And this fact in the face of civilization, enlightenment, and Christianity! Why so? How shall we account for the evil?
The Psalmist above quoted says further, "and if by reason of _strength_ they be fourscore years," etc., which implies that strength prolongs, and weakness--reversing the matter--shortens our days.
Let us begin at the beginning.
ABOUT THE BABIES.--HOW THEY ARE REARED AND HOW THEY SHOULD BE.
BABY ON THE PORCH.
Out on the porch, by the open door, Sweet with roses and cool with shade, Baby is creeping over the floor-- Dear little winsome blue-eyed maid!
All about her the shadows dance, All above her the roses swing, Sunbeams in the lattice glance, Robins up in the branches sing.
Up at the blossoms her fingers reach, Lisping her pleading in broken words, Cooing away, in her tender speech, Songs like the twitter of nestling birds.
Creeping, creeping over the floor, Soon my birdie will find her wings, Fluttering out at the open door Into the wonderful world of things.
Bloom of roses and balm of dew, Brooks that bubble and winds that call, All things lovely, and glad, and new, And the Father watching us over it all!
"Select the best sprouts for transplanting," says the "Old Farmer"s Almanac." And here you have the whole root of the matter in a nut sh.e.l.l; for sickly-looking sprouts produce only sickly-looking plants. Like begets like.
Now, how about the babies? Women"s rights are advocated. Men take their rights. But who shall defend the babies" rights? Poor, helpless little non-combatants! Let me say a few words in their behalf.
Children, from the cradle, are wrongfully treated. Their first rights are here curtailed. Look at the baby that is permitted to creep out "on the porch," or over nature"s green carpet, and there bask in the sunshine and frolic in the open air; then look in pity upon the pale weekly house-plant child. The contrast is as striking as lamentable.
"O, he"ll get his death"s cold if the air blows upon him," hysterically screams the ignorant mother. Yes, "ignorant"--that is the adjective I want to describe her.
The young mother has doubtless been sent to a fashionable boarding-school, where she was taught algebra, French, (?) the art of adornment, how to walk fashionably, eat delicately, and dress _a la mode_, and even how to make a good "catch," but never how to preserve her health or rear an offspring. O, this would be shockingly immodest, or "counting chickens before they are hatched," I once heard a lady affirm.
Nine tenths of our American wives are totally ignorant of everything that pertains to their own health, or that of the healthful rearing of an infant.
BABY IN A STRAIT JACKET.
At first the infant is usually bound tightly in swaddling clothes, lest it move a limb, or for fear (like the down east orator) that it will "bust,"
and thus kept from air and exercise the first year or two, till it not unusually becomes a stunted, rickety thing, hardly worth "transplanting"
or raising. Haven"t you and I, kind reader, been subjected to something of this sort of strait jacket insanity?--insanity of parents! And having been tolerably strongly const.i.tuted from a "tough stock," we survived that first wrong, whereas thousands of "nicer" babies have succ.u.mbed to the swaddling and stifling process.
This is wrong, all wrong. The infant should be left free, at least as to its chest and limbs, in order to breathe, kick, and expand. How happy the little fellows are at evening to get rid of the murderous clothes which have been bundled about them all day, and how they will fight and squirm to get down on the carpet all stripped, and creep, or, if old enough, run about in freedom! How they crow and prattle!
Now, don"t swaddle them--a simple, easy bandage is early admissible,--or cover their heads and faces with caps, sheets, or blankets. Inure them to the air early and continually, and they will have less colds and "snuffles" than if you confined them within doors. Give them air and sunlight, and away with your "goose-grease." Yes, I have even known some country people to apply skunk"s oil, and others who larded the infant"s nose and chest for the "snuffles." Croup delights in such babies!
Then from the strait jacket, baby is taken to the other extreme--bare arms, neck, and chest. Old Dr. Warren once said, "Boston sacrifices hundreds of children annually by not clothing their arms and chests."
Once, when in remonstrating with a mother against this barbarous practice of thus exposing her little one-year-old to a chilling atmosphere when my arms and chest were not over warm as wrapped in an overcoat, she replied to me,--
"O, the little dear looks so pretty with its little white arms and neck all bare!"
"Yes," I replied, sorrowfully, "it will look pretty, also, laid out in its coffin."
She was greatly shocked by the remark, which, however, too soon proved true.
"Doctor"s stuff" cannot counteract the fatal results of such ignorance and exposures.
TWO LITTLE SHOES.
Two little shoes laid away in the drawer, Treasured so fondly--never to be worn; Two little feet laid away in the tomb, Cold and all lifeless--sadly we mourn.
