perly guarded from accidents--and above all,
from inhaling impure air.

At a suitable age, a child may be removed from the nursery to a separate
chamber. Here, if the circumstances permit, it should still sleep by
itself; and if the bedstead be somewhat lower than ordinary, and the
room be not too small, it will need no watching.

Perhaps this may be the proper place to say that there are more reasons
than one--and some of them are of a moral nature, too--why a child
should continue to sleep alone, after it leaves the nursery. Nor is it
sufficient to prohibit its sleeping with younger persons, and yet crowd
it into the bed with an aged grandfather or grandmother, or with both.
There is no excuse for a course like this, except the iron hand of
necessity. And even then, I should prefer to have a child of mine sleep
on the hard floor, at least during the summer season, rather than with
an aged person.

Let it not be supposed I have imbibed the fashionable idea that it is
_peculiarly_ unhealthy for the young to sleep with the old. I know this
doctrine has many learned advocates. And yet I doubt its correctness. I
believe that the manners and habits of the old may injure the young who
sleep with them, and I know that they render the air impure, like other
people. But I cannot see why the mere circumstance of their being _old_
should be a source of unhealthiness to their younger bed-fellows. Still
I say, that there are reasons enough against the practice I am opposing,
without this.

Some parents allow dogs and cats to sleep with children. Others have a
prejudice against cats, but not against dogs. The truth is, that they
both contaminate the air by respiration and perspiration, in the same
manner that adults do. And aside from the fact that they are often
infested by lice and other insects, and addicted to uncleanly habits,
they ought always to be excluded, and with iron bars and bolts, if
necessary, from the beds of children. But of this, too, I have treated
elsewhere.

SEC. 3. _Purity of the Air._

The general importance of pure air has been mentioned. I have spoken of
the elements of the atmosphere in which we live, of the manner in
which it may be vitiated, and the consequences to health. I have
shown--perhaps at sufficient length--the impropriety of washing, drying,
and ironing clothes in the room where a child is kept; of cooking in the
room, especially on a stove; of suffering the floor or clothes,
particula