Page:The physical training of children (IA 39002011126464.med.yale.edu).pdf/381



Before presenting a few from the numerous commendations to this invaluable work, we desire to furnish the verbatim copy of an able letter addressed to the editor by, M.D., author of treatises on "Baths" and "Mineral Waters," "Regimen and Longevity," "Health and Beauty," etc., etc. The eminent services, as an editor and author, rendered by to the profession will cause his words to sink deeply in the minds and hearts of thousands of parents and physicians, who have alike been profited by his skill and wisdom.

, March 16, 1871.

, M.D.

itself a good summary, with additional enforcement, of the advice contained in the work of Dr. Chavasse on the "Physical Training of Children." The author has been very successful in conveying much needed instruction in language clear, forcible and readily comprehended by every reader. Mothers, for whose benefit the work has been prepared, must feel, with it in hand, that they have gained a friendly, disinterested and wise counsellor to admonish and guide them in many trying emergencies to a proper physical management, and to some extent concurrent moral culture, of their offspring, from the first hour of infantile life, on through childhood, until the time for school education begins. Familiar truths are here presented with a freshness and piquancy which carry with them the renewed assent and conviction of those who deemed themselves possessed of the requisite knowledge, while by the larger number, the uninitiated into maternal cares and children's wants, they cannot fail to be received as the utterances of wisdom and long experience. In his inculcations the author does not assume that a child is a mere machine, to be made to go through certain movements by an older controlling hand, nor that it is to be left, like a young plant, to grow up in fruitless luxuriance, without pruning or grafting. He favors a large charter for nature, but he dwells also on the existence of natural laws, growing out of the very framework and constitution of a living body, an infraction of which, whether it be through ignorance, pedantic teaching, fashion or the intrusion of physic, is followed by injury to health and happiness. A child is not to be treated as an automaton, but as a being whose physical and mental organization, instincts and germs of intelligence are to be gradually developed under careful training. Growth, health and flexibility of movements come first: polish and the graces may well be an after
 * —I must compliment you on your neat Introduction as in