William Arch McKeever

Farm Boys and Girls William Arch McKeever

Book Excerpt: ...onment as the raw materials of construction, what ideals should parents have uppermost in mind before undertaking the tremendously important and interesting duties of constructing worthy manhood and womanhood out of the inherent natures of their children?1. Good health.--It is a difficult task to develop a sound, efficient life without the fundamental quality of good health. So it may be well to remind parents of this fact and to urge them especially to avoid in the lives of the children, first, the beginnings of those lighter ailments which frequently grow into menacing habits--for example, the diseases that become chronic as a result of unnecessary exposure to the weather--and second, those various contagious diseases which so often permanently deplete the health of children, such as scarlet fever and whooping cough. It is now held by medical authority that every reasonable effort should be made to prevent children from taking such infectious ailments--that the so-called diseases of..