ffl 
 
 - 
 
 LIBRARY 
 
 THE UNIVERSITY 
 OF CALIFORNIA 
 
 SANTA BARBARA 
 
 PRESENTED BY 
 CARROLL PURSELL 
 
 I 
 
 P 
 
 - :
 
 G
 
 MOTHER'S HELP 
 
 AND 
 
 CHILD'S FRIEND 
 
 BY 
 
 CARRICA LH FAVRE 
 ft 
 
 BRENTANO'S 
 
 ,CAG, NRW Y RK WASHINGTON 
 
 PARIS NEW YORK 
 
 1891 
 
 > c 
 *-
 
 COPYRIGHTED BY THE AUTHOR, 
 
 CARRICA LKFAVRE. 
 
 1890. 
 
 PRESS OF F. V. STRAUSS, 
 
 108-114 WOO8TER STREET, NEW YORK.
 
 DEDICATED 
 
 TO THE CHILDREN OP 
 
 AMERICA.
 
 PACK, 
 
 FRONTISPIECE, 
 
 DEDICATED, 
 
 PREFACE, 
 
 THE ADVENT OF A NEW SOUL, 5 
 
 Woman Molds the Destiny of Nations Woman's Sacred- 
 ness Her Responsibility. 
 
 EVOLVING ENERGY, 9 
 
 Children not Savages Activity leads to Development We may 
 
 be what we will Everything, when in its place, is good. 
 
 MORAL EDUCATION, 15 
 
 Falsehoods, their Effects Not Natural for the Child to Lie 
 Child-life an Interesting Study Children the Property of 
 God The Hope and Joy of the World Mothers' Meetings 
 Ideal Man Sociability evolves complexity of Organism, 
 Fraternity and Spirituality Dog and the Babe Sacredness 
 01 the Body Gentleness. 
 
 EDUCATION, 
 
 War History Kindergarten Reading Aloud Unfolding 
 the Voice. 
 
 PARENTAL AUTHORITY, 32 
 
 Veneration for the Aged Our First Duty. 
 
 THE ART OF LIVING, - 36 
 
 INTERNAL OR MENTAL FACULTIES, 37 
 
 How to Ascertain the Line of Thought. 
 
 THE SENSES, - 40 
 
 MEMORY, - - 44 
 
 The Reasoning Faculties The Observing Faculties Vivid 
 First Impressions. 
 
 CHILDREN OUR REFLECTORS, 46 
 
 Our Acts Reflected even to the Third and Fourth Genera- 
 tionWild Oats.
 
 vi Contents. 
 
 AUDITORY AND VISUAL, 48 
 
 Doors to the Intellect and Soul Sound and its Influence. 
 
 SPEAK GENTLY, 51 
 
 Contradicting Breaking the Child's Will Slaps Bad. 
 
 SYMPATHY THE CHILD NEEDS, 53 
 
 Don't Fuss at its Restlessness Drink of water, its effects. 
 
 AFFIRMATIVE AND NEGATIVE, 59 
 
 Childs Capacity to Suffer Love the Legal Tender of the 
 
 Soul Ideal Government. 
 FRIGHTENING CHILDREN, - 63 
 
 Tiresome and Weakening Nagging We find what we 
 
 Search for The Poison of Evil Thoughts. 
 
 FORCE, 65 
 
 Thralldotn Antagonistic to its Growth Ennobling the Home 
 Woman's Duties Her Salary Draw a Quality toward you 
 by constantly desiring it Force and Independence best 
 Stock in Trade The Oak and its Roots. 
 
 COURAGE, 71 
 
 Mortality of Hospital Nurses Man's Misdirected Bravery 
 True Courage Man the Destroyer Woman the Patcher. 
 
 STUPIDITY AND SUCCESS, 73 
 
 Be kind to the Stupid The Germ of Greatness Wed Mis- 
 fortune to Ambition What is Success. 
 
 OVERWORKED BRAINS, 75 
 
 Brain robbed of Vitality Curtail Demands of Lower Nat- 
 ure-Exercise and Fresh Air Our Possibilities Unlimited. 
 
 WORK, - 78 
 
 Upward Current Degeneracy Woman's Societies Prosy 
 Professor Genius and Poverty Students with Ideas Mis- 
 sion Work at Home Most Valuable Service of Man Indus- 
 trial Education Trade, Profession and Music Independent 
 Individuals. 
 
 MOTHER AND DAUGHTER, .... 84 
 
 Developing Years Perfect Womanhood Be Companion- 
 able to the Daughters Grow Old Gracefully. 
 
 MUSIC, - - - - 90 
 
 Binds into Friendship Effects on Criminals Prisons should 
 be Reformatories Music a Cure for Sickness ; Divine for 
 Home Government.
 
 Contents. vii 
 
 SMILING, - - 92 
 
 Greater Beautifiers than Cosmetics - Pictures their Effects 
 Go to Sleep with a Smile on the Face. 
 
 BEAUTY, - - 94 
 
 It deteriorates with abuse and neglect Power to grow beau- 
 tiful is limitless Master the highest Elements. 
 
 PHYSICAL CULTURE, - - 99 
 
 Distinction between Education and Culture The Physical 
 Drill Tuning the Body Opposing Forces Perfect Body 
 Essential Greeks The Left Hand Ugly Exercises Nasty 
 Games Grace and Graciousness Conserving Energy. 
 
 FOOD, .... - 108 
 
 For the Delicate Bottle-feeding Boiled Milk Weaning 
 Regularity in Eating The Stomach Chemistry of Food 
 Lime Salts Water Resorts Bread Diseased Animals- 
 Vegetable Oils Bill of Fare Digestive Fluids Eat to 
 Live Good Cheer. 
 
 STIMULANTS, - - - 123 
 
 Act as Brakes Fat Body Wrinkles Tea breeds Restless- 
 ness Unnatural Activity Its reaction Wasted Force 
 Vegetarian diet for Reform Patent Medicine Colic Cure 
 Hot Applications Soothing Syrup injurious. 
 
 STRENGTH, - - - 128 
 
 School Children Air, Exercise, Diet Muscle and Tissue 
 Properties. 
 
 WATER, AIR AND SUNSHINE, - 131 
 
 A Liquid Food Eighty per cent of the Body A Drink for 
 BabyFlushing the System Water Cure Bathing Teach 
 Infant to enjoy daily Bath The Pores Respiratory Avenues 
 Skin a fourfold Agent Air Immense Quantity Needed 
 Spoiled Air Carbonic Acid Gas Airy Sleeping Rooms 
 Sleep, in a Close Room, becomes a Stupor Kerosene Lamps 
 and Diphtheria Skin Exhalations Comforters and Blan- 
 kets Sunshine Its healing Power Scrofula and Con- 
 sumption Moral Sunshine Happiness depends upon it. 
 
 MOTHER AND BABE, - - 140 
 
 Sleep Chest active Diet and Control Mothers' Milk- 
 Babe Sensitive Callers' disturbing Influence No gain by 
 Smartness at the Start -Caressing and Handling weakening
 
 viii Contents. 
 
 to the Child Eating <md Sleeping the first Month Airing 
 the Infant Objections to Sitting and Walking Early- 
 Child's neck, Spine and Abdomen. 
 
 DEMANDS OF NATURE, - U6 
 
 Waste Matter poisons the System Regularity Necessary to 
 Health and Beauty. 
 
 HEALTH, - 147 
 
 The Natural State of the Being Unhealthy Body depressing 
 to look at Health should be the rule instead of erception 
 Offenses to the Body Grumbling and Discontent Rid your- 
 self of Friction Forget yourself Deaths among Children 
 Hereditary Transmission Organism vested with Recupera- 
 tive Powers Anthropology. 
 
 NATURAL DEATHS, - - 151 
 
 Transition to next Life Infant death Wrong Come we 
 here to Sicken and Die, or to Live ? Confidence Live 
 attuned to Nature, while Life offers Opportunity for Prog- 
 gress ; when not, Pass on. 
 
 LULLABY SONG, - - 154 
 
 With Music. 
 
 SLEEP, - - 156 
 
 Hours Required Prayer Insomnia. 
 
 CLOTHING, - 160 
 
 A Moral Thermometer Utility and Beauty Underwear 
 Dress in one piece Wrap long Shoes to match Gloves 
 to Match and Hose That Simple and Pretty Rather than 
 Fashionable and Absurd No Birds. 
 
 NURSES, - - 166 
 
 Training absolutely Necessary Our Nursing decides our 
 Future High Standard in the Nurse. 
 
 THE EYES, - 168 
 
 Fresh Air Protection Bathing Short-sightedness, its 
 Cause and Cure Cross Eyes Cause. 
 
 TOILET, - 170 
 
 Care of Teeth Begin in Infancy The Dentist Teeth in 
 old Age Lime in the System Hair Use Brush Wash 
 with rain Water Color Matter Cutting Growth Dress- 
 ing Hair The Nose How to have a Beautiful Nose The 
 Handkerchief Catarrh The Nails Care of Finger and 
 Toe Nails.
 
 Contents. 
 
 IX 
 
 VACCINATION, - ... 175 
 
 Its Dangers Transmission of Disease. 
 
 KISSING, - - 177 
 
 Drinking Cups Saliva and Breath. 
 
 RIGHTS, - - - 178 
 
 Increase Responsibility Conditions of Homes, Schools, 
 
 Institutions Supply their Needs Woman to the Front 
 
 Responsible Overseer. 
 
 WHAT WE ARE MADE OF, - - 181 
 
 REMEDIES AND RECIPES, .- - 182 
 
 Diarrhoea Constipation Cramps Burns Fire Drinks, 
 
 Fruit and Berry. 
 
 AFTERTHOUGHTS, - - - - - 185
 
 's preface. 
 
 Oft-repeated times have my sympathies been appealed 
 to, when I have seen the deplorable condition of the 
 nursery. Here is too often evidence of the neglect in 
 the education of girls regarding common sense, practical, 
 every-day knowledge of right living. Nor is this fact 
 confined to America, for I find a much worse condition 
 in some parts of Europe and other countries. It is my 
 desire to present this theme so dear to my heart in the 
 simplest possible manner, concisely and in a practical 
 way, that through its remindings it may verily prove a 
 help to the mother and a friend to the child.
 
 " If we set a proper value on those who contribute to the pros- 
 perity of the states we ought to place in the first ranks those who 
 teach children, whose labors influence posterity, and on whose 
 precepts and exertions the welfare of our country in a great meas- 
 ure depends." Lorenzi de Medici. 
 
 "All women may be raised to the dignity of spiritual mother- 
 hood and educators of the human race." 
 
 "No man ever lived a right life who had not been chastened by 
 a woman's love, strengthened by her courage, and guided by her 
 direction." Ruskin. 
 
 HE advent of a new soul into this life 
 existence is heralded with very little 
 comment or care. Nor is the frail 
 stranger assured, always, that he is 
 welcome and will be cared for, pro- 
 tected, and instructed as to the best 
 method of meeting the demands likely 
 'to be made upon him by a sojourn in this life. 
 In truth, his interests commonly form a small 
 per cent of the agitations. But when he is 
 big and strong he will fight for his rights, tooth-and- 
 nail ; and he being ignorant of the true way of living, 
 will in turn leave his offspring to do as he did. Thus is 
 strife engendered, and while this lasts there will be but 
 little hope of rising above the high-water line of that 
 relic of barbarism war. Each one selfishly lives for
 
 6 Mother's Help and 
 
 himself, indeed this is not living, it is simply existing ; 
 for in selfishly living the sweets of life are lost, and in- 
 deed the very object of life. 
 
 jjn woman's hands are the materials for the creation 
 of great intellects, the molding of heads and hearts that 
 should elevate mankind. She is the most sacred creat- 
 ure of God's creation. To her He has 'intrusted the 
 greatest of responsibilities. Is she worthy of the trust ? 
 Let every mother ask herself this question, that her 
 labors be not in the wrong direction and age reward her 
 with a realization too late that her years are misspent^ 
 
 flvet the mother concentrate her thoughts upon the 
 fireside to make it the most attractive spot on earth to 
 those most near and dear to her.) It is not wise to wait 
 till after marriage, but begin while young, at the old 
 hearthstone, aided by loving parents and surrounded by 
 brothers who will, by her, be kept purer and better pro- 
 tected from the temptations incident to business and 
 social life. In this way she becomes a character in the 
 world and gradually fitted for the greater privilege of 
 presiding at her own little fireside. 
 
 (Home is the best school for discipline, and "family 
 life," says Samuel Smiles, L,L,.D.," is God's own method 
 of training the young. And homes are very much what 
 women make them, That St. Paul gave the palm to the 
 women who were stayers and workers at home, for he 
 recognized that home is the crystal of society, and that 
 domestic love and duty are the best security for all that 
 is most dear to us on earth." 
 
 (The hope of France, said the late Bishop of Orleans, 
 is in her mothers. And we will add, the hope of the 
 world. But how shall the mothers be made aware of 
 their importance ? Have they received home instruc-
 
 Child's Friend. 7 
 
 tions ? Do the libraries contain proper works on this all- 
 important subject ? Is it introduced as an essential study 
 in the higher departments at school ? Is it proclaimed 
 from the pulpit and by the press as becomes a subject of 
 such universal importance ? 
 
 . . If the pulpit and the press, and the rulers of the land 
 attach but little importance to the office a mother fills, 
 how can she grow in breadth of mind and strength of 
 character as becomes one who shall see to the proper de- 
 velopments of the coming man} 
 
 Again says Smiles : " But alas ! we are distracted by 
 the outcries of women who protest against their woman- 
 hood and wildly strain to throw off their most lovable 
 character." If the mother could have the esteem, the 
 cheering congratulations that inspire the political office- 
 holder of the land ; if she could be made to feel the im- 
 portance of her glorious work, she would not be at all 
 desirous to throw off womanhood ; but the contrary, and 
 homes would possess charms not now heard of. 
 
 Let a woman demand the same recognition of merit 
 for well discharged duties that man made customary 
 among men, and which has spurred him on and on, and 
 we shall see an improvement in the home conditions 
 which in a few years means an improvement in state 
 affairs. 
 
 fLet a woman see that her office is the most praise- 
 worthy and sacred ; inspire her with zeal and warmth, 
 with purity befitting that office, 'twill be to the interest 
 of the man, 'twill be to the interest of the nation. 
 
 Combined efforts the world has long recognized as its- 
 greatest power, be it exerted for good or for evil ; so could 
 combined effort, in harmony, establish motherhood on a 
 firm basis that would enable woman, with the co- opera-
 
 8 
 
 Mother's Help and 
 
 tion of man, to wipe out in a few generations the feeble- 
 ness of body, mind, and morals that has resulted from 
 the low estimate placed on the office of motherhood. 
 Then would the mother's sky clear and her star of hope 
 rise full in the heavens before herj
 
 Child's Friend. 
 
 IBbolbing 
 
 L,L, through Nature we see a gentle 
 flow from the simple into the com- 
 plex, both in structure and soul 
 element. This potency pervades 
 Nature that through it all may rise 
 from the low to the high. And yet 
 so strong is the desire of all organ- 
 ized creation to survive, that efforts for 
 improvement are often withdrawn to be 
 devoted to the struggle for life adjusting itself 
 to its environments. To improve is the organism's nat- 
 ural tendency ; but live, it must, some how, even at the 
 cost of progress. 
 
 That activity leads to development has been shown 
 us by Nature from the beginning. Activity develops 
 complexity and increases scope. And that the human 
 creation is Nature's present climax is by no means say- 
 ing that it is finished, not at all ; we still go on adding 
 consciousness, and if we will follow the voice of Nature's 
 God we may continue to evolve not only spiritual and 
 mental consciousness, but structural beauty as well. 
 
 Now while I feel friendly toward D. J. H. Ward, D. B., 
 Ph. D., and admire his investigations and general senti- 
 ment in Anthropology, yet I can not yield to a remark 
 he made to the effect that children are born savages and 
 if not civilized remain barbarians (which may account 
 for the uncivilized condition of at least a fourth of the
 
 io Mother's Help and 
 
 men). He did not say that it was an exception and due 
 to an arrest in prenatal evolution at one of the last stages. 
 I do well know that some people carry the animal stamp so 
 visibly as to leave no room for doubt that Nature worked 
 at so great a disadvantage that the inhuman, uncivilized 
 result is a reproach to those who arrested her ; this is 
 unnatural, and we hope, an exception. I know that 
 children at their very worst are not so barbaric as some 
 men who were amiable and wise in childhood. Then 
 too the experiments of Dr. Tanner and others go to 
 refute the savage theory, for it is found that to take even . 
 the very scum the ' ' castaways, ' ' and place them in 
 natural environments with cleanliness and proper food, 
 they will improve even without moral instruction. The 
 secret being that THEY SEE AND HEAR NO 
 EVIL. 
 
 I think that if Mr. Ward and his like thinkers will 
 throw off their green goggles they will lind that Nature, 
 if man will give her a chance, will evolve full fledged 
 civilized children. 
 
 Nevertheless if parents produce savages, it certainly 
 is a great misfortune to the children, and the parents 
 should lose no time in making reparation in the most 
 expedient manner. Professor Ward's expression may 
 show up man in his true character, but it does not be- 
 speak man well, nor seem commensurate with his civil- 
 ized attainments to be so deficient in this most important 
 function of his life. This is indeed a grave question ; 
 and one that merits more attention than it is receiving. 
 
 What shall we do with the question, ladies and gen- 
 tlemen, dismiss it, lay it on the table, or discuss it ? 
 
 It has been found that the organism has (ist) Infinite 
 complexity of structure ; 
 
 (2) Inherited tendencies ;
 
 Child* 's Friend. n 
 
 (3) Mobility and continuous motion, therefore capac- 
 ity to vary ; 
 
 (4) Variations are induced by the surroundings on 
 which as carriers of energy, life depends ; 
 
 (5) When the surroundings change, the organism 
 adapts itself or not to the change ; 
 
 (6) Such as fail to adapt themselves perish ; 
 
 (7) Such as do adapt themselves vary in greater or 
 lesser degree ; 
 
 (8) These variations, being transmitted, are stages in 
 the development of different life-forms. To put the 
 matter briefly, likenesses are inherited, variations ac- 
 quired. 
 
 In really, true man fashion, Newton tries to relieve 
 man of responsibility by placing it all upon woman, say- 
 ing that : Evidences point immistakably to the conclu- 
 sion that the indulgences of any evil desire or thought 
 on the part of the mother, during the period of gestation, 
 is likely to infuse, through the inevitable force of mental 
 or physical impressions, a subtle moral virus into the 
 very texture of the young life that is being so marvel- 
 ously wrought within. A virus which poisons to a greater 
 or less" extent the formations of its being, blunts its moral 
 sense and thus deadens its realization in after life of an 
 enormity of the vicious or criminal tendency which may 
 be so implanted. 
 
 Now, while I agree that every word of this is true, I 
 none the less hold man up to his moral obligation in the 
 case. His evil desire and thoughts, poison both mother 
 and child. And I find upon investigation that where 
 woman's evil desires are not actually produced by her 
 companion, they are not so deep rooted but that he can, 
 by a little kindly persuasion, help her to overcome them, 
 or ward them off entirely. Here must be co-operation.
 
 12 Mother's Help and 
 
 The unity of pure thought and action will result in har- 
 mony and perfection. 
 
 It is a common thing for very pious persons to say 
 that we are conceived in sin and born in iniquity, that it 
 is natural to be bad, and that we can only be good by be- 
 ing converted. Now would n't it be far better to depend 
 a little less on conversion for goodness and lay more stress 
 on the importance of being conceived and born of pure 
 desire and love ? It is high time that the matter-of-fact 
 way of alluding to this grave error be substituted by an 
 interest for the child of a more hopeful nature. That 
 this old expression is most frequently verified, is true 
 enough to appall us ; but we should protest against being 
 obliged to hear every day that it is natural to be mean or 
 bad or sinful , it is not natural ; it is abnormal for any 
 created living thing to be evil, most of all the human 
 being, whom Nature and her God created as a medium 
 through which the highest quality or entity of which we 
 know works out its object of life. Here we are embodied 
 that we may purify and progress, but we are constantly 
 defeating the object of life, and go into the next without 
 having made any progress. 
 
 When children die young, people say it was a wise 
 Providence that took them ! Now I can not see any con- 
 sistency in such talk, for if it were good to be removed 
 in infancy, then there would have been no maturity all 
 would have died young. I hold that it is greatly to our 
 spiritual disadvantage to fail to get the full-time expe- 
 rience for which this life was intended. 
 
 People are too fond of putting their own misdemean- 
 ors on God. When they fail to keep the precepts, fail to 
 have their children born of good blood and pure thought, 
 fail to have them come perfect, complete and remain so ; 
 then of these failures they are ashamed and blame God.
 
 Child's Friend. 13 
 
 These persons carry an air of responsibility, and even go 
 so far as to make improvements on God's plans ; but as 
 soon as these plans fail, the failure is at once pronounced 
 the "Hand of Providence." Often we hear one say, 
 " Well, I can't help how I look, I am as God made me." 
 This is false. Mankind is the highest type of creation, 
 and so like unto the Creator as to be in turn able to cre- 
 ate and aid Nature (but we hinder more than we aid). 
 God gave us the model, the type, the life, and the ele- 
 ments with which to create, all these are at our disposal ; 
 and we may select as we like. Many select as they would 
 for winter garments ; some there are who elect with re- 
 gard to taste and utility, while others select and attire 
 themselves in a manner that at once expresses gaudiness 
 loud, coarse taste, want of economy and general fitness 
 of things ; and some who choose for looks that which 
 proves flimsy and perishable. In like manner we find 
 those who clothe their children's souls and their own 
 not for lack of good and appropriate elements at their 
 command, bxit out of disregard for their own best interest 
 and that of our children. (We are creators builders 
 and it is in our power to clothe the God-given life force in 
 the manner, after the model given us and out of wholesome 
 elements, such alone as He intended should enter into 
 the building of the earthly bodyJ. 
 
 Anything grows by what it is fed on. If we wish 
 to grow immorality and ugliness, feed the body on 
 coarse foods, narcotics, intemperate drinks ; and the 
 mind with evil thoughts, coarse, vulgar literature, to- 
 gether with bad associations and you soon develop a 
 criminal even if it were not by inheritance in him. But 
 when all these are added to an inborn (inherited from 
 parents or marked) desire for sin, then we have a crimi- 
 nal of a dangerous type. While all this will produce a
 
 14 Mother's Help and 
 
 criminal, the same amount or less of effort rightly 
 directed, will develop morality I say with less effort be- 
 cause Nature is ready to serve us. 
 
 The allwise Creator has made laws that governor all 
 things, and EVERY THING IN ITS PLACE is GOOD, nothing 
 is bad. God never created any thing bad. It is only 
 when we misappropriate a thing or element that it results 
 in evil. It is the inharmonious relationship into which 
 we bring the good thing, that creates the undesirable 
 results ugliness or evil. 
 
 Any element, substance, thing, or thought we use or 
 place where it was never intended tc be, is out of place 
 and at discord. Any and all notes, or musical instru- 
 ment, are intended for harmony ; but how readily when 
 out of place united with others not in harmony with 
 them, and with which it was never intended they should 
 be combined, they lose their melody and give forth 
 instead, harsh discords from which we of sensitive refined 
 organisms instinctively shrink. So it is in all creation ; 
 no exception in the human. And the best way to be rid 
 of general ugliness is to acquire harmony. L,ay aside 
 some of the useless occupations to which we give our 
 time, and take up the study of our trinity. 
 
 If we were born out of harmony of inharmony we 
 must fight or plan the harder to overcome the discords 
 our parents bestowed on us, in addition to the work of 
 our own share, and which it was intended we should per- 
 form. Therefore parents can best fill their field of useful- 
 ness and show their love to the children by bringing the 
 God-given elements into a harmonious production of hu- 
 manity in the children; this will at the same time unbur- 
 den them a considerable, unfetter them for a greater attain- 
 ment of the spiritual qualities that combine in making the 
 next existence the veritable Heaven of which we dream.
 
 Child's Friend. 
 
 ittoral Education. 
 
 " Pestilence should be abolished by hygenic science and edu- 
 cation, poverty by industrial education and science, war and crime 
 by moral education." -Joseph Rhodes Buchanan. 
 
 HE Moral Education of the child must 
 be its first education and continue 
 throughout. This does not necessa- 
 rily mean religious education. As one 
 may be very religious and yet very 
 immoral, while another may not pro- 
 fess religion and still be exceedingly 
 moral. Of the two it is better to be the lat- 
 ter. But teach morality first and religion 
 will come easily later on. This education 
 will not debar you from attending to its physical develop- 
 ment, not at all, it will aid you ; for morality is the most 
 invigorating aroma with which to infuse the child's 
 everyday life, growth and amusement as well as its 
 education. 
 
 Falsehoods and misrepresentations on the part of the 
 mother are the greatest impediments in the way of the 
 child's success. This statement always surprises the 
 mother ; but upon reflection you will see I am not exag- 
 gerating. Even a seemingly model mother will begin 
 perhaps unknowingly to deceive the infant in the cra- 
 dle. And that is the time the seed is sown in the child 
 ready for growth and future development. The very
 
 1 6 Mother's Help and 
 
 common and frequent repetition of this evil game of 
 deception on the child, can naught else than develop in 
 it, skill in the same game. The parent and nurse, hav- 
 ing acquired this habit early in life, are scarcely conscious 
 of the extent to which they carry it. Not even are they 
 conscious of its origin when they see it reflected in the 
 child their mirror. And as George Eliot said There 
 is no killing the suspicion that deceit has once begotten. 
 
 Many times have mothers said to me, that it is natu- 
 ral for a child to lie. Even the black mammy in the 
 South says, " De chile always knows how to lie, but you 
 must teach it to tell de trufe. ' ' How did the child come 
 to know how to lie ? Watch, as closely as I have done, 
 the operations upon the infant, of every word and look 
 of the mother. 
 
 The Science of Man is a beautiful study and reveals 
 more fully God's wise laws and our misappropriation of 
 His generous provisions. 
 
 (l do not want a more interesting study than the child 
 furnishes me ; it is at once the teacher and the lesson. 
 And our very choicest efforts at training children, are 
 more than tenfold rewarded by the lessons they furnish 
 us if we do but look well into them. Try it dear friends, 
 and reap the joy that has been mine.^ You will no longer 
 say their badness is natural, any more than so far as the 
 habit established becomes a second nature its first nature 
 was good, and if the bad had not been implanted in it by 
 the parents, it would have remained good, which is truly 
 natural. 
 
 Win the child to obedience by love rather than by 
 promises falsely made and falsely kept. What fine trait 
 can a child develop when kept submissive under a cloud 
 of deceit, as is the case when it is kept in fear of the 
 ragman, the bugabooman, or the policeman ; or that it
 
 Child's Friend. 17 
 
 will be deprived of a delicacy which you will likely as 
 not forget to give it, or perhaps never intended to give it 
 even if it obeyed ? I say, what fine trait will this develop ? 
 Not an open, honest, truthful character, I am sure. No, 
 its trait of character will be without symmetry. It will 
 be scarred and jagged by the many false impressions we 
 have reflected upon it. Have we any right to do this ? 
 Here a mother says the child is her own and she can do 
 with it what she pleases ; while in reality children are 
 the property of God. He permits them to enter our care 
 that we through adopting them may have a tie of holy 
 nature to bind us into one common family so closely that 
 there need be no alienation from one another and our 
 Father and Oversoul. 
 
 The HOPE and JOY with which CHILDHOOD'S 
 CONFIDENCE, MIRTH, and LIFE-FORCE ANI- 
 MATE US and KEEP US ALIVE FOR TO-MORROW, 
 is too seldom appreciated by us. 
 
 Children are entitled to the kindest, most candid, and 
 truthful consideration of which we are capable and can 
 cultivate in their interests; 
 
 The mother fancies that it will be tiresome to her to 
 constantly keep herself reminded to be truthful with her 
 children. Well, supposing it is tiresome to her, the child 
 has at least the right to be honestly dealt with. Besides, 
 look a little in advance and see the inexpressible joy it 
 will be to the mother to be richly rewarded in later life 
 by the uprightness of that son or daughter as the result 
 of having been honestly dealt with in infancy and youth. 
 Misrepresentation and deceit are bad enough when dealt 
 out to adults ; but when we subject our children to such 
 treachery, the sin is unpardonable ! It is atrocious ! !
 
 1 8 Mother's Help and 
 
 ' ' Thou must be true thyself if thou the truth would 
 teach." 
 
 *,* 
 
 * 
 
 It shows great short-sightedness in women to spend 
 their time wailing because they can't occupy high polit- 
 ical positions ; while really they have an incomparably 
 greater sceptre in the pliable young heart and brain at 
 home in the cradle. Here none can gainsay woman's 
 supremacy. 
 
 Men have control with the present, but what need 
 she care for that old broken-down demoralized material, 
 as compared with the new unmolded vigor in the 
 mother's hands right where she may shape it ; reign 
 supreme while infusing into the new body, mind, and 
 soul the healthy moral sentiment she so longs to dispense 
 from the political chair to-day. She waits a little longer 
 to be sure and then speaks through another's lips that 
 is all lips that shall give her the glory and the blessing 
 for which she has so long and patiently waited. 
 
 Her voice, her sentiment shall accumulate force ready 
 for expression. How? I^et the mothers meet and put 
 their heads together plot and plan for the future, quietly, 
 but be sure to let your hearts into the secret, as the soul 
 must inspire you for the scheme before you. This proj- 
 ect if properly followed up will carry with it more joy to 
 the mother and everlasting good to the child than could 
 be gotten out of any amount of political offices of to- 
 day. Not that I object to political sanitation heaven 
 knows there is sore need of it. But my idea is to not 
 neglect the home. Look closely and guardedly to the 
 more valuable material Youth. These quiet meetings 
 I suggest as a means for study, discussion, and co-opera- 
 tion. Here we may pleasantly devise the best possible
 
 Child'' s Friend. 19 
 
 peaceful means of education leading up to the object to 
 be achieved. 
 
 As we do not intend our children to be a warlike 
 people, the military academy with its demoralizing in- 
 fluence is to be " scratched off ' ' our list of KNOWLEDGE 
 TO BE ACQUIRED ; as we do not intend they shall sport 
 a gladiatorial arena, the pugilistic exercises leading to 
 prize sports may be rubbed off the list ; as we shall be 
 too busy looking to the interest of our live new people, 
 the dead languages must go. See, we are getting on 
 nicely and shall have saved much valuable time and con- 
 served human energy to be applied to REAL CULTURE 
 for the ideal man that is to administer a faultless gov- 
 ernment. 
 
 Keep up these quiet meetings and knit yourselves 
 together in friendly ties, all with the one aim in view, that 
 of purifying and ennobling the human family the gen- 
 erations to come, in which your children are to live. Let 
 us do all in our power to make their environments not 
 only more bearable than ours were and are, but such as 
 shall lift them up into a higher moral, and physical, as 
 well as mental plane. 
 
 ' ' The material development of our country is im- 
 mensely in advance of its legislation and jurisprudence." 
 
 There are too many vampires feeding off others, they 
 adopt the game of take, but elbow themselves out of the 
 game of give. Take and give go well together. To 
 feed others and be fed ; this mutual helpfulness is good 
 for the mind, soul and body. For this reason it is better 
 to live out among the people than to dwell in isolation. 
 If we isolate ourselves we shall soon revert to barbarism. 
 The race has acquired its complexity and high organiza- 
 tion through sociability. And we see that even a greater 
 degree of fraternity must be established before we can
 
 20 Mother's Help and 
 
 hope to put away the cudgel, the gun and the hangman's 
 rope. 
 
 Brotherly love is not the outgrowth of isolated life ; 
 nor is the humane heart the fruit of an appetite that 
 seeks for food that which has in it blood ; nor is the 
 highest aspiration or tenderest emotion inspired by a 
 body built up of food procured by slaughter. The flesh 
 and blood of animals is like unto our own. Especially 
 does the slaughter of the domesticated animal come so 
 near home to us and accustom us so to carnage, that the 
 one step extends it to the human family and human car- 
 nage is the result. 
 
 Usage may make the destruction of life killing en- 
 durable even to the extent of a pleasure, as we know it 
 has to at least a third of mankind ; but that is as we 
 know of many other customs not making it right nor 
 unbarbaric. 
 
 How very many wrongs we suffer because man's 
 depraved desires or whims have made such wrongs cus- 
 tomary. And yet we know in this age full well that 
 man's tastes should no longer be so supreme as to make 
 Wrong really Right, although he holds on to the rights 
 he has established, like a tiger. 
 
