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KEEPING CABBAGES IN THE COUNTRY

Take up the cabbages by the roots, set closely together in rows, up to the head in soil, roots down as they grew; drive in posts at the corners of the bed, and at intermediate points if necessary, higher on one side than the other; nail strips of boards on the posts and lay upon these old boards, doors, or if nothing else is at hand, beanpoles, and corn fodder, high enough so that the roof will be clear of the cabbages, and allow the air to circulate; close up the sides with yard or garden offal of any kind, and the cabbages will keep fresh and green all winter, and be accessible at all times. Exclude moisture but never mind the frost. A child's first right is to be well born, of parents sound in body and mind, who can boast a long line of ancestors on both sides; an aristocracy, based on the cardinal virtues of purity, chastity, sobriety, and honesty.

If the thought, the money, the religious enthusiasm, now expended for the regeneration of the race, were wisely directed to the generation of our descendants, to the conditions and environments of parents and children, the whole face of society might be changed before we celebrate the next Centennial of our national life. All religious, educational, benevolent, and industrial societies combined, working harmoniously together, can not do as much in a life-time of effort, toward the elevation of mankind, as can parents in the nine months of prenatal life. Locke took the ground that the mind of every child born into the world is like a piece of blank paper, that you may write thereon whatever you will; but science proves that such idealists as Descartes were nearer right when they declared that each soul comes freighted with its own ideas, its individual proclivities; that the pre-natal influences do more in the formation of character than all the education that come after.

Let the young man, indulging in all manner of excesses, remember that in considering the effect of dissipation, wine, and tobacco, on himself and his own happiness or misery, he does not begin to measure the evil of his life. As the High Priest at the family altar, his deeds of darkness will entail untold suffering on generation after generation. Let the young woman with wasp-like waist, who lives on candies, salads, hot bread, pastry, and pickles, whose listless brain and idle hands seek no profitable occupation, whose life is given to folly, remember that to her ignorance and folly may yet be traced the downfall of a nation.

One of the most difficult lessons to impress on any mind is the power and extent of individual influence; and parents above all others, resist the belief that their children are exactly what they make them; no more, no less; like producing like. If there is a class of educators who need special preparation for their high and holy calling, it is those who assume the responsibility. of parents. Shall we give less thought to the creation of an immortal being than the artist devotes to his statue or landscape? We wander through the art galleries in the old world, and linger before the works of the great masters, transfixed with the grace and beauty, the glory and grandeur, of the ideals that surround us; and, with equal preparation, greater than these are possible in living, breathing humanity. The same thought.and devotion in real life would soon give us a generation of saints, scholars, scientists, and (460) 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 arnıpits to hips, compressing every vital organ. There is a tradition that all änfants 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 breast; there he will find the medicine he needs, and just what she needs, too, to dispose of.

The child's mouth and the mother's nipples should be carefully washed before nursing; thus, much suffering, for both mother and child, will be prevented. "Give the baby water six times a day," was one of the most important messages ever sent over the telegraph wires to a young mother. Ignorance bathes her baby on a full stomach, because she finds it will go through the ordeal of dressing more quietly; Reason bathes hers two hours after feeding, knowing that the vital forces needed for digestion should not be drawn to the surface. Being constructed on the same general plan with its parents, the same principle that makes it dangerous for a man to go swimming immediately after eating, makes it equally so to put a baby in its tub after nursing.

Though Ignorance eats her own meals regularly and at stated times, she feeds her baby at all times and seasons. If the child has colic from overeating, or the improper diet of its mother, she trys to ally its suffering with additional feeding and vigorous trotting; not succeeding, she ends the drama with a spoonful of Mrs. Winslow's soothing syrup; having drugged the sentinel and silenced his guns, she imagines the citadel safe. Reason feeds her baby regularly, by the clock, once in two or three hours, and gives the stomach some chance for rest. She prevents colic by regulating her own diet and habits of life, knowing that improper articles of food, and ill-nature or outbursts of passion in the mother; have cost many a baby its life. Ignorance, having noticed that her baby sleeps longer with its head covered, uniformly excludes the air: Breathing the same air over a dozen times, it becomes stupefied with the carbonic-acid gas, is thrown into a profuse perspiration, and is sure to catch cold on emerging from the fetid atmosphere. Reason puts her child to sleep, with head uncovered, in a spacious chamber, bright with sunlight and fresh air; where, after a long nap, she will often find him (as soon as he is old enough to notice objects) looking at the shadows on the wall, or studying the anatomical wonders of his own hands and feet, the very picture of content.

