HOW TO STUDY THE CHILD.—NO. 1.

BY MRS. S. M. I. HENRY.

(Compilers note: In paragraphs 1-4 the author gives an explanation of her work and the reason for these articles.)

IN the preceding articles I have tried to lay bare principles that must underlie the peaceful home. In those which are to follow I shall aim to show how these principles, conscientiously applied, will make of the home a school of Christ, a garden of the Lord, in which the child may be developed and educated according to the law which is written in his members as well as in the Book. Until this is done, there can be no peace. I shall have occasion from time to time to refer to the principles which have already been written.

Trouble in home government, or government anywhere, begins in controversy with God; and unless this controversy is settled right, the attempt to govern will end in revolt and ruin, But no disaster can accrue when his control is recognized, and his will accepted. Difficulties must of necessity arise, but nothing which cannot be remedied. The time to settle controversy with God is before it begins. Our study must necessarily have to do with beginnings. We cannot afford to pass by the day of small things. The important hour with the student is not when he receives his diploma, but when it is decided what school he shall enter, who shall be his teachers, and what he shall study. The morning of matriculation, instead of graduation, is of chiefest importance to his career.

I am aware that to those whose children are already well along in the process of growing up, much which I shall have to say will seem like a repetition of a primary lesson, to a board of learned professors, or like the prescription of the doctor after the patient is dead. More than once, as I have closed a lecture on some of these topics, aged fathers and mothers have said,  “If I could only have known these things long ago!” or, “I learned some of these things after bitter experiences, when it was too late.”  I take pleasure in thinking of the few young home-makers who may read these papers, more than of the many old people. I have come to the things which I teach, through channels direct from the Fountain of all knowledge; through instructions by my father in the word of God,' whence he drew his own methods with his children; and later from experiences in my own home, and observation in the homes where I have been entertained. I am not giving to the readers of the REVIEW green fruit, but that which has ripened by a lifetime of closest study and conscientious research.

Questions have been coming to me, sometimes with the request that I reply by personal letter, from both fathers and mothers, which have stirred my heart, and inspired me to a more earnest search after the wisdom which is of God. In the future of these studies I shall endeavor to touch upon all these questions, and will, if possible, find the answers, and spread them on these pages. I deeply realize the importance of this mission to the REVIEW family, and am again impelled to request each reader to ask God to throw the light of his Spirit upon every article as it is read, as well as to inspire its production.

The study of the young child will be the logical point at which to commence the application of the principles which have been laid down. This study should begin with his first hour of life, and must have to do first with the physical being, inside and out.

I suppose there are few mothers who have not listened eagerly for any sound or word which would indicate that the new-born child was “all right,”—not misshapen or lacking in parts. To be assured that it is "a fair and proper child," is to be able to forget her pain, and rest. If there are defects, how anxiously heart and brain labor through the hours of convalescence with the question as to how such defects can be remedied, deformities reduced, and whether or not science is equal to meet these emergencies! This is instinctive with every mother. Then how reasonable that she should seek to understand the little human body, its anatomy, and the laws of its development! One of the most important preparations for the coming of the child is a careful study of the physical structure, what must be done and what avoided to secure strength and beauty.

The effect of drugs, atmospheres, the mother's food, of its own clothing, to the little new life should be thoroughly understood. The practice of stuffing the delicate stomach with made foods, with which the  “drop of alcohol” has been mixed “to take off the wind,”  has been the cause of untold evil, not only to the stomach itself, but from thence reaching out into the moral and spiritual life, has brought disaster to the entire nature.

It is not only through the stomach that evil tendencies may enter which will make government and self-government difficult, but through the inspiratory organs. To inhale the fumes of tobacco, the smoke of frying grease which accompanies the breakfast of griddle-cakes, the steam of coffee, and in fact, the usual kitchen atmosphere, is for the child to be poisoned.

Take the ordinary farmer's dinner in course of preparation on a winter's day, when the outer air is carefully excluded, with the baby in the midst, — the cabbage, potatoes, onions, meat, and coffee, which contribute their quota to the odors which permeate the house, and which, the child must inhale. The strong housekeeper, moving rapidly about, will find her head growing heavy, and come to dinner without an appetite; and yet every one will wonder what has happened to the baby to make him so fretful.

In cooking even the most healthful foods, the steam and odors should be carried into the flue. A convenient method is to shut your dinner into the oven, and let it simmer in secret. It will take longer, but all results will be more satisfactory. There should always be some inlet of fresh air. Drafts must, of course, be avoided   but a steady current of pure air is absolutely necessary for the child. Do not keep him in the kitchen if you can avoid it. Do not accustom him to a heated   atmosphere. A low temperature, with plenty of warm clothing, is a quiet, well-ventilated room, will help to make a good baby. The constant stir and change which fill the workroom of a home; the continual whirl of faces about the child's cradle; the touchings and cooings, however caressing, are more than the delicate eyes, ears, and nerves of the little one can endure. He becomes excited, tired, and fretful. Fretfulness becomes habitual, and soon many ugly tempers begin to develop, which have simply been thrust upon him from the things that, by a little knowledge and carefulness, could have been entirely prevented.

