Page:The physical training of children (IA 39002011126464.med.yale.edu).pdf/324

 shops, that vend our wares and manufactures in all the markets of the world, and find out chapman under both the tropics."

347. Then, do you recommend a delicate youth to be brought up either to a profession or to a trade?

Decidedly. There is nothing so injurious for a delicate boy, or for any one else, as idleness. Work, in moderation, enlivens the spirits, braces the nerves, and gives tone to the muscles, and thus strengthens the constitution. Of all miserable people, the idle boy or the idle man is the most miserable! If you are poor, of course you will bring him up to some calling; but if you are rich, and your boy is delicate (if he be not actually in a consumption), you will, if you are wise, still bring him up to some trade or profession. You will, otherwise, be making a rod for your own as well as for your son's back. Oh, what a blessed thing is work.

SLEEP.

348. Have you any remarks to make on the sleep of boys and girls?

Sleeping-rooms are, generally, the smallest in the house, whereas, for health's sake, they ought to be the largest. If it be impossible to have a large bed-room, I should advise a parent to have a dozen or twenty holes (each about the size of a florin) bored with a center-bit in the upper part of the chamber-door, and the same number of holes in the lower part of the door, so as constantly to admit a free current of air from the passages. If this cannot readily be done, then let the bed-room door be left ajar all night, a door-chain being on the door to prevent intrusion; and, in the summer time, during the night, let the window-*sash, to the extent of about two or three inches, be left open.