Danger of Nostrums and Quack-Medicines. I believe there is not a
Physician nor an Apothecary in the Kingdom but what has seen the Lives of
People, particularly of Children, sacrificed to this Practice. What is
it that constitutes the Physician, that proves the Man of Judgment, but
the varying his Prescriptions, not only according to different Diseases,
but according to the different Circumstances of the same Disease? And
yet these Nostrum-Mongers, with unparalell’d Boldness, often attempt to
conquer all Diseases with one Arcanum, one pretended Remedy. Who that
hears these Boasters, or that reads their printed Accounts, but must
discover many Absurdities on the very Face of them. The Man that promises
what is repugnant to common Sense, argues himself either a Knave or a
Fool; and yet People are often so little attentive, or so regardless of
Health, that they do not discover their Error, ’till it is sometimes
too late to remedy it. That I may do strict Justice to every one, I am
ready to grant, that many Discoveries have been made in Medicine by mere
Accident; and that some of the Nostrums in Vogue are in themselves good;
nay some of them were the Discoveries of able Physicians; Discoveries
since seiz’d on by designing People, and pirated into a kind of Property.
But what does all this avail in the Hands of ignorant People? What is a
Man the wiser for being placed in a Repository of the finest Drugs, if he
knows not how to apply them? Or wherein does he differ from one set in a
Library of the choicest Books, without being able to read? Yet are People
every Day vending Things, which they know not the Nature nor Use of; and
so far impose on the weak and credulous, as often to make a Fortune at
others Cost.
Opium, Mercury, and all the powerful Drugs, are every Day scattered about
the Kingdom, and indiscriminately offered to all, whether they want them
or not, whether they are good for them or not; and the specious Terms
they are recommended in are apt to mislead, not merely innocent, but very
sensible People. Since then Things are so, Parents must be very wary
how they touch such dangerous Weapons. ’Tis great Odds but they mistake
their Child’s Disorder; ’tis great Odds that the random Medicine they
give is not suited to it; and how will they reconcile it to themselves
if any fatal Consequence ensues? Upon the Whole, as a Friend to Mankind,
independent of any private Interest, as one who aims at the Benefit of
Society, and wishes to preserve the rising Generation, I cannot but
advise Parents to be tender, circumspect, and judicious, in so important
a Matter as their Children’s Health. When they are well, let them use
every prudent Means to keep them so; if they are ill, let them ask good
Advice; by which Means they will often save their Children’s Lives: and
even where a Miscarriage happens, their Prudence and Justice will be
attended with this Consolation, that they have done their best.
MANNERS.
Manners comes next under my Consideration: it implies such a Government
of our Children as tends to regulate their Conduct, by making their
Actions what they ought to be. And though Health has been treated first,
from it’s being generally thought the most immediately necessary, yet if
this Regulation, this due Government does not accompany every Endeavour
to preserve their Children’s Health, Parents will often be disappointed,
and find their Labour fruitless.
The Basis of Government is Authority: without that, in vain do we
expect any Order in our Children, any Happiness to ourselves. Cities,
Armies, Kingdoms, all are sustain’d by it: and so too must private
Families be. By Authority I do not mean that stern Brow, that trembling
awful Distance, nor that Bashaw-like Behaviour, which favours more of
the Tyrant than of the Parent; no: I mean a rational, yet absolute
Exercise of a Degree of Power, necessary for the regulating the Actions
and Dispositions of Children, ’till they become wise enough to govern
themselves. But because some Children attain this necessary Knowledge
sooner than others, and one Child will be better able to conduct itself
at fifteen, than another at twenty, or even thirty; there is but one
general way of ascertaining the length of Time our Authority should be
exercised in it’s full Force; which is that settled by the Laws of our
Kingdom; viz. ’till the Age of twenty-one. And if we can once seriously
resolve to employ this Term so critical to Children, solely to their
Advantage, Authority will thenceforward become useless: it’s Terrors
will vanish, and be wholly absorbed in the united Considerations of the
Parent, the Friend, and the Companion: in a Word, our Children well
conducted to this Age will afterwards take as much Pains to make us
happy, as we have done to make them wise. But to proceed.
