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Counsels on Health
necessary to take care of the health of their children. They think it less
trouble to trust their bodies to the doctors. In order to be in accordance
with fashion and custom, many parents have sacrificed the health and
lives of their children.
To become acquainted with the wonderful human organism, the
bones, muscles, stomach, liver, bowels, heart, and pores of the skin,
and to understand the dependence of one organ upon another for the
healthful action of all, is a study in which most mothers take no interest.
They know nothing of the influence of the body upon the mind, and of
the mind upon the body. The mind, which allies finite to the infinite,
they do not seem to understand. Every organ of the body was made to
be servant to the mind. The mind is the capital of the body.
Children are allowed to eat flesh meats, spices, butter, cheese, pork,
rich pastry, and condiments generally. They are also allowed to eat
irregularly and between meals of unhealthful food. These things do
their work of deranging the stomach, exciting the nerves to unnatural
action, and enfeebling the intellect. Parents do not realize that they are
sowing the seed which will bring forth disease and death.
Children Injured by Too Much Study
Many children have been ruined for life by urging the intellect
and neglecting to strengthen the physical powers. Many have died in
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childhood because of the course pursued by injudicious parents and
schoolteachers in forcing their young intellects, by flattery or fear,
when they were too young to see the inside of a schoolroom. Their
minds have been taxed with lessons, when they should not have been
called out, but kept back until the physical constitution was strong
enough to endure mental effort. Small children should be left as free
as lambs to run out of doors, to be free and happy, and should be
allowed the most favorable opportunities to lay the foundation for
sound constitutions.
Parents should be the only teachers of their children until they
have reached eight or ten years of age. As fast as their minds can
comprehend it, the parents should open before them God’s great book
of nature. The mother should have less love for the artificial in her
house, and in the preparation of her dress for display, and should
find time to cultivate, in herself and in her children, a love for the