There is one great evil that for hundreds and hundreds of years has been known wherever people are crowded together, and even in the open country, too; and which has been the cause of more untidiness and uncleanliness and unhappiness and disease than any other evil ever known. And that is the drinking of alcohol. People don"t drink clear alcohol, but they can get a great deal of it--enough to poison them badly--in the fermented drinks you learned about some time ago.
In the days when your grandfather was a little boy, every man thought that ale and wine and whiskey were good foods for him when he was well; and good medicine when he was sick. He believed that they gave him an appet.i.te, and increased his strength. But now we have found, by carefully studying the effects of alcohol, in laboratories and in hospitals, that these beliefs were almost entirely mistaken. We know that all that wine, beer, and whiskey do is to make people feel better for a little while, without making them actually stronger or better in any way. In fact, in most respects these drinks make them weaker and worse instead.
Perhaps you will ask, "How do whiskey and wine and beer do us harm?"
And here is only part of the answer: (1) They tire the heart and, by enlarging the blood pipes in the skin, make the heart pump too much of the blood out to the skin. In this way they make a person feel warmer when he really is not any warmer. (2) They make the liver work too hard. (3) They dull the brain, so that it cannot think so clearly or so well. (4) If one drinks them frequently, it is harder for him to get well when he is sick; more people die out of those who drink alcohol than out of those who do not.
Alcohol is a _narcotic_; that is, it deadens our nerves, for the time being, to any sensations of pain or discomfort, much in the same way that a very small dose of _morphine_ or _opium_ would. We may imagine it does us good because, for a little while after drinking it, we may cease to feel pain or fatigue or cold; but, instead of making us really better and able to do more work, it is dulling our nerves so that we work more slowly and more clumsily. Men who have carefully measured the amount of work that they do have found that they do less work on days when they take one or two gla.s.ses of beer or wine than they do on days when they drink only water.
The great insurance companies have found that those of their policy holders who drink no alcohol at all live nearly one fourth longer and have nearly one third fewer sicknesses than those who drink alcohol even in moderate amounts.
Indeed, so strong is the evidence as to the bad effects of alcohol, and so steadily is it increasing, that it will probably not be very many years more before the drinking of wine or beer by intelligent, thoughtful people will have become less than half as common as it is now.
Strong, healthy men may be able for a long time to drink small amounts of liquor without noticing any harmful effects; but all the time the alcohol may be doing serious harm to their nerves and brain and kidneys and liver and blood vessels, which they will not find out until it is too late to stop the trouble.
Useless and bad as alcohol is for full-grown men and women, it is even worse for young and growing children; and no child, and no boy or girl under the age of twenty-one, should ever touch a drop of it, except in those rare instances where it may be prescribed as a medicine by a doctor, just as many other drugs are, which in larger doses would be poisons.
Fortunately, it will be no trouble for you children to let it alone entirely; for not one of you would like the taste of it the first time--or, indeed, for the matter of that, for the first ten or twelve times--that you tried to drink it, if you should be so foolish. This is one striking difference between alcohol and all other foods and drinks. Children have absolutely no natural liking, or taste, for the drinks that contain it, as they have for meat, milk, sugar, apples, and the other real foods. This is Nature"s way of telling them that it is not a real food, and not needed in any way for their growth and health. Let it alone absolutely, until you are at least twenty-one years old; and by that time you will probably have become so convinced of the harm that it is doing that you will never begin using it at all.
What we have been saying so far applies, of course, only to the moderate use of alcohol. How terrible the effects of the long or excessive use of alcohol are, you don"t need to learn from a book. All you have to do is to keep your eyes open on the streets, and see the drunken men reeling along the sidewalk, and the wrecks of men that hang around the saloons. The poorhouses and the jails and the insane asylums are filled with them. The most terrible thing that can happen to anyone is to become a drunkard. The best and safest and only sensible thing to do is to keep away from the only stuff that makes drunkards. It may do you the most terrible harm, and it cannot do you the slightest good.
Your city can never become the "City Beautiful" so long as this evil mars it; and, as you grow up, I hope you will do all you can toward making the right kind of city and home.
THE EVENING MEAL
When you have had some good games of play after school, and have finished whatever errands you may have to run, or have done the ch.o.r.es about the barn or the garden or the house, you will begin to feel as if there were something missing somewhere. It won"t take you very long to discover where that missing feeling is; and when you hear a call from the house, or a ring of the bell in the hall, you come running in for supper. If you have worked well in school and played hard and done your ch.o.r.es well, you will have a splendid appet.i.te. In fact, you will think there is no other meal in the day that tastes quite so good.
