What shall we do with it?
A baby answers to the lively definition of an animal as "a stomach
provided with organs." It lives to feed. It does not know much, but in
its speciality it is unrivalled. The way in which it helps itself from
the sources of life is a masterpiece of hydraulic skill. Once let it
lose the Heaven-imparted art of haustion, and all the arts and academies
of the world can never teach it again.
To manage this little feeding organism, with its wondrous instinct and
capacity of imbibition, is the first great question after that of race
is settled. Shall the mother's blood continue to flow through its
fast-throbbing heart, and all the subtile affinities that bind the two
lives be continued until reason and affection take up the chain where
the link of bodily dependence is broken? Or shall it cleave no more to
her bosom, but transfer its endearing dependence to a stranger, or learn
to call a bottle its mother?
These are some of the questions learnedly, and yet familiarly, discussed
in M. Donne's book. He has laid down many excellent rules for the
physical and moral management of the infant, which the young mother can
readily learn and put in practice.
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