ffer are not produced by them.

These remarks are applicable to the disuse of any covering for the head
in the sun and in the rain. For you will find those who adopt this
practice from early infancy,[Footnote: I say, from early infancy;
because we may adopt the best habits in mature years, after our
constitutions have been broken up by error and vice, without effecting
anything more than to keep us from actually sinking at once. Indeed, in
most cases we ought not to expect more.] subject to as many diseases as
those around them with similar constitutions, but with habits somewhat
different; and as our diseases are generally the consequences of our
errors in one way or another, it is impossible to say with certainty
that some of them might not have arisen from exposure of the head.

I should not hesitate, therefore, to advise all mothers to put a light
hat or bonnet on the heads of their children, whenever they are to be
exposed to the direct rays of the summer sun, or to the rain. And as we
cannot always foresee when and where these exposures will arise, and as
it is believed that these coverings, if light, will never be productive
of much injury while we are abroad in the open air, it will follow that
it is better to wear than to omit them.

But while I contend for their use as consistent with health and sound
philosophy, I must not be understood as admitting the use of such hats
as are worn at present, even by children. They are, as I have said
before, too hot. What should be substituted, I am unable to determine;
but until something can be supplied, which would not be half so
oppressive as our common wool hats, I should regard it as the lesser
evil to omit them entirely. The danger of going bare-headed, if the
practice is commenced early, we know from the customs of some savage
nations, can never be very great.

SEC. 7. _Covering for the Feet._

The same reason for avoiding the use of any covering for the head, in
early infancy, is a sufficient reason for covering the feet well. For
just in proportion as the blood is sent to the head in superabundance,
and keeps up in it an undue degree of heat, just in the same proportion
is it sent to the feet in too _small_ a quantity, leaving these parts
liable to cold. Now it is a fundamental law with medical men, that the
feet ought to be kept warmer than the head, if possible; especially
while the child is very young, and exposed to brain diseases.

So long, therefore,