ilion of
the ear. Upon this conformation much of the delicacy of hearing depends.
The hats which children wear, usually compress and deform the pavilion.
Physiologists have shown that it ought to make an angle of about thirty
degrees with the skull, in order to best collect sonorous vibrations.
This angle is very much diminished by our artificial head-dresses, and
to the detriment of acuteness of hearing.

Can education do much for the improvement of hearing? Everyday
experience answers in the affirmative. There is an exercise which cannot
be too highly commended to parents, which consists in inducing in play
their children, even those very young, to detect from as far as they can
faint and fading sounds. It is a game which amuses them much, and it is
a pleasing sight to see the rivalry of several young children, each of
whom with head bent forward, is earnestly trying to distinguish a
receding sound longer than its fellows. A little ingenuity will readily
devise amusing and useful plays with this object in view.

The training of the remaining special senses is of comparatively minor
importance to that of those we have been considering, and need not
detain us. We will only remind the reader of the wonderful adroitness
and delicacy of touch possessed by the blind as an example of what this
sense is capable of when educated.

HOME MANAGEMENT OF SOME COMMON DISEASES OF CHILDREN.

CROUP.

Although this disease is said to be more severe in Europe than in our
own country, and more frequent in our northern than in our southern
States, most American mothers, in all parts of the country, know and
dread its alarming and often fatal attacks. It is a disease of
childhood, but not of early infancy, being rarely met with under the
first or after the tenth year of life.

Children who have once had this affection are very liable to another
attack upon exposure to any of the causes which excite it. It has been
noticed also that croup runs in certain families, and not unfrequently,
children of a ruddy complexion and of a fleshy and apparently vigorous
appearance are those most subject to it.

Among the _causes of croup_, which should be specially guarded against
by mothers of croupy children, are checking of the perspiration, sudden
alterations in the dress, change of climate, and even in some cases a
residence at the sea-side. Croup also often follows measles, and at
times is epidemic.

The unmistakable _symptoms of cr