 So dependent upon each other have we became, that 
 if we do but have a level head we can readily see that 
 war, or even enmity between our nation and one on the 
 opposite side of the globe may cause us not only serious 
 inconvenience, but distress. This dependence we have 
 acquired with our complexity of structure physical, 
 mental, and social, then we see, makes it well-nigh 
 imperative that we substitute for the sword the pen ; 
 and for bloodthirstiness and revenge brotherly love. 
 
 Sociability to the extent of universal brotherhood will
 
 Child's Friend. 21 
 
 preserve the good the race has acquired and help it on to 
 another gradation higher. 
 
 *** 
 
 Mr. Smart. Let me carry the dog, my dear, and you 
 carry the baby. 
 
 Mrs. Smart. No, No ! You carry the baby, I 
 could n't trust you with Zip, you might drop him. 
 
 This reminds me that I returned the call of a society 
 lady not long ago, who, I found, had a most beautiful 
 wicker dog-basket in her family room. She invited me to 
 look through her pretty new house. In her own spacious 
 and finely furnished front chamber she called my attention 
 to another basket even more luxurious than the one be- 
 low, in which Zolo slept at night. But I was anxious 
 to see the babe and its basket. She showed me through 
 other rooms first and then on into a back room finely 
 furnished, } r et having a distinct aroma from the kitchen 
 below and the windows overlooking the barns and alley, 
 from which issued words of profanity in no undertone. 
 That the infant is too young as yet to be disturbed by 
 such, is fortunate for it ; but shortly it will begin to con- 
 ceive in its mind, that its little world is not just as 
 harmonious as it should be. 
 
 And the wet nurse though she was neatly and well 
 dressed had a disagreeable face and bad breath, which 
 I readily detected while she was showing me the babe. 
 Now I hold that any one who persists in having bad 
 breath is unfit to have care of a child. For it shows the 
 presence of decayed teeth, catarrh, or a vile, unclean 
 stomach ; in any case it is INEXCUSABLE and she is unfit 
 to be with the child. 
 
 It is our duty to aid animals in their effort to evolve 
 higher type in structure and soul element. But I doubt 
 if the dog's conditions are really improved by his being
 
 22 Mother's Help and 
 
 domesticated to such an extent. At the same time we 
 know that the child's conditions would be greatly en- 
 hanced by the consistent exercise of a little more wisdom 
 regarding all that pertains to the immortal well-being of 
 our progeny. 
 
 Dr. R. T. Trail said that if it were not for woman 
 her sympathy and care man would soon revert to bar- 
 barism ; according to which this lady's dog may be no 
 small factor in dethroning her own child. 
 
 Human nature, as well as all other nature, is ever 
 moving, ever changing ; and if not in environs which 
 permit of progress, it must of necessity retrograde. 
 
 It should be very humiliating to us, to produce sons 
 and daughters inferior to ourselves ; for in so doing we 
 express no use of our life, whereas if we raise up men and 
 women superior to ourselves we have made at least one 
 good step on the ascending ladder. 
 
 To WISELY APPROPRIATE THE OPPORTUNITIES AS 
 THEY PRESENT THEMSELVES, is LIKE WEAVING A 
 STRAND OF PEARLS; BUT OPPORTUNITIES SOUGHT FOR 
 AND WISELY APPROPRIATED, ENRICH OUR LIVES AS OUR 
 OWN FINDING OF THE PEARLS ENHANCES THEIR VALUE 
 
 TO US. 
 
 The influence, for good, children have on older per- 
 sons, when rightly taught, or I might say when left alone 
 and not taught evil, is by no means trifling or to be 
 ignored. Their sweet, trusting natures and winsome 
 ways, search us, and if we are susceptible to their purify- 
 ing, their divine influence, we shall be better for their 
 presence. 
 
 A man who had long since forgotten the time when 
 he was a ' ' tender-foot ' ' in the thorny path of heedless 
 business life, went to pay an evening call upon friends, 
 and failing to find them in he volunteered to await their
 
 Child's Friend. 23 
 
 early return. Soon he heard a little voice in the adjoin- 
 ing room calling " Goodie, Goodie!" As Goodie (the 
 nursemaid) made no response, he stepped in and asked 
 what little Carrie wanted. " I want Goodie to hear me 
 pray so I can go to sleep." She was tucked cosily in 
 her crib ready for sleep. " I will hear you pray," said 
 the man ; then she proceeded, and in closing with, 
 ' ' God bless papa and mamma and everybody dear Lord 
 Amen. Everybody means you," said she, fearing he 
 would feel slighted. This done she, with a smile of satis- 
 faction, fell peacefully asleep. And he he fell to think- 
 ing as he never thought before. Way deep down into 
 his soul went that little child's prayer, where no strong 
 man's prayer had ever penetrated. Her very innocent, 
 simple, trusting, unselfish child-way found his soul the 
 divine spark in him that had lain waiting for just such a 
 sunbeam to kindle it into light and activity. In her 
 tender frailty was her power. 
 
 So much for said teaching. So much for not having 
 had the child tucked way off in a back room. The 
 nurse's neglect, and the absence of the little one's parents 
 were overruled for good to the man. He related the fore- 
 going experience, which was only one of many instances 
 of this same child's effective missionary work. Mothers, 
 think you not that it was worth while to keep her little 
 mind pure ? Was it not a wise arrangement to have a 
 curtained crib in the sitting-room or convenient to it ? I 
 am sure a pretty crib is infinitely more beautiful, poet- 
 ical, and humane, than a draped spinning-wheel or stuffed 
 peacock, or even the dog-basket. 
 
 CHILDREN ARE THE BEST MISSIONARIES 
 WE- HAVE ; LET US KEEP THEM CLOSE TO US. 
 
 The moral education of the child should be inculcated 
 in full proportion to the growth and expansion of the
 
 24 Mother's Help and 
 
 mind. In this way there will be no danger that the ani- 
 mal nature or lower faculties will gain ascendency over 
 his better faculties. 
 
 Rouse the moral conscience to full activity ; not only 
 will this dominate over and hold in abeyance the phys- 
 ical nature, but it will actually enlarge the mind. For 
 as Rev. G. C. Lorimer, D. D., wisely said, "Godliness 
 expands the intellect and enables us to live for two 
 worlds." And on this high ground woman claims the 
 right corresponding to her responsibility as a race builder, 
 to control her person and the functions of maternity. 
 Without this divine right social purity is a myth, says 
 Mrs. Lucinda B. Chandler, and social purity depends 
 more upon the moral status of marriage than upon any 
 one other fact or condition. 
 
 That woman's work in the home has been held of no 
 commercial value, and has secured no financial independ- 
 ence to the wife, has lowered the self-respect of woman 
 and degraded marriage. 
 
 If there is any office on earth that deserves recognition 
 it is that of motherhood, and should be endowed with 
 commercial independence. This would relieve her of 
 the anxiety that is of such great hinderance to her in 
 the discharge of her moral work in the home in the 
 nation. 
 
 TEACH THE CHILD THE SACREDNESS OF 
 THE BODY. The lack of this teaching is the most 
 common source of immorality. The reason of this neg- 
 lect is probably because the marriage ceremony has 
 erroneously licensed sexual immorality. It would nat- 
 urally seem that immorality in this direction should be 
 even less tolerated in marriage than out of it, for the 
 sake of the welfare of our coming generations. All the 
 virtue and vitality of the two married should be directed
 
 Child's Friend. 25 
 
 to the upbuilding of the race not its degeneracy since 
 they by marriage have joined the " race builders." 
 
 The body is the temple of the soul ; but do we treat 
 it as such ? How many teach children that the body is 
 built for the indwelling of the soul, and must by virtue 
 thereof, be kept well, clean, and sacred ? 
 
 The fact that we are, so to speak, lost in the mighty 
 crowd that now populates the globe, is no reason why 
 we should lose our desire for true morality. How will 
 our grandchildren fare ? Our responsibility comes right 
 home to us as individuals, and we must answer for the 
 moral degeneracy with which we afflict the coming gen- 
 eration. The moral conditions are just what we make 
 them. And it is useless to sit idly by croaking at the 
 wrong flow of the moral tide and do nothing to turn it 
 into proper channels. 
 
 We know from experience that it is useless to attack 
 those now in office, and the generation grown unwieldly 
 in self-love I can not say self-interest, because it is 
 hardly that. But WHILE WE HAVE CHILDHOOD 
 WITH US WE HAVE HOPE AND POSSIBILITY. 
 
 The hope for the next generation and possibility for 
 the following one, through the instrumentality of child- 
 hood rightly utilized, are incalculable. Let us then 
 direct our thoughts to that end, rather than self-love, 
 which some mistake for individualism. As love is the 
 creative energy of the universe, so let us make our crea- 
 tive energy of love. Love enriches us, it rejuvenates us. 
 Love inspires us and urges us on to heroic, unselfish 
 deeds. 
 
 After teaching the child cleanliness, health, and the 
 sacredness of the body, we may go on to show how to 
 develop the moral sections of the body in order to bring 
 them in advance of the seats of the common appetites.
 
 26 Mother's Help and 
 
 Let us bear in mind that the chest is the seat of honor, 
 and the heart region is the birthplace of love and all 
 tender emotions. If kept constantly reminded of this, 
 the chest will get its due amount of vitality and will 
 serve as a pilot to lead all aright. Then let us not for- 
 get to teach it also that the most difficult thing thereafter 
 is "to keep the height the soul has reached." 
 
 When we put on our thinking-cap and exercise our 
 reasoning faculty, many of the everyday affairs which 
 usually seem all right are shown up in their true light. 
 If we could here introduce an instantaneous photograph- 
 ing camera, our fashionable ideas would be revealed so 
 ludicrous as to make good comic valentines. For exam- 
 ple I will refer only to our ignorance regarding our own 
 body: how a man or woman will, after tenanting this 
 body many, many years, consult a physician, who may 
 be only half their age, as to what ails them, how they 
 came so, and what the remedy. 
 
 It is actually funny how we came to know so much 
 about matters way off. How tall all the mountains are ; 
 how many wars there were, and who slew the most men ; 
 know-how to analyze flowers, and yet can not analyze 
 ourselves. 
 
 That we should be so unpardonably ignorant about 
 ourselves as to have to ask some one else what we may 
 eat. Have we lived so long in this body and yet been so 
 stupid as not to learn what food is good for us, and what 
 our habits should be, better than our neighbor or, may be, 
 a doctor who never saw us before ? 
 
 One of the first things we should know is all about 
 ourselves, the laws that govern the body, mind, and 
 soul. It is every child's birthright to be born sound 
 To be taught how to keep well. To understand himself 
 or herself, and the relation the body bears to the mind
 
 Child's Friend. 27 
 
 and soul ; and the laws which govern the whole. Any 
 failure of ours to impart this knowledge to the young 
 boys and girls should be pronounced a crime by the peo- 
 ple as it is by the God of Nature. 
 
 *** 
 
 Do not give vent to your temper in any uncharitable 
 conduct toward a child intrusted to your care ; it is cow- 
 ardly and sinful. If you must in a fit of temper attack 
 some one do let it be one as strong as yourself, and not a 
 child. 
 
 What is more base, when you stop to reflect, than 
 unkindness to a child ? Also teach a child as it grows 
 that it is debasing and cowardly to attack and in any 
 way ill-treat a creature not able to defend itself. 
 
 It will never develop any very high standard of 
 morality if allowed to see, as a whole school-room of 
 children did see, a teacher throw a kitten into a red hot 
 fire and shut the stove door. This teacher may have 
 been educating the children, but not morally. 
 
 *** 
 
 GENTLENESS in WOMAN has as potent an in- 
 fluence and power as has man's strength, yea greater, 
 for who that had a gentle mother does not remember 
 most distinctly the advice given by her in a serene, lov- 
 ing voice ? It makes a far deeper impression for good 
 than highly pitched, sharp words. Her gentle touch 
 and words seem to reach so far that we feel their rhythmic 
 vibrations many years after she has gone to serve us in 
 another and even holier way.
 
 28 
 
 Mother's Help and 
 
 lEtrucattott. 
 
 EADING aloud to children is such 
 an important part of their educa- 
 tion, that by a proper selection of 
 literature, a tremendous amount of 
 moral work may be done that is 
 at once a pleasant pastime and 
 mental expansion. Care must be 
 exercised in the selection of such 
 as has an attractive, bright moral 
 tone, and is as far advanced as it is 
 possible for the child to understand 
 without tiring its brain, and not too long at a stretch, 
 will give a healthy, steady brain development that will 
 abide by the child for good in long after years and at the 
 time being fill up his time pleasantly and make him feel 
 that he is of some account. A word of caution, how- 
 ever, is in place here. Literature that is trashy begets 
 in the child a taste for such, and that which is too simple, 
 such as requires no effort on the part of the child to busy 
 itself in keeping the thread of is of no value as mental 
 gymnastics and should be avoided. 
 
 But reading quietly, deliberately, is a wonderful agency 
 through which to administer strength ; and gain entrance 
 to, and unfoldment of, the child mind. 
 
 Yes, reading to the children, and as they grow older 
 having them in turn read to each other, is a happy
 
 Child's Friend. 29 
 
 method of peace-keeping, that with a judicious selection 
 of matter, stories, travels or history, is fruitful of much 
 good. This will gradually establish in them a liking 
 for knowledge ; but select with care, instructive, inter- 
 esting, moral literature else they may get, when older,. a 
 taste for sensational and even immoral reading that often 
 absorbs them into a gluttony for such that is as a leech, 
 draining them of their moral vitality. 
 
 Literature like most things that were instituted for 
 the good of humanity, when in the hands of the unscru- 
 pulous, whose lower faculties are abnormally developed, 
 and who cater to the tastes of those of like degenerate 
 character, becomes at once a moral viper whose entranc- 
 ing voice leads you on and on until it has poisoned and 
 benumbed your moral sensibilities. 
 
 And as the old-fashioned folks said, Satan helps you 
 on till you are well into the meshes, then he leaves you 
 to extricate yourself he gets you in, but never helps 
 you out. So take warning young folks and read only 
 such books as improve you. 
 
 After selecting for moral and mental expansion, you 
 want to choose with a view to the unfoldment of the 
 voice. Having built up moral beauty within, train the 
 vocal organs to give expression to it. Enter into the 
 sentiment of what you read aloud, or rather, I might say, 
 saturate yourself with the sentiment ; and before you 
 infuse yourself with another one's sentiment, you had 
 best relax the entire body, that is, withdraw the nervous 
 and muscular energy from your body, drop yourself back 
 into a chair, limp. Then when your own energy is 
 withdrawn you will find it comparatively easy to rein- 
 vigorate the body with the sentiment of the character 
 you wish to assume. 
 
 By learning to read well : with good expression
 
 30 Mother's Help and 
 
 one may become a fascinating conversationalist, and 
 good speaker. To be a good talker is a fine accom- 
 plishment ; but it is equally desirable to be a good list- 
 ener. It is not everybody that has or can acquire this 
 gift. Gladstone and a few of our great men and women 
 have both these accomplishments, and it would be an 
 excellent plan for some of us to follow their example in 
 alternating our chattering with spells of listening to 
 others. 
 
 *** 
 
 The more we study into the material organism of the 
 human being and its spiritual nature, the more do we 
 find that it ought to be considered a positive disgrace to 
 be sick. For in this enlightened age with the facilities 
 we have for easily acquiring familiarity with Physiology 
 and Hygiene and of knowing our relation to Nature and 
 her God, we are enabled to see that certain combinations 
 of elements and circumstances will produce forces that 
 find no affinity in our organism and so soon as they are 
 subjected to each other will they wage war. And this self- 
 imposed inharmony sickness many persons have the 
 inconsistency, the "gall " to attribute to Providence. 
 
 And yet we brag of our school system ; what does it 
 teach ? A lot of word by rote ; parrot work that unfits 
 a child's mind for understanding himself and his sur- 
 roundings. Not until recently has any movement been 
 afoot to have the child unfold himself, evolve in his mind 
 a searching for the laws and phenomena of Nature. The 
 Kindergarten is indeed the vista which, though not 
 opened to us till the eleventh hour, may yet prove to be 
 the salvation of the children from the abyss into which 
 the regular system would have led them. 
 
 The Kindergarten leads the child intelligently on up 
 to where the "Science of Man " might be linked to it by
 
 Child's Friend. 31 
 
 primary physiology, thus forming a chain for normal 
 unfoldment, that would be a positive pleasure to the 
 child now and a health preserver in later years. This 
 knowledge of paramount value acquired then thoroughly 
 knowing himself or herself the child may reach outside 
 and learn his relations to outside objects, and how best 
 to promote their interests and his own. 
 
 One of the pernicious school studies is the War His- 
 tory. This can not be too severely condemned. This 
 history of war excites in the child an abnormal spirit of 
 emulation that is at variance with nature and morality 
 and is like a fruit-worm ; it goes right to the core, there 
 to carry on the process of eating out the moral vitality 
 that is in the child. 
 
 This study is unhealthful in proportion to the un- 
 healthiness of soldiery itself; which is undermining the 
 health of the earth's populace. 
 
 " Statistics show that the mortality of the soldiers in 
 the home army, though picked men, is almost double 
 that of civilians." Chambers Cyclopedia. 
 
 " Take away the sword; States can be saved without 
 it bring me the pen." Bulwer.
 
 Mother's Help and 
 
 ARENTAL AUTHORITY should 
 be regarded as vicegerent authority 
 set up by God and ruling in His 
 stead. A parent is to the child 
 what God is to a good man or wom- 
 an. He is the moral governor of 
 its world of childhood. Parental 
 government is therefore only genuine when 
 it rules for the same ends as God pursues. 
 But how seldom is this ideal even in a small 
 way realized. We rule as parents in a careless 
 irresponsible way, making laws, not for the child's 
 highest and most lasting good, but for our own selfish 
 convenience or for the gratification of vanity. 
 
 When I see people wield a barbaric authority over 
 their children, or accuse them of having evil traits inher- 
 ited from the other side of the family, I whisper to my- 
 self, 'Tis well if the child does not possess your traits. 
 It was Nature's design to have the child good, and it 
 would be, if the parents would allow it to be born right. 
 But it is only in rare instances that Nature's designs are 
 not thwarted. Children do accomplish wonders when 
 we stop to consider the antagonizing forces that combine 
 daily against their efforts. 
 
 Go out into the garden and carefully raise a stick, or 
 chip, and see the effort some little plant is making to rid 
 itself of the burden and grow up straight and symmet- 
 rical ; but is unable to do so, and must of a necessity
 
 Child' 1 s Friend. 33 
 
 grow up crooked, and you can get a faint idea of the 
 effort of nature in childhood. 
 
 The most common-minded of us would scarce expect 
 nature to give us a fine flower garden if we persisted in 
 dumping rubbish on it. And yet in the case of our off- 
 spring we dump rubbish and then growl at the results. 
 
 *** 
 
 While I think we should have a fair amount of vener- 
 ation for the aged, I positively do not approve of neg- 
 lecting the children in favor of the old folks. And I do 
 also believe an old person is often the cause of a grand- 
 son ending in prison or on the gallows. It is a much 
 too common thing to hear a weary, annoyed mother say, 
 "Children go out and play, grandma is nervous and 
 does not like your noise. ' ' And the result is that they are 
 in the street. Now pastures green are good for children; 
 but in crowded cities, especially is the street a poisonous 
 educator of the young character. While the grand- 
 parents have had their day of pleasure and usefulness. 
 And I should say, "Grandma, go to your room, my duty 
 is to my children." I have seen so much of the petting 
 and encouraging of cranky old people's whims, to the 
 detriment of the pliable 3*oung character which is mean- 
 time being molded by the street gamin, ready for use. 
 And of what use will that character be ? 
 
 All who have opportunity and inclination to use an 
 influence for good among the young, will find themselves 
 engaged in a labor of love that will pay ten per cent on 
 the investment with greater certainty than any other 
 operation we can enter into. 
 
 The influence for good with the young, will be sur* 
 prisingly gratifying. I, in my limited experience, feel 
 that I have been repaid tenfold in pleasure to myself; 
 which should be a small consideration as compared with
 
 34 Mother's Help and 
 
 the benefit I have rendered the young ; and this in many 
 instances where I was not hopeful and was scarcely con- 
 scious of doing good. 
 
 I never struck a child, and yet I have no difficulty in 
 winning its obedience, respect and love. 
 
 Furthermore I do not believe children are bad and 
 must be made good, but the reverse. They with favor- 
 able prenatal conditions are good. Yet alas ! the prena- 
 tal conditions are liable to be inharmonious or the 
 surroundings demoralizing, the bad being foreign to Nat- 
 ure's organism of the infantile brain, shocks or startles 
 it, and through the eye, ear, and other channels, becomes 
 impressed or registered upon the memory, and thereby 
 works out its evil effects. 
 
 In a similar way too are our thoughts, though silent, 
 potent factors for evil or for good. 
 
 If many of us grown persons who happen to be sen- 
 sitive can feel people's evil and good thoughts toward us, 
 much more must those little sensitive beings be affected 
 by our feelings toward them. 
 
 *** 
 
 Our first duty, then, we see is to perfect ourselves, 
 even to outrooting of the mighty, telling imperfections 
 our ancestors bequeathed to us. For where do we show 
 any reproducing superiority over the lower animals or 
 even the vegetable kingdom, if we beget and multiply 
 from defective seed? Are we excusable for setting at 
 naught the perfecting means Nature and her God placed 
 at our disposal? Certainly not. The advancement we 
 have made in all the sciences save perhaps the science 
 of man shows that mankind is well informed, and capa- 
 ble of an infinitely greater perfecting progress than he 
 has yet seen fit to bestow upon what is commonly said to 
 be God's greatest creation. Few, if any, dispute that
 
 Child 1 s Friend. 35 
 
 the human race is the Creator's most superior work ; yet 
 how many are there when you pin the question right 
 down who treat the human creature as such. 
 
 How is it that the most ordinary persons recognize 
 merit in anything of superior creation, and yet have no 
 respect for the human creation ; nor care to cultivate a 
 respect, by an analysis of its complex and beautiful con- 
 struction, and the laws that govern it which govern its 
 creation, development, and reproduction. Is there one 
 single reason why ignorance respecting our own physical, 
 mental, and spiritual entity should be tolerated in this 
 enlightened age? 
 
 After we have become acquainted with ourselves, and 
 gotten cultured, so that the lower faculties do not domi- 
 nate over the higher, finer faculties ; then may we seek 
 to perpetuate what we have acquired and register the 
 progress we have made, by reproducing our kind. 
 
 Nor yet is our responsibility at an end, for the tend- 
 ency to inherit from ancestors, may bud forth in the 
 child undesirable qualities that must be nipped in the 
 bud. 
 
 The child's closest environment, the mother, having 
 acquired a high gradation of excellence will make it 
 comparatively easy for the child to ascend one step 
 higher, having been born under such favorable circum- 
 stances. In this way we see we become benefactors to 
 our race, by putting in operation the true moral nature, 
 that it may make progress commensurate with the other 
 achievements.
 
 Mother's Help and 
 
 HE ART OF LIVING deserves a place 
 among the fine arts, like literature, says 
 Samuel Smiles; it may be reckoned 
 with the humanities. It is the art of 
 turning the means at one's command 
 to the best accounts ; of making the 
 best of everything. It is the art of 
 extracting from life its highest enjoyments, 
 and through it of reaching its highest results. 
 It can be fostered by parents and teachers 
 and perfected by self-culture. 
 
 In affairs of life it is not Intellect that tells so much 
 as heart ; not Genius so much as self-control, patience 
 and discipline regulated by judgment. 
 
 A life well spent is worth any number of speeches, 
 for example is a language far more eloquent than words. 
 It is instruction in action. Wisdom at work.
 
 Child's Friend. 
 
 37 
 
 Internal or f&ental faculties. 
 
 HOSE included under the head of in- 
 clination, observation, and thought, 
 constituting the basis of the moral, 
 religious and intellectual character. 
 The structure of the infant brain, thus 
 extremely delicate, it is very easily 
 disordered, and even permanently in- 
 jured. And injuries sustained to it, like 
 the eye or ear, impair the efficiency of its 
 functions to the end of life may even induce idiocy 
 or imbecility. 
 
 Even at the early age of six weeks, when the infant 
 is still a stranger to the world, and perceives external 
 objects so instinctively as to make no effort to obtain or 
 avoid them, he is nevertheless accessible to influence of 
 human expression. 
 
 Although no material object possesses any attraction 
 for him, sympathy or the action of a feeling in his mind 
 corresponding to the expression of the same feeling in 
 the mind of another is already at work. A smile or ca- 
 ressing accent raises a smile on his lips, pleasing emo- 
 tions already animate this little being, and we, recogniz- 
 ing their expression, are delighted in our turn. Who, 
 then, has told the infant that a certain expression of the 
 features indicate tenderness for him. . . . The per-
 
 38 Mother's Help and 
 
 son near his cradle may be a stranger ; no matter, she has 
 smiled affectionately on him, he feels that he is loved 
 and he loves in turn.* 
 
 *** 
 
 It is readily seen, then, that the time to begin to edu- 
 cate a child is many years before its birth, by educating 
 the parents. 
 
 And in this connection we find that the finer and 
 more complex an organism is, the more forethought and 
 care must be exercised in the maintenance of the com- 
 plexity it has acquired, and also to preserve the species, 
 which by virtue of its fine organism, and aims, is entitled 
 to our best consideration and care. 
 
 *** 
 
 How to ascertain the line of thought to which the 
 child is best adapted is a question that has often been 
 asked me by anxious parents. In answering this ques- 
 tion I first ask them one, viz.: What were your strongest 
 lines of thought during the year before his advent? 
 This same will be inherent in him ; yet it is not saying 
 that it will be to his fancy as he grows up ; nor that with 
 his particular station in life, or his physical conditions 
 that it will be easy for him to adapt himself to it. It 
 seems to me much the best to have a child come with a 
 uniform or normal development, then as he grows he may 
 choose from such professions, arts, or trades as present 
 themselves in his environments. Whereas if he were 
 born with an abnormal development, that is, with a tal- 
 ent for one thing so in excess of all others as to be a 
 passion, and his condition or his parents' are such as 
 make it difficult, if indeed not impossible, to gratify him 
 
 *l'Education Progressive, au Etude de Cours de la Vie. 
 Par Mme. de Saussure, Vol. I.
 
 Child's Friend. 
 
 39 
 
 in the realization of his inborn desire. We see what 
 "an elephant it is on their hands." 
 
 " A good tree will not bring forth evil fruit, neither 
 can a corrupt tree bring forth good fruit. ' ' 
 
 By this we see that our appearance and professed 
 goodness represent no value. That our deeds and the 
 character of our children speak the truth, and are the 
 fruits of our real self; our own true character revealed. 
 "Cultivate all things in moderation, but one thing 
 in perfection. ' '
 
 Mother's Help and 
 
 Senses. 
 
 ENSIBIUTY to light, touch, tem- 
 perature, taste and smell, is pres- 
 ent on the first day of infant life. 
 How careful we should be to pro- 
 tect these from injury. Hearing 
 usually develops the third or fourth 
 day, though often present the first 
 day. General organic sensations 
 of well-being or discomfort the 
 infant feels from the first ; but we 
 have no evidence that pain and pleasure, as 
 mental states, are evolved until the second 
 month. 
 
 A study of child mind shows that the child's obser- 
 vation develops ideas, and that reasoning is actively at 
 work long before it makes any attempt at an expression 
 of such in words. And I do not agree with some able 
 writers when they say that the child's speech is developed 
 according to its intellectual powers, not at all. I know 
 full well that some children have a very glib tongue for 
 speech, with no comparison of the advanced intellectual 
 powers quietly displayed in its untalking playmate. The 
 presence of speech is no more a sign of wisdom in a child 
 than it is in an adult, and we know that the busy talkers 
 are by no means our greatest people, as regards intellec- 
 tual and moral development. The parrot is no wiser 
 than other animals who talk not.
 
 Child's Friend. 41 
 
 " The excitement of perpetual speech-making is fatal 
 to the exercise of the higher faculties." 
 
 We see a child of three laughing at the clumsy utter- 
 ances of a five-year-old, yet this is no criterion by which 
 to measure their wisdom or intellectual acquisitions ; not 
 at all. Recently a pair of twins refused to learn the lan- 
 guage of the parents, but invented a language of their 
 own, through which they intelligently communicated 
 with each other, thereby displaying inborn independence, 
 of a nature not to be ignored. Also in Canada there was 
 a child who persistently refused to adopt its parents' lan- 
 guage ; and at five years of age was found to have a lan- 
 guage of its own, which it taught to its baby brother ; 
 and scientific men investigated the case and found the 
 children communicating intelligently with each other in 
 a language of their own. 
 
 Now these little brains must have been wonderfully 
 active, while the senses of the speechless little ones were 
 actually engineering great schemes. Here we have over- 
 whelming evidence against the theory that intelligence 
 is measured by the presence of speech. And I may add 
 the case of a child in my family who at two years of age 
 incurred the wrath of the grandmother by breaking the 
 family record in refusing to talk. And in real French 
 fashion shrugged her little shoulders to intensify the dis- 
 gust and determination which her face depictejj ; and 
 notwithstanding the speechless daily evidences of the 
 growth of the child's senses, the grandmother still (like 
 many others) thought her stupid. But in one year the 
 grandparent had to take refuge elsewhere in order to rest 
 from the incessant and unanswerable questions of this 
 child when a three-year-old. She apparently planned 
 for a year to sweep down upon the old lady with an ava- 
 lanche of dumfounding questions
 
 A 2 Mother's Help and 
 
 The mind of the child is active, and its mental exer- 
 cise must be of a clean, wholesome nature. The child's 
 mind is like a rich man the more he gets the more he 
 wants ; or like a hungry goat, will eat everything that 
 can be found. __ Let us see that that mental food be such 
 as shall nourish for a being superior to ourselves. 
 
 We frequently see families of distinction, of high and 
 noble attainments, dwindle down and die out, ambi- 
 tionless. And having exhausted the last remnant of the 
 noble acquisitions that characterized them, have to make 
 recourse to vain and doubtful words, as their only remain- 
 ing means of showing what was once theirs. All else hav- 
 ing decayed and crumbled away. Let us look into the 
 cause of this : Great credit is due the one who took the 
 first step in the ladder of ascent, and whose superior ambi- 
 tion enabled him or her to generate force, with which 
 to maintain what he had acquired and add thereto. But 
 the greatest height is reached when his offspring show 
 proof that he has transmitted to them all he had acquired, 
 and added thereto by a judicious course of child culture. 
 For while HEREDITY is undeniably of paramount im- 
 portance, CULTURE is a factor whose power none can 
 dispute. 
 
 Having done this much for the children, is an expo- 
 sition of his unselfishness, of his desire for their improve- 
 ment, of his Godlikeness ; and hence entitles him to a 
 high place on the scale of Justice, of Beneficence. Now 
 then, the merit of the generations that follow will depend 
 upon the use to which they apply this rich legacy. If 
 they misappropriate it, or become lax, and listlessly rest 
 on the fame of their forefathers, then retrogression is the 
 inevitable result. 
 
 If they come to feel that all the fame necessary has 
 been acquired, their attention and activity will be
 
 Child' 1 s Friend. 43 
 
 directed into other and less desirable channels, where, 
 rapidly or slowly, as the case may be, will be wrecked 
 the good inheritance which, easily gotten, was unappre- 
 ciated and not deemed worthy a safe anchorage. Thus 
 crumbles, through neglect, immorality and disease, the 
 ladder erected for their ascent. 
 
 Men and women who are not interested in promoting 
 the welfare of the human family are an abomination, 
 and unfit to help populate the earth. Selfishness and all 
 sensuousness, will not only cause the downfall of good 
 families; but will also, wherever present, prevent the at- 
 tainment of character, morality, and physical perfection. 
 
 We know full well that each point lost that each 
 misstep lessens our chances of winning the race ; so is 
 our moral progress in earth life retarded. Whereas if 
 we do but gain mastery over ourselves, once or twice, 
 each succeeding conquest will be won with less difficulty; 
 until we find we have acquired absolute self-government; 
 through which we shall be enabled to gain and hold fast 
 that which is good.
 
 Mother's Help and 
 
 EVELOP in the child the OBSERV- 
 ING faculties at an early age, while 
 it is yet in your arms, that it may 
 secure a correct comprehension of 
 facts. Then if the reasoning facul- 
 ties are developed in proportion we 
 shall see that facts brought to the 
 notice of the child will readily become regis- 
 tered on the memory, subject to recall at its 
 will, even in long after years. And the clearer the 
 first impression we get of a fact, the longer and 
 more accurately is it remembered. So we see how essen- 
 tial it is to get a vivid first impression. 
 