As soon as a Child discovers the first Dispositions to Perversity and
Self-will (which as sure as it is born it will too soon begin to do)
I advise most earnestly that it be attended to; for much depends upon
it. Here I must caution my Fair Readers in particular, not to suspect
me of Cruelty; since the Pains I am taking is intended to prevent the
Necessity of using any Severity during our whole Lives. But what! you’ll
say, should a Child be corrected before it can speak? I answer, that
the first Principle in human Nature is Self-love; Reason, the second
Principle, opens only by degrees. Now as soon as the Passions of Children
shew themselves, they should certainly be checked: and as the Fear of
Chastisement is included in Self-love, it is easy to turn this to their
Advantage, ’till Reason shall have gained so much Strength as to render
it unnecessary: no one can absolutely fix the Time, but within the Year
most Parents will find a Necessity to begin; and before half the first
Septenary is past much may be done.
In the Government of Children Parents should be obstinately good; that
is, set out upon right Principles, and then pursue them with Spirit and
Resolution: otherwise their Children will soon grow too cunning for them,
and take the Advantage of their Weakness.
Severe and frequent Whipping is I think a very bad Practice; it inflames
the Skin, it puts the Blood into a Ferment, and there is besides,
a Meanness, a degree of Ignominy attending it, which makes it very
unbecoming: still there may be Occasions which will render it necessary;
but I earnestly advise that all the milder Methods be first try’d. A
coarse clamorous manner of enforcing Obedience is also to be avoided; it
is vulgar, and nothing vulgar should be seen in the Behaviour of Parents
to their Children, because through the Eyes and Ears it taints their
tender Minds: still, let Parents make their Children both see and feel
the Power they have over them.
If a Child is passionate and wilful, a Look, or a little Tap on the Hand,
will, without hurting it, sometimes suffice to convince it that it is
doing wrong; and will often cure the Fault, or at least keep it under.
A Child, in a perverse Mood, throws down it’s Play-things; if they are
taken up fifty times successively, they are still thrown down as long
as the Spirit of Contradiction lasts: now the Remedy here should be to
take them away; or by a serious Countenance shew you are displeased;
and the Child will very probably not only soon be quiet, but be less
prone to do the like another Time. I have seen Children that could not
speak, distinguish perfectly those who were disposed to spoil them,
from those who were not; scratch Faces, break China, and play the tyrant
over all who humour’d them, and yet not offer to lift a Finger against
those who did not. By all means let Children be play’d with, and have
every Amusement; but great care must be taken to distinguish Play from
Mischief; innocent Freedom, from a growing Perversity.
The Humours even of Infants are innumerably various. One Child will not
sleep but on a Lap; another there is no Peace with unless rock’d in a
Cradle; a third will cry when a Candle is taken away; and to shew us
why it cry’d, it is quiet the Moment it is brought back again; a fourth
will swill Tea or some other improper Liquor out of measure and out of
time; and a fifth will eat Trash ’till it can eat nothing else, nor that
itself. In these Cases I advise Parents to consider if their Children
are acting for themselves, or they for their Children: one Grain of
Judgment will set them right; one Minute’s Reflection will shew them
their Error; but, when they once see it they must resolve to avoid it for
the future. I call’d some time ago on a Friend, and took a Family Dinner;
when to my great Astonishment I saw little Master, not yet a Year old,
drinking Porter. What, said I, do you give the Child strong Drink? Oh!
Sir, reply’d Mamma, he’ll drink nothing else. Now is not the Fault of
such Proceeding obvious? and is not the Remedy as obvious? Parents surely
cannot be so blind as not to see their Children’s Health impair’d,
and their Humours strengthen’d, by this misplac’d Indulgence; and all
for want of a little Resolution, a gentle Correction, or a seasonable
Reprimand; nay perhaps only a Look; which given with an authoritative
Air, would often have the desired Effect. Constant Experience proves how
wrong, nay how ineffectual, the opposite Practice to this is; those who
give a Child every thing it cries or asks for, strengthen indeed its
Wilfulness, but are far from making it happy. How many improper Things
are there which Parents give a Child because they cannot quiet it? Who
has not seen a Picture, a Book, a Watch, and other valuable things
exposed to be destroyed by it through this mistaken Management? But
surely it is right that even among the Baubles contrived on purpose, the
Parents, not the Child, should have the Command of them; that is, they
should be given or taken away at Discretion; and this without Passion
or Ill-nature on one Side, and without Clamour or Fretfulness on the
other. Parents should every Day more and more convince their Children of
their Power over them, by restraining their little Irregularities, and
by weakening their Passions; now this they cannot do without an early
Attention to their various Dispositions and Tempers; that they may thence
learn what Propensity is strongest, what Foible is most predominant.
