The oak that defied the storms of centuries originated from a good, plump, sound acorn. Parents who propose to multiply and replenish the earth should be sound in body and mind. Children have the right, the inalienable right, to a healthy and harmonious parentage. When born and bathed they should not be pressed, squeezed and wrapped up in broad bandages. Doing it is a piece of stupidity, often resulting in deformities.

Let the little new comer cry; it is natural, it strengthens the lungs and develops the muscles of the thorax. If grown-up children want to cry, it is their privilege, only they should go alone by themselves and enjoy it.

Don't forget to frequently give the infant a warm bath. And, mark it well, don't allow everybody who rushes in to see the baby, kiss it. There is altogether too much kissing in the world. Remember that this gushing, spasmodic kissing often proves to be a murderous practice, especially when erysipelas, scarlatina and diphtheria are prevalent. These diseases, as well as many others, are contagious. Kissing bears much the same relation to diphtheria, the cancerous stomach and the scrofulous lip that promiscuous hand-shaking does to the itch. It was not Judas alone who betrayed by a kiss. Hundreds of children are indirectly kissed into their graves every year.

And then every one does not have sound teeth, a clean mouth or a sweet breath. The New Zealanders manifest their affection by rubbing their noses together - a much healthier practice than kissing.

Keep the baby upon its back much of the time for the first few months; its limbs are too frail to bear any weight. Give it a little pure water occasionally; milk will no more satisfy the thirst of an infant than of an adult. Don't stuff the little creature with soothing syrups, nor fill its stomach with castor oil and catnip tea. It is just as natural for children to live as it is for lambs.

Every mother should, if possible, nurse her own child, and she should be proud to do so. It is one of nature's most wholesome laws. Children should never be committed to the care of wet nurses, unless under very exceptional circumstances, because of the annoyance, because of the expense and, above all, because of the risk to the child of imbibing diseases or tendencies to disease. Better, by far, feed the tender, sensitive babe by artificial means.

Next to breast milk cow's milk is the best for the infant - cow's milk rightly prepared. It should not be cooked or boiled, because boiled milk produces constipation. It should be fed on one cow's milk because of its uniform quality; and milk from country farms is better than that from city-fed cows. Condensed milk is utterly unfit for children, inasmuch as its composition is seriously changed by the process of condensation, and, besides, the sweetening is cane sugar, and very liable to fermentation.

A most excellent food for a babe is this: Fresh cow's milk, adding thereto one-third water, a small quantity of thoroughly ground, unbolted wheat flour, a little sugar and a very little carbonate of soda. This is easily digested and nourishing.

Children should be taught to eat regularly. They should not over-load their stomachs nor ruin their digestion with pastry, cakes and colored candies. These produce dyspepsia; and a mother who does not know better than to indulge her children in eating such trash is absolutely unfit to be a mother. Children as candidates for manhood and womanhood, for eternity, are to be taught and drilled into obedience. They must know the meaning of discipline. Their abnormal appetites must be curbed and checked; their tastes in regard to foods are to be trained and their tempers subdued. There must be a governing head in every household. If parents do not govern their children, their children govern them, and then chaos reigns! Order and obedience are indispensable to the young.

Do not permit your children's tonsils be cut out; they are of use to them, and you might about as well cut off their ears to cure ear-ache! Neither the tonsils nor the uvula should be removed. First-class physicians and surgeons do not advise it.

Those are weak-minded mothers who dress up their little girls for balls and evening parties, permitting them to be out until 10 and even 12 o'clock at night - and why? "Oh," says the silly mother, "to prepare them for society." Nonsense; better prepare them for the wash tub! Yes; infinitely better prepare them for industry, economy, neatness and usefulness in the world. Fashionable society is, all too often, a showy bubble or a heartless, soulless formality. Society that is not sensible, sincere and practical is a curse.

Train children to be neat, orderly and obedient. Homes devoid of love and noisy from disobedient children are little better than prison-houses of despair. Anything in a household but a coarse, tyrannical man; anything but a woman who, instead of making home a sunny Eden, transforms it into a fault-finding, complaining, whining gallery of gloom!

Unchecked indulgence makes not only sickly, fretful and disagreeable children, but unmannerly and selfish ones. Such children will take the most comfortable chairs; leave the doors ajar after them; slam them when they do close them; order special dainties prepared for their meals; demand at the table whatever suits their fancy; rush away from it without asking to be excused, and talk when they should keep their mouths closed. The great; and good of earth think much and talk little; while uncultured people and unruly, ill-governed children giggle and gabble perpetually.

Harmless sports and amusements at proper times and places are to be encouraged. Unbend the bow occasionally. Bring the blood to the surface. "Rejoice and be exceeding glad," was a part of the Sermon on the Mount.

Muscle-culture, brain-culture and good morals - all should go hand in hand. Coarse, vulgar manners are always out of place. It can scarcely be expected that the ill-mannered, boorish boy will grow up to be a gentleman; while it may be expected that many of our young-America-meerschaum-sucking boys and older lads will end their days in charity hospitals, poor houses and prisons.

Infants are emblems of innocence, and little children may be compared to vines and olive branches growing up in our homes. The angels love these buds - these little ones whose feet make music around our firesides. "Of such," said Jesus, "is the kingdom of heaven." Oh, parents, I pray you to guard them well and wisely, and see that

"They at least are safe from falling

On the battlefield of life,

Overcome, as thousands have been,

By temptation, care and strife;

And have died with hands close gathered

In the tender clasp of ours;

God be thanked that we could fold them

Pure as snow and ful of flowers!"

Right conception, right gestation, right care in infancy, right training in childhood, right and rigid guidance in youth, a guidance tempered with sympathy, kindness and justice - all lead on to a healthy, full-orbed manhood and a rounded century of useful years.