Henry Pye Chavasse - Advice to a Mother on the Management of Her Children

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Title: Advice to a Mother on the Management of her Children

Author: Pye Henry Chavasse

Release Date: September, 2004 [EBook #6595][Yes, we are more than one year ahead of schedule][This file was first posted on December 30, 2002]

Edition: 10

Language: English

*** START OF THE PROJECT GUTENBERG EBOOK ADVICE TO A MOTHER ***

Produced by Charles Aldarondo, Charles Franks, Arno Petersand the Online Distributed Proofreading Team.

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"Lo, children and the fruit of the womb are an heritage and gift thatcometh of the Lord."

This Book has been translated into French, into German, into Polish,and into Tamil (one of the languages of India); it has beenextensively published in America; and is well-known wherever theEnglish language is spoken.

The Twelfth Editionconsisting of twenty thousand copiesbeingexhausted in less than three years, the THIRTEENTH EDITION is nowpublished.

One or two fresh questions have been asked and answered, and two orthree new paragraphs have I been added.

214, HAGLEY ROAD, EDGBASTON,BIRMINGHAM, June, 1878.

Infant and suckling.I. SAMUEL A rose with all its sweetest leaves yet folded.BYRON. Man's breathing Miniature!COLERIDGE.

1. I wish to consult you on many subjects appertaining to themanagement and the care of children; will you favour me with youradvice and counsel?

I shall be happy to accede to your request, and to give you the fruitsof my experience in the clearest manner I am able, and in the simplestlanguage I can commandfreed from all technicalities. I willendeavour to guide you in the management of the health of youroffspring;I will describe to you the symptoms of the diseases ofchildren;I will warn you of approaching danger, in order that youmay promptly apply for medical assistance before disease has gainedtoo firm a footing;I will give you the treatment on the moment; ofsome of their more pressing illnesseswhen medical aid cannot at oncebe procured, and where delay may be death;I will instruct you, incase of accidents, on the immediate employment of remedieswhereprocrastination may be dangerous;I will tell you how a sick childshould be nursed, and how a sick-room ought to be managed;I I willuse my best energy to banish injurious practices from the nursery;Iwill treat of the means to prevent disease where it be possible;Iwill show you the way to preserve the health of the healthy,and howto strengthen the delicate;and will strive to make a medical man'stask more agreeable to himself,and more beneficial to hispatient,by dispelling errors and prejudices, and by proving theimportance of your strictly adhering to his rules. If I canaccomplish any of these objects, I shall be amply repaid by thepleasing satisfaction that I have been of some little service to therising generation.

2. Then you consider it important that I should be made acquaintedwith, and be well informed upon, the subjects you have just named?

Certainly! I deem it to be your imperative duty to study thesubjects well. The proper management of children is a vitalquestion,a mother's question,and the most important that can bebrought under the consideration of a parent; and, strange to say, itis one that has been more neglected than any other. How many mothersundertakethe responsible management of children without previousinstruction, or without forethought; they undertake it, as though itmay be learned either by intuition or by instinct, or byaffection. The consequence is, that frequently they are in a sea oftrouble and uncertainty, tossing about without either rule or compass;until, too often, their hopes and treasures are shipwrecked and lost.

The care and management, and consequently the health and futurewell-doing of the child, principally devolve upon the mother, "for itis the mother after all that has most to do with the making or marringof the man." [Footnote: Good Words, Dr W. Lindsay Alexander, March1861.] Dr Guthrie justly remarks that"Moses might have never beenthe man he was unless he had been nursed by his own mother. How manycelebrated men have owed their greatness and their goodness to amother's training!" Napoleon owed much to his mother. "'The fate of achild,' said Napoleon, 'is always the work of his mother;' and thisextraordinary man took pleasure in repeating, that to his mother heowed his elevation. All history confirms this opinion" Thecharacter of the mother influences the children more than that of thefather, because it is more exposed to their daily, hourlyobservation.Woman's Mission.

I am not overstating the importance of the subject in hand when I say,that a child is the most valuable treasure in the world, that "he isthe precious gift of God," that he is the source of a mother'sgreatest and purest enjoyment, that he is the strongest bond ofaffection between her and her husband, and that

"A babe in a house is a well-spring of pleasure,
A messenger of peace and love."Tupper,

I have, in the writing of the following pages, had one objectconstantly in viewnamely, health

"That salt of life, which does to all a relish give,
Its standing pleasure, and intrinsic wealth,
The body's virtue, and the soul's good fortunehealth."

If the following pages insist on the importance of one of a mother'sduties more than another it is this,