The natural food of a young baby is his mother’s milk, and no satisfactory substitute for it has yet been found.  Some manufactured baby foods do well for certain children; to others they are almost poison; and for none of them are they sufficient.  The milk of the cow is not designed for the human infant.  It contains too much casein, and is too difficult of digestion.  Various preparations of milk and grains are recommended by nurses and physicians, but no conscientious nurse or physician pretends that any of them begins to equal the nutritive value of human milk.  More women can nurse their babies than now think they can; the advertisements of patent foods lead them to think the rather of little importance, and they do not make the necessary effort to preserve and increase the natural supply of milk.  The family physician can almost always better the condition of the mother who really desires to nurse her own child, and he should be consulted and his directions obeyed.  The importance of a really great effort to this direction is shown by the fact that the physical culture records, now so carefully kept in many of our schools and colleges, prove that bottle-fed babies are more likely to be of small stature, and to have deficient bones, teeth and hair, than children who have been fed on mother’s milk.

[Sidenote:  Simple Diet]

The food question is undoubtedly the most important problem to the physical welfare of the child, and has, as well, a most profound effect upon his disposition and character.  Indiscriminate feeding is the cause of much of the trouble and worry of mothers.  This subject is taken up at length in other papers of this course, and it will suffice to say here that the table of the family with young children should be regulated largely by the needs of the growing sons and daughters.  The simplified diet necessary may well be of benefit to other members of the family.

FAULTS AND THEIR REMEDIES.

The child born of perfect parents, brought up perfectly, in a perfect environment, would probably have no faults.  Even such a child, however, would be at times inconvenient, and would do and say things at variance with the order of the adult world.  Therefore he might seem to a hasty, prejudiced observer to be naughty.  And, indeed, imperfectly born, imperfectly trained as children now are, many of their so-called faults are no more than such inconvenient crossings of an immature will with an adult will.

[Illustration:  Jean Paul Richter]

[Sidenote:  The Child’s World and the Adult’s World]