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Title: What a Young Wife Ought to Know
Author: Drake, Emma F. Angell
Language: English
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Libraries.)
Pure Books on Avoided Subjects
_Books for Men_
_By Sylvanus Stall, D. D._
“What a Young Boy Ought to Know.”
“What a Young Man Ought to Know.”
“What a Young Husband Ought to Know.”
“What a Man of 45 Ought to Know.”
_Books for Women_
_By Mrs. Mary Wood-Allen, M. D., And Mrs. Emma F. A. Drake, M. D._
“What a Young Girl Ought to Know.”
“What a Young Woman Ought to Know.”
“What a Young Wife Ought to Know.”
“What a Woman of 45 Ought to Know.”
PRICE AND BINDING
The books are issued in uniform size and but one style of binding, and
sell in America at $1, in Great Britain at 4s., net, per copy, post free,
whether sold singly or in sets.
PUBLISHED BY
IN THE UNITED STATES
THE VIR PUBLISHING COMPANY
2237 Land Title Building Philadelphia
IN ENGLAND
THE VIR PUBLISHING COMPANY
7 Imperial Arcade, Ludgate Circus, London, E.C.
IN CANADA
WILLIAM BRIGGS
29-33 Richmond Street West Toronto, Ontario
[Illustration: EMMA F. ANGELL DRAKE, M.D.]
PRICE $1.00 NET
4S. NET
PURITY AND TRUTH
WHAT A YOUNG
WIFE
OUGHT TO KNOW
(_THOUSAND DOLLAR PRIZE BOOK_)
BY
MRS. EMMA F. ANGELL DRAKE, M. D.
Graduate of Boston University Medical College; formerly
Physician and Principal of Mr. Moody’s School at Northfield,
Mass.; Professor of Obstetrics at Denver Homœopathic Medical
School and Hospital; Author of “What a Woman of 45 Ought to
Know,” “Maternity Without Suffering.”
PHILADELPHIA, PA.: 2337 LAND TITLE BUILDING.
THE VIR PUBLISHING COMPANY
LONDON: TORONTO:
7, IMPERIAL ARCADE, WM. BRIGGS,
LUDGATE CIRCUS, E. C. 33 RICHMOND ST., WEST.
COPYRIGHT, 1901, by SYLVANUS STALL
COPYRIGHT, 1902, by SYLVANUS STALL
Entered at Stationers’ Hall, London, England
Protected by International copyright in Great Britain and
all her colonies, and, under the provisions of the Berne
Convention, in Belgium, France, Germany, Italy, Spain,
Switzerland, Tunis, Hayti, Luxembourg, Monaco, Norway,
and Japan
_All rights reserved_
[PRINTED IN THE UNITED STATES]
Dedicated
TO THE YOUNG WIVES WHO DESIRE THE BEST FOR THEMSELVES, FOR THEIR HUSBANDS
AND FOR THEIR OFFSPRING
PREFACE
To this generation as to no other, are we indebted for the awakening of
woman. Not the awakening alone which has led her out of the old lines
into nearly every avenue open to man in his pursuit of the necessities
and luxuries of life; but that other and larger awakening which has set
her down face to face with herself, and in her study of woman she has
shown herself courageous.
Bravely acknowledging her own limitations, she has set herself the task
of fortifying the weak points, curbing the more daring aspirations, and
getting herself into trim, so to speak, that she may traverse the sea of
life, without danger to herself, her cargo, or to any of the countless
ships which follow in her wake, or that pass her in the day or the night.
Not all women have yet awakened, and for those who have eyes to see, and
have seen, a great work is still waiting to be done. They must reach out
and rouse their sisters. Will they do it? With our young wives rests
the weal or woe of the future generations. To them we say, “What of the
future, and what sort of souls shall you give to it?”
EMMA F. A. DRAKE.
DENVER, Colorado,
United States of America.
_February 1st, 1901._
CONTENTS.
CHAPTER I.
INTELLIGENCE OF THE YOUNG WIFE.
Out of girlhood into wifehood.—The setting up of a new
home.—Woman’s exalted place.—Earlier influences.—Importance
of intelligence.—Woman fitted by creator for wifehood
and motherhood.—The position of reproductive organs in
the body.—Dangers of crowding contents of abdomen.—What
all young wives need to know.—Premium previously set
upon ignorance.—Heredity.—Failures and successes of our
ancestors.—Faults and virtues transmitted through heredity, 21-35
CHAPTER II.
HOME AND DRESS.
Preparations for successful home-makers.—The importance of
sensible dress.—An opportunity for reform.—The conditions of
attractive dress.—A question of healthfulness.—What wives need
to know concerning dress.—The kind to be avoided.—Injurious
dress destroying the race.—The ailments caused by wrong
dressing.—The corset curse.—A summary of the evils of dress, 37-46
CHAPTER III.
HEALTH OF THE YOUNG WIFE.
Health insures happiness.—Be ambitious for health.—The scarcity
of perfectly healthy women.—Fashion to the Rescue.—The boon
of health.—Necessity of ventilation and fresh air.—Duties to
the home.—The greatness of woman’s sphere.—In the society
drift.—The extreme of wholly avoiding society.—Keeping in
the middle of the road.—Pleasures and recreations taken
together.—Taking time to keep young.—Mistakes which some
husbands make.—Wrecks at the beginning of married life, 47-55
CHAPTER IV.
THE CHOICE OF A HUSBAND.
Higher standards are being set up in the choice of a
husband.—Should be worthy of both love and respect.—Love
likely to idealize the man.—The real characteristics
necessary.—Deficiencies in character not to be supplied after
marriage.—The right to demand purity.—Young men who “sow wild
oats.”—Importance of good health.—Weaknesses and diseases which
descend from parents to children.—The parents’ part in aiding
to a wise choice.—The value of the physician’s counsel.—One
capable of supporting wife and children.—A dutiful son makes
a good husband.—Essential requisites enumerated.—The father
reproduced in his children.—The equivalents which the wife
should bring to her husband, 57-64
CHAPTER V.
WHAT SHALL A YOUNG WIFE EXPECT TO BE
TO HER HUSBAND?
The young wife should seek to be her husband’s equal, but not
his counterpart.—The recognized centre of the home.—Woman’s
true greatness.—Man’s helpmeet.—Mrs. Gladstone’s part in her
husband’s greatness.—Should attract her husband from the
club to the home.—Continuing to be attractive in dress and
manners.—Should accept both wifehood and motherhood.—Should
keep pace with his mental growth.—Guarding against improper
use of literary clubs, reading circles, etc.—Solomon’s picture
of the model young wife.—A converted heathen’s estimate of his
Christian wife, 65-72
CHAPTER VI.
TROUSSEAU AND WEDDING PRESENTS.
Husband and wife ruined before their “crane is
hung.”—The foolish and ruinous display at weddings.—An
illustration given.—How wedding presents lead to debt and
unhappiness.—Living does not need much machinery.—Mistake
of copying after people of large wealth.—Wise choice of
furniture.—The best adornments for the home.—The trousseaux of
our foremothers.—The need of simplicity.—Artificialities that
make a veil between our souls and God, 73-78
CHAPTER VII.
THE MARITAL RELATIONS.
The subject approached with reluctance.—The marital state
should be the most sacred of sanctuaries.—Wrongly interpreted
it is the abode of darkness and sin.—Its influence for good or
evil upon character.—Responsibility of mothers for the unhappy
lives of their daughters.—Commercial marriages.—Marriage as
it should be.—The husband’s danger from “aggressiveness.”—The
wife should not provoke the wrongs she suffers.—Marital
modesty.—Parenthood the justification of the marital
act.—Reproduction the primal purpose.—Harmony of purpose and
life.—Love’s highest plane.—The value of continence.—The right
and wrong of marriage.—The relation during gestation.—Effects
of relation during gestation illustrated.—The wrong-doings of
good men.—The fruits of ignorance.—The better day coming, 79-96
CHAPTER VIII.
PREPARATION FOR MOTHERHOOD.
Motherhood the glory of womanhood.—Maternity natural and
productive of health.—Prevalence of knowledge of methods used
to prevent conception.—Mothers should prepare their daughters
for maternity.—Motherhood the sanction for wifehood.—Effect of
fixed habits of mother upon offspring.—Adjustment of clothing
to expectant motherhood.—Importance of proper exercise.—The
sitz bath.—Effects of environment upon the unborn.—Why Italian
children resemble the madonnas.—The child the expression of the
mother’s thoughts.—The five stages of prenatal culture stated
and illustrated.—The mother of the Wesleys.—The child the heir
and expression of the mother’s thought and life, 97-112
CHAPTER IX.
PREPARATION FOR FATHERHOOD.
The command to “replenish the earth.”—Preparation for
motherhood more written about than preparation for
fatherhood.—Questions which would test the fitness of
young men for marriage.—Parents should know the character
of young men who desire their daughters in marriage.—Many
young men of startling worth.—The improving of a good
heritage.—Effects of bad morals and wayward habits.—Effects
of tobacco and alcoholics.—How young women help to contribute
bad habits in young men.—The years of rooting and weeding
necessary.—Attaining the best.—The father reproduced in his
children, 113-121
CHAPTER X.
ANTENATAL INFANTICIDE.
The alarming prevalence of this hideous sin.—How daughters
are initiated.—How expectant mothers appeal to reputable
physicians.—Young women should be taught to associate the idea
of marriage with motherhood.—Destruction of own health and life
go hand in hand with prenatal murder.—Effect of such attempts
upon the physical life and character.—Life from the moment of
conception.—The injustice and cruel wrongs inflicted upon wives
by uncontrolled passions of husbands.—Obligation of motherhood
should be recognized.—Its blessings.—The duty of the physician
as educator of public sentiment, 123-134
CHAPTER XI.
THE MORAL RESPONSIBILITY OF PARENTS IN
HEREDITY.
The duty of the present to future generations.—Darwin on
heredity.—Nature inexorable.—The mother’s investment of
moulding power.—The father’s important part in the transmission
of heredity.—The parents workers together with God.—Parents
must reap what they sow.—The law and the gospel of heredity
contrasted.—The children of inebriates and others.—Lessons
from reformatory institutions.—The outcast Margaret.—The
mother of Samson.—How a child became an embodiment of “The
Lady of the Lake.”—The woman who desired to be the mother of
governors.—Importance of this study, 135-145
CHAPTER XII.
AILMENTS OF PREGNANCY.
Pregnancy not an unnatural but a normal state.—Tendency to
neglect hygienic rules.—Morning sickness.—How to correct
it.—Important questions of diet.—Displaced uterus as cause
of nausea.—Mental states.—Companionship.—Various gastric
troubles.—Insomnia.—Hysteria.—Constipation and how to correct
it.—Longings.—Self-control.—With proper care, as a rule all
goes well, 147-154
CHAPTER XIII.
DEVELOPMENT OF THE FŒTUS.
Minuteness of the germ of human life.—The embryo cell and
its store of food.—Its journey to the uterus.—Meeting the
spermatozoön, conception occurs.—The changes which take place
in the uterus.—Life is present the moment conception takes
place.—The mysterious development of the embryo.—The sin of
tampering with the work of the infinite.—The various changes in
the development of the embryo and fœtus set forth.—The changes
that occur each month.—Parenthood the benediction of husband
and wife, 155-162
CHAPTER XIV.
BABY’S WARDROBE.
The question that comes with fluttering signs of
life.—Importance of wise choice of material and style of
dress.—The blessedness of mother’s joy in preparing baby’s
clothing.—The questions of dress important.—Formerly
seemingly planned for discomfort.—The “binder” an instrument
of torture.—Better methods now prevail.—The napkin.—How to
establish regular habits for baby.—The pinning blanket.—The
little shirt.—Baby’s earliest and best dress described.—The
complete wardrobe described.—The furnishings of the
basket.—Things which are not to baby’s taste or comfort.—The
later wardrobe, 163-171
CHAPTER XV.
THE CHOICE OF PHYSICIAN AND NURSE.
Choice of physician and nurse of real consequence.—Choose
a physician whom you can trust implicitly.—A cleanly
man.—The wife should make the selection.—A Christian
physician.—Choice of nurse.—Wife most capable of making
choice.—Advice of the physician desirable.—She should be
pleasing to the wife.—Cleanliness.—Gentleness.—A person of
individuality.—Neatness in manner and clothing.—Should be
intelligent.—Physician and nurse should work in sympathy.—A
good cook.—Able to converse, but not a gossip.—Many such
physicians and nurses, 173-177
CHAPTER XVI.
THE BIRTH CHAMBER.
Memory’s dissimilar pictures of birth-chamber scenes.—Newborn
souls welcomed to mother’s arms and love.—The rebellious
mother with empty heart and unwilling arms.—The older
children reflect the spirit of the mother toward the
newcomer.—Illustrations of conduct of intelligent children
toward mother at birth period.—How to calculate date of
confinement.—Birth chamber no terror for those who live
hygienically.—Anæsthetics.—Their use explained.—Allaying
anxiety.—Earliest premonitions.—Preparation.—The three stages
of labor.—Tying the cord.—The rest and joy that complete and
crown labor, 179-187
CHAPTER XVII.
SURROUNDINGS AND AFTER-CARE OF THE
MOTHER.
Maternity should have the largest and brightest room in the
house.—It is her coronation room.—Simplicity of labor with
healthy women.—Science has reduced risk to the minimum.—The
exaltation of motherhood.—The rest after labor.—How to prepare
a bed for the parturient.—Deliverance of mother from friends
and visitors.—Sanitary pads.—Regular nursing.—Undisturbed
sleep.—No binder necessary for mother.—The care of the
breasts.—Diet.—Sitting up.—Six or eight weeks needed to regain
normal condition.—The use of the douche.—Sore nipples.—The
bearing of children not to be dreaded.—The joy of
motherhood, 189-200
CHAPTER XVIII.
CARE OF THE BABY.
The more thoughtful treatment of babies than formerly.—The
first attention that baby needs.—Its oil bath.—The care
of the eyes.—The care of the placentic cord.—Baby’s first
bath.—Its covering after the bath.—The basket.—Regularity
in nursing.—Waking at night.—Rocking to sleep.—Quantity of
food.—The appointments of the nursery.—The mother and the care
of her own children.—To her children the mother should be the
dearest creature in the world.—The babies born of love.—The
babies born in bitterness.—The responsibilities and joys of
motherhood, 201-212
CHAPTER XIX.
THE MOTHER THE TEACHER.
Food, clothing and restraint not the mother’s full duty to her
children.—Teach them self-knowledge.—Mother should give honest
answers to honest inquiries.—Ignorance leads to vice, and vice
to ruin.—When shall children be taught physical truths.—How to
teach little children physical truth.—Questions of sex should
be the most sacred things of their knowledge.—How to teach the
children in this sacred way.—Mothers should teach their boys as
well as the girls.—How boys grow away from their mothers.—How
mothers may win and hold their boys.—An honest mother’s
reward, 213-228
CHAPTER XX.
COMMON AILMENTS OF CHILDREN.
Little ailments.—Nursing babies affected by condition of
mother.—Sleep and health.—The baby’s food.—Why babies are
restless when nursed from the right breast.—Children’s symptoms
often more grave than the ailment.—Illustrations.—Fevers
and teething.—Vomiting.—The cause of rash.—Pallid
children.—Chafing.—Babies do not cry without cause.—Need
of water and fresh air.—Sleeping in open air.—Relief in
constipation.—Important suggestions, 229-236
CHAPTER XXI.
GUARDING AGAINST SECRET VICE.
The mother’s preparation as guide and protector of her
children.—Safeguards for tiny babyhood.—Cleanliness,
regularity, chafing, pin worms, servants, nurse girls, etc.,
etc.—How to teach and guard them during childhood.—Safeguarding
the children with knowledge.—Inborn curiosity concerning
physical mysteries.—How to meet these questions.—Sleeping
alone.—How to correct vice where it exists. The duty of
physicians to the public.—Symptoms which call for parental
watchfulness.—Results of secret vice.—Rewards of parental
vigilance, 237-244
CHAPTER XXII.
THE TRAINING OF CHILDREN.
The training which develops talents.—When child-training should
begin.—The training of her children the mother’s all-important
calling.—The influence of the mother’s own character and
life.—The children imitators of their parents.—Importance of
earliest training.—Spoiled children.—Children’s rights.—The
proper correction of children.—Broken promises and parental
falsehoods.—Value of tact in parental discipline.—Value of
parental sympathy.—The mother, herself, the best gift to her
children.—The choice of books and stories.—The choice of
companions for the children.—Toys, sports and amusements.—An
appeal to mothers, 245-262
CHAPTER XXIII.
BODY-BUILDING.
Our duty to nourish, strengthen and build up strong
bodies.—Eradicating inherited infirmities.—Children inherit the
permanent states of their parents.—The parents’ duty to those
who are not well born.—What has been accomplished along these
lines.—The relation of babies’ clothing and food to physical
growth.—Unwise feeding.—The laws of nutrition.—The relation
of food to national greatness.—A list of good foods.—The
relation of exercise to appetite.—Comparative value of meat
and vegetables.—Importance of rest and sleep.—Regular sleeping
hours.—Schools and nervousness in children.—Many children
are not properly nourished.—Food poorly prepared and poorly
served.—The importance of hygienic cooking.—The cause of
weak eyes in children.—Children and bare feet.—The dosing
of children with nostrums.—The use of brandy and wine in
cooking, 263-285
CHAPTER XXIV.
MOTHERS’ MEETINGS, STUDY CLUBS AND
BOOKS.
The awakening along new lines.—A better brand of
mothers.—Books that will help along this line.—Mothers’
clubs as factors.—Their need in cities, villages, and rural
communities.—A rich mine, 287-292
CHAPTER I.
INTELLIGENCE OF THE YOUNG WIFE.
Out of Girlhood into Wifehood.—The Setting up of a New
Home.—Woman’s Exalted Place.—Earlier Influences.—Importance
of Intelligence.—Woman Fitted by Creator for Wifehood
and Motherhood.—The Position of Reproductive Organs in
the Body.—Dangers of Crowding Contents of Abdomen.—What
all Young Wives Need to Know.—Premium Previously set
upon Ignorance.—Heredity.—Failures and Successes of our
Ancestors.—Faults and Virtues Transmitted through Heredity.
What a young wife ought to know is a large question, and one which we
neither hope nor expect to answer fully in this little book, but if what
we shall say shall set our girls to thinking a little more seriously and
more exaltedly, of the great possibilities which await them: if it shall
prepare them to enter the sacred realm of marriage with holier thoughts
of the high duties they are assuming, we shall be content, feeling we
have accomplished our purpose.
Out of girlhood into wifehood, seems a short step, but it is one fraught
with grave responsibilities. If all along your girlhood way, your
aspirations have been high, and you have been living for the best, you
are prepared for the new life and its duties; if, on the other hand, you
have been drifting thoughtlessly, as so many girls are allowed to do, you
will have little conception of what the future holds for you.
A new home at your touch is to be called into being; a new altar reared,
upon which the sacrificial offerings shall be those of love, and
confidence, and life, and mutual endeavor, and work, not for self, but
for that other self whom you have chosen out of all the world to be the
sharer of everything that life means and that you hold dear.
“And the Lord said, it is not good that the man should be alone; I will
make him an help meet for him.” And have you ever thought that in all
these years we have made the mistake of writing these words together as
one? We lose half of the designed meaning when we do this. “Meet means
to have bestowed upon or sent to one: to have befall one, to have happen
appropriately or deservedly. How full of meaning with this definition do
the two words become. As if the Creator left the calling into life of
woman, until he saw the great need, and then bestowed her as a blessing
upon man: that goodness was only accomplished when he made woman to be a
helper to man.”
We are very sure that there was nothing in the creative thought, of
degradation, in this giving of woman to man. Nothing of degradation in
the thought of her sphere and work. It is a work distinct from that of
man, and yet supplemental to it; in many ways unlike his and yet not
inferior to it. It is a large half of the work of the great busy world—a
work that is beautiful, noble, helpful, uplifting; and when done in the
spirit of love and willingness that should always characterize it, it
beautifies and ennobles the worker.
Dear young wives, begin your married lives with the thought that it is no
mean place that you are called to fill, and make it your highest pleasure
to fit yourselves for it worthily.
Some of you have come from homes of wealth, where you have been
accustomed to have every wish gratified, often before it was expressed;
and it may be that the one you have chosen will not be as able to gratify
your wishes. Be very sure that in the light of his love and companionship
you will not miss the abundance to which you have hitherto been
accustomed, and take great care that you keep fast hold of this thought,
and work it out into reality daily, through your oneness with him, and
your sweet, strong, self-assertive love. Together you can work up to the
greater affluence in worldly things and grow the richer in character as
you attain.
Others of you have come from homes where the necessities of life must be
planned for carefully, and where luxuries were few. Perhaps the man who
has chosen you for his mate, may rejoice that the hard work and careful
planning to make the ends meet, which has been your lot hitherto, will
no longer be necessary, for he will lift you to a home and position of
plenty, and his heart delights in so doing. Take care, dear young wife,
your lot will be beset with more difficulties than those spoken of above.
The invitations to ease and prodigality, to which you have not been
accustomed, but which seem so delightful now, will prove a snare to your
higher womanhood and nobler self-contained independence of character, if
you do not put your better self on guard; and all your strong lessons
that were learned in your earlier life of patient endeavor will be
forgotten in the new life of ease and pleasure.
Others of you will begin from the same level the united climb towards
success, and your care will be, that you do not let into your hearts
the dangerous guests, envy and greed. Either will spoil your home if
entertained, and prevent your gathering the sweets of life by the way.
In the days which precede marriage, everything relating to it has been
idealized, and the awaking to the knowledge that ideality and reality are
two very different things, will come to you with a severe shock, unless
you bring to the issue all the good common sense and womanliness you
possess. The rose-color which everything assumed in courtship, is now
toned down to a more sober hue, and it is yours to see that it becomes
not too sombre; but rather mingle with it enough of the vermilion and the
rose to brighten the entire day of married life, and glorify its sunset.
After all, you have only reached the haven towards which your bark has
been tending since your earliest recollection. Every day of your girlhood
life has had in it some hope, some confident thought, some sweet vision,
of the days when you would be a woman, and some one, the only one in all
the world for you, would come a-wooing and prove to you surely that your
life was planned as the complement of his; that the home he intends to
set up shall be perfect only when you consent to be its queen; that his
life, in short, is only waiting for its fulfilment—which really means
fillfullment when you shall come in to fill it full.
Should your love compel consent to this, and should you have courage,
and unselfishness, and power, and real character, and self-abnegation,
and hopefulness, and help-fullness, and uplifting patience, and hidden
leadership sufficient, you will make of the two-in-one life a beautiful
strength that shall bless the world.
Now you have come to the realization of these dreams, and never for
a moment must your courage falter, never for a moment your ideals be
lowered.
If perchance some of you have come to wifehood uninformed upon all the
questions of girlhood and womanhood, which will prepare you for the
sacred duties and responsibilities before you, it is not yet too late
to learn; although this disadvantage confronts you, that very much must
be crowded into a short space of time, and that many experiences will
overtake you before you are prepared for them. Even at this do not be
discouraged. Everything is possible to her who wills, and if you will
to prepare yourself better for wifehood and motherhood, even at so late
a day, the way is open. By enquiry you will find many books to help
you, and many motherly women, who, having learned in the dear school of
experience, are fitted to teach you the pitfalls you must avoid, and
encourage you with promises of success, if you are patient.
Perhaps some of you approach wifehood with a dread of its cares and
duties. Wrongly taught, or wrongly thinking, you have a nameless dread
that you cannot shake off, and it distresses you. There is nothing to
alarm you. Physically, woman as created, answers the question of fitness
for the work laid upon her.
Let us consider a little, her peculiar adaptation, and the suitability of
each part to the purpose intended by the all-wise Creator.
The nervous system is a little more highly organized than in man; the
heart and blood vessels adjusted to swifter work; the brain quicker; the
muscles not so hard and tense. In place of the logical, she possesses the
intuitive mind, which makes her capable of reaching a conclusion while
man is thinking about it. She has less strength, but greater endurance;
less daring in achievement, but more patience; less forcefulness, but
more quiet insistence; less practicality, but more of the æsthetic;
less ambition to assume the great responsibilities of life, but more
painstaking in the little and no less important things which go so far
towards making the days sweet and peaceful. All these differences from
man, her companion, but make her the more desirable and attractive.
Unlike man in her physical form, her departure from his type, was to fit
her for motherhood. Narrower shouldered and less muscular, because not
needing the brawn for lifting and laboring with her hands in the harder,
coarser way; she is broader through the hips to give ample room for
cradling her children.
The pelvis is the broad flat basin, at the lower part of the body, formed
by the union of the two large bones, the ossa inominata, which bound it
on either side and in front, and the sacrum and coccyx which complete it
behind. The sacrum and coccyx are the nine lower vertebræ of the spinal
column, five in the sacrum and four in the coccyx.
All the bones in the pelvis in woman are lighter and more delicate
than in man—in whom they are designed mainly for strength—and the
protuberances for the attachment of muscles are less prominent, making
a smoother inner surface in the pelvis of woman. Neither are the joints
so inflexible as in man; that of the coccyx with the sacrum being quite
movable, while the union of the two bones in front will permit slight
separation during the act of childbirth.
Within this pelvis lie the internal generative organs, namely, the
uterus, or womb, the ovaries and fallopian tubes, and beside these the
rectum and bladder. The pelvis belongs to these organs and to these
alone; but how often their sphere is trespassed upon by the crowding down
of the organs above, is matter for grave consideration. To each of these
organs is given space sufficient, if their room be not infringed upon by
each other or by the abdominal viscera above.
First let us consider the unlawful demand made by one or the other organ
within the pelvis for more space than rightfully belongs to it. Girls
very often from want of thought, and from ignorance of the gravity
of results which such carelessness may lead to, neglect the regular
evacuation of the bladder and bowels, and the result is from the fulness
of the bladder long continued, a pushing of the uterus backward which
may, if the habit be kept up, result in permanent displacement. On the
other hand, from a neglect of the bowels, a full rectum may force the
uterus forward and downward. If this carelessness is persisted in, a
displacement becomes a permanent condition, and a consequent adhesion of
the walls of the uterus to the neighboring organs often follows. This,
as you can readily see, will make serious difficulty for the uterus
when performing its functions in pregnancy, and brings on many nervous
troubles which greatly affect the entire organism.
The womb too, by its false position, crowds the blood vessels of the
pelvis, and thus interferes with the circulation of the pelvic organs
and all parts below. Added to this it interferes with the portal
circulation,—or circulation through the liver,—and thus disturbs the
distribution of blood in the digestive organs, and all parts supplied
by the blood-flow through the liver. For this reason, you can readily
understand how many stomach troubles may be caused by wrong conditions in
the pelvis.
As the bladder and rectum are capable of great distension, when full
they allow little space for the womb. If when distended these organs
always pushed the uterus upward, the displacement would cause less
serious results; but on the contrary, from the natural position of all
the organs, when crowded, the tendency is downward; especially is this
so as the result of a neglected and distended rectum, which causes the
prolapse, or falling of the womb with all its attendant ills. And the
evil does not always stop with this organ alone, but may lead to grave
bladder difficulties, and to hemorrhoids and other rectal diseases.
The abdominal cavity, or space between the diaphragm above and the pelvis
below, has also sufficient room for all the organs located in it, but
this cavity too is abused, by faulty dressing, and not only are the
contents of the abdomen compelled to suffer; but by their being crowded
downward the contents of the pelvis are encroached upon, and the ills I
have already alluded to in the pelvis are further aggravated.
So much for the knowledge of the physical needed by the young wife, and
this is but a beginning. In a book of this compass scarcely more than
hints can be given.
Every young woman before entering into marriage should have at least a
fair knowledge of the following subjects.
1. The human organization, the various organs which compose it, and the
functions of each.
2. The care requisite to the healthy maintenance of these organs, and the
food required to nourish them.
3. How to dress so that organic functions may not be disturbed, and so
that beauty and form may be preserved.
4. How to exercise so that muscles and nerves may be kept in vigor, and
the blood in active circulation.
5. How much rest to take thoroughly to recuperate the wasted energies,
and keep the spirits buoyant.
6. What to deny one’s self, that health may be preserved and the temper
kept sweet.
7. As a part of the great human family, what is one’s responsibility to
herself, to her family, to the best use of her time, and the generation
which shall come after her?
8. Is reproduction a multiplying of one’s self; and if so, is she willing
that herself, just as she is, should be reproduced.
9. What faults and failings has she, that she would not like to entail
upon her offspring?
10. A thorough knowledge and understanding of the reproductive system.
11. Hereditary influences, and her moral responsibility in the
inheritance of the generations to follow her.
To quote from Dr. Wm. Capp, “An appreciation of the situation cannot,
however, be expected in the young who, in the surge of mental and bodily
development, with its charming surprises of novelty, heedlessly float
along in the present quite unconscious of future dangers, of which it is
impossible for them to know, except they be warned by trusted guides.” He
then adds, “The best social interests of the race are in the keeping of
faithful mothers. Their education, both of intellect and heart, should be
of the highest order.”
Instead of any inducement having been offered our young people for
extending their knowledge of self, a premium has been put upon ignorance,
and the result has been in many cases disastrous to both health and
morals. The time is not far distant, we believe, when our young people
will refuse any longer to be considered, in the knowledge of self,
ignorantly pure. Ignorance is _not_ purity, but is often the _cause_ of
the grossest _impurity_; while intelligent knowledge is productive of
purity of the highest and noblest type.
Further if our young wives would know themselves, they must of necessity
become acquainted with the peculiarities, physical and mental, of
father, mother, grandfather and grandmother. In other words, they must
not only know themselves as they are, but the families from which they
sprang; then will they know, measurably, the possibilities of their
natures, and their limitations.
As well might the botanist talk of knowing the lovely American Beauty
rose, when he had only studied its form and color, its budding and
blossoming. He could tell you of its beauty, its fragrance, its colors
and its season; but to know it perfectly, he must go patiently back,
through every member of the rose family which has a share in its
production; and study until he knows every strain which has combined to
produce the beautiful harmonious entirety, which we find in this full red
rose. So, my dears, go patiently back through the lines of your ancestry
and learn your heritage—mental, moral and physical. Could you add to this
knowledge the share that environment and education can rightly claim, and
then deduce the possibilities which belong to such a life, you would be
at the threshold of achievement, at the morning of a successful life, if
you are ready to enthrone a consecrated will, and put real purpose into
your life.
There is something, perhaps, in a family tree that is desirable; but
one to my liking must contain more than the names of the ancestors. Each
must have his prominent characteristics attached, his failures and his
successes, as necessary guides for his descendants. It might not in many
instances engender family pride, while on the other hand, were these
records possessed, they could certainly be made a great incentive to
noble endeavor.
Is the human family of less consequence than the horse? It would be an
interesting study and full of suggestiveness, to take down the books
which contain the pedigree of our blooded horses, and note how sire and
dam through generations, have transmitted their faults and virtues to
their offspring. Further note how the possibilities of a colt are based
upon the achievements of his progenitors. Alas! Man in his study and
knowledge of the equine race has gotten far ahead of man in his study
of the human family. I fancy that if a college for the training of fine
horses were established, one of the chief things in the curriculum would
be a knowledge of pedigree. And why? Because upon such knowledge is based
the possibilities of the individual.
CHAPTER II.
HOME AND DRESS.
Preparations for Successful Home-Makers.—The Importance of
Sensible Dress.—An Opportunity for Reform.—The Conditions of
Attractive Dress.—A Question of Healthfulness.—What Wives Need
to Know Concerning Dress.—The Kind to be Avoided.—Injurious
Dress Destroying the Race.—The Ailments Caused by Wrong
Dressing.—The Corset Curse.—A Summary of the Evils of Dress.
“Home’s not merely four square walls
Though with pictures hung and gilded,
Home is where affection calls,
Home’s a shrine the heart has builded.”
It has been argued by the over-fastidious, when these great questions
relating to our being and well-being are discussed, that it is better for
our daughters that they should not know what awaits them in marriage,
“lest their heart fail them.” This cannot be best. Stepping into an
unknown sphere with no definite knowledge of its demands and with no
preparation to meet these demands, will only occasion disheartenment, if
not downright discontent, when the difficulties and responsibilities are
met.
As well might a raw recruit enter the army with no knowledge of warfare
and without having been drilled for service, and expect at once to become
a successful commander. As well might one accept any other position of
high trust in life, without knowing what fitness was demanded, and hence
all unprepared for it, the only qualification of the one accepting the
trust being respect for and confidence in the employer, and expect to
render excellent service, as for a wife to enter unprepared upon her high
duties. In either case, by dint of hard and unremitting work, a few might
succeed, but the many would fail.
A revised proverb says, “Home was not built in a day.” To insure a
successful home the home-maker must be a success, and to accomplish this
there are years of thoughtful preparation necessary.
Marguerite Lindley says, “We cannot overdo the matter of discreetly
rearing our girls. They are to be the wives and mothers of the next
generation, and on them rests the matter of the prosperity of the nation.
The world is to be largely influenced by their abilities and strength,
and it rests with the educators of to-day to prepare them for the
great work that is before them. The keynote for harmony in mental and
physical education has never yet been touched, and will not be until
their physical well-being is made supreme, and the mental is based on its
power.”
Jules Michelet, in his admirable book, L’Amour—admirable for the time
and for the people for whom it was written—says, “It would seem that
French mothers were determined to educate their daughters in all the
non-essentials to wifehood and motherhood, while the things that
pertained to their own well-being, and the well-being of home and family,
were utterly neglected.” Again, he says, “Every mother practices a kind
of self-delusion. She will say, most emphatically, ‘Oh, how I love my
daughter,’ and yet what does she do for her? She does not prepare her for
marriage either mentally or physically.”
When our daughters have had it burned in upon their inner consciousness
that sensible dress and early hours, hygienic food and habitual outdoor
exercise, will do for them and the succeeding generations what nothing
else can do; and when our young men show their appreciation of these
things, and commend them in the highest terms possible, then will a
better day dawn for the race, and a real start be made for the true
betterment of mankind. Is it not true, that the majority of our young
women emulate the fancies and customs upon which our young men put a
premium? Here then is an opportunity for our wide-awake sons to set the
pace in a reform that will tell more for the coming generations than
they dream of. Says a late writer, “We may smile at but need not rebuke
the instinct of the young girl to enhance by adornments her physical
charms, which nature already has made more attractive than all things
else to man. Woman’s innate solicitude is to please, but this is not best
accomplished by artificial manners or external show.”
We see nothing wrong in adding to the first intent of dress—namely a
covering—anything, yes everything which may make it attractive, so long
as it does not detract from its healthfulness and comfort.
Is it not very strange that so many women of sense and wisdom, and
breadth of culture far beyond the ordinary, will not hesitate to adopt
and cling to customs of dress that are little less than barbarous. Does
it not seem, that among the large majority of women in civilized lands,
the question is, when dress is considered, “Is it becoming?” or “Is it
within the reach of my pocketbook?” while rarely is the consideration of
healthfulness given any weight whatever. It is a lamentable truth, but we
must acknowledge it if we are honest.
Dress is not alone a study in æsthetics, not alone a study in
tastefulness, not alone a study of fancy or fashion; but first, last and
always it should be a question of healthfulness; and then all of the
æsthetic, all of the fashion and fancy you desire may be added to it, so
long as they do not in any measure defeat its first purpose.
What do our young wives need to know concerning dress, that they may
be better fitted for the responsibilities which await them? They need
to know what is harmful in the present fashion, that they may in their
larger wisdom, avoid it, and in its place adopt that which will insure
health and happiness for themselves and their offspring.
