creatures, that is, with an eye to their becoming so. When awake, they should be kept in action, and continually talked to: the first will preserve the health of their bodies, and the last will bring forward their intellectual faculties amazingly. By talking to them is not meant the noisy jargon generally used by nurses, which tend more to stupefy than improve a child; but the speaking distinct words rather in a low than a shrill voice, as supposing them to understand. Everything should be done for them in a manner the least burdensome to themselves, and the wants of nature so attentively supplied, as to give them no just cause of uneasiness; for the fretfulness arising from neglect and mismanagement is the first step towards souring the temper. Strange and absurd as this assertion perhaps may be thought, your own observation will, I dare say, hereafter convince you of its truth.

Let us take a view of the unnatural manner in which infants are generally treated, and the variety of needless torments they are made to undergo. The scene often commences by throwing at once the full blaze of day on their half-opened eyes; or, if they make their first appearance in the night, ignorance and curiosity give them equal torment, by the help of a candle held to their faces; the extreme anguish of the aching sight produces a cry of distress which gains them the wished relief of obscurity, till the next curious person renews the torture. This scene perhaps may be repeated ten times in the first hour of the child's life, with exactly the same effects. When the painful operation of dressing commences, the covering is thoughtlessly at once taken from the child's face; a violent cry is immediately the consequence, and often continued, by a succession of disagreeable sensations, for two hours, exclusive of a little intermission of rocking; when probably the loud discord of the nurse's voice, ignorantly exerted to quiet the suffering babe, may give as much pain to the tender auditory nerve, unaccustomed to the vibration of sounds, as the unusual glare of light had before imparted to the optic nerve. Add to this the variety of uneasy postures the infant must be placed in to get on and fasten a multiplicity of separate garments, with the ridiculous custom of giving a spoonful of a most nauseous mixture the first thing to be swallowed, and it will be evident that we have contrived to employ the first three or four hours of a child's life in giving successive torments to every sense, by light, noise, medicine, and uneasy positions.

When, after all this pain and trouble, the poor creature is what they call dressed, the unnatural confinement of its limbs is a continual punishment, which can never be submitted to with ease, though it may in time be rendered a custom more familiar. Of this there needs no other proof than the extreme pleasure that all children discover when stripped of their incumbrances, the content and satisfaction with which they stretch themselves, enjoying the freedom of voluntary motion; and the uneasiness and dislike, if not

fretfulness, always conspicuous the moment the restraint begins to be renewed by putting on their shackles.

I am convinced, beyond a doubt, that to these and other instances of our own mismanagement is wholly owing that continual crying of infants, which, from being customary, is erroneously supposed natural to them. Were the pain of body, inflicted at the time by this management, the only ill consequences suffering from it, that alone every feeling heart would wish to alleviate; yet this is but a trifling consideration compared to the more injurious and often irreparable effects produced by the ill impression thus early made on the mind. Peevishness is the first lesson taught by the repeated infliction of corporeal pain and the frequent neglect of a proper attention to all the wants of nature. Obstinacy is the offspring of successful peevishness; that, confirmed by indulgence, during the two first years, takes too deep root to be eradicated without the utmost difficulty, and the temper is often ruined by the fruitless attempt. Innumerable are the mischiefs that flow from this wrong method of setting forward, by which infants presently ascertain that crying and fretfulness will tease the persons about them into a compliance with their desires. I have seen children, not six months old, conscious of this power, and capable of exerting it with amazing tyranny, to the obtaining every humorsome inclination, the consequences of which are sufficiently obvious.

Were these absurd customs exchanged for a more rational method of proceeding, the advantages would be inconceivably great. A few plain rules might be established so equally suitable to every individual of the species in the first period of existence, as not to admit the possibility of their being misapplied; the first of these is, that the unavoidable change of customs which must necessarily take place upon the entrance into a new world, should be introduced so gradually as to be scarcely perceptible, that repeated painful sensations produced by them may not give an early turn to fretfulness. After the first office is performed to the young stranger (during which great care should be taken to keep all light from the eyes), he should be suffered to lie quietly, at least half an hour, in the nurse's lap, wrapped in a warm flannel, and longer, if disposed to rest, before he is put to the trouble of dressing; light should then be let in by very slow degrees, and not more fully than is absolutely necessary for the purpose of dressing. The operation need not take up five minutes, if the clothes be contrived in a proper manner; and if made to sit easy, you will find the child bear it contentedly without any sort of complaint.

As the chief point to be regarded is to avoid giving any needless cause of uneasiness, every natural want should be carefully attended to and supplied, before it produces any painful sensation. All children will discover their desire of food by motions that plainly show them to be searching for something; these motions will be

continued a considerable time without any cry, which is only the consequence of repeated disappointments in this search; such signs from them should always be waited for, carefully observed, and immediately answered; the offer of food when not wanted, being fully as teasing to infants as the delay of it when required. If fed by hand, it should be out of a vessel that will hold as much as they can take at once; nothing being more unnatural and tormenting than the feeding them with a spoon that must be taken every minute from their mouth to be replenished.

With regard to sleep, nature alone ought to dictate; nor should a nurse ever be suffered to lull a child to rest by rocking him in a cradle, which they are too apt to do, and then leave him till repeated cries force them to resume the troublesome office of attendance. An infant who is continually played with and talked to while awake, will insensibly drop asleep in the nurse's lap; she may then lay him down and refresh herself, but must carefully watch the moment of his waking, and take him up before there is time for any complaint, that the desired change of posture may not be procured by a cry of impatience. Within a few weeks not half the sleep will be required which was at first necessary. It will not be found difficult in a short time so to divert a child by constant motion as to keep him awake most part of the day; the sooner this can be made habitual, the better, because he will then sleep quietly almost all the night, which is more beneficial to the child and much less fatiguing to the nurse.

