hild from his native freedom of sprawling, climbing, and
pulling himself up. The activity they do permit is less varied and
helpful than the normal activity, and the child, restricted from the
preparatory motions, begins to walk too soon.

[Sidenote: Alternate Growth]

A curious fact in the growth of children is that they seem to grow
heavier for a certain period, and then to grow taller for a similar
period. That is, a very young baby, say, two months old, will grow
fatter for about six weeks, and then for the next six weeks will grow
longer, while the child of six years changes his manner of growth
every three or four months. These periods are variable, or at least
their law has not yet been established, but the observant mother can
soon make the period out for herself in the case of her own child. For
two or three days, when the manner of growth seems to be changing
from breadth to length, and vice versa, the children are likely to
be unusually nervous and irritable, and these aberrations must, of
course, be patiently borne with.

[Sidenote: Precocity]

[Sidenote: Early Ripening]

In all these things some children develop earlier than others, but too
early development is to be regretted. Precocious children are always
of a delicate nervous organization. Fiske[D] has proved to us that the
reason why the human young is so far more helpless and dependent than
the young of any other species is because the activities of the human
race have become so many, so widely varied, and so complex, that they
could not fix themselves in the nervous structure before birth. There
a only a few things that the chick needs to know in order to lead a
successful chicken life; as a consequence these few things are well
impressed upon the small brain before ever he chips the shell; but the
baby needs to learn a great many things--so many that there is no
time or room to implant them before birth, or indeed, in the few years
immediately succeeding birth. To hurry the development, therefore,
of certain few of these faculties, like the faculties of talking,
and walking, of imitation or response, is to crowd out many other
faculties perhaps just beginning to grow. Such forcing will limit the
child's future development to the few faculties whose growth is thus
early stimulated. Precocity in a child, therefore, is a thing to be
deplored. His early ripening foretells a early decay and a wise mother
is she who gives her child ample opportunity