The Care of the Child
- Author:
Mrs. Burton Chance. Philadelphia: The
Penn Publishing Co., 1910.
As the author states in her brief and modest preface, the book is not intended to take the place of medical advice, but is “designed with the hope that it may help the average mother to solve her daily problems.” Certainly if practical knowledge simply told and covering, it would seem, every possible contingency, can aid a mother, no nursery should be complete without a copy of Mrs. Chance’s book. Prom the first practical chapter on preparing for the baby’s advent, to those on bathing, feeding, and dressing the infant, nursing^him in sickness and guarding him in health, no essential detail seems to have been omitted.
As for Mrs. Chance’s advice concerning bad habits in children, we can only hope that it may be carefully read, digested, and acted upon by mothers in general. Should the wisdom therein contained become generally popular, many a spinster or bachelor, who at present experiences a slight sinking of the heart at the prospect of visiting married friends or relatives, may at no distant date pack and be off in high spirits and with only pleasant anticipations.
When Mrs. Chance says that “one of the most difficult things for a mother to understand is the existence in her child of characteristics fundamentally different from her own”; and again, “Every child has a right to individual development, no matter how contrary to the parental desire that development may be,” she strikes tne modern, the progressive note in parenthood, one which is likely, if anything can, to bridge the inevitable chasm between one generation and the next. E. R. W.
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