The Physical Life of Woman: Advice to the Maiden, Wife and Mother Part 24

'There is one very common mode of exercising infants, which we think deserves particular notice: we mean the practice of hoisting or raising them aloft in the air. This practice is of such venerable antiquity, and so universal, that it would be vain to impugn it. The pleasure, too, which most children evince under it, seems to show that it cannot be so objectionable as a cursory observer would be disposed to consider it.

Still there are hazards which ought not to be overlooked. The risk of accident is one of some amount: children have slipped from the hands, and sustained serious injury. Some people are so energetic as to throw up children and catch them in descending. This rashness there can be no hesitation in reprobating; for, however confident the person may be of not missing his hold, there must ever be risks of injury from the concussion suffered in the descent, and even from the firmness of the grasp necessary for recovering and maintaining the hold. The motion of the body, too, has a direct tendency to induce vertigo; and when the liability of the infant brain to congestion and its consequences is considered, when the frequency of hydrocephalus in infants is borne in mind, an exercise which impels blood to the brain will not be regarded as wholly insignificant. There is one more objection which seems not to have attracted attention. The hold taken of the child in the act of hoisting him is by the hand grasping the chest. The fingers and thumb, placed on each side of the breast-bone, compress the ribs; and any one with the hand so placed will at once perceive that if the pressure were strong, and the resistance from the elasticity of the ribs weak, the impression on the chest resulting would correspond exactly with the deformity named chicken-breast. That any force is ever used capable of inducing speedily such a change, is in the highest degree improbable; but that reiterated pressure of this kind, however slight, would in a weakly child have power to impress and distort the chest, few, we imagine, will doubt.'

LEARNING TO WALK.

When two or three months old, the infant may be placed on a soft mattress upon the floor or on the carpet. He can then toss his limbs about without danger, and develope the powers of his muscular system.

'The best mode of teaching a child how to walk,' says Dr. Bull, 'is to let it teach itself; and this it will do readily enough. It will first learn to crawl: this exercises every muscle in the body, does not fatigue the child, throws no weight upon the bones, but imparts vigor and strength, and is thus highly useful. After a while, having the power, it will wish to do more. It will endeavor to lift itself upon its feet by the aid of a chair; and though it fail again and again in its attempts, it will still persevere until it accomplish it. By this, it learns first to raise itself from the floor; and secondly, to stand, but not without keeping hold of the object on which it has seized. Next it will balance itself without holding, and will proudly and laughingly show that it can stand alone. Fearful, however, as yet of moving its limbs without support, it will seize a chair or anything else near it, when it will dare to advance as far as the limits of its support will permit. This little adventure will be repeated day after day with increased exultation; when, after numerous trials, he will feel confident of his power to balance himself, and he will run alone. Now time is required for this gradual self-teaching, during which the muscles and bones become strengthened; and when at last called upon to sustain the weight of the body, are fully capable of doing so.'

It is not merely want of strength which prevents an infant from walking at first. The natural shape of the legs renders it impossible. The feet are turned in so that the inner sides look upwards. When placed upon its feet, therefore, the soles will not rest upon the ground. In a short time the position of the feet changes, and they become fitted for the purposes of support and locomotion. When he begins to walk, the child should have shoes with tolerably broad soles, which ought to be at least half an inch longer than the foot.

The first efforts of the little one to support and propel itself are to be carefully watched, but not unnecessarily interfered with; neither frightened by expressions of fear, nor rendered timid by too frequent warnings.

ADVANTAGES OF GAMES AND PLAYS.

The first seven years of life should be one grand holiday for all sports and amus.e.m.e.nts which will bring into play the muscles, and divert at the same time the mind. Time cannot be more usefully employed than in thus laying the foundation of health, upon which alone can rest the physical, mental, and moral well-being of after-life.

No greater mistake can be made by parents than to deprive the young of the innocent pleasures of childhood. Yet there are persons occasionally met with who think it their duty to check the natural lightness and gaiety of heart of their children for fear that they shall become too fond of pleasure. In this way great harm is done to both mind and body, and the very fault created which it is desired to avoid.