To understand the dangers and institute the reforms necessary, they must
know the anatomy and physiology of the female body, and what is necessary
to keep each organ in perfect health. This in a general way they learn
in their school life, as far as lungs, heart and liver are concerned;
but to go below the waist in knowledge, is considered indelicate in the
extreme.
They must know that the corset, in their growing girlhood, prevents
their proper development, and in their maturer years restricts them so
that lungs, heart, and liver and abdominal organs can do but half their
work, and that very poorly. They should be taught that allowing their
clothes to hang from their hips is harmful in the extreme, and induces a
multitude of ills that unfit them for maternity.
Let them think for a moment, that the corset when worn tight enough
to insure the form which is considered correct, so narrows their lung
capacity that they can but half inflate them, and so a double duty
is thrown upon the heart in its effort to purify the blood, while an
insufficient quantity of oxygen is given it for the purpose. When the
lungs are inflated to their _fullest capacity_, there is only sufficient
oxygen furnished to burn the waste material of the system which is thrown
off through the blood. What then must be the result when a half, or a
third of the lung capacity is used?
One physician has said: “Woman by her injurious style of dress is doing
as much to destroy the race as is man by alcoholism.” Another physician,
Dr. Ellis, says, “The practice of tight lacing has done more within the
last century towards the physical deterioration of civilized man, than
has war, pestilence and famine combined.” Frances Willard said, “But
woman’s everlasting befrilled, bedizened, and bedraggled style of dress,
is to-day doing more harm to children unborn, born and dying, than all
other causes that compel public attention.”
Again the corset when worn closely, or worn at all, we feel compelled
to say,—because no woman who has worn a corset for years seems to be
conscious that she is wearing it closely,—crowds the contents of the
abdomen downward until these organs encroach upon the pelvic contents,
and the uterus is displaced, and the long train of ills which inevitably
follows such displacement comes as the penalty. Not always does the
punishment come at once, but sooner or later it overtakes its victim, if
not before the climacteric, surely, then, at the period of middle life.
Among the many ailments which come from displacements of the womb are
constipation, imperfect circulation, stomach difficulties, broken down
nerves, headaches, and a generally weakened condition which totally
unfits the sufferer for motherhood or for any other responsibility of
life.
Another evil in dress, which seems hard to overcome, is the heavy weight
imposed upon the hips. This is, to-day, in a measure obviated by those
who are able to wear the silk petticoats, and silk-lined skirts; for
those who are not able to do this, the burden is a heavy one, unless
great care is taken to lighten the dress as much as possible.
The well-made, corded and boneless waist, with shoulder straps, and
supports for all the skirts, is the only reasonable thing; and this must
be loose enough to allow the waist ample room for development. Think
of sixty millions of corsets sold in a year in America,—one for nearly
every man, woman and child in the land! Is it strange that our women are
invalids, and the American race fast dying out? It is said that a French
artist represented the devil in the dress and corset of a fashionable
woman! A terrible commentary upon feminine folly.
Mrs. Ecob, in her book, _The Well-dressed Woman_, which every young
wife should read, says: “The corset curse among women is more insidious
than the drink curse among men. Total abstinence from both sins is the
only safe ground. A woman can no more be trusted with a corset, than a
drunkard with a glass of whiskey.”
To sum up the evils of dress and suggest lines of study, is all we have
room for in our short space.
1. Insufficient underwear.
2. The corset—which compresses the vital organs, overheats the region it
covers, displaces the pelvic contents, serves as an excuse for hanging
the clothes upon the hips, impedes the circulation of the blood in the
extremities, lungs and brain, and robs the wearer of freedom and grace
of movement; while it brings in the long line of ills which have doomed
our American women to invalidism, and robbed their children, if they have
any, of their lawful inheritance, good health.
3. Heavy and trailing skirts, which burden the wearers, and impede their
motion.
4. Inequality of clothing, which covers the waist and abdomen, which
should not be overheated, with from ten to fifteen thicknesses, while the
shoulders and limbs are often covered with but one thickness, and that of
cotton.
5. The high-heeled shoes which throw the body out of the natural poise,
and so displace the womb.
6. The general lack of thought of what dress should be in order to give
health and comfort to its wearers.
“Evil is wrought by want of thought
As well as by want of heart.”
Our young wives should know these evils, and institute a crusade against
them, so strong and forcible, that intelligent common sense shall govern
in dress, and health and happiness be the blessed results, in the home.
CHAPTER III.
HEALTH OF THE YOUNG WIFE.
Health Insures Happiness.—Be Ambitious for Health.—The Scarcity
of Perfectly Healthy Women.—Fashion to the Rescue.—The Boon
of Health.—Necessity of Ventilation and Fresh Air.—Duties to
the Home.—The Greatness of Woman’s Sphere.—In the Society
Drift.—The Extreme of Wholly Avoiding Society.—Keeping in
the Middle of the Road.—Pleasures and Recreations Taken
Together.—Taking Time to Keep Young.—Mistakes Which Some
Husbands Make.—Wrecks at the Beginning of Married Life.
To be a successful home-maker, the young wife must be well and know how
to conserve her health. While the husband may be patience itself yet
an invalid in the home, and that invalid the home-maker, is a serious
drawback to happiness.
Sir James Paget, in a lecture on national health, says, “We want more
ambition for health. I should like to see a personal ambition for health
as keen as that for bravery, for beauty, or for success in our athletic
games or field sports. I wish there were such an ambition for the most
perfect national health, as there is for national renown in war, in art,
or in commerce.”
“All women ought to know that invalidism, speaking generally—there are,
of course, exceptions to this rule,—is a carefully cultivated condition,
quite as truly as the magnificent condition of the prize-fighter, the
race-horse or the gymnast.”
It has become a rare thing, to-day, to find a woman who counts herself
_perfectly_ healthy. Is it possible that womankind has become so
susceptible to influence, that she imagines herself ill when she is not?
We are more or less creatures of imitation, and yield to the force of our
surroundings without a murmur. More than this, we must admit that among
the many a semi-invalidism is considered genteel and attractive. True, in
the last few years we have made some effort to rise above this, and a few
have succeeded.
Even Dame Fashion herself has started a line of reforms that we trust
will continue popular, until they have become fixtures. Short skirts,
heavy shoes, natural waists are sought by a fairly large number to-day;
but we dare not prophesy what would be the result did another turn of the
wheel of fashion decree otherwise. The agitation must be increased until
no backward step is possible along these lines, and until our daughters
will desire comfort and healthfulness in dress, rather than fashion, and
its frequent result, disease.
It is not enough that you as a wife, come to your marriage with good
health, but that you do all in your power to conserve it in the days
and months thereafter. It is safe to say, if from principle and wise
judgment you learn in the new relations during the first year, how best
to preserve and conserve your strength, you will carry this knowledge and
practice with you through life.
First you must consider health a priceless boon, before you lose it.
In the new relations fix your habits of exercise and recreation
carefully, and adhere to them. Learn how to rest, before you have reached
the point nervously where rest is impossible. Do not presume too much
upon your splendid health, and overdo daily. Stop before you have reached
the limit of your strength.
If you have not learned about the necessity of good ventilation in the
home, learn it at once, and let in daily the fresh, pure, life-giving
sunshine and fresh air, room-fulls of it. Do not be afraid of adding to
the fuel bill, for warm air charged with poison will heat less easily
than pure, cold air which invites the warmth. Have plenty of fresh
air in your sleeping rooms, for it is quite necessary to your rising
clear-brained and sweet-tempered; and never forget that you will be
largely responsible for the mental and moral atmosphere of the home.
Be careful and guarded as to your society demands, lest they steal your
time and strength, and you be unfitted for the real duties of your home.
Home _must_ hereafter _always_ be to you first and foremost in your heart
and duty, if you fill your position truly.
Be not misled by the false philosophy of the day, that tends in many
instances to underrate the home and its high blessedness in the life of
woman.
An Eastern proverb tells us that, “The house rests upon the mother.” Just
as soon as you take upon yourself the vows that make you wife, you become
the mother of a home. Whether children ever come to bless it or not, you
are its mother. Yet few women appreciate the importance or power of this
position. With the grain of truth there is in it, there is a great deal
of wasteful talk about woman, and her narrow sphere. Even though she be
tied to the home and the little ones, yet her sphere is just as wide as
she has a mind to make it. Four walls cannot shut in a large-hearted,
loving woman. From the home blessed by her presence goes out a stream of
mighty influence.
Put into a woman’s sphere all the depth and sweetness, and wisdom, and
comfort, that the words, love, home, mother and children comprehend,
and dare to call her sphere narrow if you will! To me it is so wide
that I have seen few women who make themselves large enough to fill it,
and these few are not found among those who talk of its narrowness and
drudgery. The light of the home, the beacon for the husband, the teacher
and guide for little feet, the sharer in all the secrets and joys, the
consoler in all sorrows—how do the little annoyances and patience-trying
cares dwindle into insignificance, when compared with these. What in
public life can win her from a life like this, if she have it to do?
Thoughtlessly many young wives get into the society drift before they
know it, and their best strength is wasted, and they are laying the
foundations for a young old age. Nervously overwrought, hysteria comes in
with its train of multitudinous ills, and destroys both her comfort and
that of the home.
On the other hand do not go to the opposite extreme, which many young
people in the first days of their married happiness selfishly fall into,
namely, avoiding society altogether. Once out of the pleasant, social
round of friends it is hard to regain your lost footing, and you fret
under it that your old friends are so cold and indifferent.
“Keep to the middle of the road,” in these things, and you will hold your
youth and friends, and make a home that it is good to go into. As far
as possible take your pleasures and recreations together. Plan for each
other in this, and see how it keeps the sweetness in life.
A fresh, bright, young looking neighbor called on me a few days ago,
and when, during our conversation, she spoke of her age as forty-two, I
was amazed, and said: “I should never have thought you were more than
thirty-five.”
“I have kept young,” she replied, “and I know how. If there has ever been
pleasure taken in our family, it is always planned for when I can enjoy
it. In the evening when the cares of the day are over, or when I can get
away from the cares at other times.” She has five splendid children, and
the promise of a sixth. She does the larger part of her home work, and
yet takes time to keep young.
It rests with you largely, young wives, during the first years of your
lives together to fix the habits of our home in the duties of rest and
recreation. Have firm principles about these matters and insist lovingly
upon them.
And now a word upon a more delicate question, but one which has much
to do with settling and perfecting all the others, or spoiling your
happiness almost irremediably. Many a marriage which otherwise would have
been happy, is wrecked in the first days of the honeymoon.
Frightened and timid, and filled with a vague unrest at the mysteries
of marriage which await their revelation, you place your destiny in the
keeping of your husband, for wedded happiness or wedded woe. Whispers
and covert suggestions of the unwise ones about you, as they allude to
the life you are coming to, have given you this unrest, and it remains
for the husband, by his loving considerateness to win you away from
fearfulness to a sure confidence in himself.
Many otherwise kind men have become possessed with the thought that every
right is theirs immediately; and in their inconsiderate, rapacious
passion, in the speedy consummation of marriage, at whatever cost of pain
or wounded feeling on the part of her whom they have taken to love and
honor, they well nigh wreck the after happiness of both in the first days
of their united lives.
Husband beware of the wrong of committing a veritable outrage upon the
person of her whom God has given you as your companion, and suffering
ever after the stings of remorse, that she never again can feel the same
respect and love for you that she could, had you been more considerate of
her feelings and desires.
It will be difficult for her to be persuaded that the animal nature
does not control and dominate your love for her, rather than the higher
instincts of the soul.
It would be far better for every prospective bride if she suspects that
the man who is to be her husband has not been informed in these things in
a wholesome way, either herself, or through the intervention of a friend
to put into his hands books that will teach him wisely and well these
things upon which so much of his happiness depends.
I wish it were binding upon every young man before he stands at the
marriage altar, to read carefully and painstakingly Dr. Stall’s books
for young men and young husbands. With the earnest words and teachings
of these books ringing in their hearts they could hardly live careless
lives, or make the mistakes which, in ignorance of the great truths he
inculcates, they might otherwise do.
CHAPTER IV.
THE CHOICE OF A HUSBAND.
Higher Standards are Being set up in the Choice of a
Husband.—Should be Worthy of both Love and Respect.—Love
Likely to Idealize the Man.—The Real Characteristics
Necessary.—Deficiencies in Character not to be Supplied After
Marriage.—The Right to Demand Purity.—Young Men Who “Sow Wild
Oats.”—Importance of Good Health.—Weaknesses and Diseases Which
Descend from Parents to Children.—The Parents’ Part in Aiding
to a Wise Choice.—The Value of the Physician’s Counsel.—One
Capable of Supporting Wife and Children.—A Dutiful Son Makes
a Good Husband.—Essential Requisites Enumerated.—The Father
Reproduced in His Children.—The Equivalents Which the Wife
Should bring to her Husband.
“Each generation of young men and women comes to the formation
of sex union with higher and higher demands for a true
marriage, with ever growing needs for companionship. Each
generation of men and women need and ask more of each other.
A woman is no longer content to have a ‘kind husband’: a man
is no longer content to have a patient Griselda.”—CHARLOTTE
PERKINS STETSON.
“Who weds for love alone may not be wise:
Who weds without it angels must despise.
Love and respect together must combine,
To render marriage holy and divine:
And lack of either, sure as fate, destroys
Continuation of the nuptial joys,
And brings regret and gloomy discontent
To put to rout each tender sentiment.”—ELLA WHEELER WILCOX.
What shall be the ruling characteristics of the man I shall marry? is
the question that every young girl has answered long before she may be
conscious of it herself. As one and another of her acquaintances marry,
she mentally concludes that this and that trait which the new bridegroom
possesses, would not do at all were she the bride. And so year after year
the mental, moral, and physical make-up of the man she is to choose,
grows into completeness, as this imaginary being is shaped to her liking.
James Lane Allen says truly, “Ideals are of two kinds. There are those
that correspond to our highest sense of perfection. They express what we
might be were life, the world, ourselves, all different and better. Such
ideals are like lighthouses; but like lighthouses are not made to live
in, but for beacons. Neither can we live in such ideals. But there are
ideals of another sort. It is these that are to burn for us, not like
lighthouses in the distance, but like candles in our hands to light each
step of the way.”
When you began to love you began to idealize the man you loved, and the
danger is with most women, that the ideal is so near perfection that the
reality brings to them a rude and dangerous awakening. Dangerous, because
they allow the ideal to usurp the place which belongs to the real, and
because all the way along they are comparing the real in lover and
husband, with the ideal.
Therefore, dear, remember that you are human, and since the real, not the
ideal matches your human nature, expect the man who chooses you, and whom
you choose, to be human also.
But there are certain characteristics, certain soul-possessions, that
every young woman, if she herself be really fitted for matrimony, has a
right to expect; nay more, to demand, of the man she chooses. Discovering
that these are lacking, let her not cheat herself with the belief that
she can, after marriage, school him in these missing qualities until they
are fixed traits, for the rule does not read that way. The time for easy
implantation of fixed characteristics is gone, and whatever is now taken
on, is apt to set uneasily. What sins and gross faults are coaxed down
after marriage are very apt to leave glaring scars, both in the husband’s
character and in the wife’s soul.
The wife has a right to expect that the man she marries shall be as
pure as herself, and she has a right to know it. How can she know it?
If she cannot devise a way to know this for a certainty, as she values
her happiness, let her take no step further. Better by far, single
blessedness, than marriage with a moral leper.
That many of the young men who move in so-called first-class society,
are moral lepers, is as true as lamentable. The complacency with which
so many parents have said, with an assumed sigh, “Young men must sow
their wild oats,” has prepared the soil for this waywardness to thrive
in, and the condoning which such sins receive when found in young men,
has cultivated the contagiousness until its prevalence is alarming in the
extreme.
Let her beware that she choose not her husband, through sentiment alone.
Sentiment is an unwise guide and always purblind.
Should health be a consideration in choosing a husband? Most assuredly.
Were the fortunes of none of the human family, save yourselves, affected
by your choice, it would make less difference; but while with this
generation lies in large measure the health and happiness of the next,
the question of health in matrimony is one of great importance.
When it is no longer a disputed question that consumption, cancer,
scrofula, insanity, and a host of lesser ills, are transmitted from
generation to generation, any thoughtful young woman will consider her
responsibility in the matter in question. If you have the spirit of
the martyrs in you, and are prepared to give your life to nursing your
husband and children, even this self-abnegation will not atone for the
wrong of thrusting upon the world more degenerates.
You would need to trace the history of only one such family through a few
generations, to note the mental, moral and physical degeneration, which
results from the union of invalids. Even where but one of the parents is
unhealthy, it is a sad part of the law of heredity, that the children
more often follow the weaker parent, rather than the stronger.
Dr. Guernsey, a well-known medical writer, says: “Young men marrying with
the slightest taint of syphilis in the blood, will surely transmit the
disease to their children. Beside this, thousands of abortions transpire
every year from this cause alone, the poison being so destructive as to
kill the child in-utero, before it is matured for birth; and even if the
child is born alive, it is liable to break down with the most loathsome
disorders, and to die during dentition. The few that survive this period
are short-lived and unhealthy so long as they do live.”
Knowing this, is it not true that too much has been said derogatory to
the parents having part in choosing their children’s companions in life?
If in anything the parents’ opinion is of consequence, it is here where
the life happiness and usefulness of their children are concerned. But
the wisdom of the parents must be used in the early days of acquaintance,
before the attachment has blossomed into sentimental love. Then the
wisdom is interposed too late.
In discovering the character of your daughter’s associates, the family
physician should be a valuable assistant. If he be a friend, as well as
physician, he will gladly come to your aid.
“A striking indication of the spreading uneasiness, in regard to
marriage, is given in a bill recently introduced into the Ohio
legislature, whereby it was proposed that all candidates for marital
union should be required to undergo examination, and marriage be
forbidden to such persons as shall be believed, through actual condition
or hereditary tendencies, to be unfit for the function of parentage.”
Our daughters have a right to consider the prospect of a comfortable
support. The man who has not already accumulated sufficient to support
two, or who has not in his business relations a sure promise of such
ability, has no right to ask any woman to join her fortunes with
his. Love which will grow and strengthen in poverty, is beautiful in
sentiment, but the poverty which nourishes such love is not the poverty
which one marries into, but into which they are dragged by circumstances
beyond the husband’s control.
It has been well said, that the young man who is a good son and brother
will be a good husband; therefore it would be wise to accept an
invitation to visit in the home of the one who seeks you as his mate.
Mark well the consideration with which he treats his mother and sisters,
his father and brothers, and judge whether it is assumed or natural. If
he is one who demands much waiting upon at home, be sure he will expect
the same service of you; and if you are not prepared to give it, or are
not perfectly sure you can reform him in this respect, call a halt, and
give frankly your reasons for saying no to his proposal. The leisure for
repentance is far more wisely chosen before, than after marriage.
Finally in the choice of a husband, the young woman should consider
earnestly, whether she would like this man to be reproduced in her
children. Whether he has the tenderness, the good judgment, the wise
forethought, the patience, the forbearance, the authority, the nobility
of character which will make him worthy the respect of wife and children.
Honor, truth, courage, daring,—properly restrained,—purity, strength,
ability to plan and achieve; authority, not stubborn, but based upon
ability and power; wise judgment, and the unobtrusive use of it, are the
qualities which woman desires, and rightly in the man she loves. While,
in return she must bring to him as crowning qualities, or she has not
dealt fairly, honor for honor, truth for truth, courage for courage,
endurance for strength—in short faculty for faculty, not always the same,
but an equivalent.
CHAPTER V.
WHAT SHALL A YOUNG WIFE EXPECT TO BE TO HER HUSBAND?
The Young Wife Should Seek to be Her Husband’s Equal, but not
His Counterpart.—The Recognized Centre of the Home.—Woman’s
True Greatness.—Man’s Helpmeet.—Mrs. Gladstone’s Part in Her
Husband’s Greatness.—Should Attract Her Husband from the
Club to the Home.—Continuing to be Attractive in Dress and
Manners.—Should Accept both Wifehood and Motherhood.—Should
Keep Pace with His Mental Growth.—Guarding Against Improper
Use of Literary Clubs, Reading Circles, etc.—Solomon’s Picture
of the Model Young Wife.—A Converted Heathen’s Estimate of His
Christian Wife.
“This is woman’s mission, more important than generation
even—to renew the heart of man.—Protected and nourished by man,
she in turn nourishes him with love.”—JULES MICHELET.
“The primal marriage was founded on instinct—a purely animal
attribute. As humanity developed and language grew, instinct
became transformed into love. To-day with the great proportion
of the human family, marriage has ceased to be a nature-guided
compact between the sexes, and has become a sordid
money-soiled, commercial venture. Men and women are taught from
infancy, that one of the chief aims of life is to marry ‘well,’
not ‘wisely.’”—JOHN R. STEPHENSON.
What shall the young wife expect to be to her husband? First his equal,
but not his counterpart; his complement, not his synonym. As long as the
world stands, woman must have her definite and specific work in it. So
long as the home exists woman will be its recognized centre.
A true woman would hardly care to exchange her delicate instinct, her
deftness of finger, her versatile mind—which enables her to do the many
little and great things in our everyday home-life equally well—her quick
perception, her motherly all-aroundness, her sweet womanly loveliness,
for any other marketable thing, or any other characteristic or capability
attained by culture or training. A true woman is a woman, and she does
not desire to be anything else, unless she can add it to her womanliness.
If by force of circumstances she be driven out into the world to buy or
sell, to scheme or plan for self or family support, she need not lose
her womanly tenderness and attractiveness, nor need she barter these
for a right to stand in any position which she can fill well and with
propriety.
She must needs, as she contemplates marriage, expect to be to the man she
chooses, all that he lacks to make the two-in-one life a completed whole.
If she have not the courage to attempt, and the purpose to accomplish
this, she has no business to consider for a moment the marriage
proposition. While similarity of tastes has much to do with happy mating,
complementary accomplishments have also a large share in the true union
of two lives.
The woman must not only be desirous of knowing about her husband’s
business, but should also seek to be capable of understanding and
counselling in it. In perplexity, in trial, in prosperity, she should
stand by his side, to advise, to comfort, to rejoice with him.
There is a great deal of suggestiveness and significance in the estimate
the Maker put upon the first wife created; namely, “an helpmeet for him,”
that is, “suitable for him.” Nothing less than this should every woman
be, if she is to fulfill the highest purpose of marriage.
Some one has said, “The conspicuous fact in Mrs. Gladstone’s life, is
that she was the helper and fellow-worker with her husband. What he did
was largely possible because she made it so. She not merely lightened his
cares; she removed them. She was the first and greatest of those women,
who in our times have identified their own career and fame with those of
their husband’s. She showed that no career of the modern woman is more
important than that of wifehood, motherhood, and the builder of a home:
yet she proved that public life and civic service, can be made sweet and
strong, only as the influence of a noble woman is permeating its spirit.
Mr. Gladstone’s public life was celebrated for its purity and lofty
quality, and in Mrs. Gladstone’s devotion and affection we can see the
secret of this.”
Every young wife should be a good home-maker. An Eastern proverb says:
“The wife is the household.” And the Japanese say, “The house rests upon
the mother.” O woman! guard your treasure sacredly, this most priceless
marriage gift, the title and blessing of home-keeper. She should make the
home so attractive that no club can win him away from it in his leisure
hours. She should make it, not only a haven of rest for him, but a place
for delightful entertainment of his friends at all suitable times.
However, the thoughtful husband will not invite his friends to his home,
as a rule, without a word sent to his wife, that she may make any little
needed preparation, and so be her happiest self with the guests.
I remember the advice an aged minister gave to a bride on her wedding
day. “My dear, be always so hospitable that no guest shall leave your
home with other than feelings of delight.” She followed this advice to
the letter and many times when busy with the cares of the home, she was
interrupted by the advent of an unexpected guest, I have watched with
interest the hearty welcome she gave them, and the real gladness she put
into their lives by her true hospitality.
The young wife should take not less, but more pains to make herself as
attractive after as before marriage. A soiled ribbon, an untidy toilet,
may seem trifling things, but they tell much of the esteem in which she
holds her husband and her home. Not less but more care is needed to
retain the love and respect of the man of her choice, than to win it. The
pretty dress, the color of the ribbon, the manner of dressing the hair,
are not affected, but chosen deliberately because she knows they are
pleasing to him.
She should be the willing mother of his children. Marriage comprehends
not only wifehood, but motherhood. To-day this is hardly believed by the
many, and we may well mourn it as fatal, not only to the future of the
American race, but to the best and highest interests of the home.
She should seek to keep pace with him in his mental growth, and never for
a moment think that she is advancing his highest interests when she is
denying herself that which would contribute to her development in order
that he may advance. The marriage contract is not so one-sided a matter
as this. Everything is for the interests of both, not one alone. There is
something heroically pathetic in the story of Nasby’s _Hannah Jane_, but
something perniciously unjust and blameworthy as well. Many a divorce has
come from such blind neglect of self, that the interests of the husband
may be advanced. “Incompatibility,” is the plea, a word full of tears,
when discovered after years of married life.
The thoughtful husband will never allow such self-abnegation on the
part of the wife. What he reads, she should read; and if she have
not the time, he should read it aloud, while her hands are busy with
the household cares. I remember well hearing Mrs. Livermore say,
that she had her husband to thank for much of her mental growth, and
varied information. “He was determined,” she said, “that I should read
everything that he read; and many times in our little parsonage in a
western state, when I was busied about the work of the home, he would
come out into the kitchen, heated as hot as the fiery furnace, and read
to me the book he was enjoying.”
In the line of intellectual development there is a danger that must be
guarded against. In this day of literary clubs and reading circles, the
ambition to excel and keep pace with other women in mental culture, will
prove a snare if not guarded against.
All that the wife can do in outside work, while not neglecting the
higher duties of home and heart, will only freshen and brighten her for
companionship, and give her glimpses, yes, extended views, of the world
and its doings, that will serve to broaden her horizon, and bring her in
closer touch with her husband in his wrestlings with the affairs of life.
The words of the wise man are not obsolete, and are as timely to-day as
when written. “Who can find a virtuous woman? for her price is far above
rubies. The heart of her husband doth safely trust in her, so that he
shall have no need of spoil. She will do him good and not evil all the
days of her life. Strength and honor are her clothing; and she shall
rejoice in time to come. She openeth her mouth with wisdom, and in her
tongue is the law of kindness; she looketh to the ways of her household,
and eateth not the bread of idleness. Her children arise up and call her
blessed, her husband also, and he praiseth her. Many daughters have done
virtuously, but thou excelleth them all.”
A converted heathen said of his wife, “I do thank God for my Christian
wife. She has been such a help to me. I nearly always take her advice. In
fact I may just as well tell you that I always take it, she is so wise.”
CHAPTER VI.
TROUSSEAU AND WEDDING PRESENTS.
Husband and Wife Ruined before Their “Crane is
Hung.”—The Foolish and Ruinous Display at Weddings.—An
Illustration Given.—How Wedding Presents Lead to Debt and
Unhappiness.—Living Does not Need much Machinery.—Mistake
of Copying after People of Large Wealth.—Wise Choice of
Furniture.—The best Adornments for the Home.—The Trousseaux of
our Foremothers.—The Need of Simplicity.—Artificialities That
make a Veil between our Souls and God.
“Be not vain, oh my soul, and suffer not the din of thy vanity
to deafen the ears of thy heart.”—AUGUSTINE.
“It is possible so to complicate the machinery of living that
the very life itself is crushed among the wheels. We may wrap
ourselves so in comfort until our breath is smothered in the
folds. The man whose wants are few is the man most likely to be
found carrying a light heart.”—W. R. HUNTINGTON.
Many young married people are ruined before their “crane is hung.” Ruined
through the false vanity engendered by the foolish display made in their
attempt to follow the fashion in the preparations for the wedding, and
their start in life.
This could not be better illustrated than by an article in _The Ladies’
Home Journal_, which I quote in full. While this does not typify all
grades of society, yet the same spirit of show and vanity permeates all.
“A little woman who lives in one of the interminable rows of cheap,
turreted, showy houses, came to me a few days ago, pale with anxiety.
‘Kitty,’ she said, ‘is going to be married to young Holt, who is a
salesman in one of the department stores, and I’m sure I don’t know how
we are to raise money for a wedding breakfast and a full choir.’
“Kitty’s father is also a salesman on thirty dollars a week, and there
are four other girls. Oh, the scrimping and saving that have gone on in
that house to turn out Kitty and her sisters fashionably clothed. The
cheap cuts of meat, the rancid butter, the beds without blankets, the
stoves without coal, and the unpaid creditors, scowling out of every shop
in the neighborhood when the old man passes by. He toils six days every
week, early and late without complaining, and his wife spends his wages
for, as she thinks, the best interests of his girls.
“‘White satin, even the sleaziest, has gone up to a frightful price,’
she moaned, ‘and I dare not count what the wedding breakfast will cost.’
“When I asked why there must be a wedding breakfast and a full choir, she
said, that every bride in their set had had both this summer, and what
would the Holts think if Kitty came creeping like a pauper into their
family? ‘The Holts,’ she assured me, ‘are high-flyers. No indeed: there
shall be nothing half cut in any way about Kitty’s wedding.’
“The wedding breakfast is served and Kitty, (or Kathryn as she calls
herself), is married in the white satin. She begins life in a showy,
tiny house, chiefly furnished with her wedding presents. She has no
comfortable underclothing or bedding, and not a dollar in her pocket. But
Kathryn has her ‘receiving days,’ and is careful to order her cakes and
café frappé from the caterer who is patronized by the millionaire who
employs her husband.”
Not what would we like, and what can we afford? but, “What do other
people do, and what would they think did we do otherwise?”—is the
sentiment which controls the preparation of the young people, in all
grades of society, in their beginning life together. How refreshing to
find occasionally a father and mother who care little what “they say,”
and who equip their daughters as becomes their station in life, and their
means, regardless of what others about them are doing.
Wedding presents are a happy reminder of a happy occasion, but they often
prove a snare in the demand for surroundings that are beyond the means
of the recipients. “These are such very pretty and nice things that we
really must have pretty things to go with them,” is the thought of the
young people, and in setting up much more is spent than they can afford,
and they are handicapped by debt, and harassed by worry at the outset;
and what should be the happiest and most care-free time of their life is
spoiled by this hydra-headed intruder, debt.
It is but a repetition of the old story of the good woman, who must
have a new pair of andirons. When they were set up in the best room in
all their shiny newness, a new carpet was a thing of necessity. This
was followed by new chairs to keep countenance with the carpet; then
curtains, walls and all must be transformed and little wonder that the
good man was appalled at the cost of one pair of inoffensive andirons.
“Living does not really need so much machinery,” is a trite and true
sentiment. Oh for a blessed contentment that will make us happy with that
which we can with propriety have.
The trouble begins, but does not end, with the trousseau of the bride. If
the means of both parties are moderate, why attempt to copy the style and
quantity of those who are not obliged to count their dollars? A simple
substantial outfit, with nothing that shall not be useful, and suited to
the surroundings and station of the bride and groom, is an evidence of
good sense and commendable taste.
Some one has said wisely, “There are no real distinctions among us, and
there cannot be unless we change our republic into a monarchy. Rank is a
real possession of the Englishmen, but we do not own it and never did,
and in trying to set up a sham, pinchbeck imitation of it, we are losing
the solid strength and repose and wealth out of our lives.”
When the bridal trousseau is wisely chosen, the home will be furnished
with like taste and wisdom. The furniture that is really needed, and
that of the best, dresses the house far more elegantly than can a
vulgar profusion of showy articles. Tinsel bric-a-brac, cheap cushions
and tidies and bed-coverings proclaim the uncultured taste of the
home-keeper. Strong honest denim is far more elegant than sleazy satin
for sofa pillows, and has this virtue, that it can be easily made as good
as new by washing. No hangings at all are better than cheap hangings at
windows and doors, unless they are of an honest cheapness that soap and
water will not spoil, but make as good as new.
Our foremothers came to their wedding day supplied with chests filled
with plain durable linen, of their own weaving and fashioning, bed-linen
and quilts and spreads in substantial profusion; but with little in the
line of showy outside dress; and their whole after lives were but the
expression of the wisdom and good judgment of their beginning.
“The crying need of many of us to-day, is not for more, but less. We have
too much, so that our lives are robbed of all simplicity. We are choked
by our possessions, as the Roman maiden by the golden bracelets for which
she betrayed the city.
“Our artificialities make a veil between our souls and God. We have not
mastered them, but they have mastered us.”
CHAPTER VII.
THE MARITAL RELATIONS.
The Subject Approached With Reluctance.—The Marital State
Should be the Most Sacred of Sanctuaries.—Wrongly Interpreted
it is the Abode of Darkness and Sin.—Its Influence for Good or
Evil upon Character.—Responsibility of Mothers for the Unhappy
Lives of Their Daughters.—Commercial Marriages.—Marriage as
it Should be.—The Husband’s Danger from “Aggressiveness.”—The
Wife Should not Provoke the Wrongs She Suffers.—Marital
Modesty.—Parenthood the Justification of the Marital
Act.—Reproduction the Primal Purpose.—Harmony of Purpose and
Life.—Love’s Highest Plane.—The Value of Continence.—The Right
and Wrong of Marriage.—The Relation During Gestation.—Effects
of Relation During Gestation Illustrated.—The Wrongdoings of
Good Men.—The Fruits of Ignorance.—The Better Day Coming.
We approach this chapter with a degree of reluctance, because of
the varying opinions entertained by many good people, and because
of the false notions which have crept into the conception of its
responsibilities, its duties, its privileges, its rights, and its wrongs.
When the marital state is entered in the spirit of Him who ordained
it, no sanctuary is more sacred; when entered in the misconception of
many men and women of modern times, no relation is more of the abode of
darkness and sin.
Rightly interpreted, and its privileges not abused, its influence upon
the individual and united lives, is second to none for the development
of strong noble character. Wrongly interpreted, and its liberties used
as a license for unbridled desire, while the great object for which the
relation was instituted is not only not recognized, but by every means
avoided and abused, it becomes a snare and degradation to the nobler
instincts and aspirations, and lets in a legion of evil spirits which
lead farther and farther away from truth and righteousness.
When the marriage state is entered with the fixed determination to avoid
parenthood, while giving rein to lust, can we wonder at the looseness
of character developed and the deadening of conscience to all sin? And
what have been the causes which have led up to this state of things?
False notions of life, low ideas of happiness, lack of individuality
and self-assertion where principle is concerned, leaving God out of
the question of marriage, and vain, untaught mothers—these are the
influences which have caused this state of things.
A late writer of a magazine article has said “If the recording angel
is still keeping account of human things, there are crimes going on
record constantly against women, and among the blackest of these are the
millions of sins chalked down against mothers who are guilty of teaching
this degrading error to their daughters, that the gewgaws of fashion,
the luxury of a city home, is the price for their daughter’s body, soul,
honor, health and happiness. Alas! the only happiness these modern girls,
raised for the matrimonial market, know, is found in the few years of
innocence while they are still in the nursery. And the remedy for this
evil, is there none? There is none in law or virtue, for those who have
sold their womanhood for a mess of pottage. But the young may be spared.
Teach your daughters, mothers, that happiness and health for themselves,
and strong bodies for their offspring, are what should be dearest to a
woman; that they are more to be valued than all the riches of Golconda;
that marriage should be guided by nature, not commercialism. And, young
women, be true to yourselves. Seek happiness and joy where they may
be found. Be true to yourself, and loyal to your own womanhood. Don’t
believe that love is old-fashioned or obsolete. It is eternal. It is
nature’s finger pointing the way to marriage that will always be happy.”