 This always reminds me of two diaries, one kept in 
 a neat pen-and-ink hand, always remaining as reliable 
 reference. While the other, kept with pencil, is blurred 
 and uncertain at its best, and always short-lived like the 
 memory of the person whose faculties of observing and 
 reasoning have been neglected. 
 
 You can't recall to mind a fact that never was a fact 
 to your mind z. e. , that never entered your realm of ob- 
 servation, or that entered so weak and obscure as to be 
 
 *r 
 
 brushed away crowded out by following events. 
 
 It is well known by experience that, in certain 
 conditions of weakness; or when having taken medicine 
 to induce sleep, and where it fails to have the desired 
 effect and only drives all the life and activity to the head ;
 
 Child's Friend. 45 
 
 we know that at such a time a person has brought vividly 
 to mind happenings of one's infancy when he was yet in 
 the arms of the mother or nurse. This is proof that the 
 vivid impressions of one's infancy are lasting ; and the 
 conduct of those in whose society the child lives should 
 be guarded as by the smiling, but ever present God. 
 Any sort of conduct may do for those who are full grown; 
 not so however with the young. One expression of yours 
 may decide his entire future, for weal or for woe. His 
 welfare is your interest, the world's interest, God's 
 interest.
 
 46 Mother' s Help and 
 
 Ofljtttrren ur deflectors. 
 
 HILDREN have more need of 
 models than of critics." They 
 are remarkable imitators. They 
 mimic us in words, acts, and airs ; 
 which frequently proves unfortu- 
 nate, though it need not, for we 
 can as it was intended by nat- 
 ure utilize this very "aping" 
 to the good of the children, by setting them the 
 pattern we wish them to follow. 
 
 Let our words and acts be such as shall reflect upon 
 them credit to us. Such as shall develop in their growth 
 a decided improvement on ourselves. 
 
 As the child grows to an understanding age it should 
 be taught self-control. The child's everyday life is full 
 of opportunities for this training. A child can come to 
 enjoy saving its candy till it finds some one to share it 
 with ; to allow another child to undress its new doll for 
 the first time. A little fellow may learn that it is not 
 unmanly to let his playfellow have the first ride on his 
 velocipede. He may also, so learn to control himself as 
 to be able to pass a knick-knack store, without spending 
 the pennies in his little purse. In these and many other 
 ways, the little ones may learn that self-control which 
 they fail to get from our example. 
 
 A wavering, uncertain, yielding disposition opens up
 
 Child's Friend. 47 
 
 the way for every temptation. And this is why I say 
 the old way of "conquering" a child is a pernicious 
 practice and should be stopped at once, for it takes the 
 courage, the stamina, the grit out of a child and unfits him 
 for the duties of life. Worse yet, he is led hither and 
 yon, by every passing breeze, into vice, sowing his ' ' wild 
 oats." And of such sowing it can scarce be expected 
 that he and his mother will reap anything but shame 
 and regret. 
 
 People may say what they will in favor of wild oats, 
 I never could see any benefit therefrom. For to pass 
 through disgraceful experiences does contaminate one 
 with its loathsomeness, and debase him. Every thought 
 and act is registered on the memory subject to recall ; 
 nor is this recall limited to himself, for we find his record 
 handed up to his children unto the third and fourth 
 generation. 
 
 There is no reformed case but that would have been 
 nobler, higher, purer, and in every respect more in ac- 
 cordance with reason and nature, to have ignored wild 
 oats and followed the All-wise Ruler's dictates and kept 
 clean in conduct, body, and soul from first to last. 
 
 Children are by nature imitative ; it is therefore neces- 
 sary that the conduct and speech of their parents or 
 guardians be pure and of wholesome influence, which is 
 too often forgotten in older persons, thinking children do 
 not notice. They do notice, though slyly, and what they 
 now hear and see is often so impressed upon their mem- 
 ories as never to be obliterated.
 
 48 
 
 Mother's Help and 
 
 antr Uisual. 
 
 I FFERENT dispositions have different 
 avenues of approach, but all have an 
 approach by which they may be 
 reached, and if fallen, reclaimed. It 
 has been wisely said, there is no 
 total depravity. The spirit never 
 embodied the human form without bringing 
 with it a speck of humanity susceptible of im- 
 pressionsympathetic as well as mental and 
 physical. 
 
 As the eye is the direct door to the brain or mind, 
 so the ear is the door to the emotional, sympathetic nat- 
 ure. And even a prison convict is never so degraded 
 but that he may be reclaimed if not through the eye 
 with books through the ear by sound of a sympathetic 
 voice, or touching, pathetic music. 
 
 One hundred good books will not effect the reform 
 through the eye that can be effected in one hour by sym- 
 pathetic appeal, conveyed in voice, sound or music 
 through the ear to the emotional nature, through which 
 it reaches the soul for assimilation. This statement holds 
 good throughout all highly organized life, but can be 
 most beautifully and effectually applied to children in 
 the home. And yet here the sounds that reverberate 
 from the child's own untrained voice or I should say 
 spoiled voice (for the child's voice in spite of heredity and
 
 Child' 1 s Friend. 49 
 
 early environment is naturally musical) is not always 
 such as the soul grows on. Nor is the irritating voice of 
 the parents and nurse, when they use the ear of the child 
 as a cuspidor into which to spit their spite, conclusive to 
 its soul- growth. 
 
 We can really do most anything with children, in a 
 mild, impressive way and voice. It is astonishing how 
 susceptible they are of improvement and expansion when 
 properly approached that is, when your words of 
 instruction are wisely clothed in a tone that finds the 
 receptive notes in the sympathetic nature of the child. 
 The soul catches up the impression of what your voice con- 
 veyed and diffuses it ; and expansion is the result. Now if 
 we pursue this course, to the expansion will be added 
 strength for the sustenance of what is acquired. Albeit 
 while the sympathetic nature is subject to conditions, the 
 auditory approach is always open to the entrance of 
 every sound.be it of harmony or discord. The ear does not 
 discriminate it takes in every sound that comes along, 
 and registers it ; there it is, no chance to wipe it off. And 
 perchance he neglects to recall it to memory or mind, his 
 children may do so for him. It frequently occurs that a 
 person exhibits the forgotten records of his parent. 
 
 Now I hold that these avenues of approach are natu- 
 rally more susceptible to beneficial influences (which are 
 creative) than to injurious influences (which are destruc- 
 tive). The creative force of the universe is so faithful in 
 the discharge of its duty that to create and re-create are 
 the natural order of things, rather than destruction. 
 
 But, says the mother, if I spend my time reminding 
 myself always to speak agreeably to the children and 
 home folks, I'll have no mind for anything else ; besides 
 it is tiresome to be always agreeable. Yes, so it is when 
 one eats flesh food, for that is a constant source of irrita-
 
 5<3 Mother's Help and 
 
 tion a sort of a dispositional mustard plaster, and by it 
 you are constantly reminded to be irritable. 
 
 1 ' Crumpiness ' ' is not natural, and amiability an unnat- 
 tural acquirement, not at all. But when your circulatory 
 system is carrying animal substance with its irritating 
 influence throughout your whole system, the irritation it 
 has generated must find vent somewhere, and as the vocal 
 organs are the most active and offer the least resistance, 
 through them the pent-up thunder and lightning find 
 outlet, and usually strike the juvenile auditors. Home 
 folks and teachers treat the big ears of the little folks 
 much as they do their garbage shoots, dump therein 
 the "cast off" that is useless elsewhere.
 
 Child's Friend. 
 
 51 
 
 HILDREN should be taught to 
 speak in a low tone. Screaming 
 or loud talking is a bad habit and 
 often clings to one through life. 
 
 At a boarding stable in New 
 York, where are groomed many 
 fine horses belonging to wealthy 
 gentlemen, the proprietor has in- 
 augurated the custom the example of which 
 would not be bad for some families to emulate prohibit- 
 ing the use of loud and profane language by any one 
 about the premises. 
 
 The child should be taught to obey at once and not 
 wait to be spoken to repeatedly. A serious look fre- 
 quently goes farther than many harsh words. 
 
 Contradicting is also a bad habit, and sooner or later 
 figures conspicuously in creating a quarrelsome disposi- 
 tion. 
 
 Children want sympathy and kindness snown them, 
 yet the parent or guardian should not forget that it is to 
 the welfare of the child that firmness of character be 
 maintained. 
 
 What I call "April '^ or " Hysterical " government, 
 i. e., severity and leniency, slaps and kisses by turn, is 
 the worst sort of government, for it unstables the child
 
 |2 Mother's Help and 
 
 through life, makes him unreliable and inconsistent in 
 business and social conduct. 
 
 So we see that after we have grown old or mayhap 
 disappeared, our children inflict on their associates the 
 characteristics acquired through inconsistent home gov- 
 ernment. Therefore we see it is wise to exercise a strict 
 adherence to that which is good for the child in after 
 years, when he or she shall assume the responsibility of 
 business and the improvement of the condition of his 
 fellow-men. 
 
 It is important to direct attention to strengthening 
 the will. For will is essential to independence and firm- 
 ness of character, and in youth is the proper time to 
 educate it. Do not destroy it, but train it, as later in 
 life a well-educated will is the prompter of many good 
 and noble acts. 
 
 Some parents talk about "breaking the child's will," 
 which is an ugly expression and unnecessary, and usually 
 the outward expression of a bad disposition in the parent. 
 
 Do not slap the child ; 'tis bad for it. Do not ill- 
 treat it in any way. Always bear in mind that you are 
 far from perfect yourself. Win the child to obedience 
 by earnest but kindly reasoning.
 
 Child 's Friend. 
 
 53 
 
 HILDREN need sympathy and at- 
 tention. Many times they pine 
 .- and really suffer for want of sympa- 
 thy in their play ; this is true from 
 early infancy on through childhood. 
 If we do not sympathize with them 
 in their play, and furnish whole- 
 " some amusement and occupation, 
 
 that which is undesirable will spring forth, for 
 we have implanted in them the seed of wrong- doing, 
 which chokes out the good with which Nature would 
 gladly endow them. When a child is grave, it is an in- 
 dication of something wrong, and the parents should 
 lose no time in bringing the child out into a normal con- 
 dition of playfulness and activity. Pray don't fuss at 
 them for their restlessness, it is natural for their bodies 
 to be full of activity ; and it injures them to have to be 
 still, sometimes so seriously as to produce spinal curva- 
 ture and other deformities. 
 
 If we who have jostled about this world so long need 
 sympathy, much more do the children who are yet tender 
 need it, of this we should ever be mindful. And atten- 
 tion they must have ; they want to be " mused ' ' and 
 "noticed." Some women even protest against giving 
 their children attention or being " bothered " with them. 
 It makes me blush to admit that one of my sex who
 
 54 Mother's Help and 
 
 has the good judgment to select as husband, a man of 
 social, business, and religious principles, does not enter 
 with pride and earnestness into her duty of caring for 
 her offspring. We sometimes see a woman who although 
 /espectful and attentive to the husband yet uses the child 
 as a sort of a gymnastic appliance with which to increase 
 her muscular activity and as a tester on which to try the 
 acuteness of her tongue. Do be patient with the little 
 ones ; for even "a violent passion or fit of obstinacy may 
 be caused by a temporary congestion of the brain. The 
 consequence of beating a child for this is that the brain, 
 which was already for some cause or another filled with 
 blood, becomes more crowded still." One author rec- 
 ommends that at such a time we give the child a drink 
 of water. It seems to me that in addition to a drink of 
 water for the child a whole glass for the parent or who- 
 ever is rousing the child would decidedly improve the 
 case. Let me here relate a bit of my experience with a 
 case where water was not used. 
 
 Some years ago I was well acquainted with a family 
 of wealth and influence in America, of which the young- 
 est child was a remarkably bright and promising boy. 
 He, like most children, was ever ready to entertain his 
 audience in the family room with cunning tricks and 
 sayings, most of which he had evidence were satisfactory. 
 But all at once he missed it, and was unceremoniously 
 snatched up by his mother and roughly shaken, after 
 which she had the nursemaid take him into an adjoin- 
 ing room while she, herself the loving (?) mother 
 ' ' pelted ' ' him. I went to the door and entreated her to 
 desist ; she called forth angrily that she'd teach him in 
 this way what he might say and do and what he should 
 not ; and for me to hearken, as she could not be dis-
 
 Child's Friend. 55 
 
 turbed. The members of the family informed me that 
 this was of frequent occurrence. 
 
 The cold chills ran over me and I wondered why her 
 arm had not been withered that the child might be spared 
 1 ' breaking in. " My heart ached, and I breathed a prayer 
 that I might live to do a little battle for children, as they 
 could not speak for themselves. 
 
 When this boy was eleven years old, I again visited 
 this point ; and as I had often thought of him, I nat- 
 urally felt a desire to see how he was growing. 
 
 His father had died after an unsuccessful struggle in 
 a public business transaction, leaving the family without 
 means. Each member had started out for himself in 
 search of some means of maintenance. The mother and 
 this boy I found living not even comfortably. 
 
 He had been expelled from military academy, where 
 the stearn professors had exhausted every means of pun- 
 ishment on him and, I verily believe, lost sleep because 
 they dared not inflict new and more severe ones ; so ex- 
 pelled him for a fresh victim. And his mother then be- 
 came a real sufferer, yet could not see that she alone was 
 to blame. 
 
 She said tearfully that she had, from his early infancy, 
 tried to beat good into him (probably on the same prin- 
 ciple that sugar can be beaten into batter for a good cake ; 
 but severity and righteousness have no chemical affinity 
 and hence the failure of the combine), and attributed the 
 failure to his paternal characteristics. 
 
 In the course of conversation I made known to her the 
 fact that I had taken a house with the intention of re- 
 maining a while, an'd the boy, though apparently en- 
 grossed in some occupation in an adjoining room, must 
 have listened (children always do) for, after I had returned 
 home, and about nine o'clock that night, he pulled the
 
 5 6 Mother's Help and 
 
 knocker of my door. And though he assured the serv- 
 ant that he wanted to see me about something important, 
 she very reluctantly let the straggler in. I made allow- 
 ance for what followed ; for notwithstanding his saying 
 that the mother sanctioned his coming and walking ex- 
 cept an occasional ' ' catch-on " to a cart seven miles, I 
 sent her a telegram to save her the usual night ramble in 
 search of him, saying I would keep him awhile. 
 
 And, good reader, it is needless for me to say that a 
 boy with such a record was a sore trial tome. What else 
 could I expect ? Yet when he was an infant and I wit- 
 nessed the cruelties inflicted on him I wished for oppor- 
 tunity to administer a soothing balm to him and other 
 children. So now was my opportunity to do for him what 
 had not been done by his wise and stout tutors. 
 
 I began gradually. He ran away, was disobedient, 
 and untidy; yet I was obliged to hold my temper. Not 
 push him, but kindly lead him. I tried not to have him 
 know that I was aiming directly to have him obedient. I 
 used the humane principle and to have him feel that he 
 was my guest and that I was entertaining him as I would 
 any one. He had never been treated as if he were a hu- 
 man being and capable of any development. So I re- 
 versed the order of things and pursued a course by which 
 I made him feel his entity, and a desire to be somebody. 
 The characters of which we read in the books grew more 
 and more interesting as he developed an ability to con- 
 centrate his thoughts. The evenings were so pleasantly 
 spent that he said it seemed a pity to have bedtime come. 
 
 But other duties demanded my attention the greater 
 portion of the day. And as he was not accustomed to 
 this way of spending his time, he naturally fell back into 
 idleness. And this usually results in sin, or I might say, 
 this sin leads to mischief. Yet with all the pleasures he
 
 Child's Friend. 57 
 
 derived from disobedience he came home to .me at night- 
 fall knowing I had a pleasant fireside at which he found 
 the greatest enjoyment he had ever experienced. 
 
 Sometimes his erroneous afternoon rambles well- 
 nigh distracted me ; and upon my discoursing with him 
 on the subject, he was very stubborn and ugly; but 
 seemed so deeply in thought as to cause me much 
 uneasiness. 
 
 Albeit time came when it appeared he should go 
 home, and I accompanied him in order to prevail upon 
 his mother to adopt my method of keeping him in at 
 night. He expressed great dissatisfaction at being re- 
 fused the pleasure of returning with me. * * * 
 
 Three years thereafter and just before her death she 
 again demanded of me what means of punishment (not 
 thinking kindness more powerful than cruelty) I had re- 
 sorted to in achieving so satisfactory a change in the boy. 
 I replied that I had punished myself, not the boy, for in 
 holding my temper I was the means of restoring to her 
 peace and a dutiful son who watched with unswerving 
 zeal and fortitude at her dying couch. 
 
 The animal nature of boys will be subject to fits of spon- 
 taneous combustion until you call the vitality that devel- 
 ops and sustains this animality, into other channels to 
 build and sustain the higher faculties. And we know 
 full well that the only way to do this is to exercise these 
 faculties. For be it any member of the material body or 
 a faculty, exercise of it is essential to its growth. And 
 the very best thing I can suggest for girls, as well as boys, 
 is to call into active exercise the reasoning faculties. 
 
 Sympathize with them and show them you are inter- 
 ested in their play, as well as their work. But do try to 
 have them develop originality, free them from the bond-
 
 58 Mother's Help and 
 
 age of parrotism or imitation, with which our mental de- 
 velopment has been retarded and our brains wearied. 
 Encourage them in searching for new fields of thought 
 and action. It requires bravery to do this ; but brave 
 they must be, since we are training them to rise above 
 the use of fire-arms and that relic of barbarism war. 
 Now we see they are to rely upon sympathy, their mental 
 endowments, their honor, their moral impulse, for peace 
 and protection.
 
 Child's Friend. 
 
 59 
 
 Effirmattbe antr Negatibe. 
 
 SOME parents exerted themselves as much 
 in developing the moral character of their 
 children, as they do in making them please 
 their hobbies, they would indeed be paren- 
 tal models. With children ever pursue an 
 affirmative not a negative course. No, 
 don't; quit, stop that, you sha'n't, go away 
 from that, etc., are expressions that are 
 impolite and rude enough to show that those 
 who indulge in the use of them are yet in the 
 toils of barbarism. They also expose a tantalizing, soul- 
 devouring trait of character that even the common beasts 
 are fortunate enough not to have acquired. 
 
 And as for those creatures (any of us who travel, 
 about with our eyes and ears open know that these 
 expressions are used by those who dress and look like 
 human, civilized persons) who say. "I'll lick you 
 within an inch of your life ; " " I'll skin you ; " "take 
 that boy down and strap him ; " " I'll maul you ; " " shut 
 your mouth, do you hear? " and many other such. Well, 
 the wrath that is in me can not find vent through my pen, 
 and remains pent up within me. I will just mildly say 
 that those who doubt there are real devils might do 
 well to consult the children whose ears have been cal- 
 loused and hearts scarred by these satanic thrusts. They 
 could reveal startling and convincing proof to the satan 
 and infernio doubters.
 
 60 Mother's Help ana 
 
 The ' ' Wharf Rats ' ' fare as well as this ; but in the 
 home, and from civilized parents, we look for a more 
 humane parental authority. 
 
 These creatures constantly underrate the capacity of 
 children to understand and to suffer, and forget the 
 words of Franklin "Since I can not govern my own 
 tongue, though within my own teeth, how can I hope to 
 govern the tongues of others." Think you not that it 
 is more within the sphere of our domain to win the child 
 away from its mischievous doings, by kind words ? Lead- 
 ing is infinitely more civilized and effectual than kicks, 
 threats and forcing. I often wonder if such cruel per- 
 sons want these children. If they don't, why have 
 them ? Or, having them, why not give them away. 
 They would probably find it stupid amusement to blow 
 out their inward cussedness against lifeless furniture, and 
 so use the little darlings to enliven the scenes. If they 
 want them for any higher purpose, why not treat them 
 accordingly ? For we know ' tis true that no greater 
 pleasure can be had than comes from loving and being 
 loved, and we are never so sure of it as when we have 
 it from the little ones. Love is the only thing that will 
 pay reliable interest on the outlay. Joy is wealth ; and 
 love, and being loved produces the highest and most last- 
 ing joy. " Love is the legal tender of the soul, and we 
 need not be rich to be- happy." 
 
 It is a mistake to suppose that love can only find ex- 
 pression in kisses and caresses. Numerous and ever pres- 
 ent are the opportunities to make a lasting impression of 
 ouraffection for those near and dear to us. Weshouldnot 
 count these chances as worthless ; our dear ones value 
 above rubies the many little courtesies dealt out to them 
 by our looks, words, and acts. 
 
 An ideal, or at least a high order of government at-
 
 Child's Friend. 61 
 
 tract! vely worded, framed and hung up in a conspicuous 
 place, as a constant reminder, is no doubt a great help in 
 bringing about a realization that God sent us this little 
 populace, with souls and loving tender hearts, to be 
 governed, not by a monarchy, but by a republic. As 
 we would like to be governed, so let us govern children. 
 When a child does that which seems to us an error, or 
 which does not coincide with our views, if we will, before 
 punishing it, repeat to ourselves slowly, " God is love," 
 we shall better discern what course to pursue. Re- 
 peated punishment hardens some children beyond any- 
 thing that can possibly avail them any good ; while with 
 others it weakens the intellect and character. In any 
 case I deplore corporal punishment as a hindrance in 
 the way of a child's working out Nature's God-given 
 mission. 
 
 Nature in childhood is active, and if we do not make 
 some other object more attractive than the one they are 
 at, they will pursue it with renewed vigor every time you 
 say Don't ; because their mind becomes concentrated on 
 that object. But if we call the child's attention to 
 another thing and make it appear to him more attractive 
 he will at once come to it. The affirmative will win every 
 time without a battle. No ugly words, no whippings, 
 no squalls. Try the affirmative course of government 
 and you will never go back to the ugly authoritative way. 
 
 Our intelligence is given us that we may help Nature 
 by storing up the fittest knowledge we have gained, to use 
 as a power behind the throne in aiding the child. Let 
 us not forget that " in the infant of to-day we control the 
 possibilities of all coming generations for glory or de- 
 spair, life or extinction."
 
 62 Mother's Help and 
 
 HIS is a fault so commonly indulged in 
 by good people, as well as by bad, as 
 to call forth some remarks. Many 
 persons remember to their "dying 
 day ' ' the effects of frights given them 
 in childhood by friends in moments of 
 heedlessness, forgetful of sympathy. 
 Now good readers I pray you do not com- 
 mit this error as it does have bad effects on 
 children and our mission is not to add gloomy 
 paragraphs to the pages of their lives. Cowards are 
 made by frights andthe tyranny of parents, guardians, 
 and teachers over children. 
 
 Childhood, the very emblem of Innocence and Promise, 
 must it be stunted and in every way robbed of its sweet- 
 ness and trust by the heedlessness of older ones who 
 enslave it with fear ? 
 
 Do not unduly excite the child, whether it be in 
 play or otherwise, it is bad for it, in that it robs the 
 child of vitality. Try to find amusement for yourself in 
 watching its capers. Activity in the child when 
 prompted from within is normal ; but excitement en- 
 couraged or inspired by another, draws upon and runs 
 off the vitality that should be conserved for the child's 
 development.
 
 Child's Friend. 
 
 "( T is very tiresome and weakening to a child 
 to be constantly watched and handled. 
 Put the child in a safe place and within 
 hearing, show it how to amuse itself. 
 Then leave it with a smile, go about your 
 affairs, sending it good thoughts or hap- 
 pily singing the mother's song has a 
 splendid influence on the child, and I con- 
 sider a child unfortunate in having a mother 
 who does not sing. Call to the child occasion- 
 ally and tell it that you love it. 
 
 Don't dress it up in such finery that its freedom and 
 play will in any way be impeded. Clothing is too fre- 
 quently the bane of the child's life: in infancy it restricts ; 
 in childhood the greater portion of the nagging and pun- 
 ishment is due to the fact that the clothing was not made 
 to suit the natural convenience and comfort of the child. 
 In infancy this discomfort irritates it into fretfulness. 
 In childhood it is punished for soiling or tearing the 
 clothes. Then, too, by dress is its attention called away 
 from its play or study, producing vanity or humility, as 
 the case may be, to an extent that weakens the intellect 
 for better occupation. 
 
 Do we not of our own free will assume the office of 
 wife and mother ? If we do not wish the responsibility 
 and care, we should not expect the pleasure, for they go
 
 64 Mother's Help and 
 
 together. Joys on earth are all in some way associated 
 with toil and care. 
 
 Avoid nagging the child. Many a disposition has 
 been ruined by nagging. It seems the chief delight, of 
 some parents and servants to have constantly an evil eye 
 on the child ; watching like a hawk watches a tender 
 chicken for an opportunity to pounce down upon it. 
 
 We usually find what we search for. And if we look 
 for good, we shall be as much surprised with the amount 
 of it we find, as we were delighted with the quantity of 
 evil. The alacrity with which they nag a poor defense- 
 less child shows how their eyes feast on and gloat over 
 the acts which their evil thoughts prompted the child to 
 do, and their own eyes magnified. 
 
 If a child is told that he is bad, and lives in the viru- 
 lent atmosphere of these thoughts ; he might better be in 
 the district of malaria, or a flesh destroying pestilence. 
 These thoughts expressed or inexpressed are subtle forces 
 potent of an evil, deeper, more far-reaching and soul-de- 
 stroying than any malarial germ of a flesh-destroying 
 nature. 
 
 Thoughts though invisible are real and alive, be very 
 careful how you use them ; if you can not use them dis- 
 criminately. then have them always wholesome and pure.
 
 Child' s Friend. 
 
 OU can not dream yourself into a char- 
 acter ; you must hammer and forge 
 yourself one. ' ' Froude. 
 
 One can not gain force of charac- 
 ter by being "coddled" too much. 
 We find that it is the children who, 
 although respectfully and kindly 
 treated, are allowed a wide field 
 for thought, and freedom for the expres- 
 sion of it. It is they who become our great 
 men and women. 
 Thralldom of all sorts is antagonistic to the growth 
 of force. Give the young an incentive for acquiring and 
 retaining this desirable quality. Teach them from early 
 youth that by constantly desiring and expecting strength 
 of character, they will have it. The desire, the implicit 
 faith, will develop it within them. And when they have 
 it, to learn to use it for good. Many who have acquired 
 this quality, use it only for control, or gain of wealth ; 
 and the oppressed or poor look on and say, ' ' See how the 
 Lord prospers that sinner ! ' ' They themselves might 
 have had the same amount of force, if they had made the 
 same effort for it ; and also, if they had acquired it, 
 might have used it to even worse purpose than the one to 
 whom they refer in envy.
 
 66 Mother's Help and 
 
 With this rich acquirement, or gift, (for some have it 
 from their parents, ) failure is hardly likely to occur, or 
 if it does, the possessor will pick himself or herself to- 
 gether again, look about and turn the face toward success 
 with renewed energy. 
 
 The girl, as well as boy, should be inspired with this 
 element so essential to protection, freedom and success. 
 I appeal to all who have girls, poor or rich (in money), 
 inculcate in their education, strength, force of character. 
 It will bridge them over many a tide of temptation, and 
 'will free them from the bondage of reliance on others. 
 If the girls have means, teach them the value of money 
 and the management of property. Teach them to be in- 
 terested in ennobling the home. In making it beautiful 
 with objects that are educating a lot of incongruous 
 objects of bric-a-brac scattered throughout the house, are 
 anything but educative of refined taste. Set apart one 
 room for all such, and make of it a museum, where you 
 may take your friends to study the art and pottery of 
 many nations. But do not make a kaleidoscope of your 
 entire house, to torture the eyes and nerves, and keep 
 your taste down among the low arts. Have enough in- 
 dependence, enough force to take a stand against all odds 
 of neighborly custom, and decorate and furnish the home 
 in a harmonious, restful style. Did you ever stop to 
 think that half the discontent, nervousness, and fatigue 
 in the family is caused by the inharmonious relationship 
 into which we bring the many colored souvenirs of our 
 travels and conquests? Don't depend upon glaring 
 objects of art for cheering the home. Have enough 
 force, enough brilliancy in yourself to be the ornament, 
 the attraction of the home. 
 
 When the girl or the woman is able to outshine all 
 objects about the house, then she is queen and need not
 
 Child's Friend. 67 
 
 be ashamed to tread with a majestic step in the presence 
 of any one. 
 
 Remember that, 
 
 " Home is not merely four square walls, 
 Though with pictures hung and gilded ; 
 Home is where affection calls, 
 Filled with shrines the heart hasbuilded." 
 
 She can find no better missionary work than to visit 
 her less fortunate neighbors and show them how to make 
 the home beautiful harmonious (for harmony is beauty), 
 and how to live. 
 
 There is no true wisdom and happiness in bottling up 
 one's knowledge. If it is good for you, it is good for 
 others. Show them how to improve their time and make 
 the best of their opportunities. To constantly aspire to 
 a higher, nobler plane, and it will be realized. And each 
 of these in turn helping others, we shall be delighted 
 with the results. 
 
 Woman is man's moral superior, yet she does not at 
 all times convince him that she is his mental and physi- 
 cal equal. Why? Because she leans on him. She has not 
 constantly before her a desire for strength, for force. 
 Her dress and thought have kept her dependent. And 
 it is surprising, in this age of progress, how the habit of 
 dress and old-time thought cling to a woman only to 
 cripple and weaken her ; for while she has no more re- 
 spect for the body than to torture and distort it by body 
 and foot apparel, that divert her attention and dwarf her 
 intellect, how can she expect him to hold her in higher 
 regard, especially if she has no noble, self-reliant crav- 
 ings. Let us not be too severe on the men, since they 
 are what their mothers trained them to be. When woman 
 trains up the boys to be ideal men, she will establish
 
 68 Mother's Help and 
 
 the health and salvation of her own sex. Then she will 
 no longer feel herself a nonentity. Her eyes are opened, 
 she goes to a full-length mirror to look at herself. Has 
 she just burst from the shell, or how happens it that she 
 has been blind so long ? The scales fallen from her eyes 
 enables her to see herself reflected in that glass as she 
 never saw herself before ! Why that contour embodies a 
 sacred being ! and as such she declares she will hence- 
 forth feel and assert herself! Now, she is, indeed, fit to 
 build a race. And by virtue of her sacred and responsi- 
 ble office, she must have the highest salary any service 
 commands. She must have immunity from that common 
 custom or expression of being "supported," which has 
 so preyed upon her and the home as to well-nigh wreck 
 domestic felicity. She must be allowed a salary com- 
 mensurate with her responsibility and the means of the 
 head (?) of the house the family treasury. 
 
 Man needs only to make an unbiased investigation 
 into woman's complex and harassing duties, to admit 
 that he would not undertake even her ordinary duties at 
 twice her salary, leaving out the consideration of her in- 
 estimable service as race builder. 
 
 Force in the child is also, in a great measure, de- 
 pendent upon the moral standard of the father ; if he 
 has no control over himself and yields to temptation, the 
 child's tendency is as likely as not to be the same way, 
 wavering or yielding. 
 
 Keeping constantly a desire for a quality or element, 
 whether it be good or evil, that you will draw toward 
 you. And so with regard to force, teach the girls and 
 boys that it is not pretty to be ill, weak, simpering or 
 dependent. That Health, Force, and Independence are 
 their best "stock in trade." Not till they have th#se
 
 Child 's Friend, 69 
 
 can they fulfill their duty to themselves, to their family, 
 and to their neighbor. 
 
 We should not feel that our responsibility is limited 
 to the area within our own garden fence. There are 
 many, many ways in which we can help make our unfort- 
 unate neighbor's life, not only more bearable, but actu- 
 ally pleasurable. Idle gossip is poisonous, but an inter- 
 change of ideas or wholesome knowledge gained, is 
 fruitful of great good in a neighborhood. 
 
 George Comb says, " There are no bad human facul- 
 ties." The propelling faculties must, of course, be pro- 
 perly governed. Pit the higher faculties against them ; 
 this makes a good mental gymnastic exercise that is 
 fruitful of telling results, and is the best " bracer." 
 
 That the lower faculties are developed first is no 
 reason for saying (as many do) that during this period a 
 child is a savage, no more than an oak while starting its 
 growth is some other tree of its remote ancestry. While 
 the oak is starting its roots, it is engaged in no mean 
 work, for through these is it nourished, and by them 
 held firm against impending storms. The oak is never 
 above recognizing the usefulness of these its lower 
 members. In like manner may our lower faculties be 
 utilized to the good of our higher ones, by acting as 
 stimulants, or invigorators, not allowing them to waste 
 their strength in their own activity ; but as I said let the 
 higher ones draw force from them ; and the exercise of 
 keeping them in check gives stamina to the higher. 
 
