"If youth only knew, if old age only could!" lamented the philosopher.
What is the use, say some, of putting ideas about disease into
children's heads and making them fussy about their health and anxious
before their time?
Precisely because ideas about disease are far less hurtful than
disease itself, and because the period for richest returns from
sensible living is childhood--and the earlier the better.
It is abundantly worth while to teach a child how to protect his
health and build up his strength; too many of us only begin to take
thought of our health when it is too late to do us much good. Almost
everything is possible in childhood. The heaviest life handicaps can
be fed and played and trained out of existence in a child. Even the
most rudimentary knowledge, the simplest and crudest of precautions,
in childhood may make all the difference between misery and happiness,
success and failure in life.
Our greatest asset for healthful living is that most of the unspoiled
instincts, the primitive likes and dislikes, of the child point in the
right direction. There is no need to tell children to eat, to play, to
sleep, to swim; all that is needed is to point out why they like to do
these things, where to stop, what risks to avoid. The simplest and
most natural method of doing this has seemed to be that of a sketch of
the usual course and activities of a Child's Day, with a running
commentary of explanation, and such outlines of our bodily structure
and needs as are required to make clear why such and such a course is
advisable and such another inadvisable. The greatest problem has been
how to reach and hold the interest of the child; and the lion's share
of such success as may have been achieved in this regard is due to the
coöperation of my sister, Professor Mabel Hutchinson Douglas of
Whittier College, California.