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Classic
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page 402
statesmen, of glorified humanity; such as the world has not yet seen. To this
hour, we have left the greatest event of life to chance, and the result is the
blind, the deaf and dumb, the idiot, the lunatic, the epileptic, the criminal,
the drunkard, the glutton--thousands of human beings, in our young republic,
that never should have been born; a tax on society, a disgrace to their parents,
and a curse to themselves.
Well, born--a child's next right is to intelligent care. If we buy a rare plant,
we ask the florist innumerable questions as to its proper training; but the
advent of an immortal being seems to suggest no new thought, no anxious
investigation into the science of human life. Here we trust every thing to an
ignorant nurse, or a neighbor who knows perchance less than we do ourselves.
Ignorance bandages the new-born child, as tight as a drum, from armpits to hips,
compressing every vital organ. There is a tradition that all infants are subject
to colic for the first three months of their existence; at the end of which time
the bandage is removed, and the colic ceases. Reason suggests that the bandage
may be the cause of the colic, and queries as to the origin of the custom, and
its use. She is told, with all seriousness, "that the bones of a new-born child
are like cartilage, that, unless they are pinned up snugly, they are in danger
of falling to pieces." Reason replies: "If Infinite Wisdom has made kittens and
puppies so that their component parts remain together, it is marvelous that He
should have left the human being wholly at the mercy of a bandage;" and
proposes, with her first-born, to dispense with swaddling bandages, leaving only
a slight compress on the navel, for a few days, until perfectly healed.
Ignorance, believing that every child comes into the world in a diseased and
starving condition, begins at once the preparation of a variety of nostrums,
chemical and culinary, which she persistently administers to the struggling
victim. Reason, knowing that after the fatigue of a long and perilous march,
what the young soldier most needs is absolute rest in some warm and cozy tent,
shelters him under her wing, and fights off all intruders, sure that when he
needs his rations the world will hear from him. His first bath should be
preceded by a generous application of pure, sweet olive oil, from head to foot,
in every little corner and crevice of his outer man; and then he should be
immersed in warm soap-suds, so nearly the temperature of the body as to cause no
shock. Great care should be taken that neither oil nor soap touch the eyes. The
room should be very warm, all drafts excluded; and on emerging from the tub, a
hot soft-flannel blanket should be closely wrapped around him, in which he may
rest awhile before dressing. The softest garments, simply made, and so cut as to
fasten round the throat and rest on the shoulders, should constitute his
wardrobe; eschew all bands, pins, ligatures, ruffles, embroidery, caps, socks,
etc.
Let the child's first efforts at foraging for an existence be at his mother's
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