No life can be imagined more miserable, when the first glamour is worn
off, no matter how much of wealth and position and social standing is
thrown in, than a loveless marriage. Every responsibility becomes a hard
fact, every duty an unrequited labor, every privilege, at least to one of
the contracting parties, an unwelcome and nauseous gratification, life
itself a burden.
How different when love smooths the way, and finds excuse for every
trifling inconsistency; when sorrows are shared, not doubled, when rights
are respected, when home means wife, husband, children, happiness, with
God over all.
But we will put aside all the sad pictures and think of marriage as it
should be, and then measure its responsibilities. Hitherto you have,
since your majority, in large measure sought your own pleasure; now you
have the pleasure of another to seek; and you do it gladly. Not what is
best for you alone, but what is best for you two united in making a
home, in adding to the strength of both in the united life.
Much has been said, in these later days, derogatory to the clause in our
older marriage ceremonies which promises obedience. In true marriages
there is no thought of obedience or disobedience. Each seeks willingly
the opinions and wishes of the other, and, so far as possible and best,
follows them; but there must be no arbitrary wilfulness on the part
of either, and each must acknowledge the individuality of the other
and respect the differences of opinion. A ready yielding of trifling
differences is a small price to pay for conjugal harmony, and every time
it is done it adds loveliness to the one who yields.
In a late number of _The Ladies’ Home Journal_, Mrs. Burton Kingsland
says, “A readiness to give up in little things is the most tactful appeal
possible for a return of courtesy, at other times when the matter may
be of importance to us. It is a high attainment in politeness to allow
others to be mistaken. Let a trifling misstatement pass unnoticed where
no principle is involved, and when a mistake is past remedy, it is best
to let the subject drop. The argument of the ‘I told you so’ character is
always quite superfluous.”
In no relation of life is self-control so needed, in no relation can it
be so subservient to our higher nature.
In the aggressive part of the human family,—aggressive in these
relations,—there is great danger of allowing the lower nature to dominate
the higher. Passion, when master, overrides all other considerations,
and the selfishness, which is so dangerous a part of human nature,
sees but one thing,—the accomplishment of desire. No thought of the
possible results hinders him, and while nothing is hazarded on his part,
everything on hers—even this for the moment is forgotten; and afterward
he may well wonder how his better self was so lost to the tender
sympathetic love and consideration in which he should always hold her.
Be guarded, O husband! It is woman’s nature to forgive, and when she
loves, this impetuosity of passion uncontrolled, can be many times
forgiven. Aye, even when too frequent maternity is thrust upon her; but
there comes a time when love and forgiveness have reached their limit,
and love struggles vainly to rise above disgust and loathing, but it can
never again attain to anything but tolerance.
But the wife is not always guiltless, when this sad state of things
has resulted, in what should have been a happy married life. While
the husband is the aggressive one, yet she may, by many little
carelessnesses, and thoughtless acts, invite attentions which she
afterward repels. The womanly modesty which characterized her girlhood,
should always be preserved and observed; and this innate dignity, this
strongly asserted individuality, will tide them gloriously over many hard
places.
The custom in many English homes of each having a room, which is
peculiarly one’s own, may seem to our freedom-loving natures, a cold
custom; but is not this better when a proper self-control seems
difficult, than a freedom which degenerates into license? True, the door
between these two rooms should seldom be shut, but the fact that there
are two rooms relieves of many temptations, and prevents the familiarity,
which even in married life, breeds contempt.
There is a wise Eastern proverb which fits very beautifully here. “To
satisfy the appetite is not always good. This will the beasts do whenever
they find provender. Man alone can say to himself, thou shalt fast,
because I have willed it. Appetite thus conquered, maketh man king over
beasts; thus is he set apart from them, and so do his thoughts soar
above the earth, even unto the region of the heavens.”
Every young person should be taught before marriage, that the closest
conjugal relation should never be allowed without a _willingness_ on the
part of both that pregnancy should follow. Of course this does _not_
always follow; but allowed with the fear, the dread, the unwillingness
that it may result, it becomes a positive sin. This may seem strong meat,
which almost borders on fanaticism, to some; but we are sure when it is
considered in the light of the primal object of the marriage relation,
it will not be thought fanatical. The very fact that conception may
result at any time, proves that the conjugal relation was not instituted
primarily for the gratification of the lower nature, but for procreation.
I trust I will not be misunderstood, in my statements upon this subject,
for in writing upon so delicate a theme as this it is very difficult
to make one’s self understood by all. If all will read _carefully_ the
statement I have just made, I think they will have no great difficulty in
seeing the ground I take, and which I believe is held by all fair-minded
people, namely: That while God ordained the marriage relation primarily,
for the purpose of the perpetuity of the human race, as his first
command to the pair in Eden would indicate, “Be fruitful, and multiply,
and replenish the earth.” Yet this is to be taken with all that is
comprehended in the terms, home, husband, and wife.
Therefore when I say, that every young person should be taught before
marriage, that the closest conjugal relation should never be allowed,
without a willingness on the part of both that pregnancy should follow, I
mean simply what I hope I shall make clear throughout my book; that there
shall be no pandering to sexual indulgence, while there is unwillingness
to bear as many children, as a proper manly and womanly Christian
temperance in these things will allow.
To fix an absolute rule of practice in these things, and consider it
binding upon all, would be going out of my province, and the province
of this book. In this, each pair must be judges for themselves: but
there needs must be, behind all their thoughts upon this subject, right
conceptions upon the holy relation they have entered into.
With the above rule fixed, no other limitations, or restrictions need be
made. Everything will adjust itself to this rule, and harmony and mutual
respect will be engendered.
Fix also the fact that the marriage relation is not one of license,
but of liberty—liberty for both equally. Not liberty for one, and the
grossest bondage for the other. Nowhere does the wife’s opinion deserve
greater respect and tolerance than here. Nowhere should her negative be
so willingly accepted.
There is a higher plane of loving and living than the sexual nature
furnishes. This has, we doubt not, been proven to most married people
during those weeks and months when continence has been necessary. Then
why should this overmaster other and higher considerations?
That many marriages are little better than licensed prostitution, seems
a hard thing to say; but when the lower nature is petted and indulged
at the expense of the higher, it is a just thing to say, however harsh
it may seem. In such cases the higher nature becomes more and more
dwarfed, the animal nature more and more dominant. Let the husband learn
the sweetness of conquest, in the love he bears his wife, in the tender
consideration for her comfort and wishes.
There is a vast amount of vital force used in the production and
expenditure of the seminal fluid. Wasted as the incontinence of so many
lives allows it to be, and prostituted to the simple gratification of
fleshly desire, it weakens and depraves. Conserved as legitimate control
demands it to be, it adds so much, and more to the mental and moral force
of the man, because it lifts him to a higher plane of being, and gives to
the mental and moral the vital force otherwise wasted.
Rightly conceived and lived, the marriage relation rounds out and
completes character as nothing else can. It gives ample room for the
cultivation of all the gifts and graces, it discourages selfishness, it
mellows and softens and beautifies the individual, and gives a broader
outlook on life. Wrongly conceived and lived, its results are the
opposite. It narrows the life and takes all the sweetness out of it. And
the products of loveless marriages, what of them? How can the children of
such parents be other than disinherited from birth? Out of their lives
has gone the sweetness and tender loveliness that comes of true mating,
true living.
The world is full of dwarfed minds and bodies, dwarfed by their loveless
and unwilling conception; paranoiacs, cranks, feeble-minded, idiotic,
epileptic, diseased children, for whom their parents are in great
measure responsible. And this state of things will obtain just as long as
marriage is made a marketable thing, and not the heart union of two lives.
I am well aware that many writers do not agree with me in these stronger
sentiments, but studying the question in the light of creative purpose I
feel certain the arguments in favor of unbridled license in these things
cannot be justified.
Further, there are times when by common consent there should be no
amorous approaches made to the wife, and when none should be invited.
Study the question as I will, I can see no law or reason which
justifies the husband in approaching the wife for the purpose of sexual
gratification, at any time during pregnancy. It cannot but be a drain
upon the strength of the wife, and certainly can have no wholesome
influence upon the unborn child, and assuredly not upon the love and
respect which the wife feels for the husband.
I cannot forbear quoting an “illustrative case” entire, from Dr.
Holbrook’s book entitled, Stirpiculture: “How great is the influence on
unborn offspring of the mother’s mental condition, as well as the effect
over them of pleasant surroundings, is shown by the following case. A
young girl attracted attention by her beauty and by the superiority of
the type she exhibited over that of either of her parents, and on her
mother being spoken to on the subject she remarked: ‘In my early married
life my husband and I learned how to live in holy relations, after God’s
ordinance. My husband lovingly consented to let me live apart from him
during the time I carried this little daughter under my heart, and also
while I was nursing her. These were the happiest days of my life. Every
day before my child was born, I could have hugged myself with delight
at the prospect of becoming a mother. My husband and I were never so
tenderly, so harmoniously, or so happily related to each other, and I
never loved him more deeply than during those blessed months. I was
surrounded by all beautiful things, and one picture of a lovely face was
especially in my thought. My daughter looks more like that picture than
she does like either of us. From the time she was born she was like an
exquisite rosebud—the flower of pure, sanctified, happy love. She never
cried at night, was never fretful or nervous, but was all smiles and
winning baby ways, filling our hearts and home with perpetual gladness.
To this day, and she is now fourteen years old, I have never had the
slightest difficulty in bringing her up. She turns naturally to the
right, and I never knew her to be cross or impatient or hard to manage.
She has given me only comfort; and I realize from an experience of just
the opposite nature that the reason of all this is because my little girl
had her birthright.’”
The future experience of this lady was however of a very different
nature. She added: “A few years later I was again about to become
a mother, but with what different feelings! My husband had become
contaminated with the popular idea that even more frequent relations
were permissible during pregnancy. I was powerless against this wicked
sophistry, and was obliged to yield to his constant desires. But how
I suffered and cried; how wretched I was; how nervous and almost
despairing. Worst of all, I felt my love and trusting faith turning to
dread and repulsion.
“My little boy, on whom my husband set high hopes, was born after nine
of the most unhappy, distressing months of my life, a sickly, nervous,
fretting child—myself in miniature—and after five years of life that was
predestined by all the circumstances to be just what it was, after giving
us only anxiety and care, he died, leaving us sadder and wiser. I have
demonstrated to my own abundant satisfaction that there is but one right,
God-given way to beget and rear children, and I know that I am only one
of many who can corroborate this testimony.”
Again Dr. Holbrook says: “We have evidence among primitive people that
they understand the necessity of limiting offspring, and practice it in
a perfectly healthful way. The natives in Uganda, a region in Central
Africa, offer an illustration: ‘The women rarely have more than two
or three children; the practice being that when a woman has borne a
child she is to live apart from her husband for two years, at which age
children are weaned.’ Seaman, speaking of the Fijians, says: ‘After
childbirth, husband and wife keep apart three and even four years, so
that no other baby may interfere with the time considered necessary for
suckling children.’”
It occasionally happens that the wife during pregnancy is troubled with
a passion far beyond what she has ever experienced at any other time.
This in every instance is due to some unnatural condition, and should be
considered a disease, and for it the physician should be consulted.
The husband rightly rejoices in the name of protector of his wife, and
how quick is he to resent any slight or fancied insult which may be
offered her. Nowhere can he show more loyally his love and respect for
her, than in the tender appreciation which he shows her in the control
of her own person. Nay, more than yielding simply to her wishes, he
should be the leader in these things if necessary, and guide her into the
stronger way.
The sedentary life of many men renders them a prey to the gratification
of their lower natures. To all such men exercise becomes a religious
duty, and should be practiced most persistently until their physical
natures are well tired, and the sexual nature will not then dominate the
finer and nobler instincts of their being.
I was pained by the remark of a cultured lady, when speaking of
continence in the married life, a few days ago in my office. She said:
“Does it not seem a strange thing, doctor, that among those who seem most
careless in these things, are many ministers and other good men from whom
we should expect higher and nobler living.” I could but assent to this,
for doctors, unfortunately for their comfort, listen to many confessions
of sadness and unrighteousness in marital relations, and some of them
come from sources which the world would little dream of.
The lady added: “I have an intimate friend, a few years younger
than myself, who married a minister, and one who stands high in the
denomination of which he is a member. They have had seven children,
almost as fast as it is possible to have them, and the wife is a
broken-down woman, spiritless and unhappy, a common drudge at an age
when she should be full of life and joy, were things as they should be.
One remark shows the feeling which this state of affairs has engendered.
When I asked her why her husband allowed such a state of things to exist,
she said, ‘He doesn’t care,’ and she said it with such a dispirited and
utterly discouraged air that my heart ached for her.”
When will a brighter day dawn for woman and for man in these things? When
our young people are trained to see these great questions in the light
of God’s purposes and have strength of character sufficient to make them
conquerors over the false opinions of the world, the temptations of the
flesh, and the wiles of the devil.
Ignorance and misconception are at the bottom of all that is wrong in the
marital relation. No loving husband would for a moment allow himself to
yield to the demands of his lower nature did he consider and appreciate
rightly all that it meant to his wife, his unborn children and to the
generations to come.
There is such an incompatibility in the life of the man of high and noble
instincts, of generous nature, and lofty aspirations, in so pandering to
the lustful, so making provisions for the flesh, and at such terrible
cost to the one whom he should and does hold most dear!
Let us pray and work that a brighter day may dawn speedily, when the
marital relation shall be freed from all that is gross and sensual, and
shall be the synonym for purity, truth, and righteousness.
In the Greek, the word for man—and this is the generic term,
comprehending woman—means a being with his face turned upward. When we
are looking upward our lives will be all the time tending upward, and we
shall draw our inspiration from Him who lives above and ever leads His
children into paths of truth and purity.
CHAPTER VIII.
PREPARATION FOR MOTHERHOOD.
Motherhood the Glory of Womanhood.—Maternity Natural and
Productive of Health.—Prevalence of Knowledge of Methods Used
to Prevent Conception.—Mothers Should Prepare Their Daughters
for Maternity.—Motherhood the Sanction for Wifehood.—Effect of
Fixed Habits of Mother upon Offspring.—Adjustment of Clothing
to Expectant Motherhood.—Importance of Proper Exercise.—The
Sitz Bath.—Threatened Miscarriages.—Effects of Environment upon
the Unborn.—Why Italian Children Resemble the Madonnas.—The
Child the Expression of the Mother’s Thoughts.—The Five Stages
of Prenatal Culture Stated and Illustrated.—The Mother of the
Wesleys.—The Child the Heir and Expression of the Mother’s
Thought and Life.
“Oh in woman how
Mighty is the love of offspring: ere
Unto her wandering, untaught mind, unfolds
The mystery that is half divine, half human,
Of life, of birth, the love of unborn souls
Within her, and the mother yearning creeps
Through her warm heart, and stirs its hidden deeps
And grows and strengthens with each riper year.”—ELLA WHEELER WILCOX.
“Motherhood is not a remote contingency, but the common duty and the
common glory of womanhood.”
“They should know that the less children and the more servants in the
home, the less health and happiness, other things being equal. It is
natural for women to bear children, and unnatural to evade this function;
the everlastingly recurrent congestion of the generative organs, month
after month, year in and year out, without the rest of generation,
promotes a true disease of these organs, and favors all the various
growths which afflict so large a proportion of our women.”
With the prevailing ignorance, which has been the heritage of our
daughters for so many generations, no thought of preparation for
motherhood has exercised them. On the other hand, much the larger
majority of our young women come to the marriage altar, far better
informed in the methods of preventing conception, or producing abortion
after conception has really taken place, than of any proper preparation
for motherhood. Who are their teachers? Many who should blush with
shame that they lend their influence to this nefarious business; this
education in invalidism, murder and suicide. Many, who should be the
teachers in truth and purity. Mothers, mothers-in-law, sisters, aunts,
“friends,” young matrons, who have become adepts in the business, and
whose punishment has not yet overtaken them—all these, and many more.
Christians? Yes, professing Christians; but who would hardly like to
have their advice in these things written along side of their confession
of faith in the records of the church. They should remember that it is
written in a larger book than that of a church, and written so large that
all the world can read it by and by.
In the first steps of preparation for motherhood, the mother should be
the teacher. That so few mothers are capable of teaching their daughters
as they should, emphasizes the need of right teaching along these lines,
and the necessity of plain talks with mothers and daughters.
From a recent paper I clipped the following: “There is a story going
the rounds, that the last convention of the National Mothers’ Congress,
was not entirely successful, owing to the fact, that only about one
out of every ten delegates was even married. Since the object of the
organization is the better care, discipline and rearing of the young,
it has been determined that every delegate to the convention next
month, must show her right to be there. While many unmarried women
are probably more capable of rearing children than many who are trying
to, no exceptions will be made to the rule of making the organization
exclusively for mothers and wives.”
To my mind the writer of this criticism has shown far less wisdom
than those who appointed as delegates, unmarried women. What better
preparation for motherhood, than listening to the wise discussions
relative to the care and training of children? Hence the convention is
conserving the wisest purpose when it admits as delegates the young and
unmarried women. Had I the appointing power I would make at least half
the delegates from this class.
All the way from childhood onward, the wise mother will be instilling
truths into the minds of her daughters, that will be along the line
of preparation for motherhood. The early teaching of truth, the early
knowledge of self and sex relations, the right estimate of marriage, all
these lessons are preparing the way for the later knowledge that precedes
motherhood.
From the wedding day, the young matron should shape her life to the
probable and desired contingency of conception and maternity. Otherwise
she has no right or title to wifehood.
While it has been proven that transient states of the parents have
far less influence upon the offspring, than fixed habits of mind, yet
much can be done by way of amending defects, and fixing admirable and
desired traits in character, which before had been transient, and thus
influencing with greater power the minds of the offspring.
Let this be always remembered that the stronger and more beautiful the
mother becomes, the more lovely will be her children. Soul-gardeners
should all mothers be in a peculiar sense, that the children which shall
be given her, may have good soil in which to generate and grow during
antenatal life.
No sacrifice should be considered too great for her to make, that this
end may be conserved. As soon as she discovers herself pregnant, she
should modify her clothing to the comfort and healthfulness of herself
and baby. If she have already learned how to dress healthfully, she will
need to make few changes in the early months. No weight of clothing
should be allowed to rest upon the hips; everything must be supported
from the shoulders. The skirt and waist can be fashioned in one garment,
and so made that they can be let out to accommodate themselves to the
growing need. The dainty and pretty maternity gowns are everything that
can be desired, and can be so diversified that they meet all the wants
of taste and change. Patterns for these can be bought at any reliable
pattern house, and the gown can be made as elaborate as fancy dictates.
The union suit of underclothing, the union skirt and waist combined, and
the gown, are all that should be worn throughout the entire period. If
more warmth is needed it should be given in the undergarments.
Exercise must be taken daily as a religious duty. The common work which
is to be done about the home, is as good as any system of physical
exercise which can be devised for development and healthfulness
throughout pregnancy; however, other movements for the special
strengthening of the muscles of the back and abdomen may be taken with
profit.
Beginning with the fourth month sitz baths (a bath taken in a sitting
posture with only the parts about the hips submerged) should be taken
as often as twice weekly for the following three months, and after this
to the close of the period, every night just before retiring. The water
should be as hot as can well be borne, and the bath continued for at
least fifteen or twenty minutes, while a half hour can do no harm if
it be enjoyed. Warm water should be added to keep the bath at an even
temperature. Of course this should be taken in a warm room where there is
no danger of a chill at the time or after.
With proper exercise and the baths, there will be no need of bandaging to
hold up the pendant abdomen, for the strengthened muscles will do their
work better than art can do it.
A word right here will not be out of place, upon the subject of
threatened miscarriages. Young wives who are uninformed on these things
will often be greatly troubled at symptoms which to them may seem
alarming, which are not so at all, while on the other hand they may pass
over too lightly other symptoms that are really grave in character.
At any time throughout the pregnancy a flow of blood, even if slight,
must be considered grave enough to call for the counsel of the physician.
Pains simulating menstrual pains, if at all aggravated must be looked
after, and not be allowed to continue. Great care should always be taken
at what would have been were she not pregnant, the regular monthly
period, as the greatest danger of miscarriage comes at these times. No
undue exercise should be taken, but instead, all the work, recreation and
exercise should be rather under the ordinary, at these periods.
If miscarriage threatens, the first symptom to cause alarm will be a flow
of more or less amount, and, on the appearance of this the physician
should be at once consulted. Following this there should be enforced
rest, preferably in a reclining position, for several days, until all
fears that there will be a return are allayed, then the usual cares must
be resumed with caution.
To guard against threatened miscarriage any young wife need only observe
the rules which govern right living and carefulness, and she need have no
fear.
All this for preservation and care; now a further word.
It has been remarked by travellers in Italy, that many of the native
children bear a striking resemblance to the pictures of the child Jesus,
from the adoration which the mothers give the Madonnas. The same truth is
here again taught, that we not only become like what we most love, and
think most about, but that we may transmit this likeness to our little
ones. O mothers! what an incentive to high and noble thinking, and to
worthy objects for our loves.
So far as inheritance goes this is too true, but there is another side
which we must not fail to emphasize. Surroundings and education, with
the grace of God, may do very much to eradicate harmful hereditary
tendencies. Yet the truth remains that the prevailing tendencies of a
life are inborn, and unless they are set in the right direction, we do
battle against them at fearful odds, and with an expenditure of a vast
amount of strength, that used otherwise would give us a long push in the
successful journey of life.
Harriet Prescott Spofford has in her inimitable way put the truth of
this mother inheritance in these words: “No intelligence, no cunning, no
benevolence, could evade the inevitable. For what she was, that her child
was. You do not gather figs from thistles. What she had made herself, she
had made her child; what she had become that her child became also. In
being born the child became all that.”
That we may train the more systematically our little unborn babes, it
will be well for us to study the five stages of prenatal culture. In
giving these stages, I would not have you understand that at no other
time except at these periods are the given characteristics of mind and
body cultured and strengthened; but that in these special periods they
receive their strongest impetus and determination. Throughout the entire
ten lunar months should we foster and culture all the sweet graces, but
especially in these times.
In the first two of the ten lunar months of pregnancy the physical nature
of the little one is shaped. During this time the mother should pay
especial attention to physical exercises which will add to her strength
and insure vigorous health through the remaining months. In other words,
she should fix her habits of exercise in this period and adhere to them
as closely as possible throughout the entire ten months. As far as may
be, put pleasure and diversion into your exercise.
Look at beautiful pictures, study perfect pieces of statuary, forbid as
far as possible the contemplation of unsightly and imperfect models.
Make your reading tend toward the same end and you will be rewarded
with beautiful, vigorous children. If it be true, as we know it is,
that the dog-fancier can produce you a dog at will, that will be marked
as you order, why may not this same law be demonstrated in the human
family? Remember the story of Jacob’s sheep and the “pilled rods” for
illustration in the animal kingdom.
During the third and fourth months the vital instincts are determined.
Then the domestic and social affections and loves, love of home and
family, are implanted. How very much the future mother may do by making
the home at this time the fairest place on earth; and becoming so in love
with it herself, that her child may forever in its after life repeat this
affection.
“In the fifth and sixth months the observing, or perceptive powers are
cultured and engrafted. Individuality, form, weight, color, calculation,
time, tune, language and the five external senses.”
Surely, enough variety in study for this period. If you are not
observing, learn to be, by persistent exercise; assert your
individuality; study independence in thought and action; be self-reliant,
self-contained. Study form and outline until you can take them in at a
glance. If you have never cultivated an artistic taste do so at this
time. If you have not the time, talent or money to learn to execute
pictures yourself, you can at least study the beautiful things done by
others, and can implant the love for these things, which may be highly
developed in your child. Many an ideal to which you have never been able
to give expression will thus be wrought out in the most glowing imagery
hereafter by your children. The things you have longed to be will find
expression in their lives.
Many a poet, I believe, has been born of parents whose lives were poems,
but who were never able to express a couplet in rhyme or meter. “Susanna
Wesley, with the song of praise and the gospel of peace in her heart,
bore and gave to the world two sons, whose spiritual achievement in song
and sermon set in motion a wave of blessing that has carried peace to
thousands of souls the world over, and will carry to the end of time.
Herself no singer or preacher, but living the song and the sermon that
found expression in her sons.”
Truly nowhere does seed-sowing bring a hundredfold more surely, than that
implanted in the prenatal life of our babies.
“In the fourth stage we develop the constructive and beautifying powers;
as constructiveness, ideality, sublimity, mirthfulness, imitation,
suavity, etc.” How much, by giving during this period, these faculties
in your own mind full play, and judicious cultivation, can you add of
blessing and happy helpfulness to the little life growing to maturity
under your heart.
“The fifth and last stage of two months we may call the humanitarian and
beneficent. In this period, the religious or worshipful aspirations,
spiritual or upward looking powers, as hope, veneration, benevolence,
charity, etc., etc., receive their impetus.”
How beautiful is the thought that in the last two months while waiting
for the little one to come into her arms, the mother’s thoughts should
be especially directed toward the highest and noblest possibilities of
her nature, and that by so doing she may endow her child with these
characteristics.
O mother, mother! As you learn these things, prove them in your own life;
and then your work is only begun; for you are bound by all the ties of
our common sisterhood to pass them on to mothers less favored than you,
that they too may learn the possibilities bound up in motherhood.
A noble rule among the early Christians was this: “Whenever you learn a
new and good thing, go and find some one that does not know it, and tell
him of it.” A blessed rule for us as mothers to follow. We who have had
some of the higher opportunities have a great responsibility resting upon
us.
I found a few months ago, in one of our religious papers a little poem
that appealed to me in its beauty and truthfulness. I cut it out and read
it over many times until the words were learned. It is too true, I said
to myself, but need it be so? No; it need not, if we reach out for the
noblest within us and claim our privileges.
I caught up my pen and in the meter that had sung itself into my heart, I
copied my own thoughts on the subject, and I will give them both to you.
THE BABY.
BY EMMA A. LENTE.
“She is a little hindering thing,”
The mother said,
“I do not have an hour of peace
Till she’s in bed.
“She clings unto my hand and gown
And follows me
About the house from room to room,
Talks constantly.
“She is a bundle full of nerves,
And wilful ways.
She does not sleep full sound at night,
Scarce any, days.
“She doesn’t like to hear the wind,
The dark she fears,
And piteously she calls to me
To wipe her tears.
“She is a little hindering thing,”
The mother said,
“But still she is my wine of life,
My daily bread.”
The children what a load of care
Their coming brings:
But oh, the grief when God doth stoop
To give them wings.
THE BABIES.
The children: what if months before
We planned their lot,
And never in the passing weeks,
Their good forgot?
What if, as little garments grew
From busy hands,
We wrought with tender patient care
The soul’s white bands?
And what if we both willed and prayed
That baby’s life
Should be a better one than ours
’Mid toil and strife?
So filled the weeks while waiting them
With full content,
That sweetness, joy and bubbling life
Were to them lent?
I’m sure this song would then be changed
And read more sweet;
We’d sing it to the dancing time
Of baby feet.
She’s such a little gladsome thing
The mother’d say,
I cannot have an hour of joy
When she’s away.
She is a bundle full of rest
And joyous ways;
She sleeps so sweetly round at night,
And fills my days.
She doesn’t mind about the wind,
The dark ne’er fears,
She laughs and sings and cuddles down
With smiles not tears.
She’s such a little helping thing
The mother’d say;
And is my very wine of life
From day to day.
Such children: what a load of love
Their coming brings:
But oh the grief when parents fail
To give them wings.
CHAPTER IX.
PREPARATION FOR FATHERHOOD.
The Command to “Replenish the Earth.”—Preparation for
Motherhood More Written About than Preparation for
Fatherhood.—Questions Which Would Test the Fitness of
Young Men for Marriage.—Parents Should Know the Character
of Young Men Who Desire Their Daughters in Marriage.—Many
Young Men of Startling Worth.—The Improving of a Good
Heritage.—Effects of Bad Morals and Wayward Habits.—Effects
of Tobacco and Alcoholics.—How Young Women Help to Contribute
Bad Habits in Young Men.—The Years of Rooting and Weeding
Necessary.—Attaining the Best.—The Father Reproduced in His
Children.
“Be fruitful, multiply and replenish the earth.”
Webster defines “Replenish”: To stock abundantly, to make complete or
perfect.
“It is a sad fact that many persons assume the responsibility of parents
without any clear appreciation of its obligations. To provide a shelter
from the storm, a proper amount of rations, and an irregular and
spasmodic administration of discipline, chiefly regulated by the nervous
susceptibility of the parents, rather than by the deserts of the child,
is their idea of parental duty.”
Far more has been written in these latter days concerning the preparation
for motherhood, than the preparation for fatherhood. One would almost
conclude that no especial fitting were needed to prepare young men to
become parents. Because of the lack of strong public sentiment along
these lines, the many sons come to marriage with no adequate idea of the
duties and responsibilities before them, with no thought or knowledge of
what they have, or should have, to give to the next generation.
Suppose a set of questions something like the following were handed to
young men the week before their marriage, what think you would be their
answers?
Do you bring to your bride the same purity that you expect from her?
What in your life and habits have you hidden, and would you still hide
from her?
What mental reservation do you make in respect to your liberties after
marriage, to indulge these habits?
What companions have you, whom you would not care to bring to your home
or introduce to your wife?
What “wild oats” have you sown that have left their seeds in your
constitution to be transmitted to your children, and they in turn to
their children down through the generations?
How many hours of thought have you given to the wise, earnest fitting for
good fatherhood?
Do you, in the sight of God, consider yourself fit to become the husband,
which all this close relation involves, of a pure, sweet, true woman?
These questions are simple questions, and should in every allowable
marriage, admit of but one answer. No father or mother should ever give
their consent to companionship, much less to marriage of their daughters,
with men whom they have any reason to suppose could not answer these
questions unblushingly, and with honest eyes, in the presence of the
woman they seek as wife.
Dear young woman, you should know, as you value your peace of mind,
what the young man really _is_ to whom you plight your troth. What he
may _seem_ to be to you, what you have idealized him to be, is not
sufficient. You owe it to yourself and to your unborn children, to know
what he _really_ is; and if he resents the questioning of your parents,
say the “no,” now, rather than live it, in agony, all your after life.
Much that might have been said in this chapter I have already said in the
chapter on the choice of a husband, and we will not repeat.
That there are many young men, noble, true, conscientious and pure in
their sterling manhood we know; and for such as these the warnings in
this chapter are not written. That there are parents who fully realize
the necessity of training their children for parenthood, and have all
the way along given line upon line, precept upon precept, toward this
training, we all know; but that the number is not greater, we sadly
deplore.
Young men need to realize that sowing wild oats will never bring a
harvest of wheat; and that a bed of thistles will never yield a garland
of flowers. Like will produce like, as long as the world stands, and we
can never change it.
In preparation for fatherhood there is much that the best among young men
would wish to change in their lives, and they have this to comfort them;
that by painstaking perseverance any resolute person can do very much
toward eradicating inborn tendencies, and hereditary evils. Poor soil
well enriched and carefully tended, watered with the dew of God’s grace,
will bring a marvelous harvest of good things, and transform all future
products; while the best of fields, with the wisest of care and tillage
in the years past, may grow to weeds and wastefulness in this generation,
if neglected. Therefore, while we have much to be grateful for in a good
heritage, and that we have a name which, unlike poor little Patsy’s, will
wash, yet too much dependence cannot be placed upon this. “Say not that
ye have Abraham to your father; I say unto you that God is able of these
stones to raise up children unto Abraham.”
Young man, what sort of soil are you preparing for the growth of the next
generation, when you allow, for a _little_ time even, looseness of morals
and wayward habits? Late hours, tippling, mingling with the unclean, the
coarse jest and the coarser practice following, are not good soil for the
implantation later on of the higher virtues; the danger is, the desire
for such implantation will be lost, or if it in a measure remains, the
roots of the old weeds are there, and the soil is cursed with the noisome
seeds which will spring up and choke the wheat. Mayhap both may grow
together, and a harvest of wheat and tares be gathered, but at what a
cost of time and strength, that might have been used in better things.
The use of alcoholics and tobacco enfeeble the mind and constitution, and
this enfeeblement accentuated is transmitted to the next generations.
Many wives are struggling along in ill health that is directly traceable
to the inhaling, night after night, of the breath of the husband,
poisoned with nicotine. Many a little one is wailing through its infancy,
and if it have strength sufficient, inherited from its remote ancestors,
to pull it through, yet will it all its life suffer from its antenatal
and postnatal poisoning; and the chances are that as soon as it is old
enough it will take up the habit which is already acquired, to pass down
along the line a more and more enfeebled heritage.
But the young are not all to blame, they have not been instructed. They
have floated along, many times unmindful of the rapids they were nearing,
and have not awakened until they were engulfed. And our daughters are not
guiltless in _this_ thing even. How many times when the escort asks, “Is
tobacco offensive to you?” have our thoughtless girls answered, “Oh, no,”
when at heart it was repulsive and sickening. By and by, after months of
endurance it becomes bearable, and they can make the reply with a degree
of truthfulness; for tobacco, like sin,
“Is a monster of such frightful mien,
That to be hated, needs but to be seen;
Yet seen too oft familiar with its face,
We first endure, then pity, then embrace.”
When our dear girls have strength of character sufficient to say in
response to such a query, while lifting frank honest eyes: “Shall I
answer your question honestly? then I must say, it is very offensive to
me; for I know it does you harm, and I know as well that I cannot breathe
the fumes of it _even_ for an hour without physical harm to myself.”
There is not one young man in a hundred, who would not rejoice in the
courage of such a girl, and ten chances to one, he would be telling his
companions of the brave stand she had made, and exulting in it.
Young men of high attainment and noble purposes, there is still something
for you to do, to transmit the best to your progeny. Make the noblest in
you still nobler, root out the weeds, attain greater heights every year,
seek nobler companionship among books and men, choose for your mate the
woman whose desires and ambitions are like your own, and your children
will be a blessing to you and the world, and may well “rise up to call
you blessed.”
To the other class of young men, we have only to say, there should be
before them many years of rooting and weeding and killing out, and hard
preparation, before they should dare ask any good women to be their
wives. Aye, more, before they should even dare to ask a woman like
themselves, for think of the double inheritance of such unfortunate
children as might be theirs; and think again how the world is cursed with
such disinherited humanity now.
The motto
“Without halting, without rest,
Pushing better up to best,”
should be the sentiment of every young man, in view of his preparation
for fatherhood. It is a lamentable fact that children have as often
reason to lament their parentage, as parents their wayward children. But
it is probably a merciful thing that most children of this class never
realize it—merciful at least for them and their parents, but not for the
coming generations.
Remember you are to reproduce yourself, and in large measure what you are
yourself that will your children be. Measure yourself carefully, take
account of stock and see what there is that you would have different,
what you would make better, what you would eradicate, what new qualities
you would engraft. The little children, to be, in your home who are to
call you father, are not only to copy you when they are large enough and
wise enough in their love to wish to be like you; but they come into
existence with inborn tendencies, that perforce make them like you,
whether they will or not. Happy the parents whose children never regret
their inheritances.
“It isn’t all in the bringing up,
Let folks say what they will,
You may silver polish a pewter cup,
But it will be pewter still.”
CHAPTER X.
ANTENATAL INFANTICIDE.
