DEAR DOCTOR:—I must compliment you on your neat Introduction as in itself a good summary, with additional enforcement, of the advice contained in the work of Dr. Chavasse on the “Physical Training of Children.” The author has been very successful in conveying much needed instruction in language clear, forcible and readily comprehended by every reader. Mothers, for whose benefit the work has been prepared, must feel, with it in hand, that they have gained a friendly, disinterested and wise counsellor to admonish and guide them in many trying emergencies to a proper physical management, and to some extent concurrent moral culture, of their offspring, from the first hour of infantile life, on through childhood, until the time for school education begins. Familiar truths are here presented with a freshness and piquancy which carry with them the renewed assent and conviction of those who deemed themselves possessed of the requisite knowledge, while by the larger number, the uninitiated into maternal cares and children’s wants, they cannot fail to be received as the utterances of wisdom and long experience. In his inculcations the author does not assume that a child is a mere machine, to be made to go through certain movements by an older controlling hand, nor that it is to be left, like a young plant, to grow up in fruitless luxuriance, without pruning or grafting. He favors a large charter for nature, but he dwells also on the existence of natural laws, growing out of the very framework and constitution of a living body, an infraction of which, whether it be through ignorance, pedantic teaching, fashion or the intrusion of physic, is followed by injury to health and happiness. A child is not to be treated as an automaton, but as a being whose physical and mental organization, instincts and germs of intelligence are to be gradually developed under careful training. Growth, health and flexibility of movements come first: polish and the graces may well be an afterthought. The first instinctive wants of an infant, the gratifying of which is necessary to its existence, are air to breathe, food to nourish, external warmth by suitable covering, and sleep to invigorate and refresh. It is now that the reason of the mother and of her immediate aids should be deliberately exercised in the regulation of these instincts. Selection and limitation of means for the purpose must be made, and the physical training of the infant is thus already begun. How important that this training should be conducted with a full knowledge of the necessities of the case! and yet it is this very knowledge that is so generally wanting, and which it is the great object of Dr. Chavasse to supply. His advice and directions to this end are full and explicit, minute without being tedious and plain without being trivial. All the deeds and contingencies of nursery-life are anticipated, and the treatment