The daily exchange. [volume] (Baltimore, Md.) 1858-1861, 1859-08-15
I T SGT .
To the Hon. WILLIAM FITzHUGH.

Coon CHILDREN.-The Professor of the Breakfast
Table, in his talk to the readers of the Atlantic for
August, offers some pungent suggestions concerning
good children and their memoirs:
In early years. while the child "'feels its life in
every limb, it lives in the body and for the body
to very great extent. 1t ought to be So There
have been many very interesting children who have
shown wonderful Indifference to things OF earth,
and an extraordinary development of the spiritual
nature. There is perfect literature of their bio
graphies, all alike in their essentials. the same
"dlslncllnatlon to the usual amuscmcnts of child
hood" the remarkable sensibiiity; the same dncil
ty; the same conscientousness; in short an almost
uniform character, marked by beautiful traits,
which we look at with painful admiration. 1t
Will be found that most of these children are the
subjects of constitutional unftness for livinu
the most frequent of which | need not mention
They are like the beautiful, blushing half-grown
frut that falls before its time because its core is
gnawed out They have their meaning-they do
not live in van-but they are windfalls
| am convinced that many healthy children are
injured morally by being forced to read too much
about these little meek sufferers and their spiritual
exercises. Here is boy that loves to run, swim
KICK footbal turn somersets, make faces, whittle,
hsh, tear his clothes, coast, skate, fire crackers
blow squash 'tooters,' cut his name on fences read
about Robinson Crusoe and Sinbad the Sailor eat
the widest angled slices of pie and untold cakes and
candies, crack nuts with his back teeth and bite out
the better part of another boys apple with his front
ones, turn up cOppers, ''stick" knives call Names
throw stones, knock off hats, nouse-traps chalk
door-steps, ''cut behind" anything on wheels or
runners, whilst through his teeth ''hoer" Fire!
on slight evidence, after soldiers patronze an
engine company, or, in his own words, elbow for
tub No. IA, or whatever it may be;-sn't that a
pretty nice sort of boy, though he has not got
anything the matter with him that takes the taste
of this world out?
Now, when you put into such a hot-blooded,
hard-6sted, round-cheeked little rogue's hand
sad looking volume pamphlet, with the portrait
of thin, white-faced child, whose life is really as
much training for death as the last month of
condemned criminals existence, what does he nd
in common between his own overfowing and exalt-
ing sense Of vitality, and the experienced of the
doomed offspring of invalid parent? 1t is not un-
til he has worked his way through the period of
honest, hearty, animal existence, which every ro-
bust child should make the most of-not until he
has learned the Of his facilities, which is his
first duty,-that boy of courage and animal vigor
is in proper state to read these fearful records of
premature decay. | have doubt that disgust is
implanted in the minds of many healthy children by
early surfeis of pathological piety. do verify be-
lieve that He who took children in His arms and
blessed them, loved the healhest and most playful
ofthem just well those who were richest in the
tuberculous virtues.