The Alarming Prevalence of This Hideous Sin.—How Daughters
are Initiated.—How Expectant Mothers Appeal to Reputable
Physicians.—Young Women Should be Taught to Associate the Idea
of Marriage with Motherhood.—Destruction of own Health and Life
go Hand in Hand with Prenatal Murder.—Effect of Such Attempts
Upon the Physical Life and Character.—Life from the Moment of
Conception.—The Injustice and Cruel Wrongs Inflicted upon Wives
by Uncontrolled Passions of Husbands.—Obligation of Motherhood
Should be Recognized.—Its Blessings.—The Duty of the Physician
as Educator of Public Sentiment.
“The destruction of the end or purpose of an institution
is virtually the destruction of the institution itself. I
firmly believe that the greatest sin against God and the
greatest crime against society in the nineteenth century, is
the covert attack, which in one form or another, excused by
one consideration or another, is being waged against God’s
institution of marriage.”—REV. BREVARD D. SINCLAIR.
Do our young women consider and really understand the giant evil which
walks our streets sometimes covertly, sometimes so openly, that with
eyes of discernment it can be easily detected? This terrible evil that
has been so excused, so palliated that it stands out in the minds of
many, dressed, not in its hideous garb of sin and shame, but tricked
in taking dress and attractive coloring—so attractive that many of our
matrons have pointed it out and introduced it to our fresh, beautiful
daughters, and introduced them into its mysteries, and all the horrible
sin this evil is heir to.
I speak of the shamefully prevalent evil of antenatal infanticide.
I quote again from Mr. Sinclair. “A sin of such delicacy that people
affect to be shocked when it is alluded to, and yet a sin which is
practiced, applauded and commended so widely in private, that even the
children are not ignorant of its prevalence among their elders. Indeed
a sin, in which in many cases, daughters are deliberately nurtured and
trained, so that when opportunity is presented for its practice the
conscience is so stultified and suborned by long training and familiarity
with its hellish and poisonous consequences, that it is committed without
compunction.”
O mothers! with us rests in large measure the righting of this terrible
wrong. Are we aware ourselves of its loathsomeness, and are we prepared
to pronounce against it everywhere where our voices can be heard? Shall
we teach our daughters that the institution of marriage is for home and
children, and that unless they are prepared to make the home and desire
children, they are committing a grievous sin to enter its sacred portals?
Every reputable physician grows sick at heart many times, when he is
approached by these untaught and unscrupulous young and older women, to
ask him to be a party with them in the crime of murder, and possible
suicide. “The sin is none the less heinous, and the crime none the less
wicked when it is performed by those who affect ‘the best society,’ or
who with unworthy hands take the bread and wine at the communion table of
a dying Lord, who pronounced His blessing on the pure in heart.”
When an untaught young wife comes to us with a desire that she may be
“helped out of her difficulty,” and then proceeds to tell us that she
does not want children so early in her married life; that she wants to
enjoy herself first for a while, or she wants to make a visit, or take a
trip to Europe and cannot be in that condition; and that she has tried
all the simple means that she knows of, but has accomplished nothing; we
sit down patiently and tell her from the beginning the sin and danger of
it all; danger, not only to life, but also to all the higher instincts
of our nature; for when one deliberately takes a life, the conscience is
seared to all sin, and the pathway down to the lower depths is an easy
one. I can assure you, this is no easy task, for we have the teaching of
friends and relatives, yes, and I grieve to say, sometimes of mothers to
undo! Oh the sorrow of it!
Young women, with you rests the hope of the world in the betterment of
this sad state of things. Know that when you enter marriage with any
other thought than that you will be the joyful mother of children, you
commit a grievous sin. Know that any plan you may have made to obviate
this, indefinitely, while allowing the close marriage relation to exist,
is sinful and makes you partaker with abortionists, and those who would
destroy the holy institution of home and fireside.
When women who have grown older in years and experience enter my office
with their specious reasoning, women who have no excuse for not knowing
the evil thing which they are advocating, I feel like denouncing them
before the world as the enemies of God and womankind. Oh the shame that
woman who should be the helper and inspiration in all good things should
so lend her hand and heart to evil!
But the sin does not always stop with the murder. Many times her own life
is a sacrifice to her sin, or if not this, she is doomed to invalidism
the remainder of her days. Truly, as Mr. Sinclair says, “Many a woman
is buried with Christian burial, over whose grave ought to be placed a
tombstone with this inscription: “Here lies a suicide, assisted to her
grave by her murderers—her husband, her female counsellors, and the
conscienceless physician.””
There is no excuse whatever for the crime of abortion. The arguments are
many that are made to ease the conscience, or palliate the sin, but not
one of them will hold, before a tribunal of honest clean thinking people,
with God on the bench.
It is wicked, say they, to bring so many children into the world that
cannot be well taken care of; “I really have not the strength to take
care of any more;” and they go on in their sinful practice until health
is destroyed or life sacrificed. “I do not think that women should
give their lives to bearing children, and have no time for mental
improvement,” they say again, while they spend a great part of their
time in devising means to prevent conception, or in worry, lest they may
not succeed, while the little fragment of time and strength is given to
the pursuit of “culture,” and at the age, when, had they borne their
children and been joyful in training them, they would have been vigorous
and strong for years of mental work and wide culture. At this very time
because of what they have done they are pale broken-down women, with no
strength or ambition left for nobler pursuits than groaning over their
ill-health or seeking alleviation for their sufferings.
But their sin does not stop with themselves, but is written legibly upon
the lives of the children, who, in spite of their earnest endeavor to the
contrary, have stemmed the tide of evil, and come to maturity of term, if
not of vigor.
A late writer in a Christian journal has said, “There are thousands of
miserable objects in our insane asylums, hospitals, yea, in our jails,
who may honestly complain, ‘from our mothers cometh our misery.’ The
attempt to commit prenatal murder is frightfully common—as all women
and physicians know—and where it does not kill, malformations, idiocy,
and distorted moral powers are too often the results. For no one ever
breaks into ‘the house of life,’ and is innocent or unpunished. Prenatal
murder and self-murder walk hand in hand, crying to heaven as loudly as
did the blood of Abel. And should these women personally seem to escape,
yet there will come a day when God will ask them one terrible question,
‘Where are the children that I gave you?’”
Again they say, “There is no harm until there is life.” The moment
conception takes place, that moment there is life; and whether the crime
be committed in six hours, six weeks or six months, the sin is in all
cases of equal enormity. Murder is in the intent, not in the act alone.
When you intend to rid yourself of the little life if possible, you have
committed murder as surely as if the murdered child lay dead in your
arms, or it may chance live to denounce you with its disinherited life,
if not with its words.
But I would not denounce woman alone, for the wrong does not lie wholly
with her. Dr. Holbrook in an article on sanitary parentage, says: “That
which polite language veils under the designation ‘social evil,’ and
which desolates so many happy homes, and brings its quick harvest of
misery, remorse, disease and death, chiefly lives because man does not
know aright, does not truly reverence and honor woman, and keep in
subjection that which may become one of the monster passions in his
heart, and is thus continued from generation to generation.”
Often, we believe, are women driven to abortion, by maternity being
thrust upon them, when they are already weakened by too frequent
child-bearing.
A case of this kind came into my office a few days since. A bright,
pretty little woman, scarcely more than a girl, sat down before me with
the exclamation, “Doctor, I have missed my monthly period, and have come
in to have you give me something to set me right.” “Are you married?”
I questioned. “Yes,” she answered. “Do you not think that you may be
pregnant?” I enquired. “Yes: I fear that I am,” she cried, with tears
in her voice; “but I have one little one, not yet two years old, and a
baby of eight months, and it does not seem that I can have another one
now.” She was but twenty-two years old, and I could not help mentally
calculating, what the number would be were she obliged to go on at this
rate, until the child-bearing age was passed. My heart ached for the
child mother; but I could say to her only this: “My dear, do you think it
would be better for you to endanger your health, and perhaps take your
life, and leave your two babies without a mother, than to go on patiently
and have this baby, and live to care for them all?”
I said to her, “Never allow yourself to think for a moment, of taking the
life of a little unborn child; it is murder, dear, and nothing else. I
know you have not thought of it in this light. Go home, talk it over with
your husband candidly, tell him that you will never be guilty of the sin
of abortion, no matter how many children you have. Insist upon the better
way, namely, such continence in the marriage relation as shall not impose
the burden of maternity upon you oftener than once in two or three years.
Help him to see that the selfish gratification of his desires are hardly
worth while when secured at such a cost to your health and comfort. Make
him to see that the children that come from such self-indulgence cannot
be the strong, vigorous and noble children they would be if generated
under self-control. Occupy separate beds, and help him by every means in
your power to attain self-control, and become master of his passions,
not their slave.” I do not know the outcome, but I feel certain that the
little woman went home with something to think about, and I trust with
profit.
Above all, my dear young wives, do not underestimate the mighty,
unequalled power of the mother of several children. And know this, that
no work is so productive of true culture, in your own life, as the proper
bearing and rearing of children. Nothing so cultivates all the virtues
that alone serve as the foundation of true education and wisdom. As your
children grow you will be inspired to keep pace with them, and when they
have gone out from the home nest, you will find ample time to read and
study, and you will have the consciousness of a life well spent to urge
you on.
I believe firmly, that for the best results, offspring should be limited,
but limited in a legitimate way. When temperate lives are lived, not
more than five or six children come into a home, and this is but a good
family. Mothers of such families if they live within their means and
“look well to the ways of their households,” are not fretted, broken down
women, but hale and hearty, and as children mature are ready for years of
strenuous living, and community service.
No thwarting of nature has any ground for excuse, and the so-called
physician who peddles any theory or device for so doing has no right to
the name, and has no recognition among the ranks of the reputable of the
honored profession of medicine. His work is done in the dark and under
the pledge of secrecy, and so he marks himself of the abode of Satan.
No honorable physician can say, “I have never lent myself as a party to
this crime, hence my conscience is clear, my duty done.” No: your duty is
not done. Physicians stand or should stand as the guardsmen of the unborn
generations, and as educators of public opinion along these lines; and
their pen, their voice and their practice should form a trinity of power
against the inroads of this alarmingly threatening evil—threatening to
the best instincts of the moral nature of our time; threatening to the
future of our land, when we consider the very few children born into our
better homes, while in the byways, among the lower classes, the little
ones swarm in hot-beds of sin.
At least four children should be born and grow to maturity in every
American home in our land, to keep good the present number of our people.
The average is far below this, and the result is that the American race
is fast dying out.
We stand at the head of all the nations in the extent and enormity of
this crime. Shall we not stand at the head in a true reformation?
CHAPTER XI.
THE MORAL RESPONSIBILITY OF PARENTS IN HEREDITY.
The Duty of the Present to Future Generations.—Darwin on
Heredity.—Nature Inexorable.—The Mother’s Investment of
Moulding Power.—The Father’s Important Part in the Transmission
of Heredity.—The Parents Workers Together with God.—Parents
must Reap What They Sow.—The Law and the Gospel of Heredity
Contrasted.—The Children of Inebriates and Others.—Lessons
from Reformatory Institutions.—The Outcast Margaret.—The
Mother of Samson.—How a Child Became an Embodiment of “The
Lady of the Lake.”—The Woman Who Desired to be the Mother of
Governors.—Importance of this Study.
“Often do the spirits of great events stride on before the events,
And in to-day already walks to-morrow.”
“It is not just as we take it,
This mystical life of ours,
Life’s harvest will yield as we make it
A harvest of thorns or of flowers.”
“Instead of thy fathers shall be thy children, whom thou mayest
make princes in all the earth.”
Francis Galton says: “I conclude that each generation has enormous powers
over the natural gifts of those that follow, and maintain that it is a
duty that we owe to humanity to investigate the range of that power, and
to exercise it in a way that, without being unwise toward ourselves,
shall be most advantageous to the future inhabitants of the earth.”
Mr. Darwin maintains in his theory of pangenesis, that the gemmules of
innumerable qualities, derived from ancestral sources, circulate in the
blood and propagate themselves generation after generation still in the
state of gemmules, but fail in developing themselves into cells, because
other antagonistic gemmules are prepotent and overmaster them, in the
struggle for points of attachment. Hence there is a vastly larger number
of capabilities in every human being than ever find expression, and for
every patent element there are countless latent ones. The character of
a man is wholly formed through these gemmules that have succeeded in
attaching themselves, the remainder that have been overpowered by their
antagonists count for nothing.
Again he says, “The average proportion of gemmules modified by individual
variation under various conditions preceding birth clearly admits of
being determined by observation, for the children will in the average,
inherit the gemmules in the same proportion that they existed in their
parents. It follows that the human race has a large control over its
future forms of activity, far more than an individual has over his own;
since the freedom of individuals is narrowly restricted by the cost in
energy of exercising their wills.”
We might go on indefinitely making quotations from undisputed authorities
on this great science of heredity, for to-day it has become almost
an exact science. In view of this the exclamation of a writer in the
_Science of Health_ is very pertinent. “Who shall deliver us from our
ancestors? And if the fathers have eaten sour grapes, who on earth shall
prevent the children’s teeth being set on edge? Not nature. She is
inexorable. An eye for an eye, and a tooth for a tooth, is her law. But
between the unbroken law and its entailed consequences stands the mother,
invested with a power which makes her either a Nemesis or a redeemer.
This is the unwritten law in every mother’s heart, and I believe that in
all the ages there have been women who have hearkened unto its voice.
The son that Hannah prayed so earnestly for, and gave unto the Lord
before his birth, inherited a soul that had been to school before it drew
its first breath. Slaves suckle slaves; pure and enthusiastic women bring
forth saints and heroes. All history attests the fact that great men had
great mothers.”
That both in the law and the gospel of heredity, of the two parents,
the mother has a far greater influence we believe firmly; yet this does
not relieve the father from responsibility. The germ from him, which is
“bone of his bone, flesh of his flesh,” contributed to the formation of
the child in its beginning, must be of high nature and cultivation, seed
from a noble sire, or the little life is dwarfed from the outset, and the
mother must expend much precious time and strength in making good the
terrible deficiencies which such a beginning entails, and then mourn that
so much can never be overcome.
What our children become depends upon two conditions; what they are at
birth, and what environment makes them. That the parents may make of
their children almost what they will, that they are in a peculiar sense,
workers together with God in the creative and formative periods, that
they may by self-culture and painstaking reproduce a generation superior
to themselves, are all truths big with responsibility and meaning.
That we reap what we sow, is an inevitable law in the mental and moral
as in the physical sphere. While there is this great and awful law, I
am so thankful that we can emphasize the far greater and wider reaching
gospel of heredity. Into this we can put all the sweet promises whose
fulfillment is sure—if we are ever reaching up to the higher and nobler
aspirations of our nature, and not degenerating to the lower tastes and
inclinations.
For the law, we have, “visiting the iniquities of the fathers upon the
children unto the third and fourth generation.” For the gospel, “And
showing mercy unto thousands of (generations) of them that love Me and
keep My commandments.”
For the law, “The fathers have eaten sour grapes and the children’s teeth
are set on edge.” For law and gospel both, “As is the mother so is her
daughter.”
For gospel, “Instead of thy fathers shall be thy children whom thou
mayest make princes in all the earth.” For law, the sad history of the
children of inebriates, of tobacco users and of the insane; also the
history of many children born in polygamous Utah, of jealous mothers
outraged at the loss or division of the love of their husbands. Ugly,
misshapen children, mentally and morally. “Disinherited childhood,” is
written upon every line of their distorted lives. Go with our missionary
teachers and learn from the aching hearts of these mothers, the stories
of anguish that in the passing stamped indelibly the characters of the
little ones unborn; listen while they tell you that they know only too
well, when their children were stamped with the vindictive revengeful
spirits which so many of them manifest; or were bowed down with a burden
of sorrow too heavy to be borne. Hear the story of one such little one
that literally wept its short life away, without a cry, getting from
its mother an inheritance of tears, shed in silence under a pride that
forbade a moan.
Visit our almshouses and reformatories, our orphanages, our idiot
asylums, and get a few of the histories of the little inmates; trace
them back for three, four or five generations, and see how unmistakably
woe has generated woe, crime begotten crime, and disease brought forth
disease.
Let us study this, the dark side of the picture of heredity, and
seriously ask ourselves if it isn’t time a new reform was instituted and
the heart of philanthropy set to beating in sympathy, not only with this
great army of robbed, disinherited children, but as well with the yet
unborn generations. The great work for them must be done now, not after
they are ushered into a depraved, diseased existence.
“There is a story of one neglected little girl, poor Margaret, who never
had a home, and who grew up a wretched outcast, living a life of sin and
shame. After seventy-five years it was reckoned that her descendants
numbered twelve hundred; two hundred and eighty of whom were paupers,
and one hundred and forty habitual criminals, while most of the whole
degraded family cursed the country with vice, crime, pauperism, and
insanity.”
Finally for gospel, we have the indisputable fact that we may by
prayerful thought and systematic study make our children what we will.
Read the story of the angel’s appearance to the mother of Samson, when
the child was promised, and remember his direction. “And Manoah said,
How shall we order the child and how shall we do unto him? And the angel
of the Lord said unto Manoah, of all that I said unto the woman let her
beware. She may not eat of anything that cometh of the vine, neither let
her drink wine nor strong drink, nor eat any unclean thing; all that I
commanded her let her observe.” (Judges 13: 13, 14.)
A sweet story is told that illustrates the gospel side of heredity in a
marvelous way. A traveller in the west came to the house of a settler
in a remote frontier district, and asked for shelter for the night.
The parents had come from the east in an early day, and were people of
ordinary intelligence only. Among the children born to them in this
western home were several sons, coarse, boorish, and altogether what
their birth and environment would indicate. The traveller was struck
with the remarkable beauty and refinement of one child, a daughter. So
different was she from her brothers that he made bold to ask the mother,
if she could explain why the daughter was so different from her brothers,
and how in her surroundings she had developed such grace and beauty.
The mother looked up quickly with an intelligent smile, pleased that her
child should receive such appreciation. “Yes, I can tell you, I think,
why she differs so, and to me it is a strange thing and I have often
wondered if I have thought aright. Several months before my child was
born, one day there came to our cabin a colporteur with a variety of
books for sale. I was not much of a reader, but my life was a lonely
one, shut out from all society as I was, with nothing of comfort or
beauty about me. Only one of the books attracted my attention, a little
blue-and-gold copy of Scott’s Lady of The Lake. It was illustrated, and
as I turned it over in my hands, and caught now and then a word that
explained an illustration, I was possessed with a desire to have the
book. We were poor and I knew that my husband would not understand the
wish I had to own it. I handed it back to the man and he went on his
way. I could not get the thought of the book out of my mind, and did
not sleep an hour that night. As soon as the first peep of day began to
show itself, I rose and with the price of the book in my hand started
for the nearest neighbor, the next cabin where I thought the book agent
must have stopped for the night. I found him and got the book and came
home. Through all the months before the little one came that book was my
constant companion. I read it and reread it, until I knew much of it by
heart. Every scene of the book was as vivid as a reality to me. When the
daughter came she was the Lady of The Lake over again, and was always
just what you see her now.”
Dr. Holbrook says, “Every child born into the world is essentially
an experiment; we cannot tell what its chief characteristics will be;
these depend upon the potentialities stored up in the germ-plasm.”
Then how much depends upon the parents, that the germ-plasm be of fine
quality, and so insure fine products in their children. In his book on
Stirpiculture, Dr. Holbrook says, “The common people often get at truths
in a rude way long before the scientists do. Many parents tell us their
children are strongly influenced by some particular occupation of the
mother during pregnancy. So strong is this belief that many mothers are
in our time trying to influence the characters of their unborn children
by special modes of life, by cultivating music, or art, or science, in
order to give the child a love for these pursuits.”
Apropos to this statement, we can attest many instances that have come
under our immediate observation. Study and research along certain lines,
and in special directions have brought the results desired, and the
children have become what they were trained to be in intra-uterine life.
“What do you expect to do when you get to America?” asked a
fellow-passenger of a woman who was crossing the Atlantic about a
century ago. “Do? why raise governors for them.” And she was as good
as her word, for she became the mother of General John Sullivan, the
chief magistrate of New Hampshire, and of James Sullivan, governor of
Massachusetts. “She who thinks skim milk will transmit skim milk; she who
thinks cream will transmit cream.” This woman thought cream and lived it
and transmitted the best to her children.
Young women do not stop in your research with the few thoughts that can
be given in a chapter like this, but go on in the study until you know
what it has to teach you and what you may give to your unborn children,
by painstaking study and culture of yourself. Begin by weeding out
the habits and tendencies that you would not wish to transmit, and by
cultivating the qualities and accomplishments, which you would delight to
see repeated in your children.
Depend upon it the study and care will reward you bountifully, and you
will do your part in furthering the knowledge of this great science,
which means so much to the generations to come.
“A partnership with God is motherhood;
What strength, what purity, what self-control,
What love, what wisdom, should belong to her,
Who helps God fashion an immortal soul.”
CHAPTER XII.
AILMENTS OF PREGNANCY.
Pregnancy not an Unnatural but a Normal State.—Tendency to
Neglect Hygienic Rules.—Morning Sickness.—How to Correct
it.—Important Questions of Diet.—Displaced Uterus as Cause
of Nausea.—Mental States.—Companionship.—Various Gastric
Troubles.—Insomnia.—Hysteria.—Constipation and How to Correct
it.—Longings.—Self-control.—With Proper Care, as a Rule All
Goes Well.
There are several distressing ailments which afflict the pregnant woman,
and which are too often by the uninformed considered a necessity, hence
nothing is done for them. Leavitt has said wisely, “The general health
is already frequently disturbed, and the system in an enfeebled state,
when pregnancy is established. The woman at once enters on the trying
experiences of early gestation—attributing nearly all her symptoms to the
physiological changes being wrought in her organism. Viewing them also
as, in great measure essential features of her condition, she is prone
to neglect proper attention to hygienic rules.”
Another mistake is too frequently made by the women, and indulged by
the physician, namely, considering the pregnant state a pathological,
diseased, or unnatural condition, in every instance, while it should be
in the majority of cases purely a physiological, natural and healthy
condition. True, woman is not exempt during pregnancy from the various
ills that assail her sex, and the human family as a whole; but that every
ailment with which she is assailed should be attributed to her condition
is a mistake, and a greater mistake is to neglect proper treatment for
these ills.
The morning sickness is one of the most common and troublesome ailments
of the parturient, and one which is most often neglected. But it is
likewise one which can be controlled in the majority of instances. Do not
neglect it, but see to it at once. Plenty of exercise in the open air,
well-aired sleeping rooms, pleasant surroundings and suitable food go far
to mitigate this ill, but the doctor will need to be consulted at times.
The diet of women suffering from morning sickness, should be regulated,
and nothing deleterious to her allowed. Often the aggravated ailment can
be traced to vagaries of appetite, which have been foolishly indulged,
which corrected, and a reasonable diet substituted, will do much to aid
the cure. Often a few mouthfuls of food or a cup of coffee taken in the
morning before rising will prove of decided benefit, and should be tried
before medicines are resorted to.
The false notion that the pregnant woman “must eat for two,” and so
proceed to indulge her appetite to the utmost, should be corrected. The
appetite should be kept under in pregnancy as carefully as at any other
time, and rather than otherwise, more care be taken in the selection of
food, and regularity of meals.
Leavitt recommends as articles specially suited to the earlier months of
pregnancy, the following:—“Mutton-broth, chicken-broth, oysters, clams
and fish. When they have heretofore agreed, the following may also be
eaten: beef, mutton, chicken, game, eggs, stale bread, oat meal, rice,
baked potatoes, spinach, macaroni, greens, celery, green peas, lettuce,
asparagus, oranges, grapes, and stewed fruit. Desserts should in most
instances be avoided.”
These do not of course include all the harmless articles, and a simple
and comprehensive rule is this: any article of food that is hygienic and
does not disagree may be partaken of with impunity.
Sometimes the nausea may be due to other causes than those exciting
simple nausea. If it is persistent and aggravated a displaced uterus may
be the cause. This when corrected will effect a cure like magic.
In the later months of pregnancy the nausea, if any, is due to another
cause than that which excites it in the earlier months. Compression and
a changed character of the secretions, are the exciting causes at this
time, yet even here attention to diet will do much toward correcting the
distress. “At this period all articles of food which will increase the
fermentative action, so easily set up, ought to be avoided. Such are
mainly those containing starch, sugar and fat.”
The mental state of the woman needs careful attention as well as the
physical. Among the early Greeks a pregnant woman was held so much in
reverence that she was guarded almost sacredly, and shielded from all
possible annoyances. No troublesome or unsightly thing was allowed
in her presence, and she was surrounded with pleasing and delightful
companions, pictures and occupations. This might with profit be emulated
by the people of to-day. An unpleasant companion in the home, a dull,
monotonous, treadmill existence will often drive a pregnant woman to the
verge of distraction; while on the other hand the thought that she is the
subject of tender solicitude and care, that she is petted and indulged in
her harmless desires, will make the period of pregnancy a long holiday.
Above all, keep all croaking companions away. You will find in every
neighborhood, women who delight to give in detail all the terrible cases
they have ever heard or imagined, and these are the women that you should
shun, and in plain words, forbid the introduction of such topics if
necessary.
Sometimes another distressing gastric disturbance, which may give much
annoyance, is a want of appetite, or disgust for food. A change of scene
or surroundings for a time, with an entire change of table, will often be
all that is necessary to correct this. A visit to the mother or a dear
friend, will relieve the monotony, and often give the change desired.
This very often is the result of mental disturbance rather than physical,
and so yields when the proper remedy, change, is prescribed and taken.
Acidity of the stomach and heartburn can be relieved with the appropriate
remedy. “Temporary relief will often be afforded by a swallow of pure
glycerine, or a half teaspoonful dose of aromatic spirits of ammonia.”
Neuralgia of the stomach calls for the doctor. Ptyalism, or an excessive
flow of saliva; pruritus, or a distressing itching of the genitals or of
the abdominal wall; face-ache or neuralgia of the fifth nerve, are all
relieved only by the proper prescription from the physician.
Insomnia, which often proves very troublesome, can often be cured by more
outdoor air, and diversion during the day, and a brisk walk in the good
fresh evening air, followed by the sitz bath or bath taken in sitting
posture, with only the parts about the hips submerged in hot water just
before retiring; or a quick sponge bath, rather cool than warm, just
before going to rest for the night will often act well as a sedative.
The urine in quality and quantity should be carefully looked after, and
should be examined by the physician several times during the later months
of pregnancy, that its condition may be known.
Hysteria may appear in some of its various forms, but when the cause,
which is more often than otherwise due to indigestion, excessive
fatigue, loss of sleep, unpleasant surroundings or companions, “operating
on a nervous system, very sensitive, and already a little out of
tune”—when the cause is removed the hysteria will vanish.
Constipation, which in this state as in all others is more often than
otherwise, simply a bad habit, proves at many times a great annoyance.
Care from the very outset should be taken to keep the bowels open. Often
all that is necessary, is proper attention to diet, exercise and good
air. Diminished intestinal action is doubtless an exciting cause, and
this can be met by greater activity on the part of the woman, and a
selection of food that is easily digested and laxative in character. If
constipation is neglected there may result an accumulation of feces or
waste matter in the rectum and large intestine sometimes of great size,
which may prove a great obstruction to labor, or even interrupt pregnancy
prematurely. Fruits, graham bread, figs, stewed prunes, and liberal
quantities of hot water sipped slowly, thirty or forty minutes before
each meal, will often prove all the medicine needed.
The longings of pregnancy are a matter of notion and imagination run
wild more often than otherwise. A strong self-controlled woman is not
troubled with any longings for things beyond her reach. Hence should she
desire a thing that it will be difficult for her to get, let her exercise
reason, and good judgment in the denial, and the longing will not trouble
her.
Finally the woman during pregnancy should cultivate self-control, and
be governed by common sense in every event. Let wisdom guide her in the
habits of exercise, eating, occupation, society and recreation, and as a
rule all will go well, and there will be no cause for worry throughout
the entire term.
CHAPTER XIII.
DEVELOPMENT OF THE FŒTUS.
Minuteness of the Germ of Human Life.—The Embryo Cell and
Its Store of Food.—Its Journey to the Uterus.—Meeting the
Spermatozoön, Conception Occurs.—The Changes Which take Place
in the Uterus.—Life is Present the Moment Conception takes
Place.—The Mysterious Development of the Embryo.—The Sin of
Tampering with the Work of the Infinite.—The Various Changes in
the Development of the Embryo and Fœtus set Forth.—The Changes
that Occur each Month.—Parenthood the Benediction of Husband
and Wife.
How does the tiny speck, so tiny that it cannot be seen with the naked
eye, only one hundred and twentieth of an inch in diameter, how does this
tiny atom of matter, begin in its growth, continue and develop into the
full grown child? This little germ or ovum, the part furnished by the
mother, in the creation of a human being, contains the germinal vesicle,
or embryo cell, and the stored up food for the early days of life after
conception takes place. After the ovum leaves the ovary, somewhere in
its journey to the uterus or womb, it is met by the spermatozoön, or male
element of conception, and by their mysterious union the new life is
begun.
Coincident with the impregnation of the ovum, active changes are
inaugurated in the uterus. The organ becomes more vascular, increases in
size, its lining is thickened and softened, thus in all ways preparing
a soft bed, or cradle, for the nesting time and growth of the little
one entrusted to its care. During pregnancy the uterus enlarges from an
area of sixteen square inches to three hundred and thirty-nine square
inches in the fully developed state. After delivery it does not resume
its former shape and size, but retains vestiges of the condition through
which it has passed, its retained weight having increased fully an ounce
and a half.
In some inconceivable way a notion has become prevalent, that there is no
life in the embryo until motion is felt by the mother. How life enters
then has been left by them an unexplained mystery. That this professed
belief is but a device of Satan, to excuse the shameless taking of life
in-utero, is the only method of accounting for its prevalence. Life,
organized life, begins the very moment conception takes place, and is
as surely life as that which exists when the little active creature is
placed in its mother’s arms.
After conception takes place, while yet the embryo is on the way to
its nesting place, many and rapid changes take place. By a process of
segmentation or division, the contents of the ovum are broken into
innumerable granular cells, from which mass the whole organization of the
embryo is gradually evolved.
How some of these cells are transformed into muscle, others into bone or
cartilage or nerves, or brain, or connective tissue, when no difference
can be distinguished in the various cells, is among the mysteries of life
which science has not yet fathomed. That it does this we all know; how it
does it belongs wholly within the knowledge of creative wisdom.
In tracing the steps of progress in the life of the embryo, which I
shall soon give, let every young person who reads these pages learn once
and forever, that when she is tempted to rid herself of the product of
conception, even the next moment after conception has taken place, she
is tempted to murder, as surely as though the child were in her arms, a
living visible bit of humanity, and she were plotting to take its life.
It is a terrible thing to tamper with the work of the Infinite, and with
nature’s inexorable laws, and punishment is sure to follow.
When the embryo has finished its journey, and has settled itself for a
long stay of nine months, not of rest, but of ceaseless activity, of
growth and development so marvelous and sure, it begins to draw its life
from the uterus, for the stored up food in the ovum is already exhausted.
At first it draws by absorption through the membrane enclosing it, then
through the placenta or “afterbirth,” which is created as the medium of
communication for the life-giving force, between mother and child.
Up to the close of the third month we call this little new life an
embryo; after this time it is called a fœtus. For a full description of
the embryo and fœtus, in the various stages of development, we copy from
Leavitt’s Science and Art of Obstetrics.
“_The First Month._—The embryo in the first week of gestation, is a
minute, gelatinous and semi-transparent mass, of a greyish color,
presenting to the unaided eye no definite traces of either head or
extremities. The entire ovum measures but one-fourth of an inch, and
the embryo but one-twelfth; but during the next week they double in
dimensions. The coverings of the child are developed, and it is attached
to the uterus, but does not yet draw its life from it. At the close of
the month the ovum is about the size of a pigeon’s egg, and weighs about
forty grains. The embryo is about three-fourths of an inch in extreme
length, and about one-third of an inch in direct measurement as it is
coiled up. The structures have so little bulk, that when ruptured they
easily escape attention, in abortions, generally passing with a clot.
“_Second Month._—At eight weeks the ovum is about the size of a hen’s
egg, and it weighs from one hundred and eighty to three hundred grains,
and is about two-thirds of an inch in length from head to caudal curve.
Its independent circulatory system is forming: indications of the
external generative organs are visible: and ossification has begun in
several parts of the body.
“_Third Month._—The embryo weighs from three hundred to four hundred
grains, and measures from two and a half to three and a half inches in
length. The forearm is well formed and the fingers are discernible. The
umbilical or navel cord is about two and a half inches in length. The
head is relatively large, the neck separates it from the trunk, and
the eyes are prominent. The chorion has lost most of its villi, and the
placenta is formed. Points of ossification are present in most of the
bones. Thin membranous nails appear on the fingers and toes. Sex may be
determined by presence or absence of the uterus.
“_Fourth Month._—The fœtus weighs five or six ounces, and is about
five inches long. Its sex is more distinct; movements are visible.
The convolutions of the brain are beginning to form: ossification is
extending: the placenta is increasing in size, and the cord is about
twelve inches long. The head is one-fourth the length of the whole body.
The sutures and fontanelles are widely separated. Hair begins to appear
on the scalp. If born, the fœtus may live three or four hours.
“_Fifth Month._—Fœtal weight has increased to ten ounces, and length
to about nine inches. The head is still relatively large. Fine hair,
(lanugo) appears over the whole body. Fœtal movements can be felt by the
mother. If born the fœtus can live but a few hours.
“_Sixth Month._—Weight about twenty-four ounces, length eleven inches.
Fat is found in the subcutaneous cellular tissue. Hair is darker and
more abundant. The membrana pupillaris exists but the eyelids separate.
If born at this time the fœtus breathes freely, but life is retained only
a few hours, with rare exceptions.
“_Seventh Month._—Weight from three to four pounds, length fourteen to
fifteen inches. The skin is wrinkled, of red color and covered with
vernix caseosa. The pupillary membrane disappears. If younger than
twenty-eight weeks it is not likely to live.
“_Eighth Month._—Weight from four to five pounds, length from sixteen to
eighteen inches. Development is now rather in thickness than length. The
nails are nearly perfect, and the lanugo is disappearing from the face.
The navel is gradually approaching the centre of the body, until now it
has nearly reached the median point. The cranial bones are easily molded
under pressure, a point to be remembered as bearing on the question of
induced labor in pelvic deformity.
“_Ninth Month_—or at term.—At the end of pregnancy the fœtus weighs an
average of six and a half or seven pounds, and measures about twenty
inches in length. The average weight of mature males is greater than that
of females. At birth the fœtus is covered with vernix caseosa, a whitish
tenacious substance, composed of a mixture of surface epithelium, down
and the products of sebaceous glands. During intra-uterine life it serves
as a protection for the skin against the amniotic fluid. It can be
removed thoroughly only by preceding the use of water by a free use of
oil.”
So the baby grows until it reaches intra-uterine maturity, and comes into
our arms for cherishing. Pity, pity the little one that comes with no
love to receive it, and pity more the mother of such a child. No woman
has a right to marry, unless she desires offspring and is willing to fit
herself for maternity. No man has a right to take upon himself the sacred
vows that make him husband, unless he comprehends all that it means, and
is measurably ready to meet its duties and responsibilities. With such
preparation, and such understanding upon entering matrimony, we should
see a nobler, stronger race of men and women in the coming generations.
CHAPTER XIV.
BABY’S WARDROBE.
