Litchfield enquirer., 1835-05-14
A LETTER ADDRESSED TO YOUNG MOTHER.

VI your welfare, and the growth of you infant son; fine hearty child must alway be delight to his parents. But allow me m the sincerity of my heart, to tell VOL
 that did not share in your ecstacies ari
 slng from the precocious development o
 his intellectual faculties. I am fully con
 vInced that much injury has been done tt
 children by attempting to push them for
 ward too rapidly in the cultivation of their minds. Keep your boy active see that he, is properly fed, and uses proper exer- else. I mean by being properly fed, tha, he should not be indulqad in cakes and the diseases among children. Your son is now three years old, and by this time. fl you have let him play sufficiently, he has the use of his limbs, and knows his strength. The mind should now be cultivated, but not by keeping book before the little fel- low all the time. Answer in the plainest manner you can, all his inquiries. aud this you will find no small task. Young eyed wonder has many questions to put to those around him. Never evade his inquiries from idleness. have seen sickly chil- dren holding a book with glazed eyes: and trembling hands, and reading with fuency that which they did not understand any more than parrot, to gratify the ambition of kind mother, who in her pride forgot, or did not know, the extent of the evil she was infl;cting on her offspring. By con- centra,ing the rays of vernal sun. and by replenishing the water in the glass, you may force a beautiful tulip to adorn your window, but it is without perfume, and short lived but those noble elms which shade your door, which have stood the blasts of a hundred winters, were never forced in their growth. Your ancestors planted them in good soil, and have watched them with a careful eye. that no insects should insinuate themselves under the bark, and that every accidental wound should be healed by the most approved surgery of the garden and the forest. If domestic records were made public, we should find that many ofthese forward, over-crowded children, found an early grave their mothers but little thinking they were accessary to their deaths, by their injudicious management of their be- loved offspring. In the midst oftheir sor- rows they console themselves that these bright-eyed cherubs were only lent for season, and then called to their native skies too good for earth, when the physician would say, if he should speak the truth, that kindness. confectionery, and contlne- ment to books, were the cause ofthe'r pre- mature departure. There has been, now and then, one of these precocious children whose history has come down to us.
 Henry Christian Heinecken, of Lubeck. was born 1721, and died 1725, at the age of four years and four months. Hc was in ,l,e cradle prodigy, When only year old he could recite the greater part of the pentateuch and, at thirteen months old, had acquired the rudiments of ancient his- tory, geography. anatomy. and the use of the maps, and knew more than eight thou sand Latin words At two years and a half old he spoke five languages fuently At four years of age he was presented to the king of Denmark, and made an oration to his majesty! On his death-bed he was christian philosopher, and spoke words of consolation to his mother. During his life she was the most envied of women !-- The matrons of Lubeck crowded her doors to have an interview with her son. The learned were there daily, and it is fro" the concurrent testimony of those phiioso- phers that the truth o( the biography oi her son has been sustained. ask was she as happy mother as those of her city, who let their little urchins grow on without attracting any notice, eating and sleeping
 in order to make soldiers capable of bear
 ing fatigue, or philosophers of firm nerves
 to penetrate in the mysteries of science lr
 the maturity of manhood! believe you
 will agree with me that the mother of Hei'
 necken was more to be pitied than envied
 There is another instance, not of so extra
 ordinary nature. but more familiar to us
 The writings of Henry Kirke White. se
 popular among all classes, are evidently
 tinged with his life-blood, which was was
 ted as every line of his muse was brough forth. He felt the rapid and diseased pull
 sations of his heart; and, instead of uslnl medicine and exercise to restore himself t health, was contented with singing, in mel ancholy strains, his own requiem. Il will give you case of precocity which cam , within my observation.
 l- | had a classmate who entered colleg . but few months turned of eight years Q f age. and of course he graduated at twelve , He was rather small of his age, having bee crammed with learning from the :econ 7 year of his existence. In the recitat'o . room, although hardly strong enough |
 hold up his book. he was not whit pc hind majority of lis classmates. In tn l ilan~r~Uaa knA xzpaa ansxeSN;~nane Every on