The sweetness of babyhood is often quickly blighted. The eyes grow weak and watery, the mouth and nose become habitually wet, the face pale, perhaps pimply, and the scalp scabby.  “ Teething,” says one. Yes; but he should not lose his beauty and loveliness simply because he is performing a function so natural as cutting his teeth; and if he is thoroughly understood, his needs accommodated, and he is surrounded by right conditions, he may keep his win someness through all the necessary changes of his little life.~

( To be continued.)

ADVENT REVIEW AND SABBATH  HERALD

Mar. 23, 1897  Vol. 74, No 12

(Written from the Sanitarium in Battle Creek, MI)

THE GENERATION OF THE RIGHTEOUS #3

BY MRS. S.M. I. HENRY

AFTER all that has been said of heredity and environment, and in harmony with it, is the fact that in child culture as well as in horticulture at least as much depends on the seed as on cultivation. The gardener can afford to experiment in the seeds of plant and tree; but to experiment in human beginnings may involve eternal loss, in spite of all that can be done later on.

Manhood means fatherhood, womanhood means motherhood; and the teaching by which the child is to be given a fair start in life should begin in the youth of its parents. That holy and blessed seed of which mention is made in Ps. 37:25, 26, 28; Isa. 6:13; 44:3; 61:7-9; Rom. 4:14-16, cannot be matured in a defiled temple,  amid impure practises of thought and habit. The reading of sensational literature; the society of evil companions; the degeneration of brain, blood, muscle, and bone, through unhygienic food; the use of tobacco and alcoholic drinks,— anything in the life of body or soul which Christ himself would not have indulged, which he, as our Creator, has not appointed or approved for us, will so nearly spoil the life principle from which the child is to spring that he shall, at best, have a long and bitter fight for his own soul, and only be saved at last by the hardest. It is no easy thing for the child of Adam's blemished seed to learn the lessons of faith in God, on which everything of salvation depends. The conditions under which he comes into the world are evil enough when father and mother have from their own youth kept themselves as holy vessels unto the Lord, lived honestly in all things, obedient to the teachings which he has given in his word (Lev. 21:16-24; Ezra 9:2; Neh. 9:2; Mal. 2:15; Ephesians 5; Col. 3:17; 1 Cor. 10:31), and so have preserved the life fountain from actual defilement in their own generation: but when to all the past is added a father tainted with narcotics, a family table spread with indigestible and exciting compounds, a mother who is almost cut in two with strings and belts, and whose every physical organ is crowded out of place; when the selfishness of Lot, the disobedience of his wife, the deception of Jacob, and the unchastity of David have been copied, without their repentance and instead of their virtues, then childhood becomes pitiful indeed. But thanks be to our God, it is not even then hopeless, since Christ lives.

Any guest who takes the family by surprise is at a disadvantage; how much more the coming child! He should never be a surprise nor a regret. He should be sent for,— personally invited to home and heart,—expected, prepared for as an honored guest.  His earliest habitation should be guarded from anything that could mar the perfectness of the budding existence. Nothing should be permitted to crowd him out of his rightful elbow-room. Nothing tainted should touch the fountain of his life. The Spirit of God himself should be allowed to control all the conditions by which he is surrounded. A  blight like mildew has fallen on many a child before birth because his was an unwilling mother; because the heart from which he was nourished was not pure enough to see God in her motherhood, and to think about her child, and how he came to be, God's own thoughts, by which both she and the child should have been sanctified, not shamed.

One of the devices of Satan for the ruin of the race has been to train the mind to think with shame of God's creative work in and through us; and one of the necessary reformations, if we would have peace in our homes, must be that by which we shall cease to feel, as well as to believe, that he has been obliged to employ degrading methods for the accomplishment of any of his purposes. “The commandment of the Lord is pure.” Ps. 19:8.

The wish that her child might never have been; that something might yet prevent him from becoming an actual care; that his pre-natal existence is not life, and so has not the claim of the living; that it would not be a very great crime to prevent it from becoming such,— any of these poisoned drops distilled from the mother's heart into that of the little one whom she is carrying under her own, will make all of after life bitter for both, unless, through true repentance and crucifixion (and that crucifixion will be as terrible for the human as was His for the divine), through the blood and cross of Christ, that bitterness is sweetened at last.

The cleansing of the temple, “which temple ye are,” is the first step toward a  peaceful government in a houseful of children.~

(To be continued.)

ADVENT REVIEW AND SABBATH  HERALD

Mar. 16, 1897   Vol. 74 No. 11

(Written from the Sanitarium in Battle Creek, MI)