Children thus managed, whose natural wants are always observed and properly supplied, will seldom cry unless from some accidental illness; and then not violently, but rather in a mournful tone. At such times no particular effort should be used to quiet them : no lamentations expressed by a change of voice in those about them; but exactly the same method pursued of varying their posture, observing only to move them gently; because the little complaints they are incident to are of a sort that may sometimes be increased by those quick motions which are a proper and useful exercise to them when well. If you can discover one posture to be more easy than another, that may be continued; playing with and talking to them, as usual, without showing the least appearance of pity, which in all cases is extremely injurious. The pain occasioned by cutting of teeth, would, I believe, be much less severe, if the use of the coral was banished; because rubbing the gums tends only to harden them, and must consequently make the passage of the teeth more difficult.

Though every natural want ought to be instantly relieved, those of fancy and humour should never, on any occasion, be indulged. A rattle should be given them as early as they are able to divert themselves with it, and other little toys soon added,-for variety is necessary to their amusement. These playthings should be often changed by the nurse; for when the novelty wears off the

entertainment ceases; but the humorsome inclination which makes children reach eagerly after everything they see, must never be complied with; on the contrary, whenever they stretch out their hands impatiently after anything, though one of their own toys, it should be refused them with a grave steady face, accompanied by the words, No, you must not have it yet. The meaning of this they will very soon comprehend, as to be immediately contented on receiving such an answer, even long before they are supposed to understand language.

I have seen children thus managed, always quiet, good humoured, obedient, and as intelligent at four months old as they usually are at a year and a quarter; and I am certain that it will be found the surest means of either cherishing a good natural disposition, or correcting a bad one, and will lay the best foundation to be afterwards worked upon.

แ

THE FOLLOWER.

E have a youngster in the
house,

A little man of ten,
Who dearest to his mother is

Of all God's little men.
In-doors and out he clings to her;

He follows up and down;

He steals his slender hand in hers;
He plucks her by the gown.
"Why do you cling to me so, child ?
You track me everywhere;

You never let me be alone."

And he with serious air Answered, as closer still he drew, "My feet were made to follow you.”

Two years before the boy was born,

Another child, of seven,
Whom Heaven had lent to us awhile,
Went back again to heaven.
He came to fill his brother's place,
And bless our falling years;
The good God sent him down in love
To dry our useless tears.

I think so, mother, for I hear

In what the child has said,

A meaning that he knows not of,—
A message from the dead.

He answered wiser than he knew,
"My feet were made to follow you."

Come here, my child, and sit with me,
Your head upon my breast;
You are the last of all my sons,
And you must be the best.

How much I love you, you may guess,
When, grown a man like me,
You sit as I am sitting now,

Your child upon your knee.
Think of me then, and what I said
(And practised when I could):
""Tis something to be wise and great,
'Tis better to be good."

Oh, say to all things good and true,

"My feet were made to follow you!"

Come here, my wife, and sit by me,

And place your hand in mine
(And yours, my child): while I have you
"Tis wicked to repine.

We've had our share of sorrows, Love;
We've had our graves to fill;
But, thank the good God overhead,
We have each other still!
We've nothing in the world besides,
For we are only three:

Mother and child, my wife and child,

How dear you are to me!

I know-indeed, I always knew,
"My feet were made to follow you!"

PERNICIOUS NOVELS AND STORIES.-Parents ought to exercise more strict supervision over the books that their daughters bring from the circulating libraries. The repulsive garbage of modern fiction with which the houses of England are flooded is perhaps the main cause of the frivolity, love of dress, extravagance, and what may be called the "fastness" of the girls of the present day.

A DAY WITH A COURTEOUS MOTHER.

URING the whole of one of last summer's hottest days I had the good fortune to be seated in a railway carriage near a mother and four children whose relations with each other were so beautiful that the pleasure of watching them was quite enough to make one forget the discomforts of the journey.

It was plain that they were poor: their clothes were coarse and old, and had been made by inexperienced hands. The mother's bonnet alone would have been enough to have condemned the whole party on any of the world's thoroughfares; but her face was one which it gave you a sense of rest to look upon it was so earnest, tender, true, and strong. The children-two boys and two girls-were all under the age of twelve, and the youngest could not speak plainly. They had had a rare treat; they had been visiting the mountains, and were talking over all the wonders they had seen with a glow of enthusiastic delight which was to be envied. Only a word-forword record would do justice to their conversation; no description could give any idea of it: so free, so pleasant, so genial,-no interruption, no contradictions; and the mother's part borne all the while with such equal interest and eagerness that no one not seeing her face would dream that she was any other than an elder sister. In the course of the day there were many occasions when it was necessary for her to deny requests and to ask services, especially from the eldest boy; but no young girl anxious to please a lover could have done either with a more tender courtesy. She had her reward, for no lover could have been more tender and manly than was this boy of twelve. Their lunch was simple and scanty, but it had the grace of a royal banquet. At the last, the mother produced with much glee three apples and an orange, of which the children had not known. All eyes fastened on the orange, it was evidently a great rarity. I watched to see if this test would bring out selfishness. There was a little silence: just the shade of a cloud. The mother said, "How shall I divide this? There is one for each of you; and I shall be the best off of all, for I expect big tastes from each of you."

"Oh, give Annie the orange! Annie loves oranges," spoke out the oldest boy with a sudden air of a conqueror, and at the same time taking the smallest and worst apple himself.

"Oh, yes, let Annie have the orange," echoed the second boy, nine years old.

"Yes, Annie may have the orange, because that is nicer than the apple; and she is a lady, and her brothers are gentlemen," said the mother quietly. Then there was a merry contest as to who should feed the mother with largest and most frequent mouthfuls;