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14

OF CHILDREN.

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To take care of their children, is the most useful business in whicheven the poor can be employed : but, alas ! it is not always in theirpower. Poverty often obliges them to neglect their offspring in orderto procure the necessaries of life. When this is the case, it becomesthe interest as well as the duty of the public to assist them. Teuthousand times more benefit would accrue to the state, by enablingthe poor to bring up their own children, than from all the hospitalsthat ever can be erected for that purpose.

Whoever considers the structure of the human body will soon beconvinced of the necessity of exercise for the health of children.The body is composed of an infinite number of tubes, whose fluidscannot be pushed on without the action and pressure of the muscles.But, if the fluids remain inactive, obstructions must happen, and thehumours will of course be vitiated, which cannot fail tooccasion dis-eases. Nature has furnished both the vessels which carry the bloodand lymph with numerous valves, in order that the action of everymuscle might push forward their contents ; but without action, thisadmirable contrivance can have no effect. This part of the animalceconomy proves to a demonstration the necessity of exercise for thepreservation of health.Arguments to shew the importance of exercise might be drawn fromevery part of the animal ceconomy: without exercise, the circulationof the blood cannot be properly carried on, nor the different secre-tions duly performed ; without exercise, the fluids cannot be pro-perly prepared, nor the solids rendered strong nor firm. The actionof the heart, the motion of the lungs, and all the vital functions, aregreatly assisted by exercise. But to point out the manner in whichthese effects are produced, would lead us further into the ceconomyof the human body, than most of those for whom this treatise is in-tended would be able to follow. We shall therefore only add, that,when exercise is neglected, none of the animal functions can be dulvperformed ; and when thai is the case, the whole constitution mustgo to wreck.

A good constitution ought certainly to be our first object in themanagement of children. It lays a foundation for their being usefuland happy in life: and whoever neglects it, not only fails in hisduty to his offspring, but to society.

One very common error of parents, by which they hurt the con-stitutions of their children, is the sending them too young to school.This is often done solely to prevent trouble. When the child is atschool, he needs no keeper. Thus the schoolmaster is made thenurse ; and the poor child is fixed to a seat seven or eight hours aday, which time ought to be spent in exercise and diversions. Sittingso long cannot fail to produce the worst effects upon the body ; noris the mind less injured. Early application weakens the faculties, andoften fixes in the mind an aversion to books, which continues for life.But suppose this were the way to make children scholars, it cer-tainly ought not to be done at the expence of their constitutions.Our ancestors, who seldom went to school very young, were not lesslearned than we. But we imagine the boy's education will be quite