A child is a more precious treasure than gold, but more fragile than glass. It may be easily shaken and injured, and be irreparably damaged.
18. When infants begin to sit, to stand, or to run about, to prevent injury from striking against anything, there is need of little seats, knee-splints, and little carriages, always beginning with the smallest. In some countries the practice prevails of putting upon the heads of infants a little cap padded on the inside with rolls of cotton, so that in the event of falling, their heads may be preserved from injury; a precaution quite applicable to other members also.[1] Let suitable clothing and warm covering in winter defend them from cold and atmospheric changes. To express the matter in a few words, let their health sustain no damage from bruises, from excess of heat or cold, from too much food or drink, or from hunger or thirst. Observing that all these be attended to with moderation.
19. It is likewise beneficial to observe due order: for example, how often children should be put to rest in the course of the day, and fed, and refreshed with play;[2] since this conduces much to health and becomes the basis of subsequent regularity of conduct. Although this may appear frivolous to some minds, yet it is certainly true that infants
- ↑ His two illustrious followers, Locke and Rousseau, in a process of hardening children, took issue with Comenius on this point. But Comenius believed in moderation in all things.
- ↑ “Play,” observes Jean Paul Richter, “is the working off at once of the overflow of both mental and physical powers; afterwards when the school scepter has carried off the mental source of all fire, even till rain comes, the limbs only throw off the fullness of life by running, throwing, carrying. Play is the first poetry of the human being.”
with the hands and the fingers, and, if we can, to be beautiful and to remedy as far as possible those infirmities which disfigure and deform—such are the demands of physical education.”
