The philosopher Locke held, that in order to harden the young, their shoes ought to be “so that they might leak and let in water, whenever they came near it.”  There may be and probably is, no harm in having a child wet his feet occasionally, provided he is soon supplied with dry stockings again; but it is hazardous for either children or adults to go too long in wet stockings, and especially to sit long in them, after they have been using much active exercise.  I am in favor of good, substantial shoes and stockings for people of all ages and conditions, and at all seasons; and believe it entirely in accordance with sound economy and the laws of the human constitution.

SEC. 8. Pins.

The custom of using ten or a dozen pins in the dressing of children, ought by all means to be set aside.  They not only often wound the skin, but they have occasionally been known to penetrate the body and the joints of the limbs.  So many of these dreadful accidents occur, and where no accident happens, so much pain is occasionally given by their sharp points to the little sufferer, who cannot tell what the matter is, that it is quite time the practice were abolished.

Do you ask what can be substituted?—­The following mode is adopted by Dr. Dewees in his own family, as mentioned in his work on the “Physical and Medical Treatment of Children,” at page 86.

“The belly-band and the petticoat have strings; and not a single pin is used in their adjustment.  The little shirt, which is always made much larger than the infant’s body, is folded on the back and bosom, and these folds kept in their places by properly adjusting the body of the petticoat:  so far not a pin is used.  The diaper requires one, but this should be of a large size, and made to serve the double purpose of holding the folds of this article, as well as keeping the belly-band in its proper place; the latter having a small tag of double linen depending from its lower margin, by which it is secured to the diaper, by the same pin.

“Should an extraordinary display of best ‘bib and tucker’ be required upon any special occasion, a third pin may be admitted to ensure the well-sitting of the ‘frock’ waist in front;—­this last pin, however, is applied externally; so that the risk of its getting into the child’s body is very small, even if it should become displaced.”

The writer from whom the last two paragraphs are taken, says be has seen needles substituted for pins; and relates a long story of a child whose life was well nigh destroyed in this manner.  It underwent months of ill health, and many moments of excruciating agony, before the cause of its trouble was suspected.  Sometimes its distress was so great that nothing but large doses of laudanum, sufficient to stupify it, could afford the least relief.  At last a tumor was discovered by the attending physician, near one of the bones on which we sit, and a needle was extracted two inches long.  The needle had been put in its clothes, and, by slipping into the folds of the skin, had insinuated itself, unperceived, into the child’s body.  It is pleasing to add, that, although the little sufferer had now been ill seven or eight months, and had endured almost everything but death,—­fever, diarrhoea, and the most excruciating pain,—­it soon recovered.