The Question That Comes with Fluttering Signs of
Life.—Importance of Wise Choice of Material and Style of
Dress.—The Blessedness of Mother’s Joy in Preparing Baby’s
Clothing.—The Questions of Dress Important.—Formerly
Seemingly Planned for Discomfort.—The “Binder” an Instrument
of Torture.—Better Methods now Prevail.—The Napkin.—How to
Establish Regular Habits for Baby.—The Pinning Blanket.—The
Little Shirt.—Baby’s Earliest and Best Dress Described.—The
Complete Wardrobe Described.—The Furnishings of the
Basket.—Things Which are not to Baby’s Taste or Comfort.—The
Later Wardrobe.
“Wherewithal shall my baby be clothed?” is a question that comes to every
expectant mother—if her heart be filled with love for it—when she feels
the first fluttering signs of life that announce to her listening heart,
“Mother, I’m coming;” and she delights to prepare for her little one the
softest, daintiest, richest things that her purse and time will allow.
If she is not always wise in her choice of material and trimming and
style of dress, it is because of ignorance, more often than otherwise.
Sometimes, we fear from pride that her baby should make as fair a show in
the flesh as the babies of her friends, regardless of healthfulness or
suitableness.
I would it were possible for every mother to prepare the first clothing
of her coming little ones, all herself; for in such quiet times as women
sit down to their needle alone, in the waiting hours, thoughts and plans
and high ambitions for the little ones hold them fast, and the heart
warms with each dainty stitch, while the mother love kindles and grows,
and the castles are built and peopled with baby and its friends and
lovers. Far more often than we think, the choicest, tenderest thoughts
the woman is capable of, and the highest, noblest ambitions of what her
baby shall be, and what she shall be to it, are sewed into the little
garments, with her swiftly flying needle; and more than this, are woven
into the very fibre and being of the little one.
The question of the baby’s dress is one of large importance, and one
which in the past few years has received the attention which is its due.
Formerly the comfort of the baby was little planned for; and more than
that, it almost seems, as we consider it to-day, that the clothing of
the little one was planned for discomfort; as if a sacrificial thought
must enter into its first experiences, to insure a proper amount of
self-abnegation in later life. Now all this is changed and self-sacrifice
and endurance are taught the baby in a more wholesome way.
That instrument of torture, the band, or more properly the “binder,” has
been relegated to the shades by all sensible people, and the thought that
the All-wise Creator planned and formed the human body so wisely that it
needed none of man’s inventions to supplement His creative wisdom, is
thoroughly believed by the many to-day; and the baby is given the freedom
in dress that its growing body and active limbs demand.
First of all the diaper or napkin must be considered. The large, heavy
cotton flannel diapers, which are used so widely to-day, deserve one
criticism and caution. There is danger, if they are used in the earlier
weeks that too much thickness will be folded down between the legs, and
the hips be thrown out of the natural position, and thus an awkward,
ungraceful gait follow. Something much softer and more yielding should
be used at first and this danger will be obviated. A heavy, firm
cheesecloth I have found all that was necessary, and these should not be
made more than eighteen inches square, for use in the early weeks. Ten
or fifteen of these will be an ample supply, and they should never be
dried without a good rinsing after each using. The cotton flannel squares
can be used later, but always with care not to fold too much between the
legs, and so crowd the soft yielding bones. On the other hand the mother
must guard against pinning the napkin too tightly about the hips, for
this draws the hips forward and the little one is in danger of becoming
knock-kneed. These seem simple cautions, but many thoughtful women do not
think of them.
The napkin can very soon be spared the soil of the baby’s regular
movements, and only used as a guard against irregularities. The baby
while yet very young can be accustomed to a regular morning movement,
and can be held out while dressing, over the little chamber, and its
bowels moved daily. Should there not be a degree of regularity about
the time naturally, it can soon become accustomed to one, by aiding at
a stated time, with a little soap suppository which should be moistened
before being inserted in the rectum. This habit fixed and the greatest
annoyance in the care of the baby is done away with.
All that is required in a band, is a soft piece of flannel, six or eight
inches wide, with the edge turned over, once only, on the right side, and
catch-stitched down. These are to be worn only until the navel cord is
detached and the stump healed, then what is worn over the shoulders and
legs is sufficient for the abdomen, hence no band is needed for warmth.
Next in the Gertrude garments is the substitute for the pinning blanket,
which is no pinning blanket at all, but a simple little garment,
long-sleeved, high-necked, and cut in one piece, like the outer garment
or slip. I would suggest but one change in this, and for what I consider
a good and sufficient reason. If the little pinning-blanket, of the
Gertrude pattern, is soiled, both that and all the outer garments must be
removed when the change is made, which may be necessary more than once a
day.
The soft wool shirts, that are found in all first-class stores, I
always recommend, and to take the place of the skirt part of the little
gabrielle described above, I fashion a pinning blanket as follows:
Procure Shaker flannel—half wool and half cotton, as by this material
shrinkage is avoided—that is as nearly a yard square as possible, cut off
one corner, making the bias edge of the triangular piece cut off about
eighteen inches long; face the edge from which the corner has been cut,
with a bias piece of the flannel an inch and a half wide, turning it
over on the right side. Turn over the remaining sides of the blanket on
the right side, cross-stitching it down neatly, and you have the little
garment complete.
After you have put on the band, diaper and shirt, place the middle of
the faced edge of the pinning blanket at the middle of the back of the
shirt, at the waist line and secure it with a tiny safety pin; lap the
two ends at the front and pin them, and then see how beautifully the two
side corners lap over the feet, and the lower corner, when brought up and
pinned loosely, that ample room be given the legs to stretch out and move
about at will, encases the abdomen and legs of the baby in a smooth soft
covering, guiltless of seam or gather. When this is soiled it is a small
matter to change it compared with changing the skirt and slip of the
Gertrude costume.
Over these for the first weeks all that is needed is a linen lawn slip,
twenty-seven inches in length from shoulders to bottom of hem, if it be
summer, or a wrapper of French flannel or outing flannel if it be winter.
Dressed in this simple and unencumbered manner, the little one will sleep
and wake, and eat and sleep again, stretching itself in happy content,
and growing as nature intended it should in unconstrained freedom.
Three each of shirts and bands, and a half dozen each of the little
pinning blankets and slips, a dozen and a half of the small diapers, and
one or two squares of flannel to wrap the baby in when taken from the
bed, will furnish the baby’s wardrobe well and amply for the first few
months.
During these first months a more elaborate wardrobe may be furnished,
although it is far better to keep it in as simple and light clothing as
possible for the time until the clothes are shortened, when it will be
taken out more and will need a little more attention to its toilet. In
place of the linen lawn slips a nice thing is slips made of china silk.
These are easily laundered and are soft and a little nicer than the
cotton dress.
For the basket where the baby, it is hoped, will spend most of its time
for weeks, you should have a thick soft pad of cotton covered with cheese
cloth and quilted, not tied, loosely, to cover the pillow placed in the
bottom of the basket; a square of flannel over this, if you desire, for
a blanket, and a soft knotted comfort, with the knots outside, for the
cover. The tiny pillow completes the furnishing for the sleeping basket.
Put carefully away for remembrances all the handsomely embroidered
pillow-slips, daintily trimmed with ruffles and ribbons, and the
elaborate counterpanes of heavy piqué, made heavier with yards of hamburg
trimming and ribbon. These will answer finely for heirlooms, but are not
at all suited to either the baby’s taste or comfort.
The soft knitted socks will be needed for a winter baby, and perhaps for
summer, if the baby is delicate, the feet moving about, will get cold
easily. But far better than encumber the little one with clothing, warm
the basket bed with a hot water bottle or two.
For the later wardrobe, little more will be needed than a slight
modification of these already described. We should consider the baby’s
comfort, first, last, and all the time. However proud we may be of it
we should not allow ourselves to dress it for exhibition. The _baby_ is
the centre of attraction, not what it may be dressed in. A supply of the
linen lawn or china silk slips, made larger but not longer, two or three
flannel skirts, fashioned without gathers at the waist, and attached to
a thin muslin waist without sleeves; two or three cashmere or flannel
jackets, for the little one is large enough to be out of its basket a
part of the time, and needs a wrap that will not fall off easily, and
leave it exposed. With this list you have all that is needed until the
short clothes are provided; then a more generous supply will be needed,
but never anything more elaborate.
CHAPTER XV.
THE CHOICE OF PHYSICIAN AND NURSE.
Choice of Physician and Nurse of Real Consequence.—Choose
a Physician Whom You can Trust Implicitly.—A Cleanly
Man.—The Wife Should Make the Selection.—A Christian
Physician.—Choice of Nurse.—Wife most Capable of Making
Choice.—Advice of the Physician Desirable.—She Should be
Pleasing to the Wife.—Cleanliness.—Gentleness.—A Person of
Individuality.—Neatness in Manner and Clothing.—Should be
Intelligent.—Physician and Nurse Should Work in Sympathy.—A
Good Cook.—Able to Converse, but not a Gossip.—Many Such
Physicians and Nurses.
The choice of a physician and nurse for the ordeal of maternity, is a
matter of real consequence. It is not enough that you have a physician
whom you have trusted in the common ailments of life, and perforce must
have him now, lest he think it strange; the question is, do you desire
him to minister to you at this time?
Choose a clean man or woman as you value your life and comfort. Choose
one to whom you can pin your trust, and in whom you can confide
implicitly. Choose one who is above reproach, and can inspire you with
courage and hopefulness. Choose a clean doctor physically. They who do
not delight in clean linen, and clean hands, will hardly delight in
cleanliness in their attentions to you.
Finally the wife should have the unbiased choice of the physician, unless
there is some very good reason why she is not capable of a reasonable
choice. Of course it is far better that the choice of one should be the
choice of the other, and that there be perfect harmony between husband
and wife in the choice made, both for their own peace of mind, and for
the comfort of the physician. There are many cases on record of labor
being delayed, and much discomfort being caused by disappointment in the
physician desired.
Above all choose a Christian physician. The counsel of the Great
Physician is never more needed than in birth travail, and it is
comforting to feel that the human friend upon whom you depend, knows this
power and helpfulness and can direct you to Him.
In the choice of a nurse as great care and consideration are needed.
Do not depend upon the selection made by a friend; no one can choose
for you. You alone are the one concerned, and you alone are capable of
making the choice. It is well to ask your physician to recommend a nurse,
or more than one, and then ask for an interview, and mark well every
point, before you make your choice. Remember you are to have her about
you almost constantly for two or more weeks, and unless she is pleasing
to you in the outset, depend upon it, she will almost inevitably become
displeasing to you before her term of service is over.
She must be very cleanly in her person, and guilty of no idiosyncrasies
in dress or manner; of gentle voice, quiet and subdued, clean of speech,
and self-conscious enough to know her ability and prove it. She must
have a strong individuality, and an authority second to none save the
physician’s. She must not wear squeaky shoes, or wear rustling dresses,
or bright colors, or jewelry or fancy trimmings of any sort. Quietness,
unobtrusiveness, ladylikeness, and simplicity should characterize all her
dress and manner and habits.
She need not be pretty, but she must have the attractiveness of a good
face, and a kindly eye. The prettier, the more cultured and attractive,
the more versatile, the better, for she has a critical trio, or
perhaps quartet to please, and must stand between her patient and all
annoyances, between her patient and all pleasures and desires that might
be harmful. She is to be the care-taker of mother and baby, and the
court of appeal, of husband, mother and all other relatives. If she is
vacillating and weak she can claim the respect of none of these. If she
be loud and imperious in her authority, lacking the quiet dignity upon
which real power is based, she will have little influence with either her
patient or the family.
Further the physician and nurse must be in sympathy, or they cannot work
together. The physician is the authority, and the nurse like Eve to
Adam, an help meet for him. She is to have no authority independent of
the physician, save in an emergency, when she must sometimes act without
waiting to consult him. Again the nurse must know what to do and how to
do it, without asking questions. She must see and do with a quiet easy
air of generalship, that will make her patient wonder when so much gets
done, and how it could be done with so little noise or friction.
The nurse must be an excellent, attractive and inviting cook. She must
serve everything in a pleasing way, and not so great a quantity but that
her patient will wish there were more.
Finally she must not be a talker; she can read to you, converse with you,
but never gossip. The more she knows of books and people the pleasanter
her companionship.
Such doctors and such nurses, do you say, are hard to find? No, there are
many of them, but I fear the search for them is not always made with wise
discrimination. When such are sought for and demanded, they will come to
the front.
I fear we have too often sought for what we thought was ability, but
which rightly interpreted meant reputation, and too seldom for real
worth. Ian MacLaren’s doctor of Drumtochty was not a man of wide or great
reputation, but of unlimited painstaking and faithfulness. So are many of
what the world calls common men. Not that this true greatness does not
ever go with a wide reputation, but that it can as well be found with the
common painstaking, less gifted practitioner, and we should not forget
it.
CHAPTER XVI.
THE BIRTH CHAMBER.
Memory’s Dissimilar Pictures of Birth-Chamber Scenes.—Newborn
Souls Welcomed to Mother’s Arms and Love.—The Rebellious
Mother with Empty Heart and Unwilling Arms.—The Older
Children Reflect the Spirit of the Mother toward the
Newcomer.—Illustrations of Conduct of Intelligent Children
toward Mother at Birth Period.—How to Calculate Date of
Confinement.—Birth Chamber no Terror for Those who Live
Hygienically.—Anæsthetics.—Their Use Explained.—Allaying
Anxiety.—Earliest Premonitions.—Preparation.—The Three Stages
of Labor.—Tying the Cord.—The Rest and Joy that Complete and
Crown Labor.
Some of the darkest, and some of the brightest pictures of life, hung
on the walls of memory, have been painted for me in the birth chamber.
Bright when the little newborn soul is welcomed to a mother’s arms and
love; love that is months long and deep. Dark when there has been a
bitter rebellion that she must be a mother at all, and the little one
comes into an empty heart and unwilling arms.
Another class of pictures comes to me; of the children trained by these
mothers. The one class, children who are angry and rebellious that more
little ones must come into the home, prepared to greet them with a
hateful welcome, and looking upon their parents with a jealous distrust,
thinking they must be in some way responsible for this unhappy state of
affairs. Is it not true that such children are but the echo of their
parents’ hearts? The other class of children, looking with love for the
advent of the new brother or sister, cherishing it more and more every
day, and giving their parents loving confidence.
Two of the bright pictures come to my mind. A little daughter who had
been wisely taught where babies are first cradled, became in her seventh
year a little woman in comfort and care-taking consideration of the
dear mamma. “What can I do to help you, mamma, dear? and if you should
be taken sick all alone here, you would call me and let me help you,
wouldn’t you, mamma?” were questions often heard, and they sank freighted
with comforting love, into the mother’s heart. This same daughter is now
budding into womanhood and prepared to meet all its responsibilities and
temptations, and yet withal, modest and winning in her girlish, wise
womanliness.
Another picture. I was called one night to attend a lady in her fifth
confinement. The husband had come for me and leaving me at the door of
his home had gone for the nurse. On entering, I found the only attendant
of the mother, her twelve year old son. With her hands in his, and his
face full of sympathy and anxiety for her suffering, he was giving her
all the assistance that he could. Quiet and dignified he left the room
as I entered, but not before I had read in his face the lesson that had
sunk into his very soul; that mothers suffered for their children, and
for this should have all the love and tender consideration they could
give them. He was not an attractive boy, nor a tractable one, but the
dear mother had taken the very safest means to hold him to herself, and a
mother-anchored boy or girl will not go far wrong.
So much for some retrospects of the birth chamber, and now to the plain
practical knowledge needed for those who are to experience its realities.
In reckoning the period of gestation the rule most easily followed is
this. Add seven days to the date of the last menstruation, and count
ahead nine months, or backward three months, and you have the probable
time of confinement. Should you pass this time you would probably go on
for two weeks, as the most susceptible times for conception to take place
are in the week following menstruation or a couple of days preceding the
next period; which makes a difference of two weeks in the calculation.
If the bowels have been kept open by proper diet and care, and if the
patient has kept up her daily exercise and baths, she will come to the
birth chamber well prepared and it need have no terrors for her.
To-day when anæsthetics are given as a rule, not an exception, the chief
bugbear of the parturient is lost or charmed away. It does not need that
the anæsthetic be given to a surgical degree, but simply sufficient to
take away the severity of the pain. I have found for the lying-in room
the most satisfactory anæsthetic to be the one, two, three, mixture;
by which I mean a mixture of alcohol, chloroform, and ether, in the
proportion of one part of alcohol, two parts of chloroform, and three
parts of ether. These parts may be varied however as the attending
physician desires. It is not a quick anæsthetic, but serves every purpose
needed, unless full anæsthesia is sought. The patient can manage this
herself, and it thus serves two purposes, giving her something beside her
discomfort to think of, and taking away the pain so that there is little
left to think about.
Take a light drinking glass, fill half full of absorbent cotton, and drop
a few drops of the mixture upon it; at the beginning of a pain, or a
little before, take a half dozen full breaths, and the pain is toned down
to a very bearable thing. The patient can hold the glass, and there is no
danger of her taking too much, as her hand will drop when she has enough
to render her a little drowsy. This should rarely be given, until the
second stage of labor begins, as it will sometimes retard if given in the
first stage.
In the last few days before labor, there is often a nervous restlessness
on the part of many women which can easily be appeased by the physician.
A few questions, an examination if necessary, the quiet assurance that
everything is all right, will do much to quiet the unrest. The home
friends can likewise aid in this by judiciously suggesting changes, and
recreation a little out of the ordinary, or a loved visitor will tide
over the intervening days beautifully.
There are at times during the last few days, pains that simulate labor
pains, and make the time drag heavily. Try and put by all thoughts of
anxiety, as you will have warning sufficient to give you time for every
needed preparation. Should your pains come with any degree of regularity,
consult your physician about it, that he may be on his guard and prepared
for a call at any moment. As soon as you have the premonition of regular
pains, unless the bowels have moved freely already that day, they should
be moved by a full enema or injection. During the waiting time occupy
yourself as pleasantly as possible, keeping about the house or room,
until obliged to take to the bed, as the time will seem shorter and you
can aid much by keeping about on the feet. Be cheerful, courageous, and
strong; remembering all the time that you are only fulfilling a _natural_
law, and that the _large majority_ of cases are simple and uncomplicated,
and give no trouble whatever.
Let no one into the room who has not a cheery word to say and a bright
face to give strength to the word. Long faces and solemnity are not
wanted here, but joy and gladness that the mystery of birth, the coming
into life of a new creation, is to be enacted, and this her time of
“deliverance” should be celebrated with joy.
Should any foolish one dare whisper, banish them at once, and see to it
that they do not return. If you fear to offend, send them on some needed
errand that will take several hours, and pray that it will all be over
before they return to rejoice with you.
There are three well marked stages of labor. The first is perhaps to the
novice the most tedious, as one cannot see the progress made, and there
is a feeling that nothing is being accomplished. This first stage is what
is familiarly called the getting-ready stage, that is, the opening of the
mouth of the uterus, ready for the expulsion of the child. Many women
keep about their work, paying but little attention to this stage, while
a goodly number are unconscious of it entirely, the contractions taking
place in so orderly a manner, that no pain is felt, or if any, very
slight. At this stage if tedious, a good sitz bath will afford comfort,
and aid in the regular contractions. Often most of the discomfort at this
time is because of nervousness. Keep cool, jolly and cheerful and all
will go well.
When there is a natural desire to bear down with a pain, the second or
expulsive stage has begun. Then you may administer your anæsthetic,
giving as described above.
Often this stage is very short and easily borne, as the patient can note
the progress made, and sees the end nearer. A recent patient who had had
two children before, felt very little discomfort during the first stage,
and recognizing the beginning of the second, remarked at the first pain,
“That was not very hard, but think how many more there must be.” The next
pain came, and she had hardly time to reach the bed, before the little
one was ushered into existence. The chances are that if your dress has
been hygienic, your exercise what it should have been, your baths kept up
faithfully, that you will be one of those who will be surprised at the
ease of your labor.
The second stage terminates with the birth of the child. A rest follows
this of from a quarter to a half an hour, when follows the expulsion of
the placenta, or afterbirth, which is the third stage.
A word here as to the best method of tying the placentic cord. A fancy
obtains among a few physicians that the cord need not be tied, if the
child is not severed from the mother until the cord has ceased to
pulsate. However this may be, I am sure you will feel more secure if
the cord is well tied. The latest and most approved method and one which
is surest to prevent hemorrhage, is this. Tie the placentic cord at a
distance of about three inches from the body of the child, sever it just
beyond the place where it is tied, then fold it back and with the same
thread tie the placentic cord again an inch from the child, leaving the
loop of cord as it is, until it dries and falls off. The fold and double
tie make assurance doubly sure as far as hemorrhage is concerned.
The rest which follows the close of labor, rest of body and mind, can be
understood only when experienced, no words can explain it. The labor is
over, all that has been told you of terror and danger has not been yours,
and the pain is all forgotten in the joy that a child is born, is yours,
and you hug it to your heart for very joy. Cherish it, dear mother,
rejoice in it, and train it to become a truly great child of a noble
mother.
CHAPTER XVII.
SURROUNDINGS AND AFTER-CARE OF THE MOTHER.
Maternity Should Have the Largest and Brightest Room in the
House.—It is Her Coronation Room.—Simplicity of Labor with
Healthy Women.—Science Has Reduced Risk to the Minimum.—The
Exaltation of Motherhood.—The Rest after Labor.—How to Prepare
a Bed for the Parturient.—Deliverance of Mother from Friends
and Visitors.—Sanitary Pads.—Regular Nursing.—Undisturbed
Sleep.—No Binder Necessary for Mother.—The Care of the
Breasts.—Diet.—Sitting Up.—Six or Eight Weeks Needed to Regain
Normal Condition.—The Use of the Douche.—Sore Nipples.—The
Bearing of Children not to be Dreaded.—The Joy of Motherhood.
The room chosen for the lying-in should be as large and warm and sunshiny
as any room in the house. It should be far enough from the living rooms
to be quiet the greater part of the day, and yet not so far as to feel
isolated. The centre of the home at this time is the little mother, and
the room in which she rests after her perilsome journey is the throne
room, where love and homage crown her queen, and welcome right royally
the little prince or princess, who has come to share her reign. Nothing
unpleasant should be allowed to enter this room, for the happy and quick
getting up of the patient depends much upon the smooth running of the
home machinery. One hour of mental disturbance, may add days to the
lying-in, and one discordant person can make more unrest and trouble than
all the others combined can overcome. Therefore look well to the helpers
in the home, that they be in harmony with the home-keeper.
Had we to deal with labor in its simplicity, as a physiological act,
natural and uncomplicated with faulty living and semi-invalidism, the
physician’s and attendant’s duties in the days following delivery,
could be expressed in few words; but owing to the results of our
boasted civilization and high pressure living, which too often in its
mad rush has robbed womankind of the sturdy physique, and sound brawn
and endurance so much needed in the everyday emergencies of life, she
comes to the ordeal of maternity badly fitted for its strain, and with
little or no reserve power, either to carry her through the hours of
incomparable pain, or to aid in her restoration in the days following.
In other words, labor has come to be pathological or abnormal, instead
of physiological or normal, in the majority of cases, and as such, the
attendant cares have come to be correspondingly onerous.
That great changes have been made in the past thirty years since the
promulgation of the germ theory of disease, in the management of the
lying-in room is unquestioned. The patient is no longer left to the
recuperative forces of nature alone, but is aided as well by every wise
provision of art and science, and as a consequence the mortality rate of
parturients has been reduced to a minimum.
But something more than getting the mother up is desired, namely,
getting her up as well and strong as ever. Child-bearing should not
deplete a woman’s strength, neither should it detract from her beauty
and freshness, but should add charms, even as it adds to her mental and
spiritual attractiveness by the sweet consciousness and dignity that
she is a mother, and that henceforth a little soul looks to her for the
interpretation of life’s meaning, and for the guiding of little feet
along its devious paths. Oh mother, what a privilege; that you may shape
this fair thing into a soul to your thought and God’s liking, for His
promises are sure along these lines. Listen! “Instead of thy fathers
shall be thy children, whom thou mayest make princes in all the earth.”
As if the dear Lord were comforting His daughters in going out from the
home nest, and the peculiar protecting care of the father, by reminding
them that henceforth a sublimer thing awaited them than the protection
of a father’s love; namely, themselves assuming the part of parent,
enfolding and shaping in their love, the little lives, according to His
will, into fair and noble souls that shall bless the world and make it
richer for their living.
Immediately following delivery, the physician in charge should see that
his patient is made comfortable. A rest of half an hour at least should
be allowed her, while physician and nurse look after the little one. Then
lacerations if any must be seen to—for they will occur occasionally even
in the most skillfully conducted labors.
If the gown is turned up under the shoulders during delivery, and held
securely in place with a safety pin, there will be no necessity for
changing this, and a toilet of the bruised and sore parts will take but a
few moments, and the mother will be ready for her long delightful rest.
It may not be out of place to give directions for making the bed
preparatory to the confinement. There is a right way and a wrong way for
doing even this. The bed should be made double. First over the mattress
should be placed a square of rubber sheeting—or oilcloth if the rubber
is not easily obtainable—large enough to cover the entire middle of the
bed, and within eighteen inches of the head and foot. This should be
securely fastened at the four corners with safety pins, and at the middle
on each edge, to prevent wrinkling. Over this is placed a sheet covering
the entire bed; over this a sheet folded lengthwise, then crosswise, to
make a square; this is called the draw sheet, and must be fastened at
the corners with safety pins. This is the first bed and that which is to
remain after the toilet is made following delivery. Over this a third
sheet is placed covering the entire bed, then another draw sheet fastened
as the other. These last two are removed with small discomfort to the
patient, after delivery, and a clean fresh bed remains.
An excellent thing to insure greater cleanliness, is to prepare a
bag about two feet square, made of old cotton cloth, and filled to a
thickness of three or four inches, with wheat bran. This, if placed
directly under the body will absorb all the discharges, and can be burned
when removed, and thus much washing be saved.
Now the mother should be left several hours undisturbed; for she needs
rest, and must have it. One rule should be made inviolable for every
lying-in room; namely, no company should be allowed, other than the
immediate family, until the patient is sitting up; then she will be
strong enough to bear the “ohs” and “ahs” of admiration, and the wise
and otherwise volumes of advice, upon the care and training of the
little one, which will be gratuitously bestowed. The nurse will have no
difficulty in carrying this out if she have the physician’s authority to
support her. Many little mothers have been hindered in their recovery,
and have finally gotten up weak and nervous, through the indiscretions
of their thoughtless, if well-meaning friends. The heartfelt prayer of
every parturient should be, “Lord, I am delivered of my child safely, now
deliver me from my friends.”
Before confinement two dozen of napkins or pads should be prepared for
the mother in the following manner. Get an ordinary grade of cheese
cloth, and enclose in a square of it folded corner-wise, a strip of
medicated cotton six inches long. These can be used as napkins for the
mother safely, as they are aseptic, and after they are soiled can be
burned. These are comparatively inexpensive, as a pound of cotton will
make the entire number.
If the confinement has been in every way a normal one, the care necessary
will be easily given. To keep the baby quiet and contented, and from the
beginning free from night nursing, that the mother may be insured a good
period of rest, is one of the strongest aids to her speedy recovery. What
I mean by freedom from night feeding is this. At ten o’clock the baby
may be put to the breast, and then not again until four or five in the
morning. That they can be thus taught, and that they will thrive under
it, I have many times demonstrated; and that the mother will thrive is a
foregone conclusion. This will be further discussed in the chapter on the
care of the baby.
No binder for the mother is necessary, as I have in my own practice many
times demonstrated. It seems to me a reflection on the creative work of
the Maker. They are used and recommended ostensibly as a support, and to
insure a good form after getting up; while in reality they defeat the
first purpose by crowding down the uterus instead of holding it in place;
while the muscles of the abdomen are quite capable of contracting and
insuring the former figure, without the use of a binder.
On the day following delivery the physician will see that the patient
urinates freely, and the bowels, if they have been kept open before
delivery, will need no attention until nature calls for an evacuation.
A simple enema of warm water will be all that is needed to aid in this.
Immediately after delivery, and after the toilet, to patients who can
take it, I recommend a cup of hot milk, to others a cup of beef tea made
from beef extract, if more acceptable than the milk.
Until the mother’s milk is established, the food should be light and
simple, with not too much of liquid to stimulate too great a flow
of milk. If the milk comes with a rush the breasts may be painfully
distended, and more may be secreted than the baby will take. If so,
all that will be needed is a gentle rubbing of the breasts from the
circumference toward the nipple, with the fingers dipped in hot lard.
The nurse if well chosen will be schooled in this, and only enough milk
should be rubbed out to relieve the breasts, as very soon the little one
will need all that is secreted.
After the milk is established the diet can be more generous, and on the
eighth day if all goes well, the little mother can sit up in bed to eat
her meals; and after the tenth day she may have her wrapper on and slip
out into a rocker for a few hours, but she should avoid walking about
for some days yet. The reason for this carefulness? The uterus which has
enlarged from a tiny organ, weighing a few ounces, to many times its
original size and weight, cannot regain its original condition in a day.
To quote from Leavitt again. “In normal cases complete involution, (_i.
e._, reduction to normal size), is effected in _six or eight weeks_. The
progress of uterine diminution is graphically shown by Heschl, from the
weight of the organ at different periods. Immediately after delivery he
found that it weighed twenty-two to twenty-four ounces; in one week it
was reduced to nineteen to twenty-one ounces; at the end of the second
week it weighed ten to eleven ounces; at the close of the third week it
weighed five to seven ounces; and at eight weeks its weight was but a
little in excess of that which preceded the first pregnancy.” All this
methodical work of nature may be greatly hindered by carelessness and by
getting up too early, hence, “make haste slowly.”
The douche in the after care of the parturient has been variously
discussed. A hot douche immediately following delivery, to cleanse
thoroughly the uterus of any clots or bits of membrane that may be
hiding there, is, we believe, productive of no harm, and may obviate
much trouble thereafter. A daily douche of hot water containing a little
calendula or listerine, is cleansing and is often very grateful to the
patient, but is not, in the absence of unnatural conditions, a necessity.
Nature undisturbed knows how to take care of the outlets, in cleansing
and recuperation, if all has gone well. In many cases the douching is
overdone, and is productive of weakness rather than strength.
Should the nipples give trouble, from sensitiveness or fissures, washing
them off and dusting them with calendulated boracic acid, or simply
bathing with calendula, may heal them very quickly. If this alone fails,
before each nursing apply over the nipple a piece of gold-beater’s
skin—which may be obtained of any reliable druggist—puncturing with
several openings to allow the milk to pass through. Make a fresh
application each time, and by thus persistently keeping the lips of the
child from the sensitive surfaces they are enabled to heal.
With all these careful directions, dear young mothers, do not be
frightened into thinking that the bearing of children is something to
be dreaded, and something which involves great danger. It is neither.
The bearing of children was intended in our creation and is a natural,
physiological process, and the All-wise Creator has amply fitted us for
it. If we come to maternity unprepared, it must be because of ignorance
on our part how to fit ourselves properly, or from unhygienic and harmful
ways of living. Heed the laws of health, keep a sweet, trustful spirit,
avoid excitement, consider yourself strong enough for the great office
for which nature designed you, and you will be the “joyful mother of
children.” Otherwise your joy will be mixed with fear and a thousand
foolish worries, that totally unfit you for your high office.
Be happy that you are capable of becoming a mother, be happy when you
have the promise, and be happiest of all when you hold your little one
in your arms. Train them, all that are given you, to the fear of God,
and for the good of mankind, and you will be a great woman, whether your
name ever reaches beyond your immediate neighborhood or not. It is a
great thing to become a mother of children. To become God’s vicegerent
in creating and training souls that may bring gladness and regeneration
to the dark places of the earth. Mothers, mothers! rate your privileges
high, and live and train to a glorious fulfillment of noble purposes
these gifts from God.
CHAPTER XVIII.
CARE OF THE BABY.
The More Thoughtful Treatment of Babies Than Formerly.—The
First Attention That Baby Needs.—Its Oil Bath.—The Care
of the Eyes.—The Care of the Placentic Cord.—Baby’s First
Bath.—Its Covering After the Bath.—The Basket.—Regularity
in Nursing.—Waking at Night.—Rocking to Sleep.—Quantity of
Food.—The Appointments of the Nursery.—The Mother and the Care
of her own Children.—To her Children the Mother Should be the
Dearest Creature in the World.—The Babies Born of Love.—The
Babies Born in Bitterness.—The Responsibilities and Joys of
Motherhood.
“It is a mother, said the Angel, who has already given her
child the welcome that makes a joyous soul. He shall not miss
her smile. He is what she is. He will need love since he will
give so much, and she is all compact of love. She is one of the
forces of life. To be the mate of such a woman, the father of
such heirs, as she will give, is a fate a man might pray God
for. Love has not grown stale with them, their children are the
very blossoms of it. Her eyes are deeper pools of love each
year.”—FRANCES HODGSON BURNETT.
Time was when the little one and its comfort was not so thought of as
it is to-day. It was not considered that the little one in its tedious
journey had become tired and needed rest; or that its change of abodes
and climates is so marked that the transition is not an easy one. It was
plunged into a full bath, or exposed to the air, was sponged over, often
with soap that was not too pure, and the only resulting virtue was the
full expansion of lungs, because of the lusty crying from such rough
handling.
To-day many physicians advocate wrapping the new baby in cotton batting,
covering it quite closely, and laying it away in a warm corner for
several hours, until it becomes in a measure adjusted to the change of
residence. Then, instead of a thorough washing, it is treated to an oil
bath before a warm fire, with only a small part of its body exposed at
one time. Good clean lard is the best emollient, as it removes most
easily the vernix caseosa with which the baby is more or less covered. By
some sweet oil is preferred.
After the little one has had its rest, the nurse with her basket at
hand, her oil on the hearth well warmed, is ready to give it its first
dressing. Use a small piece of absorbent cotton for the sponge to oil
it with. Cover the head well with the oil and with a soft piece of old
linen rub it off, and with it will come the cheesy substance called
vernix caseosa, and leave the head clean. Do this with the entire
body, little by little, taking great care that all the creases, which
are numerous, shall be thoroughly clean and left well oiled, that no
chafing may follow. For a week your baby will need no other than the
oil bath daily, and the restfulness and comfort of the little one will
be expressed in sleep, _sleep_, SLEEP. The full bath in water should be
reached by degrees only; proceeding from a partial bath with sponge, to a
full sponge bath; then as the baby grows stronger, put it into the tub.
Approached in this way, few babies but will take their bath with delight,
and look forward to it daily.
As soon as the baby is born, even before the cord is severed, the eyes of
the little one should be washed thoroughly. With a soft bit of linen and
a cup of warm water previously boiled, the eyes can be readily cleansed,
and thus cared for, you will rarely have any trouble with the eyes
thereafter. Keep them turned from the light while dressing, and at no
time let a strong light fall upon the eyes.
In dressing the cord, wrap it in a bit of absorbent cotton four inches
square. Cut or tear a hole in the middle of this, draw the loop of cord
through, wrap the cotton about it and turn it up and hold it in place
with the band pinned only sufficiently close to hold the cord and its
dressing in place. The cord will need no further attention until it has
dried and dropped off, unless the band in slipping up pulls upon the
dressing and irritates the little one. Dressed in this manner the navel
heals smooth and clean, and will need nothing further than a dusting with
calendulated boracic acid, should it not be perfectly dry when the cord
drops.
An excellent blanket to receive the child from the bath is made of coarse
Germantown yarn, knitted into a strip three-quarters of a yard wide,
and a yard and a half in length. This is sufficiently large to wrap the
baby well in until it is dry and ready to be dressed. Some prefer the
receiving apron. This is made of coarse, heavy flannel, and worn by the
nurse at the time of the bath. The baby is lifted from the tub, and
wrapped in the apron as in the blanket.
