Columbia Democrat and Bloomsburg general advertiser. [volume] (Bloomsburg, Pa.) 1850-1866, 1861-04-27
Aarifulture
HINTS FOR THE NURSERY.


The natural faculties of each child are
as plain to careful observation Us the sun
at noon-day and it is only necessary to
know the mental bias of child to which
his or her powers are best adopted.
Let every father, every mother, and all
who hope to call themselves parents, for
ever bear this in mind. Watch the child
at its play. Suffer it to play as it will, md
note what sport attracts it, and wherein
lies the chief pleasure.
Away with those horrors, infant pheno-
mena Let nature alone, and do you, ig.
norant man, keep your great, coarse finger
out of the delicate machinery, which,
working by and through nature, will, at
the proper moment, indicate the course to
be pursued, the deveiopement which is
sought. Permit childhood to guide you in
the treatment thereof. Nature is wise
teacher.
At infancy, the healthy body, incapable
of progressive motion, demands rest; give
them perfect quiet. Man s early life is
mere vegetative existance the brain gently
pulsating beneath the uniformed bone, is
not yet the seat of reason, but Of instinct
while nature then demands entire repose,
or at the most, passive action, why should
barbarouse nurse and ignorant mother
array the little form in thick embroidery /;
display it to the admiring multitude; han
die it with humping vibration, or spin it
like boomerang in the air? Why seek
the most noisy promenade to confuse it
with the uproar! Why pound it up and
down over hundreds of miles in the midst
Of smoke, affluvia and all the rattle, noise
and screams incident to railroad travel!
Avoid those denominations called cradles (;
fee from the rocking ofthe crib, and all
those swinging motions which cannot fail
to produce, in minor degree, those very
agreeable sensations, that pleasant lethar-
gy, which seizes upon one when he is take
ing his first lessons in drunkenness. What
renown would the agriculturist win for
himself who should first invent patent
portable, double action, self-rocking cradle
for sucking calves what an advantage to
the bovine race.
When by pure air and its naturnl nour.
iBhment, 1.-THE pure milk of COW, or goat
is far better than that of feeble, passion,
ate or drunken nurse, when the mother
cannot nurse her offspring the child has
become old enough to creep about, down
on the floor with it and let it go ; give it
ball or something to creep tfter, and rest
fully content that when tired the child will
cease its play.
Don't hurry the little one to walk; do
not encourage it to stand alone, lest bow
legs and weak ankles be the penalty of
your too assiduous care Of your selfish de-
sire to see your child walk before nature
has decreed it. When the proper time
arrives the little hands will seek the tops
of chair seats, the little body will sway to
and fro, erect for the first time; soon the
first step is taken and then all is plain.
Keep your books, your illuminated al
phabet, your intellectual blocks, and your
abortions of toys-,haricatures upon ma
ture-toys which it is no harm to fall down
and worshop, since the like thereof exists
neither in heaven above, nor in the earth
beneath, nor in the water which is under
the earth. Let the child play one, two,
three; what, says some one-four years
and not know letter. Yea, my good
madam, until it reacheth the age of seven
years, would we have the little mind free
and unpuzzled at liberty to observe, to
desire, to construct, to play, to make out
its own individuality. This is the great
attribute of man-play this divides him
from the brute creation; man alone alone
laugh. Remember that the longer the pc.
riod of youth, the period of formation the
better, the more healthful enduring, and
longer-lived the man. OF all created be
ings, man is the most helpless at infancy
ScaIpsl.
The DEPTH OF TREES. There has re.