Not only for the infant in arms, but for the growing baby and child during its first year, milk food, containing largely of milk and cereals, will be the best diet, excluding meat entirely, since in these tender years the ductless glands are not sufficiently developed to destroy poisonous products that arise from the end-products of decomposition of meat. By giving these little creatures meat we may depreciate the efficiency of their ductless glands through unnecessary strain in the destruction of poisons, and thus diminish their chances in later life, of a prolongation of youth and a happy old age. For the same reasons and even more weighty ones, alcohol, coffee, tea, etc., should be avoided. It is sad to reflect that, in some countries, alcohol is given to children, who are even far more helpless against it than adults. We have observed in Northern Hungary that the children of the Slovacks, a Slav nation that inhabits certain parts of Hungary—the native land of the writer,—are stunted in their growth. The reason for this is, that in these parts of Hungary, where there are plenty of potatoes, but a scarcity of other food, the peasants give brandy to their youngsters. As we have seen in the second chapter of this book, the growth of the human body depends on the thyroid gland. The fact that these children do not grow shows that alcohol is deleterious to the thyroid. This question will be considered more fully in the chapter on alcohol. The advantages of milk food we shall also treat more fully in a separate chapter. To deal with old age rationally, we must begin in childhood to fight against it, as all those agencies that tend to produce it prematurely can at this age prove far more deleterious; and as in this world no action is lost—whether for good or evil—we must reap the results of our imprudence in later life. Unhappily at this tender age we have no reasoning powers, the glands governing them not having been developed, and therefore our parents or guardians must act for us. Their want must also be supplied by the teacher, and we believe it would be productive of great good to teach the elementary rules of hygiene in school at the same time as reading and writing. The impressions we first get in childhood remain throughout life and are never forgotten; therefore, hygiene should be learned even by small children. The soul of a child is like plaster of Paris, that can, like dough, be moulded into any shape we desire. It is at this early age that we should learn of the necessity of a bath every day, of moderation in food, the avoidance of certain stimulants, such as alcohol, and also of tea and coffee in large quantities.