Is your evening meal supper or dinner? If you have had a hot dinner at noon, you probably do not want anything more than a good supper. But if you had only luncheon, then you are ready to eat something hot and hearty about six o"clock.
What are some of the things that you like for dinner? Meat and eggs and bread and b.u.t.ter and jam and rice and potatoes and onions and celery and cookies and apples and oranges and oh, so many, many other things! Mother Nature has given us all these good things, that we may have not only enough to eat but plenty of different kinds. We soon grow tired of one kind, and that is how she tells us that we need many kinds.
When I was little, oranges were not so common as they are now; and I never but once had as many as I wanted. That once, my father told me to eat all I liked, and I did; but for weeks afterwards I didn"t want even to see an orange! Did you ever feel that way too, though perhaps not about oranges? Nature sometimes has to teach us not to eat too much of one kind at a time.
Some people like one thing, and some another. Do all of you like onions? I think not; but those who do, like them very much. The same thing is true of tomatoes and sweet potatoes and red raspberries and oysters and many other things. But there are some things that almost everybody likes; and our grandfathers and great-grandfathers and great-great-grandfathers ate them. One of them is called the "staff of life" because we lean, or depend, on it so much; we have it for breakfast, dinner, and supper. That is bread, of course. Meat and eggs and milk and b.u.t.ter, too, are among the foods that we all like.
These might be called our "main foods," and we should eat one or two or even three of them at each meal. Meat and milk and eggs and b.u.t.ter, animals give us. But these are not enough; we need besides some of the foods that plants give us, because, as I have told you, we need different kinds of food at one time to keep the body fires going briskly.
What are some of the foods that plants give us? Bread is made from a plant--from wheat. Oatmeal comes from the oat plant; and hominy, from corn. Some of our plant foods, such as potatoes, turnips, onions, sweet potatoes, parsnips, and radishes, grow under ground. Some, such as peas and beans, grow on vines. Then there are lettuce and cabbage and celery. And there are fruits--cherries, apples, peaches, plums, pears, melons, tomatoes, berries.
Nature has given us all these foods, and many more; and she wants us to use them all. She wants us to use, every day and every meal, some foods that come from plants and some that come from animals.
A good dinner would be a slice of roast beef or mutton, a potato, a helping of some sort of vegetable like peas or beans or onions or tomatoes or celery; and a dish of milk pudding or apple dumpling, or stewed fruit with bread and b.u.t.ter, or pie that has only an upper crust or its under crust very well baked. When you are eating bread, remember that the crusts are the very best part, because they are well cooked and really taste the best. They are good for your teeth, too.
[Ill.u.s.tration: ONE OF THE HAPPIEST TIMES OF THE DAY]
Perhaps, while I am talking about a good meal, I ought to talk a little about the way to eat and how to make mealtime pleasant.
Of course, to make our food soft, we must take little bites, eat slowly, and chew each mouthful a long time. Be sure to remember this.
So many of the children I know eat so fast that you"d think they had to catch a train! Did you ever see anyone try to talk and chew at the same time or forget to shut his mouth while he was chewing? Wasn"t it a very awkward, disagreeable sight? Think a moment, if you are tempted to talk with your mouth full, or put your knife into your mouth, or make a noise while you are eating, that these things are not pleasant for your neighbors.
Do you tell funny stories at the table and talk about happy tramps you have taken or games you have played, or about your pets or your books?
If you do, your food will do you more good, and you will be helping the other people at the table, too. Mealtimes should be the happiest times in the day.
A PLEASANT EVENING
When the supper things have been cleared away, you have two hours or so before going to bed, and I dare say you look forward to these as one of the pleasantest parts of the day.
It is always best for you to take things rather easily and quietly and pleasantly for at least fifteen or twenty minutes after every meal; and after the heaviest meal of the day, whether this comes at noon or in the evening, it is better to stretch the time to half or three quarters of an hour. If you try to work or play hard right after a hearty meal, you will be drawing away to your brain or to your muscles, the blood that the stomach is trying to get for the digesting and melting of your food. I suppose that you have all found this out for yourselves; for, if you run and play too hard right after dinner, you are very soon out of breath, and if you keep up the exercise, you are quite likely to have an attack of indigestion or stomach ache. If you sit down to study directly after a meal, you soon feel heavy and lazy, and what you read doesn"t seem clear to you, and in a little while you probably have a headache and an unpleasant taste in your mouth. If you try to do two important things like digestion and hard work with your brain or the muscles of your arms and legs at the same time, you will be very likely to do both of them badly.
