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
_With regard to the best artificial light for a nursery._--The air of
a nursery cannot be too pure; I therefore do not advise you to have
gas in it, as gas in burning gives off quantities of carbonic acid and
sulphuretted hydrogen, which vitiate the air. The paraffine lamp, too,
makes a room very hot and close. There is no better light for a
nursery than either Price's patent candles or the old-fashioned
tallow-candle.
Let a child's _home_ he the happiest _house_ to him in the world; and
to be happy he must be merry, and all around him should be merry and
cheerful; and he ought to have an abundance of playthings, to help on
the merriment. If he have a dismal nurse, and a dismal home, he may
as well be incarcerated in a prison, and be attended by a gaoler. It
is sad enough to see dismal, doleful men and women, but it is a truly
lamentable and unnatural sight to see a doleful child! The young ought
to be as playful and as full of innocent mischief as a kitten. There
will be quite time enough in after years for sorrow and for sadness.
Bright colours, plenty of light, _clean_ windows (mind this, if you
please), an abundance of _good_-coloured prints, and toys without
number, are the proper furnishings of a nursery. Nursery! why, the
very name tells you what it ought to be--the home of childhood--the
most important room in the house,--a room that will greatly tend to
stamp the character of your child for the remainder of his life.
167. _Have you any more hints to offer conducive to the well-doing of
my child_?
You cannot be too particular in the choice of those who are in
constant attendance upon him. You yourself, of course, must be his
_head-nurse_--you only require some one to take the drudgery off your
hands! You ought to be particularly careful in the selection of his
nurse. She should be steady, lively, truthful, and good tempered; and
must be free from any natural imperfection, such as squinting,
stammering, &c., for a child is such an imitative creature that he is
likely to acquire that defect, which in the nurse is natural.
"Children, like babies, are quick at 'taking notice.' What they see
they mark, and what they mark they are very prone to copy."--_The
Times_.
She ought not to be very young, or she may be thoughtless, careless,
and giggling. You have no right to set a child to mind a child; it
would be like the blind leading the blind. No! a child is too precious
a treasure to be entrusted to the care and keeping of a young girl.
Many a child has been ruined for life by a careless young nurse
dropping him and injuring his spine.
Public-domain text, read in full here on John Shaqi.
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