LETTER
ON THE
MANAGEMENT OF INFANTS.
I ought to appologize for not having written to you on the subject you
mentioned; but, to tell you the truth, it grew upon me: and, instead of
an answer, I have begun a series of letters on the management of
children in their infancy. Replying then to your question, I have the
public in my thoughts, and shall endeavour to shew what modes appear to
me necessary, to render the infancy of children more healthy and happy.
I have long thought, that the cause which renders children as hard to
rear as the most fragile plant, is our deviation from simplicity. I know
that some able physicians have recommended the method I have pursued,
and I mean to point out the good effects I have observed in practice. I
am aware that many matrons will exclaim against me and dwell on the
number of children they have brought up, as their mothers did before
them without troubling themselves with new-fangled notions; yet, though,
in my uncle Toby’s words, they should attempt to silence me, by “wishing
I had seen their large” families, I must suppose, while a third part of
the human species, according to the most accurate calculation, die
during their infancy, just at the threshold of life, that there is some
errors in the modes adopted by mothers and nurses, which counteracts
their own endeavours. I may be mistaken in some particulars; for general
rules, founded on the soundest reason, demand individual modification;
but, if I can persuade any of the rising generation to exercise their
reason on this head, I am content. My advice will probably be found most
useful to mothers in the middle class; and it is from that the lower
imperceptibly gains improvement. Custom, produced by reason in one, may
safely be the effect of imitation in the other.
— — — — —
LETTERS
TO
MR. JOHNSON,
BOOKSELLER, IN ST. PAUL’S CHURCH-YARD.