it is to gratify _yourself_ that you act in such a case; and
you, however you may deceive yourself, are guilty of _injustice_ towards
them. You would be ashamed to see them _without fortune_; but not at all
ashamed to see them without straight limbs, without colour in their
cheeks, without strength, without activity, and with only half their due
portion of reason.

280. Besides _sweet air_, children want _exercise_. Even when they are
babies in arms, they want tossing and pulling about, and want talking
and singing to. They should be put upon their feet by slow degrees,
according to the strength of their legs; and this is a matter which a
good mother will attend to with incessant care. If they appear to be
likely to _squint_, she will, always when they wake up, and frequently
in the day, take care to present some pleasing object _right before_,
and _never on the side_ of their face. If they appear, when they begin
to talk, to indicate a propensity to _stammer_, she will stop them,
repeat the word or words slowly herself, and get them to do the same.
These precautions are amongst the most sacred of the duties of parents;
for, remember, the deformity is _for life_; a thought which will fill
every good parent's heart with solicitude. All _swaddling_ and _tight
covering_ are mischievous. They produce distortions of some sort or
other. To let children creep and roll about till they get upon their
legs of themselves is a very good way. I never saw a _native American_
with crooked limbs or hump-back, and never heard any man say that he had
seen one. And the reason is, doubtless, the loose dress in which
children, from the moment of their birth, are kept, the good food that
they always have, and the sweet air that they breathe in consequence of
the absence of all dread of poverty on the part of the parents.

281. As to bodily exercise, they will, when they begin to get about,
take, if you let them alone, just as much of it as nature bids them, and
no more. That is a pretty deal, indeed, if they be in health; and, it is
your duty, now, to provide for their taking of that exercise, when they
begin to be what are called _boys_ and _girls_, in a way that shall tend
to give them the greatest degree of pleasure, accompanied with the
smallest risk of pain: in other words, to _make their lives as pleasant
as you possibly can_. I have always admired the sentiment of ROUSSEAU
upon this subject. 'The boy dies, perhaps, at the age of ten