The wise parent sees in the games and plays of childhood not only necessary recreation and exercise, but a valuable means of education--of moral, mental, and physical training. He also seeks to impress early upon the young mind that play is most enjoyed when it has been earned by work, and that pleasure flies from those who continually pursue it.

The faculties of _memory_ and _attention_ can be called upon and developed by proper games in a most satisfactory manner. These exercises are all the more effective because the pleasure conceals, as it were, the mental labor, and the intellectual efforts are made, in a sense, unconsciously, though none the less efficiently.

Certain plays form a valuable means of educating the eyes and other senses. Such, for instance, are the toys which represent objects of natural history or of different trades and arts; the pictures which teach through the quick eye of the child what no dry descriptions could ever convey; and the games which develope closeness of observation and habits of order. A genial French physician has happily said, 'Every time I see a toy based on the reproduction of a scientific fact or of an industrial process, and which pleases while it enlightens, I feel a sentiment of real grat.i.tude to him who has designed it.'

We are glad to see that each year more and more attention is being paid to the utilization, as it were, of the games of infancy. Although all education can never be made a play, all play can be made an effective education. Do not therefore, reader, restrict the games of your children, but direct them; do not render them less amusing, but seek to make them more instructive.

The schooling afforded by instructive plays should be the only schooling of the first seven years of life. Late springs produce the most abundant harvests in the mind as in the field. Precocious and delicate children especially should be kept from a too early and close application to books. By means of healthful and instructive games and sports; by visits to workshops and factories where familiar objects are made; and by a cultivation of the sense of the beautiful in nature and art, more can be done towards securing a sound mind in a sound body than by the easier and more common method of sending the child to school almost as soon as it can walk.

IMPORTANCE OF TEACHING CHILDREN HYGIENIC HABITS.

The force of habits should never be lost sight of by those having the charge of children. They const.i.tute a power of which parents should early avail themselves. J. J. Rousseau has said, 'The only habit which one ought to permit the child, is of not contracting any.' But this is impossible and undesirable. When it is remembered that _a good habit is just as hard to break as a bad one_, the importance of seeking from the very cradle to frame good habits is evident. It is easy to create, but difficult to reform. What then are some of the princ.i.p.al hygienic habits which it is desirable to teach children?

First we will mention, _a liking for proper food at regular times_. The indigestion, or weakness of digestion, from which many children suffer, is in some cases hereditary or the result of feeble health. But most frequently it is the effect of bad management. The giving to the child of pastry and cakes at meals instead of simple and nutritious food, the encouragement of capriciousness of appet.i.te instead of teaching it to like everything that is healthful, and the neglect to inculcate the habit of eating at regular hours, these are the princ.i.p.al causes of many cases of diarrha, vomitings, weak appet.i.te, colicky pains, and indigestion among children.

The daily use of at least a sponge-bath of the entire person is an excellent habit. Cold water should be employed after the fifth or sixth year. This simple practice of a cold sponge-bath every morning, if more generally taught children, would avert many a cold and rheumatic attack in after life.

The habit of quenching the thirst with only simple drinks, milk and water, should be early and thoroughly formed. No American mother would think of giving spirits to her child, excepting under medical advice; but many permit almost from infancy the use of tea and coffee. These drinks are not only unnecessary in childhood, but to a certain extent injurious. They excite the nervous system and disorder the digestion.

Before the age of p.u.b.erty, neither tea nor coffee should be allowed.

ON THE TRAINING OF THE SPECIAL SENSES.

The special senses, sight, hearing, smell, taste, and touch, have been called the windows of the soul, by which it observes what pa.s.ses without. The most n.o.ble and intellectual of these are the sight and hearing. Neither of them receives the attention at the hands of parents and educators which it should. Indeed, the Indians who yet inhabit our western plains, have better eyes and ears than we. The reason of this is evident. The savage is obliged to make other use of his eyes than to dreamily admire the beautiful landscape, and other use of his ears than to listen to the singing of birds and the murmuring of wind and stream.

