way they were compelled, as children, to spend their Sundays. You can no more make a child religious by gloomy asceticism, than you can make people good by Act of Parlia

ment.

One of the great follies of the present age is, children's parties, where they are allowed to be dressed up like grownup women, stuck out in petticoats, and encouraged to eat rich cake and pastry, and to drink wine, and to sit up late at night! There is something disgusting and demoralizing in all this. Their pure minds are blighted by it. Do not let me be misunderstood: there is not the least objection, but, on the contrary, great advantage, for friends' children to meet friends' children; but then let them be treated as children, and not as men and women!

180. Do you approve of public play-grounds for children? It would be well, in every village, and in the outskirts of every town, if a large plot of ground were set apart for chil dren to play in, and to go through regular gymnastic exercises. Play is absolutely necessary to a child's very exist ence, as much as food and sleep; but in many parts of England where is he to have it? Play-grounds and play are the best schools we have; they teach a great deal not taught elsewhere; they give lessons in health, which is the grandest wealth that can be bestowed-" for health is wealth: they prepare the soil for the future schoolmaster; they clear the brain, and thus the intellect; they strengthen the muscles; they make the blood course merrily through the arteries; they bestow healthy food for the lungs; they give an appetite; they make a child, in due time, become every inch a man! Play-grounds and play are one of the finest institutions we possess. What would our large public schools be without their play and cricket grounds? They would be shorn of half their splendour and their usefulness!

There is so much talk now-a-days about useful knowledge, that the importance of play and play-grounds is likely to be forgotten. I cannot help thinking, however, that a better state of things is dawning. "It seems to be found out that in our zeal for useful knowledge, that knowledge is found to be not the least useful which treat boys as active, stirring, aspiring, and ready." *

• The Saturday Review, December 13, 1862.

EDUCATION.

181. Do you approve of infant schools?

I do, if the arrangements be such that health is preferred before learning.* Let children be only confined for three or four hours a day, and let what little they learn be taught as an amusement rather than as a labour. A play-ground ought to be attached to an infant school; where, in fine weather, for every half-hour they spend in-doors, they should spend one in the open air; and, in wet weather, they ought to have, in lieu of the play-ground, a large room to romp, and shout, and riot in. To develop the different organs, muscles, and other parts of the body, children require fresh air, a free use of their lungs, active exercise, and their bodies to be thrown into all manner of attitudes. Let a child mope in a corner, and he will become stupid and sickly. The march of intellect, as it is called, or rather the double quick march of intellect, as it should be called, has stolen a march upon health. Only allow the march of intellect and the march of health to take equal strides, and then we shall have mens sana in corpore sano (a sound mind in a sound body).

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In the education of a young child it is better to instruct him by illustration, by pictures, and by encouraging observation on things around and about him, than by books. It is surprising how much, without endangering his health, may be taught in this way. In educating your child, be careful to instil and to form good habits-they will then stick to him for life.

Children at the present day are too highly educatedtheir brains are over-taxed, and thus weakened. The consequence is, that as they grow up to manhood, if they grow up at all, they become fools! Children are now taught what formerly youths were taught. The chord of a child's life is ofttimes snapped asunder in consequence of over education :

"Screw not the cord too sharply, lest it snap."-Tennyson.

:

You should treat a child as you would a young colt. Think only at first of strengthening his body. Let him have

"According to Aristotle, more care should be taken of the body than of the mind for the first seven years; strict attention to diet be enforced, &c. The eye and ear of the child should be most watchfully and severely guarded against contamination of every kind, and unrestrained communication with servants be strictly prevented. Even his amusements should be under due regulation, and rendered as interesting and intellectual as possible."-The Rev. John Williams, in his Life and Actions of Alexander the Great.

a perfectly free, happy life, plenty of food to eat, abundance of air to breathe, and no work to do; there is plenty of time to think of his learning-of giving him brain work. It will come sadly too soon; but do not make him old before his time.

182. At what age do you advise my child to begin his course of education to have his regular lessons?

In the name of the prophet,-Figs! Fiddlesticks! about courses of education and regular lessons for a child! You may as well ask me when he, a child, is to begin Hebrew, the Sanscrit, and Mathematics! Let him have a course of education in play; let him go through regular lessons in football, bandy, playing at tic, hares and hounds, and such like excellent and really useful and health-giving lessons. Begin his lessons! Begin brain work, and make an idiot of him! Oh! for shame, ye mothers! You who pretend to love your children so much, and to tax, otherwise to injure, irreparably to injure their brains, and thus their intellects and their health, and to shorten their very days. And all for what? To make prodigies of them! Forsooth! to make fools of them in the end.