 Man, in his efforts to supply the cravings of his lower 
 desires, has his energy so overtaxed and weakened as to 
 be incapacitated for the higher dictates of reason, and puts 
 them off from one time to another, till they altogether 
 cease to invite attention and die out of neglect. He 
 must count the many lesser wants as unnecessary for his
 
 7 o 
 
 Mother's Help and 
 
 superior organism if he wishes his higher, nobler attri- 
 butes to be well developed. 
 
 If the oak devotes its time and attention mainly to 
 finding soil most agreeable to its roots, it may fail to get 
 that which will produce top, and may forget sunlight. 
 A person with abnormal over-developed lower faculties 
 is as much a failure as an oak all gone to roots and no 
 top.
 
 Child's Friend. 
 
 7- T 
 
 outage. 
 
 " Courage is boldness built of moral timber." 
 
 HE mortality of forty per cent of the 
 hospital nurses, means a tenfold 
 greater loss of life than is caused by 
 war, and yet men say women can not 
 fight and are not brave. Surely they 
 die in the interest of humanity. A 
 large per cent of these die of infectious 
 diseases, caught in the voluntary discharge 
 of their duties. Add to this item the de- 
 struction of limbs, if not of life, by blood poisoning, 
 insufficient sleep, overtaxing of the nerves and muscles, 
 lack of fresh air and scenes, and we are convinced that 
 woman is brave and patriotic too, not from the incentive 
 of glory, nor high official honors, nor yet from love of 
 bloodshed, for "the truly brave are soft of heart and 
 eyes." She cultivates courage to enable her to alleviate 
 the suffering which man's misdirected bravery revenge 
 caused to exist. 
 
 While man is bent on destruction, woman follows to 
 resuscitate and rebuild, much as a nursemaid goes after 
 the child to pick up and readjust the scattered ruins of 
 its toys. Woman follows man as the patcher of his fol-
 
 72 Mother's Help and 
 
 lies. To make soulful reparation where his amusement 
 has destroyed. Nor is this sad fact limited to war times, 
 for it is ever true air through life, that he ruthlessly 
 destroys and she suffers and patches.
 
 Child's Friend. 73 
 
 t ET us be kind and patient with stupid chil- 
 dren, for we may be entertaining unawares 
 great stars, of which I'm sure there would 
 be more, but for the constant nagging to 
 which they are subjected at school and 
 about home. This discourages them and 
 destroys the latent forces. Henry Ward 
 Beecher was stupid as a boy, for his 
 force lay generating strength with 
 which to leap forth as a veritable Vesu- 
 vius at the right moment. And who shall say now that 
 his stupid boyhood is not more than compensated for. 
 
 Very many of our great men and women who have 
 later in life achieved success and accomplished twice the 
 work allotted them, have been persons who were stupid 
 in youth. Their very senselessness was protecting the 
 germ of the glory they were to diffuse. Some have in- 
 herited the germ of GREATNESS, and others have through 
 environment the element that enables them to turn to 
 advantage situations which to the less favored are immi- 
 nent of danger. Poverty, sorrow, disappointment and 
 opposition are adversaries with which the weakling (the 
 one born and bred without courage or force) fails to 
 grapple successfully, and so sinks into obscurity a fail- 
 ure. Not so with the well born, however, for all these 
 to him are only objects of resistance that offer him oppor-
 
 74 Mother's Help and 
 
 tunity like the equipments of a gymnasium to culti- 
 vate and establish courage, self-reliance, enterprise, 
 breadth of character and all that combines to make a 
 stalwart, such as Nature and her God smile to see. I 
 do not mean by this that misfortune is necessary to suc- 
 cess, not at all ; it were far better for us all to have done 
 with misfortune ; but having her, let us wed her to Am- 
 bition and they twain may become the parent of Success. 
 
 We too often, alas ! see men and women who have no 
 courage to attempt to grapple with circumstances, have 
 no determination muscle if I may be allowed to use the 
 expression with which to enable them to ever get a 
 good grip on real life. 
 
 As the world yet is, we are more apt than not, to be 
 hedged about with repelling forces, it is far better that 
 we have courage from birth, or acquire it early in life, that 
 we may be the better fitted to resist the forces that 
 oppose our success. And what is success ? Physical, 
 mental, and moral progress, or the progress of our trin- 
 ity. And the "secret of success is constancy to pur- 
 pose." D' Israel. , 
 
 "(Success in life is a matter not so much of talent or 
 opportunity as of concentration and perseverance.)' 
 Rev. C. W. Wendte.
 
 Child's Friend. 
 
 75 
 
 bertoorfceir 
 
 EOPLE talk about overworked brains 
 and write about overworked brains, 
 and attribute the lamentable fact to 
 "cramming" to bookery or over- 
 study. Please let me add my chip 
 to the flame of agitation : In mak- 
 ing a diagnosis of the case we find the 
 lower faculties over-developed, that their 
 $^l preponderance over the higher, nobler facul- 
 ties, calls an undue amount of blood and nerve 
 force from the common reservoir, on which to 
 feed. And the human body being limited to a certain 
 amount of life is stunted by this unequal distribution of 
 blood the life, i. e., the brain is robbed of its share of 
 nutriment that the lower faculties may be abnormally 
 developed. This fact is everywhere so apparent as to 
 need no recital of instances. 
 
 And we shall continue to have wrecked brains, and 
 shattered brains, just so long as the vitality is run off to 
 other channels and there wasted. Is there much effort 
 made to rescue the brain from the doom that so often 
 awaits it? If all the paper and ink that is devoted to tell- 
 ing us we are getting too much brain were appropriated 
 to telling us we have over-developed the animal nature, 
 and how to overcome this error, then we would have 
 more literature with telling effects. You see, as fast as
 
 7 6 Mother's Help and 
 
 we have a demand for more unfoldment of the finer 
 senses, we must let them draw from the reservoir un- 
 stinted. In order to do this we must curtail the demands 
 of the grosser nature, until gradually after a few hundred 
 years the lower appetites will have been absorbed and a 
 more refined race be evolved in the stead of the race we 
 now are. So now we must make it, not only unfashion- 
 able to have brain trouble, but a positive disgrace and 
 sin. If the body has proper exercise to keep the blood 
 circulating, and plenty of fresh air breathed into the 
 lungs to purify the blood, and the thoughts concentrated 
 in the development of the moral and intellectual faculties, 
 we would find our studies none too much. The blood 
 at the brain needs frequent renewal which can be accom- 
 plished by manual labor or gymnastics, always accom- 
 panied by deep breathing ; then go back to study and 
 you will find you have renewed vigor of brain. 
 
 THE STAFF OF LIFE 
 
 is not meat as you will see elsewhere in this volume ; 
 flesh food stimulates ani develops the lower nature and 
 calls the vitality thither to aid in the mischievous work. 
 Would it not be an achievement worthy an effort to get 
 such control of our circulatory system as will enable us 
 to give the moral and mental divisions of our nature, the 
 greater portion of our vitality, which is but rightly due 
 them by virtue of their nobler functions ? 
 
 We have been constantly reaching out, grasping at, 
 and trying to conquer and possess all within reach and 
 beyond reach ; and have as yet only in rare instances 
 gotten acquainted with ourselves, or ever tried to get 
 possession of the best our higher faculties were capable 
 of attaining.
 
 Child's Friend. 77 
 
 I think our possibilities are limitless just so fast as 
 we can abort our grosser desires, or allow them to be 
 absorbed by the vitality that converts them into higher 
 brain power.
 
 Mother's Help and 
 
 SSJorfc. 
 
 There is always hope in a man that actually works. In 
 idleness alone there is perpetual despair." Carlyle. 
 
 ORTUNATEIvY it is no longer fash- 
 ionable to be idle. This is a wise pro- 
 vision just now as regards Women ; 
 for the men save a few wise ones 
 are rapidly becoming so reckless as to 
 be unfit to govern themselves. 
 We find it ever thus, that the greater 
 strides a few make, the more degenerate 
 others become. As though only a few 
 understood how to gather the right force 
 with which to enter the upward current, 
 while more fall into degeneracy. 
 
 When Carlyle said there was hope in work I do not 
 believe he meant that work to be a business of scheming 
 under the cloak of office, to cheat and tax the people to 
 within an inch of the limits of their endurance. The 
 women who formerly 'were idle, are now industriously 
 engaged in forming societies for the prevention of op- 
 pression, disease and crime. This is a wise change of 
 tactics from those so long in use by the men, who in 
 their short-sightedness permit oppression, and then pun- 
 ish the crime resulting therefrom ; allow insanity and 
 tax the people for asylums ; encourage sickness to be 
 cured instead of prevented.
 
 Child's Friend, 79 
 
 Man has ' ' managed ' ' all these thousands of years, 
 and learned so little about himself and his needs, that it 
 is indeed time for woman to be up and looking for the 
 ' ' whys ' ' and ' ' wherefores, ' ' of the present state of labor 
 and morals. She will find work, and work needful to be 
 done, in variety sufficient to suit all tastes, and in quan- 
 tity enough to prevent rusting out. 
 
 It does look as though the most prosy, set-in-their- 
 way, short-sighted, unprogressive men we have, are 
 placed at the head of institutions for the education of 
 men ; while the progressive, keen and far-sighted men 
 of deep thought and judgment, have given themselves 
 over to the less important field of scientific research, 
 investigation and invention. Now if these long-visioned 
 investigators could have a chance with the college boys, 
 what might they not discover in those boys and for them, 
 that would add valuable information to the Science of 
 Man; and inventions of what they could foresee the 
 young man stood in greatest need. But no ; these capa- 
 ble men, these investigators, must needs die of poverty 
 in the garret, while the coming generation is tutored by 
 a soulless, heartless man, made up of musty old doctrines 
 and dead languages and thinly veneered over with piety, 
 yet so forbidding in his looks as to repulse any young 
 man who may have an " idea " of his own, about which 
 he would like to consult some one with sympathy for 
 ' ' ideas. ' ' Thus are the tender growths of originality 
 and individuality crushed ; and the seed of the mother's 
 planting and early care count as for naught, unless, 
 perchance, a gleam of sunshine later on may resuscitate it. 
 
 Women need not distress themselves about foreign 
 mission work as long as there is such sore need of our 
 raking the rubbish out of our own school systems and 
 reconstructing them. I hold that as far as educational
 
 8o 
 
 matters are concerned, we should not attempt to establish 
 school systems among the foreign heathen, until we have 
 done our duty by our own children, in solving the prob- 
 lem of education at home. 
 
 The most valuable service a man can render his 
 country is to give it a well-educated, well-regulated 
 family. 
 
 Work in the home is always paramount, in impor- 
 tance, to all others. I believe it was Spurgeon who said, 
 "Train up a child in the way you should have gone 
 yourself." If we wish to open our eyes we can readily 
 see where we have failed, and prevent the children from 
 falling into the same error. And a woman should some- 
 how manage to keep such control over her sons as to pre- 
 vent their losing their entity in the mad rush for gain. 
 The most important duty, then, is with her own chil- 
 dren, that they may learn useful work. 
 
 "Take the very little child into the kindergarten and 
 there begin the work of physical, mental and moral train- 
 ing. Put the child in possession of his powers ; develop 
 his faculties ; unfold his moral nature ; cultivate mechan- 
 ical skill in the use of the hands ; give him a sense of 
 symmetry and harmony ; a quick judgment of number, 
 measure and size ; stimulate his inventive faculties ; make 
 him familiar with the custom and usage of well-ordered 
 lives ; teach him to be kind, courteous, helpful and un- 
 selfish ; inspire him to love whatsoever things are true, 
 and pure, and right, and kind, and noble, and thus 
 equipped physically, mentally and morally, send him 
 forth to a wider range of study, which should include 
 some sort of industrial training that is, the putting of 
 the boy or girl into possession of the tools for technical 
 employment or for the cultivation of the arts, of drawing 
 and kindred employment, and still further on, the boy or
 
 Child's Friend. 81 
 
 girl should have a complete trade. Thus they will be 
 prepared to solve the rugged problem of existence by 
 earning their own living through honest, faithful work, ' ' 
 and become independent individuals. 
 
 No matter what our station in life is, we should not 
 neglect opportunities to have our children render their 
 little friends a service. A good plan by which to awaken 
 a philanthropic spirit in the child is to have its early in- 
 dustrial work directed to making something to give away 
 to members of the family, to friends, and to poor chil- 
 dren. This is fruitful of many good results. It accus- 
 toms the child to painstaking when he knows what he is 
 making is not to be thrown away ; he gets to feeling an 
 interest in the ones for whom he makes the articles ; and 
 his interest in others increases with every gift of his own 
 making ; and he in turn becomes endeared to them. So 
 by the time he is a man he is on warm, friendly terms 
 with his fellow men. And the same with the girl. Gifts 
 bought and given to friends have but little more than a 
 commercial value, while these articles which we make 
 have chiseled into them or woven into them our senti- 
 ment a part of our very life, which serves as a thread of 
 friendship to link us closer to them. L,et the children 
 try making something pretty for the house help ; if they 
 are at all susceptible, it will act like a charm. 
 
 Woman can always manage to find time to give a little 
 mental and moral instruction to her helpers about the 
 house. This will not lower her standard, but will raise 
 theirs ; so that she and her children may always be in 
 good society. A woman should refuse to employ ignor- 
 ant helpers who are unwilling to be educated and guided 
 by her counsel. The helpful suggestions by which the 
 husband and children profit, should not come amiss to 
 the helpers ; nor need the hired persons fearto advise with
 
 82 Mother' s Help and 
 
 her about their family at home, as her education, experi- 
 ence and sympathy enable her to judge what is good for 
 them, too. Thus she may go on extending her work and 
 giving inspiration and hope to her neighbors. 
 
 In large cities the labor vineyard is immense, for 
 with charity, reform, physical, mental and moral culture, 
 no room is left for idleness. 
 
 In Chicago, philanthropic women of four different 
 schools of physicians inspired by Dr. Frances Dickin- 
 son met on one common ground and effected a new 
 departure, by organizing themselves into a society for 
 the prevention of disease. 
 
 In some parts of China it has long been the custom 
 to keep physicians regularly hired to keep the people 
 well, and when the physician allows his patients to get 
 ill, his salary is at once suspended till their recovery. 
 
 This Sanitary Association is something really worthy 
 of notice ; and one is surprised that in this day of prog- 
 ress such respectable measures had not before been 
 adopted. We shall now hire ourselves kept in health at 
 a much less expense than it cost us to be cured or killed 
 in the old way. These bright women have ingeniously 
 formulated a system that will save their patients much 
 inconvenience and suffering by educating them up to a 
 standard of sanitary science, whereby they will eventu- 
 ally do away with dosing. They have doubtless discov- 
 ered that the only true elixir of life is, to know and 
 honor thyself, rather than prolong a living death with 
 the slight amelioration drugs offer. 
 
 In the country these progressive lines of work may 
 be taken up on a small scale ; also reading societies estab- 
 lished ; for well has Marion Harland said that She who 
 establishes a reading society in the country, does more 
 by far than the medical profession in keeping women
 
 Child's Friend. 83 
 
 from the insane asylum." Keep the spare moments 
 occupied in some pursuit different from the daily routine 
 of duties, yet cheering, wholesome and uplifting. 
 
 A pleasant work is to select books, here and there, 
 new or second-hand, containing moral and useful infor- 
 mation ; with blue ink mark them to be returned to you 
 in a fortnight. Circulate these among working people, 
 or such as have from carelessness neglected to cultivate 
 a taste for wholesome literature. This may be done by 
 single individuals, or on a larger scale by organized soci- 
 eties ; but free to all. Especially noticeable for good is 
 this among the poor when done in a friendly way, and 
 not as charity. 
 
 Teach the children the pleasure resulting from wait- 
 ing on themselves, and doing little services for others. 
 No child, rich or poor, should grow up in idleness. No 
 intellectual or moral education should be considered com- 
 plete without some sort of handicraft. Some useful and 
 profitable incentive for activity is a great thing for 
 expansion, and the development of independence and 
 character. Joseph Rhodes Buchanan says: "It is the 
 materialism of labor that makes its stupefying gloom 
 the concentration of all energy upon the muscles alone 
 exhausts the brain and debases the soul, but when the 
 soul is active as the botly, the dignity of humanity is 
 maintained, the pleasure and glory of life are found to 
 be compatible with labor, and it no longer debases and 
 impoverishes the soul, but gives it a material aid." 
 
 "Sum up at night what them hast done by day, 
 And in the morning what thou hast to do. 
 Dress and undress thy soul." George Herbert.
 
 8 4 
 
 Mother's Help and 
 
 antr JBaugijter. 
 
 HE mother must call science to guide 
 the unfolding life in the demands now 
 made upon Nature's forces. For only 
 when they are rightly distributed and 
 used, does the ideal woman result. 
 And when misdirected we can but 
 have a distorted and unnatural, and there- 
 fore unhappy woman. If the developing 
 process is thwarted, the opportunity is lost 
 for life. 
 
 What woman, or what knowing child, can be happy 
 when suffering the result of the parents' indifference or 
 neglect. 
 
 Think you it speaks well of our ancestors, whom so 
 many delight in worshiping, to have bequeathed, out 
 of their accumulation of strength, grace, and wisdom, so 
 small a part as mostly falls to us ? No thanks to them 
 for bringing into existence creatures to suffer their in- 
 feriority. By far more are theyto be praLea, who, hav- 
 ing acquired wisdom, yet maintain it by bequeathing it 
 to their children, with instructions that they and theirs 
 after them, lose it not. 
 
 All progress is under the control of law, and all efforts 
 must be shaped in accordance therewith. 
 
 The most important period under consideration for 
 the girl, and also for her future offspring, is her develop- 
 ing period. Misdirected judgment at this time, will 
 prove a misfortune to the girl when she reaches maturity,
 
 Child's Friend. 85 
 
 and will rob her offspring of the perfecting inheritance 
 they have a right to demand. 
 
 When our thoughts cease to revert to memories of the 
 bygone, and pursue an upward and forward course, then 
 will humanity be made better, happier, and life be a joy. 
 
 " Educate a woman and you educate the race." So, 
 now, mothers, sisters, guardians, come, let us pledge our- 
 selves that the education we give, or order to be given, 
 the coming woman, shall be all that the word implies ; 
 not a one-sided knowledge of books, stored up in the 
 brain ; but let there be inculcated therein the knowledge 
 of some handicraft. Every girl, as well as boy, should 
 have a trade and a profession, and should be able to play 
 one musical instrument ; and above all, inspire her with 
 an ambition to obtain a perfect womanhood, physically 
 as well as mentally. 
 
 Of what avail are great mental acquisitions to a girl 
 if she leaves school with a broken constitution, just as 
 the realities of life dawn upon her. It is greatly to a 
 girl's credit to be whole and well developed. It is not 
 our Heavenly Father's intention to have her arrest Nature 
 in its course by placing obstacles in its way, which she 
 usually does, willfully, or ignorantly, and whichever it 
 be, the responsibility is with the mother or guardian, who 
 has neglected the duties entailed upon her. A mother's 
 duties toward her children are never at an end, even if 
 she be ninety years old. And, mothers, let us remember 
 that it is unbecoming to be constantly reminding the 
 daughters of their duty toward us, while we are forget- 
 ting our responsibility as mothers. 
 
 If we wish love we must give out love. If we show 
 them that we are ever mindful of their real good, they in 
 turn will not totally disregard our comforts. We too 
 often see mothers strain themselves to see how much
 
 86 Mother's Help and 
 
 comfort, pleasure and help they can get of their daughters 
 when they really should put forth every effort to conduce 
 to their happiness and well-being. To give them un- 
 reservedly all that goes to make them grow and develop 
 symmetry, amiability, intellect, judgment, self-reliance 
 and the many other attributes that unite in building a 
 complete woman; a woman free from the bondage of ill- 
 health and general inharmony ; one that shall be a living 
 monument to the mother's good work and shall in turn 
 be fitted for life. Thus shall we be ever looking hope- 
 fully forward, which is infinitely better than looking 
 back and croaking. 
 
 " L,ook forward and not backward, 
 Look upward and not downward, 
 Look outward and not inward, 
 And lend a hand." E. E, Hale. 
 
 The mother should make it a sacred duty to retain 
 her youth and good looks; to be neat and tastefully at- 
 tired at all times ; to grow old beautifully ; to grow old 
 gracefully. And furthermore to be interested in the 
 studies and amusements of the daughters. Enter soul- 
 fully into their occupations and pleasures ; for if you do 
 not you will surely lose their society and confidence. 
 That which is beautiful and otherwise harmonious will 
 attract them elsewhere if you do not provide it at home. 
 This is true in our personal appearance as well as in 
 other matters ; and the children's interests and happiness 
 must be our first consideration. 
 
 *** 
 
 Girls, be modest at all times ; but most especially 
 when in the street. It seldom becomes necessary for 
 young ladies to go into the public thoroughfare so often 
 as to have their face and form become as familiar to its
 
 Child's Friend. 87 
 
 frequenters as the lamp posts. The human form, though 
 physical, carries with it everywhere your soul, and is too 
 divine to be thrust on the public gaze as a commercial 
 commodity. 
 
 *** 
 
 ' ' A great many difficulties arise from falling in love 
 with the wrong person," says Mr. Ruskin. 
 
 *** 
 
 " Is your heart so little account that you cut it like 
 old clothes, after any fashion to fit any breast? " 
 
 Rifhter. 
 *** 
 
 It would really seem so to look around at the hap- 
 hazard manner in which young persons and some not 
 so young select partners. The heart seems to make a 
 poor showing ; and the intellect in this direction fre- 
 quently does its shabbiest work. Where are the mothers 
 about this time ? Not on duty, evidently. 
 
 *** 
 
 " There is one article absolutely necessary to be ever 
 beloved, one must be ever agreeable." 
 
 Lady Mary W. Montagu. 
 
 *** 
 
 " Oh, woman! lovely woman! Nature made thee to 
 temper man. We had been brutes without you." 
 
 *** 
 
 " Madame A is zo clever, zo charming; her voice 
 
 is to me like musique; her hair and eyes are like ze comet 
 in ze heavens! " 
 
 " If she is so charming why don't you marry her ? " 
 
 " Marry her! If I marry her, where will I go to spend 
 my evenings? " 
 
 It has so long been the custom for a girl to look upon 
 the marriage ceremony as the general doxology or final
 
 88 Mother" s Help and 
 
 ending of her career as charmer, that I dare say this fact 
 is no small agent in creating disappointment and even 
 disgust in the husband toward the wife. The women 
 folk have a mistaken idea right here. The girls fluff up 
 and look too pretty for anything until they are ' ' en- 
 gaged," and some until the "honey-moon" wanes; 
 their ' ' market is made ' ' and they feel that they have 
 achieved the object for which they were designed, and 
 that to lapse into untidiness, with utter disregard for 
 looks, and still less regard for the selection of choice 
 language, is permissible and a great treat. My dear 
 girls, after the marriage ceremony is the time you need 
 to exercise the greatest care in neatness, harmony in 
 dress, manners and speech ; and to be altogether fasci- 
 nating ; for if you do not, he will go to spend his even- 
 ings where fascination leads him. To win a man's love 
 is a trifling " feat " as compared with holding that love. 
 And let me advise 'you not to be too familiar with 
 your husband. Hold yourself somewhat in reserve. 
 That familiarity breeds contempt is very true here. 
 
 Victor Hugo very wisely said: "There is in this 
 world no function more important than that of charming. 
 To shed joy, to radiate happiness, to cast light upon 
 dark days, to be the golden thread of our destiny, 
 the spirit of grace and harmony is not this to render a 
 service ? Here and there we meet one who possesses the 
 power of enchanting all about her ; her presence lights 
 up the house, her approach is like a cheering warmth ; 
 she passes by, and we are content ; she stays awhile, 
 and we are happy. She is the Aurora with a human 
 face. ' ' 
 
 In order to be charming you must not allow yourself 
 to get "lopsided" (as the men call it). Select your 
 food with a view to keeping the nutritive system in a
 
 Child's Friend. 89 
 
 fine "condition ; and take daily exercise in gymnastics 
 and deep breathing, until you have the feeling of having 
 constantly a reserve force of strength. You get a feel- 
 ing of satisfaction that is an adept at recreating and 
 beautifying the fcrm and face. From all this health and 
 good feeling come joy and a desire to please. And the 
 husband and family finding home women and the home 
 so attractive and beautiful will soon forget the outside 
 charmers. But you must swear allegiance to your new 
 acquisition ; do not flinch from your good course. 
 
 Good literature and music are now so cheap that you 
 can have no excuse for not having literary musical 
 soirees every evening at home. Harmony and good cheer 
 are powerful forces in the home.
 
 Mother's Help and 
 
 brain 
 
 USIC vocal or instrumental will 
 bind together harmoniously all 
 who are the common recipients of 
 it. In the workshop it acts as a 
 positive tonic, inspiring the toiler 
 with renewed energy. In the 
 asylum it is more effectual than 
 the bath, the lash, or the strait- 
 jacket in quieting the frenzied 
 or in rousing to cheerfulness the de- 
 spondent. In prisons (which should be reformatories 
 instead of institutions of torture) its value as a reforma- 
 tory agent can not be overestimated. All know full 
 well the restfulness and yet animating influence of 
 music in the school. And in church how it unites and 
 lifts all out of the low desires into a restful attitude. 
 
 Music in the family is one of its strongholds ; here 
 it banishes harshness and flls the place with unity of 
 thought and harmony of soul. All joining in one mel- 
 ody are held united while Nature comes in and inter- 
 twines the chain of friendship that binds them together 
 in harmony. That oneness of sentiment that music 
 more than anything else creates should be more fully 
 appreciated and resorted to as a peace restorer. 
 
 Music is the most divine for home government be- 
 cause it is more acceptable to the child and more effica- 
 cious than any government of an inharmonious nature. 
 It is cheaper than a doctor and quite as effectual in allay-
 
 Child's Friend. 91 
 
 ing fevers ; is the best opiate in cases of nervousness and 
 insomnia ; soothes the weary, irritated family and restores 
 peace. And could be resorted to instead of law in many 
 cases, to the moral and financial gain of many. 
 
 ' ' This is the luxury of music. It touches every key 
 of memory, and stirs all the hidden springs of sorrow and 
 of joy. I love it for what it makes me forget, and for 
 what it makes me remember."
 
 Mother' s Help aiid 
 
 Smiling. 
 
 " You smiled upon me and I thought it was spring, and my 
 heart put forth the flowers of hope." 
 
 E ALL want SMILING chil- 
 dren, and may be sure they will 
 be smilers if parents will carry 
 their faces wreathed in smiles, 
 
 NEVER COUNTENANCING A 
 FROWN. As soon as baby is old 
 enough to notice yes, before smile at 
 it ; as it grows and all through its 
 infancy and youth, never permit it to go 
 to sleep with clouds on the face and tears in the eyes 
 always with sweet, peaceful smiles. Let it fall asleep 
 and awaken looking at smiling pictures ; this is good 
 for older people as well, and will really and truly be 
 found a more potent beautifier than all cosmetics com- 
 bined. Hang pictures of pretty, smiling children 
 prominently about the nursery and sleeping rooms, 
 especially where they can be seen by the child in its 
 retiring and waking hours. The happiness of the child 
 for the day depends much upon the aspect the world 
 presented in its awakening hours ; so let it open its 
 eyes on a beautiful, harmonious world. 
 
 We know full well the potent influence pictures have 
 on us for evil or for good according to their moral tone,
 
 'Child's Friend. 93 
 
 more do they impress children whose characters are so 
 plastic as to yield readily to the casting of the sentiment 
 the picture expresses. 
 
 Pictures, be they ever so physically perfect, if they 
 have not about them an ideal sentiment, can not lift us 
 above the sensuous or realistic plane on which we stand. 
 So we want to bear in mind that the painter's brush must 
 give us the very highest order Nature affords in the way 
 of bulk and contour, or form, and then lift it into a higher 
 plane than our own by inspiring it with an ideal expres- 
 sion. Who shall say the painter's and sculptor's mission 
 is not one of the highest ? He is a missionary who, though 
 his lips are silent, yet speaks in a language understood 
 by all civilized nations. His greatest monument is his 
 own expression on canvas, in stone, or clay, of that which 
 lies deep in his soul. Artists always should be, and 
 usually are, a high order of God's servants. Their voice 
 is not limited to one short life, but speaks to hungry 
 humanity in the ages to come. So, let it not be too 
 mythical to be believed, but let it be idealistic enough to 
 give us a desire for the higher, better life.
 
 94 
 
 Mother's Help and 
 
 13eautg. 
 
 ROM Emerson's pen we find something 
 like the following : ' 'That beauty is the 
 normal state, is shown by the perpet- 
 ual effort of Nature to attain it. * * * 
 And we see faces every day which have 
 a good type, but have been marred in 
 the casting ; a proof that we are all entitled 
 to beauty, should have been beautiful, if our 
 ancestors had kept the laws. * * * But our 
 bodies do not fit us, but caricature and satire 
 us * # * Faces are rarely true to any 
 ideal type, but are a record in sculpture of a thousand 
 anecdotes of whim and folly. * * * That man is 
 physically, as well as metaphysically, a thing of shreds 
 and patches, borrowed unequally from good and bad 
 ancestors and a misfit from the start. ' ' 
 
 Professor Moss says : "In order to realize the beauty 
 that should be the universal heritage of humanity, the 
 race must come into more perfect relationship with Nat- 
 ure. Every obstruction to her method of attaining 
 physical perfection must be removed, and conditions of 
 harmony established. This can be done by observing 
 first that the better influences of heredity are secured in 
 generation ; second, by observing and developing the 
 better qualities of the child, and by eliminating its im- 
 perfections." Study the foregoing and follow it out with 
 care, and the result will amply reward your painstaking.
 
 Child's Friend. 95 
 
 During the Centennial exhibition at Philadelphia, 
 for lack of room a Quaker was put to lodge with a Meth- 
 odist. The Quaker promptly retired, while his room- 
 mate betook himself to prayer (?), in the course of which 
 he made use of the familiar phrases, "unworthy of Thy 
 notice," "not fit to approach Thee," "poor miserable 
 sinner," "worm of the dust," when, to his surprise, the 
 Quaker got up and hastily began to dress ; being ques- 
 tioned as to the cause of his apparent alarm, the Quaker 
 replied, "If thou be of the character indicated in thy 
 prayer, thou be no fit person for me to associate with. I 
 feel no safety with thee." So it has for a long time been 
 the fashion to belittle the tenement of the soul in many 
 ways, which, as we see, has resulted in such total disre- 
 gard for the body, as to have reduced it to a miserable 
 caricature. And now we are tired of it, and with lamen- 
 tations cry for the beauty of the Greeks. " A revolution 
 in our habit of thought and mode of dress is necessary 
 for a speedy recovery of the lost charms, which, thank 
 God, we are at last conscious should be our birthright. 
 This new yearning shall not be without multiform merit, 
 actually re-creating our triune nature as we see ; for it is 
 the development of a consciousness that reflects on the 
 physical, and it, in turn, on the emotional, causing a re- 
 flex action that has the power of rebuilding the body, 
 mind and soul. When harmonious relationship and co- 
 operation are established with our trinity, then our power 
 to grow beautiful and evolve higher qualities, and abort 
 lower ones, becomes limitless. 
 
 I think it was Socrates that prayed, " O Pan, and all 
 ye other gods, grant that my soul may be beautiful, and 
 that my exterior may accord with my soul ! " 
 
 What the past has realized, the present may strive for 
 and possess. Study the human form ; master the highest
 
 g6 Mother" 's Help and 
 
 elements of beauty and the laws by which these elements 
 are developed and conserved. " Be true to the deepest 
 impulses of the soul and the highest dictates of reason. 
 Mark well the laws of health. Fix permanently in mind 
 the outlines of the typical female form, and honor these 
 outlines by refusing to sacrifice them upon the altar of 
 thoughtless custom or of ill-considered fashion. Rise 
 above the pitiful level of fashion leaders, ignorant of 
 everything but false art and ignoble, selfish aims. Court 
 the sweet blessings of Nature in every mood and tense ; 
 drink deeply from the fountains of beauty, and let the 
 mysteries of her love rest like a halo upon every life. 
 The laws of health are the key to this higher state ; 
 they will unlock the door to every physical and spiritual 
 good." 
 
 While strictly speaking it is the mind and its instru- 
 ment, the brain, which constitute the distinguishing 
 features of mankind ; it is none the less important to care 
 well for the body ; for through the helpfulness of a sound 
 body is the brain nourished, and thus strengthened to 
 do the will of the mind promptly and well ; and the mind 
 in turn is thereby encouraged to dictate more nobly. 
 The All-Creative Force delights in working through 
 healthy, sound agencies, not alone in the Vegetable aad 
 I^ower Animal kingdoms, but as well in the case of man- 
 kind. Yea, much more is it according to the visible 
 indications and scientific discoveries necessary that 
 mankind be in every way perfect, that it may the more 
 faithfully fulfill the work for which its superior organism 
 and spirituality have unquestionably been designed. 
 