Nature, ’tis true, is not alike bountiful to all; nor does she give
the same Propensity, the same Temper to all. One Child is born with
sweet and mild Dispositions; another more sanguine, and full of Fire;
a third has a Redundance of Acrimony; and so on: yet different Tempers
are sometimes a kindness bestow’d on us by Nature, on purpose for us
to act some certain Part on the great Stage of Life. It is therefore
the Parents Business to watch the Temper of their Children; to check
any evil Tendency, any ill Dispositions, and prevent every Excess from
growing into a Habit; nay more, to change the bad Humour into a good one;
as Physicians administer Medicines to alter the Blood and Juices. That
famous Reply of _Socrates_ to the Phisiognomist was excellent: “Nature
(says he) intended me a Monster; but Reason has made me what I am.”
Cardinal _Richlieu_ (speaking of external Graces) says, “Every thing to
a Gentleman should be natural.” Now it cannot be supposed that he means,
we should know how to speak, or move, or dance gracefully, without being
taught; no, but these Things by Acquisition should so far enter into us
as to seem interwoven in our Nature. Thus did Philosophy change the Vices
of _Socrates_ into Virtues; and thus should Parents correct and alter the
irregular Dispositions of their Children: they must temper and moderate
the Fire of one, lest it grow too impetuous; they must animate the
Mildness of another with a Degree of Warmth, lest it become sluggish; and
they must blunt and sweeten the Acrimony of a third, lest it degenerate
into Rancour; which last Frame of Mind, as it is of all others the most
detestable in itself, and the most dangerous to Society, so of all others
it requires the nicest Care to manage; in short Parents, as I have
already observed, are to let their Children see and feel their Affection
for them, and their Power over them; and then regulate their Actions as
they find necessary.
I have still my Eye on Children in the first Septenary, and with Concern
view the Majority of them humour’d, and therefore humoursome; Boys
audacious and impudent under the Name of courageous; and Girls pert and
vain under the name of witty. It is my Opinion the Parents need not
trouble themselves much to reason with their Children in this Stage;
first let them consider what is proper for them to do, or avoid; then
enforce their Compliance in soft and winning Terms; or, if not with a
smiling Countenance, at least with a smooth Brow and without harshness:
but whenever they attempt to disobey, let them shew by a Word or a Look
that they are absolute: which Method I think should be seriously adhered
to. Though I have already observed that Children have Knowledge much
earlier than is commonly imagined, they have yet no Judgment to guide
their Actions. What they chiefly discover to us at this Age is Cunning;
therefore if Parents neglect Reproof when necessary, they will soon get
the better of them. For Example, a Child cries because it is to go to
School; shall Parents fondly to quiet it keep it at Home? by no means.
A Dose of Physic is to be taken; shall they, because it is unpleasant,
humour the Child, and throw it away? no surely. There is no other Method
here but being serious; you must go, you must take it; when Children thus
see their Parents in earnest, Obedience very soon becomes familiar and
easy.
Nor is an unreasonable Compliance with the Humours of Children what
Parents take it for; they falsely think it Tenderness and Love; but far
from it; it is Love degenerated into Weakness and Folly. But it is easy
to soften this seeming Rigour in the Behaviour of Parents, by their
addressing the Understandings of Children at other Intervals, supposing
it to be open. What more natural and reasonable than to say to a Child,
You know, my Dear, all good Children do as they are bid; all Children to
become wise must go to School; you would not surely be rank’d among bad
Children by being disobedient? You would not, I hope, be a Blockhead?
