CHAPTER VII.

CARE OF THE FRAME.

We have seen something of the influence of the infant upon others: now let us see what others can do for it.

Here is a little creature containing within itself the germs of all those powers which have before been described; but with all these powers in so feeble a state that months and years of nourishing and cherishing under the influences of Nature are necessary to give it the use of its own powers. What its parents can do for it, and all that they can do for it, is to take care that it has the full advantage of the influences of Nature. This is their task. They cannot get beyond it, and they ought not to fall short of it.

Nature requires and provides that the tender frame should be nourished with food, air, warmth and light, sleep and exercise. All these being given to it, the soft bones will grow hard, the weak muscles will grow firm; the eye will become strong to see, and the ear to hear, and the different portions of the brain to feel, and apprehend, and think; and to form purposes, and to cause action, till the helpless infant becomes a self-acting child, and is on the way to become a rational man. What the parents have to do is to take care that the babe has the best of food, air, warmth, and light, sleep and exercise.

First, of food. About this there is no possible doubt. The mother's milk is the best of food. What the mother has to look to is that her milk is of the best. She must preserve her own health by wholesome diet, air, and exercise, and by keeping a gentle and cheerful temper. Many a babe has had convulsions after being suckled by a nurse who had had a great fright, or had been in a great passion: and a mother who has an irritable or anxious temper, who flushes or trembles with anger, or has her heart in her throat from fear of this or that, will not find her child thrive upon her milk, but will have much to suffer from its illness or its fretfulness. She must try, however busy she may be, to give it its food pretty regularly, that its stomach may not be overloaded nor long empty or craving. An infant does not refuse food when it has had enough, as grown people can do. It will stop crying and suck, when its crying is from some other cause than hunger: and it will afterwards cry all the more if an overloaded stomach is added to the other evil, whatever it may be. Of the contrary mischief--leaving a babe too long hungry--there is no need to say anything. And when the weaning time comes, it is plain that the food should be at first as like as possible to that which is given up; thin, smooth, moderately warm, fresh, and sweet, and given as leisurely as the mother's milk is drawn. It is well known that milk contains, more curiously than any other article of food, whatever is necessary for nourishing all the parts of the human body. It contains that which goes to form and strengthen the bones, and that which goes to make and enrich the blood--thereby causing the soft bones of the babe to grow stiff and strong, and its heart to beat healthily, and its lungs to play vigorously, and its muscles to thicken and become firm. While all this is going on well, and the child shows no need of other food, there is nothing but mischief to be looked for from giving it a variety for which it is not prepared. Milk, flour and water are its natural food while it has no teeth to eat meat with, and vegetables turn sour on its stomach. As for giving it a bit or sip of what grown persons are eating and drinking--that is a practice too ignorant to need to be mentioned here.

Next comes air. Here, as usual, we have to consult Nature. There is an ingredient in the air which is as necessary to support human breathing as to feed the flame of a candle. Where there is too little of it, the flame of a candle burns dim; and where it is not freely supplied to a human frame, it languishes, and pines and sickens. A constant supply of pure air there must therefore be. If the house is close, if the room is too long shut up, with people in it who are using up that ingredient of the air, they will all, and especially the babe, languish and pine and sicken. Every morning, therefore, and during the day, there must be plenty of fresh air let in to replace that which has been spoiled by breathing; and in fine weather, the babe should be carried into the open air every day. But Nature also points out that we must avoid extremes in giving the child air, as well as food. We see sometimes how a babe grows black in the face if carried with its face to the wind, or whisked down stairs in a draught. Its lungs are small and tender, like the rest of it, and can bear even fresh air only when moderately given. By a little care in turning its face away from the wind, or lightly covering its head, a child may be saved from being half strangled by a breeze out of doors; while care will, of course, be taken within doors to keep it out of the direct draught from door or window.

As for light--we do not yet know so much as we ought about the relation between light and the human frame. I believe some curious secrets remain to be discovered about that. But we do know this much--that people who live in dark places, prisoners in dungeons, and very poor people in cellars, and savages in caves who do not go abroad much, are not only less healthy than others, but have peculiar diseases which are distinctly traceable to deficiency of light. My own conviction is that we grown people can hardly have too much light in our houses; and that we are, somehow or other, alive almost in proportion to the sunshine we live in. But we must observe, at the same time, the difference which Nature makes between the infant and adults. The infant's eyes are weak, and its brain tender; so that, while there is plenty of light about its body, we must take care that there is not too much directly before its eyes. If held opposite a strong sunshine, it will squint if it does not cry, or by some means show that the light is too much for its tender brain.

