Perhaps Locke's meaning will be best understood by comparing with the text what he has said in the Conduct of the UnderstatuUng, **^W^ are^born with faculties and powers capable almost of anything, sudi at least al^ms^^cazry iis further thstirt^n easily bt iiiiaginLd, b ut* li ' only the exercise of those powers which ^yes cti-vfaittt^nffilC^SSrs anything, and leads us towards perfection."
He illustrates this with reference to the body by the instances of the clumsy ploughman on the one hand and the fingers of the musician and the legs of the dancing-master, on the other. Of the feats of rope- dancers and tumblers he says, "All these admired ipotions, beyond the reach and almost conception of unpractised spectators, are nothing but the mere effects of use and industry in men whose bodies have nothing peculiar in them from those of the amazed lookers-on."
He goes on: " A-s it^^ in.the body, so it is in the mindj./raf/ikr< makes it what it is; ari^ most even of those excettlKnces wfiTchi ftre looked on as natural endowments, will be found, when examined into more narrowly, to be the product of exercise and to be raised to that pitch only by repeated actions." Even skilful raillery and the art of telling Tipposite diverting stories Locke would attribute to long-continued efforts begun perhaps by accident. **Ido not deny, says he, **that natural disposition may often give the first rise to it; but that never carries a man far without use and exercise; and it is practice alone that brings the powers of the mind, as well as those of the body, to their perfection." Conversely he concludes that "defects and weak- ness in men's understanding as well as other faculties come from want of a right use of their own minds." C. of U, % 'vr. ad f. Education according to Locke consists in exercising the abilities. Hence he at- tributes the difference in men more to this cause than any other.'
In one case out of ten Locke seems to think the natural character may be so strong as to hold its own against influences from without. I may remark that "nine parts often" means nine men in ten, and not, as I have said by mistake in Essays on EducaHonal Reformers^ nine ' parts of ten in every man.
Perhaps this phrase was suggested by the then well-known lines of WaUer: "The soul's dark cottage battered and decayed Lets in new light through chinks that Time has made."
§ a, p. 9, L 10. " That study I have been thought more peculiarly to have applied myself to, ** Locke's actual practice as a physician seems to have been confined to the household of Lord Shaftesbury (vide Introduction). So we find in his remarks the mixture of good sense and scientific knowledge with some eccentricities and errors which a wider experience would quickly have corrected. What strikes us in his views is not only their reason- ableness, but what we may call their modernness. In this respect he reminds as of his friend Sydenham, the great reformer of practical medicine, whose merit it was to lead men back from complex and artificial systems resting on the assumption of precise dogmatic know- ledge, to more simple methods in which nature was foUowed rather than coerced, (j. F. p.)
Locke here avows himself a partisan of the system of hardening, as opposed to that of protection, in rearing children. Each system has had its supporters at all times. Civilized men, noticing that more savage people are free from many of the diseases of what is called by the misleading name of artificial society, have often thought that this im- munity may be secured by imitating the rough practices of savage life. But it is now known that the duration of lire among savages is, on th^ 2o6 Notes. [p. 2 average, less than in civilized nations. It appears too that with the immunity from minor ailments and greater power of undergoing hard- ships, there is even less power of resistance to attacks of serious epidemic diseases than the civilized man possesses. In short, each tvpe of man, the civilized and the savage respectively, is strong against those evils to which he is inured, weak against those which are. new to him. But if we test their power by comparing the resistance of each to untried circumstances, civilization appears to have the advantage. It is clear then that the training of the savage, even the ideal savage of Rousseau, cannot be taken as a model for Uiose living under the actual drcumstances of our life.