183. Well, then, as you have such a great objection to a child commencing his education early in life, at what age may he, with safety, commence his lessons? and which do you prefer-home or school education?

Home is far preferable to a school education. He is, if at home, under your own immediate observation, and is not liable to be contaminated by naughty children; for, in every school, there is necessarily a great mixture of the good and of the bad; and a child, unfortunately, is more likely to be led by the bad than by the good. Moreover, if he be educated at home, the mother can see that his brain is not overworked. At school the brain is apt to be over-worked, and the stomach and the muscles to be under-worked.

Remember, as above stated, the brain must have but very little work until the child be seven years old: impress this advice upon your memory, and let no foolish ambition to make your child a clever child allow you, for one moment, to swerve from this advice.

Build up a strong, healthy body, and in due time the brain will bear a moderate amount of intellectual labour.

As I have given you so much advice, permit me, for one moment, to address a word to the father of your child ::Let me advise you, then, Mr. Paterfamilias, to be careful

how you converse, what language you use, while in the company of your child. Bear in mind, a child is very observant, and thinks much, weighs well, and seldom forgets all you say and all you do! Let no hasty word, then, and more especially no oath, or no impious language, ever pass your lips, if your child be within hearing. It is, of course; at all times wicked to swear; but it is heinously and unpardonably sinful to swear in the presence of your child! "Childhood is like a mirror, catching and reflecting images. One impious or profane thought, uttered by a parent's lip, may operate upon the young heart like a careless spray of water thrown upon polished steel, staining it with rust, which no after-scouring can efface."

Never talk secrets before a child-"little pitchers have long ears; "if you do, and he disclose your secrets-as most likely he will-and thus make mischief, it will be cruel to scold him; you will, for your imprudence, have only yourself to blame. Be most careful, then, in the presence of your child, of what you say, and of whom you speak. This advice, if followed, might save a great deal of annoyance and vexation.

184. Are you an advocate for a child being taught singing?

I am: I consider singing a part of his education. Singing expands the walls of his chest, strengthens and invigorates his lungs, gives sweetness to his voice, improves his pronunciation, and is a great pleasure and amusement to him.

SLEEP.

185. Do you approve of a child sleeping on a FEATHER bed?

A feather bed enervates his body, and, if he be so predisposed, causes rickets, and makes him crooked. A horse-hair mattress is the best for a child to lie on. The pillow, too, should be made of horse-hair. A feather pillow often causes the head to be bathed in perspiration, thus enervating the child, and making him liable to catch cold. If he be at all' ricketty, if he be weak in the neck, if he be inclined to stoop, or if he be at all crooked, let him, by all means, lie without a pillow.

186. Do you recommend a child, in the middle of the day, to be put to sleep?

Let him be put on his mattress awake, that he may sleep

for a couple of hours before dinner, then he will rise both refreshed and strengthened for the remainder of the day. I said, let him be put down awake. He might, for the first few times, cry, but, by perseverance, he will without any difficulty fall to sleep. The practice of sleeping before dinner ought to be continued until he be three years old, and, if he can be prevailed upon, even longer. For if he do not have sleep in the middle of the day, he will all the afternoon and the evening be cross; and when he does go to bed, he will probably be too tired to sleep, or his nerves having been exhausted by the long wakefulness, he will fall into a troubled, broken slumber, and not into that sweet, soft, gentle repose, so characteristic of healthy, happy childhood.

187. At what hour ought a child to be put to bed in the evening?

At six in the winter, and at seven o'clock in the summer. Regularity ought to be observed, as regularity is very conducive to health. It is a reprehensible practice to keep a child up until nine or ten o'clock at night. If this be done, he will, before his time, become old, and the seeds of disease will be sown.

As soon as he can run, let him be encouraged, for half an hour before he goes to bed, to race either about the hall, or the landing, or a large room, which will be the best means of warming his feet, of preventing chilblains, and of making him sleep soundly.

188. Have you any directions to give me as to the placing of my child in his bed?

If a child lie alone, place him fairly on his side in the middle of the bed; if it be winter time, see that his arms and hands be covered with the bed-clothes; if it be summer, his hands might be allowed to be outside the clothes. In putting him down to sleep, you should ascertain that his face be not covered with the bed-clothes; if it be he will be poisoned with his own breath-the breath constantly giving off carbonic acid gas; which gas must, if his face be smothered in the clothes, be breathed-carbonic acid gas being highly poisonous.

You can readily prove the existence of carbonic acid gas in the breathing, by simply breathing into a little lime-water; after breathing for a few seconds into it, a white film will form on the top; the carbonic acid gas from the breath unites with the lime of the lime-water, and the product of the white film is carbonate of lime.