situated that he cannot give his children sweet air without putting himself into a jail for debt:  when, in short, he has the dire choice of sickly children, children with big heads, small limbs, and ricketty joints:  or children sent to the poor-house:  when this is his hard lot, he must decide for the former sad alternative:  but before he will convince me that this is his lot, he must prove to me, that he and his wife expend not a penny in the decoration of their persons; that on his table, morning, noon, or night, nothing ever comes that is not the produce of English soil; that of his time not one hour is wasted in what is called pleasure; that down his throat not one drop or morsel ever goes, unless necessary to sustain life and health.  How many scores and how many hundreds of men have I seen; how many thousands could I go and point out, to-morrow, in London, the money expended on whose guzzlings in porter, grog and wine, would keep, and keep well, in the country, a considerable part of the year, a wife surrounded by healthy children, instead of being stewed up in some alley, or back room, with a parcel of poor creatures about her, whom she, though their fond mother, is almost ashamed to call hers!  Compared with the life of such a woman, that of the labourer, however poor, is paradise.  Tell me not of the necessity of providing money for them, even if you waste not a farthing:  you can provide them with no money equal in value to health and straight limbs and good looks:  these it is, if within your power, your bounden duty to provide for them:  as to providing them with money, you deceive yourself; it is your own avarice, or vanity, that you are seeking to gratify, and not to ensure the good of your children.  Their most precious possession is health and strength; and you have no right to run the risk of depriving them of these for the sake of heaping together money to bestow on them:  you have the desire to see them rich:  it is to gratify yourself that you act in such a case; and you, however you may deceive yourself, are guilty of injustice towards them.  You would be ashamed to see them without fortune; but not at all ashamed to see them without straight limbs, without colour in their cheeks, without strength, without activity, and with only half their due portion of reason.

280.  Besides sweet air, children want exercise.  Even when they are babies in arms, they want tossing and pulling about, and want talking and singing to.  They should be put upon their feet by slow degrees, according to the strength of their legs; and this is a matter which a good mother will attend to with incessant care.  If they appear to be likely to squint, she will, always when they wake up, and frequently in the day, take care to present some pleasing object right before, and never on the side of their face.  If they appear, when they begin to talk, to indicate