Page:The physical training of children (IA 39002011126464.med.yale.edu).pdf/129

 be worn until the end of May. The old adage is very good, and should be borne in mind:

"Button to chin Till May be in; Ne'er cast a clout Till May be out."

134. Have you any general remarks to make on the present fashion of dressing children?

The present fashion is absurd. Children are frequently dressed like mountebanks, with feathers and furbelows and finery: the boys go bare-legged; the little girls are dressed like women, with their stuck-out petticoats, crinolines, and low dresses! Their poor little waists are drawn in tight, so that they can scarcely breathe; their dresses are very low and short, the consequence is, that a great part of the chest is exposed to our variable climate; their legs are bare down to their thin socks, or, if they be clothed, they are only covered with gossamer drawers; while their feet are incased in tight shoes of paper thickness! Dress! dress! dress! is made with them at a tender age, and, when first impressions are the strongest, a most important consideration. They are thus rendered vain and frivolous, and are taught to consider dress "as the one thing needful." And if they live to be women—which the present fashion is likely frequently to prevent—what are they? Silly, simpering, delicate, lack-a-daisical nonentities,—dress being their amusement, their occupation, their conversation, their everything, their thoughts by day and their dreams by night! Let children be dressed as children, not as men and women. Let them be taught that dress is quite a secondary consideration. Let health, and not fashion, be the first, and we shall have, with God's blessing, blooming children, who will, in time, be the pride and strength of dear old England! Oh that the