Regular feeding, freedom in dress, plenty of sleep, water, sunlight, and pure air, will secure to babies that health and happiness that in nature should be their inheritance. "Seeing that the atmosphere is forty miles deep, all round the globe," says Horace Mann, "it is a useless piece of economy to breathe it more than once. If we were obliged to trundle it in the wheel-barrows, in order to fill our homes, churches, school-houses, railroad-cars, and steamboats, there might be some excuse for our seeming parsimony. But as it is we are prodigals of health, of which we have so little; and niggards of air, of which we have so much." -Mrs. Elizabeth Cady Stanton, New York. GREAT care should be given that children are not fed with milk that has been turned by a thunder-storm. The chemical change is rapid, and extra caution is necessary.

GINGER-BREAD made from oatmeal instead of flour is a good aperient for children.

PARENTS SHOULD TEACH their children to gargle their throats, for it may be the saving of their lives. It is easier to teach them this difficult and awkward feat in health than when prostrated by disease. TO PREVENT A CHILD COUGHING AT NIGHT, boil the strength out of ten cents worth of "seneca snake-root" in one quart of soft water; strain through a cloth, boil down to a pint, add one cup powdered sugar made into a thick molasses. Give one tea-spoonful on going to bed.

CHILDREN ARE OFTEN TROUBLED with ulcers in the ears after scarlet fever and other children's diseases. Roast onions in ashes until done, wrap in a strong cloth, and squeeze out juice. To three parts juice, add one part laudanum and one part sweet-oil, and bottle for use. Wash ear out with warm water, shake bottle well, and drop a few drops into the ear. FOR SORE MOUTH IN NURSING BABIES, take a tea-spoon each of pulverized alum and borax, half a salt-spoon of pulverized nut-galls, a table-spoon of honey; mix, and pour on it half a tea-cup boiling water; let settle, and with a clean linen rag wash the mouth four or five times a day, using a fresh piece of linen every day; or simple borax water is equally good. Half an even tea-spoon powdered borax in two table-spoons soft water is strong enough.

A LUMP OF SUGAR, saturated with vinegar, will stop hiccough when drinking water will not. For babies, a few grains of sugar will often suffice. Care must be taken in giving sugar to nursing babies, as it is constipating. Dio Lewis says feather pillows are death to children. Make them of straw or hair, and not too large.

TO CURE THE EARACHE, take a bit of cotton batting, put upon it a pinch of black pepper, gather it up and tie it, dip it in sweet-oil, and insert it into the ear. Put a flannel bandage over the head to keep it warm. PROBABLY NINE CHILDREN OUT OF TEN who die of croup might be saved by the timely application of roast onions, mashed, laid upon a folded napkin, and goose-oil, sweet-oil, or even lard, poured on and applied as warm as can be borne comfortably to the throat and upper part of the chest, and to the feet and hands, or the onions may be sliced, boiled soft in water until almost dry, grease added, and cooked in the grease until browned. LET NATURE WAKE THE CHILDREN; she will not do it prematurely. Take care that they go to bed at an early hour-let it be earlier and earlier, until it is found that they wake up themselves in full time to dress for breakfast. JUST BEFORE EACH MEAL let a child have some ripe fruit or some fruit sauce. Apples and berries are wholesome. Oranges should never be given to children unless the skin and the thick white part underneath the skin and between the quarters is all carefully removed.

WHILE THE BABY IS DOWN FOR A CREEP, draw little stocking legs over his arms, and secure them by a safety-pin.

SEE THAT A CHILD'S FOOD is well cooked. Never give a child new bread. Always insist that a child thoroughly masticate his food. Avoid too nourishing a diet for a child of a violent, fretful temper. Give a nourishing diet to a pale, white-looking, delicate child. Both under-feeding and overfeeking are apt to produce scrofula or consumption. Carefully study a child's constitution, digestive powers, teeth, strength, and endeavor to proportion to these the kind and the quantity of its food. Sweetmeats and confectionery should only be given to children very sparingly, if at all. Never pamper or reward a child with them. A child should never be allowed to go to sleep with damp, cold feet. Neglect of this has often resulted in dangerous attacks of croup, diphtheria, or a fatal sore throat. Always on entering the house in rainy, muddy, or thawy weather, the child should remove its shoes, and the mother should herself ascertain whether the stockings are the least damp. If they are they should be taken off, the feet held before the fire, and rubbed with the hands until perfectly dry, and dry stockings and shoes put on.

DR. OSGOOD RECOMMENDS as a night suit for children a single garment, X