yet if you do not apply to your Learning you must be one. Thus too with
Regard to Medicines: You know, my Love, Physic is to make you well; I
am sorry you have occasion to take it; I am sorry it is unpleasant; but
since it is necessary for you, prove yourself a good Child, and take it
at once. Here I must beg leave to expostulate with Parents on the Errors
usually run into in this last Particular. How comes it that there is
such an universal Difficulty in getting Medicines down a sick Child’s
Throat? How comes it that the most sprightly talkative Child cannot be
prevailed on to shew its Tongue to the Doctor, yet the Moment his Back
is turn’d he will loll it out twenty times? The Reason is plain; Parents
do not teach their Children to obey. Instead of Compulsion or Reason,
they use Flattery, Bribes and Deceit: but I am practically convinced
that all this, however common, is wrong: and indeed where Obedience is
not insisted on, and made a first Rule of Action, few things can be
right. As Medicines are generally nauseous, a Repugnance to take them is
as natural as shrinking at Pain; notwithstanding this, where they are
really necessary, and unless they are so, nobody ought to be troubled
with them, a Child at any Age, from the very Day it is born, till it is
a Man or Woman, may, and ought to be made to take them. But to do this
Parents must set out right; they must have the Child under Command. That
every Parent is actuated by a Principle of preserving the Life of their
Child, I will take for granted; but this is not enough: they must go on
to the Execution of the Means. The Infant of a Day shews its Repugnance
to swallow a few Grains of Rhubarb; the Child of a Year will twist it’s
Head about every Way it can, that the Spoon or Cup which contains the
Dose may not reach it’s Mouth; and by the time it is three or four Years
old, it will probably dash the Cup out of the Hand of those who offer
the Potion, or tell them in plain Terms it won’t take it. Now, without
mentioning the Consequence this may be of to it’s Health or Life, there
is another of great Importance; namely, that a Child thus used to get
the better of all about it, and convinced it can conquer it’s Parents,
is seldom disposed to conquer itself; so that where Self-will is very
strong, Reason will doubtless be weak; and only serve to aggravate the
Fault by fixing an Error, perhaps for Life. Yet great as all these
Difficulties appear, they vanish at the Entrance of Reflection and
Resolution. If Parents consider that they are bound by every Tye to make
their Children obey, and then resolve to fulfil this Obligation, the
Business is done: therefore with regard to Medicines, what have they
more to do? Nothing but the Execution, which may be effected with Ease.
For Example, take a Child from it’s Birth to the Age of twenty-one, and
divide this Time into three, not equal parts, but States; call the first
the unresisting State; the second the State of Cunning; and the third
the State of Reason. The first is extremely short, we cannot count it
by Years, and scarcely by Months; nor is there any Trouble here with
Medicines, but putting a Spoon or Cup to it’s Mouth, and holding the
Head back ’till the Dose is swallowed. The second State lasts long; and
tho’ soft and winning Words are always to be preferred, yet they seldom
succeed here; a serious Countenance and a resolute Air are the surest
Means to conquer; and these maintained, there is nothing to fear. The
Difficulties of the third State, that of Reason, are greatly lessened by
the Success of the preceding; for a Child habituated to obey, looks back
with Pleasure on it’s Compliance with every reasonable Command; and tho’
it before obey’d and took Medicines, because it must, it now takes them
because it ought.
I cannot but be of Opinion, that every Method in the Management of sick
Children contrary to this is erroneous; I think I have seen all tried
that is in the Power of human Invention; and many who read this cannot
but be convinced that their own Endeavours have often been fruitless.
The first Rule Parents are to lay down to themselves is, never to
deceive their Children; for surely those who are to teach them never
to be deceitful, cannot but be very unfit Persons to deceive them
themselves: nor does this square with the Practice of quibbling down a
Dose of Physic, under a thousand Shifts and Turns, and even manifest
Falshoods. The next Rule is, to avoid the Practice of Bribes. Children
should be taught to know, that their greatest Happiness is their Parents
Love; therefore the Custom of giving them Sugar-Plumbs, Cakes, Toys, or
Money for every thing they take, is grievously wrong: it gives them a
Fondness for improper things; it gives them a restless Desire for every
new Bauble; and above all, it gives them an early Mean-spiritedness; an
odious Selfishness; a Desire of being paid for every thing they do.
