lt and with very little or no sugar, one half
teaspoonful on a saucerful of cereal should be the limit.

Cereals should not be served with syrups or butter and sugar.

BROTHS AND SOUPS

_What broths and soups are to be recommended?_

Meat broths are generally to be preferred to vegetable broths,--mutton
or chicken being usually most liked by children. Nearly all plain
broths may be given. Those thickened with rice, barley or corn starch
form a useful variety, especially with the addition of milk.

Vegetable purees of peas, spinach, celery or asparagus may be used for
children over seven years old. Tomato soup should not be given to
young children.

BREAD, CRACKERS AND CAKES

_What forms of breadstuffs are best suited to young children?_

Fresh bread should not be given, but stale bread cut thin and freshly
dried in the oven until it is crisp is very useful, also zwieback, the
unsweetened being preferred. Oatmeal, graham or gluten crackers and
the Huntley and Palmer breakfast biscuits, stale rolls, or corn bread
which has been split and toasted or dried till crisp, form a
sufficient variety for most children.

_What breadstuffs should be forbidden?_

All hot breads, all fresh rolls, all buckwheat and other griddle
cakes, all fresh sweet cakes, especially those covered with icing and
those containing dried fruits. A stale lady-finger or piece of sponge
cake is about as far in the matter of cakes as it is wise to go with
children up to seven or eight years old.

DESSERTS

_What desserts may be given to young children?_

Mistakes are more often made here than in any other part of the
child's diet. Up to six or seven years, only junket, plain rice
pudding without raisins, plain custard and, not more than once a week,
a small amount of ice cream.

_What should be especially forbidden?_

All pies, tarts and pastry of every description, jam, syrups and
preserved fruits; nuts, candy and dried fruits.

_Does "a little" do any harm?_

Yes, in that it develops a taste for this sort of food, after which
plainer food is taken with less relish. Besides the "little" is very
apt soon to become a good deal.

_Does not the child's instinctive craving for sweets indicate his need
of them?_

That a child likes or craves sweets is the usual excuse of an
indulgent parent. Every child likes his own way, but that is no reason
why he should not be trained to obedience and self-control; a child's
fondness for sweet