Ellsworth American. [volume] (Ellsworth, Me.) 1855-current, 1913-02-05
Dear NJ. B Readers and Friends:

Dear NJ. B Readers and Friends:
So generous and full OF excellent sugges-
tiops has been the supply furnished by
the faithful VI. BIS, that for months there
has been no lack of interesting material
with which to entertain and help you ali
each week. You ready helpers certainly
deserve little vacation, and this week a
variety column awaits you.
One month of the "Happy New Year"
with which we greeted each other SO short
a time ago, has come to an end. What did
we learn in any line that has left us the
richer in experience, in usefulness, in
knowledge? Sometimes we hear person
spoken of as the man or woman who
ssknows it alp. Often the term is used
without thought of the sarcasm involved
person may put on his self-knowledge,
everyone knows the impossibiiity of
anyone having q monopoly on knowl-
edge.
In these times which are filled with
"modern Improvements, it is a wise
thing to be trained in knowing what to
DO, and how to do, IN cases of emergency
There is where the Red Cross and the Boy
Scouts are prepared and preparing for
good and helpful work. In the schools,
too, much of this practical work can be
taught. Education means a great deal
more than book-learning.
The American Magazine, in its new
style, brings very many interesting feat
ures and articles worth reading. Under
"Health and Horse Power, a department
conducted by DIR. Woods Hutchinson,
several topics are written up which one
cannot fail to enjoy, but one especially
/ wish to give you some quotations from,
for believe it true;
WHAT CHILDREN REALLY LIKE TO EAT.
1t is the things which lie nearest to us that
we know least about, and we are often better
posted on what is going on in darkest Africa,
than on the history which is being made in
our own backyard. Notably is this the case
with the natural or instructive likes and dis
likes of children for particular kinds of food.
The moment any suggestion is made that
chil6rens tastes should be consulted in ar
ranging their diet the conclusion is instantly
leaped to that their favorite foods, upon
which they would subsist to the exclusion of
all others, are chewing-gum, shoe buttons,
candy, backing and green apples. and that i,
the little folks were turned loose in we'll
stocked pantry, the immediate and inevitable
result Of their freedom, would be an attack of
collie.
Nobody knows what the great mass of child
rem would prefer as articles OF diet, because
nobody has ever given them q chance to show
their preferences. We are most OF us born
into an Institution called the family. The less
an unfortunate child likes the particular
dietary which is imposed upon him, the more
certain we are it is good for him. Then. when
we have starved his muscles of sugar, and
robbed his nerves of fat, and bled his liver of
protein, until he is crazy for all three of
these as a colt in a clover pasture is for salt.
we.lift up our hands In horror, and say: "It
would be certainly unsafe to let child eat all
the sugar, or all the butter, or all the meat, or
nuts, or fruit he wants; he would simply
founder himself"
And so he would, perhaps. poor youngster
at first; but it would be our fault, not his.
Every one of those cravings for sugar, or
green apples, or butter or cake; yes, even for
oirt ana snoe leather, are simply due to his
having been starved of some element in the
unbalanced and inadequate ration on which
we have compelled him TO live whether he
liked it or not.
When the child is allowed to grow up-as a
lew children, thank heaven, are now begin
ming to be allowed to grow up--with freedom
to indulge his own natural instincts it is
promptly found that the things which the
child really likes to eat are meat, and milk,
and butter. and sugar. and fruit, and ice
cream, and the clean crusts of bread and hard
crackers; in other words, exactly the things
that ne most needs and must have in his daily
business Of growing up.
Starches and cereals are all very well 10
grow guinea-pigs and horned cattle, but they
are not at all the things needed to raise
human beings on. II your child has de-
veioped on abnormal craving for any thing,
tits because you have starved him, and you