Page:The physical training of children (IA 39002011126464.med.yale.edu).pdf/23

 be followed. The child may be bathed too often, or not often enough, or in an improper manner. For instance, it may be seated in a bath-tub with the water half way up the body, and then water splashed up over the shoulders, leaving the chest subjected to the chilling effects of evaporation, and material harm may thereby result.

The amusement of the child very properly comes in for a share of the author's attention. All parents should realize the importance of making the child's home cheerful, and should not forget that the happiness of the child has much to do with its health and the development of its mental nature. It is astonishing at how small an expense, with a little contrivance, the gloomy, quiet nursery may be converted into a cheerful, happy one, and a small plot of ground into a full-sized farm in the mind of the infant farmer.

"Oh! happy age, when harmless pleasures please, Gay as the lark, and fickle as the breeze: Well may we sigh, in after years of pain, To think that hour will never come again. How small the grief that dims the sunny eye— How light the thoughtless tear—how quickly dry; A toy, a butterfly, thy smiles renew, As from the flow'r the sunbeams chase the dew."

Parents are too apt to overlook these, to them, unimportant little things, and it is for this reason that the author calls attention to it, and shows us that rational amusements not only develop the physical, but exert an immense influence on the intellect of the child.

The views of the author in regard to the education of