Now the little one is ready for its first suit, as described in the
chapter on baby’s dress, and then to be put into its basket-bed for a
long nap. The cradle-basket hardly needs further description, but a few
words define it. It is simply a well padded clothes-basket, and may be
ornamented as much or as little as the fancy dictates. It serves as a
snug nest for the little one, as deep in the folds of the soft blankets
and dainty pads it is securely sheltered from any draft, and artificial
warmth can be easily applied by hot water bottles at the sides and foot.
This basket should be its bed for months, or until it is outgrown. “But,”
mothers sometimes say to me, “it is so difficult to reach over and get
the baby for feeding in the night;” and I respond, “A well trained baby
will have no night feeding.” Remember that more can be taught the little
one in the first few weeks, than it can unlearn in the next few months
without very diligent effort and patient persistence.
Should the little one make its advent in the night, it is more easily
broken to good habits, than when it comes in the daytime. Why? Because it
will sleep the remainder of the night and wake to be put to the breast
some time during the day, and then again toward night, when it will be
ready for another night of sleep. Of course this may seem a theoretical
baby, and not at all real; and I will admit that some of these perverse
little specimens of humanity put to flight every theory that has been or
can be made, while a few are models from the beginning.
If he does not like his surroundings, and refuses to be comforted, the
night may have to be turned in to day for a short time, when gradually he
must be gotten into line for sleeping at night, and having his wakeful
time in the day. Fed at nine or ten at night, if he is properly adjusted,
he will make no trouble until five or six in the morning. Should he
nestle and fret, often a change in its position, a dry napkin, and a few
drops of warm water, will send him off to sleep again for the remainder
of the night.
That this can be done and the babies be heartier and stronger for it,
I have proven with three of my very own, and many others under my
care. That the mother will be stronger for having her night’s sleep
uninterrupted goes without saying. Should the baby be troublesome at
first and so get into bad habits, the sooner it is broken of them and
gotten into right ways the better for the mother and child.
However much the mother may enjoy it, it is better for the little one
not to be rocked to sleep. Fed and placed in its bed, it will soon fall
asleep, and wake when its nap is over to lie there in content, should it
not be time for another meal.
The answer to the question, how often shall the child be fed, is, that
it depends upon the baby. The rule, however, is once in two hours the
first two months, then lengthen the time by half an hour, each month
thereafter, until it gets down to four meals a day, which will be needed
until it is a year old. Should it be so unfortunate as to be a bottle-fed
baby, then the quantity must be regulated as well. Beginning with two
ounces, gradually increase until the limit of six ounces has been reached.
This is the rule, we have said, but not quite all babies submit kindly
to the rule. You may be obliged to begin with a meal once in an hour
and a half, but if so, you can soon regulate it to the proper time,
and all will be well. In talking with Dr. Shipman, who was at the head
of a large foundlings’ home in Chicago, he said, “The first rule when
a baby is brought in is to break it from night feeding, and we have
little difficulty in doing this after the first two or three nights.”
The trouble too often is, the parents need breaking in, before they can
patiently and persistently train a child in the right way. Their own
habits are not fixed and methodical, and they find it difficult to train
their children into right ways of living and doing.
The nursery should be a sunny, pleasant room, large and cheerful, for
here much of the time of the mother will be spent, whether she be able to
keep a nurse to share with her the care of the little one or not. No true
mother gives over the entire care of her children to a nurse, however
efficient and kindly and cultured and wise the nurse she may have, may
be; but she will keep the oversight and spend hours daily with her little
ones, in their care and supervision and tender mothering, which no one
else can give the child which is part of her very self. Mother should be
to them the dearest being in the world, and no one should be allowed to
come nearer them than she, in her loving sympathetic devotion and care.
Through all the months of pregnancy, the thoughts of motherhood have been
taking root in her heart (we wish we might say in every case, “watered
by joy and gladness,” but not always is this so); sometimes the roots
are set in bitterness, and the little soul growing to maturity under her
heart, is absorbing the bitterness, to the sorrow and hurt of all its
after life.
Of the first class Mrs. Burnett has given us a lovely type. A mother
is looking down into the face of her firstborn, and exclaims, “And this
fair soul given to me from the outer bounds, we know not, and the little
human body it wakened to life in; think you that Christ will help me to
fold them in love, high and pure enough, and teach the human body to do
honor to its soul? Surely that which He made in His own image, would not
that it should despise itself and its own wonders, but do them reverence
and rejoice in them nobly, honoring all their seasons and their changes.
I pray for a great soul, and great wit, and great power to help this
fair human thing to grow, and love and live.” Is it any wonder that she
should say of such a mother, “’Twas not mere love she gave her offspring.
She gave them of her constant thought, and of honor such as taught
them reverence of themselves as of all other human things. She was the
noblest creature that they knew; her beauty, her great unswerving love,
her truth, were things bearing to their child eyes the unchangingness of
God’s stars in heaven.”
Again Mrs. Spofford in her incomparable little prose-poem, _The Nemesis
of Motherhood_, pictures one of the other mothers, a vacuous, trifling
woman, who utters the soul-cry, when she began to wake to her real self,
as the little firstborn nestled in her bosom. “Do you suppose he knows I
am his mother?” and the little head had snuggled into place. She gazed
at him in a bewildered wonder; something seemed to be taking hold of her
heartstrings. “Oh: this scrap of a creature was part of her life itself;
she had made him; she had struck this spark of a soul into a being; the
idea; the dear thing had a soul of course! And she fell to wondering what
kind of a soul it was. What kind of a soul? Why didn’t people say the son
was the avatar of the mother? A soul like hers to be sure. Heaven help
her, what kind of a soul _was_ hers? She saw herself. That was the kind
of a soul she had, a little paltering, worthless one, and that was what
she had given to her boy.”
Oh the sorrow of such motherhood! Sorrow for herself, more sorrow for her
children, and most sorrow for the great wide world, into which her child
has come to take a part—and which must of necessity be a sorrowful part,
unless he be regenerated. And even then the superlative of sadness is
this, that he is not all he might have been had his progenitors given him
his lawful inheritance.
Mothers! mothers! choose and live for the highest and noblest in
yourselves, and for your children. Bless the world with your offspring.
Crown them with your pure and noble life, and your memory shall be
blessed.
CHAPTER XIX.
THE MOTHER THE TEACHER.
Mother’s Sphere in the Home.—Mother as Maker of Sunshine.—Food,
Clothing and Restraint not the Mother’s Full Duty to Her
Children.—Teach Them Self-knowledge.—Mother Should Give Honest
Answers to Honest Inquiries.—Ignorance Leads to Vice, and Vice
to Ruin.—When Shall Children be Taught Physical Truths.—How
to Teach Little Children Physical Truth.—Questions of Sex
Should be the Most Sacred Things of Their Knowledge.—How to
Teach the Children in This Sacred Way.—The Preparation for
the Lesson.—Mothers Should Teach Their Boys as Well as the
Girls.—How Boys Grow Away from Their Mothers.—How Mothers May
Win and Hold Their Boys.—An Honest Mother’s Reward.—A Mother’s
Power Over Her Children.
“The best teacher is a wise mother. She will thoroughly equip
the child for the journey of life; she will place him on the
right road, and she will fill his mind with such ideas of truth
and justice as will enable him to withstand the temptations
of the world, the flesh, and the devil. Thrice happy is the
child who possesses such a mother. He may have other teachers
in school and college, but none whose influence is so
far-reaching and lasting as hers.”—THOMAS HUNTER.
“As is the mother so is her daughter.”
“An ounce of mother is worth a pound of clergy.”
A traveller and a native met upon the streets of Tokio, Japan. In the
course of their conversation upon this wonderful land of the “Rising
Sun,” the native exclaimed: “But have you seen It?”
“It,” repeated the traveller, “what do you mean by It?”
“Ah: you would not ask had you seen It.”
They met again a few weeks later, after the American had beheld the
glories of the wonderful, indescribable “It” of Japan,—the Holy Mountain,
the marvelous Fujiyama, which rises thousands of feet above the level
plain, snow-capped, reflecting the rays of the sun in a thousand varied
shades, alone, majestic, incomparable, in its grandeur and beauty.
Little wonder that the admiring natives call it the “It” of Japan. It
might as truly, among its kind, be called the It of the world.
There were few words exchanged, but the native was satisfied. The It was
understood and appreciated by the traveller.
Months after the Japanese visited America, and from the Pacific to the
Atlantic was eagerly searching for anything that would compare in natural
beauty, with this marvelous Holy Mountain of his own land. The Yosemite,
the majestic Rockies, the National Park, Niagara, all were visited, but
nowhere could he find the one thing worthy the name.
As he became known, the homes of America were thrown open to him. At last
he awoke one day and exclaimed in his delight, “I have found it, the It
of America, and it is greater than that of my beloved land. The It of
America is her homes.”
To this beautiful figure I would add but one word. The It of the home is
the mother. Shall I prove it from the lips of a child?
Willie, aged five, bounded into the house one day, exclaiming as he hung
his hat in the hall, “This is my home.” A lady visitor said, “The house
next door is just like this, Willie, suppose you go over there and hang
your hat in the hall, that would be your home as much as this, wouldn’t
it?”
“No ma’am,” said the little fellow. “Why not?” asked the lady. “’Cause my
mother does not live there,” was the triumphant reply.
Truly the mother is the home, and as well, although unconscious of it,
she is the barometer of the home. “Mamma, what makes it look so dark, is
it going to storm?” said my little one. “Why, darling, it isn’t dark,”
I answered; “the sun shines beautifully.” He ran to the window and came
back exclaiming, “Why so it does, mamma, but it seems so dark here. May I
go out in the sunshine?”
And then I was startled with the knowledge that the little one was under
the shadow of my face, for gloomy thoughts had held me all the morning,
and I had given myself to their companionship. “Yes, my darling,” I said,
“you may go out and mamma will go with you.”
When we came back laughing and cheery, my baby added unconsciously
another rebuke, “How lovely the house is now, mamma, and how it makes you
smile.”
Is it not lamentably true that the many mothers consider their work done
when they have fed and clothed their children, and restrained them from
the glaring evils of the day; and is it not as true that many of them
have given little or no thought as to the best methods in which these
three things shall be done? The question of preparation for maidenhood
and boyhood, for manhood and womanhood, is never considered for a
moment. It has not dawned upon the many that they should teach their
children that they are a small part, but nevertheless a very important
part of the great living, thinking, striving world. That the next
generation will be the better or the worse because they are a part of it.
That they can fit themselves to be a blessing, or neglecting the fitting,
make themselves a curse to the coming generation.
Teach them that before they can understand and help others, they must
know themselves. Begin with their earliest instinctive questionings to
answer truthfully, and glorify the thoughts that nature has implanted
in every human heart, and that unless properly understood will become a
snare and temptation to them. Many girls who have gone astray, or in some
measure have become victims of their ignorance, have said to me in their
remorse, “Oh, doctor, if my mother had only taught me these things, I
should not have made the mistakes I have made. Why do mothers keep their
girls in such ignorance?”
And many a mother, who has grown grey with the weight of care and years,
after listening to a talk on maternal responsibilities, has exclaimed,
“If I had only known these things while training my children, what a
difference it would have made with my boys and girls, and how much of
sorrow and regret I could have spared them all these years. How much less
of regret should I have had.”
I like to think that in great measure, the mother is responsible for what
her children know and don’t know. Ah, but you say, how can a mother be
responsible for teaching her children aright when she has not been so
taught herself? Doesn’t this very question prove my statement? Because
the mothers behind you have shirked their responsibility, have you a
right to shirk yours? Remember what we have already quoted, “What we need
most is a generation of educated mothers.” And by this word “educated” is
not meant “college trained” alone, but thoughtful, earnest, wide-awake,
self-cultured women as well, who have at heart the highest good of
themselves as well as those who come after them; and who are willing to
give time and careful painstaking thought and research to the care of the
home and to the mental, moral and physical training of their children. To
such mothers every question of the little ones comes as the divine right
exercised by the individual child, and as such receives proper attention
and reply.
Never does such a mother turn her child away with the rebuke or fretful
rejoinder, that she has no time for such questions. For what is a
mother’s time given but to guide the feet of her babies into true paths;
to be the answer book for all their puzzling problems? A true woman never
compels her children to go elsewhere for the answers to questions which
she herself should give. In answering be so truthful that they may never,
even in thought, question your word. Blessed child of a more blessed
mother, was the little girl, who when a mate questioned the truthfulness
of a certain statement, excitedly replied, while her eyes flashed, “It is
so, for my mamma said it was; and if my mamma said it was so, it is so if
it isn’t so.”
When shall I begin to teach my children those things which pertain to
their being and well-being, many mothers ask; and I would reply, just
as soon as they begin to question. Not always will it be wise to answer
their questions fully; but you may always, and should answer them as far
as best, and then say, “That is all you can understand now, but as you
grow older mamma will tell you more about it. Always come to me when you
want to know about these things, for God gave you your mamma purposely
to teach you in the right way, and who ought to know as well as a mother
what her children should know?” I am often asked, “Isn’t it unsafe to
tell children all that they want to know? will they not talk of it when
and where they should not?” No, not if you teach them aright. If you do
not tell them, some one else will, and often in a way which you should
blush to know about. Unless you answer them frankly and truthfully
concerning these pertinent questions of their being, the entire realm of
sex, of nativity, of fatherhood and motherhood, which should be among the
most sacred things of their knowledge, will be associated in their minds
with sin, darkness and unholiness.
One needs to think long, earnestly and prayerfully along these lines,
before these lessons can be taught in all their sweetness and purity. We
need to go patiently back and divest them of all their coarseness and
sin, with which wrong teaching, or no teaching at all, has clothed them,
and then, dressing them in their legitimate garments of whiteness and
purity, tell them to our girls and boys, so that it will be no longer
necessary to say to our young men and women, “Know Thyself” for all
shall know themselves, from the least to the greatest, and all that
“self” stands for.
At the mother’s knee is the true primary school for these great questions
to be learned, and happy the mother who can take her children through all
the higher grades, until their education in these things is completed.
Every child is an animated interrogation point, and they have a right to
be, for so they learn. Meet them with loving frankness and you will never
need confess that you have lost the confidence of your children. They
will turn to you as steel to a magnet, attracted by this loving bond of
sympathy and truthfulness. “Mamma, where did I come from?” opens the way,
dear mother, for the most beautiful truth you can teach your child, next
to its new birth.
“But I don’t know how to teach it,” you say; then tell your little one,
“that’s a long question, darling, and mamma must think out the simplest
way to answer it, and in a few days I will tell you all about it.” Then
away to your own room and down on your knees before God, until the
subject is divested of every shadow of sin and darkness, and then in this
pure light think for your life, and if you cannot formulate your thoughts
as you would, hurry at your first leisure to the wisest woman you know
in these things and talk with her about it. It is so simple after all,
and if told in a matter-of-fact way, with no hesitation or blushing, it
will be so received by your child.
The simplest way is to teach them that the egg from which the little bird
or downy chicken comes, is laid by the mamma bird or hen, and then she
sits upon it to keep it warm, while it grows in the shell until it gets
too large to stay there longer, when it bursts the bonds and comes out a
downy, active little bird or chicken. “In much the same way, my darling,
you grew; only instead of your being able to see the little egg, which
was your beginning, it was kept warm and snug in a little room in mamma’s
body, while you grew from a tiny speck of an egg, so small that you
could not see it with the naked eye, into a fat, beautiful, rollicking
baby; then you came out through a little door made purposely for it, and
was nestled in mamma’s bosom forever after. I think it must be you are
kept hidden away while you grow, because mammas are so busy, you might
be forgotten if you were in any other nest, and you would get cold and
die. As it is, mamma carries you wherever she goes, and whatever she is
doing; and you are always nestled snugly and warmly in the little cradle
God made purposely for you, and where mamma can feel you moving about as
you grow, for you are right under her heart.”
It will do them no harm to take them a little into the agony of the
birth chamber; they will love and reverence you the more, and feel the
closer bond. One dear boy on hearing the story of his birth, throwing his
arms about his mother’s neck, while the tears streamed down his cheeks,
exclaimed, “Oh, how boys ought to love their mothers.”
Tell the boys as well as the girls, dear mothers, and do not make the
mistake so often made, in thinking it will do no good to talk to the
boys. It will do all the good in the world, and they will bless your
memory for it; aye, more, their wives and all good women will bless
you as well. Just one illustration to prove my point, and to encourage
mothers who have put off teaching their children later than they should.
A mother who had but one child, a son, who had grown to be fifteen,
untaught in these things, as so many boys are, had grown away from his
mother and sought companionship that was not all it should have been,
outside the home. The mother in a heart to heart talk with a friend,
expressed her grief that she had lost the confidence of her boy. “He has
grown away from me,” she said. “I see,” said the friend, “but why don’t
you tell him your condition”—she was expecting then a little one—“and
nine chances in ten you will win him back.” “Oh,” said the mother, “I
could never talk with him of such things. What could I say?” “Don’t you
suppose he knows already?” said the friend. “Yes, I am sure he does, for
he seems shy and conscious when he looks at me.” “Then why be afraid to
talk to him of it?”
Then followed a long earnest talk of what she had missed all these
years in neglecting the teaching that the boy must and would have,
and had probably gotten from those who had clothed it in impurity and
shame, instead of purity and loveliness. And a promise was exacted that
she would talk with her boy and tell him as only a mother can, of her
condition, and of her sorrow that she had lost his full confidence, which
she once had and delighted in so much.
But in her timidity the time passed and the confidence was not given
until the very day of her confinement. The boy rushed into the house and
found the mother alone in the agony of labor, the father having gone for
the physician and nurse.
“What is the matter, mamma? You are sick. Can’t I help you?” At the
loving question the broken promise came to mind, and in the desperation
born of her suffering, she resolved to tell him still. “Oh, son, darling,
I’m going to have a baby;” she groaned in her agony. “Oh, mamma, why
didn’t you tell me that you needed me?” he exclaimed, as he threw
his arms around his mother’s neck. “I thought you didn’t want me to
know, because you never talked to me about such things, but I wish you
had.” And they were crying together, mother and son, thinking the same
thoughts, all reserve broken down, loving in the same old way, and the
lost confidence restored.
The questions relating to their being and to the mysteries of procreation
are legitimate ones, and demand a patient hearing. They should be met
with such pure candor, that they shall never in the minds of innocent
childhood be clothed in a mystery which is too often interpreted as
sin. Little wonder that untaught boys grow to be men that trample upon
every holy instinct of womanhood, and set at naught the sacredness of
maternity.
I have read somewhere of a great physician who gave finely illustrated
lectures to women upon the subjects relating to maternity. One wise
mother who had listened with wrapt interest to his talks, called at his
office one day with her twin boys seven years old. “Doctor,” she said,
“I would like you to show my boys the beautiful anatomical plates that
you use in your lectures, and tell them about some of them.” “Certainly,
madam,” he replied, “I will gladly do so.”
He turned them over one by one, answering an eager question here and
there, put by the bright boys, until he came to one illustrating twin
pregnancy, which he passed hastily over without giving an opportunity for
sight or question. “Stop, doctor,” said the mother. “That is the very one
I want my boys to see. I have promised them that as soon as they were old
enough I would tell them all about the little room in mamma’s body where
they grew for nine months before they came into her arms.”
The doctor was struck with confusion and could not utter a word. He who
had stood before great audiences of adults and taught them unblushingly
the secrets of being, was silent before innocent childhood. The mother
was forced to be the teacher, when she had looked to one wiser to
enforce the lesson. Standing in the presence of the great doctor, she
told them in pure sweet words the story of their prenatal life and of
her motherhood, not forgetting to tell of the great pain which was all
forgotten so soon in the gladness that her baby boys were born to her.
She finished, and there were tears upon the faces of all her listeners.
“Oh, mamma, how good boys ought to be to their mothers,” said one of the
twins; while the doctor exclaimed, “Madam, that was the finest lecture
upon the subject to which I ever listened. Go on so teaching your boys
and they will be men that the world will be proud of and greatly need.”
This is the kind of seed-sowing which not only bears a rich harvest of
purity and innocent knowledge, but as well keeps out the weeds of sin and
impurity, which curiosity gratified by secret whisperings always sows.
“The true mother is a teacher whether she is conscious of it or not,
and the true teacher uses the innate mother element—that which broods
over the child and warms it into life—as much as she does her acquired
knowledge.”
Just as surely as the child in prenatal life drew his nourishment
mental, moral, and physical, from the mother, so surely in postnatal life
will he look to her for example, for strength, for encouragement in all
virtues, for warning against pitfalls, for direction in all knowledge,
for comfort in sorrow, for real heart’s-ease, for cheer and inspiration
in the race of life. God pity and forgive the mother, who has no
storehouse from which her children can draw their supplies of comfort and
courage and rest.
I like to think of the wonderful Shepherd Psalm as a prototype of what
God designs the parents to be to their children. Remember the ancient
shepherd _led_ his sheep; so should the mother, in obedience to God and
her higher nature, in loveliness, in patience, in hope, in cheerfulness,
in sweet charity, lead her little ones in the “Paths of righteousness.”
CHAPTER XX.
COMMON AILMENTS OF CHILDREN.
Little Ailments.—Nursing Babies Affected by Condition of
Mother.—Sleep and Health.—The Baby’s Food.—Why Babies are
Restless when Nursed from the Right Breast.—Children’s Symptoms
often More Grave than the Ailment.—Illustrations.—Fevers
and Teething.—Vomiting.—The Cause of Rash.—Pallid
Children.—Chafing.—Babies do not Cry without Cause.—Need
of Water and Fresh Air.—Sleeping in open Air.—Relief in
Constipation.—Important Suggestions.
I speak of ailments of children not diseases, since this is in no sense
a “Doctor Book.” In the common ailments every mother should be so well
informed that she may not distress herself at a trifling indisposition,
neither show no concern when marked symptoms of disease are present.
There are many ailments to which the most healthy child is susceptible,
and for which no alarm need be felt, as they are trifling and usually
last but a few hours.
In nursing babies, the child is very apt to be affected by the condition
of the mother. If the mother is quiet, well balanced, free from worry,
not subject to fits of anger, does not overdo, does not eat stimulating
food, keeps early hours; in short is quiet, self-contained and healthful,
the probability is that her children will be well, easily managed
children. On the other hand, if she be easily disturbed, unbalanced,
constantly going beyond her strength, eating forbidden things, keeping
late hours, and thus using or rather wasting her energies, she has not
the vital force to give to her children, and they suffer proportionately.
Here again is exemplified the truth that what the mother is that will her
child be.
Sitting down when tired and overheated or excited to nurse your little
one, do not wonder if you have a cross, fretful, and many times, feverish
child as the result. When under a fit of anger, the mother’s milk has
many times produced in the child very alarming symptoms, and sometimes
even caused death. This, in an exaggerated way, shows us what the effect
is upon the delicate nervous temperament of the child, if the mother is
not in healthful tone herself.
A healthy, well-trained baby, should in the first weeks, sleep twenty out
of the twenty-four hours. The sleep should be quiet and natural, and the
baby will in the remaining four hours eat and stretch itself and grow.
Regularity of feeding in the first few weeks will not be as possible
as later, for the little one will sleep over its feeding times. Do not
imagine from this that when it does eat it should have a double quantity,
for the stomach has not expanded in its sleep, and will hold no more than
when fed each two hours. It is estimated that a newborn baby’s stomach
will hold but three or four tablespoonfuls, and this should regulate the
quantity of food at each feeding, if the baby is bottle fed. If a nursing
baby, nature regulates the quantity, if regularity of habit is observed,
as no more is secreted than is needed, as a rule.
In tiny babyhood the child’s liver is very large in proportion to its
size, and the size of the other organs, hence it will sometimes make
trouble when the child is nursed on the right side; as the weight of the
liver pressing on the full stomach causes distress. When you observe that
the child fusses after nursing the right breast, hold it as when nursing
the left breast with the feet under the right arm, and when laying it
down lay it on the right side, and you will relieve the difficulty.
Every mother should know that “in early childhood there is no relation
between the intensity of the symptoms, and the material lesion, or
derangement. The most intense fever with restlessness, cries and
spasmodic movements, may disappear in twenty-four hours without leaving
any traces. The intense nervous excitability in a robust child will often
communicate a false appearance of gravity, to a trivial ailment.”
I quote from Eustace Smith, M.D., this comforting thought: “With regard
to the temperature of children, it may be noted that we must not allow
ourselves to be deceived by sudden and rapid rise of temperature into
the belief that the patient must necessarily be suffering from serious
disease. Very slight causes will in infants produce a remarkable increase
of heat; and during natural dentition, just before the passage of the
tooth through the gum, a temperature of one hundred and four or one
hundred and five degrees Fahrenheit, even in the morning is not at all an
uncommon circumstance. Besides, the normal temperature of young children
is rather higher than that of the adult. In a perfectly healthy child of
three or four years old the thermometer will often register a morning
temperature of ninety-nine and one-half. The pulse of infants can seldom
be counted except during sleep.”
We must remember also that children breathe more quickly than adults.
About thirty respirations a minute for children under two years, or
nearly twice as many as in adult life. Also in a slight degree of
indisposition the respirations may be quickened materially without cause
for alarm.
The tongue, if white, usually indicates fever, dyspepsia and intestinal
irritation. A red, dry, hot tongue points to inflammation of the mouth or
stomach.
An intense fever may be occasioned in a child as the result of
overfeeding or allowing indigestible things.
My experience has been that a child fed properly, and allowed to rest
sufficiently, will have very slight or no difficulty when teething. I
do not agree wholly with the author quoted in the foregoing as to the
cause of the fever in teething. At this period of life the brain of the
child is developing remarkably, and if the stomach is not doing its work
properly, or if more is imposed upon it than should be, the result is an
irritation of the brain, and the whole system, and consequent fever. When
we consider that the brain of the child in proportion to the size of the
body, is as one to eight, while that of the adult is as one to forty or
fifty, we can see how a little disturbance may affect the child at this
time.
Vomiting, unless long continued, is of slight consequence in the baby;
since it is usually relieving an overloaded stomach, or throwing up the
food that has been churned unnaturally while the little one is tossed
about by an overzealous relative. Rocking vigorously is not a good thing
for the child, as it not only disturbs the stomach, but irritates the
brain, from the jarring.
A rash may appear on the child and be of no more moment than to remind
you that you are feeding it improperly, that its food is not agreeing
with it, or that teeth are about to appear.
If the child is thin and pale and does not grow, it is not assimilating
its food and the cause should be looked into at once. It may be that
a change is desirable. In bottle-fed babies, there is not so much of
variety in its food as in a nursing baby, because the mother’s change
of food from day to day, varies the milk somewhat. Changing from one
prepared food to another will often tide them over an indisposition, as
nothing else will.
Chafing usually means that the little one has not been dried well when
changing the napkin, or allowed to go too long after the napkin is
wet. Indigestion, and a consequent acidity of the discharges may cause
excoriation of the skin, and this will need a change in the food or the
proper medicine to correct.
A baby does not cry without cause. It may be spoiled into crying to be
tended, but this is easily distinguished from a sick cry, or a fretted
cry from discomfort.
A baby should have plenty of water and fresh air; two of the “freest”
things and yet we stint the little one in them. It should be given water
every day several times, and it often cries for want of it. It should
be taken out into the fresh air every day when pleasant, and many times
allowed to take its nap in the open air. One of the healthiest, most
robust babies I ever knew, though beginning life as a little puny thing,
was put into its little carriage and wrapped up warmly, and wheeled out
on the front porch for its nap twice daily. A light cover was thrown over
the head of the carriage to protect the child from draughts.
If the baby is bottle-fed and constipated, a small pinch of salt put into
its food at each feeding will often effect a cure.
Dress your little one warmly enough but not too warm, keep it dry and
comfortable, feed it properly, do not toss it about, or disturb its
sleep, and you will be rewarded with a healthy and comfortable child that
will daily be a greater and greater delight and blessing.
CHAPTER XXI.
GUARDING AGAINST SECRET VICE.
The Mother’s Preparation as Guide and Protector of Her
Children.—Safeguards for Tiny Babyhood.—Cleanliness,
Regularity, Chafing, Pin Worms, Servants, Nurse Girls, etc.,
etc.—How to Teach and Guard Them During Childhood.—Safeguarding
the Children with Knowledge.—Inborn Curiosity Concerning
Physical Mysteries.—How to Meet these Questions.—Sleeping
Alone.—How to Correct Vice where it Exists.—The Duty of
Physicians to the Public.—Symptoms which call for Parental
Watchfulness.—Results of Secret Vice.—Rewards of Parental
Vigilance.
How shall the mother prepare herself that she may be the guide and
protector of her children past this dangerous shoal, is a question
that exercises every true woman’s heart. In view of the myriads of
temptations, we are led to exclaim here, as in the contemplation of
many other difficulties in child training, “Who is sufficient for these
things?”
The carefulness in guarding against the entrance of this evil should
begin back in tiny babyhood. Perfect cleanliness, the proper adjustment
of the napkin, and great care in the baths, lest by roughness in washing
an irritation be set up; all these things must be thought about and
watched carefully. The food, regularity of habits, daily evacuation
of the bowels, all have their share in keeping the child in a healthy
condition that precludes the unnatural state which invites the habit.
A chafed condition of the skin, which causes itching and consequent
rubbing of the parts, may be the beginning of the habit before the child
is old enough to be reasoned with, or able to understand the wrong and
danger involved.
In little girls pin worms, which work forward into the vagina, and cause
an irritation, also a leucorrhœal discharge, even in babyhood, may so
irritate that the habit is formed before the mother is aware of it. There
have been instances of servant girls, who are left in the care of the
little ones, or unscrupulous nurse girls, teaching the little ones the
habit to keep them quiet, so that they need not be troubled with their
care.
Mothers need to be Argus-eyed, to guard their babies from all the evils
that beset them; and having carried them past babyhood into inquiring
childhood, nothing else is so potent in shielding them from the evil, as
wholesome truth taught in a sweet motherly way. While yet very young,
they can be taught that the organs are to be used by them only for
throwing off the waste water of the system, but that they are so closely
related to other parts of the body that handling them at all will hurt
them and make them sick. Tell them that little children, sometimes when
they do not know this, form the habit of handling themselves and as a
result they become listless and sick, and many times idiotic and insane,
or develop epileptic fits. This will so impress them that they will not
fall easily into the bad way; for it is, more often than otherwise, an
ignorant curiosity that leads them into the danger.
When mothers understand what a safeguard intelligent teaching of truth is
to their children, they will prepare themselves for it, and will so keep
their boys and girls in their confidence that they will have no secret
from them. When they feel and know that they can come to mother with all
their enquiries, and get honest recognition and teaching, they will not
care to go elsewhere when curiosity is aroused and they desire knowledge
on any point. This sweet confidence between mother and child cannot be
too carefully nurtured.
There is an inborn curiosity concerning the physical being and
its mysteries, and the child has a right to be met fairly in its
questionings, and to be properly taught at the outset. Do not begin, dear
young mothers by turning your children away, no matter how pertinent the
question; neither begin with a semi-falsehood, or what is little worse
or misleading, an entire one. Your children will learn, and if you do
not teach them, some one else less fitted will. As soon as they are old
enough to take in at least a part of the great truth, tell them what
those organs are for, and how sacredly they should guard them, if they
expect to become fathers and mothers, that will be a blessing to the
world.
Children very early begin to question and as early they should receive
intelligent, honest answers to their enquiries. Oh! that the element of
gross impurity were removed from the knowledge of the sexual nature; and
it will be when mothers have rightly learned the truth themselves, and so
teach it to their children.
You can all the way along, teach your children sufficient to gratify
their legitimate curiosity and serve as a safeguard against their
tampering with their bodies in a way to do them harm. When you have
taught them all you think they should know, if you have dealt with them
in a frank way, and they have no reason to doubt your word, you will
find them very easily satisfied with the remark, “This is all you can
understand now, my dear, but as you get older and can understand better,
come to mamma with all you want to know, and she will tell you.”
Fortify them also with this: “Never ask any of the boys and girls about
these things, because there is a great deal said that is not true, and
they will not tell you right, but come to mamma always, and this shall be
our secret, that we will not tell any one else.” It is remarkable to see
how this confidence generates pride in being able to have a secret with
mamma and keeping it inviolate.
If there is the slightest tendency in your children to secret vice, do
not allow them to sleep together in the same bed, as curiosity may lead
them into danger. Keep them apart from other children, except as you are
present with them, until you are sure they are old enough to be masters
of themselves.
Should you discover in your children what might seem a tendency toward
this evil you can do much to eradicate it by attending strictly to
hygienic rules. Keep from their food all that is stimulating, as coffee,
pepper, spices, pickles, or condiments of any kind. Give them plain food
at regular hours; and before retiring, to make sure of a refreshing
night’s sleep, give them a quick sponge bath of salt and water, rubbing
well after with a coarse towel. The water should be only tepid, and the
subsequent rubbing vigorous. In the morning a shower bath of cool water
will insure good circulation, and if followed by a brisk rubbing, will
add strength and tone.
Children who incline to this weakness are listless and disinclined to
exercise. They must be encouraged to take all the outdoor exercise that
they need, and everything should be done to encourage them in it. Above
all, do not treat your child, even if the habit is formed before you
discover it, as if he were a criminal. He is unfortunate, and ignorant
of the wrong or the danger he is in. Lead him kindly away from the
temptation and into strength by patient, kindly love and watchfulness,
added to your truthful teaching.
Children, until they are old enough to be trusted, should not be out from
under their mother’s watchful eye, or the care of a wise and trusted
nurse, and never away with companions who are not known to be thoroughly
trustworthy. When other children come to play with them they should not
be left alone, but even their play should be directed, lest they get on
dangerous ground.
Says Doctor Eldridge, in his book on _Self Enervation_, “An evil like
this should receive far greater consideration at the hands of fathers and
mothers, and even the medical man, than it hitherto has done. It is the
solemn and imperative duty of every physician to warn parents of this
danger to their offspring, and if possible to erect barriers against the
tide of its destruction.”
Should you discover your child listless, and preferring solitude
rather than companionship, averse to exercise, averted look, nervous,
hypochondriacal, restless in sleep, constipated, pain in the back and
lower extremities in the morning, appetite vacillating, hands cold and
clammy; if you have not already been suspicious, watch carefully now,
even though not half these symptoms are present. Another diagnostic
symptom is this: The body emits a peculiar, disagreeable smell, and there
is emaciation.
Some of the terrible results are epilepsy, idiocy, catalepsy and
insanity. It has been discovered that out of eight hundred and sixteen
cases of insanity in the New York State Insane Asylum, there were one
hundred and seven addicted to this practice.
From their babyhood, be watchful of your children’s companions; allow
no sensational books to be read; be sure of your helpers in their care;
know where they are at all hours of the day and night; be patient and
prayerful in their training; teach them truth, and keep their confidence,
and you will be rewarded with strong, pure boys and girls, who can look
into your eyes candidly and say, “Mamma, I am free from this habit which
leads to so much misery.”
CHAPTER XXII.
THE TRAINING OF CHILDREN.
The Horse Trainer’s Method.—The Training Which Develops
Talents.—When Child-training Should Begin.—The Training of Her
Children the Mother’s All-important Calling.—The Influence of
the Mother’s Own Character and Life.—The Children Imitators
of their Parents.—Importance of Earliest Training.—Spoiled
Children.—Children’s Rights.—The Proper Correction of
Children.—Broken Promises and Parental Falsehoods.—Value of
Tact in Parental Discipline.—Value of Parental Sympathy.—The
Mother, Herself, the Best Gift to Her Children.—The Choice
of Books and Stories.—The Choice of Companions for the
Children.—Toys, Sports and Amusements.—An Appeal to Mothers.
