is in poor families necessary; because necessity
compels the mother to get as much time as she can for her work, and a
child can rock the cradle. At first we had a cradle; and I rocked the
cradle, in great part, during the time that I was writing my first work,
that famous MAITRE D'ANGLAIS, which has long been the first book in
Europe, as well as in America, for teaching of French people the English
language. But we left off the use of the cradle as soon as possible. It
causes sleep more, and oftener, than necessary: it saves trouble; but to
take trouble was our duty. After the second child, we had no cradle,
however difficult at first to do without it. When I was not at my
business, it was generally my affair to put the child to sleep:
sometimes by sitting with it in my arms, and sometimes by lying down on
a bed with it, till it fell asleep. We soon found the good of this
method. The children did not sleep so much, but they slept more soundly.
The cradle produces a sort of _dosing_, or dreaming sleep. This is a
matter of great importance, as every thing must be that has any
influence on the health of children. The poor must use the cradle, at
least until they have other children big enough to hold the baby, and to
put it to sleep; and it is truly wonderful at how early an age they,
either girls or boys, will do this business faithfully and well. You see
them in the lanes, and on the skirts of woods and commons, lugging a
baby about, when it sometimes weighs half as much as the nurse. The poor
mother is frequently compelled, in order to help to get bread for her
children, to go to a distance from home, and leave the group, baby and
all, to take care of the house and of themselves, the eldest of four or
five, not, perhaps, above six or seven years old; and it is quite
surprising, that, considering the millions of instances in which this is
done in England, in the course of a year, so very, very few accidents or
injuries arise from the practice; and not a hundredth part so many as
arise in the comparatively few instances in which children are left to
the care of servants. In summer time you see these little groups rolling
about up the green, or amongst the heath, not far from the cottage, and
at a mile, perhaps, from any other dwelling, the dog their only
protector. And what fine and straight and healthy and fearless and acute
persons they become! It used to be remarked in Philadelphia, when I
lived there, that there was no