 Ivet us not, therefore, spurn the body as so very infe- 
 rior to the mind, as not to recognize its important office. 
 It is out of our ordinary way of reasoning to say that a 
 shabby, neglected, abused body is a fit abode for the
 
 Child's Friend. 97 
 
 indwelling of anything so superior as all hold the mind 
 to be. 
 
 We often hear people say, "Well, I am as God 
 made me. ' ' Now this is not so. God gives us the model 
 and the elements from which to make the body, and if 
 we will but open our understanding, and heed His 
 teachings, we may mold our bodies as He designed them 
 to be beautiful. As I see it, this body is only a loan, 
 and should not be defiled. For example : Say you lend 
 a nice Bible to a person to use indefinitely, for the pur- 
 pose of better 'fitting him for the future life, and he 
 returns it to you, or you may find it left behind, after he 
 has gone, all soiled, leaves torn, turned down, and stained 
 with tobacco juice ; would you not readily say that he 
 had subjected that book to a treatment for which it was 
 never intended ? Would you not say he had shown very 
 little respect for you ? And yet we show so little regard 
 for God not even the common courtesy we show an 
 earth-friend as to ill-treat and defile the body He per- 
 mits us to use ; and when done with it, cast it back to 
 Him, and in what condition ? Surely not in the condition 
 He intended us to leave it. 
 
 A transition from this life to the next need not be 
 signalized by decay of the body. Nor can it be expected 
 that a sojourn in a diseased body will in any way enhance 
 the interests of the soul. 
 
 It may be a virtue to suffer patiently, uncomplainingly 
 the diseases transmitted to us ; but that is not saying 
 that God is pleased with the disease, nor that it is any 
 benefit to us ; no more than old, sour, cracked bottles are 
 a benefit to the new wine ; or that we would be more fit 
 for heaven if we'd go and live in a dirty, disagreeable 
 den of infamy. 
 
 We are to use the body only for what it was intended,
 
 98 
 
 Mother's Help and 
 
 an abode for the spirit while it is on its way to the next 
 existence. Nor should we allow the immortal spirit to 
 be embodied in mortal clay (the flesh) without we really 
 desire it from the love within our hearts. 
 
 Any object be it art, science or humanity when 
 born of evil genius, is but a caricature, grotesque ; any 
 creation must be born of love to be beautiful and complete.
 
 Child's Friend. 
 
 99 
 
 Culture. 
 
 HE soul struggles to speak through an 
 imperfect instrument the body ; some- 
 times it ceases to struggle, and finally 
 has nothing to say ; and the result is 
 that a brainy education has superseded 
 real culture. There is a distinction 
 between the two. When facts become 
 a part of the mind they enter the realm of 
 education ; but they do not enter the sphere 
 of culture until they become a part of the 
 entire organism or trinity. Education molds the mind ; 
 culture goes further, for it molds the entire triune. 
 
 Now the Physical Drill is absolutely necessary to cult- 
 ure; it is a freeing, refining, readjusting process, through 
 which the organism must pass before we can hope to 
 make of it a fit medium for expression. This Drill is as 
 a key, turning the body into harmony with the soul and 
 mind. We can not have true culture without harmo- 
 nious relationship between the three, any two of which 
 are incomplete without the third. No person is a com- 
 plete whole human being if he have an over preponder- 
 ance of the Emotional nature and Brainy development, 
 and only a fraction of a Physical habitation ; - or it the 
 body the agent of the mind and soul be too feeble, or 
 otherwise unable to do their bidding. Only through an 
 acquaintance with our triune nature, and the laws that 
 govern it, and a control over our trinity, can we say we 
 are cultured.
 
 ioo Mother's Help and 
 
 When disease, too much fat, immobility, and other 
 opposing forces, hold dominion over the body the 
 agent of the mental and emotional natures it can not at 
 the same time, thus conditioned, act in sympathy with, 
 and express the sentiments of the higher self; and as we 
 readily see, it prevents their expressing themselves, and 
 thus retards their growth. From these facts, it is ap- 
 parent that those who ignore the body are sinning against 
 the All- Wise Creative-and-evolving Force. If the body 
 had not been really essential to the expansion, expres- 
 sion, and upward growth of the ego the higher entity 
 of the human life there would have been no body. We 
 must therefore appreciate the body as a necessary part of 
 our trinity, without which it would be unable to pass on 
 through this life into the higher. 
 
 The general plan of the body serves us well, and the 
 mechanism is truly grand in its complexity, and would 
 work with marvelous regularity from the time life enters 
 it, till it departs for the next existence, if we would per- 
 mit it ; but we neglect and ill-treat it, and its resenting 
 voice is pain, disease, and deformity, until the poor 
 frame is truly not a fit medium for expression or temple 
 for the soul. 
 
 Mr. Galton, one of the most ardent students in 
 Heredity, and who has won universal reputation as such, 
 places the Greeks two gradations above any other races, 
 ancient or modern. Out of their physical splendor 
 sprang their art never equaled. The Greeks success- 
 fully taught that fine intelligence and normal soul can 
 not thrive without the invigorating companionship of a 
 well-cultured body. 
 
 Physical culture and Delsartean Philosophy are of 
 inestimable value to the artist, the actor, the musician,
 
 Child's Friend. 101 
 
 the teacher, the society people, the commoners, but most 
 surely to the mother. 
 
 Uninterrupted functional activity depends much upon 
 the poise and construction of the body, especially the 
 trunk ; and this is why I say that physical culture should 
 be intelligently prescribed. 
 
 There is some fine work to be done before we can 
 begin with the surface muscular development.* 
 
 A HIGHER PHYSICAL PLANE 
 
 Must be reached before we can hope to acquire the high 
 standard of excellence, mentally and morally for which 
 we were created. These higher qualities must be bred 
 and fed through the co-operation of a beautiful sound 
 body; and through it get enduring strength for develop- 
 ment, continuance, and transmission. 
 
 PUNY, DELICATE CHILDREN 
 
 Should never be assigned to an indoor brainy occupation. 
 Try gardening at once; or the gymnasium; and if he or 
 she does not develop into robust youth, you had better 
 at once dismiss the idea of making of him a brainy pro- 
 fessional. Brain work demands a stouter, healthier body 
 and vital system with which to nourish the brain than 
 does manual work. Unless one has an abundant supply 
 of strength stored up, and supplement it by vigorous ex- 
 ercise, they had better at once abandon the thought of 
 brain work, or make up their minds to have life cut short 
 of several years. The demand must be supplied or a 
 collapse is inevitable. 
 
 Discover in your children the weak and undeveloped 
 parts, and be not content to have them remain so, but 
 
 * See Physical Culture by this author.
 
 IO2 Mother's Help and 
 
 hasten at once to strengthen and develop them and 
 bring them into sympathy with other parts. Give 
 the left hand something to do, in fact, let it do the 
 most of the work, this will equalize the growth. Exer- 
 cise increases growth, and the excess of activity de- 
 volved upon the right side has developed it way beyond 
 the left side, which is neglected to become atrophied, 
 till it, by actual measurement and weight, is found to 
 be inferior to the right side. 
 
 Kite flying is good for the boy (and girl, too,) as 
 that takes him out into the fresh air, with his face turned 
 up to the blue sky, his arms back and up here he may 
 use his poor neglected left hand. This position gives ex- 
 pansion to the entire front of torso trunk and healthy 
 activity to the vital organs ; and develops a fine symmet- 
 rical physique. Now see the volume of fresh air that 
 can be taken into the lungs. Under these favorable con- 
 ditions the mind and emotions may make rapid advance- 
 ment. The girl may ride, walk, climb trees, play garden 
 games, train shrubbery, care for plants, and boat-row 
 with her brother. If a child is repressed here and there 
 in her play, for fear of spoiling her clothes, or because, 
 as some prudish mothers think, it is not ladylike to romp 
 and play, it can not develop that soundness and symme- 
 try of physique, strength and elasticity of muscle, and 
 easy free motion, which are essential to its health, inde- 
 pendence, arid grace. But when taken in youth and all 
 brought into harmony ready to co-operate in unison, will 
 carry us naturally through a course of culture that will 
 enable us to experience less fatigue from the day's duties, 
 be the work what it may. We shall, moreover, better un- 
 derstand others, and solve the problems of every-day life. 
 'Twill make us more lenient toward others. As it opens 
 up the sympathetic nature, it expands us. In short, it
 
 Child's Friend. 103 
 
 enables us to express ourselves with less waste of energy, 
 and more grace and graciousness. 
 
 I find that in seminaries, where this system is taught, 
 the girls commit to memory more readily than formerly. 
 Then, too, it wards off homesickness, which is a point 
 not to be ignored, and goes with other evidence to prove 
 that Physical Culture, in the true sense of the term, is 
 deep and far-reaching, and should be as much an estab- 
 lished custom as eating. 
 
 That a gradual physical training will do more than 
 all else for imbeciles and the insane, has been too thor- 
 oughly tested to be disputed. Dr. Playfare, of London, 
 is a stanch advocate of massage and physical culture. 
 To his name may be added that of Dr. Weir Mitchell, of 
 Philadelphia, Dr. Hartwell, Wm. Blaikie, Dr. Dudley A. 
 Sargent, at Harvard University, and, indeed, all progress- 
 ive persons interested in the human welfare of the race. 
 
 Physical culture should have the support and pro- 
 tection of the best people, to prevent its being brought 
 into disrepute by the professionals who defeat the object 
 for which it was designed. Dr. Sargent rightly says it 
 is more creditable to present to the world an hundred 
 sound symmetrical men and women to become fathers 
 and mothers of a race, than to produce one champion 
 slugger, one prize oarsman, or one in any other depart- 
 ment of exercise for vulgar professional purposes. 
 
 Nature's Master has provided us the avenue by which 
 to reach perfection, and nature is ready and anxious; 
 but we must co-operate, we must give her our most in- 
 telligent audience ; she can not work at all times success- 
 fully if her laws are ignored. 
 
 UGLY EXERCISES 
 
 Such as jumping rope should be rigorously excluded 
 from the girl's pastime as it possesses not one bit of merit,
 
 IO4 Mother 's Help and 
 
 and is always attended with injury. A little later in 
 life woman's modern ailments are attributed to stair 
 climbing, but truly springs from rope jumping. The 
 prominent shoulder blades, shooting forward of the head, 
 and hollowing of the chest, are but a few of the malfor- 
 mations the human body undergoes in the toils of this 
 UGLY exercise. 
 
 NASTY GAMES 
 
 Like marble playing and all such as bring the face 
 and hand forward and down are degrading in many ways. 
 In the first place the position cramps the vital organs ; 
 then narrows and shortens the front thoracic or chest 
 cavity ; widens, lengthens and bends the back, just the 
 reverse of what is desired (it animalizes them, all back 
 and no chest) ; also makes the head shoot forward and 
 shortens the sight, all of which is injurious to the health 
 and morals. Then, too, these games beget in children 
 a slovenly habit, and a fancy for ' ' chancing. ' ' 
 
 SIMPLE EXERCISES FOR HOME USE. 
 
 After sleeping in a well-aired room, rise promptly, 
 yawn (gape) all you like ; this is nature's own method of 
 expanding and airing the throat. Next open the window 
 a little more, and while slowly raising the arms with 
 closed mouth fill the lungs to their full capacity with 
 fresh air, and exhale slowly as the arms come down. 
 Repeat this three or more times, having care that the 
 chest is well to the front while the abdomen and hips are 
 drawn back. Next, with a wet towel go briskly over th 
 neck and chest and dry thoroughly before proceeding 
 with the rest of your bath. This may be followed by a. 
 little club swinging or calisthenics ; but have a care that 
 the movements are steady (not by jerks). The Dio Lewis
 
 Child ''s Friend. 105 
 
 quick movements are very injurious for, not only do they 
 do irreparable injury to the nervous system but they 
 develop unevenness in the muscles, sometimes to such 
 an extent as to give one the appearance of being knotty 
 and unsymmetrical. These quick movements can only 
 be made by a dreadful waste of energy. So remember 
 what you want is moderately slow and steady, but firm 
 movements. Having always in mind that chest expan- 
 sion, chest development is of first and greatest import- 
 ance. Correct poise is the next, and should be taught at 
 home, in the schools, in church and in the clubs. There 
 are few things which distress me so much as the bad 
 poise and ungainly walk. When you are out try to see 
 how little space you can take up. Use a narrow base on 
 the sidewalk. It is the intoxicated and the weak-headed 
 who are expected to wabble all over the sidewalk, but 
 one with a clear head and easy working joints, is ex- 
 pected to take a narrow line and not interfere with the 
 other pedestrians in the street. Just before going to bed 
 at night, with an escort, go out and take a moderately 
 brisk walk in the fresh air in loose clothing, keeping the 
 chest prominently to the front and breathe evenly. 
 
 I subjoin a rough outline for Physical Culture work: 
 I. Decompose or relax in order to get rid of the 
 accumulated rigidity with which this nervous age is 
 afflicted. 
 
 II. Expansion of the thoracic cavity for the vital 
 organs, and to accommodate the increased lung capacity 
 which is to follow. 
 
 III. Breathing Mental, moral and physical. Dur- 
 ing these exercises great care must be observed regard- 
 ing the poise, also the atmosphere. 
 
 IV. Muscles. Such exercises as develop uniformly 
 and symmetrically the muscular system
 
 io6 Mother's Help and 
 
 V. Recomposing. Correct readjustment, not only of 
 the body, but also of the mind, all the different poises, 
 attitudes, gestures ; for, 
 
 VI. Expression and carriage. 
 
 VII. Walking. How to stand, climb stairs, and 
 walk without the backache and nervousness which 
 accompany a lack of knowledge of the arterial and 
 venous circulations, and their poises.* 
 
 THE SOCIAL DIVISION OF LABOR, 
 
 which is every day becoming more clearly defined, 
 renders Physical Culture an almost absolute necessity 
 with both sexes and in all walks of life. If we wish to 
 preserve the typical human form from utter degeneracy, 
 it behooves us to combine our efforts in establishing and 
 popularizing a system of CULTURE that will bring 
 under cultivation the unused members and muscles. 
 Be it remembered, too, that the many centuries of active 
 use to which our organism has been subjected has 
 brought all parts into such close sympathetic relation- 
 ship that the satisfactory discharge of one faculty's duty 
 depends upon the uninterrupted functions of the others 
 one and all ; this being the case, we can not expect to 
 feel well, be good-natured and beautiful, and in harmony 
 with our interiors and exteriors, if one or more of our 
 members become inert, or the respiratory or circulatory 
 system deranged. With these various derangements' 
 we can expect naught else than that we shall be bilious, 
 pimpled, shriveled and old looking before our time. 
 
 The incessant breaking down of old tissue and its 
 uninterrupted elimination, together with a faultless 
 
 * See " I<eFavre on Physical Culture " for further particulars.
 
 Child's Friend. 107 
 
 nutritive system, are the most potent factors in beauti- 
 fying and prolonging life. 
 
 The value then, we see, of physical culture in its 
 true sense as a remedial agent, can not be overestimated. 
 
 *** 
 
 THE ART OF CONSERVING ENERGY 
 
 is very important in relation to our animal economy, 
 since we know that 80 per cent of all the force we gen- 
 erate is wasted to no earthly purpose. A correct under- 
 standing of this culture will enable us to conserve energy 
 with which to prolong life one-fourth, and often one-third 
 or half, beyond its ordinary duration. But it must be 
 understood that I do not claim this for physical culture 
 in the common application, very good, to be sure, but 
 will not suffice for this purpose.* However, we may all 
 save a good deal by being less fretful, and less anxious 
 and active. We so to speak- cross the bridge before we 
 reach it. 
 
 Come let us make the body beautiful! Let us make 
 of it a handsome and fit agent to handle and deal out 
 graciously the sentiment of God's creative energy and 
 soul-life within. 
 
 *The author will soon publish a book on Physical Culture with a chapter 
 devoted to this subject.
 
 io8 
 
 Mother's Help and 
 
 ILK and farinaceous food form the 
 staple up to the eighth year, and 
 about the age of fourteen a girl or 
 boy requires more food than an 
 adult. When growth and tissue 
 changes are the greatest, food must 
 be good and abundant. Delicate 
 persons who eat little, require food 
 of a better flavor and quality than does one of 
 hearty appetite and hardy constitution. Food 
 should be more oily for cold climate than for warm. 
 
 Feeding by hand or bottle so often fails because of 
 too frequent feeding, and sour bottles. Three bottles are 
 none too many to have, so that while using one, a second 
 may be sweetening in water containing lime, soda, am- 
 monia or other safe cleansing agent ; while a third is 
 airing in the sun, ready for use ; and you want as many 
 tubes and nipples as bottles, that they may undergo the 
 same cleansing process as the bottles. 
 
 From a natural desire to strengthen the child, the 
 mother is disposed to give the food too strong, to over 
 feed, or feed too frequently. If the infant is allowed to 
 eat fast, it not only gets too much, but it also fails to 
 excite to action the salivary glands, which is so very 
 essential to digestion. The fact that the infant dislikes 
 to be idle, should not lead you into the error of too fre- 
 quently feeding it. The common practice of soothing
 
 Child's Friend. 109 
 
 children by giving them cake or sweetmeats, is not less 
 pernicious to health than injurious to moral welfare. The 
 stomach, like other organs, requires a period of repose 
 to regain its tone after being engaged in digestion, and 
 if the child be allowed to eat at its own will and pleasure, 
 indigestion will assuredly follow, and lead to general dis- 
 order of health. 
 
 BOILING THE MILK. 
 
 Some physicians say that owing to the frequency with 
 which milk is contaminated with germs of typhoid fever, 
 tuberculosis, and microbes of other maladies, it is safer to 
 boil it. And I will add that it is still safer to use a good 
 trusty brand of condensed milk, for I've seen it tested, 
 and never saw healthier babies than under this regimen. 
 While babies were dying all about, these condensed-milk 
 babies fought through bravely. Why ? Because, as we 
 know, that milk is easily contaminated ; indeed, I know 
 of nothing that so readily takes up and carries disease as 
 milk. So innocent and nourishing when pure, yet when 
 contaminated by disease, becomes an active agent, carry- 
 ing destruction and death to the unsuspecting. Even 
 the mother's milk, in her anxious hours, poisons the 
 infant ; it becomes a ready vehicle for the transmission 
 of her physical and mental conditions to the child. And, 
 as for myself, I should prefer good condensed milk to a 
 wet nurse, whose health and character were at all ques- 
 tionable. The heated process to which milk is -subjected 
 in condensing purifies it and destroys any germs of dis- 
 ease it may contain. To be sure, care must be exercised 
 not to use it too rich ; add sufficient water to render it 
 digestible. 
 
 I wish we could arrange to cultivate the South Amer- 
 ican Cow-Tree, which yields a fine vegetable milk that is 
 always safe.
 
 no Mother's Help and 
 
 After the appearance of teeth, a little barley gruel or 
 arrowroot may be added to the milk, and for flatulency or 
 gripes, a little toast water, made from well toasted bread 
 may be added to the milk. 
 
 In the change of diet and of weaning not because it 
 is the sixth or seventh month but by the conditions of 
 the child ; for " it is the condition of the organism, and 
 not the mere lapse of a certain number of months which 
 ought to determine the change of diet and period of 
 weaning. ' ' Abqut the time the front teeth appear, milk 
 thickened with barley gruel or arrowroot, may be given 
 twice a day, and the intervals between suckling gradually 
 lengthened. However, no obstinate adherence to routine 
 should be allowed to interfere with the welfare of the in- 
 fant. When the bowels are confined, barley gruel will 
 be better than anything else. When they are too open, 
 boiled milk with arrowroot will be preferable. 
 
 WEANING should take place all things in ordina- 
 rily favorable conditions about the ninth or tenth month 
 when the development of teeth show that a change of 
 food is proper. If weaning can be brought about in clear 
 weather when the child can be much out, its attention 
 will be diverted and the air, at the same time, will act as 
 a tonic and "soothe the nervous irritability." 
 
 One of the chief sources of danger at the time of wean- 
 ing is the tendency of the mother or nurse to consider 
 every cry of the child as a sign of hunger which she must 
 hasten at once to satisfy. 
 
 Allowing children to eat at all hours, and to make of 
 the stomach a receptacle for nick-nacks that have but little 
 food value is injurious to health and morals in that the 
 blood is kept down in the stomach constantly and actively 
 engaged in the process of digestion, thereby developing 
 abnormally the lower instincts ; and when the blood is
 
 Child' s Friend. 1 1 1 
 
 thus kept busy, you can expect naught else than that the 
 intellect will be stunted for lack of the attention and nour- 
 ishment it should be permitted to have. Regularity in 
 eating is therefore essential to the development of the 
 mental and moral as well as physical. 
 
 One writer says that we should go about with food in 
 our pockets and eat whenever hunger overtakes us ; citing 
 the custom of cattle as practical illustration of his theory. 
 Indeed this is a primitive idea to thrust upon people with 
 minds. He probably has not ' ' evoluted ' ' beyond creat- 
 uredom himself. 
 
 Henry Thompson says that more die from overeating 
 than undereating. This is not true of children, how- 
 ever ; they never die from overeating, because, with their 
 rapid growth and active exercise, there is an immense 
 change of tissue going on an amount of broken-down, 
 being thrown off and at the same time, consequent of 
 their rapid growth, an amount taken on exceeding that 
 of the adult, who has attained growth and only takes on 
 enough to replace what breaks down ; so for this reason 
 it is better to feed a child or growing person too much 
 than not enough. If it is fed a little too much nature 
 has provided an escape for the over amount ; but has pro- 
 vided only hunger as a signal for more material with 
 which to build up. 
 
 What often seems like gluttony in children is occa- 
 sioned by the fact that that with which they are fed is 
 not the right kind of food, it is not what Nature de- 
 mands, and has not in it the elements with which to build 
 the bone, blood, muscle, etc., etc., that go to make up the 
 body ; and there is a restless yearning of the spirit with- 
 in, for material with which to enlarge and perfect its 
 earthly habitation that its own progress may go on. I 
 do wish I could in some way emphasize the imperative
 
 ii2 .If other's Help and 
 
 need of parents and guardians taking this subject of food 
 home to their hearts and let it weigh heavy on their 
 minds, nor take rest until they have studied into the 
 CHEMISTRY of FOOD, and applied its moral teachings in 
 the building up of the dear little bodies upon whose clean 
 and symmetrical growth the soul so much depends for 
 normal expansion, and for which we shall surely be re- 
 sponsible ; from this we shall find no escape. 
 
 In this day of enlightenment with plenty of literature 
 on the subject of diet, it bespeaks us to be very negligent, 
 or else of a very low trend of mind, to pedicure our feet, 
 wear silk stockings, and often even doubt that the carpet 
 we are selecting is really good enough for us to walk on, 
 and yet show such utter disregard for the stomach, that 
 internal machine upon whose systematic working de- 
 pends the successful development of our entire body ; add 
 to this the fact that upon the elements contained in the 
 food taken into the system, depends the development and 
 the establishment of the character that is being molded 
 by inherited and exterior forces ; these facts alone should 
 inspire us to establish, on a firm basis, a system of food 
 supply commensurate with the demand necessary to pro- 
 duce an organism fit for a higher plane than that which 
 we have so long been content to occupy. 
 
 Playfare, of London, says, 2.5 oz. oi nitrogenous 
 food is sufficient for idlers, but the active need 2.5 oz. 
 of nitrogenous and 10 oz. of carbonaceous food. Thus 
 we see the importance of selecting food for the child and 
 youth, with a view to fitness, and then be generous of it. 
 
 The infant may be fed twice at night, and at first, 
 at intervals of two hours during the day. The child 
 has not the capacity for the amount of food, at a time, of 
 an adult, while in reality, if it runs a great deal, it stands 
 in need of nearly as much food as the adult, and there-
 
 Child' 1 s Friend. 113 
 
 fore should be better fed at meal-time than it usually is 
 and besides have a lunch between meals ; for this I rec- 
 ommend apples and graham or oat-meal crackers. 
 Making five meals a day for a growing child up to four- 
 teen years ; two light meals and one hearty one for the 
 adult, and two meals for old persons. 
 
 HOW TO HEIGHTEN AND SHORTEN THE 
 CHILDREN. 
 
 Our discoveries of the properties of food value to be 
 found in the different foods makes it now possible for 
 short persons to have tall children, if they so wish, even 
 though the ancestors may have been short and, like- 
 wise, for persons too tall to shorten their children. This 
 remedy may be resorted to any time before the child is 
 nine ; but to realize satisfactory results the parents 
 especially the mother should begin before the child's 
 birth, by eating foods if to heighten the child that 
 contain abundance of lime ; and for shortening, such as 
 are devoid of limy properties. If she will, while nursing 
 the child at the breast, continue this selection of such 
 foods as will tend to produce the desired results, what- 
 ever these may be, she will be well rewarded, FOR THE 
 BODY GROWS UPON WHAT IT IS FED, AND 
 WILL SHOW FORTH THE PROPERTIES OF ITS 
 MAKE-UP WITH WONDERFUL TRUTHFUL- 
 NESS. 
 
 The fontanelle, if closed at fourteen months and two 
 weeks, and the child well developed, will usually have 
 about fourteen teeth, and the child will have been able to 
 walk fairly well several weeks. While with a child having 
 the fontanelle open months later, we generally find few 
 teeth and, in proportion, less ability to walk, as its system
 
 U4 Mother's Help and 
 
 lacks bone material. In such a case I recommend the 
 same as for heightening the stature, i. e. , such foods as 
 contain phosphates of magnesia, phosphates of lime, and 
 carbonate of lime. Some say we get this lime mostly 
 from the water we drink ; such as settles at bottom of tea- 
 kettle is in the water we drink. Water is very import- 
 ant in our animal economy, but I somehow doubt our 
 ability to appropriate properties so far-fetched (from the 
 mineral kingdom). I do not dispute that the mineral 
 salts act upon the food while in the stomach, nor that it 
 enters the circulation, for it does both. But only to dis- 
 tress, as the human body can not appropriate it, and 
 feels at variance with such foreign properties, and hence 
 becomes overtaxed in its efforts to expel them from the 
 system. 
 
 You may say, why is it then that persons so rapidly 
 improve when they go to mineral springs? Because 
 there they partake of the vegetation which abounds in 
 that soil ; then they are out in the fresh air more than 
 when at home ; moreover the system gets a thorough 
 flushing, which it seldom, if ever, gets at home, which 
 we may liken unto going away to watering places to do 
 our internal house-cleaning. 
 
 So we see that in the natural evolutionary order of 
 things, we can not appropriate a mineral direct without 
 its having first entered into the vegetable kingdom, 
 reaching us by gradual, successive steps. 
 
 We might send the Bushmen* any amount of our 
 hard water for drink, and they would never develop the 
 beautiful osseous frame of the Marylanders, or the Ten- 
 nesseeans, or Kentuckians ; nor the massive bony struct- 
 ure of the fPatagonian with his clumsy bird, the Ostrich. 
 
 *Wild tribes of the Cape of Good Hope. Smallest people. 
 tPatagonian the largest human being, and ostrich largest fowl.
 
 Child's Friend. 115 
 
 I have no idea that the Patagonian and ostrich drink 
 any more water than others, but they get their big bone 
 from living in a limy district where vegetation absorbs 
 lime and transfers it to them, as is the case in the lime- 
 stone regions of America. 
 
 From the foregoing we see the folly of depending 
 upon any mineral until it has first entered the vegetable 
 kingdom. Nor do I advise relying upon what you can 
 get in flesh food (meat), for here it has already been 
 appropriated to such an extent that it has lost its value. 
 And right here we are reminded that weak and broken- 
 down brains would be less frequent if we would, instead 
 of seeking our nutriment from our own kingdom (the 
 animal), or going to the extreme search for a remedial 
 agent in the mineral kingdom, which is unorganized and 
 again too remote from our own, and at variance with 
 Nature's course ; rather keep in the gently flowing cur- 
 rent of Nature's forces, allowing the vegetable kingdom 
 to reorganize its best life elements through man. This 
 is according to the natural evolving energy of the all- 
 creative life force of the universe. 
 
 But do we avail ourselves of the opportunity at hand, 
 and call to our aid the finest, most nutritious, and high- 
 est properties our friendly vegetation contains, and which 
 have so well prepared themselves to ascend and co-op- 
 erate with us in carrying the organized life force to 
 higher stages ? No ; usually people eschew the most 
 helpful foods and remedial agents. Craving startling 
 and abnormal sensations, rather than courting Nature's 
 rhythmic melody. Their depraved tastes have led them 
 to want something that burns and smarts, that tastes 
 bitter and is nasty, until their sensibilities are getting 
 so blunted that they are positively wreckless in this de- 
 partment of life, thereby laying themselves liable to
 
 n6 Mother's Help and 
 
 retard their mental progress. Cereals, the greatest brain 
 foods, are to their perverted tastes insipid, and they turn 
 from a friendly dish of this to a plate of meat swimming in 
 blood (ugh!), and now they think they are happy ; but 
 see! one after another of these flesh-eaters loses his 
 brain power. With this diet he may keep up his animal 
 strength, but if he wants to evolve mind power he must 
 go to the vegetable kingdom for it. Seek for it among 
 fruits and cereals. For adults as well as children I ad- 
 vise a generous use of foods made of whole wheat, whole 
 oats, and beans ; these can be rendered suitable to a 
 child's digestion by boiling slowly and THOROUGHLY, 
 and pouring liquid and all through a coarse sieve, again 
 place it on the stove in a porcelain dish or kettle with 
 enough water to give it the consistency of a gruel. 
 When thoroughly cooked add a very little salt (not that 
 we need salt, but that the long-established habit must be 
 put away gradually), it is then ready to use. Any of 
 the grains or vegetables may be prepared in same way 
 and given the child in small spoonfuls along with its 
 milk (both should be warm). 
 
 Under no consideration should fine white wheat bread 
 be given to children. It is bad enough for the many 
 grown people to subject their stomachs to the trying task 
 of digesting it, without inflicting upon the children this 
 baneful custon, which a dog can endure only a few weeks. 
 The most nutritive part of the grain is that which lies 
 directly against the shell and is found in whole wheat 
 and whole oat-flour. These same properties are also 
 found in meat because the animal gets them from the 
 vegetation ; but the value is greatly lessened by the ani- 
 mal's use, and deteriorated by diseases which all animals 
 have. At Cambridge we had a class in dissection and 
 were watching the markets for material with which to
 
 Child's Friend. 117 
 
 work, when a flock of Tennessee lambs arrived. Aud in 
 the course of a few days ' ' choice Tennessee lamb ' ' 
 was largely advertised, and the ready purchasers were 
 enthusiastic in praise of the savory meat. Meantime we 
 made daily visits to the markets examining said lambs 
 and selecting lungs and other portions for dissection and 
 study. These lambs having come from a mild state into 
 the consumptive state (Mass.) had as we found by 
 examination all, without exception, contracted pneu- 
 monia. While my boarding-house associates appro- 
 priated the pneumonic lamb with relish, I smiled serenely 
 without and chuckled in my vegetarian sleeve as I inno- 
 cently regaled myself on hygienic diet. Our able lecturer 
 said she did not find one healthy animal in a hundred. 
 
 If people eat flesh when they know this, it shows 
 they prefer nasty food to clean ; it shows they are anx- 
 ious to decay; for if they are building up their body with 
 diseased flesh what are they but a walking mass of cor- 
 ruption. 
 
 I here introduce a letter I had from Mrs. Chandler, 
 who is well known throughout America as President of 
 Moral Educational societies, and writer on Moral topics : 
 
 THE FOOD FOR CHILDREN. 
 
 DEAR MRS. LE FAVRE: The Vegetarian Society has under- 
 taken a work calculated to promote health physically and morally. 
 Indeed, the relation of physical and moral hygiene is very inti- 
 mate. It has seemed to me strange that habit should override 
 observation and stand in the way of natural evolution, for it has 
 long been my opinion that if only the natural inclinations of 
 children in food were allowed to govern their diet, instead of the 
 customary dishes that include flesh, fish, and fowl, it would soon be 
 found that vegetarianism is the tendency of the human appetite. 
 When not misdirected, children almost invariably are fond of fruit
 
 u8 Mother's Help and 
 
 and vegetables, sometimes they crave meat but oftener they are 
 overborne by the influence of their elders to use it. 
 