MOLDING THE CLAY.
Within their tiny hands my children hold
A ball of yielding clay,
And, as they try some dainty form to mold,
I hear them softly say,
“What shall we make? an apple or a vase?
Some marbles, or a fan?”
One little boy, a smile upon his face,
Says, “I shall make a man.”
Straightway, with lengthened face, he, at his task,
Begins, and ’neath the hands
Unskilful, weak, and yet too proud to ask
For aid, a form expands,
Crude, and yet not too poor to show the man
Hid in the maker’s thought—
How different yet if some skilled artisan
The ball of clay had wrought.
To-day within my hands my children lie,
I shape them as I will,
And seek for aid from Him that is on high,
That He may with His skill
Teach my weak, willing hands to rightly mold
The clay that I have sought,
That in true forms of beauty may unfold
The Maker’s highest thought.—TRANSCRIPT.
“I regretted that you had no child, because I thought your
heart would not receive that education for heaven which the
care of children alone can give. You are surprised perhaps, for
you are thinking only of educating your child; but let me tell
you that we parents are as much indebted to our children as
they to us.”—ANNA E. PORTER.
“Who is sufficient for these things?”
In a recent magazine article, on the training of horses, I found the
following: “The thoroughly competent trainer considers the colt’s
individuality and breeding, for upon these depend the measures to be
taken to develop the animal into a race-horse. Every good or bad quality
in a race-horse is inherited from sire or dam; courage, endurance,
extreme speed, action, ability to carry weight, soundness or unsoundness,
good or bad temper, all these are matters of inheritance, and must be
carefully looked for by the trainer as he develops his horses. The
trainer is constantly devising schemes to counteract the faults and to
make the best use of the good points of his horses.
“The making of a thoroughbred race-horse cannot be called an exact
science. It develops, however, an amount of patience, courage and
self-denial that is rarely engendered in callings better understood and
more highly esteemed by the general public. The trainer’s life is a hard
one and vicarious in the extreme.”
It strikes me that in this we, as parents and teachers, have a grand
suggestion in the right training of children. With us a _vicarious_ life
would count for the coming generations of the human family.
“Train up a child in the way he should go, and when he is old he will
not depart from it,” has been invested with a new meaning to me these
past few years. It not only means train him up in the correct moral way,
reverencing things sacred, respecting father and mother, being a pleasing
child, a good son, a law-abiding citizen, a blessing to home and society;
but it means as well, train him up in the way he was intended to go, from
the endowment of birth, heredity and education. In other words do not
warp, from his birth, a mechanic by trying to make a minister of him. Do
not try to crowd a farmer into a lawyer’s mold. Do not attempt to train
into a carpenter one who is a born artist. Do not force your boys and
girls through a literary college, if a bent in some particular direction
inclines them toward a technical education. In short, “Train up a child
in the way _he_ should go,” as well as in the _way_ he should go.
The mother of the Wesleys was once asked when she should begin to train
the little three months’ old baby she held in her arms. “Begin?” she
replied, “why I began three months ago.” Her answer was admirable, but
she did not place the time sufficiently far back by many months. When our
daughters are rightly trained, they will all the way along, from the time
that marriage enters their minds, be consciously educating themselves for
motherhood, and thus be in a large measure training their little ones
even before they are promised.
Does this seem too ideal to our young mothers, and not at all practical?
It should not, and I believe will not when it is carefully considered.
If any who reads these pages is already anticipating early motherhood
they need not be discouraged, for every succeeding child should be better
than the one before. Every lesson she learns in the care and training
of the first children should but make her the stronger for the duties
of future mothering. The trouble too often is that she allows her time
and attention to be taken up with less important things, and the fixing
of the earlier lessons and learning new and better ones are neglected.
In other words, motherhood is not to-day considered her all-important
calling, and the little ones suffer from the mothers having fallen too
deeply in love with other and less noble things.
All will agree with me, when I say, that we can only with great
difficulty train in our children, what we do not know as a part of
ourselves. Are you calm and self-possessed? Then you can with little
effort teach your children this valuable and telling characteristic. Are
you governed by reason and judgment, not impulse? Then you can train
your child to this same strength. Are you of even temper? Then you
will have little trouble with a stormy-tempered boy or girl. Are you
charitable and careful in your speech, and kindly in your judgment of
others? Your children are easily led in the same direction.
It is safe to say that only so far as we have travelled ourselves, can
we lead our children. True we can point them onward, and tell them of
the desirableness of that way to travel in, but their little feet are
reluctant to try new paths, unless the parent has tried them before them.
The story of the little son who had without permission followed his
father up a steep and dangerous mountain climb, and who at a particularly
difficult point in the path, made his presence known, by calling out,
“Step carefully, papa, for I am coming in your footsteps,” illustrates
just what our example is to our children. Hence I say, Mrs. Wesley did
not put the time of her beginning to train her baby, back far enough
by many years. Every step in the onward path which she had made in all
the years of her own training was but a page in the training she was to
give her boys and girls in the after years. “As is the mother so is her
daughter,” is God’s truth, although it is many times hard to face.
We desire to train our children to _our_ ideals, and they are ever
reaching up to us as _their_ ideals. True, this should spur us on to
better things that our example shall be a more worthy copy, but we waste
much precious time when we must go to school in mature life to learn the
lessons that should have been fixed in our youth.
First, let us remember that a child can be taught more bad habits in
its early months than years of training can undo. A methodical, well
taught baby becomes a tractable child, as a rule; while a haphazard baby,
humored in every whim, becomes a child and adult of the same demands.
Have you not often met grown men and women that were just great overgrown
spoiled babies? You can read the history of their training, or the lack
of it, in their habits, their whims, and their selfishness, through the
unmistakable lines these have written on their faces.
Again we must remember that children have rights that we are bound to
respect; and unless we do respect them, we can hardly expect them to
regard our rights. Another fact is this; that no two children can be
trained alike. Each is a study by itself, and each must be studied, if
we desire to attain success in the individual case. But few absolute
rules can be made; for there must ever be a certain degree of flexibility
about every law laid down in the home.
A request is far better than a command, but from the parent it should
be regarded with such respect that it equals a command. Also there is a
wide difference between a criticism and a kindly correction of a fault.
Criticism antagonizes, and arouses the anger of the child, though he may
not be old enough to analyze his feelings, yet the spirit of rebellion is
there, and leaves its unpleasant results. On the other hand the kindly
correction, with love shining all through it, awakens a sorrow for the
wrong, and a determination never to repeat it.
“Johnnie, what makes you do so? It does seem to me that you are always
doing something you ought not to do.” See the angry flash in little
Johnnie’s eye, and the sullen silence as he turns away, with resentment
at the wrong done him, written all over his quivering form.
“Johnnie dear, mamma does not like to have her son do so, it is wrong
and such things spoil boys and make them grow up in the wrong way. Think
of it, son, and see if you would like your life to go in the way that
action would lead you.” A tender, sorrowful light comes into the little
face and a regret for the sin is expressed and forgiveness sought.
The first manner of correction, if it can be called that, drives your
little one away from you, while the second holds him to you, as a
traveller is bound to a trusted guide in a dangerous way.
Oh! the sorrow of the falsehoods told to little ones, under the guise
of threats that are never realized. In my hearing only a few days ago,
in the space of half an hour, a mother told her child—a bright but of
course spoiled little boy, not more than three years old, at least a half
dozen deliberate falsehoods. I say deliberate, because she knew they were
false, and the saddest of all was the fact that the child recognized the
untruths as well, and was not moved by them an iota.
Nowhere is there so much tactful wisdom needed as in the mother’s
dealings with her little ones. How many times we fail by too great
zeal, how many times for not enough. Often, not to notice the little
naughtinesses is the wisest thing, when these little wrongs are not
positively sinful. Not noticing such wrongs insures their being
forgotten sooner, and oftentimes the children are simply imitating in a
childish way what they have seen in their elders.
The following incident will illustrate the wisdom of not heeding. A
little boy strutted up to his busy mother one day, and without a bit
of prelude or postlude, said, “Gosh.” The wise mother took no notice,
and again standing directly in front of her, and in a more emphatic
tone, he repeated the coarse word. Still no rebuke from the mother and
no reproving look even. As if bent on being heard and eliciting some
rebuke which he evidently expected, he thrust his hands into his pockets,
straightened up, and with a stamp of his tiny foot, said with double
emphasis, “Gosh, mamma.” Then the undisturbed mother looked up with
simply this, “Yes, my son, I heard.” He turned away crestfallen, but the
coarse word was never repeated.
In contrast, another mother with less of wisdom and more of the overdone
zeal, heard her little boy say, “Darn.” She called him to her and with a
very solemn voice said, “What did I hear my little boy say? Didn’t I hear
him say the _naughty_, NAUGHTY word, darn,” and her voice sank to an
awesome whisper. “Yes,” said the little fellow, with an air of important
badness, “I said it.”
“Come here and let me look in your mouth,” said the mother. He opened
his mouth with very little concern, and really seeming to enjoy it.
“Oh-h-hh,” said the unwise mamma, “I see two little black devils.”
“My-e-e-e,” said the little fellow; “Darn, darn, darn,”—and then the
mouth flew open wider still. “How many devils are there now, mamma?” The
mother’s answer is not recorded, but we trust she learned wisdom.
I have been exceedingly interested in noting what an ignorant
horse-trainer can teach a wild, high-mettled colt. How does he do it? Not
by whipping, not by thwarting and fretting, but by patient, persistent
effort, and much study of the particular training each colt needs. He
goes farther than this. He studies the pedigree that he may better know
how to correct the faults of his pupils. Is it not worth while for a
mother to take as much pains and carefulness for the well-being of her
precious charges? “Where is the flock that was given thee, thy beautiful
flock?” will be a question that mothers must meet, and must answer
sorrowfully in many cases. The answer might well be taken from the same
book, “The Book,” in which the question is recorded. “As thy servant was
busy here and there they were gone.”
Parents must keep in sympathy with their children to understand and lead
them. The cares of business, the demands of society, clubs, etc., etc.,
will not excuse you. There can be no business, no demand upon your time
that can begin to equal in importance the proper care of your children.
They are your charge, and the responsibility can be relegated to none
other.
I have read somewhere of a mother who by the rounds of social life,
and all the cares incident to it, had given her children over to the
care of a nurse, until she awoke one day to realize that she was almost
a stranger to her own children, and that they seemed to care little
for her, since they saw her so seldom. “This will never do,” said the
thoroughly awakened mother. “These are _my_ children, and as such, demand
_my_ care, and influence and love, which I shall henceforth give them
without stint.” She began at once. Every engagement which interfered with
the loving care of her little brood, was resolutely cancelled, while she
gave herself to redeeming the time that she had wasted, and to regaining
her place in her children’s hearts which she had nearly lost. Was she
successful, I imagine I hear you ask. Did ever a mother put her hand and
her heart to the accomplishment of a noble purpose, and fail? Never. And
she never will. Delightful trips were planned and carried out, all-day
excursions, long walks, with a luncheon in some quiet place, away from
the crowd. Books were read, lessons taught that sank, freighted with
their wealth of wisdom, into the mother’s, as well as into the children’s
hearts. Oh the joy of that delightful season! Nothing in all her life
could bear any comparison with it. Should she give it up and again enter
society, whose demands gave her little time for the pure pleasure she had
enjoyed with her children? She would leave it for her babies to decide.
As they gathered about her, she said, “My darlings, mamma has something
she wishes you to settle for her. Shall we go on as we have been doing
for the past happy months, or shall mamma take again her place in society
as she did before she knew her dear babies as she does now?” “Oh, mamma,
we can’t get along without you now, and you know you belong to us,” said
the oldest one, and the sweet silence of the baby as she hugged the
dear lost and found mother, tightly about the neck, was all the answer
she needed. “Now, mamma dear, would you have gone away from us again,
if we had said so?” “No, darling, not even if you had said so, for then
I should have seen all the greater need of staying with my own children
until they loved me again. But I dared let you decide, for I knew what
you would say. Bless my babies! These months have been the happiest of my
life, and do you think I could leave you again? I can have as much as I
need of society and still live with my babies.”
Every parent is bound to be interested in all that should legitimately
interest their children. Books, games, little excursions, days off from
business that the boys and girls may have their papas and mammas all to
themselves, are important things which no wise father or mother will
neglect to consider.
As they grow older the sympathy and love you show for them when you
deliberately put aside your book, and read to them some childish story,
or bit of adventure, will never be forgotten. No wise man or woman ever
loses interest in children’s stories. If they are worth your _children’s_
reading, they are worth _your_ reading. It lies in the power of every
parent to fashion their children’s taste in literature. Choose wisely,
for the matter is an important one. Do not make the mistake so often
made of thinking that any child’s book is good enough for the children.
This is not true. There is as wide a difference in children’s books as
in books for adults. With all the delightful writers for the little
ones, there is no need of reading trashy things to the children. Your
children’s libraries will be an index of your literary taste, and your
highest care for them. Books are companions, and should be chosen as
wisely as you would choose their associates.
How in this day of public schools and free American loving democracy, can
I choose my children’s companions? Ah; but you can, dear mother. Train
them so wisely, get the love of all that is good so instilled into their
beings, fix so surely the hatred of evil, that they will instinctively
choose companions worthy of them. Be kind to all, but do not make close
friends or companions of any but those who are good. Occasionally a wolf
in sheep’s clothing will be met, and you will need great tact to lead
your child to see the falseness of character, and to get away from it ere
the influence has been hazardous.
Let me illustrate. A grown up boy fifteen or sixteen said one day to his
mother, “Mamma, some of the boys are going down to the Gardens to-night
after school, and may I go with them?” “What is there to see and enjoy,
son?” “Oh I hardly know, but the boys say there’s lots of fun.” The
mother gave her consent, all the while knowing she would not have chosen
the Gardens as a suitable place for her boy to find amusement. When he
came home from school to leave his books, he found his mother all ready
to go out. “Where are you going, mamma?” asked the boy. “I thought I
would go with you, son, I have never been there and I thought I would
like to enjoy it with you.” “But mamma, I don’t know as it is a good
place for you to go to.” “Oh, don’t trouble about that, son, any place
that you care to visit is suitable for your mother.”
She was dressed in her prettiest and most girlish dress, and outdid
herself to be entertaining to her boy. She said nothing in criticism
of the place, and went from one thing to another as the boy’s fancy
dictated. In a covert glance she could see the disgust growing in her
son’s face, as a coarse jest or a profane word came to them from the
frequenters of the place, but never a word of fault-finding escaped her
lips. Finally, thoroughly disgusted, her boy said, “Let’s go home,
mamma, I’m tired of this sort of stuff.” “Very well, son, if you wish,”
said the little mother, but not one word of comment or criticism of the
place or surroundings, for she saw that the lesson was learned. On the
following day she had her reward. Her son with several of his companions
were in the yard under the window where she sat in hearing. “Who was
that girl you had with you at the Gardens yesterday?” said one of the
boys. “It was my mother,” said her son. “Whew,” said the boy, “catch my
mother to go to such a place!” Then the brave answer came from her boy,
that brought tears of gladness to the mother’s eyes. “Well, I want to
tell you right here, boys, you’ll never catch me going anywhere again
where I can’t take my mother. Of course she knew what kind of a place it
was and wanted me to see that it was no place for me if it were not for
her, and I learned the lesson.” Oh the wisdom of such a mother: and the
tactfulness.
When the children are young they should never be allowed away from home
over night, and should have no visitors to spend the night with them.
This cannot be too carefully guarded. Neither should they be allowed to
play alone with companions whom you do not know, or are not perfectly
sure you can have full confidence in.
No playing out of doors after nightfall. More evil is learned in evening
hours than is dreamed of. Have toys and amusements, and allow companions
in the home, and your children will not care to leave it for the streets.
Be one with your children in their sports and games, and make yourself so
companionable that they will choose you before all others.
All the way along know what your boys and girls are reading. It lies with
you to form their tastes, and direct their choice.
Oh mothers, forbear to neglect this great and blessed responsibility,
with which you are invested. No work in all the world can equal it in
importance, none in the rich harvest which is the result of painstaking
sowing. No cast-iron rules can be laid down, for no two children are
alike. It is sufficient to say, “Mothers, be true to yourselves, and
esteem the trust committed to you as sacred beyond measure; study to show
yourselves approved ‘workmen that need not to be ashamed,’” and you will
have reason to rejoice at the results of your labors. “Instead of thy
fathers shall be thy children, whom thou mayest make princes in all the
earth.”
CHAPTER XXIII.
BODY-BUILDING.
Our Duty to Nourish, Strengthen and Build up Strong
Bodies.—Eradicating Inherited Infirmities.—Children Inherit the
Permanent States of Their Parents.—The Parents’ Duty to Those
Who are not Well Born.—What has Been Accomplished Along These
Lines.—The Relation of Babies’ Clothing and Food to Physical
Growth.—Unwise Feeding.—The Laws of Nutrition.—The Relation of
Food to National Greatness.—The Danger of Overdressing.—Value
of Sunshine and Air.—A list of Good Foods.—The Relation
of Exercise to Appetite.—Comparative Value of Meat and
Vegetables.—Importance of Rest and Sleep.—Regular Sleeping
Hours.—Schools and Nervousness in Children.—Many Children
are not Properly Nourished.—Food Poorly Prepared and Poorly
Served.—The Importance of Hygienic Cooking.—The Cause of
Weak Eyes in Children.—Children and Bare Feet.—The Dosing of
Children With Nostrums.—The Use of Brandy and Wine in Cooking.
I think it was Dr. J. G. Holland who said, “We derive our best lessons,
not from what people say to us, but from what their words make us say
to ourselves.” In the wide subject which the heading of this chapter
opens, I can only hope to illustrate this truth. Perhaps by starting new
lines of thought with some persons, and in others intensifying and making
broader lines of thought already entered upon.
Said good George Müller, “My soul I commit to the care of God, following
His laws; but my body He has given into my hands, to care for, nourish,
and strengthen, that I may build it up into His image.” Could we remember
oftener that it was meant to be after His likeness, and the temple for
His indwelling, we should be less careless of the trust committed to
us. And again, were we the only sufferers from the lack of care and
neglect of our bodies, it would matter less, but we are sowing seed
that will spring up and bear fruit, “some thirty, some sixty and some
an hundredfold,” in the generations to come; and what also of the
incalculable harm from our influence upon those about us?
Could we return to the old Spartan time when only the symmetrical,
healthy and vigorous were allowed to marry and bear children, our task
in body-building for the future would be less difficult; but we have
the rubbish accumulated by the mistakes of the body-builders behind us,
through the past ages, to clear away as best we can, before we can
properly enter upon our present task. As it is, the problem resolves
itself into this—to make the most of the material in hand, in rooting out
the bad, and culturing the good.
To begin well, the parents must bear in mind, before the baby’s
beginning, that the life of the little one will be in great measure
determined by what they are, not by what they may hope to be, though
even this has its influence. It is a well-known fact in heredity that
transient states of body and mind, are not those which are most often
entailed upon offspring, but the permanent states and conditions. What
the mother eats, what she thinks, what she enjoys, what habits she allows
to control her, will shape largely the little life, and make her after
task in body-building a difficult, or a comparatively easy one. Given a
good foundation, and the superstructure which rises upon it will be solid
and enduring, and as beautiful as the architect desires.
Suppose the little one is not well-born, it becomes the duty of the
parents to choose its food, its dress, its plays, its surroundings, that
they may make good as fast as possible, the defects known to exist in
it. To do this most effectively, they will need to counsel often with
their medical adviser, and become themselves conversant with the laws of
hygienic living.
That very much can be done along these lines is a well attested fact,
and is beautifully illustrated in our Foundlings’ Homes, where little
ones coming out of all sorts and conditions of society, and many of them
with the worst possible heredity, are trained out of the evil ways toward
which they incline physically, and into the upward way which makes the
perfect man and woman. Therefore we have no reason to be discouraged, if
we have not the most perfect model to begin with, but must instead do
some molding and trimming off here and there before it stands forth the
fair thing we desire.
The baby’s clothing has much to do with its proper development, as
already indicated. The food for the best development of the physical
nature has also been emphasized, but some further remarks will not be
out of place. I pity the little one that is cheated out of its rightful
heritage, its mother’s breast. This is a day of bottle-fed babies, to
the sorrow of the babies, and the loss to the mother of many hours of
sweet comfort comparable with nothing else she may ever have, while the
wee thing is taking its life from her breasts, and she is thinking high
thoughts of its future and what she shall be to it. The mother who nurses
her baby is much to blame, if she does not drink in the sweet lessons
which come to her, of moral as well as physical dependence, while the
little one hangs upon and nestles in her bosom; and she does not dream of
what she misses, if she puts it off without a thought or a care of this,
the sweet lessons of cuddling, nursing motherhood.
If the little thing must be bottle-fed, hold it in your arms, as nearly
in its natural position as possible, and cuddle it, while you hide as far
as may be the ugly, unsympathetic substitute, the nursing-bottle.
Ask many mothers how often they feed their babies, and they will tell
you in the sentiment, if not the language of one who said, “Well, once
in two or three hours usually, but when it has colic, or is restless it
tugs away nearly all the time, day and night, until I am entirely worn
out”—and I venture to say, the baby is in the same condition. The rule
or no rule, with such mothers, is, when the baby cries feed it, when
it frets, feed it; when it wakes, feed it; when it goes to sleep, feed
it; when it has colic, feed it more; and when it is really ailing,
feed it all the time. How much? Why all it will hold, until it is full
to overflowing, and then wonder what ails the baby. Wise mothers smile
at the absurdity; but remember you are the enquiring ones who count
ignorance in such things a shame, (as you should), and you are of the
favored few, while the great army of mothers belong to the other class.
For quantity and quality of food for the baby, we refer the reader to the
chapter on The Care of the Baby.
Properly fed and properly dressed babies will need little medicine, even
a child born with an hereditary tendency to constipation, can be coaxed
out of it by regularity of good habits, and food.
For older children and adult life the common sense and good judgment of
the home-keeper must decide the quality of food best suited to their
individual families. For a subject which demands so much common sense for
all mankind, and wise thinking, less reasonable thought is spent upon
it, than upon any other branch of science the world over. Says a late
writer, “It is universally known as a fact, although not much considered,
that bone and blood, brain and brawn, are directly manufactured from
food eaten. It is now beginning to be discovered that for centuries
people have not eaten the right foods to make the best bodies. They
have been ignorant of the physiological laws of nutrition, of the
proper combinations and proportions of essential elements, of the vital
importance attaching to such knowledge. They have cultivated artificial
and abnormal tastes, sought momentary gratification in eating, and
gradually demoralized their natural instincts.” There has been no study
made of the development of nations as influenced by its food supply.
It would give much food for thought, we have no doubt, and be a cause
for surprise that the quality and quantity of food could make so much
difference.
Dr. Henderson, in the _Popular Science Monthly_, says: “When you remember
that we are dressed during the whole period of our social life, and
that we eat three times every day, eleven hundred times a year, it is
astonishing that these very human arts (dressing and eating) have not
been brought to greater perfection. Women weep, work, and suffer the
same to-day as at the dawn of the race, because they feed the young on
forbidden fruit. So the children grow into men and women with curved
spines, unshapely, unsymmetrical forms, and damaged brains, to suffer all
through life with ills of both body and mind.”
Dr. Dio Lewis was called at one time to see the child of a friend, who
“Did not know what was the matter with the dear little girl.” Dr. Lewis
looked her over carefully, and then astonished the mother with a request
for an entire suit of the child’s clothing. When they were brought to him
he took the little one with him, and followed by the curious mother, went
out into the flower-garden. He chose for his object lesson, one of the
most thrifty and beautiful of the many lovely rosebushes, and dressed it
in the child’s clothes; much to the delight of the little girl.
“What are you doing that funny thing for, Dr. Lewis?” she asked. “Why I
want to see whether this will grow as you do when it is dressed so finely
in your clothes,” said the wise doctor. “Leave it just so until I come
again day after to-morrow, and we shall see how it likes it.”
He came and of course found the thrifty bush withered and dying. “Why,
what is the matter here?” said the doctor to the little one.
“Why don’t you see, doctor, you have shut out all the sunshine and air,
and of course it could not stand it.”
“Of course not, my dear,” said Dr. Lewis, “and no more can you.” Turning
to the astonished mother, he said, “Do you see, my friend, what you have
been doing for your little girl, and do you now see what is the matter
with her? The child can no more live without a proper amount of sunshine
and air than can the rosebush. Take off half the clothes she has been
wearing, put on lighter and looser things, give her a sun-bath daily in
a warm room, and allow her only simple meals at regular hours, put her
to bed at seven o’clock every night, and you will hardly know her in six
months.”
The advice was followed and the child became healthy and vigorous.
The old text from “The Book,” “as a man thinketh in his heart so is he,”
suggests another as true. As a man eateth so is he. “The man who swallows
spices, condiments, pickles, or other irritating, hot substances, is
almost certain to think irritating, hot thoughts, and to speak hot words.”
Plain, simple food, well cooked and daintily served, will be as happily
received by our families, (if they have not been pampered until their
tastes are vitiated and bad habits formed), as the multitude of dishes
which are called food, but have no right to the name, which are daily
set before many growing boys and girls. The temptation into which many
mothers fall of concocting, or allowing to be concocted, “fine” dishes
with long sounding names, and which are good for little in nutrition,
has much to do in creating depraved appetites which are averse to plain,
substantial food, which really builds bodies that are worth the having.
We can sympathize heartily with the plain old farmer, whose lament is
given in rhyme in a Southern medical journal:
“We have a lot of salad things, with dressing mayonnaise:
In place of oysters, blue points, fricaseed a dozen ways,
And orange roly-poly, float, and peach meringue, alas—
Enough to wreck a stomach that is made of plated brass:
The good old things have passed away in silent, sad retreat,
We’ve a lot of high-falutin things, but nothing much to eat.
And while I never say a word, and always pleasant look,
I have had sore dyspepsy since my daughter learned to cook.”
Well cooked vegetables, bread made from unbolted flour which contains
all the nutritive properties, cereals cooked sufficiently, meat—not
fried—once a day, plenty of fruit cooked and uncooked, milk and water,
should be all that are allowed growing children; and if desserts are
given at all, simple puddings, not pie, should be in the dietary.
A story is told of a mother who took her twelve-year-old boy to her
physician, complaining that he would eat only those things that he should
not have, and that he felt so poorly that she could not get him out to
play. The wise doctor advised her to take him out for a ride of two miles
each day, and compel him to run behind the carriage on the way home. His
food should be bread and milk three times daily, allowing positively
nothing else for a month. He should be put to bed every night at eight
o’clock, and report to him in a month. A few bread pills completed the
prescription. The result seemed marvelous to the mother, and the medicine
was “wonderful.”
It is undoubtedly true that as a rule we eat too much, and are surely too
much a meat-eating people for the best results. Meat once daily is by the
best authorities on the subject, considered sufficient for our needs. It
gives nutritive elements in a more concentrated form, but in this very
fact the danger lies.
It will be well for us to remember that food effects temperament
decidedly, and we need only compare the different temperaments found in
flesh eating and herb eating animals to learn the effect a generous meat
diet has upon the human family.
I was interested in noticing the dietary of the world’s bicycle champion,
for the longest six days’ ride yet made. It consisted of rice, oatmeal,
barley, fruit, boiled milk, koumiss, coffee, and no meat. Arab porters,
who carry great loads trotting from six in the morning until six in the
evening, during one month of the year, are by their religion forbidden
to partake of food between sunrise and sunset. Their morning meal is
not mentioned, but at eventide they have a moderate meal of wheatmeal
porridge mixed with large proportions of butter, or olive oil. “The
French inspectors who are in charge of these gangs of porters, declare
that during the month of fasting they do better work than at any
other time because their strength is not needed for digestion.” These
statements only prove to us, that as a people, we eat too much, and of
too rich food, and such facts invite us to a plainer mode of living, if
we desire to conserve our strength and do our best for ourselves and
mankind.
I have not touched upon the subject of rest which is an important one.
Many children through lack of knowledge or carelessness are allowed to
fall into pernicious habits concerning sleep. Oftentimes these bad habits
are fixed in the child in its tiny babyhood, when mother or nurse wakes
the little one for the benefit of admiring friends.
There should be a fixed retiring-hour for the children, and nothing
should be allowed to interfere with it. Each child should have a bed by
itself. Little thought is given to the detriment, morally and physically,
of bed-fellows for children. We have touched upon the moral danger in
another chapter, and speak here of the physical. Children of different
temperaments draw much from each other of electrical and vital force,
and nearly always to the detriment of both. In losing anything which
properly belongs to it, the system has lost its poise, and must suffer
from it proportionately. Children differ much in the quantity of covering
required, hence cannot properly be put under the same amount without one
or the other suffering. The tendency is to throw off the clothes, and
colds result.
If you have had trouble with nervous fretfulness on the part of your
children, especially in the morning, and they have been in the habit of
sleeping together, separate them at once and note the results. One may be
a very restless child, while the other is quiet, and the consequence is
the sleep of both is made miserable.
From earliest childhood accustom your children to regular sleeping hours,
and do not begin by speaking in whispers and walking on tiptoe when the
baby is asleep. Accustom them to sleeping with all the ordinary work or
pleasure going on in the ordinary way. Of course the child should be in a
room by itself if possible, especially if there are other children about.
As a people we suffer from lack of sufficient rest. We stint ourselves
here as nowhere else, and little wonder that we are a nervous, restless
people, with worn-out energies in early life. Too many women come to
maternity tired and worn, and the result is anything but promising for
their children; the chances are that their children are born with a
heritage of sleeplessness, and their care is a burden to their mothers
and others.
There is something fine in our great public, free school system,
but to me there is something wofully pathetic also. When I find
little tots, from the third grade on, nervous and anxious in the
daily rush of lessons, fearing lest they will fall below the imposed
standard, and so lose their grade, or be obliged to pass the
dreaded examination; going about with fretted, careworn faces, I
think it time to cry a halt. It is not the lessons they are crowded
through, but the lessons they master that are going to be of value
to them. Is there not a-crowding-them-all-into-the-same-mold,
a-modeling-them-after-the-same-pattern danger, that takes largely from
their individuality, and forbids the evolution of such geniuses as the
past generations have known? No doubt we know more than our ancestors,
but is it not a question whether we are wiser than they? For this state
of things I do not attach blame to the teachers, the curricula of the
schools are to blame. This is a part of the everlasting rush of the
American race, and what is the remedy? All this nervous strain draws
largely upon the physical nature of the child, and produces dwarfed
bodies that are nerveless and tired, at the expense of crowded brains.
When will our splendid educators see the wrong and devise a better way?
But not all the fault lies with the schools. Many of our children
are not properly fed and rested when they enter the schoolroom, and
the consequence is poor work languidly done. To obviate this, our
home-keepers should be truly good cooks, and by this I mean one who knows
how to make an appetizing meal from very little, and that little plain.
She should know how to cook the plain solid foods in such a manner that
her family will call it a royal meal, and their health and physical vigor
will prove it so. Like the mother in the little story, “Bread and Cheese
and Kisses,” who, when the meal was particularly scant, would say, “well,
dearies, we have only bread and cheese and kisses to-night,” whereupon
the kisses would be so warm and full of love, and the love pats so
tender, that the little ones would sit down with hearts full of content
and rise with thanksgiving and gladness.
Do we half realize how very much the food we set before our families has
to do with the contentment and temper of the home, and of the school and
business life? A poorly prepared, and poorly served evening meal will
send our children to a night of restless, dreamy, unrefreshing sleep, and
an awakening in the morning, fretful, disordered and poorly prepared for
the day. An unwisely chosen breakfast, carelessly prepared, finishes the
work, and our children enter the schoolrooms to endure the day as best
they can, a burden to themselves and their teachers.
And right here, the mothers who have not ordered their children before
birth may take comfort in the thought that they may still do much for
their future by properly nourishing them. Any woman may live a great
life in giving the attention she should to the hygiene of cooking for
the home; for when she learns how much of knowledge is bound up in the
chemistry of cooking, she will explore many fields in her research, and
come out the winner in wide culture and loveliness. Much that is called
cooking, is but the throwing together of the ingredients in the easiest
manner possible, and often disguising the unpalatableness by spices and
condiments.
The question of the weakness of our children’s eyes, has become a serious
one. What is the cause and what the remedy? But a few words on the
subject will suffice in a work like this. There are doubtless various
causes, but among the most noticeable and most easily corrected are the
following.
Improperly lighted schoolrooms, the windows being at the side and
sometimes a part of them at the front. The white walls, the reflected
light from which is very trying to the eyes. The constant use of the
eyes for near work, which school life demands, and after the five hours
in school, the two, three and sometimes four or five hours work out of
school, a part of which must be done by artificial light, and that often
poor.
The almost constant adjustment of the eye for near vision, which there
must be by the city dwellers, with the tall buildings shutting out
the far-away look, which rests the eye, in allowing the muscles of
accommodation to relax. The poor print of the cheaper class of books
put upon the market. The inferior paper will not admit of a clear bold
type, and there must be a constant effort of the eye to adjust itself to
the conditions. Much can be done to avoid the dangers, by teaching the
children to close the eyes and rest them for a moment or two, whenever
they feel tired, or to look as far away as possible.
You have doubtless read of “the barefoot cures,” established in a few of
our foreign cities, with one, I think, in our own land. The patients are
required to go out in the dew-wet grass with bare feet, for a certain
time every morning, and thus to draw strength and electricity from mother
earth. Could I accomplish it I would establish a barefoot cure in every
home in the land. Isn’t it really more than three-fourths pride, that
forbids our letting our little ones pull off their shoes and stockings,
and revel for a time at least each day in the delicious freedom and
coolness they could get from direct contact with mother earth?
Have any of you a child who has not teased to go barefooted, and why have
you not allowed it? Do not, I pray you, cheat them out of this blissful
freedom, and simple health-giving measure. Put your pride behind you.
Venture the possibility that the foot may become a little larger, and
let your boys and girls run barefooted for at least an hour or two each
day, in the back yard, if you do not like their appearance in front, or
in the park, if you have no back yards, and I venture to say you will
have healthier, happier, heartier children than you have ever known. No
matter how delicate they are, the more delicate the greater the need. By
judicious management at the beginning, accustoming them to the change
gradually and in the middle of the day, they will rarely take cold. After
they have become habituated to it, you will also find that their usual
colds will disappear.
Put the tiny babies out into the sand pile as soon as they can sit alone,
take off their moccasins and stockings, and let their little feet come in
contact with the warm sand and watch their delight.
And now I come to a common practice, which although thoughtlessly
acquired is none the less pernicious, namely, the habit which many
mothers have of dosing their children on all sorts of domestic nostrums,
simply on the reputation that they are good for the ailments of
childhood, with no idea of their fitness for the individual case, or for
any case. The older I grow, and the more I learn about medicines, the
more convinced I am that they are not to be tampered with. Could the
composition of many of the so-called domestic remedies be known, mothers
would stand appalled at their temerity in daring to administer them. We
cannot measure the evil results of this indiscriminate dosing. Why are so
many of these compounds put upon the market? Simply because people stand
ready and willing to use them, and in doing so fancy they are sparing
themselves a larger expense by way of a doctor’s fee.