On the* other hand, there are theoretical grounds for the protective system; while the body is growing, it may be said, let it be nourished as well as possible, that it may be afterwards better able to resist; and let it be shielded from all injury, since any injury may leave behind it some damage to the part affected; and in a part thus damaged subse- quent disease will be more likely to occur. For instance, let a child get an acute rheumatism from cold, it will most probably grow up a damaged individual, more prone than another to serious disease. This also is plausible, but takes too little account of the force of habit. Physical habit is no less a fact than moral habit, and what we have gpne through once, we can, if the parts are intact, better go through again. Certain limitations of this principle will be pointed out here- after. Experience has, I think, shewn the error of taking either principle, or any such principle, as an infallible guide. We shall do best, not even by the obvious expedient of aiming at the mean, but by judging every practice which forms a part of any system on its merits, experience being the final court of appeal. The real defence of the hardening system is that which is afterwards pointed out by Locke himself, namely that it prepares the body for encountering emergencies when the safeguards of ordinary life are wanting, not that it enables ordinary persons to live their ordinary life better. It is on this ground that Socrates (in Xenophon's Memorabilia) defends his frugal and austere life as fitting him for the hardships of a campaign, since, as he says, every citizen may be called upon to be a soldier. The great objection to such a system is that it weeds out sickly children, though it does not follow that those who are weakest in early life are after- wards the least useful members of society; while the vigour of those who survive is attributed to the system, though it would probably have been the same in ordinary circumstances. The only modem nation which furnishes us with a perfect example of hardening is the Russian, where children are made to undergo the severest extremes of ^em• perature, being sent out from over-heated rooms to run in the snow, with very insufficient clothing. The after-experience, if it may not be called Uie result, of this treatment, is well known. On the one hand, the Russian peasant is able to bear extremes of heat and cold which would be fatal to less hardv races; and this power of endurance be- comes in the soldier one of'^ the chief foundations of Russian military strength. On the other hand, the death rate of the population is far higher than in any other European country, and the mortality among children is so great that it would elsewhere be thought positively appalling, (j. F. P.)
Goldsmith, in his remarks on Locke's hardening system, has antici- pated the latest decisions of science, lie observes that ** savages and peasants are generally not so long lived as those who have led a more indolent life, and that "the more laborious the life is, the less is the population of the country." He sees that hardening involves the Hardening of many children out of the world. "The number of those who survive those rude trials bears no proportion to those who die in the experiment." He ridicules Locke's belief in the omnipotence of habit by telling the following storv of Peter the Great. Peter thought it would be convenient if ms sailors drank sea- water, so he made an edict that the boys training for sea should be allowed to drink sea- water only. The boys died, so the habit was never established. (Gold- smithes Essay on Education in The Bee Nov. 10, 1759.), The fallacy of this argument appears to me to be this. We have no ground for attributing so much to the effect of custom in a single life- time, though doubtless custom in the course of generations may produce these and even greater effects. We cannot therefore expect, in one lifetime, to undo the work of centuries. Our bodies are what they are in virtue of having been covered for many generations: had they been uncovered during that time, they would be different. Rousseau and many later writers have fallen into the same error of ignoring the slow changes produced in physical organization by the continuous action of custom; and in some degree, by natural selection, (j. F. P.)
The use of cold baths is far more common in our time than in Locke's, and there can be no doubt that the practice of washing the whole body with cold water every morning, ^ now practised, is a most valuable and healthy innovation. By this means we become hardened in the sense that we are far less likely to take cold. The reason also is clear, since we know that a cold bath exercises the regulative machinery of nerves and blood-vessels in the skin, by which the body is naturally protected against the injurious effects of cold. But for this purpose a momentary, and not a continued, application of cold is desirable; the continuous action of cold and wet to the skin is always injurious, and hence Locke's proposal to make children's shoes such that their feet should be constantly wet, must be dismissed as absurd and mischievous. It is hardly necessary to point out that this would be a very different thing from going barefoot. The latter practice is rejected by civilized men, chiefly on grounds of convenience and cleanliness; not necessarily from the fear of cold. The notion of making shoes with holes in them is however not wholly a caprice of Locke's. The same thing may be seen in the Highland brogues, which have holes to let out water; but this construction can only be convenient in actual wading, when the shoes would otherwise become, so to speak, water-logged. A far better maxim is that attributed to the surgeon Abemethy, '•^ Keep your head cool, and your feet warm.** 0* '•?•) The following is Locke's account of his experiment with Frank Masham: "One Thing give me leave to be importunate with you about: You say your Son is not very strong; to make him strong, you must use him hardly, as I have directed; but ydu must be sure to do it by very insensible Degrees, and begin an Hardship you would bring him to only in the Spring. This is all the Caution needs be used. I have an Example of it in the House I live in, where the only Son of a very tender Mother was almost destroy'd by a too tender Keeping. He is now, by a contrary Usage, come to bear Wind and Weather, and Wet in his Feet; and the Cough, which threaten'd him under that warm and cautious Management, has left him, and is now no longer his Parents' constant Apprehension as it was." — Locke to W. Molyneux, I have pointed out in the Introduction, that Locke's view of life was one-sided from his having been brought so little under the influence of women. He lost his mother, as it would seem, when he was young, and he never had sister or wife; so we can understand his looking to the father rather than the mother as the true educator. His want of sympathy with women is betrayed by the above absurd references to Seneca and Horace. In making them he must have fancied himself back in the Common Room at Christ Church.