 Meat was never palatable to me as a child, and I have never 
 eaten it much. It has been ordered by physicians to "build me 
 up" when in a state of feebleness or nervous prostration. It 
 never "built," and invariably produced feverishness, and aggra- 
 vated insomnia, and at last I clearly proved that eating beef caused 
 hemorrhoids. The London Lancet once made a statement that was 
 precisely in accord with my experience as to the use of meat. This 
 medical authority claimed the truth, that meat is not strengthen- 
 ing but stimulating. That persons of high nervous temperament 
 or of sedentary habits are not benefited by the use of meat, that 
 it produces nervous excitability, and a feverish condition that dis- 
 turbs unfavorably the brain and nerve system. 
 
 I wish, now that fruit is comparatively cheap and plentiful, the 
 dear children could be left to enjoy it, andto find in the many nice 
 preparations of cereals, the nourishment their growing bodies need, 
 untainted with the tissues of dead animals. We should soon have 
 a generation who would find no difficulty in abstaining from alco- 
 holic stimulants, in my opinion, if we could eliminate animal food, 
 and educate the sense of taste after the Kindergarten method. 
 
 I have passed threescore years and was never since my birth in 
 so good health as now. Not only do I abstain from meat, it has 
 become simply disgusting to me, and I find in the cereals and fruit, 
 which constitute the larger part of my diet, a strength that was 
 never experienced from the use of meat. 
 
 LUCINDA B. CHANDLER. 
 
 The oils found in flesh food (meats) can, very greatly 
 to the child's interest, be supplied by the use of nuts, 
 fruit and vegetable oils, after the child is old enough to 
 require more oil than it gets in the milk. Corn contains 
 a very useful oil, and is so infinitely superior to hog lard, 
 which is the corn oil later on having gone through the 
 beastly swine process on its way to satisfy the perverted 
 taste man has cultivated and, indeed, superior to any 
 animal fat. Olive oil, cotton-seed oil and nut oils do 
 admirably serve the purposes for which lard is commonly 
 used. And when people refuse to use animal fats and
 
 Ch ild 1 s Friend. 119 
 
 foods, other vegetable oils and cereal preparations will 
 come to the front. For scientific men and millers are 
 keenly alive to the demands of the public. A very 
 dainty butter is now made from the cocoanut milk. 
 
 MENU FOR ONE DAY. 
 
 BREAKFAST. 
 
 Oranges. 
 Cereal coffee with cream and sugar. 
 
 Cerealine, with cream and sugar. 
 Eggs on toast. Salt and pepper. 
 Whole wheat cakes. Maple syrup. 
 
 LUNCHEON. 
 
 Apple tea. Graham gems and butter. 
 
 French peas. Russian salad. 
 
 Strawberries and cake. 
 
 Milk. 
 Nuts and olives. 
 
 DINNER. 
 
 Bean soup. Salad. 
 
 Macaronied tomatoes. 
 
 Corn-bread. 
 
 Fried bananas. Cauliflower. 
 
 Crab-apple jelly. Nut-layer cake. 
 
 Basket of fruits. 
 Quince tea. Kumyss. 
 
 The table should be made to look as pretty as possi- 
 ble, and when flowers are not to be had, a massive cluster 
 of golden grain may be tied with pale green or yellow- 
 satin ribbon about two inches wide and put in a trans-
 
 120 
 
 parent vase or celery glass, or laid on a fancy wire rack, 
 or on a rustic or scroll-sawed rack made for this purpose. 
 When flowers are used they should be, as regards color, 
 in harmony with the predominating color of the table 
 and the light of the room. The basket of fruit may be 
 made a pretty feature by its being fanciful in shape, well 
 filled with all kinds of fruit and may be passed around by 
 the maid. If a separate course is made of the fruit, it 
 may be brought in on an immense platter or a tray and 
 served from the head of the table, each one being in turn 
 asked his choice of fruit, three kinds being permissible. 
 
 As vegetarians do not have the meals of two days in 
 succession alike, it is not necessary to have so great a 
 variety at one meal ; for example, the meat-eaters have 
 meat, potatoes, coffee and fine bread at least once a day 
 the year round. As for myself I do not take any of these 
 four items, and if I did I would not think it wise to use 
 them to such an extent, as they would enter too largely 
 into the construction of the body. I am a vegetarian, 
 but am one who feels she has outgrown the need of going 
 under the ground for her food. A newspaper man who 
 interviewed me, said, " How do you keep up and look 
 so well ? You don't eat flesh, fish, or fowl ; you don't 
 eat roots, nor drink tea and coffee." He did not realize 
 that I had anything left me but cabbage and apples, until 
 I handed him a list of foods and invited him to take a 
 stroll down on South Water street the greatest market 
 in the world a whole street given up to foods. He was 
 convinced that it was possible to be a vegetarian and live 
 on the fat of the land, and that, too, without going under 
 the ground. 
 
 The world has produced only one artist who could 
 put any kind of sentiment into potaio-digging, and even 
 Millet had recourse to a higher sentiment before he
 
 Child's Friend. 121 
 
 could invoke the muses of the brush to transfer the scenes 
 to the canvas, with anything but a groveling attitude. 
 ' ' The Angelus ' ' does not hold us spell-bound by its 
 artistic potato-digging, 'tis not that at all. It is the devo- 
 tional sentiment that creeps over us, until we are so sat- 
 urated that we forget who and where we are. But I 
 have digressed. Now to return to the matter of variety. 
 As I approve of a great variety of food, but not all to be 
 put into the stomach at once, I have only a small variety 
 at a meal but change every meal. In this way the sys- 
 tem gets the variety without taxing the stomach with 
 the laborious work of digesting a conglomerated mixt- 
 ure. 
 
 DIGESTIVE FLUIDS. 
 
 Two-thirds the amount of food we usually take would 
 produce better results than we now have if we would 
 select such as contains nutritive properties, and then mas- 
 ticate it well. Remember that the beneficial results of 
 eating depend upon assimilation, and assimilation de- 
 pends upon, first the saliva secreted from the salivary 
 glands by the action of mastication ; second, gastric juice 
 is secreted from within the stomach ; then third, the bile 
 from the liver, and the pancreatic juice from the pancreas 
 combine and act upon the food after it leaves the stom- 
 ach. The bile emulsifies the fat and the pancreatic juice 
 is alkaline and acts upon the starchy food. 
 
 *** 
 
 The bulk of the civilized world seems to be living to 
 eat, instead of simply eating to live and improve the 
 bodily instrument, through which real life expresses 
 itself.
 
 122 Mother's Help and 
 
 GOOD CHEER, NOT MEAL MAKES THE FEAST. 
 
 The leading medical men and women say we must 
 above all put away care, anxiety, and disagreeable 
 thought during meals, and give ourselves over to the 
 enjoyment of our food ; that this will aid digestion and 
 assimilation, and help to furnish vitality. 
 
 Now if this peaceful enjoinder is essential in the case 
 of adults, is it not much more so in childhood when the 
 functions of the digestive organs are yet scarcely estab- 
 lished ? And still we all know it a common every-day 
 matter to see a child compelled to take its food between 
 slaps and tears. To say that this is UNHYGIENIC and 
 CRUEL, is putting it mildly. And I am amazed not at 
 the many who die at the number that survive. I will 
 not say live, for it is scarcely living to come into this life- 
 form only half put together and then subjected to treat- 
 ment which we grown people would resent, as not only 
 discourteous, but brutal. Have these little darlings no 
 rights that we need respect ?
 
 Child's Friend. 
 
 123 
 
 Stimulants. 
 
 EA, Coffee, Alcohol and Tobacco 
 these act as brakes ; they preserve in 
 the body the old worn out particles. 
 And when you cease to break down 
 and carry off old tissue or bodily ma- 
 terial, you clog the system and cease 
 to build up new, z. e., according to the old 
 saying you do not change your body in 
 every seven years. A fat body is the result 
 of an accumulation of waste matter and tissue that 
 should have been eliminated from the system. Fat is not 
 normal. Nor is a wrinkled body normal, here the tissues 
 may have been dried or puckered up by these stimulants, 
 and the eliminating and supplying channels impaired 
 and obstructed.* 
 
 You will agree with me that in aiming for complete 
 and perfect offspring, we must educate ourselves up to a 
 high standard of excellence physically as well as men- 
 tally and morally. Again, you will agree with me that 
 in dealing with the vegetable and lower animal kingdoms, 
 we exercise great care to select the healthiest, most sym- 
 metrical, and in every way most desirable as seed, as 
 reproducers ; and our painstaking does not here end, we 
 are ever watchful that the environments be the very best 
 we can provide. And now in the name of common sense 
 and decency, why not give our offspring an equal chance 
 
 See this author's book on " Food and its Relations to Beauty."
 
 124 Mother's Help and 
 
 with our vegetable and lower animal ? Will it not 
 " pay " ? It is conceded by all that it "pays " to exer- 
 cise much forethought and outlay much skill in the 
 cultivation of these lower tenants of the earth ; for the 
 benefits by the painstaking is too evident to be ques- 
 tioned. It enhances their value to us in a financial 
 sense "Aye, there is the rub !" Selfishness or finan- 
 cial gain is the incentive for our toil, and by it are we 
 stimulated, each one ambitious chiefly to achieve a 
 financial standard that shall surprise or awe our friends ; 
 or to own a pet plant or animal so highly organized as to 
 make the neighbors green with envy ; until it has become 
 an old story. And, for a change, what could be the 
 objection to enhancing the value of the human race? 
 Wherever there have been human slaves, the increased 
 money value as the result of such a course of cultivation 
 has inspired nearly the same interest as has been received 
 by the lower animal and vegetable at the hands of man. 
 Man's greatest crime at the present time is CRUELTY 
 TO POSTERITY AND TO WOMAN. 
 
 Somehow, man has the idea that he owes nothing to 
 posterity ; which is a direct contradiction to the scientific 
 wisdom he so generously lavishes upon the lower organ- 
 ized life-forms, where his sole work is to advance the 
 interests of posterity, all he can do to advance the inter- 
 ests of the prospective crop he does without a murmur ; 
 in truth, his heart is joyful in anticipation. But what 
 can be the objection to enhancing the worth of the 
 human race, by way of varying the monotony ? I say it 
 will ' ' pay, ' ' in the balancing up of universal accounts, 
 to be found casting our energies in the progressive side 
 of the scale, rather than with those on the side retarding 
 Nature's evolving force. 
 
 PATENT MEDICINES figure most conspicuously
 
 Child's Friend. 125 
 
 of all the causes of habitual drunkenness ; nor does the 
 pernicious nostrum stop its venomous work here ; for do 
 not innumerable cases of opium habit, arsenic, morphine, 
 tobacco and such, stare us in the face daily ? Add to 
 these, which play destruction on morals, coffee and tea, 
 attired a little less decollete to be sure, and therefore 
 given audience by society too circumspect to countenance 
 the other ; but nevertheless they are venomous breeders 
 of restlessness and discontent that daily make MOTH- 
 ERHOOD AND MARRIAGE A FAILURE. 
 
 Of the obnoxious effects of alcoholic drinks, tea, coffee, 
 and tobacco, you can best judge by leaving them off for 
 a month and you will have your eyes opened and agree 
 with me that they are good fertilizers with which to 
 grow disease and immorality in their various forms and 
 stages. Tea and coffee have a far more baneful effect on 
 woman than is generally supposed by a casual observer. 
 If the husband is not made to suffer, by the woman's 
 nervous, excitable, irritable, fault-finding state of mind 
 and conduct, the little darlings are. 
 
 If you could see the condition of some of the tea 
 pickers and the process through which this curled leaf 
 goes before it gets to you, you'd turn from it in disgust, 
 and yet it does seem upon reflection, as I bethink me, 
 that mankind often does not like a food or drink until it 
 has been nastified in some way. Dear Mothers, for sake 
 of the child's present and everlasting good, let me be- 
 seech of you to avoid these drinks as you would poison 
 labeled with cross-bones and skull. Not only do they 
 slowly poison, but they stimulate and generate a high 
 pressure of activity that is unnatural and there must be a 
 reaction which will appear in the garb of premature 
 death ; or if the child possesses adaptability it may live
 
 126 Mother's Help and 
 
 on nervously, or even with apparently good health ; but 
 will surely be cut short of old age. 
 
 The Pall Mall Gazette states that a woman living in 
 Russia, always a strict teetotaler, recently celebrated her 
 one hundred and fortieth birthday. Those who desire 
 long life should emulate her abstemious example 
 
 The cranky, fault-finding, wrinkled and nervous old 
 people we meet every day of our lives, should be a po- 
 tent example to parents who are solicitous for the welfare 
 of their children. At the final day our children will be 
 asked, you were given an amount of life force, what 
 have you done with it? Shall they have to say that 
 they wasted most of it in irritability ? Are we desirous 
 of standing responsible for such an answer ? 
 
 Persons who use the^e debasing articles are placing 
 evil environments about the coming generation ; for, out 
 of intemperance and discontent in parents grow a multi- 
 tude of sins that are registered on the incoming genera- 
 tion, and they again transmit them to their posterity. 
 Evidence adduced from every-day experience goes to 
 show that we must have recourse to purer environment 
 before we can hope to place humanity in the ascendency ; 
 and this can only be accomplished by a vigorous enforce- 
 ment of temperance ; and the shortest road thereto is the 
 smiling path of a vegetarian diet. With the use of ani- 
 mal food (fish, fowl, and flesh,) comes a savage craving 
 for intemperate or stimulant drinks and narcotics. The 
 shortest and smoothest road to temperance in these, as 
 also in sexual intemperance, is to leave off eating meat. 
 Let us do the best we can for the children that have 
 already come, and arrange everything in good order for 
 those that shall come. Begin by preparing the fathers 
 and mothers while they are yet children, especially the 
 mother, as she is the child's closest environment. Let
 
 Child's Friend. 127 
 
 her be temperate in all things, and she will be sweet tem- 
 pered and orderly. She will have love in her heart and 
 forethought for the duties that accompany the marriage. 
 She should try to have the co-operation of the husband , 
 for he, too, should be pure and have noble aspirations. 
 
 It is a great error that on the first symptoms of any 
 disease, " medicine is resorted to for its expulsion, while 
 the cause is left to operate undisturbed." Any mother 
 or nurse' who makes frequent recourse to medicine is unfit 
 to have care of children. 
 
 Frequently when the child cries, as with a colic, place 
 it on its stomach on the bed or your lap heat a piece 
 of flannel or the palm of your hand quite warm and place 
 it on its bowels next to skin. Hot applications will 
 usually effect a speedy relief for all such annoyances, 
 especially if turned on the bowels, and with the head 
 lower than the thighs ; this answers as well for older 
 ones, who may drink a quantity of hot water as a sup- 
 plement. 
 
 UNDER NO CONDITION GIVE THE BABE 
 SOOTHING SYRUPS, THEY ARE INJURIOUS 
 TO THE BRAIN. They also with other patent medi- 
 cines - create a desire for liquor.
 
 128 
 
 Mother's Help and 
 
 Strength 
 
 XPERIENCE teaches that a healthy 
 growing boy may spend six hours of 
 force daily on his studies, and leave 
 sufficient margin for physical growth. 
 A girl can not spend more than four, 
 or, in occasional instances five hours 
 of daily force in study, and leave 
 sufficient margin for general physical 
 growth that she must make in com- 
 mon with the boy, and also for her 
 own development." 
 To grow and develop rapidly, during the period from 
 twelve to twenty years of age, is the nature of the girl. 
 But the vital energies pertaining to the body, and gener- 
 ated in the organism, by which this growth and develop- 
 ment are effected, are absolutely limited, says Dr. O. B. 
 Moss (So it is with the restrictions we put upon her. ) 
 Nor can the same forces be employed at the same time 
 for two distinct ends. If only growth of body is sought, 
 we shall have deficient mental development ; if only 
 development of the mind is provided for, the result is a 
 defective body. There is no escape from these laws. 
 
 Nature responds to the demands made upon her to, 
 the best of her possibilities, even though she thereby 
 dwarfs her noblest organs and disregards her highest 
 functions. And, moreover, it is only when an equal dis- 
 tribution of the vital energies is made that we see the 
 highest results perfect womanhood. Nature's inexora- 
 ble law of compensation diminishes her working forces to- 
 morrow if overdrawn to-day ; and at no time of life does
 
 Child's Friend. 129 
 
 this manifest itself so unmistakably as during the girl's 
 developing years, from twelve to twenty. 
 
 A great deal is said against the present method of 
 school education, and not without good cause especially 
 are the moral, manual, and sanitary branches neglected 
 for nonsensical studies that only waste the energy. But 
 is it not more true that the lack of reserve force is due 
 more to neglect at home than overwork at school ? 
 Mothers look into this. I have given this subject much 
 thought and investigation, and find that the girls, after 
 sleeping in well-ventilated rooms, with five to ten min- 
 utes given up to calisthenics and deep breathing before 
 an open window in a loose gown before breakfast, a good 
 wholesome diet of plenty of whole oat and wheat food 
 (no meat, as that develops too rapidly certain parts of 
 the organism that can to advantage be left till after school 
 days), vegetables, fruits, and nuts; milk, fruit and 
 berry drinks (no tea and coffee), acquire more strength 
 and jolly good nature thereby, than could possibly be 
 gained by any amount of school reform. Mothers, try it 
 on your girls. Girls, try it for yourselves a month, which 
 will mean a permanent adoption of it. And you will be 
 glad to have made the acquaintance of the MOTHER'S 
 HELP AND CHILD'S FRIEND. 
 
 We remember Prof. Huxley estimates endurance as 
 one of the highest attainments. Physical endurance, 
 remember, not short spurts of strength, but endurance. 
 How are we to acquire and attain this ? Not by meat 
 diet, for that only irritates and stimulates to immediate 
 action and leaves exhausted vitality. 
 
 Investigation and experience show that more strength 
 of body, muscle, nerve, and brain can be gotten from 
 what is called a vegetarian diet than from meat. The 
 natural food for mankind is that which is free from dis-
 
 130 
 
 Mo therms Help and 
 
 ease and clean , that which is pleasing to the unperverted 
 eye. This food harmonizes with the internal machinery 
 of man. In partaking of it there is no death-shock 
 vibrating through the system, no disturbing elements. 
 Vegetarian food being the natural diet of the human 
 being, it is at once appropriated, and on this the circula- 
 tory system keeps steadily at work building blood, bone, 
 and muscular tissue. There are no fluctuating disturb- 
 ances as when flesh food is taken, and therefore the growth 
 is steady, and reliable, and the strength will be enduring. 
 The muscles and animal tissues generally are com- 
 posed of oxygen, hydrogen, carbon and nitrogen. To 
 supply their growth and waste, therefore, substances 
 containing all these elements are required. Starch, 
 sugar and fat can not nourish the muscles, they are 
 deficient in the important element Nitrogen. It is a 
 remarkable fact that all these principles, wherever found, 
 and whether of animal or vegetable nature, are almost 
 identical in their ultimate chemical composition. Thus 
 the gluten of wheat, the legumin of peas, the fibrine of 
 muscles, the casein of milk, and the albumen of eggs 
 contain very nearly the same proportions of oxygen, 
 hydrogen, carbon, and nitrogen. 
 
 
 
 ri 
 
 
 
 
 
 <u 
 
 
 
 
 
 
 bo 
 
 a 
 
 a 
 
 
 | 
 
 
 
 T3 
 
 <u 
 
 1 
 
 So 
 
 
 a 
 
 >, 
 
 
 
 M 
 
 
 <j 
 
 w 
 
 % 
 
 O 
 
 Animal Fibrine contains 
 
 52.5 
 
 7.00 
 
 16.5 
 
 24 CO 
 
 Albumen (white of egg) contains . . 
 
 53-23 
 
 7.01 
 
 16 41 
 
 2 3-35 
 
 Vegetable Albumen contains .... 
 
 53-14 
 
 7.11 
 
 15-65 
 
 25-50 
 
 Casein of cow's milk " ... 
 Vegetable Casein " ... 
 
 53-50 
 53-46 
 
 7-05 
 7-13 
 
 15-77 
 16.04 
 
 23.08 
 23-37 
 
 Albumen ~\ 
 
 Gluten >- For repairing muscular waste. 
 
 Fibrine I
 
 Child's Friend. 
 
 Water, &tr, gmnsf)ine. 
 
 -ATER enters so largely and im- 
 portantly into the composition of 
 the body as to merit more con- 
 sideration than is our wont usu- 
 ally to give it. I can most con- 
 cisely express myself by quoting 
 M. S. Holbrook, M. D.: " Water 
 is a liquid food. It contains a part of 
 every tissue, in a free, loose state, and 
 a part of it in a very intimate union 
 with the tissues, so that it can not be driven off by 
 evaporation. When water is taken into the system it 
 assists in building up the organs and repairing them 
 when worn out." * 
 
 WATER IS THE NATURAL BEVERAGE OF 
 MAN. About eighty-seven per cent of our body is 
 water. It wastes with every breath and motion, and 
 this waste must be restored by a fresh supply. It 
 softens and holds in solution the solid parts of 
 our food so that it will flow into the veins and arteries. 
 It maintains a proper bulk to both blood and tissues, 
 rendering them mobile and soft instead of hard and dry. 
 It holds in solution the waste matter of the body, and 
 transports it out of the system. 
 
 It takes up the waste heat of the body and carries it 
 away. It slacks our thirst, and cools the blood in warm 
 weather.
 
 132 Mother* s Help and 
 
 It may be the vehicle, taken hot, of carrying heat 
 into the circulation after exposure to cold and damp. 
 
 AMOUNT OF WATER REQUIRED FOR MAN AND WOMAN. 
 
 An adult 'requires daily from three to six pints of 
 water for nutrition. Not far from one-third of this is 
 contained in our food, and if much food is used, the 
 amount required for drink is less. Women drink less 
 than men, and children more in proportion to their bulk. 
 During hot weather and when the exercise is very severe 
 an additional supply is required." 
 
 WORTH REMEMBERING. 
 
 A drink of water for baby. And how seldom the 
 mother and nurse think of it. It would indeed be diffi- 
 cult to estimate the amount of suffering imposed on 
 babies through neglect of giving them water when they 
 are thirsty. Milk is to them as food is to us, so they 
 need water when they are thirsty. 
 
 Whenever anything ails you invoke the aid of water. 
 When taken in large quantity it flushes the system and 
 frees it of waste matter and poison. When taken hot it 
 will give speedy relief to colic and most other disorders 
 of the stomach and bowels, and indeed of adjacent and 
 remote parts of the body. Flannel cloths wrung out of 
 hot water and applied to the surface will scatter and 
 absorb most any physical affliction. 
 
 When an insufficiency of water is taken, a person is 
 more apt to get wrinkled, because the tissues are not held 
 in a free, loose state. If old people would depend upon 
 water, instead of tea and coffee for drink, they would 
 not be so dried up and wrinkled. Pure rain water or dis- 
 tilled water is better to drink and wash hands and face
 
 Child's Friend. 133 
 
 with than hard water, such as contain organic matter, 
 or as contains inorganic salts. 
 
 Sandstone districts are usually co-existent with soft 
 water ; and limestone with hard water. 
 
 A half cupful of oat-meal may be put into the wash- 
 pitcher of water for softening it, when no other means 
 are available. 
 
 BATHING. 
 
 An infant should be washed with warm water and a 
 sponge, no soap unless it is for cleansing the scalp. A 
 perfectly clean sponge and clean water must be used for 
 the eyes, if not careful inflammation and even blindness 
 may ensue. 
 
 Have the room warm and not light. Do not let any 
 rays of light reach the eyes of the infant. 
 
 Use a thermometer, so as to be sure that the tempera- 
 ture of the bath is 98 . Rub, after the bath, with the 
 hand. Under no consideration should the mother allow 
 the child's daily bath to be neglected. The scalp and 
 body will become diseased if not washed every day. An 
 all-over sponge bath is healthy ; yes, necessary for adults 
 and children alike. No fear of a cold need be enter- 
 tained if the bath be habitual and the skin well dried by 
 brisk rubbing. Do not allow the child to be exposed to 
 the air while wet ; raise its head and trunk up in the 
 tub, and dry quickly before exposing the abdomen and 
 legs above the water ; for if the body be exposed to the 
 air while wet, even if the room is warm, it is apt to take 
 a cold. For children that are old enough, a brisk rub- 
 bing with the towel will create a healthy circulation, after 
 which oil can be applied if one likes. 
 
 White castile soap is best for the bath when you can 
 not get gluten soap.
 
 134 Mother's Help and 
 
 Only bilious and thick-skinned persons should use a 
 flesh brush. The bath mitten is usually most desirable 
 after childhood is passed. 
 
 It is well to teach the child to enjoy its bath. The 
 baby at the White House (President Harrison's grand- 
 baby) is said to anticipate its daily bath with great 
 pleasure, as a sort of a water frolic, and what is prettier 
 than children frolicking in the water ? 
 
 The bath, like everything else, does more good if 
 made enjoyable. The daily bath is necessary in that res- 
 piration goes on through the skin, as well as the lungs. 
 And if the waxy emanation is allowed to clog the pores, 
 a very important respiratory avenue is closed. When 
 we take into consideration the fact that the skin alone 
 acts as a fourfold agent, viz. : Protective, vascular, ex- 
 cretory, and nervous, we readily see the importance of 
 keeping it in a healthy condition. And when placed in 
 a proper active condition, the mind is clear and the duties 
 of the day can be pursued with a greater degree of ease. 
 
 AIR. 
 
 The fact of our lungs being located in so important 
 a part of the vital system, and protected too, by the most 
 beautiful and complex part of the osseous system, shows 
 our imperative need of them. And the fact of their con- 
 taining 600,000,000 air cells, proves conclusively that 
 we constantly need a large quantity of air to sustain life 
 and nourish us. Every breath we inhale should bring 
 that life-giving, blood-purifying element, oxygen. And 
 that every adult requires daily about 360 cubic feet of 
 fresh air, which would be equal to about 2,000 gallons a 
 day, or in pounds about 25. That we require in weight, 
 three times as much air as of food and drink combined.
 
 Child's Friend. 135 
 
 A PERSON MAY LIVE A LONG TIME WITH- 
 OUT FOOD IF HE KNOWS HOW TO BREATHE 
 RIGHT ; but AIR WE MUST HAVE. And if we 
 will be normal plenty of it. 
 
 Although life may not be destroyed suddenly by 
 breathing an impure atmosphere, yet the vital energies 
 are thereby slowly but surely impaired. Especially true 
 is this with growing children and feeble persons. 
 
 AIR SPOILED BY BREATHING. 
 
 ' ' In the process of breathing, the air loses about a 
 third part of its oxygen the life-giving principle and 
 receives in exchange carbonic acid gas, a gas that is not 
 only incapable of supporting life, but actually destructive 
 to it. Such is the change effected by the act of breath- 
 ing. And if this process goes on in an ill- ventilated 
 room, where several persons are gathered, the carbonic 
 acid gas accumulates, usurps the place of the oxygen 
 consumed, and so renders the air unfit for the renewal of 
 life. All the functions of the body are tardily and im- 
 perfectly performed, the muscular tissues are enfeebled, 
 the breathing becomes oppressed, the head aches, and in 
 extreme cases, life is extinguished amidst suffering of the 
 most distressing nature." Apertures near the ceiling in 
 every house and every room, should be provided for the 
 escape of carbonic acid gas and effluvia.* 
 
 AIRY SLEEPING ROOMS. 
 
 If proper means of ventilation was neglected in tne 
 construction of your houses, lose no time now in making 
 
 The Auditorium at Chicago, which is probably the best ventilated struct- 
 ure on the globe, is provided with machines for aerifying the effluvia. This 
 process is effectual in freeing the air of some 250 pounds of impurities daily. 
 The air in all schools and public buildings should be subject to this nealtby 
 treatment
 
 136 Mother's Help and 
 
 provision for the uninterrupted removal of bad air. Es- 
 pecially the bedrooms which are usually so badly 
 arranged, or small and " cluttered up" that long before 
 morning dawns, " the whole apartment becomes highly 
 injurious from the consumption of its oxygen, the for- 
 mation of carbonic acid gas, and the exhalations from the 
 lungs and relaxed skin. In an atmosphere thus loaded 
 with effluvia, the sleep is heavy and unrefreshing, par- 
 taking more of the character of insensibility." 
 
 There are some diseases in which the cause of death 
 is simply an accumulation of carbonic acid gas in the 
 blood, which poisons slowly but surely the system, pro- 
 ducing commonly at first headache; after which spring 
 up various other ailments. 
 
 You will find that if you sleep with 3 r our face under 
 cover, or face toward another person, or toward the wall, 
 you will get up with a headache. This is because the 
 same spoiled air you expel from your lungs, you a* once 
 receive again and the carbonic acid gas it contains enters 
 the circulation and poisons the system, and a headache 
 and bitter mouth are the first symptoms. 
 
 Gas, or any other light (save perhaps electric bulbs, 
 and I do not know that they are an exception) in a room 
 will so rapidly consume the health-sustaining properties 
 as to appall one who understands the processes. This 
 action of burning light and the consumption of oxygen 
 by the lungs, we see, makes it absolutely necessary that 
 an outlet for spoiled air be provided and an uninterrupted 
 current of fresh air be admitted. Kerosene lamps which 
 exhale that familiar odor, are as frequently the source of 
 croup and diphtheria as other agents. This air-deteriorat- 
 ing, health-destroying light question, in my mind, deter- 
 mines the importance of reserving bedrooms for sleeping 
 rooms only.
 
 Child's Friend. 137 
 
 Some writers say ' ' the body is a smoking mass of cor- 
 ruption," which is often true, though I think not quite 
 so bad as that usually. The shadow we see on a wall in 
 a strong sunlight, is the shadow of a vapor we exhale, 
 which is always charged with impurity in a greater or 
 lesser degree, depending upon the cleanliness of the per- 
 son, internally and externally. If the alimentary canal 
 performs its functions with natural regularity, then the 
 other excretory organs will not be so heavily taxed, nor 
 the effluvia be so dense and poisonous to ourselves and 
 others who have to inhale it, making the lungs use over 
 again this vitiated air. 
 
 ' ' In certain states of body and weather the exhalations 
 by the skin alone exceeds in weight the whole amount 
 thrown out by the bowels and kidneys together a fact 
 which may convey some notion of importance to health. 
 In the ordinary state the exhalation is invisible, and is 
 thence named insensible perspiration. During active 
 exercise or in hot weather, it appears in the form of 
 sweat or perspiration. The lungs constitute another im- 
 portant channel of excretion. In humid still weather 
 perspiration and pulmonary exhalation go on very imper- 
 fectly ; and when the air is very hot and dry, these pro- 
 cesses go on too fast, producing feverish irritability and 
 thirst, which, if continued for some time, are sure to be 
 succeeded by disease. On every account, then, constant 
 attention should be given to the temperature, the moist- 
 ure, and the purity of the air by which the young are 
 surrounded. . For example, if we allow perspiration to 
 be checked by exposure to cold and moist air, an effort 
 will be made by some of the other excretory organs to 
 get rid of the hurtful particles retained in the blood, and 
 which ought to have been thrown out by the skin ; but 
 even when the effort proves successful, it is always at the
 
 138 Mother* s Help and 
 
 risk of the over-activity thus induced terminating the 
 disease. Hence the necessity of avoiding every cause 
 likely to disturb the natural balance between the differ- 
 ent excreting organs, and to throw the labor of one 
 upon another which is not intended for it."* 
 
 The Chinese attach so much importance to skin respi- 
 ration, that they have no collar on their garments, and 
 have their clothing so loose that ventilation may go on 
 undisturbed. 
 
 For experiment put on a rubber rain coat, fasten it up 
 tight all about you especially at the neck, sit down in a 
 close room a while and you will soon feel stuffy and a suf- 
 focating sensation, although your head is out. This goes 
 to prove that you respire through the pores of the skin, 
 which the waterproof in a degree prevents because it is 
 air-tight. For this same reason I am decidedly opposed 
 to quilts and comforters on the bed at night they are 
 nearly air-tight, while blankets admit of ventilation. I 
 have the same fault to find with starched shirt fronts, to 
 corsets and corset covers and to starch in children's 
 clothing, f 
 
 SUNSHINE. 
 
 Old and young should go out into the sunshine every 
 day. And children afflicted with scrofula should spend 
 several hours in the early morning sun, as it is better, 
 more strengthening, than the afternoon sun. 
 
 I have observed in my travels about the world .nat 
 people exposed most to the air and moderate rays of the 
 sun are healthy, such as live in rudely constructed houses 
 seen on the frontiers ; while those abiding in cellars and 
 deep narrow valleys, as do they of the Alps and in parts 
 of Siberia, where the mountains, towering high above, 
 
 'Management of Infancy by Dr. Comb. 
 tSee Chapter on Clothing.
 
