"Lusty youth is the very May-morn of delight." "Theirs buxom health of rosy hue, Wild wit, invention ever new, GASCOIGNE. GRAY. THE foundation of a robust and healthy constitution is frequently laid in early youth, when both the mind and body are alike open to every impression. The weak and puny child has but too frequently its habits confirmed by the indulgent and anxious care of a too fond parent, terrified at the least exertion destroying that life, the preservation of which probably forms the only link that binds her to the world. It should be remembered, however, that children are never so healthy, nor so likely to justify the hopes and anxieties of parents, as when allowed the free use of their limbs, and are permitted to indulge in that buoyancy of spirit natural to their age. In proportion as the child advances in age will be his desire for employment: hence the multiplication of his amusements. Every proper opportunity, therefore, should be given for the due exercise of both body and mind, but neither should be too much exercised. Care should be taken at this period to provide such employment or amusement as shall exercise the arms as well as the limbs-of this kind are battledoor and shuttlecock, playing at ball, &c.; for the period is fast advancing for the completion of the human body, and its proper development very much depends upon uniform exercise. Therefore all such employments as but partially bring into action the muscular system should be changed for those which will call into requisition every part of the body. After selecting proper games and exercises for children, constant care should be taken that none are indulged in to excess, for the most innocent and amusing, if carried too far, may become a source of extensive mischief; therefore amusements of every kind may be converted into evils. Again, in choosing amusements let them be well adapted to the individual for whose benefit they are intended. Thus every boy cannot become a good fencer, a good dancer, a good runner, and a good leaper; yet he may excel in some one of them. His disposition and skill for any particular species of amusement should be studied, and he should only be kept at such as he has a chance of not falling below mediocrity. If this be not attended to he becomes listless and supine, and receives an injury from that which was intended for his benefit, by his self-love being mortified by the superior skill and address of his companions. All hazardous experiments of skill or strength should be peremptorily forbidden. All attempts at posturemaking are highly dangerous, and should not be reckoned among the proper exercises of youth. Every violent exertion must necessarily be attended by a proportionate strain upon some one part or other of the body, therefore it should be instantly discountenanced; such as jumping from great heights, leaping over elevations, lifting great weights, &c., for in every exertion of this kind the most serious risks are run of producing a disability for life. It is by these hazardous experiments that ruptures " are so frequently produced. " We should, nevertheless, be careful that we do not produce timidity by a too indiscriminate reprehension of amusements that may be abused. Children should be permitted to leap, or climb, or run to a certain extent, but where, under ordinary circumstances, no danger can arise. At the same time they should be made acquainted with the mischief which may follow any of these amusements when carried to excess, or when improperly performed. Very often at this period of life strong dispositions are discovered for mechanical employments. When these are of a decided character they should be encouraged; for, though the individual may never follow the art his early predilection led him to select, yet the dexterity acquired in his early years may essentially serve him in some future business of life; thus a surgeon has been often benefited by his knowledge of the mode of handling tools, &c. Therefore a boy may often safely and profitably be indulged in the use of sharp tools, though it may occasion an anxious mother many heartaches during his initiation into the mode of employing them. One general, and we may add essential rule should ever govern youth in their plays and amusements, which is, never to engage in such as shall require much exertion after a full meal, as the worst consequences may follow a neglect of this caution. It has been truly said that there is a graceful way of doing most things; and it might have been added that what is commonly practised is generally most slovenly performed. The awkward use of the hands and feet, probably, is the best illustration of this position; for, though all persons walk and use their hands, few do so with propriety, which has, it may be, arisen from some bodily deformity, and, when that is not the case, is the consequence of a slovenly habit. There are some people who walk in a waddling way, which manner of walking, when it does not proceed from a bad habit, or some accident or other, is the effect of a weakness of CARE IN WALKING. 219 the haunches; for, as they serve to bind the lower extremities with the trunk, if this binding is weak there must necessarily be a sort of lameness on both sides, and this occasions the waddling we now speak of. A great many young people are liable to this deformity, and frequently it continues with them for life. It is commonly owing to the negligence of nurses and servant - maids, the most part of whom allow the children committed to their care to walk of themselves, and without help, before those parts which ought to support the weight of their bodies have acquired suf ficient strength to perform that office aright. When a child walks with his nurse she ought to take care not to go so fast as to make the child overstretch himself. The legs, when one walks, make a pair of compasses, as it were, which are more or less opened; but the legs of a child being shorter than those of a person that has come to his full growth, the child, who would keep up with the pace of the grown person whom he is walking with, and, unluckily for himself, is proud that he can do it, opens the compasses of his legs beyond what their short measure conveniently permits, and this accustoms him to make long strides, and gives him this clownish, awkward way of walking, which he keeps after he is grown up, unless a great deal of care be taken in time to break him of this habit, which is no easy matter. We may also advert to the injury which walking with such precipitation may do the child besides. This of itself may put them so much out of breath as to give occasion to some relaxation or rupture of the vessels in the thorax. How many children have become asthmatic, and how many have become consumptive, from this very cause! There are others, again, who can neither walk nor stand with a tolerably good grace, and this alone is sufficient to make them overlooked in the eye of the world. La Bruyère says, on this subject, that a fool neither enters a room, nor retires, nor sits down, nor rises up, nor stands, nor walks, like a man of parts. This maxim is, however, frequently false, but in general it is conformed to the manners of the times, and these we must think of if we would succeed in the world. Mothers, while they teach their children to manage their bodies rightly, whether in walking, sitting, or standing, &c., should also give the youth to understand that all his care is nothing without qualities of the mind, and that they are foolish whose whole study is to use their legs handsomely. Many parents neglect the physical education of their children, not so much from any carelessness in regard to the welfare of the latter, as from an actual misconception of the effects such education, when properly conducted, is calculated to produce, and from an ignorance of the signs by which perfect health and vigour are indicated. Thus by one class excessive fatness in an infant is looked upon as the perfection of health; by another, the amount of strong food it craves and consumes; others, again, can conceive of no more certain indication of health than the absence of positive disease, the early appearance of the teeth, or the premature efforts of the child to use its feet. To correct such erroneous notions, and to exhibit the important results to be anticipated from a judicious attention to diet, exercise, and clothing during infancy and childhood, we present the following picture : The body of a child whose physical education has been properly conducted is straight and robust; its limbs are uniformly covered with flesh, and well-proportioned. The texture of the flesh is firm; the colour of the surface fresh and rosy; and the body appears neither overloaded with fat, tumid, and spongy, nor parched and haggard, nor strikingly meagre. The skin is soft and flexible, and the complexion lively and fresh. The stages of growth or development in the different organs take place in regular succession; no power, no capacity, outstrips another. The teeth do not begin too soon, nor at irregular periods; the child does not begin |