About these waters see Psychrolusia^ or a History of Cold Bathing, by Sir John Floyer, Kt., and Dr Edward Baynard, and ed. 1706. The well, at which miracles were said to be wrought from a.d. 644, gave its name to a town now called Holywell in Flintshire, (j. F. p.)
It was only at the end of the 17th century that Englishmen first became aware of the benefits of cold bathing. The custom was, it appears, introduced from Holland and Germany, but here as in those countries, was first confined to the use of natural springs or wells of ancient reputation; later on baths in houses were used. In both cases, baths such as we now use for simple cleanliness or enjoyment were prescribed as of medicinal use.
Sir John Floyer in his Psychrolusia^ published about ten years after Locke's tract, admits the practice of cold bathing had scarcely been used in England for 100 years.
Wonderful cures such as Locke speaks of may be found in abun- dance in Floyer*s book as in others.
The great Dr Willis, a contemporary of Locke*s, relates that he cured a young woman in a high fever when nothing else would cool her, by having her taken from her bed and thrown into the river, with proper precautions against drowning. He thus anticipate the most modem method of treating " hyperpyrexia *' or extreme fever. But the therapeutic use of cold water was regarded in the 17th century, and rightly so, as a return to the practice of the Greek and Roman physicians.
The agreement between Locke and Montaigne will be seen from the following quotation: " Inure him to heat and cold, to wind and sun, and to dangers which he ought to despise; wean him from all effeminacy and delicacy in clothes and lodging, eating and drinking; accustom him to every thing, so that he may not be a Sir Paris {un beau gargon)^ a Carpet-Knight, but a sinewy, hardy and vigorous young man." (Montaigne^ Essays, Bk. I. Ch. 25, Hazlitt*s Edition, i. p. 198.)
§ 9, p. 7, 1. 14. " The nearer they [the daughters'] come to the hardships of their brother s,^^ There is no doubt that in the physical training of girls a great im- provement has been made, at least in this country, since Locke's time. But even now it cannot be too strongly insisted upon that games and exercises which strengthen the muscles, enlarge the chest, and assist all the digestive operations, are not only as beneficial to girk as to boys, but need to be made even more a special study in the case of the former, since girls do not spontaneously attend to this part of their education with the energy of the other sex. It should be laid down as a fixed principle that playgrounds and gymnasia are not only useful appendages to girls' schools, but an absolutely essential part of the school machinery, (j. F. P.)
There is probably some ground for the very general belief that drinking cold water when hot is injurious; but it is not easy to specify any important diseases, still less fatal ones, which can be clearly traced to this cause. In my own experience, I have never met with an instance of any serious disease thus induced, and very rarely of any even attributed to it. A few cases of trifling affections of the skin have been, with some plausibility, attributed to drinking while hot. It is well known to grooms that horses' coats suffer by drinking cold water. It has been said that death from syncope or collapse may be the result, but this seems to me to require confirmation. The word fever was used very loosely in the time of Locke, but it may be taken for granted that nothing which we now call a fever could possibly be caused by the practice here repre- hended, (j. F. p.)