 Child's Friend. 139 
 
 exclude the rays of the sun, are afflicted with goiter and 
 idiocy to an extent that makes me wish for a plethoric 
 purse with which to rescue them from this dreadful slav- 
 ery and place them in a wholesome atmosphere, which I 
 am convinced effects a cure, by a case coming under my 
 observation. A member of a family that had for genera- 
 tions been afflicted with goiter 'removed to a new country 
 and engaged in out-of-door pursuits. He is now the 
 grandfather of many happy, healthy children. Idiocy is 
 in the same way wiped out of families who discover the 
 Heavenly Father's great remedies, WATER, FRESH 
 AIR, and SUNSHINE. 
 
 Light and air favor nutrition. Scrofula, idiocy, 
 goiter, rickets, consumption and general ugliness are 
 among the characteristics of the children of people 
 who disregard the value of sunshine, air and water. 
 
 *** 
 
 MORAL SUNSHINE. 
 
 We all know there is such a thing, too, as moral sun- 
 shine, and that domestic happiness depends for its very 
 existence upon its powerful influence. The moment we 
 enter a sunny household we feel its genial warmth. 
 Husband and wife pull together. The children like 
 their lives, and every one in the household feels their 
 happiness. So says " Manners Makyth the Man."
 
 140 
 
 Mother's Help and 
 
 fftotijer antr 13abe. 
 
 MONO the things that require at- 
 tention during pregnancy may be 
 mentioned breathing pure air ; 
 sleeping in a well-aired room on a 
 bed not so soft as to induce relaxa- 
 tion ; regular daily exercise in the 
 open air ; great attention to per- 
 sonal cleanliness, to dress, diet, and all 
 ordinary conditions of health, are her 
 paramount duties. 
 Oftentime the woman who will not deny herself the 
 gratification of a single desire or appetite on her own ac- 
 count, would be the first and firmest in resisting tempta- 
 tion, if her reason were fully convinced that every 
 transgression of the law of health deteriorates the quality 
 of her blood, and diminishes the chances of health in her 
 child. 
 
 Always begin the day by taking a breathing exercise 
 before rising. Keep the chest well up all the time, so 
 that you have the feeling of its being in an active state 
 rather than passive. This induces the lungs to furnish 
 the blood that tonic quality which is of inestimable value 
 to the young life within. 
 
 A soft flannel bandage should be provided for the 
 infant's warmth, and to prevent the bowels from protrud- 
 ing at the navel when crying or other effort.
 
 Child's Friend. 141 
 
 The infant should be put to the breast eight or nine 
 hours after birth. 
 
 When several hours after birth have elapsed with- 
 out any action of the bowels, a few teaspooufuls of 
 tepid water and sugar or a very little castor oil may be 
 given it. 
 
 When from the state of the mother it becomes neces- 
 sary to supply other food to the new-born infant we 
 should adhere as closely as possible to Nature, and give 
 that kind of nutriment which most nearly resembles the 
 mother's milk. It is surprising how readily the infant 
 accommodotes itself to the adoption of regular intervals 
 of feeding. Establish this regularity at once ami you 
 will avoid much discomfort. 
 
 The infant may at first be fed at intervals of two 
 hours ; and may be fed three times at night, later on 
 only twice and after a few months but once at night. 
 
 New as the infant is to the surrounding world it 
 shrinks from every strange sensation. Therefore we 
 must remember that the child's cry is oftener a signal of 
 distress than an indication of hunger, and we should at 
 once ascertain and alleviate the cause of its discomforts. 
 
 The mother's diet, her physical and mental condi- 
 tions will be carried to the child in her milk. She will 
 readily see, upon being reminded, that she can greatly 
 conduce to the welfare of the babe through her milk by 
 a strict adherence to diet, cleanliness, air, exercise, early 
 hours, reading high-class literature, entertaining only 
 pure and happy thoughts, and so on. Quiet repose for 
 the mother and infant during the intervals of nursing 
 is beneficial to both. 
 
 I think it a very bad custom that allows a young 
 mother to entertain callers before the infant is a fortnight 
 old. And if the mother and child could both have abso-
 
 i.j.2 Mother ''s Help and 
 
 lute immunity from exciting and disturbing influences 
 during the entire first month, it would enable them to 
 establish a firm basis of health that would hold them in 
 good stead in after years. I am convinced that there is 
 nothing gained by smartness at the start. 
 
 Providing the mother is free from any serious ail- 
 ments, it is best for the new babe to lie close to her, as it 
 thereby gets strength from her with which to sustain life. 
 This you will find will the better enable it to resist the 
 effects of the abuses to which custom subjects it such 
 as kissing, too much handling, noise, strong light, tight 
 bandages and other uncomfortable clothing, dosing, over- 
 feediffg, etc., etc. 
 
 There is nothing by which we can so readily detect a 
 lack of completeness in woman as through evidences of 
 her not liking children. That the Law of Life may be 
 worked out, womankind has an inborn fondness for ba- 
 bies. A quality so according to the law of Nature that it 
 shows marked development in childhood's earliest con- 
 sciousness. And a doll is the infant's first toy and its 
 last toy. 
 
 A woman who does not think babies the loveliest 
 things on earth is no account as a specimen of humanity. 
 A woman who does not recognize childhood as the most 
 essential state in the progress of human evolution, you 
 may depend on it, has herself not yet evolved true 
 womanhood. 
 
 That a model woman has no greater joy than infancy 
 with its limpsy trustfulness, and childhood with its pretty, 
 sweet winsomeness, furnishes her, is no mere accident, it 
 was wisely arranged so by the Creator. 
 
 I have no greater temptation than to handle and caress 
 an infant, and as for these cute ones who have gotten so 
 they can spin along why they actually make us feel
 
 Child ' s Friend \ 43 
 
 good all over, and are so pretty we wish we could put 
 them on our best bonnet. 
 
 Nevertheless, I am aware that we must not allow these 
 loving temptations to lead us into working them detri- 
 ment by disturbing their needed repose during infancy, 
 and drawing upon their vitality, which we surely do 
 when we give vent to our affection in an undue amount 
 of hugging and kissing. 
 
 These tender little creatures are not used to this world 
 and they must be kept quiet if you want them to be 
 symmetrical, well, and free from nervousness in after 
 years. 
 
 During the first month or more the babe's time is 
 divided up between sleeping and feeding. Indeed it 
 should not be kept awake, but allowed to eat, sleep and 
 grow. Digestion, nutrition, and growth demand this. 
 
 A healthy infant when not unduly excited will read- 
 ily fall asleep at its usual time. 
 
 Dr. H. S. Tanner, who, from the spontaneity of his 
 humane heart, has done much for children, and has 
 made a study of their lives a part of his own, agrees 
 with me on these points. 
 
 When tenor fourteen days old an infant may be taken 
 out on fine days for fifteen to thirty minutes in the 
 nurse's arms. This time may be gradually extended to 
 several hours a day, having great care that the sun or 
 strong light does not strike its eyes. 
 
 When taking the infant out for an airing do not carry 
 it in a sitting posture during at least the first four or five 
 months. At the end of this time it may be allowed to 
 sit for a few minutes at a time, but not on so narrow a 
 base as your arm. The neck is too frail to sustain the 
 head, and it bobs over front or to the sides when impeded 
 respiration is apt to occur and the neck be injured.
 
 144 Mother's Help and 
 
 The best possible way to strengthen the child's neck 
 and spine is to keep it much of the time on its front. 
 You will find that in its effort to lift its head and look 
 around it gets a splendid exercise for the neck and spine 
 an exercise that would be good for any of us, as it is 
 the finest of all things for straightening the upper spine 
 and neck. 
 
 About the sixth month baby's dress may be shortened, 
 and then it will enjoy being down on a soft rug " on all 
 fours ' ' with a few toys exercising its limbs. And by 
 crawling strengthen its bones and muscles, till by the 
 time it should walk it will have developed strength. 
 And if not allowed to stand too young it will have 
 shapely strong legs, which is infinitely better than walk- 
 ing too soon at the cost of crooked legs. I say, above all 
 do not encourage precociousness in children. This is a 
 dangerous way of indulging your vanity. Our inherent 
 smartness is of a poor quality, if we can find no other 
 means for airing it, than through the forwardness of our 
 babes. Infancy should be devoted to the accumulation 
 of physical strength. A precocious child is like a house 
 being built on the sand, looks very nice ; but it can not 
 hold out long. It is sure to tumble. 
 
 Do not entice the child to walk, leave it alone and it 
 will learn of itself. If it does not walk until it is two years 
 old it will be so much the more symmetrical. All arti- 
 ficial means of supporting and aiding the child are bad, 
 perhaps the go-cart is the least so. The strap put under 
 its arms compresses its chest ; leading it by one hand will 
 twist the spine and injure the delicate armpits. Also do 
 not pick up the child by its arms, as is so common even 
 from early infancy ; this should be avoided, for in lifting 
 the infant thus, the delicate skin is pulled up, which 
 naturally tightens the skin over the sensitive abdomen
 
 Child's Friend. 145 
 
 and causes a discomfort that is very distressing. For 
 this reason, as well as others, an infant should under no 
 condition be raised by its arms or sides. Put your hands 
 under it, and do not allow it to assume an upright posi- 
 tion at all. Keep it in a horizontal position back down, 
 front down, or sides down until it is several months 
 old ; the reasons for this are many. As it is not in the 
 nature of this little volume to go into physiological and 
 anthropological detail, I will only mention two viz.: 
 (i)The spinal system is so soft and delicate that it can 
 not sustain an upright position and must of necessity 
 succumb under its own weight and that of the body and 
 head to a bending action being jointed as does a 
 string of beads. Well, by these repeated acts, the deli- 
 cate spine becomes bent, and as the child grows and the 
 spine hardens these curves are retained. ( 2) The in- 
 testinal system is extremely frail, and the upright post- 
 ure of the body by the natural law of gravitation 
 forces the delicate intestinal system down out of its 
 natural place. Here I have mentioned but two of the 
 many systems which depend upon the infant's lying po- 
 sition for the establishment of their regular and healthy 
 function. And yet from these two alone spring innu- 
 merable ailments which, if they do not take away the 
 child in infancy, will lead it a torturesome life 'all the way 
 to the grave. So, come, dear mothers, let us utilize in- 
 fancy to the purpose for which it was intended. That 
 by this steady, undisturbed healthy growth at the start, 
 it may have a physical foundation truly fit upon which 
 to build the brain.
 
 146 
 
 Mother's Help and 
 
 Beman&s of Nature 
 
 HOUL,D be religiously responded 
 to. A regular habit is easily 
 established, thereby avoiding the 
 many serious results of waste 
 matter retained only to poison the 
 system. A great deal of food is 
 taken that can not be assimilated. 
 Usually, much is taken that is 
 not food, i. e., that has no food 
 value, no food properties, and must be elimi- 
 nated before it has time to tax or poison the 
 system. 
 
 Colds and many other ailments that become serious, 
 might have been averted had the abdominal viscera 
 been kept free to perform its functions. Hence, the 
 necessity of regularity in order to maintain a uniform 
 working of the human mechanism. 
 
 Eat an orange before breakfast when possible. Al- 
 ways take an abundance of fruits and cereals, plenty of 
 water and exercise, especially twisting and bending ex- 
 ercises, and massage manipulation of the stomach and 
 bowels, and an occasional warm water enema at night, 
 just before retiring. I^et this be your medicine and you 
 will keep in a splendid condition, and your complexion 
 improve in brilliancy and smoothness.
 
 Child's Friend. 
 
 147 
 
 . EAL/TH is the normal or natural state 
 of being. 
 
 When we inculcate into daily life 
 Sanitary Science, hygiene, and a high 
 order of dietetic science, we exhibit a 
 degree of intelligence that is bound to 
 result in a healthy, beautiful body, 
 terminated by a pure, progressive 
 spirit. 
 
 What is more discouraging, more 
 depressing than an unhealthy body to look at ? There is 
 nothing that so disarms one. No one thing that so 
 hinders the onward progress of the human family as 
 sickness and its causes. 
 
 Health being one of the most desirable qualities we 
 can possess, one is surprised that the secret of health 
 and longevity are not made open facts to all, by investi- 
 gation, education and custom. 
 
 Health would be the rule instead of exception, if the 
 laws were kept. However, we may in a great measure 
 overcome the enfeebling tendencies transmitted to us by 
 our ancestors ; but it requires constant thought and persist- 
 ent effort. For to violate the laws of health, means the 
 same as backsliding in religion, or an act of any misde- 
 meanor, a repetition of the offense debases you. So a 
 repetition of offenses to the body enfeebles it beyond
 
 148 Mother's Help and 
 
 repair. It becomes unfit to hold the life, and separation 
 death is the consequence. 
 
 ' ' To guide tne health of the people is the first duty 
 of the statesman." D' Israel. 
 
 DEATHS AMONG CHILDREN. 
 
 Statistics show that one-fourth of the children born, 
 die before the age of one year, and another fourth before 
 the end of the fifth year. Inherited tendencies are not 
 always the product of one generation, but mostly reach 
 us after gathering force from countless ancestors. We 
 receive from one parent one-fourth, a grandparent trans- 
 mits to us one-sixteenth, and so on way back. From Mr. 
 Galton, wno ranks high among Anthropologists, I give 
 the iollowing : Out of 66 marriages in which one of the 
 parents was a consumptive, they produced between them 
 413 children, of whom 70 were actually consumptive, 
 and others so in various degrees. 
 
 Would it not be far better to have only half or even 
 one-fourth the children we do, and have them sound in 
 mind and body than to waste ourselves in populating the 
 universe with weaklings, which is adding fuel to the fire 
 that is consuming the purposes for which we came here ? 
 The natural human organism is vested with wonderful 
 recuperative powers, and if our parents obey the laws 
 and live ethically we will find that the human body, sur- 
 rounded by anything like favorable or natural environs, 
 and left alone not ill treated, will not get out of order. 
 And in the next place, if it has been misused, and become 
 ill, it will soon be restored by being left to rest, with 
 plenty of fresh air, water and wholesome food. So sub- 
 tile is Nature's own restorer. 
 
 When God conceived the human creation, he im-
 
 Child's Friend. 149 
 
 bued it with a healing power within, more potent than 
 any of man's inventions. 
 
 How the human body protests against the modern 
 bondage, and abuse to which it is subjected, and ardently 
 it pleads to be natural and be kept well by the doctor 
 within ; but we heed not the pleading voice, and so out- 
 raged Nature cries aloud, and her voice is photographed 
 on the body in the form of disease ; now we have that to 
 pet and nurse, and seem better satisfied than to have 
 yielded to Nature's demands. Anthropology reveals the 
 joint operations of soul and body. It is a key to life, 
 and should be more studied by parents and young people. 
 
 The All- Wise creative Power has provided avenues 
 by which we may attain to the higher stages ; and yet 
 we select the thorny path wherein we become lacerated 
 and defiled. If we would consolidate our best energies, 
 generation after generation, and popularize the aim in 
 view, thereby changing the current of thought into a 
 purer, wholesome channel, we could for the future avert 
 the avalanche that sweeps so destructively over us; for 
 consolidated tendencies of mind are bequeathed to the 
 race as an avenue by which it may reach perfection. 
 
 GRUMBLING AND DISCONTENT 
 
 never tenant the same body, as do health and soundness 
 of mind. These opposing elements are at such variance 
 with each other, that the presence of .the one couplet 
 means the annihilation of the other. It shows on our 
 part a lack of understanding of the human organism to 
 expect such an unreasonable, such an unscientific ex- 
 pression as health in the person whose triune is at dis- 
 cord with the tune of Nature. 
 
 1 ' If you want to be miserable, think about yourself,
 
 150 Mother's Help and 
 
 about what you want, what you like, what respect peo- 
 ple ought to pay you. and what people think of you." 
 
 Thinking of self, grumbling, fault-finding, fear of 
 being hurt by food, bath, exercise, air and all such like. 
 Sick and negative thoughts and beliefs can not develop 
 health and harmony. The best cure for this affliction is 
 to pay off your doctor with many thanks for his kind- 
 ness, then apparel yourself in a comfortable suit through- 
 out, indeed, so comfortable that not one spot of you is 
 pinched or suffers a friction to remind you of yourself. 
 Next, start out early in the day, with your right foot 
 first, determined to get mastery over yourself. Keep 
 your mouth closed and determined, but at the same time 
 fill your lungs through your nostrils time and again with 
 fresh air, and as you go on breathe deeply, at the same 
 time looking about for some poor unfortunate children in 
 whose interest you can forget yourself, and in this way 
 your soul will grow so big and strong as to banish old 
 pain and hold the fort against would-be intruders of the 
 discord family. 
 
 " Each one sees what he carries in his heart. " Goethe.
 
 Child's Friend. 
 
 Natural 
 
 ATURAL TRANSITION to the next 
 life occurs so rarely that I can not re- 
 frain from dwelling upon it a little. 
 Not more than one in a thousand dies 
 naturally, if, indeed, that number. 
 This startles you because you never 
 gave the subject careful study and 
 thought. In the first place it is diffi- 
 cult to estimate the deaths before and. 
 at birth, all of which are unnatural the result of viola- 
 tion of Nature's laws. Then next, about one-third of 
 all that are born alive, die before the fifth year ; this is 
 most emphatically unnatural. If it is natural and ad- 
 vantageous to the human creature to mature, then it 
 must be that it is unnatural and a disadvantage to be 
 robbed of the ripening years and experience of maturity 
 and age. 
 
 You will say it is natural and right to sicken and die. 
 I say it is decidedly wrong. 
 
 The transition from this into the next existence should 
 be, can be, and is sometimes made without sickness and 
 decay. And I will here cite the case of one of my grand- 
 mothers who was one of these fortunate ones. She lived 
 in the country with a daughter, and found enjoyment and 
 healthy activity among her grandchildren and the birds, 
 chickens and flowers, way into a goodly old age ; but 
 finally realized that her well-numbered years would war- 
 rant her "passing on" (as she called it), although she
 
 152 Mother's Help and 
 
 was not ill nor disabled. One morning she failed to 
 make her usual prompt appearance at breakfast. And 
 their thinking grandma's non-appearance only tardiness 
 in dressing, due to the appearance of the infirmities, for 
 which they had long looked in vain, one of the children 
 went to offer her assistance, and to their surprise found 
 the dear old lady had carefully arranged her toilet for a 
 farewell appearance, and had laid herself out, leaving a 
 peaceful expression on her face, had "passed on." 
 Nothing unnatural at all. Simply, she did not resist 
 Death when he came. The good old lady had an abhor- 
 rence of the annoyance to family and friends that usually 
 accompanies sickness, such as keeping watch at night, 
 nursing, serving, and the many gross and petty demands 
 ill people usually make upon family and friends, and 
 which do so break in upon the regular workings of the 
 home life. She rightly believed that if our time is 
 monopolized by sickness and death, we shall have no 
 opportunity and inclination for the more vital and im- 
 portant duty of a well-directed life work. 
 
 Came we here to be sick ; to devote ourselves to pain, 
 decay and death ? Or do we come to inhabit a sound, 
 healthy body, that we may devote our time to improve- 
 ment, that through the experience here gained, we may 
 become individualized, and in the next life have a recog- 
 nizable entity ? 
 
 When sickness is commonly known as the result of a 
 violation of God's natural laws, and as such, a disgrace, 
 we shall have more NATURAL DEATHS. 
 
 Most of us have too little confidence in our surround- 
 ings and in the system the Divine Force has inaugurated, 
 and, through Nature, works out with regularity and jus- 
 tice. To these facts we should open our understanding, 
 and bring ourselves into harmonious relationship with
 
 Child's Friend. 153 
 
 these laws, through the obedience of which alone we can 
 get a grasp on life and retain it, in the sense for which it 
 was intended. This body is too often a burden to us, 
 instead of being as it was intended, a natural habiliment 
 with which we are clothed and protected while our spirit 
 is making its natural voyage. Nor do I think this ex- 
 perience should in the right ordering of things have to 
 deal with misery and privation. God so created this 
 earth that there would be plenty for all, if His reasonable 
 dictates were followed. With man's willfully depraved 
 interpretation of life, can aught else than poverty, igno- 
 rance, vice, disease and general ugliness result ? 
 
 In that we are come into this life after it has been so 
 demoralized, it is probably to our most lasting good, to 
 endure with fortitude those misfortunes which we can not 
 shake off. It is our duty, however, to avoid inharmony, 
 save where we unavoidably encounter it in elevating our- 
 selves and humanity ; and even then we should re-attune 
 ourselves as speedily as possible in compliance with the 
 Divine ordering of things. And so continue while this 
 existence offers any opportunity for progress. This 
 achieved, or when there is no longer hope of progress, 
 rather than to degenerate, ' ' pass on. ' ' Instead of cling- 
 ing to the old body let loose of it, and grasp on to Hope 
 of Everlasting Salvation. 
 
 It is not reasonable to suppose that a painful, dis- 
 eased, rickety body can in any way conduce to the inter- 
 ests of the spiritual life. Therefore the spirit had better 
 be united to this life by a healthy body even at the last 
 moment ; and let the spirit make a willing surrender of 
 the earthly habiliment. To resist the transition has in 
 it no merit ; while to know and obey the laws of a true 
 life is a jeweled virtue.
 
 A Lullaby. 
 
 Words and Music by Mrs. ADA E METCALFE. 
 Andante e Cantabile. 
 
 -* i * - 
 
 
 1. By - lo ba - by, by- lo -by; 
 
 2. By - lo ba - by, by - lo - by; 
 
 Ma -ma's dar-ling, 
 Ma -ma's bird -ie, 
 
 
 I 
 
 * Written expressly for this work.
 
 A Lullaby. Concluded. 
 
 X 
 
 do not cry ; Nes - tie close to ma-ma's breast ; 
 cease to sigh; An - gels near thee guard and keep; 
 
 
 By - lo, ba - by, take thy rest. 
 
 By - lo, ba - by, go to sleep. 
 
 ritard. 
 
 Sleep, sleep, ba - by, sleep, Ba - by, sleep, sleep. 
 
 ritard. s 
 
 -" 1 T S^fc "I 1 1 II 
 
 feyEEEjEtbEEE5EitEEEy=ISEEfl
 
 156 Mother's Help and 
 
 HEALTHY baby devotes the 
 greater portion of its first two 
 months to sleep, after which it 
 gradually decreases the amount to 
 two hours in the forenoon and one 
 hour in the afternoon. Children 
 up to the age of five years should 
 sleep at least a few minutes after the mid- 
 day meal, and be in the habit of going to 
 sleep for night as early as eight o'clock or before. 
 Up to the twelfth year a child needs ten to twelve 
 hours of sleep. Up to the fifteenth young people should 
 be given ten hours of sleep, and till the twentieth year 
 nine hours. After that one finds out how much he or 
 she requires, though as a rule six to eight hours are 
 necessary. 
 
 Eight hours of peaceful sleep will prevent more nerv- 
 ous derangements in women* than any medicine can 
 cure. 
 
 " During growth there must be ample sleep if the 
 brain is to develop to its full extent. And the more 
 nervous, excitable or precocious a child is, the more 
 sleep should it get if its intellectual progress is not to 
 come to a premature stand-still, or its life be cut short at 
 an early age. ' ' 
 
 *If the sleeping-room is provided with abundance of fresh air.
 
 Child's Friend. 157 
 
 If a child sleeps with an old person or a sickly one, it 
 is being robbed of its vitality, while the old or sickly 
 person gets the strength. 
 
 The infant should be laid to sleep on its stomach, 
 with its face turned to one side to allow of free breath- 
 ing, and its position changed during sleep. In truth it 
 is well to keep infants on their stomach much more than 
 is customary. Avoid the pillow except when lying on 
 the side. 
 
 Much is said about infants getting used to noise when 
 they are asleep. They may get accustomed to noise ; 
 nevertheless it has been proved that noise to a sleeping 
 infant is decidedly injurious. Nervous troubles and 
 brain diseases that are attributed to other causes fre- 
 quently have their origin in the babies' disturbed sleep. 
 It is a mistake to think because the noise does not arouse 
 the child wide awake that it is not injurious. Too 
 much stress can not be put upon the necessity of ex- 
 cluding lignt during sleep, to insure sweet repose and a 
 natural nurture of the eye that organ so delicate at 
 any time of life, especially so in infancy. 
 
 CHILD'S PRAYER. 
 
 Bless papa and mamma, sister and brother and every- 
 body, make us all good children, Dear Lord. Amen. 
 
 INSOMNIA (Sleeplessness). 
 
 This is an affliction so prevalent at the present day 
 that a little space devoted to it may not come amiss. In- 
 somnia is immediately caused by stagnation of blood at 
 the brain, not always too much blood at the brain 
 which brings about an activity there that prevents sleep. 
 There may be rush of blood to the brain, due to over 
 exercise mentally, or excitement in a close room ; and
 
 158 Mother's Help and 
 
 may be counteracted by vigorous physical exercise daily, 
 and imbibing plenty of fresh air. Refrain from mental 
 and physical exercise for at least the half hour following 
 each meal. Sink quietly into a chair, that the blood 
 may go to the stomach and aid digestion and relieve the 
 brain. 
 
 Drinking, at bed time, a glass of warm milk ; taking 
 a dish of ice-cream, or eating peanuts, or a couple of 
 plain water crackers, at the same time drinking warm 
 water, are vehicles for enticing the blood away from the 
 head to the stomach, where it (the blood) will be en- 
 gaged in the work of digestion. Meantime, Morpheus 
 will take advantage of the absence of Mr. Blood, and 
 lull to sleep the weary brain. 
 
 But the permanent, and therefore, best cure, is the ex- 
 ercise air cure. Why ? Because it distributes the blood 
 equally to all parts as Nature intended, and thereby 
 nourishing, not only the nutritive, but also the nervous 
 and muscular systems. Also giving the arterial and 
 venous systems opportunity to perfectly perform their 
 functions ; after which a supply of new blood will go to 
 the brain and better enable it to perform its duties. 
 
 First, when ready to retire for the night, see that the 
 bed is out from the wall all around, that the head is 
 higher than the foot (not by pillows, avoid pillows), that 
 there are no quilts or comforters, as they permit of no 
 ventilation use only blankets as they are porous ; see 
 that the room is open for air, and that there is no light 
 to consume the life sustaining properties of the atmos- 
 phere. Then eat something light, nothing stimulating, 
 and go out for a walk of two or more blocks, swinging 
 the arms and exercising' as much of the body as possible, 
 keeping the mouth closed and inhaling through the nos- 
 trils plenty of fresh air. Upon coming in do not read
 
 Child's Friend. 
 
 159 
 
 nor talk, but go directly to bed. This formula is my 
 infallible cure for sleeplessness. 
 
 I^et me again warn you against having a light burn- 
 ing in your sleeping-rooms during the evening ; it is 
 very, very bad, unless there is a constant flow of fresh 
 air into the room, and even then it would be better with- 
 out light, as it rapidly consumes the life-giving proper- 
 ties of the atmosphere. 
 
 " Prayer is a golden key which should open the 
 morning and lock up the evening." Bishop Hopkins.
 
 i6o 
 
 Mother's Help and 
 
 HILDREN'S clothes should be easy 
 all over, but most especially at the 
 neck, arms and feet, allowing per- 
 fect freedom for exercise. Clothing 
 should be more equally distributed 
 over the body than ti usually is. 
 Not enough to oppress and per- 
 spire the child, but sufficient tojkeep 
 it comfortable. Rough flannel next to the 
 skin should be avoided as it irritates the skin and causes 
 restlessness. Use tapes and buttons, not pins. Every 
 particle of clothing worn during the day must be re- 
 moved at night and hung by the window to air. For in- 
 fants a loose gown, and for children, who toss about and 
 throw off the cover, a jacket- trowser-hose combination 
 of soft flannel for winter, and cotton flannel or canton 
 flannel for summer. 
 
 The child's underwear should always be made union, 
 that is all in one ; tucks can be put in sleeve, trunk and 
 leg to allow for growth, and must reach down into the 
 shoes. This underwear may be of silk, lisle, cotton, or 
 soft wool, and may be of any color, as the hose are long 
 and the over-panties match the dress or hose. Panties 
 should never be white unless the dress is white. 
 
 The child's dress should never be too fine for the 
 occasion. For romping or digging in the dirt the dress
 
 Child's Friend. 161 
 
 may be of wash flannel, light-weight bed ticking, ging- 
 ham, or any stout, washable material. Avoid all kinds 
 of stiff, harsh and scratchy materials for children's 
 dresses, and allow no starch. 
 
 SHOES. 
 
 As children spend most all day on their feet, it is 
 positively cruel to dress them for looks regardless of 
 comfort. Heels should under no condition be allowed 
 on the shoes of a growing child. Even adults are again 
 finding themselves more comfortable and graceful with- 
 out heels. The most graceful and stylish young lady I 
 ever knew, said she had never owned a corset nor heeled 
 shoes ; bu^ had tried them on, and knew how hateful 
 they felt. Many of us are glad both of these useless 
 abominations are rapidly being consigned to the giddy- 
 headed who have not yet discovered but what their 's are 
 improvements on God's torso and heel. We humans 
 show our superiority over the lower animals by the heel 
 with which our Creator favored us, that we might acquire 
 and retain an upright position ; but this state of affairs 
 did not suit us, we tired of our superior walking member 
 and would revert to the animal paw or hoof, and by way 
 of an effort, pushed the heel up, extended the foot and 
 supplanted the God-given heel by one to suit our fancy. 
 This new heel strikes the ground before the ball of the 
 foot can, which gives a jerk or jostle to the entire frame, 
 doing irreparable injury to the nerves, at the same time 
 destroying all ease and grace of movement. It is well 
 known that the heel-wearing people are the least grace- 
 ful of any nation. All animals are graceful, and so 
 would we be if we dressed properly. Easy, free move- 
 ment restricted by dress is a common source of nerv- 
 ousness.
 
 1 62 Mother's Help and 
 
 Heels cause a fatiguing tension on the muscles that 
 sometimes unnerves the strongest child and girl, and is 
 the cause of the exaggerated physiological curve of the 
 back, the prominent shoulder blades, and the shooting 
 forward of the head, which we commonly see, and not 
 infrequently a factor in producing spinal curvature. 
 
 WHAT THE CORSET DOES. 
 
 Shuts off the supply of oxygen, confines the muscles, 
 interferes with metabolism,* shuts off the bile, so neces- 
 sary for digestion, cripples the liver, and misplaces many 
 of the internal organs on whose functional activity de- 
 pend the body and brain. 
 
 Dr. Ruddock, of England, says there are several 
 practical errors on the subject of clothing, committed 
 perhaps by a majority of persons to which we may 
 briefly allude ; and Dr. Binkie joins him in saying that 
 ' ' the first and most obvious of these is wearing too much 
 clothing indoors or in bed, thereby both exhausting the 
 natural powers of the skin, and exposing its action to a 
 sudden check on going out into the cold air. This forms 
 one of the principal objections to the almost universal 
 use of flannel worn next to the skin and kept on during 
 the night." But if you observe closely you will find 
 that those who have colds, mostly, are those who wear 
 rubbers early and late. Rubbers do well for what they 
 were intended, just to slip on when it is moist under foot, 
 and to be removed at once upon entering a house. They 
 are very unhealthy when kept on any length of time. 
 
 The corset, the bustle, the hoop, together with stiff 
 hats and bonnets should at once be consigned to their in- 
 evitable doom and do penance in the relentless manipu- 
 
 *The act of producing the chemical cell changes.
 
 Child' s Friend. 163 
 
 lations of the boy's pet goat. And, as for the man who 
 invented starch, where shall we find a place bad enough 
 for him ? Where are the scales big enough to weigh 
 the pain, the grief, the soul-corroding effects of these 
 things ? 
 
 Fashion is a sort of a criterion by which we may 
 know the mental state of the people ; as the weather- 
 cock above a house indicates which way the wind blows, 
 likewise do fashions express the sentiment of the people. 
 So when the fashions are adopted regardless of any 
 merit they possess from an utility or moral standpoint, 
 we may know that the minds of our people could to 
 their own and country's advantage undergo a mental 
 house-cleaning, and be refurnished with something less 
 shoddy. 
 
 Would people eat, drink and dress for utility, and not 
 for fashion, want and misery would be unknown. 
 
 GIRLS AND WOMEN 
 
 should strive to have as few pieces of clothing as is con- 
 sistent with their station in life. 
 
 THE UNDERWEAR 
 
 should invariably be union all in one piece and of 
 silk, lisle, cotton, wool, or linen, hand or machine knit- 
 ted, and never starched. There should be no waist- 
 bands. Tights, or one single skirt with a skeleton 
 waist, must take the place of the three to seven skirts 
 which Dame Fashion has persuaded womankind to be the 
 proper caper. This load woman has carried with silent 
 resignation, with fortitude that expressed itself only 
 through such channels as the scowling or dark-lined face, 
 the headache, backache and pelvis troubles. There 
 should be no
 
 164 Mother *s Help and 
 
 STOCKING STRAPS 
 
 dragging on the shoulders and waist. If the hose will 
 not cling to the underwear they may be pinned thereto 
 with two or more safety pins. 
 
