Editorials from the Hearst Newspapers Part 55

There may be a few exceptions, but they are very rare, and there is no reason why parents should expect their particular children to be the exceptions.

You may see a man of mature age, kind-hearted, absolutely benevolent and just. And you may learn that when he was a baby he bit his nurse, lied, and was cruel to animals and to other children.

But parents are stupidly egotistical, and believe that their pretty children ought to be born morally perfect.

This moral perfection can be obtained only as the result of education.

Don't expect your children to be models of virtue.

Don't brutalize them by punishments and contempt because you discover that their primitive mental life duplicates the mental conditions of inferior animals.

Set them a good example, and by education make them what you want them to be.

The ignorant and stupid belief that children are born naturally good accounts for the brutality of many fathers and the ruin of many young lives, making cowards of children, accentuating their untruthfulness and cowardice and their cruelty through a desire for revenge.

TWO THIN LITTLE BABIES ARE LEFT

The authorities of New York City, at this writing, have two babies to give away.

A few days since there were about two hundred babies in the city foundling asylum to be had for the asking.

Of all these little ones there remain but two whom n.o.body seems to want.

These two forlorn little things are described as "thin and nervous; inclined to cry, and not taking kindly to those who come to pick out free babies for adoption."

Hundreds of women anxious for children have gone to the asylum, have pa.s.sed by the two little skinny babies, and have asked to be informed as soon as fat babies should be on hand.

Presently we shall tell childless persons--especially bachelors--why they should get a baby and bring it up.

But first, learn that the best possible choice would be one of those two despised "thin" babies.

In all the world's history, the greatest men have begun life as THIN babies.

You must know from common observation that in babyhood the head is big out of all proportion to the rest of the body.

A baby one year old has in its brain alone at least one-third of all the blood in its body.

THE BIGGER AND MORE ACTIVE THE BRAIN the more blood is required to nourish it, and THE MORE THE REST OF THE BODY SUFFERS.

A baby luckily born may combine a good brain and a fat body. But such luck is very rare.

Nine times out of ten the best baby MENTALLY is the poorest-looking baby PHYSICALLY.

We have told you in this column about the pathetic babyhood of the great Voltaire. Had he been in the foundling asylum during the recent selection of babies, he would surely be among the despised and rejected. Yet what a glory to have picked out and raised the wonderful Voltaire!

Voltaire, whose name as a baby was Arouet, was the thinnest and most nervous of babies. He had a disease very much like rickets; he cried night and day, and there was little hope of keeping him alive.

Pitt, the great British Prime Minister, was as sick and skinny a baby as was ever seen. Pope, when a baby, would not have seemed worth keeping alive to anybody but a loving mother.

We advise the women who have spurned the two thin babies in the asylum to take another look at them. They may be the best two babies in the entire lot.

A BABY CAN EDUCATE A MAN

If you will read Drummond's beautiful work "The Ascent of Man,"

you will learn that we owe to children the good that is in us.

It is the child that educates the father and mother.

If you are a solemn bachelor, gradually drying up in your selfish life, try having a baby around for a while.

Get a despised thin one from the asylum. Get some good, kind old woman to take care of it. Give the woman and the baby the quietest room in your house or flat, and then watch the improvement in your character.

You can feed the baby for the cost of one or two c.o.c.ktails daily.

Your health will improve if you give up the c.o.c.ktails, and watch the effect of their subst.i.tute, milk, on the little child.

When you get up in the morning, if the hour is early, you will find the old woman giving the baby its bath. The poor, little thin thing will wriggle joyously in the warm water, once it gets used to the daily bathing. Its head will be soaped first, then sponged. It will be dried with a warm towel, and you can hit the tin bathtub with your keys to keep it from crying while its clothes are put on.

Hold the baby for a while each morning, letting its head rest on your shoulder that its neck may not be strained. (This will give the nurse a chance to prepare the bottle that follows the bath.)

It will get used to you after a few mornings. The first time it shows affection for you, you will be the proudest man in your office.

If asked to take a c.o.c.ktail you will say:

"No, thank you. My c.o.c.ktail money is spent to make a thin baby fat."

If others boast of their friends, you will know that YOU have a friend whom money cannot influence, one skinny little admirer at home whose affection is genuine.

If a man shows delight in the love of his dog, you will say to yourself:

"Any dog will like any man. But there are few that could get a baby to like them in six days as that thin Jimmy likes me."

If you go home early, before the baby is put to bed, you will find him trying to crawl along the floor, or trying to eat the pattern in the carpet. He will look at you out of his pale, little, blue eyes and reach his skinny arms toward you.

See if that does not make you glad that you tried the baby experiment.

Gradually the thin body will get fatter, and the small, busy mouth will begin a mumbling language of its own. The old nurse will pretend to understand everything it says and will insist that it knows your name.

The first tooth piercing the heated, suffering gum; the first feeble steps with the help of a chair; the first tottering effort all alone, with arms outstretched toward you, ending in a flabby collapse, will delight you more than much experimenting with race horses, if you are the right sort of man.

It will not be long before you will decide that the bringing up of babies is your destiny, and a good one.

But when you bring a wife into the house, and she brings you other babies, thin or fat, of your own, don't forget the original thin Jimmy baby. Provide for the old nurse and for the youngster. Say to your wife:

"Be fond of that Jimmy baby, for it was he who taught me that I could not get along without you."