No child who has been accustomed, from the first, to good wheaten bread, made of unbolted meal, and not less than one day old, will ever prefer any other, until he has been rendered capricious on this subject, and wishes to change for the sake of changing, or until he has been misled by surrounding example. I speak from observation when I say that infants, whose habits have not been depraved, will not prefer hot bread of any kind. "It is hot, mother," I have heard them say, as an apology for refusing a piece of bread; but never, "It is cold," or "It is too old."

It is the epicurean—it is he with whom it is a sufficient objection to any kind of food whatever, that he has used it for several successive meals or days—that is most ready to complain of good bread. He whose habits are correct, and who is the more unwilling to change any of his articles of diet, the longer he has been in the use of them, and who only changes them, or uses variety, from principle—he, I say, will never complain of harshness or want of taste in good wheat bread; nor will it be an objection of weight with him that Mr. Graham has recommended it, or that it has either prevented or cured dyspepsia.

Nor will the epicurean himself complain that bread is insipid, after being confined to it for a month or six weeks. He will then find a sweetness in it, for which he had long sought in vain in the more delicate and costly viands of a luxurious, and expensive, and unchristian modern table.

It is they only who observe simplicity, and confine themselves to very plain food, who truly enjoy pleasure in eating. The bulk of mankind benumb their sense of taste by their high-seasoned, over-stimulating food and drink, and by such constant variety and strange mixtures; and thus, in their eager cry, "Who will show us any good?" they actually enjoy less than he who eats plain food, and is contented with it.

Bread of all kinds is greatly improved in whiteness and pleasantness by being wet with milk; though even when wet with nothing but water, there is a solid and rational sweetness to it, of which the despisers of bread, and devourers of much flesh and condiments never dreamed, and never will dream, till they reform their habits.

If children are furnished with good bread, on the plan of Mr. Locke, there is no doubt that they will relish it most keenly; that their attachment to it will strengthen, and that unless we give them other food occasionally, from principle, or seduce them by depraving their tastes, they will continue it through life. "Train up a child in the way he should go, and when he is old he will not depart from it," is a general rule, and has as few exceptions, when applied to the diet of a child, as when it is applied to his moral tastes and preferences.

With those parents who, though convinced of the justness of the views here advanced, have already trained their children in the way they should not go, but are anxious to retrace their steps as far as possible, there will here be a difficulty. "Our children," they will say, "do not, at present, relish the kind of bread you speak of; and how shall we bring them to do so? or is the thing indeed possible?"

The answer to these inquiries is easy. Such parents have only to confine their children to the kinds of food which they deem proper for them, a few weeks or a few months, and they will soon relish them. If those who are old enough to be convinced can be brought to unite heartily in the change, and to endeavor to be pleased with it, the work of reformation will be more pleasant and probably more speedy. I have never found any difficulty of bringing myself to relish in a very short time an article of food for which I had no relish before, and to which I had even a dislike, provided I was thoroughly convinced it was best for me, and was earnest in the desire of change—except sweet oil, to which I was about six months in becoming reconciled.

It is with physical, as with moral habits, in their formation. We should fix on what we believe, from experience, observation, and divine and human testimony, is best for us, and habit will soon render it agreeable. It is important, even to health, that food should be agreeable; but as I have already said, what we know to be best for us will soon become agreeable, if we confine ourselves to it; and to our children also, if we confine them to it, in like manner.

Next to bread made of wheat—when that cannot be procured—is a mixture of wheat and Indian meal; but the proportion of the latter should be the smallest. Wheat, rye, and Indian, in the proportion of one third of each, make excellent bread, sometimes called third bread. Rye and Indian make a tolerable bread. Rye alone is not so good. The want, in the latter, of the vegetable principle called gluten, makes its general use of very questionable propriety.

Indian meal alone, baked in cakes by the fire, if eaten only in small quantities, is a very nutritious and by no means unwholesome bread. But its sweetness, and the general fondness which people who are accustomed to its use have for it, lead them to eat it in too large proportions, if they use it while it is warm. In these circumstances, it proves itself too active for the stomach and bowels. If warm, six ounces is as much as a hearty adult ought to eat of it at once; and children should of course take much less. It is less active on the bowels, and scarcely less agreeable, as soon as we become accustomed to it, if eaten when it is cold—even if baked in loaves, in the oven.