r, as keeping the little
limbs warm and covered, when in the restlessness of sleep the child
throws off the bedclothes, as well as for other and more vital reasons.
If through straitened means you cannot afford an experienced nurse--not
that I should altogether allow that even the experienced nurse is to be
implicitly and blindly trusted until she has been well tested--then I
would entreat you not to let sleepiness or ill health or any other
excuse prevent you from being always present at your boy's morning bath.
Often and often evil habits arise from imperfect washing and consequent
irritation; and many a wise mother thinks it best on this account to
revert to the old Jewish rite of initiation by which cleanliness was
secured. Teach them from the first self-reverence in touch, as in word
and deed, and watch even their attitudes in sleep, that the little arms
are folded lightly upwards. Even experienced nurses are not always nice
in their ways. Be vigilantly watchful that the utmost niceness is
observed between the boys and girls in the nursery, and that childish
modesty is never broken down, but, on the contrary, nurtured and
trained. Knowledge and watchfulness are the two cherubim with the
flaming sword turning all ways to guard the young tree of life and bar
the way of every low and creeping thing. If I may venture in some sort
to reverse our Lord's words, I should say His word to all mothers is,
"What I say unto all I say especially unto you, _Watch_."

But there is another and a deeper sense in which the root of the evil is
first planted and nourished in the nursery. If we are to contend with
this deadly peril to soul and body, I cannot but feel that we must bring
about a radical change in the training of our boys. There must be some
radical defect in that training for men to take the attitude they do. I
do not mean bad, dissipated men, but men who in all other relations of
life would be designated fairly good men. Once let such a man be
persuaded--however wrongly--that his health, or his prospect of having
some day a family of his own, will suffer from delayed marriage and he
considers the question settled. He will sacrifice his health to
over-smoking, to excess in athletics, to over-eating or champagne
drinking, to late hours and overwork; but to sacrifice health or future
happiness to save a woman from degradation, bah! it never so much as
enters his mind. Even so high-minded a writer as Mr. Lecky, in his
_Histo