W. Grant Hague

“ It would be absurd to expect a high standard of efficiency from an individual with a low standard of health. Poor health means poor vitality. Vitality is the mark of the master. Without vitality one can never dominate. All the great achievements of the race have been consummated by those who conserved their vitality. No single factor contributes a larger percentage of inefficients and failures than overeating. The man or woman who, from habit or experience, has learned the lesson of right eating and living need not be lacking in efficiency, nor need they despair of the attainment of success. ”

“ Animals are born with instincts which need only circumstances to bring them out. Now a baby is not born with instincts of this character,—it has not even the instinct to help itself; it cannot find the breasts that were made for it; it is more helpless than the baby cat or dog or worm. Therefore a baby in whose brain the potential faculty of reason is slumbering must of necessity begin its career wholly dependent upon the supervision and love of its mother, until such time as it may be capable of reasoning for itself. Motherhood is therefore the supreme privilege of womanhood. ”

“ If all mothers were clean, faithful, and efficient, there is no reason why each one could not be taught to modify cow's milk to suit her child, just as satisfactorily, or more so, than a manufacturer who never saw her child. The manufacturers, however, do the work, and the naturally ignorant or lazy and inefficient mother, is willing to pay for the extra cost of labor, to save herself the trouble on the one hand, and to subject her child to a series of experiments in order to discover the manufactured food that is particularly adapted to her particular baby on the other hand. ”

“ In the end his will power is lost—even the effort to save himself is too feeble to succeed—he is a slave to the habit, his health and strength ruined.
If every boy could realize the possible end of this evil habit he would make an effort to rid himself of it before he becomes its victim and its slave. It may be easy to abandon the practice in the beginning. The longer he continues it, however, the less chance he has of finally mastering it, until, if he persists beyond a certain point, it is a matter of serious question whether he will ever be able to free himself from its grip. ”

“ Do not permit your daughter to get the impression that you are telling her something that simply has to be told, just as you told her the correct way to boil an egg. Let her realize and get the impression that this is the most serious and most wonderfully interesting story in existence, the most important story she will ever hear. Let her understand that motherhood, for which she is now preparing, is the duty God assigned her in this world: that that duty must be carried out, and that she must do nothing, nor leave anything undone, to interfere with its accomplishment. ”

“ Tell them the secret of success from your standpoint, how happiness is gained only by being efficient and successful, and that, to be efficient, one must be energetic and healthy. Drum into their ears the truth that life is a battle, and only the brave "win out," and health is the one essential necessity. ”

“ There are millions of people who suffer from indigestion in some degree, and it may justly be said that indigestion has its beginning in overeating, in some form. It may not be overeating in actual bulk, but it is overeating some article or articles that do not agree with the individual, and the fact that certain articles do not agree is unquestionably dependent upon the nervous temperament of the American people—and the temperament of a people is a product of the kind of existence the people subject themselves to. We are, therefore, unwittingly, victims of our environment. ”

“ To limit the environment of a child by imposing instincts upon it, would be to limit its inherent freedom. To be obliged to obey a prescribed instinctive law would rob mankind of his creative or reasoning faculty, and that would be to lower him to the level of the brute creation. Reason is of no use if our acts are already determined for us. There are therefore good reasons why the human baby should be, at the moment of its birth, the most helpless living thing ”

“ When a child will not eat at meal time, the mother feels that it should eat sometime, so she encourages it to eat between meals, and because of a mistaken kindness she breaks the law of regularity,—a law that can never be broken without serious results following. A child in this condition becomes a disturber of the peace; the parents can do nothing with him; he insists on eating just what he likes and when he likes; and he chooses, as a rule, candy, cake, pastries, ice cream, tea, coffee. Indigestion follows, the child loses weight, is languid and listless and constipated. ”

“ Motherhood at the present time, though the most important and sacred profession in the world, is almost exclusively carried on by unskilled labor. The maternal instinct is deeply rooted and universal; its absence must be regarded as an abnormality, or as a product of misdirected education. The requisites for the mothers of the future should be absolute physical health and love of children.
If nature endowed a baby with instincts there would be no need for reason or education. Education cannot teach a cat how to nurse or wash a kitten any better than it does,—its instinct is good enough. ”

