American Woman's Home: Or, Principles of Domestic Science;: Being a Guide to the Formation and Maintenance of Economical, Healthful, Beautiful, and Christian HomesStowe, Harriet Beecher
Religion
American Woman's Home: Or, Principles of Domestic Science;: Being a Guide to the Formation and Maintenance of Economical, Healthful, Beautiful, and Christian Homes
Stowe, Harriet Beecher
Home economics
Let parents, nurses, and teachers reflect on the above statement, and
bear in mind that stupidity of intellect, and irritability of temper,
as well as ill-health, are often caused by the mismanagement of the
nursery in regard to the physical training of children.
There is probably no practice more deleterious, than that of allowing
children to eat at short intervals, through, the day. As the stomach
is thus kept constantly at work, with no time for repose, its functions
are deranged, and a weak or disordered stomach is the frequent result.
Children should be required to keep cakes, nuts, and other good things,
which should be sparingly given, till just before a meal, and then
they will form a part of their regular supply. This is better than to
wait till after their hunger is satisfied by food, when they will eat
the niceties merely to gratify the palate, and thus overload the stomach
and interrupt digestion.
In regard to the intellectual training of young children, some
modification in the common practice is necessary, with reference to
their physical well-being. More care is needful, in providing
_well-ventilated_ school-rooms, and in securing more time for
sports in the open air, during school hours. It is very important to
most mothers that their young children should be removed from their
care during certain school hours; and it is very useful for quite young
children, to be subjected to the discipline of a school, and to
intercourse with other children of their own age. And, with a suitable
teacher, it is no matter how early children are sent to school, provided
their health is not endangered by impure air, too much confinement,
and too great mental stimulus, which is the chief danger of the present
age.
In regard to the formation of the moral character, it has been too
much the case that the discipline of the nursery has consisted of
disconnected efforts to make children either do, or refrain from doing,
certain particular acts. Do this, and be rewarded; do that, and be
punished; is the ordinary routine of family government.
But children can be very early taught that their happyness, both now
and hereafter, depends on the formation of _habits_ of submission,
self-denial, and benevolence. And all the discipline of the nursery
can be conducted by parents, not only with this general aim in their
own minds, but also with the same object daily set before the minds
of the children. Whenever their wishes are crossed, or their wills
subdued, they can be taught that all this is done, not merely to please
the parent, or to secure some good to themselves or to others; but as
a part of that merciful training which is designed to form such a
character, and such habits, that they can hereafter find their chief
happiness in giving up their will to God, and in living to do good to
others, instead of living merely to please themselves.
Public-domain text, read in full here on John Shaqi.
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