"From that day to this I have never advocated the frequent feeding of calves. They do best on two meals a day, and now I have no doubt that some calves I wot of would do vastly better on two meals a day."

At my father's dairy we fed the calves twice a day and they thrived well. I do not recall that we ever had a calf to lie and only one or two to ever be sick. I recall an occasion or two when a calf escaped from the pen and got too much milk, whereupon it would develop a severe diarrhea known among farmers and dairymen as the "scours." In our home the babies were fed every two hours during the day and everytime they cried at night. Colic, constipation, diarrhea, hives, feverishness, croup, colds, and more severe types of disease were as frequent among the children as they were rare among the calves.

In those days the medical profession urged two hour feedings and night feedings as well. Many older peoples have not gotten away from this view yet. They still think that children should be gorged until they are surfeited and sickened or else they are not fed enough.

Long prior to this time, however, Dr. Page and others had proven that three meals a day are enough for a baby. Asserting that no infant can thrive unless well fed and assuming that a well fed baby is one that secures the minimum amount of suitable food that will suffice to produce a comfortable, happy, thriving baby, with body ana limbs well-rounded with flesh, not fat, and whose growth shall be uniform throughout its whole life, and until the frame is fully developed, he declared: "It is my belief, verified by experience in the case of my own infant, and from other substantial proof, that three meals a day, with sufficient restriction at each, will accomplish this end, and are all that should be permitted from birth, and the intervals should be at least five or six hours between meals."

He assumed, and probably correctly, that the rate of growth of the infant after birth should correspond with its rate of growth before birth. In the case of his own child, he says:--"Our three-meal infant has doubled in weight at nine months, verifying, to that extent, my theory that the normal growth of infants corresponds to the (normal) foetal growth. She is taller than the average child at this age, and though less heavy than most children, she is more muscular, and, had I permitted it would have become fat, for she has given abundant evidence of the ability to fatten rapidly on three meals."

He tells us that her sleep was perfect, sound and continuous, there was entire exemption from hiccough, throwing up, colic, constipation, diarrhea, stomach trouble, and all other troubles, and she completely escaped the fat disease, with its pasty complexion. Her limbs lengthened by normal growth, were well-covered and rounded with muscle, her complexion was brown and ruddy from being perfectly nourished and being in the open air during winter, as well as in the spring and summer. She was able to hold her head erect from the fourth day onward, and sat erect on the floor without support at four months.

My own experience corroborates all of this: I believe it to be an invariable rule that babies fed as herein directed grow faster and develop better than the overfed children of the average home. They do not weigh as much, for they are never permitted to become fat. More than once I have stopped all food but orange juice in my own children to counteract a tendency to get too fat.

Any normal baby should be able to hold its head erect at four to six days of age. My own children sat erect in my hand without support, I of course balancing them, at one week. They could stand erect in my hand at three months, and stiffen their little backs and hold themselves out on a perfectly horizontal plane, without support, as I held them just above the knees, at four months. At five months the two boys could, while lying on the back, their feet held down, raise themselves up to a sitting position several times in succession. The girl was practically six months old before she could do this. But she accomplished a new "stunt" I tried. She held herself out horizontally, being held by the legs only, with her back down. All three of them could make a wrestler's bridge at four months. These are only a few of the things they did that the average child does not do.

If children are fed three meals a day and are not overfed, the following high standard will be attained: "ease and comfort through the day and perfect rest at night; freedom from hiccough, vomiting, constipation, 'colds,' diarrhea, digestive disorders, skin eruptions, etc." "There will be a steady gain from month to month, by reason of healthy growth, without the abnormal accumulation of fat so surely indicative of disease." There will be the greatest possible happiness for both the baby and those who care for him. It will not be forever fretting and crying, due to the discomfort of gluttony. Its chances of growing into hale and hearty manhood and womanhood, with good health, and splendid physique, will be increased many-fold.

There is no reasonable basis for the statement, often made, that, while some infants thrive on three meals a day, some probably most, infants would starve unless fed more often. We know that in the feeding of hogs, cows, horses, etc., the ration that suffices for one individual suffices for all. Among adult men and women we do not find the need to feed some of them but three meals a day and others six or eight meals a day .

Infants are fundamentally the same. Their bodies are all constructed alike and function in accordance with the same general principles. One man is a type of the whole race. Young animals, like the calf, kid, etc., which grow more rapidly than does the human infant and reach maturity before the infant has passed babyhood, do not require to be fed as often as we are in the habit of feeding infants.

Dr. Page weaned a kitten at six weeks of age and put her on two meals a day of milk and whole wheat bread. Her meals were served at 8 A. M. and at 8 P. M. When she was two-thirds grown, he says of her that she "has outstripped the others of the same litter, who have been fed oftener in thrift and growth, and in muscular activity she excels them all. Certainly no one could well imagine a livelier kitten than 'Topsy.' In flesh her condition has remained about the same as when feeding was commenced."

That overfeeding tends to stunt growth is well proven. Why should we go on stuffing our children in an effort to fatten them or to force them to grow more rapidly than normal?

Dr. Tilden says that: "If a child (on the three meal plan) grows thin and really loses weight after the second week it will not be an indication that it is not fed often enough. My experience has been that the mother's milk is deficient is some of the important elements, or that she does not give enough."

In discussing the three meal plan he says: "If an infant is properly cared for from birth it will not be awake oftener than two or three times — we will say three times — in twenty-four hours. This, then, I assume is as often as nursing children should be fed, and I have succeeded in influencing a few mothers to feed their babies according to this plan, and the results have been gratifying, indeed.

"The children are smaller (not fat) and very active, and much stronger and brighter than children fed in the ordinary way."

He also says: "Children fed three times a day will not be troubled with constipation and will not have white curds in the discharges from the bowels."