It is really astonishing, that so little attention should in general be paid to the preservation of infants. What labour and expence are daily bestowed to prop an old tottering carcase for a few years, while thousands of those who might be useful in life, perish without being regarded! Mankind are too apt to value things according to their present, not their future, usefulness. Though this is of all others the most erroneous method of estimation; yet upon no other principle is it possible to account for the general indifference with respect to the death of infants. _Of Diseased Parents._ One great source of the diseases of children is, the UNHEALTHINESS OF PARENTS. It would be as reasonable to expect a rich crop from a barren soil, as that strong and healthy children should be born of parents whose constitutions have been worn out with intemperance or disease. An ingenious writer[6] observes, that on the constitution of mothers depends originally that of their offspring. No one who believes this, will be surprised, on a view of the female world, to find diseases and death so frequent among children. A delicate female, brought up within doors, an utter stranger to exercise and open air, who lives on tea and other slops, may bring a child into the world, but it will hardly be fit to live. The first blast of disease will nip the tender plant in the bud: or, should it struggle through a few years existence, its feeble frame, shaken with convulsions from every trivial cause, will be unable to perform the common functions of life, and prove a burden to society. If to the delicacy of mothers, we add the irregular lives of fathers, we shall see further cause to believe that children are often hurt by the constitution of their parents. A sickly frame may be originally induced by hardships or intemperance, but chiefly by the latter. It is impossible that a course of vice should not spoil the best constitution: and, did the evil terminate here, it would be a just punishment for the folly of the sufferer; but when once a disease is contracted and riveted in the habit, it is entailed on posterity. What a dreadful inheritance is the gout, the scurvy, or the King’s evil, to transmit to our offspring! how happy had it been for the heir of many a great estate, had he been born a beggar, rather than to inherit his father’s fortunes at the expence of inheriting his diseases! A person labouring under any incurable malady ought not to marry. He thereby not only shortens his own life, but transmits misery to others: but when both parties are deeply tainted with the scrophula, the scurvy, or the like, the effects must be still worse. If such have any issue, they must be miserable indeed. Want of attention to these things, in forming connexions for life, has rooted out more families than plague, famine, or the sword; and as long as these connexions are formed from mercenary views, the evil will be continued[7].