Every hour after dark that a child is awake is
just so much capital withdrawn. Every hour that a child lives a quiet,
tranquil, joyous life of such sort as kittens live on hearths, squirrels
in sunshine, is just so much investment in strength and steadiness and
growth of the nervous system. Every hour that a child lives a life of
excited brain-working, either in a school-room or in a ball-room, is just
so much taken away from the reserved force which enables nerves to triumph
through the sorrows, through the labors, through the diseases of later
life. Every mouthful of wholesome food that a child eats, at seasonable
hours, may be said to tell on every moment of his whole life, no matter
how long it may be. Victor Hugo, the benevolent exile, has found out that
to be well fed once in seven days at one meal has been enough to transform
the apparent health of all the poor children in Guernsey. Who shall say
that to take once in seven days, or even once in thirty days, an
unwholesome supper of chicken salad and champagne may not leave as lasting
effects on the constitution of a child?
If Nature would only "execute" her "sentences against evil works" more
"speedily," evil works would not so thrive.
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