Even if you have studying to do at night, it will be much better for you to spend half an hour or an hour in laughing and chatting, or in reading some good story, or in playing some of the many pleasant parlor games that rest you instead of tiring you, before you settle down to your books. You will find that when you do start to work, you get your lessons much more quickly and easily than if you had started in after eating.
Perhaps your sister is just waiting to show you that girls can play checkers better than boys can--"So there!" Or some of your friends have come in for a game of dominoes or authors or snap or parcheesi or stage coach or p.u.s.s.y-wants-a-corner, or to try that new song you learned last week; and you will be surprised how quickly the time flies away and bedtime or study hour comes.
Most evenings, however, you will probably get out your favorite magazine, or that good story that you are reading, and you will all sit around the big lamp on the center table and go off on adventures to the uttermost parts of the earth, with the best and most lasting friends that you will ever make--friends who will never grow tired of you and will always come when you want them and are always willing to talk or play--the people that live in books. Be sure to pick out the best of them for your chums--the bravest and the kindest and the most courteous, and the cleanest and the most honorable. You have the whole world to choose from; and it is never worth your while to get acquainted with cheap, badly behaved, second-rate people when you can have your pick of the best. Your mother and your father and your teacher will help you to choose, and you will soon find that what they call "good literature" is good stories, and about the right sort of men and women and boys and girls--the kind that you would like to know, and that you would want to be like. Once try it, and you find that you like that kind of reading better than you do the cheap, slangy, trashy stuff, just as you like, and never get tired of, good bread and b.u.t.ter and roast beef and apples and milk and cream and pudding and pie. Good sound stories of home life and adventure and travel are just as important in making your minds wholesome and happy as these good foods are in keeping your bodies strong and healthy.
Be sure that the paper of the books and magazines you read is white and _not_ glossy, and is fairly thick and firm; for this makes them much easier to read and strains your eyes less. See, too, that the type is large and clear; for small, close type and yellow or shiny paper are very hard on the eyes.
Be sure, of course, when you sit down to read _not_ to sit with your face to the lamp and your head bending forward; but settle yourself in a comfortable chair with your back to the light, and hold your book so that you can keep your chin up and your head erect while you read. You can breathe better, and read better, and enjoy what you read better in this position than in any other.
Even if you have sums or writing to do, it is better to sit with your back, or at least your left side, toward the light; and often you will find it a great help to sit down with your back to the light in a large easy chair and do your writing on a big, thin book, or light piece of board, on a cushion on your knee.
In winter, you will find that for the first half hour or so that you are reading after supper, you will want to keep fairly near the fire, because the blood is being drawn in from your skin to your stomach for purposes of digestion; but be sure to see that at least one, and better two, windows in the room are open six inches or so at the top, so that there is plenty of fresh air pouring into the room.
[Ill.u.s.tration: A COZY NOOK WHEN EVENING COMES]
When study hour comes, take up your books and go briskly to work, forgetting that there is anything else in the world, and you will be astonished how quickly you will learn your lessons. Besides, you will be learning one of the most valuable lessons in life--to do with your might whatever your hands, or minds, find to do.
GOOD NIGHT
I. GETTING READY FOR BED
By and by the clock strikes eight or nine, and your mother says, "Children, time to go to bed!"
Sometimes you will have just come to the interesting point in the story, and would give anything to go on and finish it. But often you will be just nodding over your book, or beginning to wonder why the story is not quite so interesting as it was, or why the lines seem to be running into one another, and the book inclined to swing up and b.u.mp your nose.
If you have had a lively, busy, happy day, you are quite sleepy enough to be ready for bed--that is, if you could drop into it with all your clothes on, without all the bother and fuss of undressing. So you pull yourself together bravely and answer, "All right, mother," and say "Good night" to everybody, and upstairs you go.
Of course, you must take off your clothes, because you would find them most uncomfortable to sleep in. Besides, the little pores all over your skin have been pouring out perspiration all day long; and a great deal of this has been caught by your clothes, just as it is caught by the bedclothes while you sleep.