learn this. The child, who is so sensitive to his environment, shows
but little that is characteristic when admitted to an institution.
Only in the nursery can we learn to estimate the influences which
proceed from parents and nurses of different characters and
temperaments, and the reaction which is produced by them in the child.

The body of the child is moulded and shaped by the environment in
which it grows. Pure air, a rational diet, free movement, give
strength and symmetry to every part. Faults of hygiene debase the
type, although the type is determined by heredity which in the
individual is beyond our control. Mothers and nurses to-day are well
aware of the need for a rational hygiene. Mother-craft is studied
zealously and with success, and there is no lack of books to give
sound guidance and to show the mean between the dangerous extremes of
coddling and a too Spartan exposure. Yet sometimes it has seemed as if
some mothers whose care for their children's physical health is most
painstaking, who have nothing to learn on the question of diet, of
exercise, of fresh air, or of baths, who measure and weigh and record
with great minuteness, have had their attention so wholly occupied
with the care of the body that they do not appreciate the simultaneous
growth of the mind, or inquire after its welfare. Yet it is the
astounding rapidity with which the mental processes develop that forms
the distinguishing characteristic of the infancy of man. Were it not
for this rapid growth of the cerebral functions, the rearing of
children would be a matter almost as simple and uneventful as the
rearing of live stock. For most animals faults of environment must be
very pronounced to do harm by producing mental unrest and
irritability. Thus, indeed, some wild animal separated from its
fellows and kept in solitary captivity may sicken and waste, though
maintained and fed with every care. Yet if the whole conditions of