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? 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. “_Water_ is a safe drink for all constitutions, provided it be resorted to in obedience to the dictates of natural thirst only, and not of habit. Unless the desire for it is felt, there is no occasion for its use during a meal. “The primary effect of all distilled and fermented liquors is to _stimulate the nervous system and quicken the circulation_. In infancy and childhood the circulation is rapid and easily excited, and the nervous system is strongly acted upon even by the slightest external impressions. Hence, slight causes of irritation readily excite febrile and convulsive disorders. In youth, the natural tendency of the constitution is still to excitement, and consequently, as a general rule, the stimulus of fermented liquors is injurious.” These remarks by Dr. Combe show that parents, who find that stimulating drinks are not injurious to themselves, may mistake in inferring from this that they will not be injurious to their children.