regimen for boys and girls.  In past generations the belief was, that the more a child could be induced to eat, the better; and even now, among farmers and in remote districts, where traditional ideas most linger, parents may be found who tempt their children into repletion.  But among the educated classes, who chiefly display this reaction towards abstemiousness, there may be seen a decided leaning to the under-feeding, rather than the over-feeding, of children.  Indeed their disgust for by-gone animalism, is more clearly shown in the treatment of their offspring than in the treatment of themselves; for while their disguised asceticism is, in so far as their personal conduct is concerned, kept in check by their appetites, it has full play in legislating for juveniles.

That over-feeding and under-feeding are both bad, is a truism.  Of the two, however, the last is the worst.  As writes a high authority, “the effects of casual repletion are less prejudicial, and more easily corrected, than those of inanition."[1] Besides, where there has been no injudicious interference, repletion seldom occurs.  “Excess is the vice rather of adults than of the young, who are rarely either gourmands or epicures, unless through the fault of those who rear them."[2] This system of restriction which many parents think so necessary, is based upon inadequate observation, and erroneous reasoning.  There is an over-legislation in the nursery, as well as an over-legislation in the State; and one of the most injurious forms of it is this limitation in the quantity of food.

“But are children to be allowed to surfeit themselves?  Shall they be suffered to take their fill of dainties and make themselves ill, as they certainly will do?” As thus put, the question admits of but one reply.  But as thus put, it assumes the point at issue.  We contend that, as appetite is a good guide to all the lower creation—­as it is a good guide to the infant—­as it is a good guide to the invalid—­as it is a good guide to the differently-placed races of men—­and as it is a good guide for every adult who leads a healthful life; it may safely be inferred that it is a good guide for childhood.  It would be strange indeed were it here alone untrustworthy.

Perhaps some will read this reply with impatience; being able, as they think, to cite facts totally at variance with it.  It may appear absurd if we deny the relevancy of these facts.  And yet the paradox is quite defensible.  The truth is, that the instances of excess which such persons have in mind, are usually the consequences of the restrictive system they seem to justify.  They are the sensual reactions caused by an ascetic regimen.  They illustrate on a small scale that commonly-remarked truth, that those who during youth have been subject to the most rigorous discipline, are apt afterwards to rush into the wildest extravagances.  They are analogous to those frightful phenomena, once not uncommon in convents, where nuns suddenly lapsed from