water, and the rest of its body thoroughly oiled, and then it should be slipped into a soft pillow case, wrapped in a blanket, and laid to sleep.  Ordinarily, in the proper conditions, with its face uncovered in a cool, pure atmosphere, it will sleep twelve hours.  Then it should be bathed, fed, and clothed in a high-necked, long-sleeved silk shirt and a blanket, all of which could be done in five minutes.  As babies lie still most of the time the first six weeks, they need no dressing.  I think the nurse was a full hour bathing and dressing my firstborn, who protested with a melancholy wail every blessed minute.

Ignorant myself of the initiative steps on the threshold of time, I supposed this proceeding was approved by the best authorities.  However, I had been thinking, reading, observing, and had as little faith in the popular theories in regard to babies as on any other subject.  I saw them, on all sides, ill half the time, pale and peevish, dying early, having no joy in life.  I heard parents complaining of weary days and sleepless nights, while each child, in turn, ran the gauntlet of red gum, jaundice, whooping cough, chicken-pox, mumps, measles, scarlet fever, and fits.  They all seemed to think these inflictions were a part of the eternal plan—­that Providence had a kind of Pandora’s box, from which he scattered these venerable diseases most liberally among those whom he especially loved.  Having gone through the ordeal of bearing a child, I was determined, if possible, to keep him, so I read everything I could find on the subject.  But the literature on this subject was as confusing and unsatisfactory as the longer and shorter catechisms and the Thirty-nine Articles of our faith.  I had recently visited our dear friends, Theodore and Angelina Grimke-Weld, and they warned me against books on this subject.  They had been so misled by one author, who assured them that the stomach of a child could only hold one tablespoonful, that they nearly starved their firstborn to death.  Though the child dwindled, day by day, and, at the end of a month, looked like a little old man, yet they still stood by the distinguished author.  Fortunately, they both went off, one day, and left the child with Sister “Sarah,” who thought she would make an experiment and see what a child’s stomach could hold, as she had grave doubts about the tablespoonful theory.  To her surprise the baby took a pint bottle full of milk, and had the sweetest sleep thereon he had known in his earthly career.  After that he was permitted to take what he wanted, and “the author” was informed of his libel on the infantile stomach.