The Kenosha telegraph. [volume] (Kenosha, Wis.) 1860-1888, 1885-07-17
TEACHING THE CHILDREN.

Scientific Instruction in the Nursery
Early Comprehension of Physical Laws
Relating to Health and Development.
Temperance is Gods law for the
body
Accepting this broad definition, we
can not overestimate the value of
Temperance teaching in the schools"
But this part of the child's education
should not be committed entirely to the
public school. The best, though per-
haps not the most immediate. result of
the Scientific Instruction bill will be the
education of mothers. The agitation
and discussion necessary to place this
law upon the statute books of fourteen
States must prove educative; and in
those States where the movement has
failed the labor is not lost. The seed
sown shall soon spring up.
Whatever the child learns grows into
his mind, becoming part of il, and
forming the grain of his character. The
learning of latter years is adventurous
it lies upon the surface. 1t is the diff
ference between veneer and ''real
wood" The same current of blood
that stamps an impression upon the
youthful memory carries building ma
terial to the growing brain, and these
early impressions enter into the solid
masonry upon which manhood is built,
while the knowledge acquired in matu-
rity is but paint or whitewash.
If our premises be true, we should
teach first that which is most impor-
tant in the realm of the child's COM
prehension. Can anything be more
Important than knowledge of the
habits upon which depend health and
vigorous physical life? Fortunately
the young mind can understand the
physical law at a very early age. Teach
the child the true value of the body
that is not him, but his-the house
built of God, which he is to occupy
during his earthly life. He will see
while very young that fine house is
desirable; and, too, that people are
judged somewhat by the houses in
which they live, and by the way they
keep their houses. Don't let him
think you send him to bed early to get
rid OF his noise; but tell him of the
tiny cell-workmen who are building his
house; how they do most Of their work
when he is asleep, and the very best in
the first part of the night. He can
understand that we need less sleep be-
cause our houses are finished, and they
have only to keep up repairs for us,
while for him they are really building
up flesh and bone. His Imagination
will make these wonderful little labor
ers more real to him than the miscro-
scope makes them to us. Tell him how
they have to get building material
from the blood, just as the mason has
to use brick and mortar for wall.
Each set of cells, or workmen, select
the material for their special use. The
bone builders use lime and the brain
builders phosphorus and many other
substances, but all must get supplies
from the blood. All use great deal of
water. Alcohol takes the water supply
as great thirsty beast might drink the
water from the mason's tank, leaving
none to mix the mortars.with then the
work stops. Then it saps the water
from tissue already formed, leaving it
tender and brittle, just as a wall begins
to crumble after fire has burned the
water out of the cement. Doctors call
that fatty degeneration. A great deal
of oxygen is necessary, too. There
isn't much oxygen in tobacco smoke!
Before this your little philosopher will
ask, ''what is blood made OPP When
he hears it is made from what we eat,
he will have interest as well as pleas
ure in his food, and you will have pow
er over his appetite. He will begin 10
exercise self-control, that divinest force
in human nature. Explain that the
tooth builder must have lime phosphate
for the enamel of tooth, as surely as
mason must have plaster-o paris to
hard-fnish wall. The chief source of
lime phosphate is the grains, but only
very little is found in the white part of
any grain.
He will soon learn to like brown
bread, corn bread and the grits, espe-
cially il his mother cultivates her taste
as well as his. Tell him the meat makes
so much waste the builders have to
stop work to clear away the rubbish.
Milk does not hinder them so. Even
pups and little wolves and lion whelps,
who eat flesh entirely when grown, eat
only milk when they are small and their
mothers take care of them. Or you
may save him from forming that I'M
naturally carniverous appetite which
leads to the.craving for stimulSnts, and
OF itself causes some kinds of fatal dis
ease. -Four of our teeth are s'fesh-tear-
ing" From this we may get hint of
the proper proportion of meat in our
dietary.
Tell him coffee and tea hurry and
worry the nerve builders so that they
can not possibly do their work we'll,
while beer and whisky maze them so
dizzy that everything they do is crooked.
Thus every fact and law is idealized, or
rather materialized and physiology to
the imaginative child-and mother, too
lis fairy tale. To do this the mother
must acquire the hard scientific facts,
and let her imagination play with
them till she can give them to the child
in pleasing form. Every woman has a
touch of Mother Goose in her nature.
The trouble is, mothers neither learn
nor think of these things. They may
understand the movements of the
heavenly bodies. but they know very
little of human bodies. / do not under
rate ''higher education" for women,
but ! do affirm that the highest educa-
ton for woman is that which makes her
the best mother. And if were talking
to men instead of women, / would say:
''that is the best culture for you which
fits you for the priestly, kingly function
of fatherhood.
Inspire the child with ambition for
a fine body, and he viii do what has to
be done to secure it. Show him what
is involved in physicals culture. The
body is the instrument; not the music,
butthe melody of life largely depends
upon the perfection of the instrument.
He may make it noble creature, with
every nerve steadied and every muscle
trained to do his bidding, or he may neg
lect and abuse it till it becomes faded and
mean-spirited; or, most disastrous of
all, he may allow it to become his
master. Then both horse and rider 90
down in the hot sea of lensualism.