“ Tell the boy the story of how professional breeders have achieved such marvelous results; how for generations the "strain" has been kept clean and pure, how any descendant of a great sire, who showed any habit detrimental to the development of the highest racing qualities—no matter how trivial the disability might be—was cast aside, experience having taught that it does not pay to waste effort and time on any horse whose physical or mental characteristics are not up to the highest standard. ”

“ She submits to innuendo and insult under the impression that she is the unwitting cause of all the domestic wretchedness and often wishes she had never entered the marriage state. We must remember that these conditions wreck ideals and homes, and that they frequently render inefficient both husband and wife. The economic business of marriage becomes a failure, ambition is crushed and hope dies in the heart.
If the mother has been inoculated with the virus of syphilis her existence is equally wretched; her health is ruined; her efficiency is forever mortgaged. ”

“ A father can, in this way, by talking of the future to his boy, convey to him the high hopes he entertains of the great success the boy is going to achieve—you establish a standard in the boy's mind, and he unconsciously hopes to attain that standard. If you have impressed him with the necessity of preserving his health and strength, as an essential to success, he will be slow to yield to any temptation that may interfere with his plans. ”

“ It is impossible to do justice to a child if you allow him to dissipate his strength and exhaust himself moving from place to place while he is sick. A mother should not forget that it is she who must exercise wisdom and decide what is best for her child. The judgment of a sick person is not to be relied upon, and it would be wrong to submit to the whims and fancies of an ailing child, if these are known to be medically disadvantageous to its best interests. ”

“ No woman, however, the victim of chronic constipation, can preserve an equable temperament or an amicable disposition. It is impossible—with her nerves being constantly poisoned—that she can hold the symptoms of that condition in abeyance. She must be irritable and nervous and sick of herself and everything and everybody. The home as a direct result suffers; its atmosphere is not one of contentment and peace and affection. Constipation, therefore, blights the home and the influence of one blighted home may have a far-reaching effect on the story of the human race. ”

“ If it is a colicky child follow the instructions given in the treatment of colic. Be patient the first few nights, and be thorough, because you may discover why it cries and each discovery will help you next time. If you discover something wrong, some reasonable excuse for the crying, does it not prove the folly of walking the floor? If it wants a drink of water, or if its diaper is wet, how is walking the floor going to cure it, or how can you expect the baby to stop crying when you so unjustly construe its reasonable and its only way of asking a favor? ”

“ A boy cannot become a slave to this habit without it affecting his mind. He invites debasing thoughts,—the old pure and clean method of thought and living no longer satisfy. His imagination even becomes corrupt and his moral nature and moral sense is perverted until he no longer seems to be able to tell the difference between right and wrong. He has little regard for the truth and if occasion demands it he will lie without appreciating the dishonorable part he is playing. ”

“ Baby's Comforter.—The discovery and introduction of the comforter or rubber teat was an unfortunate episode in someone's life. By the careless, conscienceless nurse, or thoughtless mother, it is regarded as a real comfort and blessing. Any temporary comfort, however, which the nurse or mother may enjoy as a result of its use, is at the expense of the health of the child. Its use is a serious reflection upon the good intention and intelligence of the mother who permits her child to use one. It is a bad habit from every viewpoint possible. ”

“ The constant absorption of intestinal poisons affects the system itself,—the symptoms are headache, neuralgia, loss of appetite, nervousness, insomnia, vertigo, inability to concentrate, lassitude, indigestion. The condition which we name constipation is therefore one of supreme importance. From a medical standpoint, it is the biggest problem in the whole realm of disease. It is the most significant hygienic function of life, and it is becoming more and more important, and more and more a problem. ”

“ I invite the boy to watch how the horse uses his legs, and how rhythmically and beautifully he places his feet, and how his whole attitude serves the end for which he is exerting himself—to gain speed. ”

“ When a woman finds that her physical efficiency depends upon the habitual use of cathartic drugs or laxative waters, she must regard the knowledge with respect, she must give it serious consideration, and she must adopt means to so change her method of living, that nature will be given a chance to work in her interest—not against her. Better to find out exactly where the trouble is now, and go after it than to travel too far along the wrong road. Many die from the "disease" of procrastination. ”