As to warmth--everybody knows that a babe cannot have that constant warmth which is kept up in older persons by constant activity. Its little feet require frequent warm handling; and its lips often look blue when everybody else in the room is warm enough. By gentle chafing and warming it must be kept comfortable during the day, without being shut up in a hot room, or scorched before the fire. As for the night--its warmth should be secured by sufficient clothing, in a little bed of its own, as early as possible, rather than by lying with its mother, which is far too common a practice. It may be necessary, in extremely cold weather, to take the child into bed for warmth; but even then, the mother should not sleep till she has put it back, warm and well covered, into its own bed. I need say nothing of the horror we feel when, every now and then, we hear of a miserable mother whose child has been overlaid. That accident happens oftener than many people know of. But, besides that danger, the practice is a bad one. The child breathes air already breathed; it soaks in the perspiration of its mother. If its state is healthful, its natural sleep will keep it warm, supposing its bedding to be sufficient; while it is likely to be too hot, and not to breathe healthfully, if laid close by another person. In all seasons, its clothing should be loose enough to allow of a free play of its limbs, and of all the movements within its body--the beating of the heart, the heaving of the lungs, and the rolling of the bowels, to go on quite naturally. By careful management, an infant may be kept in a state of natural warmth, night and day, through winter and summer; as every sensible mother knows.

The little frame must be exercised. Every human function depends on exercise for its growth and perfection. A person who lives almost in the dark has little use of his eyes when he comes into the light; an arm hung in a sling becomes weak, and at last useless; a talent for arithmetic or music becomes feebler continually from disuse. To make the most therefore of the frame of a human being, it must be exercised--some of its powers from the beginning, and all in their natural order. We must take care, however, to observe what this natural order is, or, judging by our present selves, we may attempt too much. We must remember that the infant has to begin from the beginning, and that its primary organs--the heart, lungs, and brain--have to become accustomed to moderate exercise before anything further should be attempted. At first, it is quite enough for the infant to be taken up and laid down, washed and dressed, and carried about a little on the arm. When the proper time comes, it will kick and crow, and reach and handle, and look and listen. Its very crying, if only what is natural to express its wants, is a good exercise of those parts intended to be used afterwards in speaking and making childish noises. Poor Laura Bridgman, the American girl, who early lost both eyes and the inner parts of the ears, and cannot hear, see, smell, or taste, and whose mind is yet developed by means of the sense of touch, said a thing (said it by finger language) which appears to me very touching and very instructive. Not being able to speak, she was formerly apt to use the organs of speech in making odd noises, disagreeable to people about her. When told of this, and encouraged to try to be silent, she asked--"Why, then, has God given me so much voice?" Her guardians took the hint, and gave her a place to play in for some time every day, where she can make as much noise as she likes--hearing none of it herself, but enjoying the exercise to her organs of sound. What Laura does now, an infant does by squalling, and children do by shouting and vociferating at their play. Their parents, it must be remembered, are talking for many hours while they are asleep.

Other exercises follow in their natural course--the rolling and tumbling about on a thickly wadded quilt on the floor (saving the busy mother's time, while teaching the child the use of its limbs)--feeling its feet on the lap, and learning to step, scrambling up and down by the leg of the table, pulling and throwing things about, imitating sounds, till speech is attained--these are the exercises which nature directs, and under which the powers grow till the mother can see in her plaything the sailor who may one day rock at the mast-head, or the stout labourer who may trench the soil, or the gardener who will name a thousand plants at a glance, or the teacher who will bring out and train a hundred human intellects. What she has to look to is that the powers of her child are all remembered and considered, and exercised only in due degree and natural order.

After exercise comes sleep. If all else go well, this will too. If the child digest well, be warm, sufficiently fatigued and not too much--in short, if it be comfortable in body, it will sleep at proper times. One of the earliest pieces of education--of training--is to induce a babe to sleep regularly, and without the coaxing which consumes so much of the mother's time, and encourages so much waywardness on the part of the child. If a healthy child be early accustomed to a bed of its own, and if it is laid down at a sleepy moment, while the room is quiet, it will soon get into a habit of sleeping when laid down regularly, in warmth and stillness, after being well washed and satisfied with food. The process is natural; and it would happen easily enough if our ways did not interfere with Nature. By a little care, a child may be attended to in the night without fully awakening it. By watching for its stirring, veiling the light, being silent and quick, the little creature may be on its pillow again without having quite waked up--to its own and its mother's great advantage.

Cleanliness is the removal of all that is unwholesome. Nature has made health dependent upon this, in the case of human beings of every age: and the more eminently, the younger they are. One great condition of an infant's welfare is the removal of all discharges whatever, by careful cleansing of the delicate skin in every crease and corner, every day; and of all clothing as soon as soiled. The perpetual washing of an infant's bibs, &c., is a great trouble to a busy mother; but less than to have the child ill from the smell of a sour pinafore, or from wet underclothes, or from a cap that holds the perspiration of a week's nights and days. It is a thing which must be done--the keeping all pure and sweet about the body of the little creature that cannot help itself; and its look of welfare amply repays the trouble all the while.

Such are the offices to be rendered to the new-born infant. They consist in allowing Nature scope for her higher offices. By their faithful discharge, the human being is prepared to become in due season all that he is made capable of being--which may prove to be something higher than we are at present aware of.