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Show TEACH YOUR CHILDREN PHYSIOLOGY. A parent who entrusts to his child a delicate toy will explain to him its delicacy, and in what ways it may be broken or destroyed. But in the ages which have passed, coming gloomily out of the dark ages, the parent has been in the habit of entrusting to his child a piece of machinery more delicate in its construction than any toy, and a misunderstanding of which had led to more misery than any other kind of ignorance under the sun. There is much discussion going on just now as to the advisability of thoroughly instruction children in regard to the wonderful organs and vital processes within their own bodies. The more intelligent writers take the ground that children should be taught, and fully taught, in this department of science. Now and then a flippant newspaper man will throw off something of an adverse character. A few years ago when Comstock was giving us trouble the New York Herald speaking of us said, that this man who is "corrupting the minds of the youth" should be "severely dealt with." We quickly remembered that the same charge was rung on Socrates, and a host of others, working for the betterment of the race who lived long before our time. Lin???, the great botanist, was condemned for teaching the sexes of plants, and his publications were suppressed. But this was a hundred years ago. We hope it will not take a hundred years for even the New York Herald to become impressed with the fact that children should be taught physiology just so soon as they can comprehend it. Unfortunately there have been but few books written adapted to the youthful mind. Prof. [Professor] Burt Wilder, of Cornell University, issued a work some years ago, entitled, "What Children should Know," or something like that. It is a good work, and parents should obtain it for their children. In 1873-4 we prepared a work for children, entitled "Science in Story." The principal characters are a physician, a colored door-boy of unusual aptitude, and a monkey, that latter serving as the clown, so to speak, throughout a humorous or comic story, in the course of which a general description is wrought of the bones, cartilages, muscles and the various vital organs of the body. They publication has received the warm endorsement of over five hundred newspapers in their book reviews, including some of the very best papers published in New York city and elsewhere. We have received many letters enthusiastically commending the publication. It is supplied in one volume at $2, or in the five volumes for $? [3,5 or 7]. For those who have any prejudice to the instruction of their in some of the most important organs and processes of the body, the five-volume edition is preferable. Everything which could possibly be considered objectionable to this class is contained in volume five, and the series seems to come to a close in volume four. After the humorous narrative has been brought apparently to an end at the close of volume four, it is reopened in volume five for teaching all which relates to elimination and reproduction. A clergyman who purchased two sets of the work for his Sunday-school Library, wrote us a letter in which he said that he thought the fifth volume was worth more than all the rest. He did not hesitate to include the fifth volume in the series to be placed on the shelves of the Sunday-school library. Now, what handsomer present can a parent make his children for the holidays than a set of these instructive books: If they cannot be readily had at the village or city bookstore they [unreadable] be obtained directly of the [unreadable] Publishing Co., whose announcements appear in this paper. By ordering them a few weeks previously to the holidays, and then hiding them away until the joyous Christmas morning arrives, they will be all ready to gladden the hearts of the children. Those who feel unable to buy the beautiful set of books could doubtless afford to pay the $2 necessary to obtain the five volumes in one. The work has already had an extensive sale, but as a matter of course, in our immense country, not one family in one thousand has ever seen it, whereas, considering the paucity of such works for children, a coup of it should be on the center table of every household throughout the land. -Dr. Foote's Health Monthly. |