ould the fluids circulate, and health be
promoted: or would they stagnate, and a morbid, sickly and dwarfish
state be the consequence?

Those whose object is to make infancy, as well as any other period of
existence, a season of happiness, will not fail to find an additional
motive for giving the little stranger entire freedom in the land
whither he has so recently arrived, especially when he seems to enjoy
it so much. Who can be so hardened as to confine him, unless compelled
by the most pressing necessity?

SEC. 2. _Form of the Dress._

On this subject a writer in the London Literary Gazette of some eight or
ten years ago, lays down the following general directions, to which, in
cold weather, there can be but one possible objection, which is, they
are not _alamode_, and are not, therefore, likely to be followed.

"All that a child requires, so far as regards clothing, in the first
month of its existence, is a simple covering for the trunk and
extremities of the body, made of a material soft and agreeable to the
skin, and which can retain, in an equable degree, the animal
temperature. These qualities are to be found in perfection in fine
flannel; and I recommend that the only clothing, for the first month or
six weeks, be a square piece of flannel, large enough to involve fully
and overlap the whole of the babe, with the exception of the head, which
should be left totally uncovered. This wrapper should be fixed by a
button near the breast, and left so loose as to permit the arms and legs
to be freely stretched, and moved in every direction. It should be
succeeded by a loose flannel gown with sleeves, which should be worn
till the end of the second month; after which it may be changed to the
common clothing used by children of this age."

The advantages of such a dress are, that the movements of the infant
will be, as we have already seen, free and unrestrained, and we shall
escape the misery of hearing the screams which now so frequently
accompany the dressing and undressing of almost every child. No chafings
from friction, moreover, can occur; and as the insensible perspiration
is in this way promoted over the whole surface of the body, the sympathy
between the stomach and skin is happily maintained. A healthy sympathy
of this kind, duly kept up, does much towards preserving the stomach in
a good state, and the skin from eruptions and sores.

But as I apprehend that christianity is not yet very deeply rooted i