Spencer. Alas, then, to judge from the manner in which we see children generally dressed, how many millions must be incompetent to form a judgment on the matter!
People seem to imagine that they improve the appearance of children by exposing their necks and limbs. For my own part, I never can discover the beauty of the red, harsh, and often chapped and painful skin which results from the practice. The appearance natural to the skin of childhood is a creamy, satiny softness, beautiful alike to sight and touch, and it is therefore no less wrong artistically than hygienically to submit children to the evil influence of cold.
Dr. Inman has said that if you coddle an infant and take care of it, it will very likely grow to be a strong and healthy adult; but if you try and harden it by exposing it to cold, and not clothing it properly, &c., you must not be surprised if you "soon have to measure it for a long box." Whenever I read a sentimental poem about some sweet infant that has gone to a better world, or hear some mother with tears in her eyes declare that her little one "is an angel now," I say to myself, ten chances to one that child died, as thousands die every year, wholly from neglect of laws of health, which it is the bounden duty of every mother and nurse to know and obey, and of which 999 out of a thousand are absolutely ignorant. Often, when women are priding themselves on being the best of mothers, they are, in utter ignorance, actually murdering their children!