At the same time that I recommend to Parents never to call things
by wrong Names, never to attempt imposing on a Child’s Senses or
Understanding, or to force down Medicines with Bribes; so I also
recommend, that they avoid Harshness and Violence, unless pressed to
it by great Necessity; but this Caution is almost needless after what
has been said: for with the Method proposed, it requires no more than
to approach the sick Bed with, Come, my Dear, take your Dose; if the
Child says, it is nauseous, grant it: but at the same time say, We do
not take Medicines for Pleasure, but to make us well: if it declines
it, urge how wrong it is to dwell on what would be gone in a Minute;
and if any Difficulty still remains, inform it, that it is not for your
Sake you urge it, but it’s own; and that while you are doing all you can
to restore it to Health, you must, and will be obeyed. At intermediate
times, let Parents, by a fond, engaging Behaviour, convince their
Children how tenderly they love them; let them frequently mingle with
them in their little Plays and Sports; and let them sometimes overlook
Trifles, that they may have more Influence in Matters of Moment.
Lord _Hallifax_ observes, that the first Impressions Children receive
are in the Nursery; whence he infers, that Mothers have not only the
earliest, but the most lasting Influence over them.
That the first Care of Children, and many of the most tender Offices
they require, are the Mother’s Province, is an undoubted Truth; but when
the forming their Manners is under Consideration, the Influence of both
Father and Mother should, if possible, be equal; at least it is necessary
that Parents go hand in hand, and not counteract one another in the
Government of them.
Parents should make it a Rule to themselves, never to shew to their
Children, both at once, the Marks of extreme Anger, or excessive
Fondness; but when a Child has done such a Fault as demands of the Father
to affect great Severity, let the Mother put on an equal Share of Lenity
and Compassion mixed with Grief: and so on the reverse. Thus too on other
Occasions, when the Mother prudently exposes all the motherly Fondness
of her Heart, let the Father as prudently conceal a Part of his, and,
with an Air of Steadiness, insinuate, that the Conduct which is approved
is no more than Duty. But Parents will never be able to act with due
Moderation in the Government of their Children, without first resolving
to govern, with the utmost Prudence, their own Passions and Tempers. And
how will they be able to do this, unless they look inwardly, and study
to find them out? If the Man be of a choleric or morose Disposition,
and the Woman of a phlegmatic, mild, and affable Temper, the Contrast
may prove sovereignly beneficial to their Children, if the Parties,
conscious of it in themselves, resolve mutually to apply it under the
Direction of Prudence; and found the Government of their young Family’s
Passions on that of their own. Whereas, if ignorant of their respective
Foibles, or heedless to turn them to Advantage, they give a full Loose
to them, and agree in nothing but an unbridled Exertion of them as
Occasion or Accident offers, the Contrast will probably prove fatal both
to themselves and their Children: they will for the most part be pleased
and displeased alike out of Time and out of Measure; their Severities and
Lenities will often jar, and rob each other of their due Effect; their
Punishments and Rewards, by being never, or but seldom, and that by mere
Chance, proportioned to the Failings they mean to correct, or the Merit
they Wish to encourage, will prove fruitless, if not destructive: and
what is still worse, they will seldom fail, in the midst of Correction,
to strengthen the Misconduct they aim at reforming, by the Example they
give of it in their own Persons; and as seldom miss, in the Extravagance
of their false Fondnesses, of perverting the Minds of their Children
from the noble Love of Virtue, to the reptil Hankerings after Rewards,
Praises, and Caresses. If a Child is to be reformed of any peevish or
passionate Behaviour, what Effect can Correction have on him, if given
by a Parent delivered over by his own Passions to all the Fierceness of a
Brute? It may make him hate the Correction, but can never make him hate
Faults, the opposite Virtues to which he sees not the least Example of in
his Corrector. If another is to be encouraged in some commendable Action,
what Benefit will he receive from an Excess of Fondness, while the being
humour’d in other Actions, perhaps highly discommendable, only teaches
him to exchange Vice for Vice, or one Folly for another? Or finally, what
Advantage can be produced to Children from Reprehension or Approbation,
from Punishments or Rewards, however well proportioned, timed or placed,
if there appear to them in the Parents a Dissention in the bestowing
them; and that they are the Overflowings of Passion or Partiality, rather
than the Result of Reason and Equity? Parents then should seriously
acquaint themselves with their own Tempers, and mutually consent and
agree on the Methods of regulating their Children; never to reward or
punish, seem angry or pleas’d, but by Concert; and above all, never to
correct while in a Passion, nor reward till the fond Fit be over.