Little “Nursing” America is the father of Young America that is to be.  And there is no denying that our new vital conditions on this side of the planet suggest some very grave questions,—­such as these:—­Whether there be not a gradual deterioration of the primitive European stock under these influences; and, Whether it is not possible that the imported human breed may run out here, so that, some time or other, the resuscitated tribes of Algonquins and Hurons may show a long shank of the extinct Yankee, as they show the Dodo’s foot at the British Museum.

It is this contingency against which many intelligent and worthy persons are now trying to provide.  The indefatigable Dr. Bowditch has made a map of this State of Massachusetts, showing the distribution of consumption in its different localities.  That is the first thing,—­where to live.  We have been told an alleged fact with reference to a certain large New England town, which, if it were true, would raise the value of real estate in that place a million of dollars, perhaps, in twenty-four hours.  We do not tell it, though mentioned to us by a celebrated practitioner and professor, simply because we are afraid it is too good to be true.  At any rate, attention is beginning to be thoroughly awake as to the point of where we shall live.  Now, then, how shall we live?

It is just as well to begin early.  Infancy is too late.  If men were dealt with like other live stock, a contractor might undertake to deliver at Long Wharf a cargo of three-year old human colts and fillies of almost any required standard of development and health, in five years from date.  If only a cheap article were required, such and such parents would be selected; if the young animals were to be of prime quality, he must know it long enough beforehand, and be particular in his choice.  This is plain speaking, but true,—­as everybody knows, who studies the laws of life. Ex nihilo nihil fit.  Given a half-starved dyspeptic and a bloodless negative blonde as parents, Hercules or Apollo is an impossibility in their progeny.  Yet people look with infinite expectations of health, strength, beauty, intellect, as the product of $0 times {-1}$.  The late Colonel Jaques, of the “Ten Hills Farm,” knew ever so much better;—­what a pity so much sound physiology should have been confined to “Caelobs,” and “Dolly Creampot,” and the likes of them!

Granted a sound, fair baby,—­viable, as the French say,—­liveable, or life-capable, and life-worthy.  What shall we do with it?

A baby answers to the lively definition of an animal as “a stomach provided with organs.”  It lives to feed.  It does not know much, but in its speciality it is unrivalled.  The way in which it helps itself from the sources of life is a masterpiece of hydraulic skill.  Once let it lose the Heaven-imparted art of haustion, and all the arts and academies of the world can never teach it again.