PART XV.
The Nursing and Eearing of Infants.
lactation.
When the child is presented to the mother commences that period of nursing, which, with few modifications, is to be continued for many months.
Good habits are as conducive to the welfare of an infant as they are to a grown person. Habits are acquired through a persistent method of application, and, when formed, our system responds to them with regularity: a child may thus become thoroughly regulated by the will of the mother. Eegular habits will greatly contribute to the well being of the infant; for its intervals of rest, sleep, or nursing, need never be interfered with, and the equilib- rium of the functions of its organs so well maintained, that it could not get sick except through accident.
Regular habits is the first lesson in the education of that being which can only grow by the fulfillment of all the laws of Nature. As the child commences with purely an animal life, so feeding is its first act, its first thought, its first desire, in maintaining its existence. Feeding plays the most important part in the sustenance of its animal life. And, as the child cannot for some time bring its ani- mal instincts under the discipline of reason, it follows that the mother must impart to it, through a method consistent with the requirements of nature, those habits which will be conducive to its well being. Only a woman who has brought up children regularly and irregularly can tell the ease and comfort derived from the former, and the dlfii-