The pemidotts practice of tight ladng has been so repeatedly, though never too stronglv, condemned, that we would fain hope we hsid seen the last of it Witlun the last half century there has no doubt been some return to the rule of reason and nature in woman's dress; but the whirligig of time may bring the custom back again; and, in that case, we know that not the reasonableness of either sex will avail against the decrees of fashion. It may be worth while to point out precisely what are the evils resulting from tight lacing. They differ a little according to Uie point where the gveatest pressure is applied; that is to say, according as the dress is what is called high-waisted or low-waisted. The very few cases in which I have myself been able to study the anatomy of the deformity thus produced belonged to the latter class. In this, the first injury is done to the liver, which is compressed in such a way as not only to interfere with the changes of bulk whidb this organ undergoes after taking food and at other times, but positively to alter its shape. In the next place, the liver being pressed upwards, encroaches on the thorax, and the breathing capacitv of the lungs is seriously diminished. Furthermore, the lower ribs being pushed in must impede the action of the heart, and prevent the expansion of the lower parts of the lungs, so that their breathing power is still further diminished. Again, the circulation through the liver is hindered, which must inevitably interfere with the proper action of all the abdominal viscera, the blood from which passes through the liver. In a high-waisted dress the pressure will come more im- mediately upon the ribs. The thorax is thus compressed, and will, in the qid, become altered in shape. The liver is not pressed upwards, but becomes altered in shape, possibly in the way represented in a figare copied in several popular manuals of health. But this particular deformity I have never seen.
The evils of tight dress are seldom seen in the other ste, except in the case of soldiers. In them, however, the effects of the tight leathern stock round the neck have been pointed out by army surgeons. Wearing a tight waistbelt produces a peculiar mark or scar round the liver, which must shew an injuriov^ amount of pressure, (j. F. P.)
Lest any one should suppose that the advance of science had ren- dered such warnings as the above superfluous, I copy the following from an advertisement which may now be seen in ladies' newspapers and elsewhere: *' The — corset is most effective in reducing the figure and keeping the form flat, so as to enable ladies to wear the fashionable vHements of the day." Another corset is also recommended as reducing the form and keeping it flat '*in accordance with the4}resent fashion.^ So it seems there are still people by whom the right shape of the human frame is regarded as a matter of fsishion.
§ 13, p. 9, L 13. **IfI might advise. Flesh should be forborne as long as he is in coats.** The question at what age children ought to begin to eat meat has been mucn debated, not to speak of the extreme opinion of vegetarians Notes. 21 1 that meat is not necessary at all. There can be no doubt, I think, that healthy children can do perfectly well without meat if they have a good supply of milk. Milk is, physiologically speaking, a more perfect food than meat, containing albumen, for which meat is chiefly valued, and many other things besides. Even when neither milk nor ineat can be had, children may, if they have been suckled at the breast for the normal period, be brought up upon well-selected food of other kinds, but the experiment is not to be recommended. Looking at other cases than those of perfect health (since this we do not often meet with), it cannot be demed that meat is, if not necessary, still a most desirable part of the diet of children, after two years of age, espedalfy in a cold climate, and in a race which has for many generations been accustomed to animal food. Moreover, la our own time and country a large part of childrens' ailments are of the cachectic kind, that is to say, shewing imperfect nutrition, even when food is taken, apparently, in abundance. In such cases, meat is so much the most convenient, concentrated and efficient kind of food, that great harm would be done if any prejudice existed against its use, and even if it were thought that some definite disease, or a doctor's orders, were necessary to justify its use. Apart from the special principles contained in meat alone, to which the great chemist Liebig attached so much importance, it should be remembered that the precise kind of nourishment furnished by meat can only be obtained from other food in greater bulk, with more waste, and by throwing more work on the digestive organs. Locke's principle, there- fore, cannot be accepted implicitly, though probably there was in the 17th century an inordinate consumption of meat among the upper classes, and among all except the very poor. I doubt if there is now, in middle-class families, very often much excess in this par- ticular. The fault is common among the working classes in times of prosperity. Parents think that the best way of shewing their affection to their children is to stuff them with the greatest quantity and variety of food, an error which, mischievous as it is, is easily intelligible in those who know by near example, or even perhaps by their own experience, what are the pangs of hunger, (j. F. P.)
