s and tears. Crying is not
always an expression of positive pain; it sometimes indicates hunger and
thirst, and sometimes the want of a change of posture. This last
consideration deserves great attention, and all the inconveniences of
crying ought to be borne cheerfully, for the sake of having the little
sufferer remind us when nature demands a change of position. No child
ought to be permitted to remain in one position longer than two hours,
even while sleeping; nor half that time, while awake; and if nurses and
mothers will overlook this matter, as they often do, it is a favorable
circumstance that the child should remind them of it.

Crying has been called the "waste gate" of the human system; the door of
escape to that excess of excitability which sometimes prevails,
especially among children and nervous adults. To all such persons it is
healthy--most undoubtedly so; nor do I know that its occasional
recurrence is injurious to any adult--a fastidious public sentiment to
the contrary notwithstanding.

Some have supposed, that what is here said will be construed by the
young mother into a license to suffer her child to cry unnecessarily.
Perhaps, say they, she is a laboring woman, and wishes to be at work.
Well, she lays down her child in the cradle, or on the bed, and goes to
her work. Presently the child, becoming wet perhaps, begins to cry, as
well he might. But, instead of going to him and taking care of him, she
continues at her employment; and when one remonstrates against her
conduct as cruelty, she pleads the authority of the author of the "Young
Mother."

All this may happen; but if it should, I am not answerable for it. I
have insisted strongly on guarding the child against wet clothing, and
on watching him with the utmost care to prevent all real suffering.
Mothers, like the specimen here given, if they happen to have a little
sensibility to suffering, and not much love of their offspring,
generally know of a shorter way to quiet their infants and procure time
to work, than that which is here mentioned. They have nothing to do but
to give them some cordial or elixir, whose basis is opium. Startle not,
reader, at the statement;--this abominable practice is followed by many
a female who claims the sacred name of mother. And many a wretch has
thus, in her ignorance, indolence or avarice, slowly destroyed her
children!

I repeat, therefore, that I do not think my remarks on crying are
necessarily liable to