Out of the immediate care and personal superintendence of one or the other of the parents, or of some trusty relation, no young child ought to be suffered to be, if there be, at whatever sacrifice of ease or of property, any possibility of preventing it:  because, to insure, if possible, the perfect form, the straight limbs, the sound body, and the sane mind of your children, is the very first of all your duties.  To provide fortunes for them; to make provision for their future fame; to give them the learning necessary to the calling for which you destine them:  all these may be duties, and the last is a duty; but a duty far greater than, and prior to, all these, is the duty of neglecting nothing within your power to insure them a sane mind in a sound and undeformed body.  And, good God! how many are the instances of deformed bodies, of crooked limbs, of idiocy, or of deplorable imbecility, proceeding solely from young children being left to the care of servants!  One would imagine, that one single sight of this kind to be seen, or heard of, in a whole nation, would be sufficient to deter parents from the practice.  And what, then, must those parents feel, who have brought this life-long sorrowing on themselves!  When once the thing is done, to repent is unavailing.  And what is now the worth of all the ease and all the pleasures, to enjoy which the poor sufferer was abandoned to the care of servants!

256.  What! can I plead example, then, in support of this rigid precept?  Did we, who have bred up a family of children, and have had servants during the greater part of the time, never leave a young child to the care of servants?  Never; no, not for one single hour.  Were we, then, tied constantly to the house with them?  No; for we sometimes took them out; but one or the other of us was always with them, until, in succession, they were able to take good care of themselves; or until the elder ones were able to take care of the younger, and then they sometimes stood sentinel in our stead.  How could we visit then?  Why, if both went, we bargained beforehand to take the children with us; and if this were a thing not to be proposed, one of us went, and the other stayed at home, the latter being very frequently my lot.  From this we never once deviated.  We cast aside all consideration of convenience; all calculations of expense; all thoughts of pleasure of every sort.  And, what could have equalled the reward that we have received for our care and for our unshaken resolution in this respect?