o satisfy an urgent craving of its
necessity. Sugar is so important a substance in the chemical changes
going on in the body that many other compounds have to be reduced to
sugar before they are available as heat-making constituents. In fact
the liver is a factory for transforming much of the nutriment we take,
in other forms, into sugar.

It may be said, "If sugar is a great heat-maker, so also is fat meat,
which most children very much dislike." The one fact proves the other.
Fat meat and sugar are both great heat-producers, but the child craves
sugar and dislikes fat because its weak organism can deal with the
sugar, but cannot manage the fat. Every mother must have noticed that
delicate children turn sick at fat meat and usually crave sweets. Poor
little things! they want something to make the vital fire burn more
rapidly. Sugar in proper proportions is fuel judiciously added; fat is
fuel they have not strength to assimilate, and therefore reject. Of
course no mother understands me to say that children should therefore
be fed on sugar; but only that they should have a fair and regular
proportion of it in some form or other; in which case they would feel
no more temptation to exceed in occasional opportunities.

Another dominant desire with growing children is fruit. They will eat
fruits, ripe or unripe; a sour apple or a ripe strawberry seems
equally acceptable. It is common to attribute summer complaints of all
kinds to them, and to carefully limit children in their use. The fact
is that all fruits contain a vegetable acid which is a powerful tonic
and one peculiarly acceptable to the stomach. Fruits ought to form a
part of every child's food all the year round,--fresh fruits in
summer, apples and oranges in winter. But they must be given regularly
with the meals, and not between them. They will then fulfil their
tonic office in the system, and never under ordinary circumstances do
the least harm.

How often have we seen children in mistaken kindness largely
restricted to bread and milk, puddings and vegetables; nay, told in
answer to their craving looks that "meat was not good for little boys
and girls." Now, consider first why adults eat meat. Is it not to
repair the loss we suffer from active work, the exhaustion from mental
efforts, and to supply afresh the vital warmth, much of which is lost
every day by simple radiation? In all these ways children usually
exhaust life quicker than adults. They run where we