122
Healthful Living
children will be peevish and irritable and frequently sick.—
The Health
Reformer, September 1, 1866
.
627. The first education that children should receive from the
mother in infancy should be in regard to their physical health. They
should be allowed only plain food, of that quality that would preserve
to them the best condition of health, and that should be partaken of
only at regular periods, not oftener than three times a day, and two
meals would be better than three. If children are disciplined aright,
they will soon learn they can receive nothing by crying and fretting.
[146]
A judicious mother will act in training her children, not merely in
regard to her own present comfort, but for their future good. And to
this end she will teach her children the important lesson of controlling
the appetite, and of self-denial, that they should eat, drink, and dress
in reference to health.—
How to Live, 47
.
628. It is much easier to create an unnatural appetite than to cor-
rect and reform it after it has become second nature.... Meat given to
children is not the best thing to insure success.... To educate your chil-
dren to subsist upon a meat diet would be harmful to them.... Highly
seasoned meats, followed by rich pastry, is wearing out the vital or-
gans of the digestion of children. Had they been accustomed to plain,
wholesome food, their appetites would not have craved unnatural lux-
uries and mixed preparations.—
Unpublished Testimonies, November
5, 1896
. Fresh Air.
629. One great error of the mother in the treatment of her infant is,
she deprives it very much of fresh air, that which it ought to have to
make it strong. It is a practise of many mothers to cover their infant’s
head while sleeping, and this, too, in a warm room, which is seldom
ventilated as it should be. This alone is sufficient to greatly enfeeble
the action of the heart and lungs, thereby affecting the whole system.
While care may be needful to protect the infant from a draught of
air or from any sudden and too great change, especial care should be
taken to have the child breathe a pure, invigorating atmosphere. No
disagreeable odor should remain in the nursery or about the child;
[147]
such things are more dangerous to the feeble infant than to grown
persons.—
How to Live, 66
.
630. But there is an evil greater than those already named. The
infant is exposed to a vitiated air caused by many breaths, some of
which are very offensive and injurious to the strong lungs of older