The prejudice against sugar as a food for children is probably with- out foundation. It is so important a part of human milk, that when children are weaned, there Ls every reason for believing it to be a neces- sary part of their diet. Excess is, of course, both possible and injurious in Uiis as in other things, and in the case of sugar, for obvious reasons particularly easy. But it is better to give children plenty of sugar in their food than to encourage them to satisfy their natural craving by desultory and irregular consumption of miscellaneous sweets. It should not be forgotten that in Locke's time sugar, as an imported article, was more of a luxury than now. (j. f. p.)
Spices and seasonings stand on altogether different ground from su^ar. Children do not need them at all if their appetites are normal.
212 Notes. [pp.
A reference to some old cookery books of the 17th century will shew what extTRordinary combinations our ancestors called by the name of seasoned dishes. For children there can be nothing better than the modem plain English cookery, and we see in some of the best French families a tendency to imitate us in our nursery diet, though it be in an art in which the English are assumed to be deficient beyond all others.
The phrase to "heat the blood" still survives in popular language as a relic of ancient science. It would take long to explain what theo- retical meaning attached to it Real significance it has none, (j- P* p*) There has been much discussion about the proper number of daily meals. For the present purpose, it may be sufficient to point out that children require food much oftener than adults; the consumption, and hence the chemical change of food within their bodies, being more rapid. No object can be served by keeping them long fasting, and there can, I suppose, be little objection to the modem practice of giving children three chief meals in the day, at one only of which is meat necessary, unless in exceptional ca&es. A piece of bread between meals is often desirable and seldom, if ever, injurious. With respect to the force of custom, the remark made above will apply; namely, that custom is formed, not in one lifetime, *but in many. (j. F. P.)
It is impossible to approve of the suggestion that children should have their meals at irregular hours. Both experience and physiological theory point to the advantages of regularity in this respect The waste of the body is constant, and, to a certain extent, independent even of exertion. If this waste be not periodically made up^ for by proper nutrition, there is a real danger tnat the organs, especially in growing children, may be actually damaged by working them when their nutrition is low. It should never be forgotten that fatigue in itself and for itself is bad. This is well known to trainers and teachers of g3rmnastics, who find by experience that moderate exercise of the muscles, for instance, in a well-nourished body, favours their growth; but that excessi/e exercise, or what is the same thing, exercise in a badly nourished body, rather tends to cause wasting. There is also reason to believe that the heart suffers (becoming dilated) if a call is made upon its activity during a prolonged fast. The only reason given by Locke for this curious suggestion is that the body may be trained to endure hardship, which is a very different thing. But it will be time enough to think of this when the period of childhood, or even that of growth, is over, It may excite surprise that Locke should have recommended^ small beer, and not water, as the ptoper beverage of children; but it must be remembered, in the first place, that in his time water was practically hardly ever taken as the habitual beverage by persons of any age. I cannot find it recommended in any of the books about health, which were so numerous in the 17th and preceding centuries*, and learned books were even written expressly against water-drinking. There was also a widely spread notion that sundry evils might result from drinking too much, or even anv, cold water. The source of these ideas is no doubt to be sought chiefly in tradition and prejudice; but it is just possible that this prejudice may have arisen from the fact that drinking- water in cities during the middle ages, and up till our own times, was very frequently polluted. That is to say, actual experience of the efl^ects of drinking such water during times of pestilence may have fixed firmly in the minds of the people the idea of its unwholesomeness. Be this as it may, small beer was certainly regarded as the drink of temperate people. Sydenham recommends gout^ persons to drink beer in preference to either wine or water. An illustration of the popular feeling on the subject is found in the play called 'The London Prodigal,* at one time attributed to Shakespear, where a refined young lady declines to take the sack which is ordered for the party at an inn, and asks for a cup of small beer. Moreover, the London beer of that time was no doubt very weak. It was probably even less potent than the light German beer of the present day, and very different from anything which is now made by London brewers. It is even less easy to see why Locke did not recom- mend milk as the drink for children. Tea and coffee, though not unknown in Locke's time, were of course regarded as narcotic luxuries. As for recommending them for children, it would have been thought quite as reasonable to suggest that they should leam to smoke tobacco. There can be no doubt that pure water is the right beverage of child- hood, milk being substituted at the morning and evening meal. Beer is quite unnecessary, and generally better avoided, at least till the age of fourteen or fifteen. We unfortunately often find injurious indulgence to children in this respect, as in that of over-eating, among the more prosperous of the working classes; rather here perhaps than in better edu- cated fomilies. It is difficult to treat seriously Locke's suggestion that beer should be brought to a blood heat before it can be drunk safely; for if beer generally is unwholesome, warm beer is certainly more so, and nasty into the bargain. Locke seems to have had an unreasonable fear of allowing children to quench their natural thirst. There can be no objection to letting children drink pure water whenever they are thirsty, with the limitations pointed out in the preceding remarks, (j. F. P.)