What trifling things does not a mother keep, Tokens of love the swelling heart to ease; Useless little toys--a lock of golden hair; Something to fondle--to cherish like these Two little shoes laid away in the drawer, Treasured so fondly, never to be worn!
These little shoes are only left us now; Gone is our "darling," ever to remain; Dear little feet, so plump and all dimpled, Never will press them--never again!
But heavenly thoughts shall cheer me on my way: Death is but life, in fairer, sunnier view; Busy little feet but just run on before; This is my solace as my tears bedew Two little shoes laid away in the drawer, Treasured so fondly, never to be worn.
IMPURE LITERATURE AND Pa.s.sIONS.
It is as marvellous as true that some children survive this treatment; besides the stuffing with meat victuals, candies, and cookies, inducing colic and dysentery; then dosing with rhubarb, paregoric, peppermint, and worse. Soothing syrups! Eternal quietuses! Yes, in spite of extremes of heat and cold, stuffing and dosing with crude and poisonous articles, some babies actually reach the next stage--youth!
From chilled blood, indigestion, poisonous air and drugs, repeated attacks of croup, bronchitis, dysentery, etc., the majority who have reached p.u.b.erty are afflicted by some scrofulous taint, or development, or broken const.i.tutions.
Now, they have appet.i.tes and pa.s.sions to grapple. We have already, in chapter fifth, shown how the school-girl is cheated out of health by the deprivation of her "rights," among which are air, freedom, and exercise.
Here is another evil, which must not be pa.s.sed over unnoticed. A New York physician, who wields an abler pen than myself, thus expresses my ideas.
What he applies to females is not limited by copyright. Males, help yourselves; it belongs to you quite as much as to the beautiful.
"It sickens the heart to contemplate the education of female children in this city." (And let me add, in this country.) "Should nature even triumph over all the evils above enumerated, no sooner has the poor girl attained the age of p.u.b.erty, than her mind and nervous system are placed upon the rack of novel-reading and sentimental love stories. There is just enough of truth in some of these mawkish productions to excite the pa.s.sions and distract the attention of the young girl from the love of nature and its teachings, and all rational ideas of real life, and to cause her to despise the commonplace parents whose every hour may be occupied for her consideration and welfare."
This writer goes on to condemn those selfish, money-grasping wretches "professors of religion, too," in our city, who publish this impure and overstrained literature, to the great injury of the morals of the young; adding, "What language can be too strong for such disgusting hypocrisy? We punish a poor wretch for the publication of an obscene book or print, and give honor and preferment to those who instil poison into the minds of our children by a book prepared with devilish ingenuity, and in every possible style of attraction and excitement.
"It is the premature excitement of the nervous and s.e.xual system that should be avoided. The licentious characters presented in all the glowing tints of a depraved imagination cannot fail to injuriously affect the youthful organism."
The dissolute and immoral characters whom we debar from the personal friendship of our sons and daughters, whom we exclude from our parlors, and even street recognition, are sugared over, and, between gilded covers, pa.s.sed freely into the _boudoirs_, school-rooms, and seminaries of our children, for their companionship at their leisure. The vile characters in person would be far less injurious, for in that case their hideousness would the surer be revealed.
"Nothing can be more certain than the production of these works of a precocious evidence of p.u.b.erty. The forces of the young heart and vascular system are thus prematurely goaded into ephemeral action by the stimulus of an imagination alternately moved to laughter, and tears, and s.e.xual pa.s.sion."
Mr. Baxter, in Part 2, ch. xxi., direction 1, of his _Christian Directory_, which is a direction for reading other books than the Bible, says, "I pre-suppose that you keep the devil"s books out of your hands and house. I mean cards, and idle tales, and play-books, and romances or love-books, and false, bewitching stories, and the seducting books of false teachers.... For where these are suffered to corrupt the mind, all grave and useful writings are forestalled; and it is a wonder to see how powerfully these poison the minds of children, and many other empty heads."
It would astonish and shame some parents if they would take pains to look over the books which are daily and nightly perused by their children. It is not enough for you to know that such books were obtained from a "dear friend," or from a respectable publisher, or pious bookseller, or that they are lawful publications. Parents and guardians, I pray you take warning.
"OUR GIRLS."
I want everybody, male and female, old and young, to read that most excellent book, "Our Girls," by Dr. Dio Lewis. It will do you good. For humanity"s sake, and particularly for the benefit of females, I recommend it. Lest some of my readers should not follow this advice, I want to tell you what it says about
LOW NECK AND SHORT SLEEVES.
"Many a modest woman appears at a party with her arms nude, and so much of her chest exposed that you can see nearly half of the mammal glands. Many a modest mother permits her daughters to make this model-artist exhibition of themselves.
"One beautiful woman said, in answer to my complaints, "You should not look."