You would hardly need to go into our uneducated homes to find results of
antikamnia (self-ministered) antipyrine, ananalgia, or some other of
the long list of anti’s or their near relatives, the various headache
powders, anti-constipation teas, pills, etc., etc., without end. This
habit among women, together with the tobacco habit among men has wrecked
many a little lifeboat before it weighed anchor, and many an older craft
has gone to pieces on the rocks because of them.
And now a last word on another bit of seed-sowing that brings forth more
than an hundredfold in harvest. Mothers, do you dream what you may be
doing when you use brandy and wine in your cookery, or the beer that
makes your welsh rarebit “so much better,” to use a quotation from one
who uses it. Is it safe in these days of intemperance to create the
taste for alcoholics in your children that in after years may demand the
gratification which drags them down to death, and carries with them many
others? Could we know the effects upon a transient guest often, we would
wonder, how, for the sake of custom we had allowed ourselves to play with
the poison that destroys all that is beautiful in many homes, and sends
to death yearly a countless throng, that some of our children may help to
swell, if we do not do our utmost to stay it.
I have tried in these few hints on body-building to show young mothers
how much they can do, if they set about intelligently learning how to
care for their children. Make the study a painstaking one, and you will
bless your families by your research, and the world by the healthy men
and women you send out.
A noble band of women, which is yearly increasing, have set themselves
the task of instituting a new order of things, and the great problems of
childhood, girlhood and boyhood, wifehood, motherhood, and fatherhood,
are being studied with a will to master their mysteries, and endow the
coming generation with a clearer knowledge of the causes which have led
to much of the sin and sorrow in home and society. Mother’s meetings and
Congresses witness the awakening of many along these lines and herald a
brighter future for our grandchildren than our children have enjoyed; and
that there is a call for such a book as this, evidences the recognition
of the need for knowledge along these lines.
Some one has wisely said, “what we need most is a generation of educated
mothers.” The few are aware of this and have long since passed into the
higher grades of such an education; but for the many mothers who have
not yet entered the schools, such chapters as this are written. To keep
abreast of the questionings of her children, to be thoroughly informed
on all the subjects which touch their training and well-being is, next
to her religion, the highest prerogative of woman to-day. For any mother
to be so prepared that she can teach her children truth, and in such a
wholesome way that it shall beautify their whole after lives, and keep
them close to her in counsel, is a noble outlook for any woman. And what
other right or privilege can be above this?
I am coming to think that a woman is living a great life, and doing a
great service for humanity, who trains well one child—if this be all she
_should_ and _can_ have—Godward and manward. True she may do this and
do _much_ else; but if she be a mother, all else she may do, neglecting
this, can never bring to her or the world much blessing. All else she may
do while fulfilling well this duty, will but make her the better mother
and world-helper. No mother can divorce the home and fireside from her
work and retain success and happiness.
J. C. Fernauld has said truly, “With every mother the relation of
motherhood should be the controlling one, and in all doubtful cases,
mother duty should have the benefit of the doubt.” Charles H. Parkhurst
says: “Society rises no higher than the mass, and the measure of the
home is the mother. In the last analysis the world’s downward pressure
is sustained by woman, and more than the public generally suspects, the
man’s talent for achievement is supported by the wife’s or mother’s
genius for quiet, patient, continuous endurance.”
“A nation rises no higher than its mothers.”
A beginning has been made in our schools toward a wider knowledge
along the lines of being, which heralds the day when teachers who
are intelligent in these matters shall prepare our young people for
the responsibilities of life—then those whose home training has been
neglected, shall not come out of our schools unprepared, but fitted to
take their places as home-makers, as fathers and mothers who shall be
capable of training their children in the wisest way.
CHAPTER XXIV.
MOTHERS’ MEETINGS, STUDY CLUBS AND BOOKS.
The Awakening Along New Lines.—A Better Brand of
Mothers.—Books that Will Help Along This Line.—Mothers’
Clubs as Factors.—Their Need in Cities, Villages, and Rural
Communities.—A Rich Mine.
A book like this cannot enter into close details, or give minute
directions; hence we have deemed it advisable to append a list of books
and pamphlets which should be in every mother’s library. Were every young
wife to make a painstaking study of books like these with the fixed
intent of preparing herself for motherhood, what a millennial day would
dawn for the race.
The following list (to which have been added a few others) I have copied
from the library of a club of mothers, who have interested themselves
in gathering the best they could find in the line of instruction and
helpfulness to a wife and mother. This list may be further increased by
many other helpful books, but serves as a suggestive list for those who
are not conversant with such literature:
The Children of The Future, $1.00
Nora Archibald Smith.
What is Worth While? .35
Anna Robertson Brown.
Power Through Repose, 1.00
Anna Payson Call.
The Republic of Childhood, (3 vols.) 3.00
Kate Douglass Wiggin.
A Mother’s Ideals, 1.50
Andrea Hofer Proudfoot.
A Study of Child Nature, 1.00
Elizabeth Harrison.
Child Culture, .30
Hannah Whitall Smith.
The Home Training of Children, .50
J. C. Fernauld.
Literary Landmarks, 1.25
Mary E. Burt.
Gentle Measures, 1.25
Jacob Abbott.
Mothers the True Reformers, .10
Mrs. W. L. W. Miller.
A Treatise on Prayer, .75
Rev. Edward Bickersteith.
Home Making, 1.00
Loving My Neighbor, .35
The Golden Gate of Prayer, .75
Rev. J. R. Miller, D. D.
The Ministry of Intercession, .75
Rev. Andrew Murray.
Stepping Heavenward, .75
Mrs. E. Prentiss.
With God in The World, 1.00
Chas. H. Brent.
The Kingship of Self Control, .30
Wm. George Jordan.
From Girlhood to Motherhood, .30
Mary Lowe Dickinson.
Seed Thoughts for Mothers, .35
Mrs. Minnie E. Paul.
Bringing up Boys, .50
Kate Upson Clark.
What a Young Boy Ought to Know, 1.00
What a Young Man Ought to Know, 1.00
What a Young Husband Ought to Know, 1.00
What a Man of Forty-five Ought to Know, 1.00
Sylvanus Stall, D. D.
What a Young Girl Ought to Know, 1.00
What a Young Woman Ought to Know, 1.00
Mrs. Mary Wood-Allen, M. D.
Children, Their Models and Critics, .75
Auretta R. Aldrich.
Children’s Rights, 1.00
Kate Douglass Wiggins.
Great Books as Life Teachers, 1.50
Newell Dwight Hillis.
Letters to Mothers, 1.50
Susan E. Blow.
Character, .75
Samuel Smiles.
A Holy Temple, .05
Rev. F. B. Meyer.
A Song of Life, 1.25
Life and Love, 1.25
Margaret Warner Morley.
Hints on Child Training, 1.25
H. Clay Trumbull, D. D.
Bits of Talks about Home Matters, 1.00
H. H.
The Study of Children, 1.00
Francis Warner.
The Evening and The Morning, 1.00
Rev. Armstrong Black.
Christian Nurture, 1.50
Horace Bushnell, D. D.
The Development of the Child, 1.25
Care of the Child in Health, 1.25
Nathan Oppenheim, M. D.
The Boy Problem, .75
Wm. Byron Forbush.
Of Making One’s Self Beautiful, .50
Wm. C. Gannett.
Imago Christi, 1.50
Rev. Jas. Stalker, D. D.
Home Thoughts, 1.50
C.
Maternal Responsibilities, .10
E. F. A. Drake, M. D.
From A Child’s Standpoint, 1.00
Florence Hull Winterburn.
Education, 1.00
Herbert Spencer.
_Any of these books can be ordered through the Vir Publishing Company._
A score of copies of Mary Wood-Allen’s booklets have been sold among
the members, and copies of _The American Mother_, _The Mothers’
Journal_, and _Trained Motherhood_ are taken. This club meets once a
month, and papers are read by the members, or by some invited guest.
Physicians and ministers, school-teachers who have had success along
certain lines; kindergartners, and lawyers have spoken to this company
of women. Each year a printed program is issued, and the meetings are
open to all who wish to attend, whether members or not. The discussions
which have followed the papers, have been interesting and profitable
in the extreme. One or two are appointed to open the discussion, and
questions are freely asked. This club is only three years old, but it
would be impossible to measure its influence for good, and its suggestive
helpfulness in the community. Would that there were a similar society of
women in every city in our land. Yea, more, in every village and rural
community. Literary clubs and classes have multiplied, all over our land,
_ad infinitum_; and is it not time that mothers’ classes were more common
and popular? Depend upon it, more pleasure and profit can be gotten out
of such a class, than from any other proposed line of study. Why? Because
it goes to the very root of things, and comes so near to the hearts of
all that it can but create interest.
Woman has done much in literary study and improvement, but here is a mine
that has not been worked as it should have been; and depend upon it, no
richer field can be found in all the realm of art, science or literature.
THE END.
* * * * *
OFFICES OF PUBLICATION
IN THE UNITED STATES
THE VIR PUBLISHING COMPANY
2237 LAND TITLE BUILDING
PHILADELPHIA, PA.
IN ENGLAND
THE VIR PUBLISHING COMPANY
7 IMPERIAL ARCADE, LUDGATE CIRCUS
LONDON, E. C.
IN CANADA
WILLIAM BRIGGS
29-33 RICHMOND STREET WEST
TORONTO, ONTARIO
* * * * *
Maternity Without Suffering
BY MRS. EMMA F. A. DRAKE, M. D.
Condensed Table of Contents
HEALTHFULNESS OF CHILD-BEARING—Wrong notion about child-bearing
corrected—Dangerous subterfuges—Contrast between willing
and unwilling mothers—Ennobling maternity—Causes of painful
parturition—Suggestions for proper exercise—Errors in
diet—A proper regimen—A contributing cause to pain—Is
painless parturition possible?—Opinions of scientists
and physicians—Reasons why some women have painless
child-bearing—The author’s experience as a physician—The
conditions necessary for painless maternity—Danger of
extreme methods—Effects of bad advisers—Contributing
factors of antenatal infanticide—Nothing to dread in normal
childbirth—Extreme methods not necessary.
THE CRIME OF PRENATAL MURDER—The day of reckoning—Words
of warning—The mother’s accomplice—How often to
have children—Dangerous practices—The necessity of
knowledge—Importance of a proper state of mind during
pregnancy—How to make one’s life noble—The first steps in
meddlesome midwifery.
THE NECESSARY PREPARATION FOR MOTHERHOOD—Exercise to be
zealously sought—Home duties and domestic science—The
best exercise—Some aids to physical development—Dress
during pregnancy—The bath—Care of breasts and
abdomen—Choice of physician and nurse—The husband’s
part—Ailments of pregnancy—Troublesome ills—Morning
sickness—Heartburn—Constipation—The prevention and treatment of
piles—Other ills—Causes of nervous apprehension—Other mental
conditions—Birthmarks—Threatened miscarriage.
HEREDITY, PREDISPOSITION AND ENVIRONMENT—The mother’s influence
on the destiny of her child—A profitable study—What a mother
can do for her children—Reasons why later children are stronger
and brighter.
THE LYING-IN CHAMBER—The room—The bed—The mother’s dress—The
articles necessary—After the advent of the baby—Necessity
of knowledge—The disturbing things—Signs of pregnancy and
the birth—The rational or presumptive signs—The time in
reckoning—The duration of pregnancy—Exceptional cases—The
disturbing stage of labor—Valuable suggestions—Directions for
the nurse—Propriety of anæsthetics—Baby’s wardrobe—Requisite
articles—Directions for their making—Baby’s first trunk—First
toilet—Baby’s first dressing—Ensuring a night’s rest—The
cradle—Hours of eating and sleeping—Proper kind of food.
Price { 50 Cents } net, post free
{ 2 s. }
* * * * *
“What a Young Girl Ought to Know.”
BY MRS. MARY WOOD-ALLEN, M. D.
Condensed Table of Contents
PART I
The origin of life—One plan in all forms of life—How plants
grow from the seed—They feed on the soil, grow and mature—How
the plant reproduces itself—The flower, the pollen, the pod,
the seed—The office of bees and insects in fertilization.
PART II
Fishes and their young—The parent fishes and the baby
fishes—The seeds of plants and eggs of fishes, birds and
animals—How fishes never know their baby offspring—Warm blooded
animals—Lessons from birds—Their nests, eggs and little ones.
PART III
Animals and their young—The place which God has prepared for
their young—Beginning their independent life—Human babies the
most helpless and dependent of all creatures—The relations of
parent and child—The child a part of each parent—Heredity and
its lessons.
PART IV
The value of good health—The care of the body—The body a temple
to be kept holy—Girls should receive their instruction from
their mothers—The body the garment which the soul wears—Effects
of thoughts upon life and character—Value of good companions,
good books and good influences—What it is to become a woman.
Price { $1.00 } net, per copy
{ 4 s. }
* * * * *
“What a Young Girl Ought to Know.”
WHAT EMINENT PEOPLE SAY
Francis E. Willard, LL.D.
“I do earnestly hope that this book, founded on a strictly
scientific but not forgetting a strong ethical basis, may be
well known and widely read by the dear girls in their teens and
the young women in their homes.”
Mrs. Elizabeth B. Grannis
“These facts ought to be judiciously brought to the
intelligence of every child whenever it asks questions
concerning its own origin.”
Mrs. Harriet Lincoln Coolidge
“It is a book that mothers and daughters ought to own.”
Mrs. Katharine L. Stevenson
“The book is strong, direct, pure, as healthy as a breeze from
the mountain-top.”
Mrs. Isabelle MacDonald Alden, “Pansy”
“It is just the book needed to teach what most people do not
know how to teach, being scientific, simple and plain-spoken,
yet delicate.”
Miss Grace H. Dodge
“I know of no one who writes or speaks on these great subjects
with more womanly touch than Mrs. Wood-Allen, nor with deeper
reverence. When I listen to her I feel that she has been
inspired by a Higher Power.”
Ira D. Sankey
“Every mother in the land that has a daughter should secure for
her a copy of ‘What a Young Girl Ought to Know.’ It will save
the world untold sorrow.”
* * * * *
“What a Young Woman Ought to Know.”
BY MRS. MARY WOOD-ALLEN, M.D.
Condensed Table of Contents
PART I
CHILDHOOD AND GROWTH
Woman’s worth—Importance of care of the body—How to obtain
health—Waste and repair—Questions of food—Importance of rest in
sleep—The office and importance of correct breathing—Injuries
from tight clothing—Physical culture—Exercise and
recreation—The value of the bath.
PART II
WOMANHOOD
The endowment of new powers—The conferring of life—Brain
building and character formation—Soul and self—Special
physiology—Woman’s special bodily endowments—The crisis
in the girl’s life—Ovulation and menstruation—Their
significance—Causes and cures of disturbed physical
conditions—Painful periods and displacements—Special care of
health at special times—Many healthful suggestions suited
to the physical needs of young women—Secret vice and its
consequences—The relation of pure young women to young
men—Friendships.
PART III
What is love—Should include mental conjugality, spiritual
sympathy and physical attraction—Responsibility in
marriage—Antecedents, talents and habits of young man—The
law of heredity—Beneficial—Effects of stimulants upon
offspring—Inherited effects of immorality—Good characteristics
also transmitted—Requisites in a husband—Engagements—Benefits
of, evils of—Holding to the highest ideals—Weddings—Gifts,
tours and realities of life.
Price { $1.00 } net, per copy, post free
{ 4 s. }
* * * * *
“What a Young Woman Ought to Know.”
WHAT EMINENT PEOPLE SAY
Lady Henry Somerset
“An extremely valuable book, and I wish that it may be widely
circulated.”
Mrs. Laura Ormiston Chant
“The book ought to be in the hands of every girl on her
fifteenth birthday, as a safe guide and teacher along the
difficult path of womanhood.”
Margaret Warner Morley
“There is an awful need for the book, and it does what it has
undertaken to do better than anything of the kind I ever read.”
Mrs. May Wright Sewall
“I am profoundly grateful that a subject of such information to
young woman should be treated in a manner at once so noble and
so delicate.”
Elizabeth Cady Stanton
“It is a grave mistake for parents to try to keep their
children ignorant of the very questions on which they should
have scientific information.”
Lillian M. N. Stevens
“There is a great need of carefully, delicately written books
upon the subjects treated in this series. I am gratefully glad
that the author has succeeded so well, and I trust great and
enduring good will be the result.”
Mrs. Matilda B. Carse
“It is pure and instructive on the delicate subjects that mean
so much to our daughters, to their future as home-keepers,
wives and mothers, and to the future generations.”
* * * * *
“What a Woman of Forty-five Ought to Know”
BY MRS. EMMA F. A. DRAKE, M. D.
Condensed Table of Contents
KNOWLEDGE OF CLIMACTERIC NECESSARY
Why women are not prepared to meet the climacteric—The
fear that unnerves many—Error of views concerning “Change
of Life”—Correct teaching stated—Influence of medical
literature—Three periods in a woman’s life—Relation of early
habits to later aches and ills—The menopause—Conditions which
influence the period of the climacteric—The age at which it
usually appears—Effects of heredity—Childless women—Mothers of
large families—Effects of different occupations—Excesses.
HERALDS OF CHANGE—DISEASES AND REMEDIES
Mental states during menopause—Change in blood
currents—Flushes, chilliness, dizziness, etc.—Nervous
Symptoms—Disturbed mental and nervous equilibriums—Nature
as woman’s helper—Troublesome ailments—Mental troubles
considered—Suggested help—Cancer—Benefits named—Apprehensions
dispelled—How to banish worry—Simplifying daily duty—An eminent
physician’s prescription—A word to single women—Reluctance of
unmarried women to meet the menopause—How to prolong one’s
youth—Dress during this period—The mother “At Sea”—Guarding
against becoming gloomy—Effects of patent medicine
advertising—Drug fiends—Lustful indulgence.
WHAT BOTH HUSBAND AND WIFE SHOULD REMEMBER
Slights and inattentions keenly felt by her—Need of patience—A
word of private counsel—Value of little attentions—Wife’s
duty to her husband—Holding husband’s affections—Making home
attractive—Unselfishness.
AUTO-SUGGESTION AND OTHER SUGGESTIONS
Influence of mind over body—The mind as a curative agent—How
to rise out of depression—Mental philosophy and physical
betterment—Relation of health to sight—Care of the teeth—The
hair—Constipation—Self cure—Choice of foods—Exercise—Physical
development—Exercise of mind and soul.
Price { $1.00 } net, post free.
{ 4 s. }
* * * * *
“What a Woman of Forty-five Ought to Know”
PRAISED BY THE PRESS
“Will dispell apprehensions aroused by groundless
forebodings.”—_Reformed Church Messenger._
“If the hygienic advice in this book is followed it will
lengthen the lives of women and make their closing years the
happiest and most useful of all.”—_Herald and Presbyter._
“In no line of literature, perhaps, is such a book so much
needed.”—_New Haven Leader._
“Those who peruse the book only from prurient curiosity will be
disappointed.”—_Cleveland World._
“Should be read by every woman nearing and passing middle
life.”—_Pittsburg Gazette._
“Written in that wholesome sympathetic manner characteristic
of all the books in the Self and Sex Series.”—_Cleveland Daily
World._
“Full of most admirable practical advice and it is written in
a sympathetic manner which is the outcome of oneness of sex
between the author and those whom she addresses.”—_Syracuse
Herald._
“There are some things that a woman of forty-five does not
know—things which she regards with more or less terror in the
expectation—which terror it is the object of Mrs. Drake to
dispel.”—_Rochester Herald._
“There is nothing in the book that could not be proclaimed from
the house-tops, and there is everything in it that intelligent
and thoughtful women should read and keep for their daughters
to read when the proper time comes.”—_Newark Daily Advertiser._
* * * * *
“What a Young Boy Ought to Know.”
BY SYLVANUS STALL, D. D.
Condensed Table of Contents
PART I
God’s purpose in endowing plants, animals and man with
reproductive power—The question of the origin of life a natural
and proper one—Difference between creating and making—How God
now creates or reproduces the flowers, insects, fishes and
animals—The mamma and papa plants and the baby plants—The mamma
and papa nature in the stalk of corn—The two natures united
in the same flower—Separated in other plants—The office of
the wind and insects in fertilizing the flowers—The mamma and
papa natures united in the same oyster—The life of the baby
oyster—The two natures separated in the fishes—The eggs and
the baby fishes—How seeds are made to grow and how eggs are
hatched—The beautiful lives of parent birds—The bird’s nest,
the eggs and the baby birds—Why the eggs of animals may not be
exposed in a nest—The nest which God has prepared for them—The
hatching of the egg or the birth of the animal—The creation of
Adam and Eve—God created man with power similar to his creative
power—The purity of parentage.
PART II
The manner in which the reproductive organs are injured in
boys by abuse—Comparative anatomy, or points of resemblance
between bodies of birds, animals and man—Man the only animal
with a perfect hand—With the hand he constructs, builds and
blesses—With the hand he smites, slays and injures others, and
degrades himself.
PART III
The consequences in boys of the abuse of the reproductive
organs—Need of proper information—The moral effects first to
manifest themselves—How secret sin affects the character of
boys—Effects upon the body and the nerves—Effects upon the
brain and mind—The physical effects that follow.
PARTS IV and V
How boys may preserve their bodies in purity and strength—Our
duty to aid others to avoid pernicious habits, and to retain or
regain their purity and strength.
PARTS VI and VII
How purity and strength may be measurably regained—The age
of adolescence or puberty and its attendant changes—Its
significance and its dangers.
Price { $1.00 } net, post free
{ 4 s. }
* * * * *
“What a Young Boy Ought to Know”
For Boys under Sixteen Years of Age
WHAT EMINENT PEOPLE SAY
Theodore L. Cuyler, D.D.
“‘What a Young Boy Ought to Know’ ought to be in every home
where there is a boy.”
Lady Henry Somerset
“Calculated to do an immense amount of good. I sincerely hope
it may find its way to many homes.”
Joseph Cook, D.D., LL.D.
“It is everywhere suggestive, inspiring and strategic in a
degree, as I think, not hitherto matched in literature of its
class.”
Charles L. Thompson, D.D.
“Why was not this book written centuries ago?”
Anthony Comstock
“It lifts the mind and thoughts upon a high and lofty plane
upon delicate subjects.”
Edward W. Bok
“It has appealed to me in a way which no other book of its kind
has.”
Bishop John H. Vincent, D.D., LL.D.
“You have handled with great delicacy and wisdom an exceedingly
difficult subject.”
John Willis Baer
“I feel confident that it can do great good, and I mean that my
boys shall have the contents placed before them.”
Mrs. Mary A. Livermore, LL.D.
“Full of physiological truths, which all children ought to
know, at a proper age; will be read by boys without awakening a
prurient thought.”
Josiah Strong, D.D.
“A foolish and culpable silence on the part of most parents
leaves their children to learn, too often from vicious
companions, sacred truth in an unhallowed way.”
* * * * *
“What a Young Man Ought to Know.”
BY SYLVANUS STALL, D. D.
Condensed Table of Contents
STRENGTH
The value of physical strength—The weak man
handicapped—Threefold nature of man—Relation of the physical,
intellectual and moral—Impair one, you injure all—The physical
foundation—Man’s strong sexual nature—Sexuality strongly
marked in all great men—Importance of manly mastery of sexual
nature—Personal purity—Only one moral standard for men and
women.
WEAKNESS
Inherited weakness—How overcome—Acquired weakness—How
produced—The effects of secret vice—What should be done—Losses
in sleep—When to consult a physician—Danger from quacks
and charlatans—What are normal and abnormal losses—Medical
authorities quoted—Subject illustrated—Important directions.
SOCIAL VICE
Alarming ignorance concerning the diseases which accompany
vice—Why physicians do not acquaint their patients with the
nature of these diseases—The prevalence—All forms of venereal
diseases leave terrible results—Character and consequences
of gonorrhœa—Later complications—Chordee, stricture,
blindness, etc.—How healthy brides become early and permanent
invalids—Chancroid and chancre—The primary, secondary and
tertiary forms of syphilis—The beginning, progress and end—Can
it ever be cured—May the man ever marry—Effects upon wife and
children.
THE REPRODUCTIVE ORGANS
Their purpose and prostitution—Marriage a great
blessing—Difference between creation and procreation—All life
from the seed or the egg—The reproduction of plants, fishes,
birds and animals contrasted—An interesting study.
MAN’S RELATION TO WOMAN
Importance of a right relation to women—The nature of
marriage—The friends and foes of marriage—Who should not
marry—The selection of a wife—Some general rules—Importance of
great caution—Causes of unhappiness in married life—Early and
late marriages.
HINDRANCES AND HELPS
The choice of companions, books, pictures, amusements,
recreations—Liquors and tobacco—Self-mastery—Right aim in
life—Industry, early rising—The influence of an ennobling
affection—Education—The Sabbath, the Church and the Bible.
Price { $1.00 } net, per copy, post free
{ 4 s. }
* * * * *
“What a Young Man Ought to Know.”
What Eminent People Say:
Francis E. Clark, D. D.
“Of exceeding value to every youth just entering upon manhood.
It is written reverently but very plainly, and I believe will
save a multitude of young men from evils unspeakable.”
John Clifford, D. D.
“One of the best books for dawning manhood that has fallen
into my hands. It goes to the roots of human living. It is
thoroughly manly. Dr. Stall has laid the rising generation
under an immense obligation.”
J. Wilbur Chapman, D. D.
“I bear willing testimony that I believe this book ought to be
in the hands of every young man in this country.”
Paul F. Munde, M. D., LL. D.
Professor of Gynæcology in the New York Polyclinic and at Dartmouth
College, says:
“I most heartily commend not only the principle but the
execution of what it aims to teach.”
Eugene H. Porter, M. D., LL. D.
President of the Homeopathic Medical Society of the State of New York;
Professor Materia Medica, New York Homeopathic Medical College, etc.,
says:
“We should especially commend the volume for its reliability in
statement, and, as a medical man, I highly indorse the medical
teachings of the book. It is trustworthy and sound. It is a
work which should be in the hands of every young man.”
* * * * *
“What a Young Husband Ought to Know.”
BY SYLVANUS STALL, D. D.
Condensed Table of Contents
PART I
WHAT HE OUGHT TO KNOW CONCERNING HIMSELF
The true foundation for happiness in married life—Physical,
intellectual and sexual differences between men and women—Each
complemental to the other, and complete only when mated—The
three theories regarding coition—The correct theory—The
physical cost of procreation—Illustrated in insects, animals
and man—What is excess—Effects of marital continence—The
husband’s duty to his wife—Physical defects and deficiencies of
husband or wife—Misery entailed by vice—Effects upon wife—Upon
children—Purity and fidelity.
PART II
WHAT HE OUGHT TO KNOW CONCERNING HIS WIFE
I THE BRIDE
Marriage the most trying event in a woman’s life—Earliest
mistake which most young husbands make—Few intelligent
guardians of their brides—Threefold classification of
women—Causes of differences.
II THE WIFE
Her manifold duties as wife, mother and housekeeper—God has
fitted her for her sphere—The mother-nature—Barrenness and
sterility—Physical, social, intellectual and moral benefits
of motherhood and fatherhood—Aversion and evasion—God’s
purpose in marriage—Limitation of offspring—Marital excess—The
wrongs which wives suffer because of ignorant and unthinking
husbands—Repellant periods in the life of woman.
III THE MOTHER
Purposed and prepared parenthood—Conception—The marvels
of fœtal life and growth—Changes during the months of
gestation—The husband’s duty to wife and offspring—What
the wife has a right to expect before and during
confinement—Ignorant, unthinking and unsympathetic husbands—The
child in the home—Real life and genuine happiness—The mother
while nursing—Protection of child from impure nurses.
PART III
WHAT HE OUGHT TO KNOW CONCERNING HIS CHILDREN
Heredity—Prenatal influences—Physical conditions prior to
and at conception—Stirpiculture—Essentials of seed, soil
and care—“Longings,” markings, etc.—Can sex of offspring be
governed—Cause of idiocy—Blindness, etc.—The right to be
well-born—Parental discipline during first two years—Duties
during childhood—Nursery influences—Honest answers to honest
inquiries—How to secure purity in thought and life of children.
Price { $1.00 } net, per copy
{ 4 s. }
* * * * *
“What a Young Husband Ought to Know”
WHAT EMINENT PEOPLE SAY
Chas. M. Sheldon, D. D.
“I believe the book will do great good, and I hope its message
may be used for the bettering of the homes of the world.”
Rev. F. B. Meyer, B. A.
“I greatly commend this series of manuals, which are written
lucidly and purely, and will afford the necessary information
without pandering to unholy and sensual passion.”
Hon. S. M. Jones
“I am glad to say that my study of it indicates that you have
been led by a pure love for your kind to write one of the most
helpful and valuable books that it has been my privilege to see
in many days.”
Bishop John H. Vincent, D. D., LL. D.
“Straightforward, clean, kind, clear and convincing. A copy
ought to go with every marriage certificate.”
Rev. Newell Dwight Hillis
“It is a wholesome and helpful contribution to a most difficult
subject, and its reading will help to make the American home
happier and more safely guarded.”
Rev. A. C. Dixon, D. D.
“I take pleasure in commending it to husbands, young and old.
The vice of ignorance on these delicate but important subjects
has done much to increase the business of divorce courts and
wreck homes.”
Amos R. Wells
“The race would be infinitely stronger in body and soul if all
husbands would obtain this book and follow its precepts.”
* * * * *
“What a Man of Forty-five Ought to Know.”
BY SYLVANUS STALL, D. D.
Condensed Table of Contents
PART I
WHAT HE OUGHT TO KNOW CONCERNING HIMSELF
Prevalent ignorance concerning physical changes in men
of middle-life—Sad results of such ignorance—Reasons for
change—Evidences of these changes—Husband and wife constitute
a reproductive unit—The two natures responsive in activity
and repose—Somewhat similar changes in both—The age at which
climacteric or “change of life” occurs in men—Climacteric and
adolescence contrasted—The testimony of medical men to the
fact—Only young men need the testimonials of authorities—Old
men know it—Compensations which follow the sexual hush—Physical
and mental effects—Changes more gradual than in women—Many men
intellectually at their best after sexual hush—To them time
and experience open their richest treasures—Moderation in all
things enjoined—Sexual moderation emphasized—Virility, how
destroyed, how preserved—Effects of exercise, food, stimulants,
sleep, employment, etc.—Functional disorders—Benefit of
intelligence—Enlargement of the prostate gland—Manifestations,
cause and precautionary measures—The marriage of men of middle
life—Physical unfitness and effects—Rights of the unborn—The
years beyond—The man at forty determines what the man at eighty
shall be—Value of purpose to keep strong and bright—Examples.
PART II
WHAT HE OUGHT TO KNOW CONCERNING HIS WIFE
Reproduction the primal purpose of marriage—Attractive and
repellent periods in life of woman—Climacteric or change of
life the most repellent period—Disappearance of menstruation
only an outward manifestation—The phenomenon explained—Reasons
for change made plain—Not a period of stress for all women—How
to meet the menopause—Occupation, diet, fresh air, exercise,
sleep, companionship, sexual repose, etc., etc.—Mortality
and insanity greater among men—The aches and ills which
attend the menopause—Aversion to husband, children and
friends—Physical changes which attend and follow change of life
in women—Modified sexual nature—Growths—Mental changes and
conditions—Need of intelligence upon the part of husband and
others.
Price { $1.00 } net, post free
{ 4 s. }
* * * * *
“What a Man of Forty-five Ought to Know”
PRAISED BY THE PRESS
“We do not hesitate to recommend.”—_Experience._
“A reliable and instructive guide, in sexual matters and yet
pure and chaste in style.”—_Journal of Dermatology._
“Information of vital importance.”—_Pittsburgh Christian
Advocate._
“Written in an honest, frank, and fearless way.”—_Christian
Standard._
“It is a clean book which one should sit down to alone.”—_The
Evangelist._
“These books deserve to be circulated by the
million.”—_Leslie’s Weekly._
“To many men the guidance of this book will be a timely
benediction.”—_Chicago Appeal._
“The utterance of one who has an accurate knowledge of
men.”—_Brooklyn Citizen._
“It is a helpful book and in all important particulars sound in
its medical statements.”—_Baltimore Sun._
“This book is recommendable not only to the intelligent layman
to read himself and hand to others, but also to the physician,
who ought to welcome it as a means to refresh an important part
of his physiologic knowledge.”—_Alkaloidal Clinic._
“A man who is a fool at forty-five (and there are many of them)
is pretty hard to manage. There are certain things which he
ought to know without being told, but it is difficult to teach
him these things. He needs reasoning with and plain talking to.
This book does it in a healthy, elevating manner. These cases
are often very troublesome to the physician. It would be well
to have this book handy to lend to such patients. This course
will help the physician to manage his patient and help the
patient. This book will do much good. There has been a need for
just such a work.”—_Medical World._
* * * * *
JUST PUBLISHED
A New Devotional Book
“Faces Toward the Light”
BY SYLVANUS STALL, D.D.
Author of “Methods of Church Work,” “Five-Minute Object Sermons to
Children,” “Talks to the King’s Children,” “Bible Selections for Daily
Devotion,” etc.
SOME CHAPTERS IN THE BOOK
Glory After Gloom.—The Dangerous Hour.—The Concealed
Future.—Gleaning for Christ.—Hunger and Health.—Direction and
Destiny.—God of the Valleys.—Coins and Christians.—Reserved
Blessings.—Comfort in Sorrow.—The Better Service.—Not Knowing
Whither.—Good, but Good for Nothing.—No Easy Place.—The Dead
Prayer Office.—How God Reveals Himself.—Starting Late.—Source
of Power.—Toiling at a Heavy Tow.—What He Gave and What He
Got.—Vacation Lessons.—Wheat or Weeds, etc., etc., etc.
Price { $1.00 } net, per copy
{ 4 s. }
* * * * *
JUST PUBLISHED
New Revised Edition
“Manhood’s Morning”
BY JOSEPH ALFRED CONWELL
An Invaluable Book for Every Young Man
Chapter 1, Twelve Million Young Men. Chapter 2, The Best Years
of Life. Chapter 3, What Some Young Men Have Done. Chapter 4,
Wild Oats and Other Weeds. Chapter 5, Reason Why Young Men Go
Wrong. Chapter 6, Paying the Piper. Chapter 7, Where Young Men
Belong. Chapter 8, What Young Men Must Be. Chapter 9, What
Young Men Must Do.
COMMENDATIONS
From Prof. Lyman B. Sperry, M.D., Lecturer and Author
“Every young man should read it yearly from the time he is
fourteen till he is twenty-eight.”
Bishop J. H. Vincent, LL.D. Chancellor of Chautauqua University
“Every minister who deals with young men, and every young man
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book.”
Frances E. Willard, President National W. C. T. U.
“We advise parents to send for a copy of this book to give as a
present to their sons.”
T. J. Sanders, A.M., Ph.D., President Otterbein University, Ohio
“A remarkable series of Chapters to young men—stimulating and
suggestive.”
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Five-Minute Object Sermons to Children
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Cloth, 253 pp. Price, $1.00, post free.
Talks to the King’s Children
“The Rev. Dr. Sylvanus Stall, is one of the best preachers for
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present volume is a second series of the same kind, and will be
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Methods of Church Work
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Bible Selections for Daily Devotion.
The most spiritual and helpful portion of the entire Bible
arranged in the order of the original text. Comprises about
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“That there has been a great falling off in the good old custom
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Cloth, 12mo., 686 pages. Price, $1.00, post free.
Pastor’s Pocket Record (Undenominational.)
“Its departments covers everything a minister wishes to
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20 Departments. 200 pp., Levant morocco. Price, 50c.
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