“ If she begets a sickly, puny child,—assuming she herself has providentially escaped immediate disease,—she devotes all her mother love and devotion to her child, but she is fighting a hopeless fight as I previously explained when I stated that one-half of the total effort of one-third of the race, is expended in combating conditions against which no successful effort is possible. Even her prayers are futile, because the wrong is implanted in the constitution of the child and the remedy is beyond her power to find. ”

“ A baby is just like a little pig; it will go on feeding as long as it is allowed. The baby does not reason; it has no judgment; it depends upon its mother's judgment. If the mother is false to the trust the baby overloads its stomach. A swollen, distended, overloaded stomach causes indigestion. A baby with indigestion is a colicky, fretty, sick baby. Overfeeding, therefore, is the beginning of lots of trouble to the mother, and needless pain and suffering and sickness to the baby. A simple matter, but it is one of the most difficult lessons nursing mothers have to learn. ”

“ Now regulate the time of feeding to suit the age of the child and adhere to strict regularity. It is a pernicious and absolutely wrong custom to force children to eat, or to coax them to eat when they do not want to eat. Loss of appetite will never be cured by forced feeding, or by reducing the interval between feedings, or by giving the child stronger or more concentrated food under the mistaken idea that in this way the loss of appetite can be "made up." ”

“ Are we justified in regarding this as one of the most important, if not the most important, disease condition; the most menacing physical vice, which the human race has to combat? Let us offer the following brief facts in witness of our stand:
The Cost of Constipation.—It has been estimated that consumption (the great white plague) kills one-tenth of all the human race. Cancer kills half as many, or one in every twenty. Constipation, and the diseases which are caused directly by it, kills one in every three of all the people on the civilized globe. ”

“ Every modern factor upon which physical efficiency seems to depend is an enemy to the systematic regulation of this function. Our method of hurried and indiscriminate eating, our system of strenuous living, our unsanitary environment, our business activity, our method of pursuing [Pg 306] pleasure, take no account of, and resent the time devoted to cultivating, as a hygienic necessity, this toilet requirement. This imperative call of nature is pushed aside by the child at play, by the housewife for a duty which could wait, by the merchant for an engagement. ”

“ Wherever you find pauperism, crime, drunkenness, insanity, idleness, immorality, vice and disease, you will find that the sower of wild oats has traveled the path and left his stain and his footprints there. ”

“ A certain modification of milk may not agree with a child fed every two and one-half hours, which will be found to agree if fed in the same quantity, to the same child, every three hours. The slightest change, a change which would seem to be so insignificant in itself as not to justify serious consideration, may mean the difference between normal healthfulness and constant ill health. A food that is too strong for a child's digestive ability, and which causes vomiting, colic, and diarrhea, may be rendered exactly right by the slightest modification one of its constituents. ”

“ I believe the human race is improving, despite the disadvantageous surroundings and conditions which hamper honest effort and stultify truth. A higher efficiency is the goal, and the intention is to obtain this desideratum by fair and by just means. There is an awakening, an unrest, a groping for knowledge in almost every field of human endeavor, and there is none in which the yearning [Pg 320] for fact, for truth, for instruction, is stronger and keener, than in the world-wide movement in the interest of a better motherhood, and in a more serious study of child life. ”

“ It is quite common to note cases in which women have never become pregnant until a number of years after marriage, even when the desire to have children existed. There is one case on record of a woman married at eighteen, but although both herself and her husband enjoyed habitual good health, conception did not take place until she was forty-eight years of age when she bore a healthy child. Women should not, therefore, become easily discouraged in the hope of having a baby, especially when they have a clean history, and a healthy body. ”

“ If one remembers that cow's milk is manufactured by nature primarily for the feeding of calves, not for babies, and that the stomach of a calf is intended to exist exclusively on vegetable products, and that nature is preparing it for this purpose, and feeds it a food when young that will enable it to grow so as to be adapted for that purpose, one can understand that the problem of the modification of cow's milk to suit the stomach of a baby is not by any means a simple matter. ”

“ As a general routine treatment, good wholesome food, regular hours, fresh air, sunlight, and judicious exercise, with such other measures as may be suggested by the condition of the blood and nervous system, are the indications in the way of treatment. Anemia and chlorosis (poor blood) should be treated by the administration of iron in some form. Obesity should be reduced by diet, exercise, and such other treatment as may be found efficient and not detrimental to health. Overwork, mental and physical, should be stopped, and sedentary habits changed to a more active out-door life. ”