cuous and almost universal among them. Probably ninety-nine people
in a hundred presume that there is nothing more in this than
gratification of the palate; and that, in common with other sensual
desires, it should be discouraged. The physiologist, however, whose
discoveries lead him to an ever-increasing reverence for the
arrangements of things, suspects something more in this love of sweets
than is currently supposed; and inquiry confirms the suspicion. He finds
that sugar plays an important part in the vital processes. Both
saccharine and fatty matters are eventually oxidised in the body; and
there is an accompanying evolution of heat. Sugar is the form to which
sundry other compounds have to be reduced before they are available as
heat-making food; and this _formation_ of sugar is carried on in the
body. Not only is starch changed into sugar in the course of digestion,
but it has been proved by M. Claude Bernard that the liver is a factory
in which other constituents of food are transformed into sugar: the need
for sugar being so imperative that it is even thus produced from
nitrogenous substances when no others are given. Now, when to the fact
that children have a marked desire for this valuable heat-food, we join
the fact that they have usually a marked dislike to that food which
gives out the greatest amount of heat during oxidation (namely, fat), we
have reason for thinking that excess of the one compensates for defect
of the other--that the organism demands more sugar because it cannot
deal with much fat. Again, children are fond of vegetable acids. Fruits
of all kinds are their delight; and, in the absence of anything better,
they will devour unripe gooseberries and the sourest of crabs. Now not
only are vegetable acids, in common with mineral ones, very good tonics,
and beneficial as such when taken in moderation; but they have, when
administered in their natural forms, other advantages. "Ripe fruit,"
says Dr. Andrew Combe, "is more freely given on the Continent than in
this country; and, particularly when the bowels act imperfectly, it is
often very useful." See, then, the discord between the instinctive wants
of children and their habitual treatment. Here are two dominant desires,
which in all probability express certain needs of the child's
constitution; and not only are they ignored in the nursery-regimen, but
there is a general tendency to forbid the gratification of them.
Bread-and-milk in the morning, te