These senses are the defenders of his life. He depends upon them for food, clothing, and protection against his enemies. Hence, urged by necessity, he trains them from infancy, and brings them to a perfection which astonishes us. It will be said, however, that we in our civilized life, have no need of any such acuteness of sense. True, but we cannot avoid the consciousness that our organs of sight and hearing do not afford us the service they ought, and that they commence to fail us too early. The remedy is to be sought in the training of the special senses in early life. These senses, which are the first of our faculties to form and develope, should be the first to be educated; yet, as has been well said, they are nearly the only ones which are forgotten, or at least they are the most neglected.

The education of a sense has been compared to the education of a child,--it has its physical, its intellectual, and its moral side. It is necessary to maintain the organ in a condition of health in order that it may perform its work well; this is the physical education of the sense. The mind must learn to properly elaborate the impressions thus conveyed to it, this is the intellectual education of the sense.

Finally, in the service of morality and justice, these impressions ought to be turned to the advantage of the good and the beautiful, this is the moral education of the sense. The subject of the training of the special senses is therefore, when properly viewed, a serious and most important one. It might well demand more attention at our hands than we have s.p.a.ce to give it here. We will make our remarks as concise and practical as possible commencing first with

THE TRAINING OF THE SENSE OF SIGHT.

A recent French writer on the hygiene of the sight has brought forward striking evidence in support of his statement, that in our time the sense of sight is growing markedly weaker. The number of the near-sighted is augmenting, as is also the number of those who become 'far-sighted' before old age. Cases of debility and disease of the eyes seem to be multiplying at a rate which should awaken general attention to this matter. The causes are to be found in the neglect, often the hurtful management, of the eyesight of children; in the influence of improperly regulating artificial light; and in the injury done by bad printer's ink and paper.

In the education of the child's eyesight, _acuteness_ of vision is one of the first objects to be sought for. That this is largely a matter of training is apparent from the fact that persons in certain professions can readily distinguish objects too small or too distant for ordinary eyes. Children brought up in the country or at the sea-side, have a power of vision unknown to city children, with their limited range of observation. But it is not only necessary that the eyes should be able to make out the forms of distant or small objects, but that they should be quick to detect shades of color and delicacies of outline. The child should be stimulated and encouraged to make efforts in this direction.

Here, also, there is room for the skill of the intelligent toy-maker, for toys can be made very useful educators.

One of the forms of sensorial _memory_ which it is most desirable to develope is that of objects seen, that is to say, the fixing in the thoughts, to be brought up before the mind's eye when wanted, the recollection of visual impressions. This embraces the memory of forms, of dimensions, of the relations between various objects and between different parts of the same object, and of colors. When applied to places it is what is known as _local_ memory, applied to the human face, it is the memory of _physiognomy_; applied to objects, it is _graphic_ or _descriptive_ memory; applied to colors, it is _chromatic_ memory.

_Local_ memory is sometimes developed to an extraordinary degree. It is only necessary for some persons to have once traversed a locality, a street, a city, in order to preserve of it a most minute and vivid recollection. This topographical memory is enjoyed by a number of the inferior animals; the elephant, the dog, and the horse, for instance, are well-known as being capable of noticing a road taken and of returning by it, of recognising readily a place once seen, and of showing a tendency to stop of their own accord at places where they have been arrested or kept. This local memory, useful as it is to every one, is necessary to the painter who draws upon it for the elements of his artistic creations.

The faculty of recollecting faces is a peculiar one, and possessed by different persons in vastly different degrees. There are those who recognise invariably every face they have once seen, and who by a simple effort can at any time recall with the utmost distinctness the features of the absent. On the other hand, there are those so wanting in this special form of memory that they are constantly exposed to serious social inconveniences, and, for fear of failing in politeness, often salute perfect strangers. The ancient Greeks possessed to an extraordinary degree the power of seizing and retaining types of face and form; it is to this, doubtless, that they owe, to a great extent, their unapproached excellence in sculpture and painting.

