best supper he can have. He ought not
to sup later than eight o'clock.
336. _Do you approve of a boy having anything between meals_?
I do not; let him have four meals a day, and he will require nothing
in the intervals. It is a mistaken notion that "little and often is
best," The stomach requires rest as much as, or perhaps more than (for
it is frequently sadly over-worked) any other part of the body. I do
not mean that he is to have "_much_ and seldom:" moderation, in
everything, is to be observed. Give him as much as a growing boy
requires (_and that is a great deal_), but do not let him eat
gluttonously, as many indulgent parents encourage their children to
do. Intemperance in eating cannot be too strongly condemned.
337. _Have you any objection to a boy having pocket money_?
It is a bad practice to allow a boy _much_ pocket money; if he be so
allowed, he will be loading his stomach with sweets, fruit, and
pastry, and thus his stomach will become cloyed and disordered, and
the keen appetite, so characteristic of youth, will be blunted, and
ill-health will ensue. "In a public education, boys early learn
intemperance, and if the parents and friends would give them less
money upon their usual visits, it would be much to their advantage,
since it may justly be said that a great part of their disorders arise
from surfeit, '_plus occidit gula quam gladius_' (gluttony kills more
than the sword)."--_Goldsmith._
How true is the saying that "many people dig their graves with their
teeth." You may depend upon it that more die from stuffing than from
starvation! There would be little for doctors to do if there were not
so much stuffing and imbibing of strong drinks going on in the world!
AIR AND EXERCISE.
Public-domain text, read in full here on John Shaqi.
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