 THE GOWN (DRESS) 
 
 must be all in one piece, and never tight-fitting. And is 
 prettier, more artistic, not to be smooth-fitting, but 
 rather draped onto the figure. 
 
 THE WRAP, 
 
 for traveling and for the street, should always envelop 
 the form from throat to toe, and should be loose. For 
 going to indoor affairs, the ENVELOPE may be thrown 
 aside for a small fancy covering, but never a tight jacket. 
 There are many lovely wraps which are beautiful, artistic, 
 and do not ' ' go out of style. ' ' * 
 
 SHOES 
 
 should match the wrap, when a long one is worn. They 
 should be flexible and easy. When indoors they should 
 always be low and should match the dress. 
 
 THE GLOVES 
 
 should always be loose and have anything but a tight 
 smooth look. The hand must have the look of being as 
 flexible in a glove as out of it. No glove at all is better 
 than a tight one. 
 
 THE HAT 
 
 of to-day, while it is an improvement over the hat of 
 the past, is yet far from perfect. 
 
 For utility and beauty as well as morality we must 
 
 *See Book on " Dress " by this Author.
 
 Child's Friend. 
 
 165 
 
 avoid the stiff bonnet or hat, the conglomerated hat, and 
 the hat that serves as a tree or rather as a hearse, for 
 birds in all sorts of excruciating positions. The hat 
 wields a mighty influence. Shall it be a missionary for 
 evil or for good ? 
 
 Let us have the hat a broad rimmed simple one for 
 protection from the sun's rays ; a small, soft, wrinkled 
 turban for comfort and beauty ; or the Spanish style of 
 lace covering, which is always beautiful always in style, 
 and may be as elegant as you like, and handed on up as 
 an heir-loom. Let us not forget that ' ' Economy is in 
 itself a source of revenue."
 
 1 66 Mother's Help and 
 
 Nurses. 
 
 HE mother should, so far as possible, 
 have charge of the children. Rather 
 hire any and all other work done than 
 the caring for the little ones ; for this 
 work no one is so well adapted as the 
 mother. Nor can it be expected that 
 others than the mother will keep their 
 little minds and bodies clean. 
 
 We find in the most civilized countries 
 woeful lack of interest in the caring of children, 
 especially in the nursery. Some common servants who 
 are only a little better than idiots, or what is worse, from 
 low breeding, are vulgar in speech and manners, find 
 themselves incompetent as housemaids, and, unable or 
 unwilling to learn, seek employment as nursemaids, as 
 that source of livelihood requires no special knack in 
 training, which, as good mothers should know, and do 
 know, is a gross error. 
 
 IF THERE IS ANY DEPARTMENT ON EARTH 
 FOR WHICH TRAINING IS NECESSARY, IT IS 
 THE NURSERY. 
 
 Our conditions of health, mind, and morals through 
 life, are due to the caring of us in infancy. Among the 
 things that undermine our constitution the following are 
 but a few : Soothing syrup, improper feeding, improper 
 bathing, foul air, being with persons who have bad 
 breath, who are out of health or diseased, too much
 
 Child's Friend. 167 
 
 rocking, improper handling, too much tossing about and 
 excitement, damp clothing, bumps and such like, all, or 
 most of which can be avoided if the mother has the care 
 of the babe. 
 
 It would be an excellent plan for us to court a high 
 standard of excellence in our nursemaids. To accept 
 none but such as are scrupulously clean in person and 
 appearance, are good-looking, intelligent, and unques- 
 tionable in character. They are our most intimate asso- 
 ciates, and do wield a mighty influence over the little 
 ones. For these reasons we should select with infinitely 
 greater care our children's care-takers than we do our 
 calling acquaintances. 
 
 Nurses should be refined, nice looking, amiable, 
 cheerful, amusing, and above all, moral, which in most 
 cases they are not. 
 
 The cases where the nurse the child's daily compan- 
 ion and instructor is fit to sit at the table with us are so 
 rare, that all there are in the world might almost be 
 counted on your fingers and toes. Is n't this a strange 
 fact?
 
 1 68 
 
 Mother's Help and 
 
 need fresh air and frequent bathing. 
 Shade them so that the glare of the 
 jjfl^ light will fall on the work or book and 
 not on the eyes. Have a good light, 
 and do not strain the sight by a dull 
 light. If the eyes are inflamed, dip a 
 clean handkerchief in hot water and 
 lay it on them when going to bed at 
 night. If troubled much with in- 
 flamed eyes, leave off eating meat ; 
 ^ eat fruit, cereals and vegetables. But 
 
 above all, have plenty of fresh air in your room. 
 
 The prevalence of short-sightedness among the upper 
 and middle classes may be received as a proof that some 
 error in hygienic management gives rise to this defect. 
 It is probable that long confinement of the young within 
 doors at school or home have no small influence here. 
 The eye, like any other organ, adapts itself to its cir- 
 cumstances. While that of the wandering Indian is 
 accustomed to scan distant as well as near objects, and 
 so becomes adapted by exercise for its varied duties. 
 Near-sightedness is sometimes inherited, but more fre- 
 quently, like other habits, acquired through practice. 
 The mariner has a long range of vision ; so has one who 
 lives or travels on the plains ; while those who live in 
 crowded cities, with narrow streets and high buildings,
 
 Child' s Friend. 169 
 
 that limit the length of view, or those who spend their 
 developing days in rooms bound by four walls at close 
 range, are very near-sighted. And if there should arise 
 a school-teacher who insisted upon testing the pupils' 
 eyes, and seating the children at a comfortable distance 
 from the map or that trying blackboard, she would prob- 
 ably be tabooed by other teachers and superintendents as 
 a "crank." Cruelty at school is less fashionable than it 
 used to be ; but it is far from being out of style yet. 
 
 If you wish the children to have long sight, practice 
 them, beginning with their natural range of vision and 
 gradually increase the distance at which you place their 
 books or field objects. 
 
 Cross eyes, too, are inherited or marked, but more 
 often gotten through heedlessness on the part of parents 
 while the infant is young. Carelessness in washing the 
 eyes ; also in the way a strong light strikes the eyes, 
 together with a fly or a speck on the infant's nose, at 
 which it is sure to look ; or it may be from some tassel 
 or ribbon hanging from its cap down over its eyes, or 
 any object that is brought so near its eyes that they turn 
 in, in order to see it. 
 
 Mothers avoid all these causes so far as it lays in your 
 power, that your children may be blessed with good 
 sight.
 
 170 
 
 Mother's Help and 
 
 Collet. 
 
 CARE OP THE TEETH. 
 
 IS never too soon to begin the care of the 
 child's teeth after it begins to eat. A 
 wooden tooth-pick will do, though .it 
 almost always leaves shreds of the wood 
 between the teeth, and for this reason a 
 finely pointed soft quill is superior, and 
 the mouth to be well rinsed. The child 
 will come to be fond of having its teeth 
 1 kept clean. After the child is five years old 
 the brush may be used in addition to the pick 
 and rinsing the mouth ; but only the ver} r best brush that 
 is made, and warranted not to drop its bristles, should 
 be used. Do not try to economize in your child's tooth- 
 brush, it is bad enough in your own case, and becomes 
 doubly serious with the child to struggle against a bristle 
 in the throat. 
 
 It is a great benefit to the child in later years to have 
 kept its baby teeth as long as possible ; yet they should 
 be closely watched not allowed to remain when the 
 second set makes its appearance. Nothing so enhances 
 a child's beauty as good teeth. Never allow the child 
 to go to bed for the night without first having its teeth 
 thoroughly cleaned. White dental floss goes in between 
 the teeth nicely where pick and brush fail to reach. 
 White castile soap is safe, though gluten soap is supe-
 
 Child's Friend. 171 
 
 rior for cleansing with the brush. If you find a decayed 
 spot in the teeth, take the child at once to the dentist for 
 a filling, that the child may be saved the discomforts 
 that arise from allowing the teeth to fall into a bad 
 condition. 
 
 The baby teeth which were never intended by 
 Nature to be removed by decay called temporary or 
 deciduous, are designed to serve until the jaws are suffi- 
 ciently grown and strong to develop teeth capable of do- 
 ing service in conformity to the demands that will be 
 made upon them. Of these there are twenty, which be- 
 gin to make their appearance, varying at from four to 
 eight months of age, depending upon the amount of limy 
 material in the system. The middle two incisors of the 
 lower jaw are cut first, and are followed by those of the 
 upper jaw. About the sixth year four double or molar 
 teeth make their appearance ; these are permanent and 
 should be carefully preserved from decay. My little one 
 shed her first baby-tooth at eight years of age without 
 having a defective speck on any of them. 
 
 Employ a dentist to examine the teeth occasionally to 
 see that they are in a good condition. The permanent 
 teeth thirty-two in number, sixteen in each jaw are 
 divided into eight front, or cutting teeth ; four cuspids, 
 or eye-teeth ; "and twenty molars, or grinders. If kept 
 clean and filled the very day a speck of cavity appears, 
 will do service into old age, that is, providing there is 
 anything like a fair amount of lime property in the sys- 
 tem. 
 
 Of late we frequently see items in the papers to the 
 effect that we shall soon be bald and toothless ; and so 
 we shall if we persist in eating soft foods that rob the 
 teeth of the exercise they should have, if we continue to 
 eat foods made of fine wheat flour and other foods devoid
 
 172 Mother's Help and 
 
 of vegetable lime. Meat and fine white wheat food will not 
 grow beauty. If we want fine hair and good teeth, we 
 must take into the system such food as contains the prop- 
 erties which go to build hair and teeth.* Never pick 
 your teeth in a public place. 
 
 THE HAIR. 
 
 To rake and tug with a comb at the snarls in the 
 child's hair is brutal. Just tangle up your own hair and 
 let some one else comb it, and see for yourself how it feels. 
 First, with a brush and your fingers, carefully part the 
 hair from forehead to nape of neck. After which you 
 may proceed to untangle the hair by again parting off 
 sections, until you have it all ready to dress. 
 
 The hair should be frequently washed, and always in 
 rain water and gluten soap that is, if you don't want 
 a bald head. The water should be only tepid. The 
 gluten in this soap feeds the cells that grow hair. The 
 rain water is healing, cleansing and soft without the aid 
 of artificial means. After wiping the hair gently with a 
 very soft linen towel, it may be dried in the sun (this is 
 best), by a stove or by fanning it. 
 
 Foods readily change the color of the hair. Such 
 foods as contain, much sulphur, iron, etc., will darken 
 the hair. A cup of strong pennyroyal tea has darkened 
 my hair four shades in one night, when taken just before 
 going to bed. 
 
 Milk and farinaceous foods usually keep the hair 
 light, though of course this is governed somewhat upon 
 the properties in the soil and atmosphere as well as alka- 
 loid. 
 
 Instead of cutting the hair in the fulling of the moon, 
 
 " Food and its Relations to Beauty," by this author.
 
 Child 's friend. 173 
 
 draw a comb through it to within a little distance of the 
 ends, hold it thus while you BURN OFF the ends. This 
 leaves the wounds at the ends of the hair closed up. 
 
 The hair left hanging, will lengthen. If piled on top 
 of the head, 'twill thicken. 
 
 Women should exercise more care in the selection of 
 a style of dressing the hair that is becoming rather than 
 fashionable. If the head is prominent at the back but 
 flat on top, dress the hair very high ; if the head is 
 well developed on top but flat at back wear the hair 
 there ; if the top and crown of head are both well shaped 
 the hair may be worn low. In this way Art does for us 
 what Nature failed to do. 
 
 THE NOSE. 
 
 You will notice that those who have the flat, turned- 
 down nose always wipe it downward instead of wiping it 
 upward as they should. That those with the turned-up 
 nose invariably wipe it upward instead of down, as they 
 should. A nose that starts out in childhood to meet the 
 chin can be kept very reasonably lofty by a lifetime of 
 upward wiping. The nose that starts out to touch the 
 ceiling may be kept within the bounds of propriety, and 
 even beautiful, by a constant down wiping. But if the 
 nose is in any degree ideal the handkerchief! the great 
 catarrh aggravator, should be kept out of sight. Is it 
 any wonder that catarrh is alarmingly on the increase, 
 when our fashionable dry-goods shops make, not only a 
 bold display of nose-wipes, but actually make handker- 
 chiefs a beautiful and irresistible attraction ? 
 
 Our mind is distracted from loftier things to the nose, 
 by the ever-present reminder of catarrh the handker- 
 chief (what a waste of letters even in writing its name).
 
 174 Mother's Help and 
 
 Children must be taught early that picking the nose is 
 the nastiest thing they can do. The fringy corner of the 
 towel soaped, may be used upon rising in the morning and 
 retiring at night. This will soon cure the nose difficulty ; 
 especially if the bowels are regular, diet wholesome, air 
 abundant and fresh, and habits moral. 
 
 THE NAILS 
 
 should be kept scrupulously clean and trimmed to a 
 pretty shape, long enough to extend a little beyond the 
 fingers. 
 
 TOE NAII.S 
 
 should also have proper care, but must be cut so close 
 that the toe extends beyond the nail. If troubled with 
 ingrowing nails put a bit of wool or woolen yarn under 
 the edge and oil with almond oil.
 
 Child's Friend. 
 
 175 
 
 T^acnnattmt. 
 
 T is bad to be in the frying-pan but worse to be 
 in the fire. The relation of vaccination to 
 small-pox is as fire is to the frying-pan. It 
 is infinitely better to remain inexperienced 
 in the matter of vaccination for in all like- 
 lihood you will escape the small-pox ; or 
 even if you get it, the accompanying evils 
 are short-lived and only skin deep. And 
 4 even if death of the body must come it is a rapid 
 piece of work ; but the evils of vaccination are 
 morally perilous. And if fewer people have died since 
 the inauguration of this preventive, more have lived, 
 but how ? With vaccination, like many other evils, the 
 avenger is not satisfied to spend his wrath on the imme- 
 diate victim, but it must be visited upon the children, 
 even to the second and third generation. 
 
 Dr. Stowell, M. R. C. S., of Condon, England, thirty 
 years a vaccine practitioner, says in a letter to The 
 Lancet: ^"The nearly general declaration of my pa- 
 tients enables me to proclaim that vaccination is not only 
 an illusion but a curse to humanity. More than ridicu- 
 lous it is irrational to say that any corrupt matter 
 taken from boils and blisters of an organic creature could 
 affect the human body otherwise than to injure it. First, 
 it was asserted that vaccination protected for life. When 
 this proved a failure, re-vaccination in every seventh 
 year was proposed, but this also failed. Then there was 
 a want of sufficient cow-pox. Well, cows were inocu-
 
 176 Mother's Help and 
 
 lated with human pox, and the suppurated matter pro- 
 duced by this operation was called pox-lymph, fresh 
 from the cow. This bastard poison is now transferred 
 into human bodies, no matter what disease man or brute 
 may have had ; but it is called nowadays ' genuine 
 vaccine.' ' 
 
 In connection with vaccination I might speak of the 
 transmission of disease. How worse than foolish it is 
 really criminal to marry a sickly person, especially one 
 afflicted with a mental or physical infirmity that is at all 
 likely to be transmitted to the children. If this crime 
 were punished as other crimes of less degree are, there 
 would be a smaller degree of suffering humanity, and 
 fewer infant deaths. For the life of me, I have never 
 been able to understand how this unpardonable sin has 
 gone unpunished and unsuppressed, and still goes on, 
 and doubtless ever will go on increasing until a well 
 child or person will be a rare exception. 
 
 I should like to see the day when a child would have 
 the right to be born well and with a good constitution, 
 and that this right would be looked to and protected. 
 We have laws for the protection of our property, and 
 laws and punishments for minor matters ; but for this 
 most important of all, there is no law and no punishment, 
 save that which falls heavy and long on the ones who 
 should be protected (the children). This is, in the state 
 of things, a disgrace to the age and to us, and something 
 we do not allow among our domesticated animals. Art, 
 Science and Nature we spare no time, means or strength 
 in aiding, but when it comes to the question of our prog- 
 eny, what have we to say ? We are silent too falsely 
 modest to be talked to. It seems to me that the law of 
 evolution ' ' made a bad break ' ' when it evolved modesty 
 in the human race at this particular juncture.
 
 Child's Friend. 
 
 177 
 
 tttesing. 
 
 UPS in public drinking places are 
 frequently vehicles in which disease 
 is carried. Much more is disease 
 transmitted through a kiss. Here 
 you have not only the poisonous 
 touch but the breath to contend 
 with. 
 
 We can not often expect to get so 
 intimate with persons as to know the exact 
 extent of their infirmities. In truth, some who look well 
 and say little of ill health may be at the same time ten- 
 anting disorders of a serious nature. And the mouth, 
 communicating directly with the stomach, which is 
 always in sympathy with the afflicted parts, we readily 
 see, becomes a dispenser of the saliva and breath from 
 within. ^And must those dear ones be weakened and 
 exposed to danger that others may have pleasure ? No, 
 no, flare up ! you will have ample opportunity to exhibit 
 amiability, this is not the occasion for it. Resent, in 
 behalf of the child, the presumption to such familiarity. 
 The kiss that is inflicted on the child is the most to be 
 sternly protested against. Yet this expression of affec- 
 tion which has so degenerated through abuse, does not, 
 with the terminal of childhood, cease as an artful instru- 
 ment for evil, as is well known by suffering humanity.
 
 178 
 
 Mother's Help and 
 
 antr 
 
 IGHTS produce responsibility, and 
 the more rights one has the greater 
 are his responsibilities. One whose 
 arms are pinioned by adversities on 
 all sides, or does not share all 
 the rights enjoyed by his more fort- 
 unate neighbors, is not conse- 
 quently responsible to the extent 
 that these neighbors are. So with 
 women, when their rights were few, their responsibilities 
 were limited. But when the rights are limitless the 
 responsibilities are commensurate. 
 
 The more rights we women get the more fully con- 
 scious must we become of our need to look into the con- 
 ditions of the homes, the schools, public institutions, 
 factories, and even the mines, if man needs woman's 
 intuitive suggestions there. Nor does woman's respon- 
 sibility end with her laying bare the conditions and 
 needs, but she must see that those conditions are righted 
 and needs supplied. In our attacks upon men we must 
 not forget that their heedlessness is much the outgrowth 
 of the mothers' and wives' own indifference, together 
 with the fact that a craving for influence and money has 
 been the power behind the throne that has moved man 
 to concentrate his energies to getting gain unto himself.
 
 Child's Friend. 179 
 
 Man can not be everywhere at once. The necessities of 
 the times brought woman to the front. A century ago 
 man could do many, many things ; but now it is thought 
 that a " jack of all trades is master of none," and that 
 hurts his feelings worse than filing on a saw, for master 
 he must be, and in order this to be, he has focused his 
 energies, which has brought about the DIVISION OF LA- 
 BOR that has, with the tremendous increase in popula- 
 tion, created conditions which have turned the tables 
 onto woman;and she has now, by force of circumstances, 
 become instead of man the responsible overseer. 
 
 This appalls us nigh unto taking away the breath, 
 and one almost wishes there were more single women to 
 look after the rapidly increasing demands of the day. 
 And I do verily believe that ' ' single blessedness ' ' in 
 woman will become more than ever the head, heart and 
 hand to which we must look for the reconstruction of 
 that which was badly built at home, and for reclaiming 
 the fallen. Her head is clear for broad thought, her 
 heart, though unclaimed by one, is claimed by the thou- 
 sands, and her arms are free to embrace needy, suffering 
 humanity in the high as well as the lower walks of life. 
 
 In speaking of rights and responsibilities, I should 
 like to suggest that we make an effort to concede the 
 rights of animals to survive. We are responsible for 
 their extermination or survival. 
 
 ' ' Extermination of American Animals. ' ' This was 
 the subject of an instructive article in the December 
 Chautauquan for 1889. The article went on to show how 
 some of our beautiful animals had become extinct at the 
 hands of the huntsman, and nearly all others are in im- 
 minent danger of a final yielding to the depraved appetites 
 and inhuman fashions that now prevail. The writer of 
 the article suggests that a tax be levied upon all persons
 
 i8o Mother's Help and 
 
 found with fresh skins in their possession, which we 
 suggest be carried further, and that the humane societies 
 excite popular interest in favor of instituting a law pro- 
 hibiting skin or fur dealing ; also the dealing in, and wear- 
 ing of millinery birds. To these we may add the 
 innumerable uses to which portions of animals and birds 
 are put for decorative purposes, and sold so cheaply as to 
 still further show the low estimate placed on life and 
 blood. 
 
 The influence for evil increases with the cheapening 
 of animal wares as we readily see, for they are then 
 placed within reach of all, carrying with them the de- 
 moralizing and benumbing influence associated with the 
 killing of these God's creatures. 
 
 When we look through our wardrobes we are bewild- 
 ered as to what will take the place of the portions of 
 animals with which we have bepatched ourselves. But 
 more appalled are we in trying to solve the dizzy prob- 
 lem of home decorations, where the evidence of whole- 
 sale slaughter of the unoffending creatures stares us in 
 the face at every turn. Even the Bible is clothed in the 
 skin of an animal. Verily, we can not judge of contents 
 by their exteriors. I doubt not that if the book of Holy 
 Writ could talk it would tell us how hateful and uncom- 
 fortable it feels in another one's coat. Ah, do I startle 
 you into discomfort ? well, misery likes company. 
 
 While getting our eyes open enables us to see our 
 rights, let us not wade through this mire of carnage, pur- 
 posely blinding ourselves to our responsibility to the 
 animals who would like to live and improve. I^et us try 
 to direct our intelligence to devising means for supplying 
 substitutes for the great variety of birds and animals 
 that have been forced to find a final resting-place piece- 
 meal among the civilized. (?)
 
 Child's Friend. 
 
 181 
 
 are fEate of. 
 
 HE body in question weighs 154.4 
 pounds made up of 23. i pounds of 
 carbon, 2.2 pounds of lime, 23.3 
 ounces of phosphorous, and one ounce 
 each of sodium, iron, potassium, mag- 
 nesium and silicon. It is estimated 
 that besides this solid matter there are 
 5,595 cubic feet of oxygen, weighing 
 about 121 pounds; 105,900 cubic feet of 
 hydrogen, weighing 15.4 pounds, and 52 cubic 
 feet of nitrogen in this body. 
 
 All of these elements combined in the following : 121 
 pounds of water, 16.5 pounds of gelatine, 1.32 pounds of 
 fat, 8.8 pounds of fibrine and albumen, and 7. 7 pounds of 
 phosphate of lime and other minerals.
 
 1 82 Mother's Help and 
 
 l&emeiries anfc 
 
 DIARRHOEA. 
 
 O VISIT the country where ripe 
 peaches can be eaten fresh from the 
 tree especially the sunny side of the 
 tree is an excellent remedy for 
 chronic diarrhoea. Quiet rest flat on 
 the back, is helpful. 
 
 CONSTIPATION. 
 
 Such fruits as oranges and figs eaten 
 before breakfast will regulate the bowels and cure 
 constipation. 
 
 For constipation active exercise, especially bending 
 and twisting exercises. 
 
 EARACHE. 
 
 Heat the soles of the feet and apply hot flannel to the 
 side of the head will relieve. In very severe cases give 
 the child a cup of hot milk to drink and dip a bit of cot- 
 ton in warm olive oil and insert in the ear. 
 
 CRAMPS. 
 
 For cramps in the calf of the leg. As quickly as 
 possible strap your stocking or a towel or anything 
 tightly around the calf, then manipulate it briskly until 
 the nerves and muscles are replaced in a normal con- 
 dition.
 
 Child's Friend. 183 
 
 HIVES. 
 
 Hives are the result of a disordered condition of the 
 stomach ; seek to restore that to its normal condition. 
 For immediate relief bathe the hives with tepid water into 
 which you've dissolved a little baking soda. If the child 
 has been eating meat or fish discontinue that and confine 
 its diet to cereals and fruits, which will soon cool the 
 blood and quiet the irritation. 
 
 BURNS. 
 
 If not a raw burn soap it quickly and cover with 
 dough and bandage to exclude the air. When this 
 dough dries change it for fresh without the soap. 
 
 FIRE. 
 
 In case a child's clothes catch on fire envelop it at 
 once in blanket, rug, shawl, or other woolen article, which 
 will smother the flames. Have a care not to let the 
 child inhale the flames or smoke. 
 
 DELICIOUS DRINKS. 
 
 Toast Water. Toast slowly a thin slice of bread till 
 brown and hard, then put it in a bowl and pour a goblet 
 of cold water over it. Let it stand an hour when it will 
 be ready for use. 
 
 Barley Water. One Ounce of pearl barley, half an 
 ounce of white sugar, and the rind of a lemon, put it all 
 into a jar. Pour over it one quart of boiling water and 
 let it stand nine hours ; strain off the liquor and add a 
 slice of lemon. 
 
 Apple Tea. Cut two finely flavored apples in slices 
 and pour over them a quart of boiling water. Strain in 
 a few hours when cold. Sweeten if it is found too sour.
 
 184 Mother's Help and 
 
 Apple Tea. Peel and quarter four nicely flavored 
 apples, put them into one quart of cool water, add peel 
 of one-third of a lemon and two tablespoonsful of washed 
 currants (fresh or dried). Let all boil for one hour, then 
 strain and add sugar to suit taste. Let cool, when it 
 will be ready to drink. 
 
 Quince Tea may be made by peeling and slicing two 
 large quinces to a quart of water ; boil slowly one to two 
 hours. Strain and sweeten. It may then be used hot 
 or cold. 
 
 COOL DRINKS 
 
 may be made from most fruits and berries by simply 
 crushing, adding cold water, straining, and sweetening 
 to taste. 
 
 Fruit and berry drinks are the most palatable and 
 healthful of all drinks.
 
 Child's Friend. 185 
 
 " A noble deed is a step toward heaven." 
 
 " By a vote of 22 to 18 a certain church congress con- 
 cluded that all infants dying in infancy are saved? 
 Bless their little hearts ! How they must rejoice at this 
 declaration. But let them pause for a moment and re- 
 flect upon the solemn fact that a change of only three 
 votes would have damned them forever." Cincinnati 
 Enquirer. 
 
 Practice politeness constantly on the home folks, and 
 there will be no danger of your making any blunders 
 when out in society. 
 
 A mother should be most, kind and polite first of all 
 to her own children. The child should likewise be most 
 polite to the mother. Show her more deference than you 
 do any one else ; most especially, young ladies, when 
 young gentlemen happen to be calling upon you. If 
 your mother is not already in the room (though she 
 should be there first), but enters, always arise and step 
 to one side of your chair until she is seated or leaves the 
 room. Remember that young men, if of any account at 
 all, will always have a holy sort of admiration for a girl 
 who shows her mother some reverential ceremony. They 
 will even go so far as to call you their princess. Don't 
 forget this, for it will hold you higher in their estimation 
 than anything else you can do. This applies to boys as 
 well as girls. And remember some of the same treat-
 
 186 Mother* s Help and 
 
 ment for your father. There are but few reasonable re- 
 quests you may make of a father that he will not grant 
 if you make him feel that he is the father of a prince or 
 princess. It is like freeing him of the thorns with which 
 his day's business has infested him. 
 
 " The rarest attainment is to grow old gracefully. "- 
 L. M. Chiids. 
 
 ' ' Give a boy address and accomplishments, and you 
 give him the mastery of palaces and fortunes where he 
 goes. ' ' Emerson. 
 
 L,ittle girls remember that one of the prettiest things 
 you can do is to be always smiling and polite to your 
 brothers and sisters. 
 
 Boys, the first evidence of greatness in your constitu- 
 tion shows itself in your protecting your sisters and 
 always reserving for them your most courteous consid- 
 eration. 
 
 " There, speak in whispers ; fold me to thy heart 
 Dear love, for I have roamed a weary, weary way , 
 Bid my vague terror with thy kiss depart ! " 
 
 " The hearthstone has ever been the corner-stone of 
 the family and society." Bellows. 
 
 There is no picture more divinely beautiful than the 
 family circle with its confessions, interchange of ideas, 
 and timely suggestions. 
 
 The Hon. Norman Parks when away from home 
 seated himself to write, but seemed ill at ease and threw 
 down his quill and walked the floor thoughtfully. After 
 going back to the desk and repeating this evident at- 
 tempt several times I asked the cause. To which he
 
 Child's Friend, 1^7 
 
 replied that the ' ' sweeteners of his toils ' ' were not there 
 climbing on the back of his chair and he could not seem 
 to get up an inspiration. 
 
 His wife wrote her best letters when her little one 
 was on her writing-table with his little feet serving as 
 paper-weights. 
 
 Moral: That we should all try to find good in what 
 seems naughtiness in the little ones. 
 
 The family circle is a tower of strength to the indi- 
 vidual, to the society, to the nation. 
 
 An evil tongue is an abomination. When a person 
 speaks in a depreciating tone of any body, or is averse 
 to conceding their merits on the ground of their having 
 a humble origin, or having been engaged in a plain, but 
 honest occupation, shun that person for he or she is poi- 
 sonous. 
 
 What one's enemies may say should not be taken as 
 evidence. 
 
 You will never get to heaven by clinging to the gar- 
 ments of your pious relations. Every one is judged by 
 his own merits. One's own inward desire to make spir- 
 itual progress is all that can save him or her. 
 
 ' ' Nothing is of so much use to a young man entering 
 life, as to be well criticised by women." D* Israel. 
 
 Some persons try to hide their own imperfections by 
 lowering the standard of morality. This they do by 
 bemeaning others and trying to bring them down to 
 their own level.
 
 1 88 Mother's Help. 
 
 ' ' There is so much good in human nature that he 
 who trusts every body will, in the long run, make fewer 
 mistakes than he who suspects every body." Philadel- 
 phia Ledger. 
 
 ' ' Let every one be occupied in the highest employ- 
 ment of which his nature is capable, and die with a 
 consciousness that he has done his best." Sidney 
 Smith. 
 
 ' ' There are not many who finish their lives before 
 they die. Very few go willingly ; most are forced, and 
 not a few are dragged to the grave. Instead of leaving 
 the world, they are hunted out of it." Gotthold. 
 
 "The foot always steps more lightly and willingly 
 when there is a band of music in front." David Swing. 
 
 ' ' When troubles come go at them with song. When 
 griefs arise, sing them down. Lift the voice of praise 
 against cares. ' ' Beecher. 
 
 " Certain critics resemble closely those people who, 
 when they would laugh show ugly teeth." Jaubert. 
 
 1 ' Do not look for wrong or evil 
 
 You will find it if you do; 
 As you measure for your neighbor 
 He will measure back to you. 
 
 Look for goodness, look for gladness, 
 You will meet them all the while ; 
 
 If you bring a smiling visage 
 To the glass, you meet a smile."
 
 Chiia's Fnena. 180 
 
 JJrager. 
 
 Now the light has gone away, 
 Saviour listen while I pray, 
 Asking Thee to watch and keep, 
 And to send me quiet sleep. 
 
 Jesus, Saviour, wash away, 
 All that has been wrong to-day, 
 Help me every day to be 
 Good and gentle, more like Thee. 
 
 Now my ev'ning praise I give, 
 Thou didst die that I might live, 
 All my blessings come from Thee, 
 Oh, how good thou art to me.
 
 THE BABY'S BIOGRAPHY 
 
 BY 
 
 A. O. KAPLAN. 
 
 With Illustrations in Colors and Monotints 
 
 MRS. FRANCES M. BRUNDAGE. 
 
 Large quarto, n x 9 in. size, 72 pages, in either port- 
 folio or bound in handsome combination of gold and 
 different colored cloths, in box, $3-75 
 
 For sale at all booksellers, or will be sent, post paid, 
 by the publishers. 
 
 BRENTANO'S 
 
 CHICAGO. NEW YORK. WASHINGTON.
 
 THE LIBRARY 
 IMVERSITY OF CAI IFORMA 
 
 Santa Barbara 
 
 THIS BOOK IS Dl E ON THE LAST DATE 
 STAMPED BELOW. 
 
 IOOM 11/86 Series 9482
 
 3 1205 00807 1860 
 
 A oon S """"""""
 
 mxmm 
 
 Hi 
 
 ' A .**/ 
 -'...< tfi", 
 
 IJHHHBB^H 
 
 mlf 
 
 . 
 
 1 3 . 
 
 E^HH 
 
 [V 
 
 
 , '' . JO " 
 
 aHIBHD 
 
 
 j$m 
 
 **