* Hart's Diet of th* Diseased, London, 163^, is an exception. But the author eridcndv regards water-drinking as a counsel of perfection not likely to be followed. See en the other side, Mept '¥uxpono9ia.%f Of Drinking^ JVafer, against our Novelists that ^scribed it in England^ by Dr Richard Short, London, 1656. Dr Venner, of Bath, who promised to shew his readers which is the Via Recta ad Vitam Longam (London. 1638). warns them against water-drinking.
Locke*s remarks upon this point can hardly be too strongly confirmed« on moral, as well as on physical grounds. But we must include modem beer among strong drinks, (j. F. P.)
Locke*s advice about giving fruit to children is confirmed in a g^eneral way by modem experience. But the reason of his entirely forbidding grapes is not easy to see; for when ripe, they are perhaps the most wholesome of all fruit; and the experience of the so-called grape-cure on the Continent shews that they may be eaten in immense quantities^ if not with benefit, at all events without harm. Childroi of the present day are fortunate in being able to g:et ripe oranges, since these supplv the salts and acids which make fruit an important part of our diet, m the best and most agieeable form. (J. F. P.)
In his remarks about sleep Locke is generally at one with modem experience. It is characteristic of his attention to minute details that he should give a caution against awakening children too suddenly; but in this respect, too, the practice of the best nurses and most careful mothers will be found to bear him out. (j. F. P.)
The original authority in this case seems to be the father of Mon- taigne. Montaigne says: *' Some being of opinion that it troubles and disturbs the brains of children suddenly to wake them in the morning, and to snatch them violently and over-hastily from sleep (wherein they are much more profoundly involved than we), he [the father] caused me to be wakened by the sound of some musical instru- ment, and was never unprovided of a musician for that purpose." Montaigne's Essays, Chap. 35, ad fin. (Hazlitt's edition, i. p. 213).
Such beds seem to have gone or to be going out of fashion, and with reason. Either a hair or spring mattrass is the best for children as for every one else. (j. F. p.)
Locke's remarks on this point are so sensible that little more need be said, except strongly to recommend all who keep schools and are not above their business, to aim at the formation of good habits about such matters in their pupils, as the best foundation of sound health in after life. It may not be amiss to point out that in large schools there is not always sufficient provision made for punctual obedience to such precepts. We sometimes find a good house occupied as a school with no fiirther convenience of this kind than what was provided by the builder for a single family. The bad effects of this neglect arc obvious.
Ileus ^iliaca passio; disease of the ileum or small intestine, bat more specially obstruction, arising from what was called volvulus^ or a kink in the bowel. In such a case the ordinary onward peristaltic motion is reversed; and a backward movement results, ending, as Locke hints, in vomiting. (J. F. P.)
Though the word spirits had a special theoretical meaning in the old medicine, it was used in very nearly the same sense in which we now say nervous influence^ or nerve-force. The latter term is perhaps quite as Open to theoretical objection as spirits, (j. F. p.)
Cloaca is the Lat. for sewer, as is well known from the Cloaca Maxima at Rome. Cloacina is the chief ** nymph who reigns o*er sewers and sinks/'