_Graphic_ or _descriptive_ memory is that which photographs, as it were, upon the brain the visual impressions that objects have made upon the retina, in such a manner that the thought can reconstruct them ideally.

This, in particular, is the form of memory required by designers of all kinds, and, like the other forms of visual memory, is susceptible of education. The child is first taught to copy with his pencil and produce exact _imitations_ of the objects about him. Then, little by little, he is to be taught in closing his eyes to reconstruct mentally the contours of objects, at first simple, then more complicated, and finally to penetrate into their details and give to the fict.i.tious mental image all the relief of reality. This exercise not merely trains the child in correct observation, but quickly leads to the conquest of descriptive memory.

_Chromatic_ memory, or the memory of colors, is a form of visual memory different from those we have enumerated. It is more difficult, perhaps, and technical than the others. The attention of the child should early be directed to the colors of natural and artificial objects, and he should be encouraged to imitate them.

But it is not our intention to go further into this important subject, the education of the sense of sight. Our s.p.a.ce will not permit it. By these few elementary remarks, we have merely wished to remind parents that they can do much towards the development of this important faculty in their children.

TO PREVENT NEAR-SIGHTEDNESS.

Near-sightedness is, as we have said, greatly increasing. In Germany, this is particularly the case, and has led there to a careful study of the subject within the last few years.

Near-sightedness, like most of the disorders of the eyesight, is to be traced to causes which act during childhood, _and which causes are all entirely preventable_. Imperfect lighting of rooms in which children study or play is one of the chief among these preventable causes. When the windows are improperly constructed or placed, or when the artificial light is faulty in school-rooms, the book is naturally brought close to the eyes in order that it may be more easily read. The consequence of this is either that near-sightedness is quickly produced, or that the eyes soon become fatigued and permanently weakened. No less injurious is the effort to read 'between the lights' or before the fire. School-books with too small type, and school-desks which are too low or too far from the seats, are the direct cause of much mischief to many young eyes. Let parents, therefore, see to it that the school-rooms to which they send their children are clearly and properly lighted, that the books which they study are printed in a bold, clear type, and that no reading or study is permitted by a flickering or a dim light, nor before a desk or table which forbids a tolerably erect position of the head and shoulders.

THE EDUCATION OF THE SENSE OF HEARING.

The education of this sense is second only in importance to that of the sight. First of all, attention should be directed to the preservation of the _health_ of the organ.

Many cases of deafness among children originate in long standing diseases of the nose and throat; others in obstinate skin affections; while not a few are caused by a want of cleanliness, which permits of the acc.u.mulation of wax in the pa.s.sage of the ear.

The sensibility of the nerve which conveys impressions of sound from the ear to the brain can be greatly increased by exercise and training, when the organ is in a condition of health. It can be so highly developed that the ear will readily catch very feeble sounds.

A learned physician has recently pointed out with some force that sufficient attention is not paid to the conformation of the pavilion of the ear. Upon this conformation much of the delicacy of hearing depends.

The hats which children wear, usually compress and deform the pavilion.

Physiologists have shown that it ought to make an angle of about thirty degrees with the skull, in order to best collect sonorous vibrations.

This angle is very much diminished by our artificial head-dresses, and to the detriment of acuteness of hearing.

Can education do much for the improvement of hearing? Everyday experience answers in the affirmative. There is an exercise which cannot be too highly commended to parents, which consists in inducing in play their children, even those very young, to detect from as far as they can faint and fading sounds. It is a game which amuses them much, and it is a pleasing sight to see the rivalry of several young children, each of whom with head bent forward, is earnestly trying to distinguish a receding sound longer than its fellows. A little ingenuity will readily devise amusing and useful plays with this object in view.

The training of the remaining special senses is of comparatively minor importance to that of those we have been considering, and need not detain us. We will only remind the reader of the wonderful adroitness and delicacy of touch possessed by the blind as an example of what this sense is capable of when educated.